Guns of the Dawn

Jane Austen gets drafted.

Not really, but it's a good tagline for this long single volume fantasy set in an analogue of British Regency history. The Marshwic family has already given much to the war against Denland, but still it comes for the middle daughter of the house and sends her to the frontline, a world away from the sea of polite society she has swum in all her life. It's a bumpy ride from country house living to fighting a guerrilla war in swamps, but Emily adapts and develops skills she, and we, never suspected she had at the beginning of the novel.

By using this skewed version of real world history, Tchaikovsky is on the same kind of ground as Guy Gavriel Kay, and it's a testament to the strength of this book that isn't ridiculous to compare him to such a master. He's not interested in the mythic echoes that Kay loves, preferring something grounded in grittier reality, with a fine supporting cast adding emotional heft to Emily's journey. This is a really good book.