This is no fun book. This is a serious book. About war. And... by the end I loved it. (There was a part in the middle where I wasn't sure where the book was going...)

This is as heavy as the hard-cover looks and if you think the prologue where Emily - the hero and protagonist of the book - crawls through the swamp shooting enemies with a musket - is not for you, the rest of the book is going to be difficult.

The story starts out Jane-Austen-esque enough with an unlikable man - Mr Northway - who pursues Emily and a bit of family drama surrounding her air-headed younger sister Alice who seems to be taken straight out of [b: Sense and Sensibility|14935|Sense and Sensibility|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1397245675s/14935.jpg|2809709]. Emily and her two sisters are minor nobles in a country at war. Her brother-in-law is already fighting and soon enough her younger brother is conscripted as well. Finally, Emily has to become a soldier herself as even women are conscripted - in this fantasy world that is an uncommon thing.

The book follows her change from a young noble woman into a soldier. Along with that personal growth, her relationship with the people around her changes and all the while the war and what it means to be part of it for her is explored in depth and detail. Emily's journey is difficult and perilous and she has to make a lot of hard decisions and suffer... and with every decision I was rooting for her to make it.

I don't particularly like military SF/F books or books about war. They are grim and usually full of death and tragedy and so is this one. But this book is strongly character-driven, the world-building and the plot move into the background while Emily and how she changes grips the reader.

Time and again, the reader is on kept on edge, always asking the same questions: will she find the strength to do what must be done? Will she grow? Will she accept the responsibility? Or will she go under because the pressure becomes too much for her? And as the war turns her into a hardened soldier fighting for her country, will she in the end be able to see reason? Will she be able to overcome that which helped her survive the war in order to survive the end of it? Emily's most heroic moments are those that seem least like it and those are the hardest for her... (and the reader).

Besides the darkness of the war in the swamp, moments of joy, friendship and love brighten this story including the black humor of the soldiers and the Survivor's Club.

There was a point where I couldn't put down the book anymore and just had to know how it all ended... and when it seems to be all over there are another two chapters exploring what happens after the war.

The ending both for Emily and the plot are very satisfying and hard-won for both her and the reader or so it felt. I doubt I could watch a movie version because I was thinking "Shoot! Will you finally shoot!" for about the last hour of the - beautifully read - audiobook.