When Women Were Warriors

     When Women Were Warriors by Catherine M. Wilson is an Epic Adventure novel (not really action adventure, but adventure none-the-less), but it's also a coming of age story for our 16 y/o protagonist, Tamras. The story is told first person, and Mrs. Wilson's voice as an author was a bit jarring at first, for me anyway, but I soon found that it actually set the mood for the time era.  The story is set in the British Isles in the Bronze Age when tribes fought tribes over land and goods.

     I want to start by saying that my two favorite genres are Epic Fantasy, followed closely by Sci-fi.  If I had to pick a 3rd it would be realistic fiction based in the warrior's era (like this book is).  There's something about a story set in the time of the creation of civilization that just appeals to me.  Having said that, I had high expectations going in to this read, so I may be harder on Mrs. Wilson than I should be.

     Okay, so on to the review...

     Tamras is the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter in a line of warriors from her tribe.  Women won their shields as warriors through laurels in battle and war.  She, like her mother, is not large in stature, but given her birthright she is meant to be a warrior.  

     In her society, there is an old legend of a queen who lost a daughter in a hunting accident to a neighboring clan.  The enraged queen, readied for battle, but on the morning her clan was ready to ride out, a young woman rode into their village, unarmed, and offered herself to the queen as a peace offering from the offending clan's queen.  The young woman was the daughter of the neighboring clan's queen.  She came with a message that the queen could take her life to replace the daughter she lost, or take her as her daughter as she saw fit.  The grieving queen took the young woman as her daughter and peace was found between the would-be feuding clans.  And so the tradition of sending the oldest daughter to the neighboring clan as an offering of peace began.

     Tamras's story begins when she is sent to a much larger neighboring clan as part of this tradition.  She hopes to become a warrior and earn her shield, but when she arrives, she finds that they have much larger women as warriors, and she can only be a companion for one of the bigger warriors.  On top of that, she is given a fairly ill-tempered warrior named Maara who doesn't wish the aid of a companion.

     Maara is gravely injured, and the house healer leaves sleeping herbs for Tamra to administer so that Maara can die in peace.  Tamras is angry with Maara, and decides to try to heal her instead so that Maara would owe her her life.  When Maara doesn't die in the night as the healer expected, she laid Maara's life in Tamras's hands, and tells her that she did her no favors because now she would die a long suffering death from infection.  Tamras manages to heal Maara, but is shamed by her motive behind it, and confesses her shame to the ill-tempered woman.  Maara seems to like her candor, and the two begin the journey towards friendship.

     The characters are well developed and the slow plot is pleasant.  The story is great.  It would make a wonderful YA book, but there are two, pretty heavy, lesbian lover scenes.  They weren't pornographically descriptive, though they were racy, so I couldn't recommend the book to youth without a good parental guidance.  It was kind of a shame because it otherwise would have been a book I would have loved to have my 12 y/o daughter read.

     By the end of the book, you can't help but love both Maara and Tamras because Mrs. Wilson really has a way of connecting her audience with the characters through common hopes, dreams, and inner struggles.

     I'm not a huge fan of the lesbian love scenes, but the story was great aside from those, so I give it