Goodreads Reviews: The White Witch's Daughter

The White Witch's Daughter by J.C. Wade
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

1296, England

Strife and war between England, the highest world power, France and Scotland is coming to a boiling point. The Church is the ultimate ruling authority that has the power to both spare life and take it. Lady Edyth DeVries knows this all too well, since her mother was hung by the neck for the accusation witchcraft and Edyth's own father killed not too long afterwards. Now the Church has come for her, the last of her line and apprentice to her mother's knowledge of herbs and healing.

Edyth, alone in the world, afraid for her own mortality and angry at a silent God, must travel through bloodshed England to reach her only family in the Scottish Highlands. Soon, her strength and resilience carry her from the hostile and savage roads and into the unlikely protection of Ewan Ruthven. A young nobleman and seasoned soldier whose every decision will have life and death consequences for his family, his people and his own country; and Edyth DeVries becomes one more dangerous life choice.

A balance of well researched history and small (blink and you miss it) fantasy. Think Brave (early feminist, red haired, archer leading lady) meets Outlander (Scottish Lord and Englishwoman main storyline), meets Braveheart (same time period) and there's the story. And when I say that this story is well researched, it is. Down to using traditional Gaelic.

Being a character reader/writer, I truly did enjoy the leads. Edyth may have been a little too on the nose of an English version of Merida and a medieval Claire Randall Frasier, but she did well as the lead and really found herself in the end. Ewan Ruthven definitely had more depth (as male characters tend to get in their development as compared to their often-one-dimensional female counterparts) and I loved his devotion to his family and his country that could rival Jamie Frasier.