"Love of her country was a great storm that bellowed and fell silent, but this love of home was a breeze that blew steady and forever."

To borrow a description from one of my favorite channels on the bookish side of YouTube, this story is best described as "Jane Austen meets Richard Sharpe." Emily Marshwic is the middle sister of a noble country family. While not as wealthy as other families, Emily and her sisters get by on what has been left to them by their father and spend much of their time on the family estate. However, when the neighboring country of Denland becomes a republic overnight, assassinating their king and placing a new Parliament in his place, war explodes between Denland and Emily's home country of Lascanne. At first Emily and the other women in her village must deal with men being drawn away to fight and having to fill their shoes as printers, tailors and merchants. But when the war demands more, the women themselves must face the draft. With only brief training in muskets and sabers, Emily and her compatriots must face the horrors of war in a conflict that will challenge everything they thought they knew.

I'll admit that my expectations for this were considerably raised by the description which incorporated my love of the character-driven social commentary in Jane Austen plus my love of the type of highly accurate, military historical fiction like that in the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell Not to mention the high praise from reviewers I trust. However, Guns of the Dawn exceeded those expectations.

Guns of the Dawn is immensely atmospheric, Tchaikovsky brings the horrors of the swamp and unconventional warfare to hot, humid life as Emily learns to cope with a new life that her upbringing in no way prepared her for. While the society and technology initially made me think mid-19th century, the themes and terminology reminded me very much of World War I. The way that the Lascanne military blunders through a war they don't understand and terms like "The Big Push" and staggering body counts for minimal gains was all too familiar. Tchaikovsky blends social commentary with the horror of war spectacularly. As someone fascinated by Word War I and how it affected so much of the world, I loved seeing similar themes explored in a fantasy context which was surprisingly short on magic.

The first 150 pages or so are fairly slow paced social commentary (I didn't mind this part as it reminded me very much of Austen but this is a heads up for those who are less inclined to that). However from the time that Emily faces war to the end, it felt like an action-packed, heart wrenching race that I had a difficult time tearing myself away from. The story will likely appeal more to those who are interested in military fiction since a sizeable portion of the book is spent with the Lascanne army's struggles in the swamp and how the experience changes how Emily views the world and her place in it after her military service. And I appreciated that the story never felt one-sided in terms of good and evil, but a more nuanced exploration of the political intrigue and human elements.

On a character level, I really enjoyed Emily's relationship with Mr. Northway. He reminded me a bit of Mr. Darcy with a hint of Glokta from First Law. I didn't particularly care for the romance with Giles Scavian (because I quite frankly didn't find him as interesting) but I did like the way that it lead to Emily's choice near the end. And I appreciate how authentic Emily's struggles were with what war means to a woman of her station and how that would change your interactions with the world. As a woman who tends to have masculine hobbies up to and including studying warfare and historical martial arts, I struggled a bit with the concept that war is unfeminine but it did feel true to the society and time period in which Emily existed.

If social commentary combined with flintlock fantasy isn't enough to sell you on this standalone, I'll say that I'd recommend it very highly to those who are interested in fast-paced fantasy with well-developed characters and which doesn't shy away from violence and moral quandaries. This is easily one of the best books I've read in 2021 and has completely reversed my opinion on Tchaikovsky's skills as a writer. He's an auto-buy author for me from here on out.