Pitter Patter of Little Thoughts

Firethorn is a self-named woman, tutored by the Dame of the house and touched by the gods. When Sire Galen asks to take her away to the war, she leaps at the chance to escape the drudgery of her world. But little does she know it's hard to keep love alive in the middle of war where there's arrogance and wagers and little love for women.

I actually picked this book up because I read the second book first on accident.
I hate this book. It is written without too many flaws, the grammar is sound and the sentence structures flow well. The action is done correctly and I do want to the turn the pages to find out what happens next. But oh my freaking goodness, the amount of misogyny found is this books is mind blowing to me. It confuses me that this book is written by a woman.

Women are whores in this book, useless except for acting as men's decorations, or sex of course. There's no way to say no to a man's advance unless you have a man to guard against. What the heck? There are so many lines in this book that make me so freaking angry. The way the men talk to the women. The way the women talk about themselves. The way anyone treats women. And the worst of all, there is no character that even mentions these problems - as if the issues are common and acceptable. Argh, I can't even. It's fine if it's done for some sort of commentary on women and war, but if this type of misogyny is treated as acceptable without any counter philosophy or objection, it's as if the reader should accept it as well.

Micklem tries to pass Firethorn as a strong independent female character, but really all she amounts to is a girl hanging onto a sugar daddy, really.

This book is all about sex and trying to be the man's favorite girl. There is literally no plot except that.

The only redeeming factor is that I was interested enough in the magic system and healing draughts.
But that will never be enough for me to overcome the fact that this book treats women as second-class citizens. No, probably worse. Like objects.
One star. Not for writing style or not being interesting, but because there is an underlying (enormous!) problem with the whole presentation of characters.
Not recommended at all unless you just love reading about how women are not worth anything except for sex.