Review: The Shamer's Daughter

The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbøl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dina's mother has a special gift. Just by looking in someone's eyes, she can force them to feel all the shame of any crime they've committed, from not cleaning the kitchen table right up to murder. Dina has inherited this gift, and when her mother is caught up in a political struggle Dina means to do her very best to get her out of it again.

First things first. The translation on this is smooth as butter. There's no hint of the awkward phrases and strange sentences that often show up when something is translated. In fact, I wasn't even sure it was translated until I looked it up on Goodreads.

The story itself is relatively uncomplicated. The bad guy is obvious almost at once, there are various allies of varying levels of usefulness. There are dragons, here animals rather than intelligent, and they're sufficiently terrifying. Dina is convincingly ten years old, sometimes. At other times she seems far older, but we can attribute that to the gift of Shaming. It's an inventive gift, not one I'd read about before.

I'm interested to know what will happen next in this series, and I'll be watching out for it.


Receiving an ARC did not affect my review in any way.



The black horse looked very big, but the stranger boosted me up as if I weighed nothing at all and settled me with my legs to one side like the grand ladies riding sidesaddle in their long gowns. Of course it looked better than hiking up my skirts and riding astride, the way I usually did, but it was also a lot more difficult. I felt as if I was about to slide off the whole time. The stranger mounted behind me, put his arm around my waist in a firm grip, and still managed to control the horse one-handedly and with total ease.

“I still don’t know your name,”I said nervously.

“Drakan,”he replied, not deigning to tell me whether that was a first or a last name. Then he prodded the horse into a canter, and I had my hands full just staying on.

But as the black stallion’s long strides brought us farther and farther down the road to Dunark, I could hear Beastie still, barking and barking as if he would never stop.

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