When Women Were Warriors – Book One, by Catherine M. Wilson, is the first book in a trilogy. The setting is a fantasy world in which women are the leaders and warriors of society. A young girl must leave her home to become part of an allied household and train to be a warrior.
4 1/2 Stars
Plot/Storyline: 4 Stars
The world created within this novel leaves a lasting impression on the reader. The storyline doesn’t so much drag the reader along making them want to know what happens next as it gentles them into caring about the main character to the point of wanting to live the events along with her.
Contrary to what the title suggests, there is very little actual violence in this novel. Yes, the women are warriors and go into a couple of battles, actually minor skirmishes, but action is not a part of this work. The battles are not told in ‘real time’, but rather related in stories to the main character after the fact.
There were only two sex scenes in the novel. The first one was fine as it was brief and limited in description. However, the second one was drawn out over many pages and just became monotonous.
As the first book in a series, this did make for an interesting introduction. Although, I did feel that the author could have added more climactic scenes to ensure a more “stand alone” feel. In the last quarter, when the main character finally gets to go on patrol, I kept waiting for something to happen…anything….but, was sorely disappointed.
One thing I really enjoyed were the fable-like stories that were included. They were interesting and original tales that showed the author’s imagination and insight into human nature.
Character Development: 4 Stars
T: I am calling the main character “T” because the book was told in first person, and her name was rarely said. I’m bad with names anyway, and I don’t want to mangle it, but I do remember that it started with a T. 
T is a very well developed character in almost every respect. For most of the novel, I truly felt that I was living right along with her. However, her development sagged a bit when it failed to explain more about her sexual identity, if she was confused, or if not, why not. She has relations with a woman, but seems to be envious of those with boyfriends, even thinking wistfully that it will be awhile before she can marry and have children.
Maara: Maara was a bit of an obscure character on purpose. I did hope for more information on her background. The one chance the author had to inform the reader was when Maara related things to T. However, it was just skimmed over with T stating that Maara related some terrible information about her childhood.
The other characters were developed to an acceptable extent.
Writing Style: 5 Stars
Whenever I consider an author’s writing style in a particular book, I first think of whose ‘voice’ they are speaking in. In this case it is the voice of a young teenage girl. For that purpose, the writing style was excellent. It was simplistic and to the point. T came across at the appropriate maturity level for her age.
The descriptions were especially well done. They were concise, yet vivid. The dialogue was excellent, allowing the readers to ‘hear’ each character succinctly.
Editing/Formatting: 5 Stars
Both were of professional quality.
Rating: R for Sexual Content (Also includes Lesbian Sex Scenes)
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I actually purchased this book unwittingly as I did not notice that it was in the “Lesbian Fiction” genre. (My apologies if I don’t use correct terminology here.) I have never read any book in that genre. So, not having anything to compare it to, I still believe that Ms. Wilson, at least in this first book, did an excellent job of keeping that portion ‘toned down’. She writes in such a way that any woman can enjoy the story and empathize with the protagonist, regardless of sexual leanings.
Even after I finished the novel, I wasn’t certain that it fell into that category. Sure, the two sex scenes were between women, but it seemed as though T still might be planning on marrying a man. The sexual scenes in this book could easily be taken as normal exploration of teenage girls.
The book seemed to be far more focused on love as an emotion regardless of how it is expressed. I guess I will have to read the next two books to find out how it all turns out.
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Here are some comments from the author, Catherine M. Wilson:
How did you come up with the title?
The title comes from the fairy tales told by one of the characters. As our fairy tales usually begin with “Once upon a time,” theirs begin with “In ancient days, when only women were warriors.” And the title does clearly state, in a few words, what readers will find inside the book.
How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since the age of four, although until I was six and learned to write myself, I dictated the stories to my mother, who wrote them down. I am now 65. You can do the math.
When Women Were Warriors is the first (and only, so far) work I’ve written for publication, and I’ve lost or destroyed most of the work I did in college and for my own amusement. When Women Were Warriors took ten years to write, and I needed all those preceding years of experience, both of writing and of life, before I was qualified to write it.
Where did you get the idea for the novel?
When I was a child, all the good stories started something like this: Once upon a time, a young man went out to seek his fortune….
I had no trouble identifying with the hero, but it did bother me that there weren’t any comparable stories with girls in the title role. While Odysseus was having adventures, Penelope sat home and wove a tapestry. When King Arthur was ruling Britain, Guinevere was committing adultery. Very disappointing.
When I was in my early 20s, I read Lord of the Rings, also not big on heroic women, though Eowyn (I am no man!) kind of made up for it.
So I always knew that I was going to write the story I had been searching for all my life–a hero’s journey story with a female protagonist. I wanted to adhere as closely as possible to the classic hero’s journey: The hero sets out on her own unique path through life, and her success depends on finding helpers and on finding her true, some would say magical, weapon. On her journey, she encounters adversaries, some more formidable than others, and defeats them, not necessarily by fighting them. She obtains a treasure (which need not be anything material), and returns to where she began to bestow that treasure upon others.
That is a classic heroic cycle, and I wanted to put a female protagonist through it, in order to discover how her heroic journey would differ from the classic hero’s journey with a male protagonist. The first thing I discovered is that the entire book turned out to be about love–not just romantic love, but the deeper meaning of love, what it is and what it isn’t, what it gives and what it demands, and how it manifests not only in romance, but in other human relationships as well.
I was delighted, when I read the last Harry Potter book, to realize that love was J.K. Rowling’s theme throughout the books, and that the last book was explicit about that. Maybe it’s a woman thing.
Do you have a sequel published or on the way?
In discussions with several of my readers, I started musing about what would have happened to the characters following the end of the trilogy, so a sequel isn’t totally out of the question. Finding time to write it, however, could be a problem. I also have several other ideas for novels, but right now I need to keep working at my day job.
As far as a bio goes, I grew up in California and attended too many universities and colleges to list, except that I finally graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. and M.S. in Computer Science. Before that I studied, in backwards order, landscape architecture, electronics technology, broadcast engineering, English, Comparative Literature, and Creative Writing.
I have worked at lots of things. I have been a broadcast engineer, owner of several small businesses, a software engineer, and am currently a web developer.
When Women Were Warriors – Book One, by Catherine M. Wilson
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Thank you so much for your lovely review of When Women Were Warriors.
I especially appreciate that you noted the writing style and the quality of the editing. These are things that most reviewers don’t bother to mention, but they contribute significantly to the reading experience, and I’m delighted you noticed.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to comment on your review.
“…there is very little actual violence in this novel”
And that is one of the most important themes of the book, that real heroism isn’t about who can clean whose clock. If there is anything that might be said about a Bronze Age society run by women, it is that one would hope it would be less violent than the society of, for instance, Beowulf.
What I set out to do was to put women in power and hope that they would do things differently. In some ways they do, and in some ways they make the same mistakes men make, which seems to me to be entirely realistic. I did, however, want to create a hero who would bring the gift of peace to her people by means other than killing everyone who might threaten them, and in Books II and III, she succeeds in doing that.
“I did feel that the author could have added more climactic scenes to ensure a more ‘stand alone’ feel.”
Yes, I agree with you that splitting up what began as one very long book makes the transitions awkward. Breaking the book into a trilogy was a marketing decision. An enormous book by an unknown writer that would have to sell for upwards of $40 in paperback would find very few readers willing to take a chance on it. So I ripped the whole cloth into three pieces and didn’t bother hemming them up, because the complete story has a flow that I was reluctant to disrupt. Most people, once they decide they like Book I, will keep reading. I would love, someday, to publish the book as one volume, because that’s the way it should be read.
Re: Maara’s background
Maara’s background will become clear in Book II.
Re: Tamras’s sexual identity
It helps to keep in mind that Tamras is 16, that she has never had a sexual relationship before coming to Merin’s house, and that same-sex relationships are not frowned on or penalized by the society she lives in.
From my own experience, and from the experience of many others who have told me their stories, women who are lesbian grow up with the expectation that they will fall in love with a man, marry, and have children, because that is what our society teaches us will happen. When they realize that that will never happen for them unless they pretend to be what they are not, they may well be confused and overwhelmed by the dissonance between what their society expects and the truth of their own experience.
Tamras lives in a society in which the sex of the person you love is a non-issue, and I wish that soon we too will live in just such a society. Tamras is not confused about her sexual identity. She is following her heart, sharing herself in ways that seem entirely appropriate to her. In our society, gay people have to struggle to define themselves in terms of their sexual orientation. That her sexuality is an “orientation” would never cross Tamras’s mind.
One woman, a heterosexual friend of a lesbian friend of mine, said:
“I have never read a love story with women and this was also great for me. Love is love and that is all there is to it.”
My lesbian friend’s reaction was, “Of course love is love. Didn’t you know that already?”
It always surprises me when someone makes a comment that shows her consciousness of the “otherness” of same-sex relationships. As a lesbian, I have had to “translate in my head” almost every love story I have ever read in books, seen in movies, heard of in songs.
It seems we are the last taboo. People of all races will read Toni Morrison and Amy Tan, because most of us understand that stories about people who are racially different from us are still about our common humanity, about the basic human experience that we all share. We believe, or we hope that we believe, that race no longer divides us.
I hope that heterosexual people will read my books and books by other lesbian authors, because our stories, too, are about our common humanity, about the human experience of love, that the love we feel for our beloveds is no different from the love they feel for theirs.
I wrote my book about women whose most important relationships are with other women, but I didn’t write it just for lesbians. Love is love, and I think you will find that as Tamras matures, her ability to love is her hero gift, and her quest will be to learn what love is and what love isn’t, what it gives and what it demands.
You said:
“The book seemed to be far more focused on love as an emotion regardless of how it is expressed.”
Yes.
Catherine M. Wilson
http://www.whenwomenwerewarriors.com/