A young girl washes up in a coastal village, apparently be-demoned, speaking only Roknari. Penric is of course needed as translater and Temple sensitive to find out what happened. Little Otta is welcomed by Pen and Des and the whole household but whether she will keep her demon is up to the God. ( )

After so many books, these characters feel like family.

Penric and Desdemona, it’s lovely to see you again.
“How a bodiless, invisible demon smirked, he’s never quite been sure.”

Lois McMaster Bujold’s books are wise about families – the author knows exactly how good families work, how good marriages work. There are lots of details to make a reader happy.

“But two chaos demons in one place is usually considered an imprudent concentration. Although,” his voice went pensive, “how’s that worse than one chaos demon and two small children in a household, I don’t see.”

I marveled at how easily the story flowed, and how small the brushstrokes were. It takes a lot of skill and experience for the author to know know exactly when to show and when to tell, and how much. Also, there are three POV’s in 150 pages, and they follow each other seamlessly. Everything looks deceptively effortless.

There is a lot of cozy domesticity in this novella. Yet, there is also a lot of darkness, tough questions, moral dilemmas and heartbreak. Otta’s story is desperately sad. Seeing Penric and Desdemona disagree, quarrel, be upset with each other was disturbing. If there will be more books, I wonder where they will go from here?

Here are my favourite moments:

1) Nikys telling it like it is
“Granted that Otta is only six,” said Nikys, “but speaking as a woman who has been left in the dark a few too many times by well-meaning men who actually just didn’t want to endure my distress, I would say tell hr as much as possible as soon as possible.”

2) Iroki competing for the title of “Best and Coolest Saint in the book universe”.

The novella was too short! I wanted to enjoy it longer :) ( )

A sweet story about an unusual situation. I liked alexandra_book_life's review. I admire Bujold's writing skills very much. 'Daughter' is a concept that applies, is perceived, is experienced differently by the characters both for the human child and for the demon, a type of creature some of these characters been gradually trained to consider differently over the series, and the potential for expressing and experiencing it as time passes is an unusual opportunity.

The story doesn't pull up much new theology or drag through politics, just gives us more time with Pen and Des, with them actually being at odds for a good part of it. Which doesn't get angsty because much of the viewpoint is that of the eponymous character who is about 6. Most of the developments were more on the interesting scale that the surprising or awesome. ( )