Anjasa

I read this book after War of the Spider Queen and The Lady Penitent series at the encouragement of my partner. I felt very distanced from the Drow in most of the War of the Spider Queen books and felt that, in part, it was because of the lack of female perspective on the matriarchy.In short, I greatly enjoyed this book. That isn't to say that I didn't feel there was flaws, but that I felt the good far outweighed the bad. It brought up interesting, new conundrums that weren't touched on heavily in previous books, and introduced new lore and ideas previously unexplored.The character of Liriel was especially interesting. I know that other reviews have said something akin to 'but the drow are EVIL!' and that's not necessarily true. They are pragmatic, and they are required to be cold and calculating, and their Goddess is evil, however no group is homogeneous. I've loved Ellistrae's followers in both the War of the Spider Queen and The Lady Penitent series, and found them to be interesting and, having followed those two other books, I see no reason to fault this book for the followers of Ellistrae.Daughter of the Drow was well written, introduced interesting new characters, as well as fleshing out already established characters, and had me fascinated from start to end. I found the hypocrisy of Vhaerun's followers to be especially subtle and well handled.This was a book that could have easily fallen flat, but Elaine Cunningham managed it with enough grace and subtly to reignite my passion for the Drow. I would highly recommend this book to any who enjoyed The Lady Penitent series, in particular.