From Bob R. Milne of Beauty in Ruins:

The War of the First Day is an epic fantasy novel that has something of a Mistborn feel to it, with the comic book sensibilities of a Dr. Strange or Green Lantern. …Magic permeates the tale, from beginning to end, and it drives the plot as much as it accentuates it. As for the sorceresses, they are both the heroes and the villains, locked in a rebellious conflict that began with an act of near-genocide, populating a story that is almost wholly female-focused.

…It’s predominantly focused on the war between two factions of witches – a war of attrition that’s full of massive battles, covert operations, and scenes of torture and interrogation… It would have been easy to let the magic and the spectacle overwhelm the story, but Fleet keeps his characters at the forefront, developing them quickly and significantly throughout. There’s also a lot of thought beneath the story, with some interesting themes on the power of knowledge… logic, and even cryptography, not to explain away the magic, but to provide context and a deeper meaning.

…The writing is fluid, with some nice terms of phrase, and the dialogue is worthy of the action, which is where this veers back towards epic fantasy and away from comic book clichés.

I was hoping for a lot out of The War of the First Day, and I am pleased to say it delivered. My only regret, in fact, is that I let it linger on the shelf for so long.