I'm about 10% into this, and it's intriguing, so far.
Think maybe Frederick The Great era technology, possibly even earlier (30 Years War?) with wizards, but the story line is more along the lines of All Quiet On The Western Front, with a female lead character fighting at the front since the war has dragged on and on and men of fighting age are getting scarcer.
The authors books have pretty good reviews on amazon and other sites, one of the reasons I decided to try it. He even won an Arthur C. Clarke Award for his book Children Of Time.
It might be something
@Flamencology and some of you others might want to look into idn_smilie
edit: I'm just over 1/3 through now, and this is a really good book so far. I'd say it's more like Pride And Prejudice- meets -All Quiet On The Western Front, as the main character, Emily, comes from an upper class family complete with family manor, servants, etc. Then a long drawn-out war (like WWI) has the women being drafted.
She's gone through a very quick training camp along with the other first draft of women soldiers, and is now at the front and experienced her first skirmish, where the book started off in chapter 1.
If the middle and ending of this book are anything like the first 1/3, (and viewing reader reviews on amazon/goodreads, etc. it is) I recommend this if you guys are looking for a good fiction book to read