What medieval fantasy novel features a firey red head female protagonist with medical skills?

Question

I read this book about 7 years ago, and all I can remember of the title is that it had "Fire" in it, or something similar.

It featured a young woman with bright red hair who was a commoner and was learning about medicinal techniques. She ended up going on a war campaign and struggling through being an intelligent woman in the medieval times when nobody respected her opinion.

This was the first novel in a series, and it came out around 2004, it was still in hard cover and none of the others had been released at the time. It was also a first novel for the author, and she was not well known.

Can you guys help me remember what this novel was called?

Answer 1

Your question isn't actually that specific — fantasy with female heroines is quite en vogue at the moment. Nonetheless…

Could this be Firethorn by Sarah Micklem? It is indeed her first novel, published in 2004 in hardcover, and there is now a second novel in that series. The heroine is a young red-haired commoner woman, and she does get to live through a war campaign. However, the Wikipedia summary mentions a magical gift rather than medical training.

I haven't read that book; I found it by browsing the ISFDB search results with title=fire and year=2004 and type=novel. If that's not the right book, maybe a name in the search results will jog your memory.