She Makes a Great Samurai

Cold Blood: Yamabuki vs. the Swordmaster by Katherine M. Lawrence
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a gift, a book I hadn't seen before, and it was a good choice. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Taka Yamabuki is a great main character--confident and capable but still inexperienced, still learning how to read people and not be taken advantage of. She is both admirable and flawed, which is just about ideal.

The story follows her on a journey, making it episodic, with characters entering and exiting in the way of classic novels, but there is also an arc to the story, a concrete goal for her with intrigue surrounding it, that makes it work for modern expectations. The author also does a good job of educating the western reader, explaining cultural norms that would otherwise be opaque (at least in my case). I enjoyed everything about it, including the cover and end matter, except for it coming to an end too quickly!

I'm excited about grabbing the sequels. I don't think I'll wait for my next birthday to be surprised with volume 2.

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