Magnolia Sword by Sherry Thomas

Hua Mulan lives in a small town in the north with her father, her little brother Murong, their servant Auntie Xia and her thirty-year-old son Dabao. They used to live in the south, in a house on Lake Tai but left after Mulan's father was severely injured in a duel that left him paralyzed. Mulan's twin brother, Muyang died when they were infants, shortly after her father's injury. Mulan was recorded as having died and she took her brother's place and his identity.

Mulan's father began training her to fight when she was very young in preparation to fight a duel. The story begins with Mulan meeting her future adversary secretly at a cleared area near an abandoned shrine, three days after the Lantern Festival. It has been two years since they last crossed swords. Her adversary, Yuan Kai has been the one to arrange these meetings. He has brought his sword Sky Blade, but Mulan has only a cheap bronze practice sword and not Heart Sea, "the priceless family heirloom that is at the root of the enmity" between them. The two fight, testing each other's abilities until their lanterns blow out, ending the session.

Half a month later, Mulan and her father receive a letter from Yuan Kai stating that he will not be able to partake in the scheduled duel due to the impending conflict with the Rouran. Before Mulan and her father can decide how to respond, they learn that an imperial messenger will be arriving in the village soon and that every house must send a messenger to the marketplace. Mulan, disguised as a man, arrives at the marketplace along with the rest of the village men. They are informed by an Xianbei messenger that the Rouran are invading and that "each household is to contribute an able-bodied male for the realm's defense. No exceptions. Conscripts are to report tomorrow at dawn."

Suddenly Mulan is gripped with the realization that her family has no able-bodied male. Her father is paralyzed, her brother Murong is too young and Dabao has the mind of a child. She knows she will have to be conscripted. On her way home, Mulan quickly purchases the best horse she can find. At home she tells her family of her decision to volunteer. Mulan's father gives her several weapons including the family heirloom, Heart Sea.

When Mulan reports for the conscription she has them change the name on the list from her dead brothers, to her own of Hua Mulan. Mulan along with hundreds of conscripts being the long march in columns to an encampment containing thousands of other conscripts. She cannot help but wonder if Yuan Kai is among them.

Once in the encampment, Mulan hears talk about someone called "the princeling" having arrived. She also begins to realize being a woman in a large war encampment with thousands of men is going to make if very difficult to hide her sex. How will she escape being discovered. But then an unexpected opportunity presents itself.

When Mulan first sees the princeling, she is stunned at how familiar is his movements and mannerisms are to her. They remind her of Yuan Kai, but she tries to put this out of her mind. Accompanying him is a large man named Captain Helou who treats the princeling with great respect and deference. Suddenly, a soldier comes forward to request a chance to demonstrate his martial arts skills with Captain Helou. Helou of course easily defeats the young soldier. Mulan decides to challenge Helou, requesting that he shoot three arrows at her from a pace of fifty feet, which she will catch with her bare hands while blindfolded.

The first two arrows that Captain Helou shoots, Mulan easily catches. But on the third shot, Mulan discerns three arrows coming directly at her with great speed. Stunned, she yanks out her sword, Heart Sea, slicing through the arrows and catching one of the broken shafts. When Mulan removes the blindfold she discovers that it was the princeling on his horse using a more powerful bow who shot the arrows. Furious, she approaches the princeling who asks her name and inquires if she wishes to join them. Hua Mulan agrees, realizing that this will get her out of the encampment.However, little does Mulan realize that she has embarked on a journey with her long feared nemesis, the young man she is fated to meet in a duel. It is a journey of self-discovery, revelation about her family's past, of redemption, forgiveness and love!


Discussion

Magnolia Sword, is a superbly crafted version of the Mulan legend/folktale.  Author Sherry Thomas has managed to blend history, romance and adventure into a captivating tale for teens and adults alike. Thomas, who grew up in China, writes in her Author's Note that she "chose to infuse it with elements of wuxia, a uniquely Chinese literary genre that explores themes of honor, sacrifice, vengeance and forgiveness through the adventures of almost mythically adept martial artists." And in this regard, Thomas succeeds beyond imagination!

Although the story is about the legendary female warrior Mulan, Thomas has created an interesting backstory that forms the basis of the plot for this retelling. Hua Mulan is fated to meet another highly skilled warrior Yuan Kai in a duel in which the winner will claim two special swords. Mulan's family has one sword, called Heart Sea, while her opponent's family, the Pengs have its mate, Sky Blade. The Hua and Peng families have been rivals for generations, fighting over the two swords.

Two generations earlier Kai's grandfather Peng hoped to end the duels by arranging a marriage between Mulan's father Hua Manlou and Peng's daughter. However, Mulan's father was in love with another woman. He refused the marriage offer and married the woman he loved, Mulan's mother.  This meant that the duel now had to be fought between Peng's daughter and Manlou. However, before the duel could be fought, Peng's daughter became very ill and her sister stepped in to fight Manlou. She won the duel, seriously injuring Manlou. When she approached Manlou to retrieve his sword, he acted dishonourably and threw two hidden weapons, poisoned bronze lillies at her. She died from the poison. Peng's daughter who fought Manlou was Yuan Kai's mother. So now that the children, Mulan and Kai are grown, they too must fight the duel to see who will possess the swords.

Mulan knows none of this until she is accepted into a special band of warriors led by a princeling whom she is certain is the opponent she must fight in the duel. She has met this opponent several times but their faces have always been covered so she cannot be entirely certain. The princeling takes them to his home where Mulan learns his real identity and the truth about the duel years ago from his aunt, the woman her father refused to marry.  Mulan now knows that the princeling is Yuan Kai. Mulan believes that the princeling does not know she is a woman.

However there are several twists in the story. Shortly after Mulan's father returned from the duel, Mulan's twin brother, Muyang died. Wishing to keep this a secret, Manlou had Mulan take over her dead brother's identity, training her to be a skilled martial arts warrior. What Mulan does not know is that Yuan Kai knows she is a woman disguised as a male warrior. He made this discovery years earlier when he travelled to Mulan's home on Lake Tai and witnessed a young girl in a boat who transformed herself into a young warrior.

However, most of this is revealed gradually throughout the story, drawing the reader into the story. What is the true identity of the princeling and does he know that Mulan is a girl warrior? As the story develops, from the warrior band's mission to scout out the movements of the invading Rouran to the discovery of a traitor in their party and the impending invasion of the imperial city, Mulan must make a decision.

When Mulan learns of her father's dishonorable behaviour during the duel years ago she is devastated and filled with shame. Her initial decision is to remain at the Great Wall in relative safety, feeling she has done her duty by enlisting and keeping her promise to her family to stay safe and return. However, this decision makes Mulan feel conflicted. She has not been trained "in yiqi, the code of honor and brotherhood that governs righteous conduct for men." After all she is a woman, expected to lead a life serving men. Her conduct is to be "judged almost entirely on her chastity, obedience, and self-effacement." However Mulan decides to continue with the princeling and his elite band, looking at herself as someone who is a person who has skills to offer. "Brotherhood might be unique to men, but loyalty, devotion to friends, and a sense of fairness are not."

Mulan expects Kai to be filled with a spirit of vengeance and is surprised to find he is not. When she questions Kai as to what made him no longer want to kill her father, he astonishes her by replying that he never wished to do so. "What would I have done, by killing your father, except make things worse for his family? And what would I have done, by wanting to kill him, except make things worse for me?"  Kai eventually reveals that once he discovered he was to fight Hua Manlou's daughter "in the guise of her brother", he wished that they "could have met under different circumstances." And so both Kai and Mulan put aside the old enmity between their families and work together to save their country. And ultimately to unite their families with forgiveness, compassion and redemption.

Thomas has done a superb job of crafting the characters of Mulan and Kai. Both are honorable, intelligent, disciplined and loyal. Their relationship develops and matures gradually over the course of the story, from two adversaries who do not trust one another to friendship and then to a delicate and tender love born out of forgiveness and mutual respect. Their story is timeless and the themes of forgiveness, compassion and repentance, enduring.

Magnolia Sword is a bright spot in young adult literature and might very well be the best book written for teens this year. This novel would hold up well as a screen adaptation.

Book Details:

Magnolia Sword by Sherry Thomas
New York: TU Books     2019
348 pp.

Four-Four-Two by Dean Hughes

Four-Four-Two is a novel about the American 442nd Regimental Combat Team that fought in World War II. The 442nd, the most decorated unit in American military history, was made up exclusively of young Japanese Americans, many of whom set out to prove their loyalty for a country that imprisoned their relatives, closed their businesses and sent them to desert internment camps. Racial prejudice against Asian Americans, Chinese and Japanese was especially prevalent in American society in the early 20th century. But Japanese Americans were singled out after the bombing of Pearl Harbor as potential traitors and collaborators and labelled as "enemy aliens". President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which ordered the removal of ALL Americans of Japanese ancestry (AJA) from the west coast. Second generation Japanese Americans, known as
Nisei, were American citizens.

There were already  over a thousand Nisei who were members of the National Guard in Hawaii. The government, fearful that these soldiers would desert and fight with the Japanese if Hawaii was ever invaded, sent them to the mainland and segregated them into a separate military unit call the 100th Infantry Battalion. After significant training they were sent to the European theater to fight and distinguished themselves as valiant soldiers. By this time the 442nd Regimental Battalion Combat Team was formed from volunteers from Hawaii and the internment camps.

Hughes focuses on battles F Company (Fox Company) fought. In his preface he states that "the locations, names of military units, weather conditions, and dates are all accurate... Yukus 'Yuki' Nakahara and his friend Shigeo 'Shig' Omura are members of a four-man fire team, which is part of an eight-man squad, and their squad is part of a platoon of thirty-plus men."

The story opens December 1941 with two men paying a surprise visit to the Nakahara family farm. Mr and Mrs. Nakahara are Issei - first generation Japanese immigrants who lease their land to grow vegetables and fruit. Yuki is the oldest and has three younger siblings, a brother Mickeo and two sisters, Amaya and Kayo. The men, FBI agents, take Yuki's father into custody, despite his mothers protests. They are told that he is an "enemy alien" living in a war zone. Yuki's best friend, Shigeo Omura had warned him that those considered to be a "community leader" were being arrested. Since the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese a week earlier, the attitude of their classmates has changed from disinterest to cold stares.

By April 1943, Yuki and Shig along with their families are now living in the Central Utah Relocation Center, a camp called Topaz. Yuki and Shig are now both eighteen years old and Yuki is determined to enlist. He believes this is the only way they, as Japanese Americans will be respected. Shigeo is not so eager because he's not sure he wants to die for people who don't like him. Yuki tells him they won't die but will come home as war heroes. Shig points out that because the white soldiers won't fight alongside the Japanese Americans, the Nisei soldiers are being segregated into separate units. Yuki counters this by telling Shig that Hitler is a problem that will not go away. Shig decides that he needs to speak one more time with his parents.

Yuki tells his mother after church on Sunday about his intention to enlist and she insists that he obey his father's directive not to. But Yuki tells her that enlisting is something he must do because in this way he can bring back honor to their family. If they are really American, he cannot stay out of the war when other white families have sons who are enlisting. Yuki encourages his mother to give sixteen-year-old Mikeo more responsibility while he's gone.

Both Yuki and Shig enlist and are bused to Salt Lake City to be entered into the United States Army after passing their physicals. They are then sent to Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi for basic training. Basic training proves to be a challenge. The uniforms are too big, the training gruelling and they have to get used to the Hawaiian Japanese who don't much like them. Yuki and Shig are assigned to "Second Platoon of Company F of Second Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team." Yuki's fire team includes Shig, Billy Yamada, an outstanding athlete and Makota Okida who is a Hawaiian soldier.

Yuki and Shig, along with the other members of the 442nd, train into the spring of 1944. By this time the 100th Infantry Battalion (made up of exclusively Nisei soldiers from Hawaii) is a significant fighting force in Italy. In March, Yuki and Shig's Second Battalion, along with the Third Battalion of the 442nd is shipped across the ocean to Naples, Italy. There they are attached to the Thirty-Fourth Infantry Division which they will support and fight with, though not as an integrated force. As Yuki and Shig get set to fight their first of many battles, they must find the courage and strength to cope with the unimaginable horrors of war. War is not what they expected and for Yuki it becomes a life-altering experience.

Discussion

Dean Hughes has written a heartbreaking story that realistically portrays war as it was experienced by Japanese American soldiers during the Second World War.  In an effort to prove they were patriotic Americans and in the hopes that their fellow Americans would accept them, many Japanese Americans enlisted. The went to fight for a country whose citizens treated them and their families shamefully, imprisoning them and placing most AJA's in what were essentially prison camps set in the desert surrounded by barbed wire.

Yuki Nakahara enters the war with the belief that serving in the army will be a way to restore honor to his family and that the American people will have to respect him when he returns a war hero. However, war is anything but what Yuki imagined. During his first attack, he is paralyzed with fear. After he kills a man during an attack on German machine-gun emplacement, Yuki is confronted with the reality that he has killed a boy, who looks to be only fourteen or fifteen. "But the soldier didn't look like a Nazi, like the brutal Krauts he had always imagined. He was a kid. He should have been home playing soccer with his friends, or sitting in a schoolroom. And he was not just young; he was...a person."

Later on as Yuki is trying to come to terms with the men killed in his Platoon by the Germans and his sergeant's desire to get revenge, his thoughts return to the boy he killed. "A picture was back in his head: the German boy at the gun emplacement, one arm bent at the elbow, his hand almost touching his cheek -- as though his last act had been to reach for the place where the bullet struck. His cheek had been smooth, like a baby's, the boy still too young to shave." 

442 Soldiers on the march.

In their next battle, Yuki saves the life of Sergeant Mat Matsumoto by running through a barrage of shelling. Billy Yamada loses his life and Yuki can't help but think what he lost, "a chance to go to college, to be a star football player." Later on when he and Shig talk about what happened, Yuki realizes that they have fought over a hill "just a bump on the planet -- and hundreds of men had died or been mutilated fighting over it. He hadn't known about any of this before entering the army, hadn't understood what it would be like." 

Letters from his family at Topaz make Yuki realize "that war was only an idea to all of them. It was just 'the war'; there was no perception that wars were made of battles and bullets and one day following another." As he sees men he knows and whom he worked with in Utah die, others like Oki seriously wounded, and takes Germans, who just want to eat and survive, prisoner, Yuki's perception of war changes. He feels fighting a war is not something to be proud of.

His perception of himself also changes; Yuki also believes because of what he's done in the war, he's not worthy of Shig's sister Keiko whom he loves and hopes to marry some day. Yuki believes what he and Shig do every day, killing is brutal and disgusting. "Yuki knew he would have to spend his life trying to remove all this ugliness from his head and hands." 

The actions of the Japanese American soldiers also begin to change the way the white soldiers view them. When Mat Matsumoto is killed in action, Yuki and Shig go against army policy to find his body at the aid station. Confronted by the white staff sergeant, Yuki tells him that the only reason Mat enlisted was because no one in the U.S. would hire him as an engineer, "...he was a Jap in America, so no one wanted to work with him." The sergeant tells Yuki that working with the AJA soldiers has changed his view of Japanese Americans. He didn't care about the AJA's being placed in camps and he felt they had "no business coming over here to fight." But now he recognizes that they are a superior fighting force and he tells Yuki and Shig  they are "respected by those who know what really goes on over here...And you're not just good soldiers; you're good men."

As Yuki becomes battle hardened he discovers several things about himself and about war. First he finds that the killing makes him want to kill for revenge when friends like Mat and Sergeant Koba die. He notes that although "nations" go to war, it is actually men and boys who kill men and boys from other nations "...boys he actually had nothing against." Yuki's perception of the German Nazi soldiers has also changed. "Back in training, he had imagined the Germans he would fight -- and they were all brutal Nazis. He had assumed they all hated Jews, hated people of every race but their own...But the German soldiers he had seen looked about like the boys he had gone to high school with: young, not angry, guys who probably missed their families and wanted to get home just like he did. "

Vosages Forest, France October 1944

Yuki also begins to realize that the war has not brought about a change in attitude towards the Japanese Americans. Instead they remain segregated from the white American troops and the army behaves as if they are expendable, throwing the 422nd into the most difficult battles, including being sent to rescue the First Battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment, trapped in the Vosges Forest. Through the character of Sergeant Oshira who visits Yuki in the hospital, Hughes doesn't mince words about the battle in the Vosges Forest. The 442nd lost eight hundred to save two hundred men, so many that the 422nd could no longer function as a regiment. Sergeant Oshira tells Yuki that the Stars and Stripes tells the story of the rescue of the "Lost Battalion" but no credit is given to the 442nd and a picture of a white soldier is used in the story. It is what today is referred to as "whitewashing" history. A truly shameful act, considering the sacrifice of so many who were treated so poorly by their country.

Although awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star, Yuki returns home, forever changed by his experience in the war. He experiences overwhelming guilt and regret at pressuring Shigeo to enlist and then not being able to protect him, and in surviving the war. But it is Shig's parents who show him compassion, love and concern. When Yuki expresses the wish that he had died instead of Shig, Mrs. Omura states, "You must never say this again, never think it. These are things we do not understand. God decides, and in our family, we trust God. Shigeo was a noble boy, and he will be precious in our hearts forever, but we have no regrets about his service. He sacrificed his life for the good of our world." This heart-rending encounter serves to demonstrate that the Japanese Americans were no different than other Americans; their sons died just as horribly, their families grieved just as deeply.
 
Four-Four-Two is by far the best of Hughes' novels. The development of the main and secondary characters is excellent while the intense descriptions of the battles make the reader feel they are part of the action and capture the true terror and gore of battle. Many parts of the book are truly heartbreaking; the death of Shig, the confrontation in the barbershop in Denver, Yuki's tender reunion with his mother, and the meeting with Shig's family.

Hughes has included both a Preface which explains some of the background information on the formation of the 442nd and an Author's Note which details the accomplishments of the regiment and asks readers to be more tolerant of others who are different. A wonderfully written and moving account of a difficult episode in American history.

Young readers are encouraged to do further research into the 442 Regimental Combat Team at https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/442nd-regimental-combat-team

and 

Nisei Veterans Legacy: 442nd Regimental Combat Team at

https://www.nvlchawaii.org/442nd-regimental-combat-team/

Image credentials: 

442 Soldiers on the march: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/442nd-regimental-combat-team

Vosages Forest image: https://www.nvlchawaii.org/442nd-regimental-combat-team/

Book Details:

Four-Four-Two by Dean Hughes
New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers   2016
268 pp.

Flame In the Mist by Renee Ahdieh

"Words are foolish. Promises are useless. Anyone can say anything to get what it is they desire. Believe in actions and actions alone."

Seventeen-year-old Mariko is on her way to the imperial city of Inako. She is travelling to Heian Castle to meet the emperor and his second son, Raiden, her future husband.Mariko is being traded like property to "elevate her father's standing amongst the ruling daimyo class." Mariko has been raised for one purpose - the marry an important man.

As her convoy approaches the Jukai forest, it stops and Mariko is told by Nobutada, her father's most trusted samurai, that the soldiers are reluctant to travel through the forest. Nobutada, not wishing to anger the emperor, decides they will pass through the forest despite the worry that the Black Clan has been seen nearby recently.

However Mariko's convoy is attacked and all the samurai are massacred. Trapped in her litter, her dead maidservant Chiyo on top of her, Mariko overhears the members of the Black Clan arguing about whether she is dead or not. To ensure her death, the Black Clan set fire to the wreckage of the litter. Terrified, Mariko decides to face the enemy and escape from the burning litter. But the Black Clan flee in the face of an attack by the wild beasts of the forest unaware that Mariko has survived.  Mariko escapes being burned alive only to find herself captive of a dirty man who plans to take her to them. However Mariko outwits the man and kills him in self-defense. She steals his filthy clothing, shears off her hair so she can pass herself off as a boy.

Mariko wants to know who wants her dead and why. She also worries her reputation will be sullied if it is discovered she has been lost in the forest with murderers and thieves. After five days of creeping through the forest, Mariko learns the location of the favourite watering hole of the Black Clan. But her encounter with them goes a much different way than expected. When the Black Clan arrives, they are confronted by a giant who agrees to fight the clan's best fighter. Mariko learns that their leader is Takeda Ranmaru, who she remembers is the son of a dishonoured samurai. The clan's best fighter is a tall, lean boy with a scar across his mouth whose name is Okami. When the giant and his men cheat, Mariko warns the Black Clan, saving their leader. After the fight Mariko is taken captive by the clan and taken to their camp deep in the forest. The members of the Black Clan do not know her identity or that she is a seventeen year old girl. But Mariko is determined to learn as much about them as possible and why they wanted to kill her. Then she plans to exact her revenge.

Meanwhile Mariko's brother, Kenshin, known as the Dragon of Kai, leads a group of samurai in the hunt for his sister. They come upon the burned norimono and the bodies of fifteen samurai in the forest. But Kenshin's keen eyes discover that his sister survived the attack and fled into the forest. He also discovers that she killed a man and is now passing herself off as a boy. With this knowledge he returns home and decides to journey to the imperial city of Inako to discover what the emperor's family knows about Mariko's disappearance. But Kenshin, the famed Dragon of Kai makes an astonishing discovery that changes everything.

In the city of Inako, His Imperial Majesty Minamoto Masaru, sovereign of the Empire of Wa, walks through the gardens reminiscing on his childhood friends whom he had to execute in order to consolidate his reign. The death of two friends, Asano Naganori who loved justice and Takeda Shingen who favoured honor weigh on his mind.  His second son, the crown prince of Wa, Minamoto Roku will rule after him; his first son Raiden will not. His mistress, Kanako, the mother of Raiden arrives to tell Masaru that Hattori Mariko, daughter of Hattori Kano is two days overdue and there are rumours that her convoy was ambushed in the Jukai forest. She does not believe the girl has survived the attack.

As Mariko spends time with Black Clan she learns about herself and discovers all is not as it seems in her world. Little does she know that she will be forced to decide what she believes and where her loyalties lie.

Discussion

Flame in the Mist is an engaging historical adventure/fantasy set in feudal Japan which takes its inspiration from the Chinese folktale of Mulan, a famous woman warrior. The story weaves together two main threads and a lesser thread; Mariko with the Black Clan, Kenshin the Dragon of Kai in his search for his sister and events that occur in the Imperial Palace in Inako.

In Flame in the Mist, Hattori Mariko ends up in the Jukai forest with the Black Clan whom she believes has attempted to murder her. Her time with the Black Clan reveals that all is not as it seems and that Mariko's view of the world is naive. Flame in the Mist traces Mariko's evolution in her understanding of the world in which she lives.

When Mariko is first in the camp of the Black Clan she is determined "to know why the Black Clan had taken her to their camp. Who they were exactly. But most of all, she needed to discover why they'd been sent to kill her. And by whom." To accomplish this, Mariko decides to stop being difficult, to follow orders and to earn their trust. Once she has their trust she plans to exact her revenge. But this creates a conflict for Mariko who feels deceit is dishonorable. She wants to follow the way of bushido - code of samurai warriors. "A true warrior would face her enemies without flinching. Not slither about in the shade."

However as she spends time in the Black Clan camp, Mariko learns about the tragedy that has touched Ranmaru and Okami; that both were sons of honorable samurai who were betrayed by the emperor and then murdered to consolidate his reign. A series of experiences force Mariko's to face what is really happening in the world around her. The first of these occurs in the tea house in Hanami, where the maiko, an apprentice geiko, forces Mariko to consider how fortunate her situation has been.

The second event that really changes Mariko's thinking is the attack on her father's estate. After witnessing Okami give money to an elderly woman in Inako for poor children, Mariko suspects that the Black Clan take money from the wealthy to give to the poor. This is confirmed when the Black Clan decide to attack Mariko's family estate in retaliation for her brother's actions.

Just before the attack on Hattori Kano's granary, as Mariko and the Black Clan are riding through the fields, Mariko begins to really look at the people at work. She realizes she has no memories of the workers ever smiling in her father's fields. She watches a family share a meal even though there is not enough food for everyone. Mariko realizes she has seen only what she wants to see, despite priding herself "on being the girl who saw things no one else saw. Who noticed the world not as it was, but as it should be." Mariko remembers the smiles of her father's workers as "wan" and "aged" and that her father saw them as being ungrateful. She understands the Black Clan want to redistribute her family's wealth "back into the hands of those who worked the fields. Tilled the soil. Reaped the harvest." This new understanding creates immense conflict within Mariko; she loves Okami and the ideals of the Black Clan appeal to her, but the Black Clan is attacking the very people she loves - her family.

By the time she sets out to find the Black Clan to warn them of Kenshin's impending attack Mariko has no doubts about her life. "Mariko had lived a life of wealth and privilege. A life spent blissfully unaware of the suffering around her. A life she herself had never fully appreciated. Her mother did not give without expecting something in return. Her father only ever took." Even Kenshin was without honor - he had massacred an old man and his grandchildren in the forest and tortured Ren. She realizes "how small her world had been. What it meant to be truly challenged."

Renee Ahdieh has crafted another strong female character in Mariko. Determined to learn who tried to murder her, Mariko finds she must confront her fears of being discovered to be a girl, of the jubokko tree and of the Black Clan.She must also confront the reality of her family's injustice towards the poor and the workers and that her father is concerned more with power.

Author Renee Ahdieh wanted the character Mariko to embrace her femininity, to see it as a source of strength.This comes out near the end of the novel when Mariko is recovering from the raid at the tea house. Okami's sister, Yumi questions Mariko as to whether she has ever fought back. When Mariko denies ever having fought back, Yumi calls her out: "Because, Hattori Mariko, you are not one to conform to any man's expectations. Is that not --in a way-- a manner of fighting back?" Yumi encourages her to embrace her power as a woman in their world. "There is such strength in being a woman. But it is strength you must choose for yourself. No one can choose it for you. We can bend the wind to our ear if we would only try." At great risk Mariko travel to the Jukai forest to warn the Black Clan about her brother's impending attack. Later on she gives herself up in the hopes of saving Takeda Ranmaru and when he is taken captive she again sacrifices herself by asking to be taken to the imperial palace rather than home with her brother.

Flame in the Mist explores many other themes including those of friendship, revenge, forgiveness and the meaning of honor. Like her other duology, The Wrath and the Dawn, Ahdieh incorporates the enemies-to-lovers trope and it works reasonably well as the tension between Okami and Mariko is maintained well into the novel. Ironically neither character knows the true identity of the other. And although when they first meet their values are much different, by the end of the novel, Mariko, her eyes open to the reality of life, begins to share the ideals that Okami holds. Ahdieh also sets the stage for the next novel which will likely be set at least partly in the Imperial palace at Inako. There is a subplot involving intrigue at the palace as the Empress Genmei and the Imperial consort Kanako appear to be working against one another.

Flame in the Mist is another excellent piece of fiction by Renee Ahdieh and is highly recommended. Readers who enjoy historical fiction with a touch of both fantasy and romance will be aptly rewarded.

**spoiler alert**

This is a summary of the backstory for the second novel that is due out next year.

The end of the novel ties together many lose ends but leaves new questions. Takeda Shingen, Asano Naganori and the Emperor grew up together as boys. Takeda Shingen valued honor, Asano Naganori valued justice and the boy who was to be emperor valued ambition. Takeda Shingen who was the last shogun, was executed for treason by his friend Asano Naganori. The novel begins ten years in the past when Shingen's son, Takeda Ranmaru witnesses the death of his father by seppuku. Mariko was the little girl who saw the distraught Takeda Ranmaru after his father's execution. Realizing his mistake, Asano tried to enact justice but himself was executed by being hung upside down in Yedo Bay.  The story is now set ten years later when Mariko is being sent to the Imperial palace to marry the son of the Emperor. The Black Clan is made up of its leader Takeda Ranmaru and Okami who Mariko comes to believe is Asano Tsuneoki. However Takeda Ranmaru and Asano Tsuneoki have switched places. In fact, Okami whom she loves is actually Takeda Ranmaru. Asano Tsuneoki switched places to save Takeda Ranmaru's life as a way to pay off the debt of his father murdering Ranmaru's father years ago. This is revealed when the false Takeda Ranmaur has no idea of the weapon, the Furinkazan which is a special sword, Raiden offers him.
Mariko offers herself up in exchange for the freedom of the Black Clan, but Takeda Ranmaru also insists on being taken. Mariko insists on being taken to Inako to begin her life in the Imperial court. The novel ends with Her Imperial Majesty Yamoto Genmei, Empress of Wa murdering the Emperor by poisoning him and drowning him in a pond.
Also Amaya, the woman who loves Kenshin is alive and is in the care of Kanako, the emperor's consort and the mother of Raiden who was betrothed to Mariko. Kanako sends her Raiden to find Hattori Kenshin.

Book Details:

Flame In The Mist by Renee Ahdieh
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons     2017
392 pp.