"Can one girl save a nation?
With Japan's future in the balance, Risuko may recover the Kano clan's honor — or she may destroy it forever
Lord Takeda has sent Risuko, Emi, and Toumi on a mission to the capital. The road is dangerous. The destination is treacherous. Risuko — the girl who just likes to climb — must make a choice that will have repercussions not only for Risuko's life and those of her friends, but possibly for all of Japan.
In this thrilling third book in the Seasons of the Sword, she encounters old friends, new enemies, and a strange boy from a far-off land called Ireland. Through raging battles and deadly court intrigue, Risuko must follow a path narrower and less stable than any pine branch. And the consequences should she fail are sharp and hard as rocks below.
The red-and-white disguise of the kunoichi awaits.
Is Risuko ready?
Seasons of the Sword:
- Risuko (Winter)
- Bright Eyes (Spring)
- Kano (Summer)
- Murasaki (Autumn — coming soon!
(Young adult historical adventure; Japanese Civil War)"
"Can One Girl Save A School?
Contains Risuko And Bright Eyes, As Well As Six Prequel Stories!
Kano Murasaki, called Risuko (Squirrel) is a young, fatherless girl, more comfortable climbing trees than down on the ground. Yet she finds herself enmeshed in a game where the board is the whole nation of Japan, where the pieces are armies moved by scheming lords, and a single girl couldn’t possibly have the power to change the outcome.
Or could she?
At the Full Moon, an isolated mountain school for training young women to become shrine maidens (and much more), Risuko finds friends, challenges, and danger. Intrigue, poison, invasion, murder — she must survive from winter into spring if she is going to figure out who she is truly going to be.
This thrilling collection contains the first two novels in the award-winning teen historical fiction series Seasons of the Sword. In addition, Winter into Spring includes a half-dozen short stories set before the novels, exploring the characters and world: a sixteenth-century Japan torn by over a century of civil war."
"Meet Lady Chiyome's Army of 'Deadly Blossoms' — Before Risuko Does!After a century of brutal civil war has torn Japan apart, Lady Mochizuki Chiyome gathers together the most unlikely army imaginable to unite the empire and bring an end to the bloodshed: an army of girls clad in the red and white garb of miko, shrine maidens.
An army of kunoichi.
Together, these girls work as spies, as bodyguards, as assassins — going where no soldier could go, doing what no soldier could do.
Here are six stories of the kunoichi, set before the award-winning Seasons of the Sword novels (Risuko and Bright Eyes):
- White Robes — Mired in her own grief, Lady Mochizuki Chiyome encounters two young women who give her a whole new, much more interesting opportunity
- Silk & Service — A young Takeda warrior meets a servant who is much more than she seems
- Waiting for Kuniko — Mieko is waiting at a rendezvous behind enemy lines. In the rain. Without a hat. The person who comes up the road is the last person she expected to encounter.
- Wild Mushrooms — A Hōjō commander is delighted when two pretty young shrine maidens enter his camp on the evening before a battle. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been.
- Ghost — At a banquet to celebrate a new alliance, Chiyome contemplates murder, and discovers a new servant
- Schools for Talented Youngsters: Monthly Headmistresses’ Dinner — Three unique ladies get together once a month to share the joys and challenges involved teaching young ladies with very particular… talents. (Historical fantasy/crossover)"
"Assassination. Espionage. Theft.
Across the Ages, the Headmistresses of Three Very Unusual Schools (along with Their Very Unusual Students) Share a Meal.
Lady Mochizuki Chiyome plays host to two of the only women who can understand why she teaches young women to do very unladylike things. Like her, Locusta the Poisoner and Ma Mandelbaum run schools for very particular students gifted with very particular talents.
Inspired by a conversation with Mackenzi Lee, author of Bygone Badass Broads and The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, this short historical fantasy explores what would happen if three of history’s most bloodthirsty schoolmistresses had been able to share a (very carefully checked) meal.
(Historical fantasy short/crossover)"
"When eternity comes to visit
A Hojo commander is delighted when two pretty young shrine maidens enter his camp on the evening before a battle. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been.
Risuko prequel story showing Mieko and Kuniko on a mission — at their sweetest and at their most deadly."
"Mochizuki Chiyome wants someone dead
And someone wants to serve her
At a banquet to celebrate a new alliance, Chiyome contemplates murder, and discovers a new servant.
This is the third of six Kunoichi Companion Tales, prequel stories to David Kudler's historical novel Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale.
White Robes Mired in her own grief, Lady Mochizuki Chiyome encounters two young women who give her a whole new, much more interesting opportunity
Silk & Service A young Takeda warrior meets a servant who is much more than she seems
Ghost At a banquet to celebrate a new alliance, Chiyome contemplates murder, and discovers a new servant
Shining Boy Plucked off of the streets of the capital, an orphan girl tries to figure out what story she's wandered into
Blade Toumi doesn't want anyone messing with her business
Little Brother Returning to the monastery turns out to be as hard as leaving it was
Extract:
The Way of the Warrior, Chiyome knew, teaches that one must fight without anger and kill without hatred. That a warrior must act always out of duty and never out of personal need. She knew this because her mother had taught her so. She knew it because her father and her husband had died acting so. She knew it because because her annoying servants Mieko and Kuniko always seemed to act so.
And yet, staring across the shōgun's banquet hall, all that Mochizuki Chiyome could think was that she hated Uesugi Kenshin; that she wanted to cut off the far-too-pretty lord's nose, wanted to strangle him, wanted to rip out his heart.
She considered it a great act of restraint to have remained sitting through the long feast commemorating the new alliance.
Lord Uesugi leered at her, and her restraint shattered.
Mieko?
My lady?
Chiyome leaned closer to the young woman who looked like nothing so much as a perfectly sweet companion for a perfectly harmless old lady. If I were to ask you to kill that insufferable fop Uesugi, could you do it?
(Teen assassin, historical fiction, love in a time of war, Japan)"
"Not all assassins wear black
Some come wearing silk
A young Takeda warrior meets a servant who is much more than she seems. And teaches him what a warrior truly can be.
This is the second of six Kunoichi Companion Tales, prequel stories to David Kudlers historical novel Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale
White Robes " Mired in her own grief, Lady Mochizuki Chiyome encounters two young women who give her a whole new, much more interesting opportunity
Silk & Service " A young Takeda warrior meets a servant who is much more than she seems
Ghost " When Lady Chiyome receives a note from the shogun, she finds that the messenger is much more intriguing than the message
Shining Boy " Plucked off of the streets of the capital, an orphan girl tries to figure out what story she's wandered into
Blade " Toumi doesn't want anyone messing with her business
Little Brother " Returning to the monastery turns out to be as hard as leaving it was
Get my purse, boy! growled Captain Oniyama, And more sake!
Masugu watches the girl appear as if from out of the floor to pour the rice wine into the captain's cup: smooth gait, smooth hair, smooth"
Boy! My purse!
Masugu shakes himself, blushing, and leaps to his feet. Yes, Oniyama-sama!
The captain is usually patient and polite, but at these regular mahjong games with the other Imagawa commanders, he drinks. And Masugu doesn't like being around him when he's drunk. Doesn't like watching him lose at games.
Also, the girl..."
"One of history's most amazing armies is born
And its soldiers wear silk robes
Lady Mochizuki Chiyome is mired in grief. Recently widowed by Japan's endless civil war, she has become tired of mourning, tired of wearing the white robes that are the traditional Japanese garb of grief. On the road, she encounters two young women who open her eyes to a whole new purpose in life and a new way to end Japan's century of bloodshed.
This is the first of six Kunoichi Companion Tales, prequel stories to David Kudler's historical novelRisuko: A Kunoichi Tae:
White Robes Mired in her own grief, Lady Mochizuki Chiyome encounters two young women who give her a whole new, much more interesting opportunity
Silk & Service A young Takeda warrior meets a servant who is much more than she seems
Ghost When Lady Chiyome receives a note from the shōgun, she finds that the messenger is much more intriguing than the message
Shining Boy Plucked off of the streets of the capital, an orphan girl tries to figure out what story she's wandered into
Blade Toumi doesn't want anyone messing with her business
Little Brother Returning to the monastery turns out to be as hard as leaving it was"
