3.5 Stars 
 This story was fun and very atmospheric. One of my favorite aspects of The Wrath & the Dawn was how the description of sight and smell gave it this magical sense of place. I just wanted to walk around in Shazi's world. It is much the same here and I found the combination of subtle magic and the misty forests of feudal Japan to be enchanting. 
 I found Mariko harder to connect to than Shazi. In some ways she feels inspired by Kestrel from The Winners Trilogy (whom I love) as she is allegedly more about brains than fighting and she goes on a similar journey in how she awakens to the reality of the world around her, one she had been blind to. However the execution doesn't come through as well as we don't get to see her showing exceptional cleverness that often, it's just something we are told everyone else perceives about her. Clever characters are my favorite (never cared much about warriors or assassins) but it can be a hard one to properly convince the reader of if the author can't come up with good ways to sell it. I think the two series I've read where it is done the best is in Gentleman Bastards series by Scott Lynch and the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, where we really get to see the protagonists genius play out over the course of the story. Mariko manages a good move or two at the end, but overall I just didn't feel she came together as well I hoped. She also didn't manage to be as endearing as the leads from any of the aforementioned series. At least to me. 
 The love story also didn't grab me and felt low on chemistry, however it is a relatively small part of the overall tale. I liked the other main character she gets involved with so it wasn't a case of having a problem with a relationship so much as not really swooning or buying into it. 
 Everything else worked pretty well though. The members of the Black Clan (a gang of forest thieves whom Mariko falls in with while in disguise) were all enjoyable characters and I look forward to finding out what happens to them next. I really like the Robin Hood vibe surrounding them. Ditto for Mariko's brother, the Dragon of Kai, and the girl he believes he's lost. Despite my issues with the main character I found this a fun and quick read and look forward to the second half next year.