Full review can also be found on: Paein and Ms4Tune's Book Blog 
 I received this book in both the May Fairyloot box and the Unicorn Crate. Both came with candles, Fairyloot had two options Flame (Mariko) and Mist (Okami) I received Mist and once I realised it was meant to smell like him I made sure to smell it often as it smells so nice. The one from the Unicorn crate is called Okami but it smells like Christmas which is unfortunate, too much cinnamon... 
 I really enjoyed this book! Possibly not as much as her other series, this seems a vaguer world and Mariko is no Shazi. Or she wasn't. She might be on par with her now, which is an idea that makes me even more excited for book two! This is why I don't like reading books as soon as they come out, dang it, the rest of the series is too far away. 
 I don't know how many books will be in this series - I'm hoping two because I need the HEA...but I have no idea where we're going from here so it could be longer. So many mysterious elements are at work here - the world is presented to us as feudal Japan but magic is creeping in and while we're given some back story, there's got to be more going on than we know and there's just too much unknown for me to work out a possible endgame and I'm actually ok with this. 
 Okami was by far my favourite character even though there's so much mystery still around him. I pretty much liked him above all the others almost from the start. I liked how amused he was by Mariko, almost despite himself and I liked how they sparred. I also liked his confused conversation with his friend, which is even funnier after the end. I'm looking forward to learning more about him. 
 The royal family is a mess and I really don't think the boys see it which is a problem. Two selfish women are about to battle it out and I really don't know which I'd like to win. Neither really, to be honest. It adds another layer of complex-ness to the whole affair. There was one good thing that came out of that though, but I'm so confused about what the possible future plans could be. There is definitely a plan though and it seems to involve all the main players. I'm betting some heartbreak is going to go on too. But I know that Okami has something hidden up his sleeve that no one by Mariko knows about and I know that she's well on the way to being able to do deal with the task at hand, if not already. 
 Definitely for fans of Mulan, Tamora Pierce and The Wrath and the Dawn series!