This book was a slight letdown compared to the first one. In The Disfavored Hero, Tomoe Gozen was a strong, kickass lesbian female samurai who was living her life following the Bushido; in this one, she’s on the run from her father because he wants her to get married. Tomoe fights against this until she doesn’t, giving in to filial piety/familial duty becoming unfortunately a stereotypical submissive Japanese wife! And she’s happy about it; so happy that it becomes pretty much her entire personality. The thrust of the book becomes all the many, many ways women are inferior to men, how a woman’s duty in life is to have children while supporting her husband in all endeavors. And that lesbianism? That’s bound, gagged and shoved firmly into a closet. Perhaps the publisher told her to tone down the gay overtones, perhaps it was decided that because this is based on a historical figure it had to be altered; I don’t know. I just know that I really wanted Tomoe to actually be proactive not reactive about something, and I didn’t get that. Nor did I get the return of a favorite character; I suppose she was sacrificed on the altar of erased lesbianism. Men loving men was maybe slightly insinuated about, but lesbians? Nope, they are completely erased thus in my opinion vastly weakening a previously strong character.
Also, it didn’t hit me until I had finished reading this book that this and the first one are actually comprised of four slightly interconnected novellas bound into a book each. Which does slightly explain the time jumps between events and why everything seems slightly disconnected.
I know the question is that if I have apparently nothing good to say about this book, why did I go and give it four stars? The fact is I did like this book; it was reasonably well-written (the copy I had did have a few spelling errors that apparently had been missed) and there were parts that where Tomoe had slight glimpses of the character she had been. There were also some enjoyable side characters that helped elevate the book slightly. It is also a very interesting take on an alternate-universe Japan were magic and mythical creatures are taken as the norm. I just for some reason seemed to find it easier to write about what I didn’t like about the book than what I did. I’d still recommend it though.
(Trust me; you read the book this will make sense.)