Rindis.com

The final Tomoe Gozen novel is much more cohesive as a novel than the first two. But it is broken into three parts, and they are somewhat independent.

A sad repeat from the second book is that there’s an ad from the publisher of the Kindle version of the book right at the end of part three. And right before a final short story epilogue. This is a really bad habit by Open Road, and needs to stop. If it was before a preview of another book, that’d be one thing, but but this is splitting apart something that’s supposed to be a cohesive whole.

At least they’re not advertising soup.

At any rate, we have more grand adventure in a world of Japanese myth. Tomoe is now a mendicant monk, making her way while trying to atone for actions she now regrets. She is older, and sadder, and no less deadly, even as arthritis starts afflicting her joints.

Of course, this she stumbles into a small province where an ex-samurai will find plenty of things to regret. Much Japanese storytelling is somber, and this book has the tone down perfect, just like the entire series has gotten so much right.

Overall, the pace is often slow, but the fact that this is much more one cohesive whole helps a lot, and I think this is the best part of the series. Overall, it’s well worth a read, and needs to be better known than it is.