Yumeko has been living as an orphan at the Silent Winds Temple for as long as she can remember. As a half-fox trickster, she has spent her 16 years of life playing pranks on monks and disobeying every rule she can. However, when her peaceful temple is attacked by an army of demons, she is bestowed with the responsibility of transporting an ancient scroll to the Steel Feather Temple to keep it safe. On her journey she meets Kage Tatsumi, a samurai from the shadow clan, who has been sent to receive the scroll. Tatsumi agrees to help Yumeko find the temple, but little does she know that he plans on stealing the scroll once they get there. Now Yumeko has to prepare herself for making the dangerous journey across the vast empire of Iwagoto. And all Tatsumi has to do is make sure he lives to retrieve the scroll, and convince himself that he isn’t slowly falling in love with Yumeko.

I found this book really interesting, I especially love the fact that it was inspired by Japanese mythology. It made reading this high fantasy book very captivating; it was fun learning about a well-written fictional empire and real Japanese myths at the same time. Another really well done aspect of this book was the characters. There are a few main characters, and some are introduced later in the book. I found myself caring about these characters so much, I even loved the characters introduced later in the plot. The way the group of main characters interacted was so entertaining to read, and the banter was written very well. One thing that I didn’t like about this book was the pacing. I love books with fast plots, but this was a little too much. It felt like something was always going on, and that thing was most often a high action fight scene. This got a little exhausting after a while, especially because what I really want to see in a book with a big journey is fun moments between fights, where characters can interact in a relaxed setting and get to know each other better.  

Even though this book felt like it was moving too quickly at times, it would still be a great read for any teen looking for a fast-paced book full of interesting mythology. Similar books also inspired by mythology and religion are Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.