Can One Girl Win a War?
Kano Murasaki, called Risuko (Squirrel) is a young, fatherless girl, more comfortable climbing trees than down on the ground. Yet she finds herself enmeshed in a game where the board is the whole nation of Japan, where the pieces are armies, moved by scheming lords, and a single girl couldn’t possibly have the power to change the outcome.
Or could she?
Historical adventure fiction appropriate for young adult and middle-grade readers
About Risuko
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Can One Girl Win a War?
Though Japan has been devastated by a century of civil war, Risuko just wants to climb trees. Growing up far from the battlefields and court intrigues, the fatherless girl finds herself pulled into a plot that may reunite Japan — or may destroy it. She is torn from her home and what is left of her family, but finds new friends at a school that may not be what it seems.
Magical but historical, Risuko follows her along the first dangerous steps to discovering who she truly is.
“Tight, exciting, and thoughtful… The characters are nicely varied and all the pieces fit into place deftly” — Kirkus Reviews
Powerful and relentless coming-of-age adventure. — Foreword Reviews (spotlight review)
Read now!
A sneak preview of the opening chapters of Risuko
About Bright Eyes
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Can One Girl Stop a Killer?
The future of Japan hangs in the balance, and it’s up to a girl who likes to climb to save the day
Two armies have descended on the Full Moon, and the war that has torn Japan apart for over a century threatens to destroy Lady Chiyome’s school for young shrine maidens (and assassins).
In this thrilling sequel to Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale, Risuko must face warlords, samurai, angry cooks, a monster in the hills, the truth about her father, a spy among the kunoichi…
And a murderer.
Someone kills a Takeda lieutenant, staging it to look like suicide. Can Risuko figure out who would do such thing?
And can she keep it from happening again?
COMING May 5, 2022!
Read a sneak preview of Bright Eyes: “The Cave”
My name is Kano Murasaki, but everyone calls me Risuko. Squirrel.
I am from Serenity Province, though I was not born there.
My nation has been at war for a hundred years, Serenity is under attack and the Kano family is in disgrace, but some people think that I can bring victory. That I can be a very special kind of woman.
All I want to do is climb.
My name is Kano Murasaki, but everyone calls me Squirrel.
Risuko.
Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale