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Seasons of the Sword #4
Murasaki: A Kunoichi Tale
The thrilling conclusion to Seasons of the Sword!
Can one girl survive?
An easy mission promises to be Risuko's last
Kano Murasaki (called Risuko) and her friends Emi, and Toumi are accompanying a spoiled young noblewoman to her wedding. What should be a simple assignment—get the bride to the wedding, make sure she's properly dressed—is anything but.
Because someone wants the lady dead.
And because Risuko and her friends aren't just lady's maids. They are kunoichi.
Trained spies, assassins—and in this case, bodyguards.
The wedding—which Risuko herself negotiated at sword-point—has the potential to unite the most powerful clans in Japan under a single banner, ending over a century of bloodshed, Risuko must do everything that she can to keep the brat of a princess safe and deliver her to her groom. Failure would mean death not just for the bride and her bodyguards. It might mean another hundred years of destruction for the whole empire.
Along the way, Risuko and her friends must confront hidden enemies and uncover who is behind the plot. She must confront the ghosts of her past to become, finally, herself.
Can Risuko survive?
Can Risuko kill?
Seasons of the Sword:
1 — Risuko (Winter)
2 — Bright Eyes (Spring)
3 — Kano (Summer)
4 — Murasaki (Autumn — coming soon!)
(Young adult historical adventure; Japanese Civil War)
Projected release, late 2025
ACTUAL RELEASE DATE TBA
Can one girl survive?
An easy mission promises to be Risuko's last
Kano Murasaki (called Risuko) and her friends Emi, and Toumi are accompanying a spoiled young noblewoman to her wedding. What should be a simple assignment—get the bride to the wedding, make sure she's properly dressed—is anything but.
Because someone wants the lady dead.
And because Risuko and her friends aren't just lady's maids. They are kunoichi.
Trained spies, assassins—and in this case, bodyguards.
The wedding—which Risuko herself negotiated at sword-point—has the potential to unite the most powerful clans in Japan under a single banner, ending over a century of bloodshed, Risuko must do everything that she can to keep the brat of a princess safe and deliver her to her groom. Failure would mean death not just for the bride and her bodyguards. It might mean another hundred years of destruction for the whole empire.
Along the way, Risuko and her friends must confront hidden enemies and uncover who is behind the plot. She must confront the ghosts of her past to become, finally, herself.
Can Risuko survive?
Can Risuko kill?
Seasons of the Sword:
1 — Risuko (Winter)
2 — Bright Eyes (Spring)
3 — Kano (Summer)
4 — Murasaki (Autumn — coming soon!)
(Young adult historical adventure; Japanese Civil War)
Projected release, late 2025
ACTUAL RELEASE DATE TBA
- GenresHistoricalYoung Adult
228 pages, Hardcover
Published September 23, 2025
4 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
About the author
David Kudler
59 books187 followersDavid Kudler is a writer and editor living just north of the Golden Gate Bridge with his wife, actress, teacher, and author Maura Vaughn, their author-to-be daughters, and their (apparently) non-literary cats.
His award-winning novel Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale , a young-adult historical adventure novel set in sixteenth century Japan, serves as the first book in the Seasons of the Sword series. The sequel, Bright Eyes , hit the shelves on May 5, 2022. He's now hard at work on Book 3 ( Kano ).
He served as managing editor for the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, editing Pathways to Bliss, Myths of Light, and Campbell's Asian Journals) in addition to managing the publication of over a hundred other print, ebook, print, audio, and video titles, including the first revised edition of the seminal The Hero with a Thousand Faces since the author's death.
Currently, he serves as publisher for Stillpoint Digital Press, producing fine print, ebook, and audiobook editions for all ages in a wide variety of genres from philosophy and poetry to memoir and historical to fantasy and romance.
His award-winning novel Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale , a young-adult historical adventure novel set in sixteenth century Japan, serves as the first book in the Seasons of the Sword series. The sequel, Bright Eyes , hit the shelves on May 5, 2022. He's now hard at work on Book 3 ( Kano ).
He served as managing editor for the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, editing Pathways to Bliss, Myths of Light, and Campbell's Asian Journals) in addition to managing the publication of over a hundred other print, ebook, print, audio, and video titles, including the first revised edition of the seminal The Hero with a Thousand Faces since the author's death.
Currently, he serves as publisher for Stillpoint Digital Press, producing fine print, ebook, and audiobook editions for all ages in a wide variety of genres from philosophy and poetry to memoir and historical to fantasy and romance.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 14, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
I did not read the previous works in this series, but there was a synopsis, and I feel like this novel works pretty alright even as a standalone, too, if you can ignore all the dead guys he mentions. While you will definitely lack context, you can figure out the general plot pretty quickly, within the first 20% or so of the book I felt like I more or less got it.
One thing I found SO annoying when reading was his "use" of Japanese - inconsistent, unnecessary, and frequently just seeming very pretentious. So he regularly adds the honorifics for certain characters (e.g. Masugu-san or Mieko-sensei - keep in mind that they should be added to the family name, not the given name, but he doesn't seem aware of that), but does not add them for people of higher rank, such as Hachihime (who should be Hachihime-SAMA by his logic, if he were consistent). He translates place names, completely disorienting the reader and ignoring the fact that, while yes, they TECHNICALLY have meanings, people don't actually think of them as meaning a specific thing any more than Americans think of their home as the continent of Mr. Amerigo Vespucci's land, or people think of Austria as "the Empire of the East", or Chinese people think of Nanjing as the Southern City and Beijing as the Northern City when using these names in everyday speech. It seems very pretentious, especially as the author does not even speak Japanese, and it feels like, through his choice to literally translate the names, he is attempting to exoticise his Japanese setting even further, as his audience is probably familiar enough with Japan to think of names like Edo as perfectly normal (which they ARE).
While he motivates his choice to translate place names with "well, to Japanese people, these place names HAVE MEANING and they KNOW this meaning when they talk about the place", the same is - intriguingly enough - not done for people's given names, which very frequently have much more meaning to any given individual than the city of Edo (Estuary, as he chooses to call it) would have.
Also, if you need TEN PAGES (in my ebook version) of glossaries and place names (not counting the several pages of CHARACTERS), I fear you are just unnecessarily complicating things for your reader. I appreciate the thoroughness with which things such as a katana, kimchi (here spelled kimchee), or honorific suffixes such as -san and -sama were explained, however, was this really necessary? How likely do you think it is that the average reader will remember ALL of this 150 pages in, when the items are glossarised at the very beginning of the book? I feel like this could have been done in a much better and more accessible (and less pretentious!) way. You don't need to hit me with Japanese terms every two pages to remind me that we are in Japan (and you definitely wouldn't if you hadn't changed all the place names from their Japanese original to a whimsical little translation!).
It's also quite odd how he insists on using baka at random times - there's baka lords and baka farms, and it just sounds very childish, in my opinion; like a 14-year-old who just discovered anime and now uses random phrases whenever they can. Giving massive "just according to keikaku (keikaku means plan)" vibes. Add to that that "yes" is, at some times, apparently not exotic enough and one needs instead to say "hai", and it made reading this novel a fairly annoying experience, actually. Especially as, again, the author doesn't even speak Japanese! (Which became very obvious with "I'll help you down, anata" - that really is not how you use anata...)
As well as the frequent baka-ing, there was also a lot of "poop" and "poopy" expletives, which, considering there are people being slaughtered in this novel, felt really quite immature, as well. (I quote: "Then why do you want to go through with [this]?" [...] "So that I can slice the poop's throat [...]." [...] "Serve the baka right." Like, what IS this??)
The writing style itself was also fairly inconsistent - at times, it was all fancy old-timey style, really trying to get you into the historical settings, and other times it sounded like the average YA teenager POV. Each of these styles has its merits, but mixing them randomly didn't work very well, for me personally at least. I think this novel would need a LOT of editing before I would recommend it to anyone, based on the writing style.
The plot itself was alright, but the fact that I was basically goraning in frustration at the writing style every other paragraph made it very difficult to enjoy this novel.
I did not read the previous works in this series, but there was a synopsis, and I feel like this novel works pretty alright even as a standalone, too, if you can ignore all the dead guys he mentions. While you will definitely lack context, you can figure out the general plot pretty quickly, within the first 20% or so of the book I felt like I more or less got it.
One thing I found SO annoying when reading was his "use" of Japanese - inconsistent, unnecessary, and frequently just seeming very pretentious. So he regularly adds the honorifics for certain characters (e.g. Masugu-san or Mieko-sensei - keep in mind that they should be added to the family name, not the given name, but he doesn't seem aware of that), but does not add them for people of higher rank, such as Hachihime (who should be Hachihime-SAMA by his logic, if he were consistent). He translates place names, completely disorienting the reader and ignoring the fact that, while yes, they TECHNICALLY have meanings, people don't actually think of them as meaning a specific thing any more than Americans think of their home as the continent of Mr. Amerigo Vespucci's land, or people think of Austria as "the Empire of the East", or Chinese people think of Nanjing as the Southern City and Beijing as the Northern City when using these names in everyday speech. It seems very pretentious, especially as the author does not even speak Japanese, and it feels like, through his choice to literally translate the names, he is attempting to exoticise his Japanese setting even further, as his audience is probably familiar enough with Japan to think of names like Edo as perfectly normal (which they ARE).
While he motivates his choice to translate place names with "well, to Japanese people, these place names HAVE MEANING and they KNOW this meaning when they talk about the place", the same is - intriguingly enough - not done for people's given names, which very frequently have much more meaning to any given individual than the city of Edo (Estuary, as he chooses to call it) would have.
Also, if you need TEN PAGES (in my ebook version) of glossaries and place names (not counting the several pages of CHARACTERS), I fear you are just unnecessarily complicating things for your reader. I appreciate the thoroughness with which things such as a katana, kimchi (here spelled kimchee), or honorific suffixes such as -san and -sama were explained, however, was this really necessary? How likely do you think it is that the average reader will remember ALL of this 150 pages in, when the items are glossarised at the very beginning of the book? I feel like this could have been done in a much better and more accessible (and less pretentious!) way. You don't need to hit me with Japanese terms every two pages to remind me that we are in Japan (and you definitely wouldn't if you hadn't changed all the place names from their Japanese original to a whimsical little translation!).
It's also quite odd how he insists on using baka at random times - there's baka lords and baka farms, and it just sounds very childish, in my opinion; like a 14-year-old who just discovered anime and now uses random phrases whenever they can. Giving massive "just according to keikaku (keikaku means plan)" vibes. Add to that that "yes" is, at some times, apparently not exotic enough and one needs instead to say "hai", and it made reading this novel a fairly annoying experience, actually. Especially as, again, the author doesn't even speak Japanese! (Which became very obvious with "I'll help you down, anata" - that really is not how you use anata...)
As well as the frequent baka-ing, there was also a lot of "poop" and "poopy" expletives, which, considering there are people being slaughtered in this novel, felt really quite immature, as well. (I quote: "Then why do you want to go through with [this]?" [...] "So that I can slice the poop's throat [...]." [...] "Serve the baka right." Like, what IS this??)
The writing style itself was also fairly inconsistent - at times, it was all fancy old-timey style, really trying to get you into the historical settings, and other times it sounded like the average YA teenager POV. Each of these styles has its merits, but mixing them randomly didn't work very well, for me personally at least. I think this novel would need a LOT of editing before I would recommend it to anyone, based on the writing style.
The plot itself was alright, but the fact that I was basically goraning in frustration at the writing style every other paragraph made it very difficult to enjoy this novel.
November 20, 2025
Wow.
I started reading this series when Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale first came out almost ten years ago. I've followed her through all of the adventures and challenges she's faced, all of the friends and enemies, and I'm so happy with how this book tied up the story of this amazing year! The excitement and danger ratchetted up, but Risuko and Co all grew to meet the challenge, and the final resolution was surprising and also really satisfying for me.
I really loved, in particular, 's growth over the last two books. They were characters I enjoyed, but they could have been the typical flat frenemy characters you get in a lot of teen/YA books. Instead my understanding of them grew and I found myself caring what happened to them.
And of course, some of my favorite characters really showed up: was only present at the end, but she was wonderful. And the historical figures were all clear and fascinating. Even knowing some of 's histories, I felt like the books really brought all of them to life, not as biographies but as people.
There's more on-screen violence and blood than in earlier books (that's been increasing slowly over the course of the series), but nothing too graphic. The romance element ratcheted up a bit too, but believably, and in a way that pushed the story rather than side-tracking it. Where I felt as if the first books in the series were on the borderline between middle grade/tween and YA/teen, this book definitely felt as if it was in the YA camp--but nothing so explicit that it pushed the upper end of that boundary.
Mostly, I loved how Risuko grew over the course of the series, how she went from being a girl, trying to do what she was told, to a young woman with her own sense of right and wrong and her own loyalties. Even some of my favorite YA series resort to having the protagonist(s) grow up between scenes or books (I'm thinking of the Narnia books). Here, we're there for the ride.
My only complaints were that wasn't present... and that this wonderful series is now complete! The author hinted at writing more books (or at least short stories) in the series, but please! I want to spend more time in this wonderful world with these wonderful characters!
I started reading this series when Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale first came out almost ten years ago. I've followed her through all of the adventures and challenges she's faced, all of the friends and enemies, and I'm so happy with how this book tied up the story of this amazing year! The excitement and danger ratchetted up, but Risuko and Co all grew to meet the challenge, and the final resolution was surprising and also really satisfying for me.
I really loved, in particular, 's growth over the last two books. They were characters I enjoyed, but they could have been the typical flat frenemy characters you get in a lot of teen/YA books. Instead my understanding of them grew and I found myself caring what happened to them.
And of course, some of my favorite characters really showed up: was only present at the end, but she was wonderful. And the historical figures were all clear and fascinating. Even knowing some of 's histories, I felt like the books really brought all of them to life, not as biographies but as people.
There's more on-screen violence and blood than in earlier books (that's been increasing slowly over the course of the series), but nothing too graphic. The romance element ratcheted up a bit too, but believably, and in a way that pushed the story rather than side-tracking it. Where I felt as if the first books in the series were on the borderline between middle grade/tween and YA/teen, this book definitely felt as if it was in the YA camp--but nothing so explicit that it pushed the upper end of that boundary.
Mostly, I loved how Risuko grew over the course of the series, how she went from being a girl, trying to do what she was told, to a young woman with her own sense of right and wrong and her own loyalties. Even some of my favorite YA series resort to having the protagonist(s) grow up between scenes or books (I'm thinking of the Narnia books). Here, we're there for the ride.
My only complaints were that wasn't present... and that this wonderful series is now complete! The author hinted at writing more books (or at least short stories) in the series, but please! I want to spend more time in this wonderful world with these wonderful characters!
November 3, 2025
This is the 4th book in a quartet and I've not read the previous ones. There are a lot of characters introduced in these pages and I did struggle to remember who's who (did we need all of them for the story to work?). The basic premise is that our heroine and her friends need to escort a noblewoman to her arranged marriage - this marriage will unite two warring factions and bring peace. Except that someone clearly doesn't want this peace and is busy trying to assassinate the noblewoman and all her companions. As this is a YA novel, the assassins clearly won't win (good always triumphs) so the interesting question is who's behind it all.
One point to note (sadly): since the author started this quartet, very recently published research shows that "ninja" is a fiction invented in the 1960s. As the author could not have had access to this research, their work cannot be faulted for this. It does mean, though, that this quartet now needs classifying as historical fantasy rather than historical fiction. See this article in Japanese Language and Literature journal published April 2025: https://jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/article/...
Despite this, I'm always pleased to read novels "set" in Japanese warring states period. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
One point to note (sadly): since the author started this quartet, very recently published research shows that "ninja" is a fiction invented in the 1960s. As the author could not have had access to this research, their work cannot be faulted for this. It does mean, though, that this quartet now needs classifying as historical fantasy rather than historical fiction. See this article in Japanese Language and Literature journal published April 2025: https://jll.pitt.edu/ojs/JLL/article/...
Despite this, I'm always pleased to read novels "set" in Japanese warring states period. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
December 11, 2025
I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC.
I do wish I had known this was part of a series when I requested it. I will say that there is a synopsis inside for each book to get you caught up with the series, which is definitely helpful. I also did find it easy to get into the story without the prior books partially because of that. There is also a lot of information included to give you a better look at the setting before you delve into this book. I also didn't necessarily dislike this book, but it wasn't for me. The characters are well written and there is a good story in this book. The writing style just wasn't for me, but I can see how it would appeal to younger readers.
I do wish I had known this was part of a series when I requested it. I will say that there is a synopsis inside for each book to get you caught up with the series, which is definitely helpful. I also did find it easy to get into the story without the prior books partially because of that. There is also a lot of information included to give you a better look at the setting before you delve into this book. I also didn't necessarily dislike this book, but it wasn't for me. The characters are well written and there is a good story in this book. The writing style just wasn't for me, but I can see how it would appeal to younger readers.
December 15, 2025
Thank you so much for NetGalley for the ARC!
I was not familiar that it was a series of books before I requested this, but it shares a synopsis inside with a lot of information, I felt there was so many characters and names it was hard to keep track. The writing style was very nicely written but this just didn’t catch me.
I was not familiar that it was a series of books before I requested this, but it shares a synopsis inside with a lot of information, I felt there was so many characters and names it was hard to keep track. The writing style was very nicely written but this just didn’t catch me.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews