Risuko by David Kudler

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 230 

Publisher: Stillpoint Digital Press 

Released: 15th of June 2016 

Can one girl win a war?

My name is Kano Murasaki, but most people call 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, my 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.

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.

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?

What I Have to Say 

This book could have been really good if it had been fine tuned a little more. I enjoyed parts of it, but the writing just felt slightly clumsy. But I liked the setting and the main character Risuko was smart and easy to like. Some of the other characters were good too. I liked all the scenes in the kitchen with the cook. 

I think part of it though was that there was this whole mystery as to what they were training for, but because I read a lot of books like this, I know what a Kunoichi is, so it wasn't really much of a surprise to me when they revealed what it was. 

The whole thing just wasn't written well. It could have way better than it was if more time had been put into polishing it.