I got an advance review copy of this, which I'm grateful for. In many ways, this time travel romance reminds me very much of Outlander, except with samurai instead of Scots. Isla gets transported back in time to nineteenth century Japan, during the time of the Satsuma Rebellion, when the samurai fight back against their own politically-imposed redundancy and are subsequently wiped out. Isla, aware of history and in love with the samurai Keiichirō, is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The romance is okay. It's overshadowed somewhat by the battles, which are themselves somewhat overshadowed by the fact that I'm not actually all that sympathetic to the samurai side of things in the first place. I can appreciate the individual characters, who are good and likeable people, but the sheer futility of the loss here makes it hard for me to support the side who thinks that's a good idea. The tragedy of it is both awful and effective, but I never find myself rooting for them, you know? And when Isla gets the chance to go home and doesn't take it, all I can think of is her poor parents, who have lost their child and will never know what happened to her. I'm not sure I could ever do that to my parents... and certainly not for the chance to die horribly in a useless war for a man she knows will be very shortly dead.