In a world where you either follow the God of Light or the Goddess of Darkness, 15 year-old Saya was raised to love the Light. And when she is chosen as a handmaiden for the Prince of Light, there is no higher honor. But Saya soon becomes dissatisfied with life at the Palace of Light. And she finds out why. Saya is really the Water Maiden, the Princess of Darkness. Though Saya loves the Light, Darkness is where she belongs and soon she finds both sides are at war with each other. But she, along

More of a 4.5 than 4 stars really. My thoughts on this one are hard to accurately put into words. It's a very good book, unique, but with a familiar feel. It had me reading large portions of this book at a time, but when I put it down I had trouble picking it up again. I wasn't able to read this book while listening to music or while very tired. It's not necessarily hard to read however. It simply demands a lot of attention. The writer is definitely skilled and I feel like the translator did a g...

It took me a while to get into this book, but it wasn't the story's fault, I think it was the translation. It felt very cold and didn't draw me into the amazing story that was unfolding right underneath the completely passionless words. But once I got used to that, the story was incredible. While reading it I kept wondering if it was based on actual Japanese mythology. It had a real pagan, Greek or Celtic kind of saga feel to it, but Japanese instead. The afterword told me this was exactly what

Dragon Sword and Wind Child is a translation of a Japanese fantasy novel that draws on Japanese mythology and Western fantasy tradition.The forces of the God of Light and the Goddess of Darkness have been at war for generations. For Saya, an orphaned teenage girl living among the people of Light, the war exists somewhere in the background… until she finds out that she is the Water Maiden, a reincarnation of the priestess of the Goddess of Dark. As the Water Maiden, Saya is the only one who can t...

Noriko Ogiwara grew up reading Western Fantasy books such as Narnia. While she loved those, she also kept dreaming of a fantasy set in Asia. In the end, she simply went ahead and wrote one herself. Dragon Sword and Wind Child is the first book in her Magatama-series, but it is also a stand-alone novel that can be read on its own.Saya, a slightly tomboyish girl from a tiny village, would be living a perfectly normal life, if it weren't for the intense nightmares that keep reminding her of her dar...

This was a different book than I expected. It has more similarities to the current fashion for YA romantic adventure fantasy ( the female main character getting a boyfriend who is a vampire/werewolf/angel/demon/dragon/god/whatevertheywillthinkofnext) in a very different tone (mythologic) and setting, a prehistoric type of fantasy Japan. I head this compared to The Lord of the Rings, or Narnia, or many other things, but I would only compare it to one of the longish chapters in the Silmarillion, b...

This is a gorgeous story, but not without flaws.Saya is our protagonist, an "ordinary" teenage girl who learns that she is the one destined to have the power to awaken and still the Dragon Sword, the only weapon that can end the war that is raging between the Light and Dark. I know, sounds a bit too familiar, a bit generic right? Still, I found myself quickly pulled in by the beautiful atmosphere of the story.I was instantly intrigued by the story's concept of Light and Dark. One side is led by

One of the best Japanese Creation Myths retelling I've ever read in my life, and it's a YA. People, read up!What I remember about the story: we follows the heroine Saya, a daughter of the clan of Darkness, who is also a reincarnation of a series of Water Maidens before her. She is summoned to the Capital to serve the Moon God, son of the God of Light. Saya falls for the handsome, kind Moon God almost instantly. However, soon Saya finds herself caught between the conflict between the Moon God and...

This was a rare impulse buy for me since I'd never heard of this book until I came across it at the bookstore. I was very glad I read it. It's a translation of a Japanese fantasy book written in the tradition of the common British and American fantasies based on Celtic mythology, only using Japanese mythology from the Kojiki as the basis for the story. I loved the fantasy elements and am definitely planning to pick up the second book in the Tales of the Magatama, which has also been translated i...

Check out my book blog for more book reviews and other bookish posts!I’m so happy that I read Dragon Sword and Wind Child and would never have done so if it hadn’t been for Asian Lit Bingo. The prompt was to find a book that had been translated into English, and I decided that I wanted to read a fantasy book. Dragon Sword and Wind Child is a Japanese-mythology inspired fantasy story that had been written in Japanese. One of my favourite fantasy book themes are dark vs. light, so this immediately...

Dragon Sword and Wind Child is the story of Saya, a young girl who lives in very ancient Japan, where the kami of Light and his immortal children have imprisoned all of the gods of the earth. The prince and princess of Light have waged a very long war against the people of Darkness (i.e., all the mortals and their gods) so that their father, the God of Light, will return. Meanwhile, Saya thinks she's just a normal peasant girl, but it turns out she's the reincarnation of the Princess of Darkness...

Honestly I really disliked this book. Because of two main reasons: 1. The way young women (but mostly those deemed 'lesser') are treated and 2. the inconsistency in the writing. Supposedly Saya is the heroine of this story. You'd never know it, though, as to how the plot drags her from place to place, how men demand her attention, time, affection, undying gratitude for existing, etc. and how terribly she has been raised. Perhaps this is all very realistic for Japan, or China, or other East Asian...