Misaki accepted her family's decision to marry her to Takeru Matsuda, but now she is not happy in this constrained atmosphere, with her cold, deeply traditional husband. In her new life as a Matsuda, women are confined to traditional roles, and it's not acceptable for them to fight or have a say in any important decisions. Misaki's family sent her to study abroad, and she used to be a strong, confident young woman, with considerable fighting abilities of her own. The two point of view characters are Misaki Matsuda, wife of the second son of the Matsuda family, and her eldest son, 14-year-old Mamoru Matsuda. However, they are few, and the Kaigen empire is weak and decadent, while their traditional enemies have grown strong and have extremely powerful magical warriors of their own. The most powerful among them by far is the Matsuda family, so strong in their magic that they are described as having the blood of the gods in their veins. It is sparsely populated, but within its various mountain villages there are several families with strong water-based elemental powers, forming a warrior caste.

The Sword of Kaigen of the title is a small peninsula in the Kaigen Empire, which is part of the first line of defense against foreign invasions. Because of that, it's not all action and fights, there is also a lot of chapters devoted to character development. However, it's very character-focused, and its main strength is the ability to make readers care deeply about the characters. There are battles filled with spectacular displays of power and sword duels. It's high-fantasy, with most people having elemental magic of one kind or the other.

It's a standalone epic fantasy, inspired by Japanese culture. This is a self-published book but it's up to the highest professional standards. The thing is that I have just read this book (seriously, just 1$, it's an incredible bargain) and I love it, and I wanted to share. Using the search engine I see we have had several reviews of this book, but threads come and go quite fast, and they are easy to miss.

The sword of kaigen review