The Sword of Kaigen

This had a slow start for me, although I was intrigued and then picked up a third of the way through. I was also personally frustrated with the main character's gender role and relationship with her husband, because it felt so antithetical to how she started and how I think a smart, progressive woman would act. I give the author due credit for this, because there is so much nuance as to why she is behaving this way and it makes sense for the scenario, but I wanted to scream at some points.

The magic was really interesting and I think intuitively made sense so it was easy to pick up and the world isn't so different from ours that you struggle to understand what is going on. There is a fair amount of politics on the edges of everything happening that lends a lot of realism to the book and the scenarios in it.

The fight scenes and battles were excellent and the author pulls no punches in them (pardon the pun).

My biggest issue was how quickly a certain character changed their behavior; it felt so jarring, but eventually the change is further explored and explained which made that change make more sense.

Highly recommend.