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In Mulan’s family, every generation must fight a certain duel. She’s trained all her life for it. If she prevails, she can reunite a pair of priceless heirloom swords and avenge her father, who was paralyzed in his own duel. But when a messenger from the Emperor arrives, demanding that all families send one soldier to fight the Rouran invaders in the north, all plans for a duel must be set aside. Mulan’s father cannot go to war, and her brother is just a child. So Mulan ties up her hair, takes up her sword, and joins the army disguised as a man.
Thanks to her martial arts skills, Mulan is chosen for an elite team under the command of the princeling — the royal duke’s son. Keeping her identity a secret among an army of men is harder than Mulan thought. The princeling has secrets of his own too — ones that cause Mulan to question things she’d been raised to believe. As they cross the Great Wall to face the enemy, Mulan and the princeling must find a way to unwind their past, unmask a traitor, and uncover the enemy’s plans before their homeland can be overrun by bloodthirsty invaders.
Mulan retellings are hard to come by. The Magnolia Sword, however, pulls together inspiration from the original Ballad of Mulan as well as wuxia martial-arts dramas, and introduces readers to a time period in Chinese history where the Northern and Southern dynasties were ruled by political turmoil. While it could be a little off-putting reading a rather modern, first-person account of something set in 484 AD, this was a time period in a culture I new absolutely nothing about, and I loved how those details added a sense of realism to the story.
One thing I appreciated most, though, is how Mulan’s fear is portrayed. Mulan is honorable and a trained warrior who doesn’t think twice about enlisting to save her family, but she also desperately wants to return home to them. At times, it’s all she can think about. But as she quickly learns, fancy fighting won’t save you amid the chaos of the battlefield, and the terror she faces after her first serious fight is raw and driving.
Overall, The Magnolia Sword is a straightforward, simplistic read with a nice slow-burn romance.
Rated: Mild. There are three uses of mild language. Sexual content includes brief references to a pleasure house and jokes about same-sex attraction. Characters kiss. Violence includes a few fighting and battles scenes featuring some blood and death.
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