**Kill Bill meets Buffy in this supernatural samurai tale **
Rileigh Martin would love to believe that adrenaline gave her the uncanny courage and strength to fend off three muggers. But it doesn't explain her dreams of fifteenth century Japan, the incredible fighting skills she suddenly possesses, or the strange voice giving her battle tips and danger warnings. While worrying that she's going crazy (always a reputation ruiner), Rileigh gets a visit from Kim, a handsome martial arts instructor, who tells Rileigh she's harboring the spirit of a five-hundred-year-old samurai warrior.
Relentlessly attacked by ninjas, Rileigh has no choice but to master the katana--a deadly Japanese sword that's also the key to her past. As the spirit grows stronger and her feelings for Kim intensify, Rileigh is torn between continuing as the girl she's always been and embracing the warrior inside her.
From Booklist
Rileigh Martin is a skater girl, not a fighter, but when she is attacked by three men, a strange voice in her head tells her what to do, and she takes them all down. She begins to have dreams about Kim, a mysterious martial-arts expert, who explains that Rileigh is a samurai warrior—his soulmate, Senshi, reincarnated—and that she is awakening due to grave danger. Rileigh doesn’t believe any of this, but several more close calls lead to reluctant belief. Gibsen’s debut is plot driven with fairly well-developed secondary characters, although Rileigh’s best friend Quentin’s immediate acceptance of her awakening feels somewhat contrived. The novel flirts with the damsel in distress cliché, but Rileigh harnesses her power and becomes the hero of her own story. Torn between an eerily familiar past and an unknown future, her journey toward transcendence in contemporary St. Louis alternates with Senshi’s story in fifteenth-century Japan, making for an action-packed page-turner tempered with slow-burning romance. Grades 7-10. --Charli Osborne
Review
"This action-packed novel has a unique and compelling plot...Fans of Carrie Asai's Samurai Girl series will be particularly interested, but even readers who dislike supernatural story lines will enjoy this tale of modern samurais." - School Library Journal
"An action packed page-turner tempered with slow-burning romance." - Booklist
"Starts with a bang and never lets up. Prepare yourself for a smart, sassy heroine, and seriously swoony romance...with a little butt-kicking thrown in for good measure. A cracking debut." - Antony John, author of the 2011 Schneider Family Book award-winning Five Flavors of Dumb