Emi has been the chosen of her goddess, Amaterasu, since she was eight. Upon the solstice of Emi's eighteenth year, Amaterasu will descend from the heavens and join with Emi's body, allowing Amaterasu to walk on earth again. But not everyone is happy with the idea of allowing a goddess to walk again and they'll do everything to prevent it.

I really enjoyed this. The world building was interesting and I liked Emi a lot. The plot was well paced and kept me intrigued and I liked the other characters. I loved Shiro and mostly liked Yumei. Shiro reminded me of Ash from Julie Kagawa's The Iron Fey. Very standoffish at times and hard to get a read on.

The romance between Shiro and Emi was good - lots of flirting and fluttery feelings. But it didn't overwhelm the plot - Emi was still focused on her duty and the problems at hand. I can't wait to read the next books.

A strong start to a new fantasy romance series. 4 stars. ( )

3.5 Stars ( )

*Rating 4.5 stars*
When I saw Red Winter available for review I signed up for it right away, because Japanese Mythology and diverse characters (yay for diversity)! I haven’t read Annette Marie’s previous novels, but I’m a huge fan of fantasy/mythology so I had to give this one a try. I have only come across a couple Asian Mythology based books so I was really excited to read Red Winter. I can happily say that it lived up to my expectations, despite a few bumps in the road in the beginning! Also, there’s artwork that goes along with the story and it’s gorgeous! I love it when books feature drawings in them. I wish it had more!

Plot: I don’t want to recap too much on the plot because I don’t want to spoil anything, but essentially Red Winter focuses on Emi, a kamigakari, or a human who hosts a godly spirit in her body. As expected of a Japanese mythology novel, there are a lot of Japanese terms featured. It was a little bit confusing and overwhelming in the beginning as everything was introduced to the reader all at once, but after about ¼ of the way through I got used to the flow of everything and became completely engrossed.
Admittedly, the plot isn’t the most original I’ve read. It follows the typical outline where the heroine believes being a host (or something of the sort) is wonderful, then they find out the truth, try to escape, and usually have some sort of deadline they’re fighting against. However, the Japanese mythology aspects added some novelty and kept the plot moving. The plot turned a lot more interesting once Emi banded together with Shiro and Yumei.

Characters: The characters were my favorite thing about Red Winter. The only thing I wished for was more character development, especially for Shiro and Yumei. They have such intriguing and mysterious backgrounds that weren’t delved into very much. However, they were mentioned in a way that set it up as a good foundation for the sequel, so I really hope we’ll get to know more about them. Emi does have some character growth, but she did have moments where she returned back to being a bit sheltered and biased.
My favorite characters were hands down Shiro and Yumei. I like how the reader was able to see the different sides of Shiro who was often snarky but also revealed his more emotional side. The hints about his past made me want to know more about him. Similarly, Yumei is also a very mysterious character. Not too much is said about his past, but there’s definitely a lot more to him so I hope there are more reveals about his character in the next book. I feel like both their characters have a large potential for development. Also, I loved the different creatures the Yokai could transform into.
The minor characters were simply that, minor characters. They were pretty cardboard cut-out to be honest, but they didn’t have much of a role in the plot overall so I wasn’t particularly bothered by their two-dimensionalism.

Romance: I don’t have much to say about the romance except for that I enjoyed it! Honestly, probably because I loved Shiro. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just leave at it was a cute romance. I’m pretty sure it gave me feels at one point. LOL

Overall, Red Winter was a really good mythology novel. Despite the slightly predictable beginning, the plot was definitely engrossing. I highly recommend this novel to any other fantasy and mythology lovers! I already can’t wait for the next novel! ( )

Summary: This is a story about a Kamigakari of the wind goddess Ameterasu, her name is Emi. She has spent all her life preparing for the solstice, where Ameterasu will descend and Emi and her will share both body and mind. Traveling to the small shrine of Shirayuri, after a yokai (demons or spirits) attacked her and killed her best friend. There she met her old childhood friend Katsuo, defending her as a Sohei. (a warrior priest) She stays a few days only originally going to stay at the shrine for 4 months until the solstice. Katsuo once took her to the storehouse where Emi found a book about Kamigakari. In this book it said that instead of the kami(god) and the Kamigakari sharing a mind and body, the kami would take over the body, killing the kamigakari's mind. Emi scared and having wasted her life on preparing took off in a rebellious spur, going out into the stables and sitting on a horse, who darted out of the shrine grounds. She fell and after searching the forest encountered an oni (roughly an ogre) and in trying to save herself a kitsune(a fox yokai) saved her life. After that, she teamed up with the kitsune who was named Shiro. She wanted to find out the truth about Kamigakari so they went out with another companion, Yumei a tengu (a raven yokai) finding out the truth might not be the truth they wanted and Emi almost falling to another goddess, Izanami, (the goddess of earth and sometimes referred to as the goddess of the underworld). Leaving the books ending with her stuck in Tsuchi(a spiritual plane) recovering from her wounds from fighting Izanami, who was sent down the earth. Note: Izanami is not gone her Kamigakari who she was inhabiting from the heavens fell through the earth.

Opinion: Well I have to say this pleasantly surprised me! Seeing as it's a book about Asian mythology written by a Canadian, it's very fleshed out and as far as I know, the mythology is correct. This book, though slow to start, was very good! The main character, Emi, is a likable and Shiro, though annoying sometimes, is also very likable. The details are rich and the story is very compelling. The author writes fight scenes very well, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the fight scenes. The only reason I rated it 4 and 1/2 stars is mostly because I already knew from finishing the book that to write the summary would be very difficult. The first 3rd of the book is a lot of mythology which you would honestly need to read the book to know and understand easily. I really enjoyed this book and finished it in a day, I would definitely recommend it for people who like fantasy and a smidge of supernatural romance. ( )

This one took a long time to get started for me. I thought there would be more action but the story stays pretty tame until the halfway mark. It's also pretty linear in its plot for the majority of the novel, not a lot happens. But it does pick up by the end. I think I might have enjoyed this more if I read the book instead of the audio. The audio version is great, don't get me wrong. But I'm a very visual learner and my Japanese is a little rusty so a lot of words sounded the same; so I got a lot of the terminology mixed up. I think if I saw the words I would have a better time understanding them.
I'm on the fence about reading the sequel. I'm going to read the sequel synopsis and see how I feel. ( )