SENSHI

Rileigh, or Senshi as she was once known, is a sassy high school girl in love with her boyfriend, Kim. It just so happens that her relationship with Kim has spanned 500 years—Rileigh is a powerful, reincarnated samurai warrior.

What begins as a date with the love of Rileigh’s many lives suddenly turns into a booty-kicking battle against ninjas. Next, Rileigh’s samurai nemesis, Whitley, whom she left for dead in the last book, Katana (2012), starts lurking around. Moreover, her friends seem to be in the grip of sinister mind control as Rileigh finds herself having to fight off surprise ninja attacks at every turn. But the real tragedy is that Kim suddenly dumps her for his thought-to-be-dead betrothed from the 1400s. Riding the subplot of teen romance, the story’s forward motion occasionally gets bogged down by repetition. Most interesting are the infrequent flashback chapters of Senshi in Japan when she’s on the verge of becoming a 15th-century courtesan. Eventually, the mastermind behind the havoc is discovered, and Rileigh must join forces with friends she thought foes and foes she thought friends in order to destroy the villain and save her life and her love.

Never terribly fraught or demanding, but with a twisty plot and death-defying action, this romance delivers teen yearning with martial arts kicks.