Studying abroad in Japan, Isla Mackenzie decides she’ll look into her family history and attempt to find information on her third-great-grandfather. However, her plan to find information takes a turn she wasn’t expecting as she ends up in 1877, a couple of weeks before the Satsuma Rebellion, the end of the samurai.

“Gate to Kagoshima” by Poppy Kuroki is a 320-page historical fantasy novel with 24 chapters and an epilogue. It also has some interesting pieces at the end of the book, with a historical timeline and family tree, as well as a character list. The character list interestingly splits characters from fictional to real.

All of the chapters are split into three sections. The first is Memory, holding 11 of the chapters. Followed by War with 10 and finally Death with the remaining three.

The writing style is very smooth, and with a decent number of books being in first person recently, having a book in third person is quite refreshing. It’s split into two different points of view, one for Isla Mackenzie and the other for Keiichiro Maeda. Many of the words are spelt in British English, leaving a little bit of a learning curve when you first start reading, not to mention the little bits of Japanese. The end of the book does have a section that will translate what the Japanese words mean, but Kuroki does a good job at making sure the translations are also in the story.

At times, the story falls into a more relaxed pacing, going through a daily life with not much going on. However, it starts to pick up the pace as the characters are thrown into a war that will end most of them. While the war is going on, it feels like everything is happening at once, as you watch characters narrowly make it out of situations or just get blown to bits.

While this novel is mostly a historical fantasy story, it does dip its toes into the romance section. With a budding romance between the two main characters, Isla Mackenzie and Keiichiro Maeda.

I highly recommend this story, as someone who isn’t the biggest romance fan but adores historical fantasies. It’s an interesting journey through the final days of the samurai.