Looking For a Good Book

Lily Wong, of Chinese and Norwegian ancestry, is a modern day ninja, having trained in a variety of martial arts. After her sister was raped and murdered, Lily dedicated herself to protecting women to the best of her ability. Whether fighting members of the Ukrainian mob or taking on sex traffickers, Lily has the skill to be successful. Her biggest challenge is in keeping her activities from her parents.

It’s hard for Lily to avoid her parents as she lives above the Chinese restaurant her Norwegian father owns, and Lily’s Chinese mom is already disappointed that her daughter is less than feminine, studying the martial arts. It’s hard to predict what they might think or do if they knew she’d recently been bound and was within minutes of being killed before fighting her way out (leaving a body behind).

But one of her biggest challenges comes after she recently escorted a woman and her son to a safe shelter only to have them return home to a dangerous situation. Suspecting that something isn’t right, Lily investigates which brings her to possibly teaming up with a stranger who may be even more dangerous than the people she’s investigating.

This was a unique, clever adventure mystery.

I really appreciated that our ninja here is a real person with real-life skills and training. Lily is not a superhero in the sense of comic book meta human. She IS a superhero in the sense of going above and beyond to help those in need. Our opening scene is quite a thrill ride and does give us the impression that Lily maybe has ultra-human abilities, but author Tori Eldridge does pull back on this shortly after Lily makes her escape. It’s a clever introduction to the character and a great way to hook the reader.

What works really well is the balance between Lily’s family life and her ninja life. We get time to meet and understand Lily and her family – including even her grandparents in the Midwest. Of course this is important because we need to know what drives her and what distracts her during her ‘working’ time.

The actual story/mystery here is good, though not great. It seems to be more a vehicle to get us acquainted with the characters than a strong story in itself. In particular, this really seems to build interest and conflict with the mysterious man with whom she must partner, but about whom we learn almost nothing (except that he’s not afraid to kill). I’d be very surprised if we don’t se much more of this individual in future volumes.

I really liked the character of Lily Wong. She’s strong but flawed – just how a good leading character should be, but her flaws are not all related to romance issues as is all too common in books. I’m definitely curious to read the next book in the series.

Looking for a good book? The Ninja Daughter, by Tori Eldridge, is the first book in a modern ninja series with a strong female leading character.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Ninja Daughter

author: Tori Eldridge

series: Lily Wong #1

publisher: Datura Books

ISBN: 97819155236933

paperback, 336 pages