Shadows on the Moon

By: Zoe Marriott
Location: FIC MAR
Genre: Cinderella re-tell -Japanese Style
Series: The Moonlit Lands#1

“Better naked and alive than decent and dead, I thought.”

Family, revenge, power, beauty, magic.

Shadows on the Moon is a lovely retelling of Cinderella set in a magical version of feudal Japan. The Cinderella of this story, Suzume, witnesses the murder of her beloved father and cousin and barely avoids death herself. The traumatic event shatters Suzume and she compartmentalizes the broken pieces to survive.

On my fourteenth birthday when the sakura was in full bloom, the men came to kill us. We saw them come, Aimi and me. We were excited, because we did not know how to be frightened. We had never seen soldiers before.
Suzume is a shadow-weaver. She can create mantles of darkness and light, walk unseen in the middle of the day, change her face. She can be anyone she wants to be. Except herself.

Suzume died officially the day the Prince's men accused her father of treason. Now even she is no longer sure of her true identity.

Is she the girl of noble birth living under the tyranny of her mother’s new husband, Lord Terayama? A lowly drudge scraping a living in the ashes of Terayama’s kitchens? Or Yue, the most beautiful courtesan in the Moonlit Lands?

Everyone knows Yue is destined to capture the heart of a prince. Only she knows that she is determined to use his power to destroy Terayama.

And nothing will stop her. Not even love