Women of the Mountain, Warriors of the Town

by Akahige Namban

Warrior fanatics kidnap Satsuki, a sophisticated courtesan of 17th-century Japan. Saved by the erotic wiles of samurai, peasants, a sumo wrestler, and the beautiful blonde prisoner Rosamund - Satsuki... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 156201174X
• ISBN13: 9781562011741
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

"The Erotic Equivalent of Shogun" Hits The Road

This direct sequel to the OOP Shogun's Agents is the first to focus on a character other than those of the "quar-ple" formed in the first book: Goemon, whose real name is Konosuke Matsudaira, the governor of Miyako, Rosamund, his shipwrecked English prisoner/mistress, Jiro Miura, the giant half-English masterless samurai or ronin turned teacher of swordsmanship, and his wife Okiku, the ninja. Instead perhaps in an attempt to keep things fresh this novel focuses on Lady Gojo-no-Satsuki, widow of a traitorous nobleman whose plot to overthrow the shogunate she helped the "quar-ple" defeat in Shogun's Agents in return for their helping her to achieve her dream, which is to become a high class courtesean. Satsuki's carefully ordered existence is shattered when she is kidnapped not once but twice, first by the local pimp for refusing to join the union as it were, and second by the Yamabushi, a band of heavily armed religious fanatics who are apparently in the habit of requisitioning prostitutes to provide fun and profits during their religous pilgrimages. But they've never met ANYONE quite like Satsuki who gamely decides to try and teach these country bumpkins a more refined and sophisticated way of having sex. Meanwhile one of her servants carries the news to Jiro Miura who sets out after her and her captors, leaving word for his wife and friends to follow when they can. As they are preparing to do just that, Goemon receives another commission from the Shogun to "deal with" a Yamabushi leader who is now viewed as a threat. The separated characters have varied adventures along the way until they reunite for the wild climax. While the attempt to avoid repetitiveness by focusing on Satsuki is an instinct to be admired, the result is not. Once you get past your jaw-dropping reaction to her completely passive acceptance of her fate (even some of the Yamabushi are stunned), Satsuki quickly becomes a bore, a sexy bore, but a bore nevertheless, and seemingly a rather dimwitted one. Jiro's parallel adventures, in which he meets a travelling Sumo wrestler and encounters a couple of nasty loose ends left over from the previous books are far more interesting. Worse, because she exhibits no desire to escape and apparently feels herself to be in no danger the reader will experience no sense of urgency or concern over her fate until the climax at Nachi Falls. In a way this is the opposite of the problem with the previous book. In Shogun's Agents the plot of the villains is revealed too soon and the book seems to just mark time until our heroes make their moves at the end. Here the plot of the villains isn't revealed until near the very end, when it finally becomes clear just how much danger Satsuki is in. It is also revealed that she isn't quite the helpless dim bulb she has appeared to be throughout, but by that point the reader may be so tired of her as not to care. How bad do things get? So bad that a lot of the sex is just there to take up pages