For me the main character was too unbelievable for my taste and the whole conspiracy was a little much. I wasn't expecting such fantasy so that's on me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read and review.

This is the second book featuring Lily Wong, ninja vigilante. Once again we see Lily backed into dangerous situations in order to help others. The story was good and kept me on the edge of my seat. If you like the Ava Lee series you will enjoy this one as well.

There were some editing issues that drove me crazy though - misused words, a gang name was switched around multiple times, and there was one glaring oversight which really shouldn't have happened.

This book includes topics of sex trafficking, PTSD, and family relationships through many points of view. The author portrayed how the young and vulnerable are deluded into the sex for money world; the resulting trauma is presented with realism tempered with love and humor. The narrator brings this story to life putting the reader in Lily’s mind seeing the events unfold. This fast paced thriller keeps you on edge of your seat but makes you pause to think.

Eldridge the young in the sex for money trade with its resulting trauma with great realism through eyes of love. The author puts the reader in Lily’s mind seeing the events. This thriller will keep you on edge of your seat while leaving you with food for thought.

I really do love this series! The heroine is strong and independent, but also human and relatable. I cannot wait for the next one!

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the second in a series, but I didn't feel I had to read the first. It is a new entry in the damaged female mystery/thriller protagonist which I and so many others enjoy. I really liked Lily, but she is very intense, very serious. I felt the first half of the book could've done with some editing work, I'm pretty sure I skimmed quite a bit, but once this novel gets moving, it moves quick!

Lily is very good at what she does, which is kicking arse and finding missing kids, but she's not so good at dealing with her family, who seem to have little to no idea who she really is. Isn't that always the way?

Eminently readable, I want to seek out the first and continue with the next. Lily kicks arse!

#theninjasblade #lilywong #netgalley

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book. This is such a great sequel to the first book The Ninja Daughter. The Ninja Blade did not disappoint the action scene had me at the edge of my seat and love how this book explored with sex trafficking, which is an important topic and issues that is face here in America as well as all over the world. Really like Lily Wong but wish there was more romantic scenes with David. Hope there will be another book in the series.

Thank you @booksforwardpr for a copy of The Ninja’s Blade by Tori Eldridge. The second in the Lily Wong thriller series is available today.

Content warnings for sexual abuse, kidnapping, drug use, grooming, violence and sex trafficking.

The Ninja’s Blade opens starts with main character Lily Wong seeing an unlikely pair of young adults talking, two girls who would never be friends. One leads the other to a car driven by a handsome older man and they leave together. This coupled by the fact that Lily was recently hired to find a runaway, leads her to the world of sex trafficking.
The Ninja’s Blade is the second in a series but I haven’t read the first and I managed to follow along. It did seem like the events of the first book had a significant effect on Lily in this book though, so I did feel like I missed out on some character development because of that. Lily is a badass woman though, working as an investigator for a women’s shelter and using her fighting skills to help while trying to impress her parents and maybe start dating.

Lily Wong is a lot of things: half-Hong Kong Chinese, half North Dakota Norwegian, and full ninja. She works with a women’s shelter to extract women from dangerous situations. In The Ninja’s Blade, Lily is trying to break up a child sex trafficking ring in her own Los Angeles backyard.

Lily is also suffering from PTSD from her adventures in the last book. She refuses to accept help. After all, ninjas don’t do therapy.

She is also trying to stop her mother from marrying her off to “Mister Perfect Chinese Son”, Daniel Kwok. That job gets even more impossible once her mother’s parents arrive from Hong Kong. Her grandfather, Gung-Gung, had failed to have sons. His daughter, Lily’s mom, has also failed in his mission. Only Lily could provide him with the male heir he so deeply craves. But first, she must be married, of course. And Daniel is Perfect, after all.

The Ninja’s Blade is the ideal choice for action movie fans! It has fights, clear evil villains, and a kick-a$$ heroine. It is also very cinematic. I could see each scene perfectly choreographed in my mind’s eye throughout the plot. It helps that I lived in Los Angeles for the first thirty years of my life. Just a fun, feminist, culturally diverse read with a real-life ninja. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars! Don’t miss it!

Thanks to Agora Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Lily Wong is the type of character that I like to read about. She's strong but also human. In this edge of your seat story follow Lily as she fights to help young girls. Oh and her personal life is a mess too. Don't pass up this amazing book. A must read. Happy reading!

An engrossing and emotional story. Getting a front row seat for Lily’s struggle to handle what happened in book one and continue to do the kind of work she does was powerful. I can’t wait for the next book!

A highly entertaining and gripping story. Sometimes I had to suspend my belief but I thoroughly enjoyed it
Interesting world building, fleshed out characters and a solid plot that kept me hooked.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

A Chinese- Norwegian ninja? That's right, and that's what Lily is. She's righting wrongs and fighting for the freedom of trafficked young women in this fast paced and entertaining novel. Lily's got some personal issues - including possible PTSD but more important here- how to deal with her grand parents, I don't know how to describe this. It sometimes stretches credulity but it is entertaining. I missed the first book but this was fine as a standalone. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A different sort of heroine.

L.A. ninja Lily Wong is still troubled by her harrowing experiences from her first case detailed in The Ninja's Daughter. Lily agrees to help her friends at Aleisha's Refuge, a haven for abused women, to find Emma Hughes. The teen was abducted by gunpoint at her Bel Air home while visiting her parents. In searching for Emma and her trafficker Manolo in the Long Beach Blade area, Lily uncovers another juvenile sex-trafficking ring and vows to free the girls. But Lily also becomes the target of the surviving members of Varrio Norwalk 66, the street gang she encountered in her first case.

Meanwhile, Lily's parents are stressed about the upcoming visit of her Hong Kong grandparents and preparations for her mother's 50th birthday party. A potential love interest with businessman Daniel Kwok also keeps Lily's emotions on edge.

All these plotlines intertwine and come together in a thrilling conclusion.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and Polis Books with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exhange for an honest review.
The Ninja's Blade is the 2nd book in the Lily Wong series and I was lucky enough to have read the 1st book in the series, The Ninja Daughter.
I actually enjoyed this book a little more than The Ninja Daughter because of the subject matter.
This book has romance, a little mystery, lots of action and great characters.
I hope that Tori Eldridge decides to write another book in this series because I would definitely read it.

This is one of my favorite series of books. I loved how the main character is so nuanced: strong and independent but also probably suffering from PTSD. The novel reveals the horrors of child trafficking without ever being preachy. Instead, the author lets the characters’ and their traumas speak for themselves. I also liked how the novel focuses on Lily’s personal life, including her grandparents’ strained relationship with her mom as well as her budding romance with Daniel. I can’t wait for the next installment in this chapter to see Lily’s new mission.

This is my first exposure to this author and indeed it didn’t disappoint. Her main characters are well-flashed out, the plot timely to the point that is almost viewing a live news story about the ongoing commercial sexual exploitation crisis on the 6 o’clock news. It is a sobering look at the many ways our children are vulnerable.

This book is a fast-paced gritty tale which focuses on the true faces of the victims and those who care about them come to life. This gripping nightmare is real and ongoing and while told as fiction, is like looking through a mirror and seeing both the worst and best of mankind.

Thank you to NetGalley and Polis Books who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What is this about?

Lily is asked to find a missing girl, one that was taken right in front of Stan when he took her back home. It’s nothing new for Lily, but given the events of the The Ninja’s Daughter, only just recently happened in this book, Lily is rattled. Aleisha, Stan’s wife and co-owner of Aleisha’s refuge says it’s PTSD. While she is battling Aleisha’s concern on one front, on another things are slightly changing at home – her demanding grandparents have come to visit, for the mother’s 50th birthday, but it soon becomes clear that things are changing in her grandfather’s company, and that her mother’s expectation of some day running the company might actually not happen. Family politics is one thing, and funnily enough, Daniel, the guy she surprisingly finds herself liking, surrounded by the chaos of her family, is the calm in the centre of her storm.

What else is this about?

Readers are introduced to the complexities of Lily’s family, of her mother marrying a Norweigan and staying in America, and as such never quite being enough for her grandparents. However, there’s something else brewing, and while we don’t know what exactly, this book ends with the promise of things changing in her family.


The Ninja’s Blade opens a few weeks after The Ninja Daughter and the events there.

Lily is out of balance, she knows it but she won't acknowledge what Aleisha and Stan are urging her to see – that she has PTSD. Instead, she focuses on her work, on helping the women in Aleisha’s Refuge. But, when Emma disappears from in front of Stan, who for his trouble gets a gun stuck in his face, Lily can’t ignore their request for help to find Emma. And that takes her into a sex trafficking ring...

Right when her grandparents come to visit

I had high hopes of something fun, lighter for Lily when I read her grandparents were coming to visit, but that was not what I got. Instead, her grandparents are fiercely traditional, and critical of her mother and her choices (and by that I mean her husband and Lily’s father who is Norweigan). I suspect the tension between her mother and her grandparents might’ve spilled into the relationship between Lily and her mother, who expects her to go to college and do everything she should be doing. Only Lily decidedly isn’t.

While the family dynamic wasn’t what I expected, it still proved interesting in the way things began to shift – Lily’s mother is running her family’s business in LA, while the company is based in Hong Kong, and there are enough hints that something has changed for grandparents to do with the company, something that is making Lily’s mother very worried. However, as much as I liked how this changed things between Lily and her mother, I wanted more. Lily is very separate to the goings on in her family and only peripherally interested in it as an observer if nothing else. I want to see more of this affects her.

Another interesting part of this, is Daniel – the very normal guy her mother wants her to date, and her grandparents might be possibly marrying her off to in their heads. Thing is, to her surprise, she finds she likes Daniel, and that is something I did not see coming because he doesn’t fit in her life at all. But, I hope that means we’ll see her try to fit him in her life.

The case

Lily infiltrates a sex trafficking ring, playing the part of a prostitute looking for a pimp. It’s dangerous, it’s bloody but she’s driven to find Emma. Along the way, she finds other girls caught up in the same ring, and begins a working relationship with a cop, which should prove interesting if it continues to be part of her story.

Lily is definitely rattled in this boo, haunted by the memories of her actions in the first book, and it makes her fallible, interesting and filled with shades of grey too.

The pacing is ridiculously good in this book, and the action even more ridiculously good – I found myself at the end of the book and wondered how on earth I got there!

This section on the plot is light on detail because the gloriousness of Lily in action, manipulating the people around her to get to Emma needs to be experienced - this is a fast-paced addition to this series, that manages to balance the case and Lily's own characterisation and changes as  Eldridge continues to open Lily up, letting readers know parts of her they wouldn’t expect.

I did want more of her interactions with her family, or have her more included in it, but I’m willing to see where that goes in the next book – and really, it’s a minor something I wanted in an otherwise excellent book.

Like the first book, this is very well written, has great characters, and is very easy to read with a clear timeline and POV. There's some action, but I think it's too much "social" content for a second book, and some of the main character's actions are rather stupid.

The new Lily Wong book is another excited, fast-paced and well-written adventure. The Ninja’s Blade picks up just after the events in the first Wong book, The Ninja’s Daughter so I’d advise reading that one first. Both books are like excellent martial arts/action movies with Wong kicking butt and righting wrongs. She takes on the child sex trade here and you are not only entertained but learn something about these despicable gangs operate. Eldridge is not only a keen writer but her martial arts background means Wong’s skills and fights are not too far removed from reality. In Wong, she has created a memorable, capable and complex character. This series is begging to become a Netflix or Amazon Prime series as Wong and her extended family are people with which you’d love to spend time. Don’t miss this series especially with the news that Eldridge is writing a third novel. I can’t wait to read further adventures of Lily Wong.