Wena Poon

Amanda & the Shinsengumi Wena Poon

What if the last samurai was a woman? 1868. In the East, a tired band of samurai called the Shinsengumi are about to be wiped out by imported French rifles, bringing an end to 268 years of Shogunate rule. In the West, typewriters, telegrams, and universities for women have just been invented. Amanda Irving, partner in a Boston shipbuilding firm, has overseen the construction of America's most advanced ironclad warship. Construction took so long that the American Civil War ended before it could be deployed. She receives an unexpected offer for the ship from the Japanese. From post-Civil War Massachusetts to the snowy battlefields of Hokkaido, Amanda & the Shinsengumi tells the surprising, cross-cultural story of men and women in a global culture not very different from ours today. Not a true story.