Kitsune and the Night Heron — Josh Vanbrakle

Part girl. Part fox. All ninja. Thirteen-year-old Kitsune Odate is a bakemono, an animal shapeshifter born to human parents. Considered a demon, the only way she can live is to serve in the Imperial Ninja Corps, a secret police charged with fighting the Yatashin Empire's most dangerous criminals. Kitsune thought her first mission would be easy. Infiltrate Sendai Castle, find proof its lord is stealing Imperial gold, and escape. No one expected Inugami-demon dogs summoned to do their master's will-would ambush her. To prove her worth, Kitsune vows to hunt down the Inugami's summoner, even if it means disobeying orders and leaving the closest thing she's had to family since her father tried to kill her. Fortunately, she has help from her role model Sagi, a fifteen-year-old boy and ninja prodigy known as the legendary Night Heron. As Kitsune and Sagi pursue the summoner through haunted farms, mountain shrines, and lightless caverns, a bond slowly forms between them. But that bond may not last. When the pair finally confront their quarry, he will force everyone-including Kitsune and Sagi-to choose where their loyalties truly lie. [VanBrakle's] gift for creating complex female characters is all too uncommon in fantasy literature. - Kirkus Reviews