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The Beast Player by Nahoko Uehashi (Author), Cathy Hirano (Translator).
Translated from Japanese (all through the book I thought it had been translated from Chinese), apparently this story is based on an anime. The Beast Player contained the first two books of the series.
The beginning of the story was wonderful and I just couldn't put the book down. Set in what was basically ancient China with two mythical animals added, the main character's (Elin's) mother was a trainer of Toda (giant snake-like "Chinese" dragons I think, they were never described). The mother was wrongfully killed by her society, and her last act before death was to put Elin onto the back of a Toda so she'd be carried to safety.
Some days later, near death, the Toda drops the 10 year old Elin off on a foreign shore. There a "hermit" beekeeper found her and took her in. He raised her like a daughter, taught her all about life and bees and so much. I really loved this part of the story best. Slow and descriptive, and I really liked their relationship.
A few years later, the beekeeper needed to return to life in a city, and he knew Elin would just never fit in there (girls are usually sold into marriage and kept barefoot, pregnant, and silent). Because Elin was so smart and skilled with animals, he decided to get her into a school for "Royal Beast doctors". While (again) the Royal Beasts were never described, I pictured them like gryphons. After I finished the book, I googled, found the anime, and saw they're basically giant winged wolves.
At the school, Elin raises a Beast cub with kindness instead of the state-approved rules that train the "doctors" to abuse the animals and keep them drugged their whole lives. Because she treated it with kindness, she and the Beast bonded. This part of the story was really good, too.
Unfortunately the two-thirds of the book after that wasn't enjoyable at all to me, and I only skimmed the last 10%. Instead of focusing on Elin or the Beasts, POV chapters kept switching through other characters and the plot turned to politics and potential war between the two nations.
