Across the Nightingale Floor: Episode 2

Lian Hearn

ISBN 0733620566 (978-073-362056-0)
RRP $9.95 July 2007
Hachette Australia Paperback 153x107

Every so often a novel appears wholly unlike anything that has appeared before. Across the Nightingale Floor is such a novel. The first book in The Otori Trilogy, it is a brilliantly imagined, seductive tale of war and intrigue, the intensity of first love, and the tragedy of betrayal. Set in an imaginary, ancient Japanese society, it is the story of Takeo, a young man born to a spiritual people known as the Hidden. Unbeknownst to him, his father was a celebrated assassin and a member of the Tribe, an ancient network of families with extraordinary, preternatural skills. When his village is pillaged, Takeo is rescued and adopted by the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru. Under his tutelage, Takeo learns that he too possesses the skills of the Tribe, and with this knowledge he embarks on a journey that will lead him across the nightingale floor and to his destiny within the walls of the black-walled fortress at Inuyama. Overcome by the intensity of first love and conflicted by split loyalties and his own divided nature, Takeo realises that he must make his own way on this journey of revenge and treachery, honour and loyalty, betrayal and love.

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