Feudal Japan (even though this is something of a parallel universe) has so much to offer a book like this, but there is very little setting of scene. The book has the beginnings of something interesting, but doesn't deliver.

I kept waiting for the book to find it's stride, but it never did. Just don't understand the praise this book gets.Īfter seeing all the praise for this book, I was excited to listen to it. I suggest listening to the sample if you like that, you will like the book. The images, while painted with spare strokes, capture a feeling of a different time and place. I do not know if the names would be easier in print. The reading is excellent, but the Japanese names are a bit difficult. The story goes back and forth between these two characters. They meet and the rest well, I won't tell you. There is also the story of a young woman, held as a hostage to ensure cooperation between 'warlords'. The reasons behind all this, are developed in the story.

He is rescued by a lord when his village is destroyed. The story starts with the narrator's story. I listened to the sample and could think of nothing else until I downloaded it and, having just finished, I have just purchased the next book and am listening to the this one again! This book has just about everything epic story love (requited and not), honor, heroes, scoundrels magic and wars.

As he grows into manhood, he must decide where his loyalties lie: with his noble master and adoptive father with the Hidden, a secret, spiritual sect whose beliefs are forbidden or with the Tribe, the assassins and spies who consider him one of their own.Ī story of treachery, political intrigue, and the intensity of first love, set in a world ruled by formal ritual and codes of honor, Across the Nighingale Floor crosses genres, generations, and genders to captivate fans of all ages. Takeo discovers that he has rare powers that are useful to those around him. At the last moment, his life is saved by a nobleman, who claims the boy as his kin and begins his education.īut nothing is as it seems. Sixteen-year-old Takeo's village has been massacred by an evil warlord, and he is about to be slain by the men who murdered his parents and neighbors. The first volume in the highly anticipated Tales of the Otori trilogy. A tour-de-force novel set in ancient Japan filled with passion, fantasy, and feuding warlords.

Across the nightingale floor