Book description
In the brave new Japan of the 1870s, Taka and Nobu meet as children
and fall in love; but their relationship will test the limits of society.
Unified after a bitter civil war, Japan is rapidly turning into a
modern country with rickshaws, railways and schools for girls.
Commoners can marry their children into any class, and the old hatred
between north and south is over - or so it seems.
Taka is from the powerful southern Satsuma clan which now dominates
the country, and her father, General Kitaoka, is a leader of the new
government. Nobu, however, is from the northern Aizu clan, massacred
by the Satsuma in the civil war. Defeated and reduced to poverty, his
family has sworn revenge on the Satsuma.
Taka and Nobu's love is unacceptable to both their families and must
be kept secret, but what they cannot foresee is how quickly the tables
will turn. Many southern samurai become disillusioned with the new
regime, which has deprived them of their swords, status and honour.
Taka's father abruptly leaves Tokyo and returns to the southern island
of Kyushu, where trouble is brewing.
When he and his clansmen rise in rebellion, the government sends its
newly-created army to put them down. Nobu and his brothers have joined
this army, and his brothers now see their chance of revenge on the
Satsuma. But Nobu will have to fight and maybe kill Taka's father and
brother, while Taka now has to make a terrible choice - between her
family and the man she loves ...
Lesley Downer's
mother was Chinese and her father a professor of Chinese, so she grew
up in a house full of books on Asia. But it was Japan, not China, that
proved the more alluring and it was there that she lived for over
fifteen years. She has written many books about the country and its
culture, including
Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World
, and
Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha who Seduced the West, and
has presented television programmes on Japan for Channel 4 and the BBC.
She now lives in London, but still makes sure she returns to Japan at
least once a year.
