However, if you’re looking for a developed courtship narrative, you won’t find it in this book. That, plus the consistency of love-at-first-sight with the overall “medieval epic” vibe of the book, made the device work for me. In a book filled with fate, the author portrays the love-at-first-sight as simply another element of destiny. Of course, there is nothing normal about meeting a young man like Takeo, and he brings out in her the desire (and the desperation) to be something more than the expected well-behaved ornament. The author does a good job making me understand the passive, quiet Kaede – raised in her position in her society, it would be strange for her to be anything else. Consequently, decisions are not simple, and the author imbues all of them with consistent feudal values (how to be loyal to conflicting masters? how to find honor in dirty politics?)

Takeo is a young man with many conflicting loyalties and beliefs: Hidden pacifism versus aristocratic warrior honor versus secret Tribe traditions, for instance, and the desires of his teachers to see him keep his powers secret and in reserve against Takeo’s own desire to use them for Lord Shigeru or for Takeo’s own ends. I liked the main couple, Takeo and Kaede. To complicate matters, Takeo and a minor aristocrat named Kaede fall in lightning-bolt fated love, but Kaede has been sent to marry Lord Shigeru to secure an alliance. Shigeru has allies among the Tribe, but the Tribe also has its own agenda – namely, bringing Takeo home. He studies these skills with the goal of joining Lord Shigeru in his quest to avenge the defeat of Shigeru’s Otori clan at the hands of Iida’s clan many years in the past. In addition to his roots as one of the persecuted Hidden he seems to have powers of the Tribe, assassins with superior reflexes, preternatural hearing, and even the ability to project illusions of themselves. Will his new powers help him survive long enough to honor his new father and avenge his family? Will doing both, or either, require giving up his love-at-first-sight, Kaede?Īfter Lord Iida’s sword slice mysteriously left him untouched during the massacre of his pacifist Hidden community, Takeo – in the protective care of Lord Shigeru – begins to find new abilities. Takeo, orphaned by a murderous lord’s attack and adopted by that lord’s political rival, must find his feet in a new world of aristocratic luxury, political scheming, and smiling violence, all while developing strange new talents. What makes it fresh is the Japanese spin: not only is the setting inspired by feudal Japan, but the characters and their motivations (honor, loyalty, alliances, and so forth) are as well. Across the Nightingale Floor starts with classic fantasy tropes: a young man thrust from a sheltered existence discovering new powers a young woman made a drudge who falls in love with the prince.

Across the nightingale floor book 2