Across the Nightingale Floor

Takeo escapes death when his remote mountain village is slaughtered when he is taken in by Lord Otori Shigeru and made Shigeru's adopted son. The story is set in a world similar to, but not identical to, feudal Japan, and the story is awash in swords and vengeance and retribution and pacts and secrets. There's everything you'd want in a good story—mystery, intrigue, adventure, and romance. The sensory details of the world sweep the reader into the story so that you feel you can smell the perfume of the beautiful Lady Kaede Shirakawa and you can feel the heat of the blood as it is wiped from the sword.

A 1001 Children's Book You Must Read.

This is one of my favorite books related to the Samurai genre, up there with the movie Seven Samurai. The plot is well designed, the characters have good depths and personalities, there are wonderful interactions between them, some nail biting action sequences and suspense. It also has strong females which I suspect were not that common when it was written.

But most of all I'm drawn to the idea of a ‘nightingale' floor and had the good fortune to read this before actually experiencing a floor that made unique sounds as people moved about the floor. I'm not sure I would want to live in a house that did alot of groaning but I grew to love the sound of that floor and miss it and the community associated with it.

I really liked this book and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series. I felt connected to the characters, although I was not happy with the theme of suicide but that is or was a Japanese honor thing during the time period. I loved the fact that the author got some of Japan's artistic heritage in the book. He knew that those things are very important to catch the Japanese culture and ways of thinking. Because I speak Japanese and spent time there I loved that some of the places I was were included in the book. I know it is a good book when I want to go back and read about the time period in history and get more information about what actually happened.

A fun engrossing read with just enough fantasy to keep me wanting more secret ninja action.