Customer Reviews

Across The Nightingale Floor, Episode 2: Journey To Inuyama (Tales of the Otori, Book 2)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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I found this book to be very captivating. I read through it very, very quickly. In fact, I just didn't want to put it down for a moment. Fortunately for me I have the next one and am only lacking one of the set, which I have ordered already.

The structure of the book concerning the clans and the tribes is laid out very well. I would recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy and enjoys books that include things like battles, swords, and Lords.

Purchased this for a young man who enjoyed the series of books on the Otori. He loved it, said it was well written.

Plot Summary: Picking up immediately after the events in Across the Nightingale Floor, Episode 1: The Sword of the Warrior (Tales of the Otori), Takeo is honing his super-stealth skills with the goal of helping his adoptive father, Lord Otori Shigeru, assassinate his enemy, Lord Iida. Meanwhile, Shigeru has agreed to marry fifteen-year-old Lady Kaede Shirakawa in order to gain access to Lord Iida's stronghold, but he is secretly in love with Lady Maruyama. Takeo and Kaede also feel an attraction that is equally strong and impossible. To kill Ida, Takeo must cross the famed Nightingale floor, constructed so that the slightest pressure causes it to sing out like a bird.

This installment was sleepy at the start, but it turned into a nerve-wracking blood bath at the end. Some very real tragedies are visited on our hero and heroine, Takeo and Kaede, but in a way, they were inevitable. I took it all in with a stoic attitude because I knew that this is the book where the kids become adults. It's like in Star Wars where Ben and Yoda must die before Luke becomes a full Jedi. Well, it's the same kind of destiny story here too.

I have to say that I'm really digging this pseudo-Japanese fantasy world that Lian Hearn has built. It's even more impressive considering that she's an outsider to this culture, and yet she's managed to conjure up a believable facsimile. Speaking as a reader who was once obsessed with Asian-inspired works of fiction, I am extremely happy to find a series that brings this unique flavor to young adult readers, and I hope it spawns some new addicts.

The particular edition I've been reading splits each full-length novel into two episodes. Journey to Inuyama is episode two of Across the Nightingale Floor, which is the first book in the series. It's a little confusing, but I'm still in love with these diminutive little books. They're so small and dainty, and extremely collectable.

To read these in the correct order, start with Across the Nightingale Floor, Episode 1: The Sword of the Warrior (Tales of the Otori). I'm pretty sure Amazon has it wrong above. "Journey to Inuyama" is the second episode, but of book one, not book two.

This caught my interest very quickly and I breezed right through it! I couldn't find the second book at the bookstore so I'm waiting on bated breath for this one.
It's a great read.