Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0330415263, Paperback)

Lian Hearn's second novel in the Tales of the Otori, Grass For His Pillow continues to enrich and expand his mystical imaginings of feudal Japan. Picking up where Across the Nightingale Floor left off, Takeo fulfills his debt of honor and accepts his heritage as a member of the superhuman cabal of assassins known as "The Tribe," and is thus ingested into their plots. But his heart yearns for Kaede, his one true love, and secretly wishes to fulfill the final wishes of his adopted father, Otori Shigaru. Meanwhile, Kaede returns to her homeland to find her father's estate in ruin and her inheritance in jeopardy. The two each encounter vast political machinations and deadly consequences as they unconsciously move toward their overwhelming urges to reunite and defy (or perhaps embrace) fate.

Hearn's second book into the Tales of the Otori series is a more poignant tale than the first, painfully examining the lines between honor, duty, and love. With its calming and satisfying conclusion, the landscape of Hearn's mythical vision of Japan braces for a dazzling storm in the book to come. --Jeremy Pugh

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0330412736, Paperback)

In the ancient Oriental lands of the Otori, amidst a time of violent war, famine and treacherous alliances, the fate of the young lovers Otori Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede hangs in the balance...Takeo, heir to the great Otori clan, has pledged his life to the secret Tribe. His supernatural skills of virtual invisibility and acute hearing make him their most deadly assassin. But he must deny the solemn oath of vengeance he made, his adopted birthright of wealth, land and power - and his love for Kaede. If he does not devote himself entirely to the brutal ways of the Tribe, they will kill him. Whichever path he choose, it will lead to hardship and sacrifice in the bitter winter of the high mountains, and test him to the limits of his being. Kaede, heiress to vast lands, is now the valuable pawn of ruthless warlords. She must use her intelligence, beauty and cunning to assert her place in a world of all-powerful men - who must never suspect the dangerous secret she hides. 'The beauty, savagery and strangeness of Hearn's gripping tale is heightened by her exquisite, crystalline prose. The second installment in the "Tales of the Otori" is, astonishingly, even better than "Across the Nightingale Floor"' - "Independent on Sunday".

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0641675313, Hardcover)

With Grass for His Pillow, Book Two of the Otori trilogy, we return to the medieval Japan of Hearn's imagination - a land of harsh beauty and deceptive appearances. In a complex social hierarchy, amid dissembling clans and fractured allegiances, there is no place for passionate young love. The orphan Takeo, who has been taught the ways of the warrior class by Lord Otori Shigeru, has now been claimed by the Tribe; held by them against his will, he is condemned to work as an assassin an enforced occupation that his father sacrificed his own life to escape. Meanwhile, Takeo's beloved Shirakawa Kaede, heir to the Maruyama and alone in the world, must find a way to unify the domain she has inherited, as she fights off the advances of would-be suitors and hopes against fading hope that Takeo will return to her. Both Takeo and Kaede must draw upon their unusual talents and hidden strengths, and make their way in this tale of longing, ambition, and intrigue. A mythical adventure of self discovery, Grass for His Pillow acutely probes the conflicts between duty and passion, violence, and compassion, deception and truth.