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Lian Hearn's TALES OF THE OTORI sold over 4 million copies worldwide. Now she brings us a story about storytelling, and about love, intrigue and betrayal.

'While I was disengaging myself from all emotion, audiences were demanding ever more emotional stories, filled with human passion and, shameful or not as it might be, a part of myself still wanted to give them that, to hold them spellbound and leave them thirsting for more.'

Sei is a storyteller. It's 1884 in Tokyo, and for fifty years he has been a master of his art, but now he is starting to wonder if the new world has left him behind. Momentous changes are taking place, and everyone is looking for novelty and excitement. Just when he thinks he will never write again, his own life and the lives of the people around him begin to spiral providing the inspiration for the greatest story he has ever told. A story of love, jealousy, intrigue, and betrayal. At home his daughters' marriages are falling apart, and coming back together again, and in his neighbourhood, he bears witness to a love entanglement so strange and threatening not even his audiences will believe it. Set against the backdrop of Japan's first incursions into Korea and a changing political landscape, Sei offers wise and witty reflections on the perils and delights of storytelling, its lies and, ultimately, its truth.