Did not finish.
I do not like the writing style, it feels fake. I do not like the pacing, or the characters. There’s a lot of stereotyping and lewdness there for seemingly no good reason. The female characters are oddly written, they are either weak, evil temptresses or just horrible, and seemed to only be there in relation to male characters.
The only aspect I somewhat enjoyed is the period it is set in, and the fantasy aspect, but I would much much rather read a fuyumi Ono, Noriko Ogiwara or Nahoko Uehashi Japanese historical fantasy book. ( )

I haven't read any book by Lian Hearn before, though I've heard of her Tales of Otori books. So I came into this with zero expectations. I enjoyed the story well enough, though the narration style took a bit of getting used to, as it relied heavily on narrative and less so on dialogue and nothing at all on inner thoughts. It's a much older style of storytelling that is evocative of a fable or folktale. The story alternately follows several different characters during a medieval feudal Japanese setting in which rival factions are jockeying for the throne.

There is a bit of a learning curve with this book. I am somewhat familiar with the cultural history of feudal Japan, though it's been over a decade since my last college course on that. But keeping the names of the characters and places straight was difficult at first, though I muddled through and eventually they all became clear.

This is the first in a series of four books, and does end on a bit of a cliffhanger. Though the disparate plot lines are beginning to merge together in truly fascinating ways. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

Picked up at the library because of the beautiful graphic design. Read 2/3rds, then stopped.

I did not like this as well as the Tales of the Otori series by this author, so I did not continue reading this series. For me the "tribe" special powers in the Otori series was less fantasy than the sorcerer powers and weird fantasy in this series. ( )

I enjoyed this book even more the second read. The relentlessly forward sweeping tale of a magical Japanese like struggle to gain and keep territory and position is full of betrayals trickery and can get rather gruesome but never shorts the individuals who make the story mean something. ( )