Across the Nightingale Floor
02 October 2025Synopsis
‘Quite simply the best story of magic, love, revenge and suspense to have come this way since Philip Pullman’ – Independent on Sunday
Set in a mythical feudal land, a world both beautiful and cruel, the intense love story of two young people takes place against a background of warring clans, secret alliances, high honour and lightning swordplay.
In his palace at Inuyama, Lord Iida Sadamu, warlord of the Tohan clan, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Its surface sings at the tread of every human foot, and no assassin can cross it unheard. But sixteen-year-old Otori Takeo, his family murdered by Iida’s warriors, has the magical skills of the Tribe – preternatural hearing, invisibility, a second self – that enable him to enter the lair of the Tohan. He has love in his heart and death at his fingertips . . .
Lian Hearn’s powerful bestseller Across the Nightingale Floor is an epic work of historical fantasy for readers young and old.
Part of the Picador Collection, showcasing the best of modern literature.
Details
02 October 2025
9781035060283Reviews
Across the Nightingale Floor remains quite simply the best story of magic, love, sex, revenge and suspense to have come this way since Philip Pullman
Across the Nightingale Floor was described to me by the young man in Borders bookshop as a "Japanese 'Harry Potter', only better". In fact, it's a different beast entirely. Much darker, much sharper, much less predictable
The most compelling novel to have been published this year
Satisfyingly rich in incident yet admirably spare in the telling
