Across the Nightingale Floor

First UK edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 294, [2 (blank)]. Black cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; Japanese kanji script hand-lettered by Ruth Rowland to black endpapers. White-embossed titling to illustrated dustjacket.

The first book of fiction ever to be issued simultaneously on Macmillan's adults' and children's lists. Originally published earlier the same year by Hodder Headline Australia, Sydney.

Named a New York Times 'Notable Book' in 2002. Book one in the five-part "Tales of the Otori" sequence, set in a fictional island nation resembling feudal Japan. A story of treachery, political intrigue, and the intensity of first love. By the British-born Australian author Gillian Rubinstein, published under the pseudonym, Lian Hearn. "The most compelling novel to have been published this year." –The Times (London)