Her fine features and pale skin stand out among the swarthy locals and, when she is eleven years old, those same qualities prove to be her passport to another world. Hers has been a happy childhood, spent exploring the hills with her group of friends and helping her mother prepare the rooms for their august visitors, but Sachi has always known that she’s different. Here we follow the story of Sachi, who has grown up in a modest village on the main road between Kyoto and Edo, where her parents run an upmarket inn for the use of great lords and imperial officials. It isn’t quite as gripping as the non-fictional Geisha, but it has charm and a quiet elegance. This is, in many ways, a predictable historical romance: the court lady the rugged outlaw the forbidden love in a time of war. As one who has studied and lived in Japan, she’s managed to get a feel for the complexities of the country’s social history, and her knowledge of its customs and traditions pervades every corner of this novel. I read her history book Geisha about six months ago and was impressed then by the engaging way she wrote about these mysterious, endlessly fascinating creatures. While this may not be the kind of serious historical introduction that I should be reading, it does help to give a certain flavor of the atmosphere and, besides, Lesley Downer is a reliable guide. Ever since I went to Japan, I’ve been curious to learn more about its ancient feudal culture.
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