What is more important? Humanity or beauty? In ancient Japan, a young girl named Uguisu gains the power of magical song through supernatural means. She hopes it will bring her her heart’s desire. But instead it leads her to the halls of Japan’s Imperial power, to the attention of the Emperor himself, and a danger she never expected. Soon she comes into conflict with a vengeful demon who competes with Uguisu for the Emperor’s favour in a fight between Uguisu’s humanity and the demon’s beauty and power. Based on the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, this retelling moves the story from China to Heian Japan, a period of faith, aristocracy and culture which in this story becomes a place of demons, poetry, and a very strange cat. The Nightingale is a retelling for our times and a celebration of a golden age of Japanese history. Kara Dalkey is the author of fifteen fantasy novels and over twenty short stories, fantasy and science fiction. She lives in western Washington State, near Seattle. The Nightingale is her second novel, and she has since written other historical fantasy works set in Japan, such as Little Sister, Heavenward Path, and Genpei .
Author
Kara Mia Dalkey is an American author of young adult fiction and historical fantasy. She was born in Los Angeles and has lived in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Seattle. Much of her fiction is set in the Heian period of Japan. She was married to author John Barnes; they divorced in 2001. She is a member of the Pre-Joycean Fellowship and of the Scribblies. She is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing in Los Angeles. She is also a musician and has gigged extensively on electric bass (which she plays left-handed) and harmony vocals, with such bands as Runestone, the Albany Free Traders, and Nate Bucklin and the Ensemble (in Minnesota) and Relic and Voodoo Blue (in Seattle.) At different times she has also played drums, banjo and acoustic guitar. She is a songwriter, but her total output is low, and consequently no CD or other album is presently in the works.
