The Shade of the Willow

By: Livia Huntingdon-Jones

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In 1930s Tokyo, a young woman uncovers a secret that rewrites her family’s heroic samurai past. Now, the truth her grandmother has spent a lifetime protecting might just be the death of them both.

She was raised on a legend of glorious death and battlefield honour. But when a hidden document exposes a link between that legend and a modern conspiracy, she is marked for death by a government hiding its own secrets.

The game is Go. The stakes are human lives.

For Hana Nakano, being the Kwantung Army's finest typist is an honor. But her perfectly ordered world is shattered when she discovers the monstrous purpose of the secret unit she serves: a camp where unspeakable experiments are performed in the name of progress.

Now, she must play the most dangerous game of her life. In a silent war of wits against a brilliant and cruel colonel, Hana uses the ancient strategies of Go to leak information and sabotage the camp from within. Every coded note is a move on the board; every decoded message is a step closer to being discovered. In this game, there is no honor in death, only in survival.

Her only hope is her quiet, enigmatic grandmother, a woman who survived the same battle that made her sister a martyr. To stay alive, Hana must learn the difference between the stories we tell and the truths we endure.

A stunning historical thriller about two women, two wars, and the quiet, unyielding strength it takes to survive.