Hollow Reed Books

Bartered for favors, fifteen-year-old Oba Toshiko, daughter of a provincial warlord, enters the women’s quarters of Emperor Go-Shirakawa where her talent and innocence excite the emperor’s lust and the dangerous jealousy of Lady Sanjo. An accidental and forbidden meeting with the nobleman-physician Yamada Sadahira tempts Toshiko’s heart and tests her loyalty to her family. When her enemy strikes, she makes a desperate choice to be with Sadahira.

When filial piety and political necessity force Sadahira to join the treacherous Minamoto Yoritomo, he must leave his young wife Toshiko and their children to face her father’s murderous rage alone. Oba Hiromoto has declared a private war against the Yamada family. Toshiko, convinced that her husband has deserted her, is drawn to the darkly charismatic Hachiro, but he, too, leaves her. Destitute and homeless with her children, Toshiko turns in vain to the emperor. In the end, the only work she finds is in the brothels on the Yodo River. Volume II takes the action to the far reaches of the country as men fight bloody battles and women and children suffer or die. In this book, the Yamada saga takes on epic proportions as it follows the characters to their destiny.