the tokaido road by lucia st clair robson

The first thing Cat does is call on a kabuki actor, friend, and someone who owes her a favor, Shichisaburo (a real person, apparently), who provides her with a disguise as a priest and a plan to beg along the Road. Cat is many things, but silly is not one of them. It takes him about half the book to finally admit that he was totally wrong. He expects this to be an easy job, because women are silly- surely she just ran off with some man who waved his cucumber of love and said some pretty things, right? That’s mostly what he does- he finds lost things. The madam of the prostitution house she works in (basically her owner) hires Hanshiro, a ronin (masterless samurai) to go hunt her down and bring her back. Her cause is righteous, and she’ll bring Kira down and/or die trying.

But what she does have is a talent for acting, a few friends on her side, mad fighting skillz, and pure determination. She doesn’t have much of a plan, except to find Oishi, her father’s head retainer (and her teacher in martial arts), and make him do something to avenge her father. So one night, she escapes from the Pleasure Quarter in Edo (Tokyo) and with the intent to walk the Tokaido Road from Edo to Kyoto. It is Very Very Bad to draw your sword in front of the shogun, hence the suicide.Ĭat sold herself into prostitution to support her mother (who was left with nothing- acknowledged mistresses are not protected in the death of their lovers, especially when the wife is cranky), but dreams of getting revenge on Kira. Her father, Lord Asano, had committed ritual suicide after a rival of his, Lord Kira, insulted him in front of the Shogun and Asano drew his sword. So here we are (although I planned to do this one long before that conversation even happened).Ĭat is the daughter of a daimyo and his “outside wife” (acknowledged mistress). I remember someone in the comments of… something… asking if both characters in Impulsive were Asian, and that’s it’s rare to get both main characters to be a minority. It takes place in Feudal Japan, and is a version of the story of the 47 Samurai. It’s older, and not totally a romance, but it is a favorite of mine. This is another I Read This To Push It On The Unsuspecting Bitchery.

The tokaido road by lucia st clair robson