THE SHOGUN'S QUEEN

Japan, 1853. Only one brave woman can save her world from a barbarian invasion. She must sacrifice everything she holds dear - love, loyalty and maybe life itself.

The fiery, beautiful and headstrong Okatsu has grown up among the samurai of the Satsuma Clan in Japan's deep South. Like all the clan's women she has been encouraged to be bold, and was taught to wield the halberd, and to ride a horse.

When Okatsu is just seventeen, four black ships appear. Bristling with cannons and manned by strangers, they threaten Japan’s very existence and turn Okatsu’s world upside down. Chosen by her feudal lord, Okatsu has been given a special role to play and a new name - Princess Atsu. She is the only one who can save the realm.

Her journey takes her to Edo Castle, a place so secret that it cannot be marked on any map. There, sequestered in the Women’s Palace - home to three thousand women, and where only one man may enter: the shogun - she seems doomed to live out her days. But beneath the palace's immaculate facade, there are whispers of murders and ghosts. It is here that Atsu must complete her mission and discover one last secret - the secret of the man whose fate is irrevocably linked to hers: the shogun himself . . .

Lesley Downer lived in Japan for more than ten years and speaks fluent Japanese. As well as contributing a weekly column to The Scotsman she writes features for the Independent, the Financial Times and The Sunday Times.