Publisher's Synopsis
'Kato Takeshi raised the katana with both hands. His sword, the soul of bushido, was the key to heaven and hell. The prisoner, hands tied behind his back, cowered in the kneeling position, neck extended, his whole body racked with rigors of fear as he awaited the strike of cold steel and oblivion. Takeshi leapt high in the air, slicing first left, then right as if slashing at an invisible opponent's head. But it was all illusion, a mere trick of the light. A mirage.'
- and so the story begins in the year 2000 in Wajima, Japan when Mika, a student on a year's scholarship, leaves her grandfather Kato Takeshi's house to travel to Oxford, England to live in Kensho House with Professor Blenkinsop and his family and attend university.
Kensho House with its own ghostly history is the guardian of times gone by, acting as a bridge between Japan and England, maintaining its silence and unwilling to give up its mysteries. The Blenkinsop family too possess their own secrets. As they live out their everyday lives, Mika, the Blenkinsop family, and her grandfather in Japan find they have to come to terms with their actions and their destiny. What part will Kensho House play in giving each person the life they desire or resolving their individual karmas?
