num_pages: 308
description: In a time when medieval Japan is about to close its doors to the world for 250 years, a rebellious Eurasian poet openly criticizes Samurai law, while the shogun's beautiful but unconventional daughter blatantly ignores it. Meeting secretly since childhood, Arashi and Lady Michiko defy the rigid customs of the ruling military nobility by falling in love - setting in motion a mystical voyage of life, death and rebirth.  Ruthless and eccentric, Lord Masakado is the Shogun who cuts off heads and makes his own rules. For him there is no such thing as love, except for his daughter Michiko whom he adores. Masakado's first in command is the psychotic General Shigemori. Renown for his cunning and brutality, the samurai will stop at nothing to be shogun. Kato-san is the mysterious zen monk with the not-so-zen past. Befriending Arashi, the monk sends him on a mystical odyssey that changes Arashi's life. When Michiko is sent by her father as envoy to China, her bodyguard is the heroic samurai, Toffi-san who errs by falling in love with her. While powerful forces appear to keep Arashi and Michiko apart, nothing can change their destiny.  The Sword &amp; The Chrysanthemum takes the reader deep within a Japan hidden from the world, and inside the heart of the opulent Forbidden City of the last Ming emperor - where life is good, until it isn't anymore.
language: English
title: The Sword and the Chrysanthemum: Journey of the Heart
titlecomplete: The Sword and the Chrysanthemum: Journey of the Heart
ratings_count: 13
publisher: Authorhouse