UNDER HEAVEN

An epic historical adventure set in an alternate 8th century China from the author of the 2008 World Fantasy winner Ysabel. Under Heaven is a novel of heroes assassins concubines and emperors set against a majestic and unforgiving landscape. Honour is beyond measureBut its price may be an empire…For two years Shen Tai has mourned his celebrated father and lived like a hermit beyond the borders of the Kitan Empire. There by a mountain lake the bones of the soldiers killed in great battles between the Kitai and the Tagurans lie unburied and their wailing ghosts strike terror into the living. Tai has laboured alone laying to rest the mingled dead of both empires until a letter arrives. It contains the promise of a poisoned chalice: Tai will be given two hundred and fifty Sardian horses by the Tagurans legendary steeds from the far west as a reward for his courage and piety. Now Tai must try to return alive from solitude to a glittering dangerous court. For to give a man even one of the famed Sardians is to honour him greatly; to give him so many is a reward which would overwhelm an emperor and could be Tai's death warrant.