'A recurring problem in fantasy and science fiction is the absence of strong and plausible female characters. 'Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven … is the novel you'll want for your summer vacation.' - The Washington Post Some, we care deeply about what happens to them others, we hope they meet a terrible end … That emotional involvement with the characters … makes possible one the most deeply satisfying endings to a novel Kay has written yet' - Greenman Review His characters are people who elicit emotion. Under Heaven … is, simply, a great book…. 'Guy Gavriel Kay is, simply, my favorite living author, and few writers, living or dead, have so consistent an effect upon me…. This is, without a doubt, one of the best books of 2010.' - Speculative Book Review he reader is often left with a lump filling her throat by the power and the beauty of his words.

Under Heaven may well be Kay's best book ever….

There is so much emotion in some parts of Under Heaven that it's almost like his signature for me to read it with my heart at my throat…. One of the things that Kay's books have in common is their way to leave the reader breathless. Tai sets out to the east, toward the glittering and dangerous imperial capital to face his own forever-altered life.

The White Jade Princess in Tagur is pleased to present him with 250 Sardian horses, given, she writes, in recognition of his courage and of the honour done to the dead. One spring morning, he learns that others have taken note of his vigil. To honour his father's memory, Tai has spent two years in official mourning, alone at the battle site among the ghosts of the dead, laying to rest their unburied bones. Forty thousand men on both sides were slain beside a remote mountain lake. Shen Tai is the son of a general who, 20 years before, led the forces of imperial Kitai in that empire's last war against its western enemies from Tagur. In Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay tells a story of honour and power, treachery and love, in a setting that evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of eighth-century China. A gift that could change the empire-or end his life. But as Tai prepares for his return to a brilliant, dangerous court, he receives news of an extraordinary gift. In honour of Tai's recently deceased father, a celebrated general who led the imperial army in battle here, he has devoted himself to the solitary task of burying the bones left lying by the mountain lake.

Each night for two years Shen Tai has listened to the ghosts of dead soldiers in the darkness outside his isolated cabin.

Under heaven kay