Set fifteen years after the seismic events of Brilliance of the Moon, The Harsh Cry of the Heron is an elegiac and bittersweet successor towards the bestselling series by Lian Hearn, Tales of the Otori.

Their realm is held in balance by their union . Break that union as well as the Three Countries will fall apart.

Otori Takeo and Kaede have ruled the Three Countries peacefully for over sixteen years, following a events organized in the epic Stories of the Otori. They have three daughters: Shigeko, about The Harsh Cry from the Heron fifteen years of age and heir to the Otori, and Maya and Miki, thirteen-year-old twins who’ve inherited the supernatural skills of their father. Kaede knows nothing of the prophecy that Takeo will die at the hands of his kid and longs to provide him a male child. Nor will she understand of the youngster he fathered sixteen years ago – a guy whose heart can be filled up with hatred and whose skills like a Ghostmaster provide him the energy to incite the dead.

Takeo is set that clan issues will never again ravage the Three Countries, but warriors are delivered to battle: the warlord Arai Zenko provides dangerous ambitions, the Emperor himself offers challenged Takeo’s guideline and, despite a sensitive truce between the deadly Tribe and the Otori, revenge still eats in the centre of renegade innovator Kikuta Akio . . .

Against these gathering risks Takeo draws strength from his like for Kaede, but actually this is not beyond the reach of their enemies . . .