Blood Ninja

Zusatztext “Those who enjoy Far Eastern-tinged quest stories—with a dash of vampires and ninjas for flavor—will find much to enjoy here.”— VOYA Informationen zum Autor Nick Lake is a children’s book editor at Harper UK. He received his degree in English from Oxford University. His Blood Ninja trilogy was inspired by his interest in the Far East, and by the fact that he is secretly a vampire ninja himself. Nick lives with his wife and daughter in England. Visit him on Twitter @NickLakeAuthor. Klappentext Is Taro! a fisherman's son! destined for greatness? In the course of a day! Taro's entire life changes: His father is murdered before his eyes! and Taro is taken by a mysterious ninja on a perilous journey toward safety. Someone wants Taro dead! but who -- and why? With his best friend! Hiro! and their ninja guide Shusaku! Taro gets caught in the crossfire of a bitter conflict between rival lords for control of imperial Japan. As Taro trains to become a ninja himself! he's less and less sure that he wants to be one. But when his real identity is revealed! it becomes impossible for Taro to turn his back on his fate. CHAPTER 1 KANTO PROVINCE, LORD ODA’S PREFECTURE SIX MONTHS EARLIER Taro straightened up, took a deep breath, and pulled back the string of his bow. There was a familiar twinge from his left shoulder, where a thin silver scar traced a semicircle from chest to back, at intervals punctuated by darker circles suggestive of large tooth marks. This was not surprising—they were tooth marks. Taro ignored the old pain and lined up his arrow with the fleeing rabbit. He held his breath, concentrating on making the bow an extension of his own body. From an early age he had taught himself to make firing the bow a kind of meditation, believing in his mind that the arrow was already sunk deep in its target, that the only thing required was to loose the string and let it fly. He loosed the string. The arrow arced over brown summer grass and met the rabbit as it jumped over a tussock, driving it to the ground. Taro walked over to the dead rabbit. He knelt and removed the barbed tip, then wiped the arrowhead on the grass before returning the arrow to his quiver. Taro dropped the rabbit into his shoulder bag and turned for home. He wasn’t far from Shirahama, the coastal village where he’d grown up: He’d come only as far as the first way marker showing the road to Nagoya. He had kept the sea in view, however, and now as he rounded the headland, he could see Shirahama bay, cradled by tall mountains whose flanks were heavily forested with cedar, chestnut, and pine. The simple dwellings of the village nestled on the side of a hill overlooking the sea. The sun was setting, and already a few plumes of smoke rose from houses. It was warm, but there was always fish to smoke, and seaweed to dry for its precious salt, so the fires were always burning. The air that Taro breathed as he walked through the trees was scented with pine oil and the salt of the sea. Like most of the other coastal settlements in this part of Japan, Shirahama was entirely dependent on the sea. The men went out on fishing boats, the women were ama divers, and both men and women joined great gatherings of seaweed in the autumn, so that from the slimy, bubbling stuff could be burned salt to sell to the nobles. Taro was not like them. He loved the earth as much as the sea. He had no desire to grow rice, like the peasants of the interior, but he liked to hunt using his bow. As he walked, he cradled the arc of smooth wood in his hand—it was slender and fine, but filled with taut, latent energy. His father had made it for him when he was too young even to hold it, but since then he had grown fearsomely accurate with it, and often employed it to supplement the family’s food stocks with a rabbit or a fat wood pi...

Product details

• Authors: Nick Lake
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster USA
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: ages 14 to 17
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.12.2009
• EAN: 9781416986270
• ISBN: 978-1-4169-8627-0
• No. of pages: 369
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 216 mm x 32 mm
• Series: Blood Ninja; Blood Ninja
• Subject: Children's and young people's books