Cold Heart is with my editor, Laura Lis Scott, for final revisions. It is my longest Yamabuki book to date—longer than the first three combined—over 80,000 words long. The first chapter is succinct and sets the tone and premise: the supernatural—which Yamabuki of course scoffs at—will play a central role in this story, and as always, the theme that runs throughout all the Yamabuki stories, it is one of redemption....
As a big fan of Japanese television, I have watched more than a historic drama or two. It is a rather Japanese style to introduce historic dramas by showing the films of historic places as they look today along with artifacts and scrolls. Think Ken Burns and The Civil War, if you are American. The other day I presented a map of the Isle of Unknown Fire, which today is called Kyushu and it the southern-most of Japan’s four main isles....
Recommended.
The Yamabuki series is inspired by a 12th-century woman chronicled in historic writings of the times. It is said Yamabuki was beautiful and that she accompanied Yoshinaka, The Rising Sun General, and Tomoe Gozen, a more famous woman warrior on their adventures and into battle. Some accounts even say she was a general who led troops into ferocious battles. In writing I hoped as much as possible to avoid setting the action in Tokugawa era, which is familiar to many fans of historic Japan....
Without realizing it, I had made a big deal out of Yamabuki’s armor.