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Published by Roc Hardcover, River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay is set to release on April 2, 2013. In preparation for its release, Kay has crafted an exclusive excerpt specifically for readers of GeekMom.
The official synopsis of River of Star reads:
In his critically acclaimed novel Under Heaven*, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China’s Tang Dynasty. Now, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author revisits that invented setting four centuries later with an epic of prideful emperors, battling courtiers, bandits and soldiers, nomadic invasions, and a woman battling in her own way, to find a new place for women in the world – a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty*.
Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life—in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later—and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north.
Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor—and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has.
In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.
Kay also wrote the following introduction for the exclusive excerpt:
"This is from chapter two of River of Stars in which a major figure, a young woman named Lin Shan, is introduced. At this early stage Shan is still a girl, on a springtime trip with her much-loved father to the Peony Festival in the second city of the empire. The empire is called Kitai, and it is inspired by the Song Dynasty of 12th century China.
Shan is extremely unusual for a woman in this quite repressive society. She's gifted and independent, a writer of songs and poetry already, educated by her father far beyond the pattern for young women of the day. On this particular day she has just been introduced to two exceptional men. One of them, Lu Chen, is much-loved by some, but equally hated and feared by others - mainly political rivals. He is widely seen as the greatest writer and thinker of their time, and is on his way, under escort, to exile in the distant south. An exile expected to kill him.
They've all had dinner in the home of their host, and Shan has retired to her chamber..."
You can download the exclusive GeekMom excerpt of River of Stars here.
