The Three Deaths of Hiroshige
A Treacherous Road. A Friendship on the Rocks. A Killer Walking Beside Her.
Despite the dangers of time travel, Jade asks her mirrored portal to take her to Japan in 1832 to join an epic journey along the legendary Tōkaidō Road. Her mission is simple: Find the artist Hiroshige and determine whether the mysterious forces threatening art history have spread to Asia.
But the journey quickly becomes far more perilous than she expected when tragic mishaps, ambiguous statements, and mysterious strangers appear. Along the way, a new time traveler catches her attention, and he’s as attractive as he is dangerous.
As if the investigation weren't complicated enough, Ivey has secretly followed Jade through the portal. Once close friends, the two find themselves struggling to repair a relationship strained by mistrust and painful broken promises. Forced together by circumstance, they must decide whether their friendship is worth saving before the road tears them apart for good.
This journey is exhausting in every way. And the closer Jade gets to the truth, the more she fears she may have misinterpreted the clues from the very beginning. She must uncover the real killer before Hiroshige's fate is sealed—and before her own mistakes cost her everything.
Join Jade and Ivey on the Tōkaidō Road, where they must figure out who to trust, how to thwart a killer, and why this mysterious band of time travelers is dead set on hurting artists... and art itself. Order your copy today on Amazon.
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Paintings In the Book
During the 1832 imperial expedition from Edo to Kyoto (the red line on the map below), Utagawa Hiroshige sketched numerous scenes along the way. From these, he created a set of woodblock prints documenting the experience. Although the journey took place in the spring, you can see that the artist brought more diversity to the collection by portraying other seasons as well. Before starting to write the book, I studied this series—published as The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833–1834)—to get authentic ideas for events and situations that occurred during the trip.
The Artist Who Inspired the Book
Relatively little is known about Utagawa Hiroshige's personal life. He was born into a noble family and was supposed to assume his father's role as the fire chief of the shogun's palace in Edo (now Tokyo), but his love for art, poetry, and calligraphy took him in a different direction. The shogun employed him as an official court artist throughout his life. Hiroshige was one of the last artists to work in the ukiyo-e tradition, adding a number of significant innovations to the art of woodblock printing.
Funny Side Note
By sheer coincidence, my sister and brother-in-law went to Japan while I was writing the book. When they returned from their trip, they showed me these pictures of this ancient road they had heard about and gone to see. Wouldn't you know it was the Tokaido Road?! Here are a few of Steve's pix of the remains of this ancient highway.
