The Swords of Silence: Book 1: The Swords of Fire Trilogy

Written by Shaun Curry

Narrated by Thomas McGairl

'AN INTELLIGENTLY PRESENTED HISTORICAL FANTASY THAT PROVOKES THOUGHT FROM THE START' THE BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY

Where once new ideas and beliefs were accepted, now the country's military dictator, the Shogun is shutting his country down to any outside influences.

Father Joaquim Martinez who left Portugal to make Hizen Province, Japan his home, has been quietly tending to the lives of his villagers, but everything is about to be thrown into turmoil, as the Shogun has outlawed Martinez's beliefs. Those who won't recant or accept banishment, face a death sentence.

With the threat of a massacre looming, and the Shogun's Samurai closing in, Father Martinez must decide, if he is willing to risk everything, to save those he has sworn to protect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Inspire
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780310101369

Shaun Curry

Fascinated by Japan from an early age, Shaun Curry went on to study and work in Tokyo, where he developed a passion for the country, its culture and history. An avid collector of rare books, maps and artefacts, he has spent more than ten years researching in the Papal Archives in Rome, the British Library in London, and the New York Public library, amassing the wealth of knowledge that enriches his writing in the Swords of Fire trilogy. His expertise in feudal Japanese history has informed not only his fiction, but also numerous articles, and has led him to be featured as a guest on BBC radio. He is also a prolific speaker on the subject of Christianity in Japan. A British and Canadian national, he now lives and writes in London.

Reviews for The Swords of Silence

[bookworm842 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's not very often that an author can capture the essence of a book in the very first paragraph but that is exactly what Shaun Curry did.  The style of writing immediately caught my attention and from the moment I started to read this book I was  completely transfixed and I could not stop reading, nor did I want it to end. What a page-turner of a journey.Book 1 of a 3 part series,  The Swords Of Silence is inspired by true events in Japanese history back in the 1600's.  Focusing on religion and the banishment of Christianity, the story follows a Jesuit priest named Father Joaquim Martinez,  who had travelled from Portugal to Japan, Nagasaki to continue in his mission to spread the word of God. Joaquin's journey gives insight to the struggles and tortures he and fellow Christians endure at the hands of a new Shogun and his Daimyo, who are determined to uncover all hidden Christians with a will to stop at nothing to be victorious.Before reading this book, I must admit that my knowledge on Japan and Christianity was zero, but Shaun makes this an easy, intriguing and although this is not for the faint-hearted, a heartfelt book to read.  I really can't wait to see what Shaun bring to the next installments.

[linda.a. · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Publisher’s synopsis:Where once new ideas and beliefs were accepted, now the country’s military dictator, the Shogun, is cutting down to any outside influences.Father Joaquim Martinez who left Portugal to make Hizen Province, Japan his home, has been quietly tending to the lives of his villagers, but everything is about to be thrown into turmoil, as the Shogun has outlawed Martinez’s beliefs. Those who won’t recant or accept banishment face a death sentence.With the threat of a massacre looming, and the Shogun’s samurai closing in, Father Martinez must decide, if he is willing to risk everything to save those he has sworn to protect.The short prologue to this truly shocking story gives an account of more than a dozen badly beaten and tortured prisoners, heads shaved and painted red, being led through the streets of Nagasaki City in June 1626, prior to being tied to execution stakes and then burnt alive. This “death march” comprised two European priests, five lay Portuguese prisoners, and two ships’ captains, all found guilty of aiding Japanese Christians; the final few victims were Japanese individuals who had sheltered priests. The Governor in charge of the executions had ordered all to be gagged in order that they wouldn’t be able to inspire any Christians in the crowds lining the streets, he was determined that the fate of these prisoners would instil fear in all onlookers. The descriptions of the torture the prisoners had undergone during the year they had been incarcerated, and of the precision with which the executioners had learnt to position the stakes from the fire in order to maximise suffering, set the tone for the brutality which ran through the story. The main story starts a month earlier, in Hizen Province, on Kyusha, Japan’s southernmost island, and covers a two-month period. Father Joaquim Martinez, sent from the Portuguese Society of Jesus many years earlier to spread the Word of God, now lives in a small village where, in exchange for his teachings, he is taught the Samurai “Way of the Sword”, a skill which will come in useful many times during the story. Although there had been times following the arrival of the first Jesuit priests in the middle of the sixteenth century when Christians were reasonably well-tolerated, soon after the first Shogun came to power at the start of the seventeenth century, he became suspicious of all foreigners and suspected that priests and their converts were, in reality, foreign agents and religious freedom was outlawed in 1614. As more and more Christians were tortured and executed when they refused renounce their faith, those remaining lived in fear of their lives and Christianity necessarily became a covert movement. In his author’s note that this story is “inspired by real history and real characters in history”, in his final sentence Shaun Curry asks the question “Who am I to soften the edges of history to create a more gentle story?” Well, there is nothing in the least gentle about his brutally graphic descriptions of the relentless persecution of Christians, and of the barbaric tortures inflicted upon them by the Shogun and his officials. At times I found it almost intolerable to read about the systematic torture which was designed to cause as much agony as possible, for as long a time as possible. However, he did very effectively capture the ever-present fear Christians experienced and the lengths they were forced to go to in order to escape discovery and, equally effectively, evoked a vivid picture of life in Japan during the period being described.Through the character of Father Joaquim, full of love, tolerance and compassion, it was very easy to identify with the heroic bravery of those who were not prepared to recant their faith, as well as the non-Christians who were prepared to risk their own lives to help them. As a character filled with hatred, rage, suspicion and intolerance, the Shogun was an easy to hate “baddie” but, with the author’s descriptions of the challenges he was wrestling with to both gain more powers and retain those he already had, I felt that some of the reasons for his behaviour, whilst totally abhorrent and unacceptable, were ego-syntonic and therefore credible within this context. Told in very short chapters, this is an action-packed, fast-moving story but there were moments when I had to suspend disbelief at some of the “miracles” which enabled the characters to escape what appeared to be situations which it would be impossible to survive – but maybe that’s just a reflection of the fact that I don’t share that absolute faith in a God who rewards faith with miracles! I enjoyed the amount of background detail about the historical period in which the story is set; this definitely increased my knowledge of the history of Japan and the influences which shaped its development as a country. Consequently, I now feel stimulated me to do some more reading around this subject – always a satisfying bonus to a reading experience.As this is the first book in planned trilogy there was, inevitably, a sense of something “unfinished” when I reached the end of the story but, although I would in many ways like to discover the eventual fates of the characters who survived all their many trials and tribulations yet somehow managed to retain hope, I’m not sure that I would want to expose myself to any further graphic detail about the brutal treatment meted out to them, so it’s unlikely that I’ll continue with the series. With its central themes of persecution because of religious faith, for being in any way different and for being prepared, whatever the odds, to fight against oppression, and reflections on how the influences of politics, trade and immigration can create a background against which such persecution can flourish, this is as much a contemporary story as an historical one and, for this reason this is a book which would make an interesting choice as a group read. With thanks to Readers First and Harper Collins for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.