The Tokaido Road is a 1991 historical novel by Lucia St. Clair Robson. Set in 1702, it is a fictional account of the famous Japanese revenge story of the Forty-Seven Ronin. In feudal Japan, the Tōkaidō was the main road, which ran between the imperial capital of Kyoto , and the administrative capital of Edo . This is how Lady Asano has felt since the forced suicide of her father. Adrift in a dangerous world, she vows to avenge her father’s death and restore his name to honor. To do so, she will have to travel the Tokaido Road. As the novel opens, Lady Asano has transformed... herself into Cat, a high-ranking courtesan, to support her widowed mother. Yet Cat’s career is temporary; the powerful Lord Kira’s campaign against her family is continuing and she must find Oishi, leader of the samurai of the Asano clan, weapons master, philosopher, and Cat’s teacher. Cat believes he is three hundred miles to the southwest in the imperial city of Kyoto. Disguising her loveliness in the humble garments of a traveling priest, Cat begins her quest.
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