The Shining Sea

IS HOPE ITSELF THE ONLY ANSWER?

The renowned author of the Ring novels unravels a story of lovers wrestling with the darkness within themselves—be it selfishness, lust, or despair—in a deeply introspective romantic mystery that will tug at your mind as well as your heart.

A seemingly amnesiac woman sits mutely before her psychiatrist. Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to speak, the only time she shows any hint of emotion is when she hums a song—and the song becomes the first clue.

Pregnant but abandoned by her lover, who boarded a tuna boat to brave turbulent waters far from home, she’d waded into the pitch-black waves one evening to drown herself...because when you feel like you’re stranded at sea all by yourself in the dead of the night, those waves call for you, lulling you to sink into the silence beneath.

What we go on to discover is a cursed fate, a ruthless reality, and the dark humor of a world ruled by the indifferent forces of chance. They say you never know what the future holds, but what if you’re told that you only have precisely a fifty-fifty chance of attaining happiness?

Koji Suzuki was born in 1957 in Hamamatsu, southwest of Tokyo. He attended Keio University where he majored in French. After graduating he held numerous odd jobs, including a stint as a cram school teacher. Also a self-described jock, he holds a first-class yachting license and crossed the U.S., from Key West to Los Angeles, on his motorcycle.

In 1990, Suzuki's first full-length work, Paradise won the Japanese Fantasy Novel Award and launched his career as a fiction writer. Ring, written with a baby on his lap, catapulted him to fame, and the multi-million selling sequels Spiral and Loop cemented his reputation as a world-class talent. Often called the "Stephen King of Japan," Suzuki has played a crucial role in establishing mainstream credentials for horror novels in his country.