Here the lovers are Kuki, a 54-year-old employee in a publishing company, and Rinko, a childless, 37-year-old woman unhappily married to a cold fish of a husband, a professor of medicine. Stuck in a dead-end job and an uneventful marriage, Kuki is irresistibly drawn to Rinko from their first encounter, seeing through her demure demeanor to the passionate woman beneath. She returns his feelings with ever-increasing abandon, despite lingering fears about where her sexual awakening may lead her. In the end, both are prepared to risk all for their relationship: family, career, and social standing, even life itself.

The story contrasts the lovers' defiantly freewheeling passion--described in imaginative, smoldering detail--with a rigid society where people are expected to play a prescribed role, whether as dutiful wife or compliant office worker. In escaping these conventional roles, the lovers often escape the city as well, immersing themselves in the traditional beauties of Japanese nature and art as they give themselves over to each other and the pleasure of the moment. And ultimately they make a much more radical escape: one that will ensure that they are left in peace, to enjoy an abiding love.

Perhaps not all the choices they make will seem reasonable, or even understandable, to Western readers. But their story, with elements as modern as yesterday's headlines and as timeless as the tug between love and death, opens a window into the secrets of the Japanese soul.

Compared to Educated and the Glass Castle

What Amazon readers are saying about Chasing Eden

★★★★★ "As someone who is obsessed with memoir, I can say this one stands with the best. Readers will see similarities to the fathers in Educated and The Glass Castle, but this in no way makes Cherilyn's story predictable. I was glued to my seat, fingernails dug in, going from tears of frustration to gasps of shock to being so angry that I wanted to throw my iPad across the room. However and delightfully so, there were also enough laughs and beautiful moments to get me through the saga of neglect and abuse."

★★★★★ "Riveting! Funny and simultaneously horrifying!"

★★★★★ "Emotional, witty, heart-wrenching, engaging."

★★★★★ "The author is a master storyteller. You will not be disappointed!"

★★★★★ "Such graphic word pictures that I couldn't put the book down."

★★★★★ "This is a book about the power of hope. While trapped in its pages, I laughed, cried, and dreamt too."

★★★★★ "This is a gripping, heart-wrenching, actual-factual, living nightmare!"

★★★★★ "I feel personally richer and more resilient for having read it."

★★★★★ "As a literary scholar, I was compelled by the fine tensions and suspense Clough builds in her memoir."

★★★★★ "This one spoke to my soul. Beyond words, reading this book changes you."

★★★★★ "As a trauma therapist, I will be recommending this book to my clients."

★★★★★ "Chasing Eden is the poignant story of a young girl's search for unconditional love and acceptance in a bewildering world full of contradictions."

★★★★★ "For readers who've appreciated the introspection of Educated, Clough adds another voice to understanding the way in which extremist beliefs are lived out in family life.

Environmental Hazard Enforcement officer Shan Frankland agreed to lead a mission to Cavanagh's Star, knowing that 150 years would elapse before she could finally return home. But her landing, with a small group of scientists and Marines, has not gone unnoticed by Aras, the planet's designated guardian. An eternally evolving world himself, this sad, powerful being has already obliterated millions of alien interlopers and their great cities to protect the fragile native population. Now Shan and her party -- plus the small colony of fundamentalist humans who preceded them -- could face a similar annihilation . . . or a fate far worse. Because Aras possesses a secret of the blood that would be disastrous if it fell into human hands -- if the gethes survive the impending war their coming has inadvertently hastened.