When I read Lian Hearn's Across the Nightingale Floor I found that the cover wasn't really connected to the title of the book and decided to create my own. A nightingale floor is a special kind of floor that chirps whenever someone steps on it, ergo: nobody can cross this floor without making the floor boards "sing". However, the hero of this book, a young man called Takeo, has to cross the nigthingale floor in the palace of Lord Iida Sadamu in Inuyama in order to assassinate him. Unfortunately this virtually breathtaking scene occupies only a very short passage in the book and in the end emerges to be more or less insignificant, which is rather sad, and doesn't do justice to the title of this book.

~*~

"I floated across the floor as weightless as a ghost.
Behind me the castle loomed, in front of me flowed the river.
Iida was waiting for me."

(taken from "Across the Nightingale Floor" by Lian Hearn, page 270)