Bamboo Secrets: One Woman's Quest through the Shadows of Japan

Recognized as one of the Top Five Finalists in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for 2017!
While living in Japan in 1993, Patricia Dove Miller's dream of a year of exploration and personal growth is shattered when her husband is detained on drug charges. Miller struggles with a sense of betrayal upon learning her husband's secrets and yet she stands by him, fighting to save both him and their marriage in the face of the terrifying uncertainties now confronting them. To save herself, she seeks refuge in two Japanese traditional arts--ikebana and shakuhachi (bamboo flute)--which not only nourish and strengthen her, but also lead her to finally discover, at age fifty-two, her life's passion: to become a writer. Bamboo Secrets: One Woman's Quest through the Shadows of Japan weaves together four strands: a mature woman in search of herself, a marriage in trouble, the dark side of Japan, and the beauty of Japanese art and culture.

Patricia Dove Miller is a third-generation Californian, born and raised in the Berkeley hills. She has lived in the mountains outside of Cali, Colombia, in a tiny rice-farming village in North Thailand, and also at the edge of the northeastern hills in Kyoto, Japan. She attended Stanford University, and much later, at the age of sixty-six, completed her MFA in writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also an alumna of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She now lives with her husband in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, where she teaches creative writing and practices ikebana, shakuhachi, and Zen meditation.