Social psychologist Ben Monroe has returned to Tokyo after a failed marriage, determined to seek out his former lover Kozue. His estranged teenage daughter Mazzy reluctantly flies from California to join him. On the flight she meets a young Japanese man, Koji, a cult survivor, who tells her the story of the luminous night princess Kaguya, a powerful tale of beauty and obsession. As Ben delves deeper into the underworld in search of Kozue, Mazzy and Koji are compelled to follow, and their four lives dangerously intersect as past and present collide.

Sam Taylor knows he should be content with his life; with a high-flying career in the city and a beautiful fiancee, his lot is better than most. But he can't help but feel something is missing. When Sam meets enigmatic American Kay at a Cotswolds wedding as he holds out his umbrella for her in the pouring rain, he believes he has found someone who completes him. Throwing caution to the wind, Sam decides to risk everything and pursue Kay across the Atlantic to her native New York and the home she shares with her husband, Chris. Nicholas Hogg's novel is a taut and highly charged story of passion and adultery. Set against the backdrop of the financial crisis, The Hummingbird and the Bear follows a powerful and illicit love from England to New York, from the known to the unknown. Both shocking and delightful, it confirms Hogg's position among the finest of today's young writers. Praise for his previois novel Show Me the Sky: "An assured and gripping debut." BBC Radio 3. "Hogg performs a full range of literary circus feats... leading his reader on an exotic journey." Adelaide Advertiser. Like a four-part harmony, Hogg balances these voices, strengthening the book's message of staying true to one's roots. Sunday Herald "His subtle and clever novel weaves together five different narrative strands... plotted so artfully." The Big Issue.