Talented young French artist Étienne Rousseau is unceremoniously evicted from his Pau art studio overlooking the magnificent Pyrénées. "Whatever happened to Étienne?" readers of Rob Moore's first novel, 'Above the Boulevard', asked. 'Étienne', birthed from 'Above the Boulevard' and set in the 1880s, tells the rejected artist's story. Directed to a small café in the Montmartre district in Paris, Étienne's life changes. Here, he discovers how the Western World is infatuated with Japonisme - the unique expressions in art and design originating in an awakening Japan. As fascinating as the works of art themselves are, so is their importer, Masashi Kawamura - son of a proud Samurai family living near Nagasaki. But Masashi holds a disturbing secret. Under Masashi's patronage, Étienne travels to Japan during the Meiji Restoration period to explore ways of blending Europe's art styles with those of Japan.

Far more powerful than art, Étienne falls in love with the beautiful Kioko. Together, they wrestle with the challenges of blending two cultures, tragedy and reconciliation.