Brittany's Pick: Water Moon by Samanta Sotto Yambao

Hana Ishikawa inherits a hidden pawnshop in Tokyo where people trade their regrets, but when a precious item is stolen and her father vanishes, she embarks on a magical journey with a young physicist through mystical realms to uncover the truth and recover what's lost.

Hana is all set to, begrudgingly, inherit her family’s pawn shop which deals not in antiques or riches, but in regretted life choices. This shop does not have a name and cannot be found by looking for it. Those who need it stumble in, seemingly by accident.

However, on the day of her inheritance, she wakes to find her father missing, the shop ransacked, and one of the most important acquisitions gone. Then Keishin, a young stranger, stumbles in and offers to help Hana find her father.

Hana has a secret, though…

Water Moon is a delightfully imaginative book that I enjoyed immensely from start to finish. Starting off strong, the adventure begins by Hana and Keishin falling through a pond into another world. I mean, c’mon! Later our heroes travel by means of a rumor and then again via folded origami. There are ghost inns, a village that creates the stars, and a tattooist that inks one’s fate on their skin.

This book is a puzzle, a love story, and an amazing adventure all contained within a novel that reads like a series of short stories that all work together to form a larger story. I kept waiting for the book to hit a weak point, but it never did!

Water Moon is a beautiful love story full of adventure and the lesson that we are made up of our choices even when we regret them.  - Brittany, Branch Associate