DRC Review: Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao
Release date: 14 Jan 2025
Rating: 5/5
Book box(es) and SE’s: illumicrate January, Goldsboro Special Edition
Synopsis: A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical quest when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike fantasy novel.
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.
Review
Water Moon delivers quite a magical reading experience. With thematic semblances from Needful Things, Labyrinth, Spirited Away, and The Adjustment Bureau, I could not get enough of this book. When it was over, I was charmed and grieved at the same time. Sotto Yambao’s writing transported me back to a childhood of make-believe tales where the world had magic in it everywhere; and anything, especially true love, is possible.
Readers familiar with Ghibli films will feel right at home in Water Moon. In fact, Hana and Kei feel like reading an extended epilogue for Chihiro and Haku. The romance felt very natural, organic, and believable. Though the two characters displayed attraction at the outset of their relationship, I was delighted to read a book where the foundation on which the love they built for one another showed genuine development intellectually as well as physically.
As much as I harp on the B5 romantasy market releasing something that isn’t more of the same, I’d be remiss if I didn’t assert that Water Moon is exactly what I was talking about. The world building surprised and amazed me. I’ve read so much fantasy and romance that I want something to appeal to my sense of wonder. Instead of burning me out with the same inane plot devices, Water Moon made the world a character, and the world could do anything it wanted. Puddles could be portals and doorways, dreams can take people to the perfect cup of tea, and sometimes, even after a few years, the person someone longs to see again really does just walk back into a person's life, finally.
My thanks to Del Rey/Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the DRC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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