Japanese Gothic - by Kylie Lee Baker (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.

October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn't remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge--his father's new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn't always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.

October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father's face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will soon slaughter her whole family when she sees a terrible omen: a young foreign man who appears outside her window.

One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie.

Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it.

Review Quotes

"An eerie and unrelenting tale of two lives, two time periods, and one singular horror soaked in blood and sorrow."
--Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of The Staircase in the Woods

"A spectacular, thought-provoking, and chilling story about how the past ties itself to the present in ways humans cannot comprehend or explain.... Readers will savor every minute."
--Library Journal, starred review

"Japanese Gothic is many things: a haunting. A mystery. A ghost story. A fairy tale. A love story. Above all, it's a compelling and heartbreaking piece of art about how parental expectations can damage us, and how love can, if not quite heal us, at least set us free."
--Johanna van Veen, author of Blood on Her Tongue

"A mesmerizing, beautifully crafted story that breathes new life into the haunted house genre. Ghosts dwell between every page."
--Marcus Kliewer, author of We Used to Live Here

"Kylie Lee Baker has done it again with this tense and bloody follow-up to her incredible adult debut. Japanese Gothic is brilliantly inventive, sending a prickle down your spine as you struggle to distinguish between reality and delusion. A must-read--I couldn't turn the pages fast enough!"
--Monika Kim, internationally bestselling author of The Eyes Are the Best Part