Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao: Captivating beauty
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao is a captivatingly beautiful and memorably romantic mystery fantasy adventure novel. Read my review.
Publication: Bantam – Penguin Random House Australia, January 2025
Genre: Mystery, Romance, Fantasy, Literature, Adventure, Drama
Water Moon Publisher Synopsis
A young woman inherits a Tokyo pawn shop where you can sell your deepest regrets, sparking a dream-like and magical adventure: Before the Coffee Gets Cold meets Studio Ghibli.
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just 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 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 – through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through 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 she will never be able to take back.
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My Review
Water Moon is the first of Samantha Sotto Yambao’s titles that I have read but it certainly will not be my last. Like all the very best literature, this novel is the combination of many genre – mystery, family drama, romance, magical realism, adventure, fantasy and thriller – and explores numerous, typically heavy themes, in deeply intelligent and refreshing artful ways.
From the opening lines,
“Time has no borders except those people make. On this particularly cold autumn day, Ishikawa Hana fashioned that border out of the thinnest layer of skin. Eyelids were useful that way…”
Sotto Yambao invites readers to think about even the simplest of things differently; more deeply perhaps, and as adults, to unbridle our curiosity.
“When Keishin asked her why she liked painting reflections, she told him that it was because the most desirable things were the ones that you could see, but never touch. Keishin crouched by the small moon floating in the puddle and wondered if it longed for the sky. His reflection stared back at him from the water, looking more trapped than content.”
Notice I said ‘invites’ rather than ‘forces’ readers to think about things differently? Proverbs are woven throughout this dreamlike narrative, but they never feel didactic.
Sotto Yambao’s fantasy alternate world-building is intricate yet ephemeral. Water Moon’s mystery suspense and swiftly paced adventure plot presents evolving fantastical paradigms to occupy and entertain the mind — a bit like Alice in Wonderland minus its absurdist satire and farce. Meanwhile in the background your brain chews over the more gristly topics such as parenthood, love, grief, personal agency and consequence, life meaning and legacy. Only in the very final denouement did I feel this narrative’s execution was anything less than taut.
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Yes, this story begins with a stereotypical light-speed star-crossed romance interaction, but greater depths of loyalty, care and devotion develop organically as they face perilous challenges together.
The scene depiction in Water Moon is just beautiful — vivid without being jarring, as though a hyper-realistic Japanese style watercolour. But, what I most admired about this narrative is that it is innately clever and artistic without being pretentious. There are lots of subtle tie-backs as the story progresses and ultimately, one comes to realise that clues to the mystery had largely been hidden in plain sight.
Sotto Yambao has an enviable skill for employing simple, accessible language in beguiling ways. I found myself constantly stopping to admire and highlight passages throughout. If, like me, you read as much for ‘the admiration of writing’ as being entertained by the storylines, then this is a must-read for you.
Water Moon is a hauntingly beautiful cerebral mystery adventure novel and memorably romantic hug that I unreservedly recommend. I think it would make a fantastic book club pick given its combination of popular genres and it raises countless relatable themes to unpack. Author Samantha Sotto Yambao’s back catalog (see below) is now on my TBR pile.
My Rating
Story 4.5 / 5 ; The Writing 5 / 5 — Overall 4.75
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* My receiving a pre-publication digital copy of Samantha Sotto Yambao’s novel from the publisher for review purposes did not impact the expression of my honest opinions above.