Kylie Lee Baker - Japanese Gothic - Inky Phoenix

Japanese Gothic

Kylie Lee Baker

Hanover Square Press, hb., 352 pp

The May 2026 pick from the Inky Phoenix, the book club from internationally known yoga teacher, author, and Charleston resident Kathryn Budig.

Blue Bicycle Books is proud to be the official bookstore partner of the Inky Phoenix!

About the book:
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.

About the author:
Kylie Lee Baker is the author of young adult andadult novels. Her writing is informed by her heritage (Japanese, Chinese, andIrish) and her experiences living abroad. She has a B.A. in CreativeWriting and Spanish and an M.S. in Library and Information Science. Visit heronline at www.kylieleebaker.com.