Water Moon A Novel

A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets—and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop in this dream-like and enchanting fantasy novel.

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 its new owner to find the pawnshop 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.

Samantha Sotto Yambao is a professional daydreamer, aspiring time traveler, and speculative fiction writer based in Manila. She is the author of Before Ever After, Love and Gravity, A Dream of Trees, and The Beginning of Always. Water Moon is her fifth novel.