Honey in the Wound by Jiyoung Han

 

Publisher: Simon  & Schuster.

On Sale Date: April 7 2026

Pages: 384

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Honey In The Wound by Jiyoung Han is a story that spans multiple generations, all set in different time periods in Korea and Japan.  The story starts in 1902 with the  the family of Geum-Jin that lives a quiet and peaceful life in the deep forest. One day, his young daugther dissappears. Her clothes are found alongside tiger footprints. When Japanese soldiers invade the forest, the family is brutally attacked and the parents killed. Their other daughter, Young Ja flees the village. She is found by a family in a further village who takes her in their home. But when the husband of the family rapes Young-Ja is send away. She is brought by a man to a teahouse where she has to work hard in the kitchen with other women in the same fate, under the watchfull eye of the abusive misstress of the house. Everything changes when the Japanese soldiers burn down the teahouse, and Young-Ja is send to work with other women as a comfort woman for Japanese soldiers. A horrific time starts for her, and she barely survives the horrific abuse of the Japanese soldiers.

Later on in life, now an elderly lady, Young-Ja lives alone in Seoul. Her son lives in Japan with her granddaugher Rinako. Rinako never knew of her Korean grandmother, let alone being Korean as her father, who adopted a new Japanese name, that she is Korean, When she is alone at home and receives a call from Korea telling her that Young-Ja made a bad fall and is in hospital, Rinako wants to meet her. Together with her father, they travel to Korea, and there they learn about Young-Ja's tragic past..

Honey In The Wound by Jiyoung Han is a beautiful but also moving and heartbreaking story. This is a book that truly is impressive too. The story is spanned over many decades in different time periods that are woven together perfectly by the author. The storyline is written just so beautiful, but the story of Young-Ja and her family and what she has to endure in life is truly heartbreaking. Even more heartbreaking knowing that in real life, many women had to endure what Young-Ya had to endure, the gruel and horrific fate of many comfort women during World War II and in other wars as well who never received compensation or apologies, and had to live with trauma for the rest of their lives.  All the characters in this book where very realistic and interesting. It truly kept me interested as a reader till the last page.

There is also a small part of magical realism in this book. When one of the young daugthers of Geum-Jin dissappears in the first book, she returns as a tiger to protect the family for the Japanese soldiers. Young-Ja has a talent for putting emotions in her teas and food and Rinako can see truths about people around her in her dreams. The magical realism was doses perfectly in this book and never was too much, it just added something very special and original to the story.

Overall, as I already said, this is a beautiful and impressive, but also heartbreaking and tragic story, with a fantastic strong storyline and characters that I highly recommend reading.

Ship of Dreams by Donna Jones Alward

 

Publisher: Harper360

On Sale Date: March 31 2026

Pages: 384

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

1912; Hannah and Louisa are two young women and best friends who just boarded the biggest ship of that time period; the Titanic. Hannah is hoping her troubled marriage with her husband Charles, which got in trouble after her Charles was untrue to her, and after she got a miscarriage, will heal again. She hopefully can tell him she is expecting a baby again.

Louisa is a free spirited single women who is all into women's (voting) rights and is escaping her arranged marriage in England. On the Titanic, she meets the rich and handsome bachelor Reid and a romance starts between them. She meets the richest first class passengers like Margareth Brown. Things take a darker turn though when rumour spreads that expensive jewels from the first class passengers are missing. It seems someone opens the clasps of expensive necklaces and bracelets. Later on we learn this was the work of Louisa, who has no plan of what she will do when they arrive in New York, as she now escaped her marriage back in England that her father planned for her.

But all of a sudden everything falls apart when the Titanic hits the iceberg. On the deck of the ship, Hannah has to say farewell to Charles and Louisa to Reid, and both women do not know if the other survived until later on when they are reunited on the Carpathia. And they make plans for what to do after they arrive in New York..

I really liked the storyline of Ship of Dreams. During the progress of the story I started to like it more and more. The storyline is just fabulous, entertaining, and the end was without any loose ends. The characters are just as good as the storyline. You can totally picture Hanna and Louisa and the other characters on the Titanic in that specific time period. The part before the Titanic hits the iceberg is very movie like romantic and dramatic. I really liked all the first class things that where mentioned, the famous first class passengers that they've met and the storyline of the stolen jewels that popped up in the story all of a sudden. The part after that was, which was to be expected, very dramatic. As an expecting mother Hannah had to say farewell to her husband and Louisa to her love interest. Their time on the Carpathia was very moving, and the part after that too.

Overall, a very entertaining and captivating novel with interesting main and side characters that is a joy to read, recommended!

American Han by Lisa Lee

 

Publisher: Algonquin Books

On Sale Date: March 31 2026

Pages: 288

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Jane Kim and her brother Kevin grew up in the 80's in the San Francisco area. They where two children who worked hard to make their demanding Korean parents proud. They where both gifted and excelled in tennis and other activities. Later on, Jane went to law school and Kevin almost became a professional tennis player, but then became a policeman. Jane was supposed to become successful after law school, which in her mom's expectations also includes owning a home, have a succesfull husband and children. But Jane has stopped going to law school and it is not very clear what she is doing in life in the story. Her mom is still a demanding woman, and her absent father, who had many businesses in the past, is going from one business to another and has become a truck driver. Ther family is unraveled and the futures of Jane and Kevin too, especially when Kevin is involved in a violent incident in his function as a policeman and goes missing.

American Han is a beatifully written novel about a Korean family in between cultures. Jane is a strong main character, and the characters of her mother and brother and father too. The parents had certain high expectations for Jane and Kevin, but find out that real life goes different then expected sometimes. Jane's mother is still pushing her daughter to the perfect life she has in mind for her. It is a bit unclear though what Jane does for a living now she stopped going to law school, that is something that I missed in this story or was just so small in the storyline that you look it over quickly as a reader. The story is switching in time periods, from the past when Jane and Kevin where little and the author connects it to the present time. Overall I found this a nice and entertaining read.

Light and Thread by Han Kang

 

Publisher: Random House

On Sale Date: March 24, 2026

Pages: 176

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

This short book by author Han Kang is a mix of poems, essays, reflections. garden observations and diaries of the author.

A large part of the book, more than half of it, is all about her observations of her garden. There are several mirrors she moves througout the day to cultivate her garden at full potential. She observes and writes about the plants and trees and the insects and other things she sees in her garden.

There are several other topics that she writes about in the short first half, but it is all so short and only pinpoints on everything so fragmentary that it all becomes somewhat of a mish mash of different topics that don't have a connection with each other, I personally could not find the connection between the first half and the other half that feels mostly like her own personal garden diary. The writing style of the author is nice and easy to follow, but if it had been a little longer, and less of a personal garden diary that is most of the book, this could have been a far more interesting read. This is probably a good read if you are a fan or at least more familiar with Han Kan's eclectic type of books, but it also might be not everyone's cup of tea. I personally expected more of it.

The Plans I Have For You by Lai Sanders

 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

On Sale Date: March 17, 2026

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Shelley Hu's life is over; after an incident on the subway,  a meltdown that went viral, she lost her job at a Manhattan law firm and her place at Columbia Law. Now she is working behind the front desk of a motel in Kissimmee, Florida, the same job she had in high school.

Her life changes when one night shift, Sophia  Moon walks into the hotel to check in with her husband and young son. Sophia knows what happened to Shelley, and shows her understanding, as she has her own similar public shaming incident. She was pretending ti be a student at Cornell University, untill she  found out that she wasn't and just sneaked in. Sophia, whose real name is Soyoung, had build a new life with her husband and son, under a new name, and encourages Shelley to do the same. Shelley soon moves in with her , takes on the new name of Erin, and together they set up a plan to take revenge on the people who wronged them. But Sophia has a dark side that Shelley don't know about..

The Plans I Have For You is a dark novel. The storyline is one it takes sometime to get into, and the same counts for the somewhat shady characters of Shelley and Sophia. It was a bit strange that Shelley just took off so soon with someone she didn't know, that was a bit unrealistic. The incident Shelley was involved in on the subway was one you look over quickly in this novel and it was a bit unclear to me what really happened there. Her character doesn't progress really in this novel, she only wants to take revenge of this coworker of her, and she gets in a love relationship with the married Sophia, and we read about her troubled relationship with her Chinese mother. Sophia is a character you truly never really get to know in this novel. We read her time in college, where she tries to sneak in with other to pretend she is studying there. We met her roommates who slowly uncover her and how she met her husband, and a dark secret of something that happened with a guy named Nathaniel.  The storyline is well written, but the characters don't make a real progress and the reason why they want to take revenge on others for their own mistakes is a bit unclear. But if you like a dark novel with dark characters, this is the book for you.

How To Hold Someone In Your Heart by Mizuki Tsujimura

 

Publisher: Scribner

On Sale Date: March 17, 2026

Pages: 224

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Ayumi is a man who has two jobs in his life, a real daily life one, and a supernatural one besides that. He is a toy designer for a big company in Tokyo by day, and besides that he is a go-between who arranges reunions between living people who want to see and talk to their deceased loved one ones last time. In this book, he arranges reunions between five living people and the lost who they want to meet again; a mourning mother who wants to meet her drowned child again, a movie star who wants to meet the father who abandoned him, an amateur historian who wants to meet a historic warlord from a different century, an elderly mother who wants to meet her daughter who died of cancer, and a few more with their own motives to find some kind of closure with a deceased person. But altough he has a good job and likes being a 'broker'' between the living and the dead, he is looking for some kind of peace in his own life.

This book is a sequel to Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, but this sequel can easily be read as a standalone novel, as it makes no specific clues to the previous novel. The book reminded me a bit of the storylne of the books of the Chibineko Kitchen seriies by Yuta Takahashi, as that is also about a certain something connecting the living and the dead for one last special moment to find some closure. I liked the storyline and the main and side characters of Ayumi and the people he connects with. They where all little short stories on their own that overall connected to each other. Some stories where a bit more clear then others, some I found a bit messy. It was overall really moving though to read the narratives of the people who sought closure with their lost loved one, as some stories had quite some sad background, like the young mother who was always afraid of losing her little daughter of a drowning accident, which happened to her in real life then, and to had the change to see her daughter one last time. This book is magical realism, but not too much, and as every Japanese book in this genre it is also always very cute and lovely.

Overall this a cute and moving Japanese novel with a good storyline and characters.

Minbak by Ela Lee

 

Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

On Sale Date: March 5, 2026

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Minbak is a story that takes place in South Korea in 1985, and London in 2008. 

Incheon, South Korea; 1985; Youngja is the mother of Hana, a young woman. Youngja runs a minbak, which is a Korean homestay. During that time, a lot of  American Christian missionaries are located in Korea, and Hana gets a short relationship with one of the  American missionary men, from which a son, Yohan, is born. The American  father leaves and Youngja brings the baby to a local orphanage without the knowledge of Hana. The adoption business is in full swing during that era, and they never see Yohan again. Yongja advices Hana to go away from Incheon to avoid rumours and a bad image.

London, 2008; Youngja is in a care home, and Hana and her daughter Ada are still mourning the loss of Hana's husband Tim, who passed away recently. They found out soon he had large financial depths, and Hana decides to make a minbak of her own home, and share a room in the house with Ada. Because of the depths, Youngja, who has alzheimer can't stay in the care home anymore and moves into the same room too. While Hana tries to survive with the depths and running the minbak, Ada is a true teenager with the struggles that come with that at school and at home.

During this time, secrets from the past surface, when Ada discovers that she once had a brother she never knew about. Not sure is if he was adopted or not, as orphanages sometimes muddled with the adoption and registration papers on purpose to sell more children for adoption abroad. Switching in time from the past to the present, the three women have to place this long buried secret of a grandchild, son and brother that they are not sure of if he is still alive or not. Complex mother-daughter relationships, generational trauma, forgiveness loss of memory and living in between cultures is what the three have to deal with.

Minbak is a serious toned book. Not a lighthearted book you can escape with as it has a more serious topic. But besides that, the storyline itself is strong and good. It takes some time to get into it as a reader but when you got the hand of it, this is a book that captivates you. The characters of Hana, Youngja and Ada where all three very realistic and believable. They all had to deal with a tragic past and intergenerational wounds that somehow needed to heal and find some closure in the end of the book. Did it had a good closure? Not really, I found the end quite messy and somewhat confusing, and it still had to many loose ends. But overal , I liked the story and the characters and the realistic picture it painted of serious problems in the adoption industry during that era in South Korea.

The Sisters of Book Row by Shelley Noble

 

Publisher: William Morrow

On Sale Date: March 3, 2026

Pages: 384

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher.

It's 1915, The Arcadia rare bookshop is the bookshop of the three sisters Applebaum, Celia, Olivia and Daphne, on Manhattan's book row, a street full of bookstores. The bookstores are suffering from the wrath of a certain Mr. Comstock, who suspects in a nazi-like way every bookstore and other kind of store to sell or trade in 'obscene lewd, or lascivious” publications. His laws are strict and his men raid shops often, which is the biggest fear of the sisters Applebaum and every other store in the street. Things get even more dangerous when Celia joins an undercover group, led by Margareth Stanger, who secretly print and distribute publications on women's health and health rights, and hide them within cookbooks and sewing patterns, and they have to work more secretly as the raids are all around them.. Her sisters don't know about her secret activities, as they are busy running the store. The three live in fear that the dreaded Anthony Comstock and his agents of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice will endanger their livelihood..

The Sisters of Book Row is a book about three sisters who run a bookstore amidst strict rules made up by men. They are living in a time when women's rights where next to nothing. Before reading this book, I never knew that what Comstock did in this fictional book really happened and the booksellers where truly courageous in silently rebbeling against the laws. But is is this enough to make this a good and entertaining read? Yes and no. Some parts in this book where good, some where less, and somehow this book gave me more of a feel of a dusty bookstore in old London then in New York. The three sisters have all their specific background and characters which where potrayed nicely. But the end was quite messy, and the end had quite some loose ends. The story had a nice promise, but the slow pace and messy storyline made it a less good novel then it could be.

Theater Kid by Jeffrey Seller

 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

On Sale Date: May 6, 2025

Pages: 368

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher.

Jeffrey Seller is the producer of many successfull Broadway musicals; Rent, Avenue Q, In The Heights! and Hamilton. How he became a Broadway producer, he describes in this memoir. His memoir is not only about his succes on Broadway, but also about his youth. He grew up in the Oak Park neighborhood of Detroit, which was also know as Cardboard Village back in the 1960s/70s. Cardboard Village was characterized by cheaply constructed homes that felt like "cardboard" to him. His parents, who adopted him as a baby, had problems with each other, and where in and out of divorces that many times did not go trough over and over again. His mom was hardworking and took care of the family, while his father was irresponsibe and overspending and cared mostly about himself. He joins a youth theatre group which starts his love for theater, later on starts making musicals at summer theater camps, and later on moves to New York where he starts working at for Broadway theater producers Fran and Barry Weissler. On the day that he is fired there, he is called back by Jonathan Larson who wants him to produce his new musical  at the New York Theater Workshop; Rent. This is the start for Jeffrey as a Broadway producer, who also wins  several Tony awards for his musicals. But it also contains a deep tragedy because Jonathan Larson sad passing of a heart aneurism just after the first preview perfomance of Rent.

This is a book for everyone who loves Broadway musicals, and/or also now the backstory of musicals like Rent. Jeffrey Seller has a very vivid and fun way of writing, and seems to remind every detail of things that happened decades ago ( I truly wonder how he reminded all the specific conversations with people, for example). I found it interesting and entertaining to read Jeffrey's road from a troubled youth to an award winning Broadway producer. This road was full of bumps, and learning how to survive in New York on you own, and in the world of musical theater and it also was about Jeffrey finding out who he was. There is one explicit sauna scene though that did not add anything to the story and you might wonder if this scene was more in place in his personal diary then in this book or why an editor did not clean this up or added a littlebit of a warning that this might be not everyone's cup of tea. Besides that, this is a book not to miss for every musical theater lover.

The Calico Cat at the Chibineko Kitchen by Yuta Takahashi

Publisher: Penguin Books

On Sale Date: February 24, 2026

Pages: 224

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher.

In the previous book The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen that came out last year , the reader is introduced to the magical restaurant The Chibineko Kitchen, where customers who have lost a loved one can have one last remembrance meal with them as long as the meal is still steaming. In this new installment in this series, the setup is completely identical as in the previous book, be it with different main and side characters. In the first chapter we are introduced to Nagi, a young woman who has an illness and is told by her doctors she has only five years left to live. She recently has a new boyfriends, but she is struggling with the facts of her illness and that he wants to marry her, altough her future is unsure. She is in need of advice from her mom  deceased mother, and during a magical remembrance meal at the Chibineko Kitchen, she gets the chance to talk with her mom for one last time. The other stories are about a man who lived inside his house for years, a theater director who hopes to revive his career after he experienced a tragic accident, and who wants to talk to his los son at the Chibineko Kitchen, and an elderly person who wants to talk to its partner who has passed away years ago. In the Chibineko Kitchen, which is run by chef Kai and  restaurant worker Kotoko, and the restaurants Calico cat they  Chibi, they all see their loved one for a last chat and meal. They all get new insights in life because of this meal, and are reminded what matters most in their life, which is their loved ones. 

Just as the previous book (read my review of it here) the book is a short but beautifully written novel, orginally from Japan. It is also fun that the character of Kotoko returns in this book, as an employee of the restaurant where she pays a visit to in the first novel. And just as the previous book, the short stories of all the different characters that change in every chapter (except for the restaurant staff and cat) where all very moving, entertaing, and the remembrance meals they enjoyed at the restaurant with their lost loved ones, where beatifully portrayed, And just as in the previous novel, the magic in this book was dosed just right, not too much, just the right amount to make the stories a bit of  fantasy, but also very believable and realistic on the other side, as all the characters are dealing with serious losses of family.

This is another fantastic new book in the Chibineko Kitchen series that is now available in English. Don't miss out on this brilliant new Japanese book!