May 18th, 2025
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The books of May are here—fresh, fierce, and full of feels.

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Wedding season includes searching for a missing bride�and a killer . . .


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Sometimes the path forward begins with a step back.


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One island. Three generations. A summer that changes everything.


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A snapshot made them legends. What it didn�t show could tear them apart.


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This life coach will give you a lift!


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A twisty, "addictive," mystery about jealousy and bad intentions


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Trapped by magic, haunted by muses�she must master the cards before they�re lost to darkness.


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Masquerades, secrets, and a forbidden romance stitched into every seam.


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A vanished manuscript. A murdered expert. A castle full of secrets�and one sharp-witted sleuth.


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Two warrior angels. First friends, now lovers. Their future? A WILD UNKNOWN.


Water Moon

Water Moon, January 2025
by Samantha Sotto Yambao

Del Rey
384 pages
ISBN: 0593724992
EAN: 9780593724996
Kindle: B0D1T8QLQ3
Hardcover / e-Book
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"For Love and Loved ones"

Fresh Fiction Review

Water Moon
Samantha Sotto Yambao

Reviewed by Bharti C
Posted January 10, 2025

Fantasy | Contemporary

WATER MOON is an epic love story that has nothing and everything you have ever wanted in a fictional love story.

Set in a fantastical world behind a dinky ramen restaurant is a pawnshop where patrons end up when they have a choice to pawn in exchange for whatever they wish for. The ramen restaurant seats just a few at a time and there’s always a line outside the door. This is where the patrons and their thoughts come into play and for a lucky or rather willing few the door opens to a pawn shop and not the ramen restaurant. Our introduction to the pawnshop is via just one customer Takeda san as she finds herself in a pawn shop and not the ramen place she’s been visiting for a long time.

Through her, we meet Otou-san, the pawnshop owner and his daughter Hana. Otou-san takes the reader through the purpose of the pawnshop and how it works. Coincidentally it is also the owner's last day of work, once they close shop for the day, he retires and Hana takes his place. However, when the new day dawns Hana finds a mess on her hands with the pawn shop ransacked and her father missing.

She tries to make sense of it all and looks for clues that her father might have left behind for her. While the pawnshop’s door is shared with a restaurant from our world, inside it’s different. Inside is a place where our rules don’t apply. Just as she is getting a grip, knowing she can’t just walk out of the door and get help, a customer walks in.

Hana instantly sees who he is for real and the role he will play from here on. Every character we meet plays a role, their personal stories are intertwined in an intricate way which is key to the story. Keishin is a scientist who’s always looking for answers to the big questions of the world and how it all came to be. The same curiosity makes him believe every explanation Hana gives and he decides to stay and help her find her father. Thus starts a journey Hana and Kei take to find answers both believable and ones that might be unexplainable in Kei’s world.

WATER MOON is a story of sky markets, and ghost towns, one where paper cranes transport you and time is folded into origami papers and memories captured in pearls. It is a mesmerising world where we find answers to questions we didn’t even ask and yet they fill a void we never knew we had.

Hana and Kei go on a journey filled with beautiful and terrifying creatures all the same. Along the way they face danger, betrayal, a sense of doom and also hope, love and much more. The beauty and grip in the story come from the fantastical world the author has created complete with lovable and fearsome creatures.

The love story and personal dynamic between the couple pull you in as much as the surroundings they are in. Theirs is a story that reminds you of star-crossed lovers, of two people who aren’t meant to be and yet share an unescapable chemistry and much more.

WATER MOON is a fantasy love story that offers not just love but a promising world, a platform to get answers to questions that haven’t had a chance to be asked. WATER MOON is a story you didn’t know you needed but will end up cherishing like a treasure.

Learn more about Water Moon

SUMMARY


On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only 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 its 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—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and 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 that she will never be able to take back.


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