I’m going to admit right up front that I read Amber Logan’s The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn because she was on a panel I moderated. And, I probably would have gotten more out of the novel if I had read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I know I missed some of the references because I never read the earlier book.

Mari Lennox was not in the room when her mother died, and she’s been grieving ever since. When the photographer receives a grant, to photograph an old isolated inn “for posterity’s sake”, Mari’s sister insists she go. Mari grew up in Japan, but hasn’t been been in quite some time. Now, she’s traveling to Kyoto to photograph the Yanagi Inn.

But, the Yanagi Inn isn’t what she expects. It’s old, run-down, and forsaken. The comments in the guest book are from thirty years earlier. But, attracted by a crane, Mari discovers a secret garden on a forbidden island. And, she hears weeping at night, weeping that no one else seems to hear, although there are few other people in the eerie inn.

Grief and ghosts. The reader will have to deal with both in this story of one young woman’s encounter with both. When Mari ends up hiding in a closet, hiding from ghosts, she asks herself, “What was it about Yanagi Inn that set my imagination down such a dark, terrifying rabbit hole that I ended up like this?”

Readers who stay with the quiet book will discover a reminder to stop and breath and enjoy life. But, first, they’ll have to accept ghosts and grief in The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn.

Amber A. Logan’s website is https://www.amberalogan.com/

The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn by Amber A. Logan. CamCat Books, 2022. ISBN 9780744306064 (hardcover), 336p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a galley in order to moderate a panel.