Kylie Lee Baker discusses JAPANESE GOTHIC @ Hardshore Distilling Co.

Join Print: A Bookstore and Hardshore Distilling Co. to celebrate the release of Kylie Lee Baker's newest horror novel, , as part of our .

The newest novel by the author of Bat Eater and Other Names For Cora Zeng, which was an Indie Next Pick, New York Times Notable 100 of 2026, and Library Reads Pick, is Japanese Gothic, a fresh take on a haunted house story in which two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds, for fans of Shirley Jackson and The Eyes Are the Best Part.

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.

Kylie Lee Baker is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Keeper of Night duology and The Scarlet Alchemist duology. She grew up in Boston and has since lived in Atlanta, Salamanca, and Seoul. Her writing is informed by her heritage (Japanese, Chinese, and Irish), as well as her experiences living abroad as both a student and a teacher. She has a BA in creative writing and Spanish from Emory University and a master's of library and information science degree from Simmons University.

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