Passage to Tokyo

Kuroki’s gripping standalone second Ancestor Memories time-travel fantasy (after Gate to Kagoshima) kicks off in 1995 Tokyo, when 22-year-old Yui Sanada’s 12-year-old brother, Hiro, goes missing during a festival in Ueno Park. The search for him leads Yui through a tunnel that deposits her in 1923, just weeks before the Great Kanto Earthquake that killed thousands. As disaster looms, Yui’s desperation to find Hiro, who has also presumably time-traveled, keeps the pages turning and the stakes high even as, in the meantime, Yui meets Korean Japanese woman Chiyo Aiko, sparking a sweet forbidden romance. Things become even more complicated for Yui when she’s finally reunited with Hiro and, due to some time-bending trickery, he’s not how she remembers him. Kuroki again hand-waves away many of the mechanics of time travel, which will give rise to some questions and potential paradoxes for readers who interrogate the plot too closely. Still, the question of how one should respond when one knows disaster is imminent remains poignant and the examination of prejudice against Koreans in 1920s and ’30s Japan is unflinching. Add in an endearing sibling bond and an enduring sapphic love story that transcends time, and this is sure to resonate. (Jan.)