In this Q&A series, SLJ poses five questions and a request for a book recommendation to a debut YA author. Mina Ikemoto Ghosh shares about Hyo the Hellmaker in this latest installment.

1. Congrats on your YA debut! How would you describe your book to readers?
Thank you very much, it’s nice to have something to celebrate! I’d describe Hyo as a Japanese fantasy murder mystery, where the detective is cursebound to investigate murders and sell vengeance to those left behind. The ingredients on the packet would be: Gods, demons, demonic pears, ghosts, theatre, some Onmyoji flavoring, and crabs.

2. What drew you to YA to tell this story?
I tossed it up and down for a while and decided it felt right for the character. Hyo is young and young in her powers, very much learning her powers on the job, and it reflects her perspective on the world. Also, I think YA tends towards more fantasies of agency (as a type of power fantasy? I’m still thinking this one out, so bear with me!), i.e., reader experiences where the character is able to make more decisions, types of decisions, and impactful decisions than the reader’s own situation in reality. Hyo’s story needs her to be mindful of effects of a curse on her decisions, so how much agency she has (or allows herself) is complicated and in the background. YA seemed fitting.

3. What, if anything, surprised you while writing it?
Probably how difficult Hyo was to write as a character, because the moral code she’s raised with and her values are very different from other humans in her world, too. I wanted her to fall somewhere in attitude between gods and humans, but, at the same time, she is our chief human POV on events and ideas of life and death, so her voice was a real balancing act to find.

I also started the zero draft as a rom-com on a bet, but to no one’s surprise this lasted about four chapters, before death and sad gaslit gods took over.

4. Tell us more about the characters. Which character do you most identify with and why?
Ooooooh, this is a tricky one. This time I’ll say Todomegawa Daimyoujin the Bridgeburner aka Tokifuyu. He’s an en-giri (fateful connection cutter) god who’s very flammable. He’s got to be careful about biting off more than he can chew or else his problems might end up weighing him down like an inescapable boulder. Also I, too, would love to have a bond with a fiery headless horse despite failing to be taken seriously by her. 

5. What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
A good time, of course! Even though ideas of a good time are very relative, haha. There’s no romance, so I hope they’re along for a puzzle and a chance to tour around an absurd world that could only exist in fantasy. Maybe they’ll take away a broader idea of what Japanese fantasy can be, and maybe they’ll be curious about the kishotenketsu non-conflict dependent story structure. I hope that some will find some comfort in the story, and maybe take away a little pat on the back for being alive and human.

The Rec: Finally, we love YA and recommendations—what’s your favorite YA book you've read recently?
I read These Stolen Lives by Sharada Keats, and it’s so good! I love its worldbuilding. It’s set in a country which has had multiple waves of colonisation, creating this multilingual and multicultural melting pot with class divisions that largely follow race lines, and the most recent colonisers have demanded everyone who was there before their invasion work and pay back the ‘debt’ of having used the resources of the land beforehand i.e. they’re all indentured for life. The Government’s motto is that ‘Life is Golden,’ and essentially people are paying for the right to survive. It’s grim but beautifully written, and a nice blend of mash of dystopia, heist, some romance, and mystery, and there are these creatures like Clydesdale deer. You’ll have to read to know what I mean!