Book Review: "Japanese Gothic" by Kylie Lee Baker

Last year, I called Kylie Lee Baker's novel Bat Eater one of the best novels of 2025 and honestly, I still think that is true. A rambunctious, fun and yet horror-orientated novel, it was absolutely brilliant.

Since then, I think we have all eagerly been waiting for her to write something else because I can't lie, we all love her at this point. Japanese Gothic is her newest novel and if you didn't think things could get better than Bat Eater then I'm going to need you to brace for impact.

Let's get into the review...

Lee has murdered James and he can't remember what he's done with the body. He might be a student and James might have been his roommate, but at the moment Lee is practically falling asleep sitting up on his father's sofa as we're told the story of how stress can exacerbate his father's condition and his mother is nowhere to be seen. With thoughts racing through his head, he frantically searches for the murder online only to be met with absolutely nothing at all. His head spins. Nothing. And thus, this is how Kylie Lee Baker throws us headfirst into the rabbit hole of who this young man actually is and what he is trying to hide from the world. I love how the author always starts her novels with a "bang!". In Bat Eater, there's a horrid event at the start and here, we have a murder. I know I'm going to be really enjoying myself with this one.

His father's girlfriend tells him a story about a samurai who killed someone and Lee starts to think about where his mother might be as she has disappeared. When in the dead of night, he sees a woman standing outside the house - he thinks it is his father's girlfriend returning. But it's not. It's not her at all. In another timeline we have Sen, a woman who is born into a samurai family at a time when perhaps, these guys were going out of existence. She is well taught by her father in how to use a sword and her mother is worried that she will scare off any man who would be able to marry her. But Sen is surprised when one day, after her father returns from the battlefield a wholly different man, she sees the face of an unknown man staring back at her one day. She has no idea who this is or why he's here. Kylie Lee Baker is doing it again, she is sinking us further and further into the story by giving us just enough information coated in this visceral and often violent atmosphere. I absolutely adore it.

One thing I've always adored about Kylie Lee Baker's writing is that it borders on the dark comedic whilst also retaining its horror qualities. It has parts of the sbsurd within whilst giving us something that tenses us up and sometimes even scares us. Very few authors are able to pull this all off with ease which is why I think that Kylie Lee Baker is destined to become one of those authors in the future that we commend and find a classic for transcending genre and combining things which seem otherwise impossible. I mean Bat Eater is still on my mind - I am destined to recall the events of Japanese Gothic as well. Her writing though, is one of her biggest assets and say, if she were to write a Julia Armfield style book of short stories, it would be something else entirely. She is our generation's Shirley Jackson and I will stick by that.

Kylie Lee Baker never misses a beat and if you weren't convinced by Bat Eater then you're going to have a hard time being stuck in your ways when you read Japanese Gothic. The mixture of the absurd, the existential, the brutal, the comedic and the gothic make it all the more realistic. She uses the past and the present to hook us in and sends us hurtling towards the unknown. With a symbol of the unknown, there is something deeply disturbing about this book and yet, you will not be able to put it down. I promise.