Mongrel, Hanako Footman

An exquisite debut novel weaving together the voices of three young women in Japan and the UK as the threads of their lives unspool in unexpected directions.

Mei loses her Japanese mother at age six. Growing up in suburban Surrey, she yearns to fit in with her peers, suppressing both her heritage and her growing love for her best friend Fran.

Yuki leaves her parents’ farm in the Japanese countryside to pursue her dream of becoming a concert violinist. A lonely and homesick student in London, she finds herself caught up in the charms of her older teacher.

Haruka, a young bar hostess living in Tokyo, attempts to navigate the city’s underworld and all of its many vices, as she grieves a mother who hid so many secrets from her.

Shifting between these three intergenerational narratives, Mongrel reveals a tangled web of isolation, yearning, love, and ultimately, hope.