LADY OF HYAKKI YAKŌ (Summary)

Thread-witch Grant Ishida has three goals now that he's finally graduated high school: get accepted to Parsons School of Design, get as far away from the town of Hyakki Yakō as humanly possible, and forget the fact that he's descended from a long line of witches. Magic didn’t save his parents from dying in a car accident when he was ten, or prevent his own motorcycle accident that left Grant barely able to walk and destroyed his dream of playing football—so what good is it?

But Grant's grandparents have always claimed that their powers are a gift from the otherworldly beings living in the abandoned Victorian-era hospital just outside of town, and that one day those powers may help Grant save someone he loves. When his younger brother Keith and several other kids are taken by a yokai—monsters of Japanese myth—from the strange realm inside the decrepit hospital, Grant realizes his grandparents were right. Now he has no choice but to step inside the crumbling building that masks a beautifully bizarre world reminiscent of feudal Japan; a world populated by ogres, ice maidens, vindictive demons, fox people, and preternatural samurai. A world ruled by the mysterious yokai lord known only as the daimyo.

In order to rescue his brother, Grant will have to team up with Lady Ayame, a warrior in service to the daimyo. Ayame's duty is to prevent the yokai from preying on humans. With her honor at stake, she will stop at nothing to rescue the missing humans and put a stop to the monster that dared defy the laws of their realm. But Ayame has secrets of her own that will either guarantee Grant's success…or get them both killed.

Weaving together feudal Japan, Japanese folklore, and a dark and twisty retelling of "The Snow Queen," this is the tale of a witch who risk everything to save his family, a samurai who will risk everything to save her honor, and a world of Japanese myths and monsters transplanted from their native land to modern America.