Critical Praise

"Kate Walbert's fine, delicate prose captures voices that we don't hear much anymore....The Gardens of Kyoto is a ghost story, a mystery, a love story."

—Amy Bloom

"This lovely, original novel...[examines] the gauzy web of fictions we spin to protect our loved ones from the barbed truths of the past."

—Francine Prose, Elle

"[A]...haunting, accomplished first novel."

——Elizabeth Ward, The Washington Post

"Readers in love with language will adore this book."

——Carol Memmott, USA Today

"There's something convincingly elegant in Walbert's prose, making this book a strange and stately object of contemplation."

——Mark Rozzodeck, Los Angeles Times

"In precise, delicate prose, the author renders with equal power the quiet desperation of a girl growing up in 1950s America and the ethereal."

——The New Yorker

"An elusive first novel with understated power."

—Alida Becker, The New York Times Book Review