Lia Anshar's Honest Pages

  Title: Laplace's Witch by Keigo Higashino Genre: Mystery, Japanese Literature Published: October 13, 2026 Rating: 4.0 ⭐ Thank you to Avocado House and NetGalley for this gifted eARC in exchange for an honest review. I didn’t expect this book to be so science-heavy! It’s built around Laplace’s Demon theory by Pierre-Simon de Laplace: if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every particle in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed and can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics. In other words, the person can predict the future in a scientific way. So, basically, this is what this book is about. The story starts with a body found in a hot-spring town, dead from hydrogen sulfide poisoning. Geochemist Shusuke Aoe gets called in to look into it. Everyone writes it off as an accident, but something just doesn’t sit right. While he’s there, he meets a young woman looking for her missing friend, and she calls he...

  Genre: General Fiction, Japanese Literature Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(5/5) Expected Publication: August 27, 2026 The story starts when Amane Morikawa inherits her grandfather’s old bookshop in Onomichi. When she arrives, she finds a dusty space with empty shelves and a bunch of cats who’ve already moved in and made themselves at home. Freshly out of work and returning to a place she’d stepped away from for years, Amane slowly finds comfort in these furry new friends. As she gets to know the people around town, she starts to reconnect with her love for books, her hometown, and even parts of herself. She sets her heart on reopening the shop, but it’s not going to be easy; maybe these cats knew how. I’ve always loved how Japanese stories often feel so peaceful and healing, and this one hits just right. The plot is straightforward and moves at a nice, steady pace. This isn’t a book you’ll race through, but one you’ll want to take your time with and enjoy over a few sittings. Even with a simple s...