A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang: A Novel – A Magical Realism Tale of Spirits, Closure, and Family Secrets by Lee Onhwa

For readers of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, The Dallergut Dream Department Store, and The Midnight Library, a sweetly magical and uplifting novel about a young woman who inherits an enchanted bakery that spirits visit on their last stop before the afterlife.

Twenty-seven-year-old Yeon-hwa has inherited a neighborhood bakery from her grandmother. Curiously, her grandmother’s will spells out two conditions: Yeon-hwa must keep the shop going for at least another month and she must only open it to customers from 10 PM until midnight. Yeon-hwa hesitates but agrees to the terms, hoping that running the bakery will help her to finally understand her grandmother after all these years.

Yeon-hwa soon learns that the Hwawoldang—the name means “flower moon temple” —is not an ordinary dessert shop. The customers who arrive late at night are spirits, there to attend to unfinished business before being reincarnated. The sweets they crave hold some deep significance in their earthly lives, and they expect Yeon-hwa to grant their requests, as her grandmother did.

With each new spirit, Yeon-hwa discovers which special desserts live in their memories and helps them on their way. Aided by the shop’s resident black cat, Yeon-hwa learns how to find closure for her customers—and begins to unravel her own family’s secrets as well.