Hildred Billings

The Longest River Hildred Billings

High in the mountains of central Japan, there's a town that makes it official business to invite in a host of spirits every summer... Helen's twin sister has drowned. After sixty years of relying on each other, Helen must now learn to not only work through her grief, but to embrace a life without the only person who ever mattered. Fate brings her to Gujo, a secluded Japanese village that's not only stuck in time, but is reliant on the unpredictable Nagara River, a reminder of Helen's grief. Between this unhappy circumstance and being completely lost in a culture not her own, she could really use a friend... Enter Kiyoko, the introverted bookstore owner. Kiyoko has not only made peace with her husband's death a decade ago, but with Gujo, a town she has called home for over thirty years. When Helen and Kiyoko meet, it feels like fate. A fate awash in the tears of grief and the flowing river that won't let sleeping ghosts go. With the obon spirit season afoot, it's only a matter of time before the dead begin their meddling and attempt to set these would-be lovebirds on a path they both claim to not need. It's going to be one Hell of a summer.