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Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Yuki Tejima follows a teenager who reunites the living and the deadThe book, which has already sold millions of copies in Japan, hits shelves stateside Aug. 26Below, read an exclusive excerpt shared with PEOPLE
Japanese literature in translation is having a moment stateside, and there’s no better time to hop on the trend.
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura, translated by Yuki Tejima, comes out from Scribner on Aug. 26 and PEOPLE has an exclusive peek inside the book that’s already sold millions of copies in Japan.
The book follows Ayumi Shibuya, a teenage “go-between” who reunites the living and the dead. After meeting his clients at a luxury hotel, Ayumi explains the rules: “each reunion is a one-time arrangement that the dead can refuse, the service is entirely free and the meeting must take place during a full moon,” the official synopsis explains.
Throughout the course of these meetings, we encounter an array of characters: There’s the resentful eldest son who wants to ask his mother to unearth the deeds to a plot of land, a teenage girl who blames herself for her best friend’s death and a weary businessman seeking answers about his fiancée’s disappearance.
Below, read an exclusive excerpt of Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon.
Author Mizuki Tsujimura.
Yoshihiro Kamiya
“How did you hear about the go-between?”
He didn’t sit down, instead resting one foot on the low fence in front of the lawn. His eyes were boring into me, making me shrink even further. I instinctively averted my gaze and then, realizing I hadn’t looked anybody in the eye recently, felt myself flushing from the neck up.
“It was online. I met some people who introduced me to some other people, and then some others, and so on.”
My online acquaintances said I wouldn’t need to give specifics, and the boy didn’t ask any more.
I took a deep breath.
I’d jumped through hoops to get to where I was today, spending more money than I’d expected to along the way. I’d been swindled out of cash because I couldn’t tell the authentic sources from the fakes. Though the question of legitimacy still loomed, this was the first time I’d been able to get the go-between’s contact information at all. If the boy in front of me was, in fact, the real thing, I’d attribute it to luck and nothing more. Half of me had been ready to throw in the towel and the other half had thought, whatever, who cares if it’s a scam. Sandwiched in the crevices between the two urges was a part of me that wanted to believe.
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“I thought you were some kind of urban legend,” I said, and he glanced over at me as he blew on his drink. Seeing that the tea was as hot for him as it was for me made him seem human.“I didn’t think I’d actually get to meet you.”
“How familiar are you with the rules?”
There was a mysterious calm to the boy’s voice, making me feel like I was the younger of the two. I felt my confidence wane again.
But I’d already come this far.
“I get the gist of them. But, um, is it true? That you can talk to people who have died?”
“I can bring them to you,” he said shortly. He sounded almost impatient. “If you’re picturing something like the mediums of Mount Osore, you’d be wrong. I don’t let dead spirits possess my body or receive messages to pass on. I set up a meeting between you and the deceased person you wish to see. I’m strictly the go-between.”
‘Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon’.
Doubleday
“That’s what I’ve heard. Some people say you’re a famous organization that goes way back?”
“Organization,” he mumbled to himself.
Was I totally off-base? But the boy didn’t seem put out. “You’re not . . . ?”
“Let’s stick to the facts. First, the go-between receives a request from a living person, someone like you. You tell me about the person in your life who has passed away. I take your request back with me and present it to the departed. I confirm whether they’re interested in seeing you as well. If they give their consent, I set up the meeting.”
“Right.”
That was the work of a go-between.
I wondered how long they’d been around. When I first heard about them, I remember thinking that they did sound a lot like the Mount Osore mediums the boy had just mentioned.
I’d heard numerous accounts of big-name politicians getting advice from notable historical figures with the help of a go-between, and celebrities having teary encounters with friends who’d died too young. Stories like those were passed from person to person like fairytales for adults — no doubt laughed off by many. But for those in the know, the go-between was a normal presence, about as common as rumors of moguls and stars paying large amounts of money to keep a psychic or astrologer on hand. Whether somebody can find their way to a go-between depends on three factors. One, that you know they exist, two, that you believe they exist and three, luck.
“What exactly does it mean for you to ‘set up a meeting’?”
He looked at me as if to say, You came to me without even knowing that?
“I mean, once somebody has died,” I said,“they no longer exist as physical bodies, obviously. And if the funeral is over, they’ve been cremated and buried.”
“They will appear looking as they did in life.”
He placed his paper cup on the bench and took out the notebook again. Lowering his gaze, he started to explain as if reading off the page.
“The spirit of the deceased is permitted to take on a physical form when in the meeting location designated by the go-between. The living person can see them, of course, and also reach out to touch them.”
“I can’t believe it,” I whispered. He shot me another look. “How is that possible?”
“Isn’t that why you came to me?” His voice grew sharper. “Why do you need to know how it works? You get to see this person. You’ll meet face-to-face and be able to talk to them directly. What more do you need?”
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“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe it. Our world connecting with … the other one.”
“You make your request and I do my part to relay it. Whether the spirit accepts is not up to me, but I will negotiate to the best of my ability.”
He continued to speak in a dry bureaucratic tone. Maybe the designer coat and young appearance were all part of a disguise. Weren’t grim reapers on TV shows and in movies often portrayed as good-looking people?
“OK,” I said.
He looked at his notebook.“So let’s get started. Please tell me the name of the person you want to see and the date they passed away.”
“Saori Mizushiro,” I said, and he looked up at me. I couldn’t make out any emotion in his eyes, but if he wasn’t actually a reaper and was a living, breathing citizen of this country like me, he had to know exactly who she was, and the circumstances surrounding her death.
“She passed away three months ago on Aug. 5th. The cause of death was a heart attack. But she had no history of illness and appeared healthy up to the day before she died. She was found in her home by her manager, who’d gone to pick her up. That’s according to the talk shows and tabloids anyway.”
As I spoke, I wondered how many people had come to the boy with requests to see Saori. I thought of the countless tributes and feature articles with headlines like Japan Says Goodbye to a Beloved Icon that had flooded the airwaves and the internet for a month after she died.
Excerpted from LOST SOULS MEET UNDER A FULL MOON by Mizuki Tsujimura. Copyright © 2010 by Mizuki Tsujimura. English language copyright © 2025 by Yuki Tejima. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura comes out on Aug. 26 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.