Forty-year-old botanist Rose Ueno has travelled from her home in France to Kyoto, Japan, for the will reading of her later father Haru whom she has never met and was a successful art dealer.

Whilst there she stays in her late father’s home and is looked after by his elderly housekeeper, his driver, and his assistant Paul, a widower with a young daughter. Paul has been left a list of places from Haru to take Rose who has never been to Japan before nor does she speak the language. The two visit temples and gardens, etc together and a bond begins to form between them.

I loved the blurb from A Single Rose and the cover made me want to pick this up book up and settle down to read it, immediately. However, I wasn’t more than a few pages in when I realised that I was going to struggle with it. The way it is written/or translated is very intellectual. Every page seems to have a hidden meaning or message, one that I could feel was there but felt like it went over my head.

The amusing thing is that in-between the chapters are short stories, Japanese folk law that tells you tales that have subliminal messages, these I enjoyed and they kept me reading.

The book is not a bad read by any stretch. At first, I couldn’t warm to Rose but as the book progresses she opens up more and becomes more down to earth from the stuck-up woman she came across at the start. She especially relaxes as she gets closer to Paul. I also loved visiting the sites of Japan which were well described.

I can see a lot of people enjoying this short book and taking on board the story of what I presume is forgiveness. For me, I like my books to get right to the heart of the matter and not to have to try and decipher the undercurrent of the story the whole way through.