4.5 stars

An engrossing cultural thriller that taught me many things about Kyoto, and it was a pleasure to learn so much about kimonos.

This is a great mystery with many twists and turns and contains well-developed characters. Copeland's expertise with descriptive prose painted a backdrop to a city that made you feel as though you were right there beside the characters.

While I enjoyed the audiobook immensely, I would recommend reading the e-book or paperback version. The narrator didn't seem comfortable reading the novel and it appeared as though she labored through it. This does not take away from the novel content though, which was extremely well written.

If you enjoy a good mystery and want to try cultural prose, this is definitely a great book to pick up.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Brother Mockingbird for this ARC. This opinion is my own.

Ruth is a translator based in Kyoto, Japan and has a mundane job translating marketing brochures and other commercial texts. One day, a woman in a grey kimono pays her a visit and requests a secret translation of a new novel by a writer who's supposedly dead. Ruth agrees which plunges her into a thriller involving aqueducts, temples, murder and a reckoning with her own past.

This is a gripping story and the (predominantly) Kyoto location is very well realised with believable details such as bus routes, metro stops, the rivers and popular walks. The character Ruth is sometimes rather impulsive and acts before thinking. Ruth has an awkward relationship with her parents who were apparently Christian missionaries who worked in a hospital in Kyoto. This feels like a plot device rather than intrinsic to the novel as Ruth doesn't mention God or faith at all

Overall, this is a good read and I recommend it. I received an advance review copy of the audiobook for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This one had such promise but it fell awkwardly flat for me. I don't want to ruin it for anyone else, so I'll only say that the author tried so very hard to write a culturally rich cozy mystery about a once-Japanese, once-American woman living as a translator in Japan. So hard it hurt in places (and not in a good way).

There were pages where the word "kimono" seemed to appear in EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE. I had a hard time wading through that.

I won't post this review in all my usual spots, just to Goodreads and here. It wasn't for me, and that was my biggest issue with The Kimono Tattoo, so I'll leave it to others to form their own opinions without knowing the disappointment of mine.

The audio reader for this book has the perfect voice. The book is an exquisite tale, the characters are really good. I really hope this author will write more murder mysteries.

The Kimono Tattoo - Rebecca Copeland

Excellent! I love a mystery thriller and this one was suspenseful. Thank you.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Rebecca Copeland for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC audiobook for The Kimono Tattoo. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Ruth Bennett returns to Kyoto after her job and marriage fail. She was hoping for peace, but she finds herself involved in translating a mysterious book. She is an expert on the kimono and learns more about the Japanese tattoos.

I found the story to be interesting overall, but there were times where it was mostly about Ruth. I was hoping for the other characters to be more fleshed out. First person narratives sometimes focus a lot on the main character’s perspective. The plot was fun and mysterious.

Overall, it was great book. I’d be interested in other books by this author. I love Japanese stories.

Thanks to NetGalley for the audiobook ARC!

The Kimono Tattoo was an enthralling thriller steeped in Japanese tradition. I found the nonfiction aspects, such as the intricate descriptions of kimono patterns and designs, to be just as entertaining as the plot. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Japanese culture and history, and to fans of thrillers in general.

This was a really fun and intriguing debut, set in Kyoto, Japan. While the book is first and foremost a thriller, the reader gains so much cultural and environmental knowledge through the text! Kyoto is one of my favorite cities to visit, and reading this book helped me to picture myself back there again. We also saw the grittier side of this beautiful place, with some dark and uncomfortable truths lurking below the surface. I also learned a lot about the artistry that is kimono making, which I’m grateful for!

I was drawn into the story immediately, and the premise is a really interesting one, with creeping dread and chilling suspense throughout! I enjoyed the characters, the intrigue, and the twists and turns. I do wish there was more resolution at the conclusion, as there were a few loose ends that I wanted to know more about.

I’ll definitely read this author’s future work!

Thanks to NetGalley and Brother Mockingbird Publishing for the advanced edition!

Quick Summary: Suspense, drama, mystery, intrigue...The Kimono Tattoo had it all.

My Review: The Kimono Tattoo by Rebecca Copeland was my kind of story. I genuinely loved it. It was so different than I expected. Twists and turns throughout. Light and dark elements weaved in. Suspense, drama, mystery, intrigue - this book had it all. I was determined to savor every single reading. I will certainly be placing this work on my library's book club wish list.

Rating: 5/5
Recommend: Yes
Audience: A
Re-read: Yes
Keeper: Yes

Appreciation is extended to the author, to the publisher, and to NetGalley, who provided access to an audio ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. The words I have shared are my own and have not been influenced by the aforementioned in any way.

In The Kimono Tattoo, by Rebecca Copeland, an expat woman named Ruth gets caught up in a mystery when she’s offered a freelance translation job. When the manuscript starts to describe violent deaths resembling those happening in the real world, memories from her past resurface.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At times, I found it a little difficult to keep track of all the different threads running through this book. But the way the characters’ lives intertwined in such unexpected ways kept me interested. The author’s expertise also shone through, and the way she wrote about Kyoto was lovely.

One thing I would change is that I found the characterization a bit uneven across the characters. The male antagonists came across kind of flatly “bad guy” compared to the complexly written lead as well as the other female characters, honestly.

I am grateful to both the publisher and NetGalley for providing an Audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well developed characters and attention to detail.. Nice balance of Kyoto, the nitty gritty parts and the beauty and elegance. Learned a lot through this book. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook

The Kimono Tattoo is part-mystery and almost part-history novel set in Kyoto, Japan. In this story, we follow an American ex-pat named Ruth, who has lived in Japan for most of her life only recently returning after a failed marriage in the United States. She works as a translator and one day receives a manuscript from a renowned writer who was disgraced by his family and promptly disappeared years ago. As Ruth begins translating the manuscript, she discovers in its pages a shocking crime that makes her question what has she gotten herself involved in? And how might these events be connected to another crime that occurred decades before forever altering Ruth’s family?

This novel was quite a trip! The descriptions of Kyoto were magnificent and the author’s ability to interweave context for socio-cultural interactions and norms was very well-done. The author’s own past as a historian has given her the ability to include rich amounts of detail on Japanese society and culture. I also enjoyed the sections on the history of the Kimono and the way this family’s history is interwoven into the story. It all felt very useful in the story, rather than feeling like an information dump on the reader. However, there were other times where I felt like less important information was overelaborated upon and some passages felt drawn out. This became more obvious during scenes where our main character Ruth would quite literally ask guided questions from characters to further along their conversation, rather than someone naturally providing the answers that they claim to have. I’m not sure why this was done as it made several interactions feel inauthentic.

Speaking of authenticity, let’s discuss the story itself. Things felt a little too convenient in this story, whether this be: the relative ease of finding someone, strangers who go to incredible lengths to aid Ruth, slight issues that are quickly resolved with another solution that barely causes a hiccup in the plan. However, the most convenient part of this story is the big reveal of how everything comes together. I don’t think this big reveal makes a ton of sense and was waiting for there to be another plot twist, but there just wasn’t. I don’t think the connections between the two major threads of the story were well-developed and the logic just never entirely adds up – which Ruth herself even questions. I feel like the mystery/thriller storyline was treated as a very surface level theme where certain convenient plot devices forward the narrative instead of a natural development. This was somewhat disappointing because I think the story was still a good story, but there’s just so much suspension of belief required to say okay yes this works.

As for the characters, I wasn’t a big fan of Ruth because we just don’t see a ton of development from her as a character. She continues to make naïve decisions throughout the entire story, and I could just never fully connect with her because I couldn’t understand why she made some of the choices she made. We don’t really get a ton of her raw emotions, but rather more of her explanations of things so I think that contributed to an emotional disconnect from the character for me. I will say that I enjoyed the side characters substantially and they did feel well-rounded. Yet, I didn’t especially care for the relationship that develops later in the story as it truly felt like that storyline was out of left field when I really think it could have been more naturally interwoven and would have made for an interesting storyline. Instead, it felt very random all things considered.

Thank you to Netgalley and Brother Mockingbird Publishing for an audiobook ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I must say the audiobook narrator gave a fantastically atmospheric performance that worked so well for this story! Overall, this was an interesting read and I was still entertained by the story, but it's not one I especially felt connected or invested in. I enjoyed the writing in terms of how descriptive it was and the story’s integration of Japanese history, art, and culture. However, there just needed to be a stronger focus on developing Ruth’s character and on making the story feel more natural.

As soon as I read the synopsis for this book I knew I had to read it. For a long time I have been fascinated with the Japanese language and certain aspects of Japanese culture so this book synopsis really spoke to me.

I love a good thriller and this book intrigued me from the very first chapter. I really enjoyed the view into everyday life in Kyoto and I loved exploring Ruth as a character. Despite not knowing much about traditional Japanese dance, kimonos, or Kyoto I felt engrossed in the world and my lack of familiarity with some of the terms and items didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I listened to this in audiobook form and while I really enjoyed the story itself, I wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator. I felt that the narration was stiff and unnatural in places. It was not bad enough to make me not finish the book, but I would definitely hesitate to listen to another narration by her in the future.

I wish there was more to the ending, I really wanted to see what happened next between the characters.

I will definitely consider other works by this author in the future.

Note: I was provided a copy of the audiobook through NetGalley for free in exchange for an honest review

Ruth is an American who grew up in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese, and after a failed attempt of living in America, works as a translator in Japan. When a strange story is given to her about a woman found with a Kimono Tattoo, and then an almost replicated scenario is real, Ruth has to decide how far she will go to discover who is behind it. This journey takes her to the seedy parts of Kyoto and brings up a mystery of her own, long hidden away.

I loved hearing about the Japanese culture and the mystery was interesting and well paced. The author has clearly done her research and it made the book much more enjoyable. I think this will appeal to a wide range of audiences.

The author obviously has a lot of experience and knowledge when it comes to the Japanese culture. Despite this, I still found it difficult to become immersed in the story. I listened to the audiobook, and am not sure if the pronunciation of certain words/names contributed or not. I also found parts of the book too convenient and I did get over the used of the word "Kimmono", not sure how many times it was used but it was a lot!!!

The Kimono Tattoo by Rebecca Copeland was narrated by Theresa Bakken. A 3.5 Star audio book for me.

Ruth is an American who grew up in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese, and after a failed attempt of living in America, works as a translator in Japan. When a strange story is given to her about a woman found with a Kimono Tattoo, and then an almost replicated scenario is real, Ruth has to decide how far she will go to discover who is behind it. This journey takes her to the seedy parts of Kyoto and brings up a mystery of her own, long hidden away.

This was a fascinating story and the mystery was deeper than I could have guessed. I was halfway through and when I thought it was solved, it went even further and kept me curious. The information about Kimonos and Kyoto were also very engaging without being too academic. I felt I learned a bit, which is always nice for me.

I struggled a bit with the narration. It felt a bit choppy, but that may have been in the mechanics of it, not the narrator. I listened to a sample and it was much smoother, so who knows. This did affect my ability to stay fully engaged in the story and I did back up a couple times to catch what I missed.

Overall, this was a good, multilayered mystery that was in a well researched setting. I haven't read much from Japanese locations, so it felt like an exciting, new, and mysterious atmosphere.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @brothermockingbird publishers for this digital book. It is available for purchase now!

So, I wasn't even sure that I wanted to listen to and then review The Kimono Tattoo's ARC, by Rebecca Copeland. But I'm so glad that I did! The publisher's description just doesn't do this book justice. I'll try to but it's such a multifaceted book, I'm not sure if I can. Theresa Bakken is such a good narrator. She does a wonderful job keeping the reader's interest with her cadence, her pace and with how she portrays the different characters. Then again, this was written to keep your interest. All the characters were interesting, the main character is someone you want to root for and the character development was done well.
Ruth Bennett is a translator who was raised in, and now lives in, Japan. A mystery woman brings her a novel to translate into English. The novel begins with the mystery of the author's sister, who he finds dead under a bridge. The fact that she's completely covered in complex kimono tattoos only makes the project all the more intriguing. Then the murder becomes real life, being broadcast on the news.
Now Ruth finds herself sneaking along Kyoto’s back alleys, having only her extensive knowledge of Japanese to help her translate the dangerous secrets hidden well within the kimono ink. The murderer is stalking her, and she's getting a little too close to solving the mystery for their comfort.

I loved this book. The author's research on kimonos and Japanese culture was incredible. And the mystery that ran like a thread through everything. Finally, I loved, loved, loved the end. Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy this book.

I received an arc for the audiobook from NetGalley.

This is also the first audiobook where I feel like it actively hurt my enjoyment of the book. I think I would have liked it a bit better if I had read it, rather than listened to it. This book is set in Japan. The main character is American but fluent in Japanese. The narrator, however, really struggles with the Japanese words in the text. They're often mispronounced and at times hard to understand because of that. Now, if you don't speak Japanese, this will not bother you. But while I won't claim I'm fluent, I have lived in Japan for over six year and use almost exclusively Japanese here, because no one around me speaks any other language. So I'd say I have a decent grasp of the Japanese language. The mispronunciations threw me off more than once, where I sometimes had to go back just to check what was said. For me, this was extra annoying because the main character, who narrates the story, is supposedly (I'll get back to that) fluent. I would expect them to at least find a narrator who is good at Japanese in order to portray someone speaking Japanese fluently.

Next up, and again, this is a personal issue. I had trouble placing this story. The location is obviously very clear, Kyoto. But when does this story take place? A lot of it felt like stereotypical stories of foreigners in the 1980s, other parts were modern, with cellphones and computers, and more acceptance towards tattoos. The use of the alien registration card (which hasn't been used in Japan since 2012) means we know it's at least before 2012, but it feels a lot earlier. Because this is Kyoto. Tokyo and Kyoto get the most tourism in Japan, so a foreigner wouldn't stand out all that much. Yet Ruth sticks out like a sore thumb. I've never been to Kyoto. But I have lived in a small rural town for over 6 years now. Did people stare at me when I first moved there? Yes, constantly. Do they still stare at me now? No. While the first few months of me living here were quite something, with people openly staring at me, now they hardly even notice me. Yet I'm supposed to believe that Ruth still stands out in Kyoto, which gets a ton of foreign tourists every year? Yeah... I find that hard to believe.

A lot of this book felt very stereotypical to me. Yes, Copeland knows a lot about Japan and this is especially clear in the amount of details about kimono. But she also takes some of the common stereotypes and uses them in ways that are unbelievable even in the novel. For example: <i>Japan is super safe</i>. Ruth mentions this and also claims she has never once felt unsafe walking alone at night in Japan. This despite the fact that her little brother was literally kidnapped when she was young, in broad daylight, while she was supposed to watch over him... I don't know about anyone else, but I would have trouble claiming a country was super safe if my little brother was kidnapped when I was still in elementary school.
Besides that, Japan is probably safe compared to some countries and less so compared to others. I've seen more murder cases in the few months I actively watched the news than in all the time before moving here. I stopped watching the news because of the amount of murders etc were starting to freak me out. Creepy guys are also everywhere, Japan included.
We also have Ruth wondering about the police being rude/not taking her seriously despite the Japanese being so polite, even though she told us in an earlier chapter that they often abuse their power...

Ruth is not a great main character. She is a translator, fluent in Japanese, more Japanese than the Japanese (she is told this a lot, which is another stereotype, and while it does happen, I doubt it would happen with the frequency it happens to Ruth...). She loves Kimono, and gets sucked into a mystery because of a translation request. We learn very little about Ruth as a person, because most of the things in this book happen to her. She is said to be fluent, yet her friends often comment on her Japanese/her foreignness and maybe it's different in cities, but this rarely happens. While strangers might comment on my use of Japanese, my friends more often than not forget that I'm not Japanese. (They have literally told me they "don't see me as being foreign" and even funnier was when my boss said that "I didn't look Japanese today." I'm literally a white, redhead with freckles, I never look Japanese. But somehow he still felt that I usually look Japanese.) When someone isn't fluent, language skills and foreignness gets brought up a lot more, so despite the text claiming Ruth is fluent, the other characters don't treat her like she is.
She also manages to leave her brother a message in Japanese, without realizing it was Japanese and while knowing her brother most likely didn't speak Japanese. That's also not really how code-switching works...
We are told she is smart, yet her actions don't show it. She asks at the police office if there's an agent called Kimura, which is one of the most common Japanese surnames, and they tell her they have never heard of anyone named Kimura... Like, she could have at least mentioned the full name... When looking at the hiragana word akashi she figures it has to mean red, and then decides it could also mean proof. Everyone calls her smart for being able to figure it out, as usually red is aka and wow, how amazing she knows the word. There are a lot of different meanings to just akashi, and without the kanji or context it would be hard to decide the meaning. But any Japanese character in this novel should be able to name at least a few things it could mean, yet only Ruth can think of anything.
Ruth talking in length about her translation process and how some things were difficult and everyone praising her for <s>doing her job</s> trying her hardest to convey the meaning of the words (isn't that what a translator is supposed to do?) felt really... self-insert-y, with the author being a translator. While I'm all for using real life experience in your fiction books, it felt like the characters were constantly patting Ruth and the author on their backs for being such good translators.

This book focuses mostly on kimono and tattoos. Now, tattoos aren't commonplace in Japan. In recent years, they've gotten more accepted, especially in big cities, but they're still rare. They used to be exclusively connected to the yakuza mobsters. This is very well-known, but when Ruth finds out about a murder of a famous person who is heavily tattooed, she doesn't question it, or think about the yakuza once. We are 30% into the book when this finally gets mentioned.

I enjoyed the information about kimono. They were my favourite parts of the book. The rest of the book felt weak in comparison. It was very stereotypical, and often contradictory. Ruth acted pretty stupid throughout the book, so it was hard to think of her as smart and able to figure out the "mystery." Although I guess it was mostly spelled out for her and even then it was hard for her to grasp so I guess it makes sense. The mystery felt very... over-the-top and was full of plot-conveniences.
The romance was super abrupt. Ruth barely says a kind word about her colleague and then they sleep together and are in love all of a sudden? What? How? Why? I don't get it.
The friendships were decent, though they felt very one-sided. Everyone seemed to exist to help Ruth and the plot forward, rather than like actual characters.

Now, I know that my personal experience in Japan has highly coloured this review. A lot of the character interactions felt unlikely, a lot of the claims were stereotypes that while often seen online and in books aren't necessarily true. I felt that the characters were rather weak and underdeveloped and the mystery wasn't that great. It did have an incredible amount of details about kimono which I really liked. <s>But because of other inaccuracies I'm not sure how much is actually correct)</s>.
I feel like anyone with less knowledge about Japan and Japanese will probably enjoy this more than I did. I still don't want to recommend it because of the high amount of stereotypes.

Thank you to Brother Mockingbird and NetGalley for providing me with this ALC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a pretty interesting book, and I was really interested in the mystery at hand! I picked this up because I love mysteries, and because I have spent a lot of time in Japan and was excited for the theme of this book! I do not want to make any large assumptions, but I am not sure how much time the author has spent in Japan. There were certain decisions and encounters that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I also understand that I may be being annoyingly critical of this one because it's a topic I'm more interested in. Overall, I found this book to be interesting, but a little unrealistic for me.