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 only open it to customers from 10 PM until midnight. Yeon-hwa is
hesitant at first her grandmother was always distant raising Yeon-hwa after her parents died
in a car accident. But she 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 meet their requests as her grandmother did. With each customer who
arrives Yeon-hwa learns which special desserts live in their memories and will help 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.
