A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang

By Lee Onhwa

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0063468026
• ISBN13: 9780063468023
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Here for the Ghosts Stories, stay for the Sweets!!

I enjoyed this one. It is both cozy, yet heartfelt. All the descriptions of sweets sounded delicious and made me want to try making traditional Korean desserts to try. I thought the plot was unique and I love anything supernatural. This is my first time reading this genre and a book from a Korean author. The writing is very clunky which is probably due to the translation to English. It is hard to connect to the FMC because a lot of the language surrounding her are statements about what she is doing rather than how the character is feeling. That missing aspect makes the deads' stories more compelling than the main characters. Yeon-hwa's grandmother passes away leaving Yeon-hwa a small bakery, the Hwawoldang, and a mountain of debt behind. Yeon-hwa opens the bakery at night upon her grandmother's request and soon learns that the bakery is a waypoint for ghosts. They come to the shop, show Yeon-hwa how they died through their memories, and request a dessert that was important to them in life. After they eat their desserts they move on to the afterlife or reincarnation. Each chapter is a different ghosts' story and, because it's about death, some of them are really heart wrenching. They also teach important life lessons. The chapter about the painter best friends made me tear up the most. The book mainly focuses on the ghosts' individual stories, but around each story we learn about Yeon-hwa's relationship with Sa-wol, a shaman, who stops in to help Yeon-hwa with navigating this new responsibility of running the bakery for the dead. He is evasive with his explanations and leaves Yeon-hwa with more questions than answers. Overall, a good short read about life and the afterlife.