MY BOOKS
THE SEA OF JAPAN
When thirty-year-old Lindsey, an English teacher in Japan who’s been assigned to a tiny fishing town, is saved from drowning by a local young fisherman, she’s drawn into a battle with a neighboring town that has high stakes for everyone—especially her.
As their efforts to save their town backfire, Hime gets closer to falling
apart—putting Lindsey’s friends, her budding relationship with Ichiro, and her career in jeopardy. To save Hime, Lindsey realizes she’ll have to become a true American fisherwoman and fight for her new home with everything she has.
RACHEL ASSIGNED TO TOKYO
Rachel, a 35-year-old go-getter at the largest equity firm in America, is sent to Tokyo to turn around a recently acquired regional bank. Her usual aggressive downsizing plan meets resistance and a lawsuit in Japan. She fails miserably and is hated by many. She realizes that she has to find a better plan to make the company fundamentally profitable. She thinks the only way to gain the trust of the customers and shareholders is by openly running up against a rival bank. “The Stock Price War” starts and attracts lots of attention in the industry. But she later learns that this rivalry was bought by her former boss, who turns out to be a traitor for her mentor, the owner of the equity firm.
As the war becomes severe, Rachel brings harmony to her company and gains the employees’ trust. But when the company’s owner gets sick, his successor tries to fire her. Rachel later realizes that this successor and the traitor have made a secret deal.
If Rachel wins the war, her company will be able to sell the bank in a deal that’s too good for the equity firm to refuse. This will save all of her friends’ jobs and her career. At the last minute, the traitor sends a big communist group to condemn Rachel’s management on TV. The bank’s stock is falling down. She is about to lose everything. She stands up and enters the final fight with her Japanese co-workers and friends.
BOOKS WRITTEN IN JAPANESE
WHITE DUNES (SHIROI SA KYU, 白い砂丘)
When he divorced his American wife, Kazuya lost his working visa, which means his ties with his eight-year-old daughter were severed. After a miserable, meaningless year, Kazuya gets a rare opportunity. A national restaurant chain based in Yokohama, Japan, wants to make an alliance with an American neighborhood grill franchisor. Kazuya gets the job of the expatriate for the company. He is sent to Albuquerque, near his daughter’s home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In America, Kazuya learns that the Japanese and American companies are both suffering from loss and are trying to use each other for their own survival. Kazuya becomes sandwiched between his trusted American colleagues and his ultimate boss in Japan. Kazuya realizes he has to cancel the alliance—which means he’ll also cut off his access to his daughter. Kazuya has to choose between doing what’s right and losing the daughter he loves more than anything.
SPIRITED AWAY (KAMIKAKUSHI, 神隠し)
Greg is a renowned journalist at a Los Angeles newspaper who is being pushed into an unimportant position by his newspaper’s new owners. One day, he receives an anonymous phone call: an eight-year-old boy has gone missing inside the Los Angeles International Airport. He goes to LAX and sees a Japanese mother frantically crying for help. Security cameras show her son was with her until they passed the security checkpoint. There is no record the boy got on a flight, but there’s also no way he could have left the airport.
Both the FBI and LAPD search the terminal, but they can’t any trace of the boy. Greg’s Japanese wife says the boy was “Spirited Away,” but he can’t accept that explanation. Greg decides to solve the mystery and use it as his ticket to get back into journalism.
Spirited Away won the Nikkei (Japanese Wall Street Journal) Award for Contemporary Novel.
A BLAZE OF LAURA (LAURA NO HONOO,ローラの炎)
A Japanese student studying in Denver gets into a car accident and is stranded in the middle of nowhere. He is saved by a beautiful Native American girl named Laura. Laura’s family asks Jun to help them stop a casino from being built on their reservation—something half the tribe wants and the other half opposes.
Jun helps the community trade with Japanese jewelry wholesalers and falls in love with Laura. He proposes to her, but then the group “For the casino” files a disenrollment injunction of Laura’s family. They say there’s an error in their “proof of heritage.” Jun learns that the tribe has a blood quantum law. Under the law, Laura needs to marry someone who’s at least 50% Native American for her children to meet the 25% blood quantum. Otherwise, they won’t be considered Native American, and Laura will have to leave her community. Now, Jun and Laura have to make a choice. Is their love worth Laura giving up her family and her home?
TURN AROUND A BROKEN CASINO (KENEI KASINO WO TATEMAOSE, 県営カジノを立て直せ!)
It’s the Year-202X, and the first Japanese casino has just been built. After just three months, the casino starts losing money. The local state government and the primary mega bank sense a big risk. A Los Angeles-based bank clerk, Ryusuke, is pulled from his mundane job and sent to Tokyo. He’s the only person who understands the casino business well enough to save the casino from financial ruin.
Now, Ryusuke has to turn around the casino in order to work his way up the elite corporate ladder. If it happens, he may also gain back his lost love: a colleague who he fell in love with unrequitedly 15 years ago. As Ryusuke wades through the conflict between the governor’s political agenda and the bank’s collection effort, he starts sensing that someone is cheating them out of their money. Ryusuke steps into the deep, dark, forbidden back door of the mysterious casino.
THE FATE OF THE COMPANY (SHAUN, 社運)
Growing up as an orphan in a poor snow county in Japan, Saito had to fight as a boxer to feed his sister. During one of these fights, he accidentally killed a veteran boxer. As an adult, Saito enters into business with a hardboiled boss, Nakano, who treats Saito like a brother. A diehard salesman, Nakano has climbed up the corporate ladder to become the CEO of a supplement company in Chiba, Japan. Nakano decides to merge with a company from Cincinnati. He sends Saito to Ohio to help with the merger.
Saito quickly finds himself deep in Cincinnati’s corporate politics. In order to draw a good deal for Nakano, Saito has to fight against his counterpart, Robert, who has become his best friend in Ohio. Robert also possesses strong loyalty to his boss. Saito pushes his physical power and willpower over the top to stay in the “protégé-vs-protégé” game against Robert. At the same time, he is given an opportunity to fight again in the boxing ring. In both the ring and the boardroom, Saito has to push harder than he ever has before to win. When Saito sees Nakano crossing the line, he has to decide whether he should stop Nakano or continue to fight Robert until he's pushed out of the business forever.