Little Miss Fortune by P.S. Sherry
sensitivity read for representation of a Japanese English main character
author testimonial:
When you think of sensitivity readers, there is this image in the industry that they will tell you everything you did wrong and be done with it - brutal but necessary. I can promise you, working with Hannah has been amazing. She was generous with praise and gave improvement suggestions, rather than outward critiques. Not only she pointed out how to make characters sound more natural in Japanese, but also encouraged me to add elements that I was hesitant to touch, due to not being of the heritage myself. She also helped me realise when a reader might get confused, which let me add some clarity to small sentences that were so easy to miss and misunderstand. However, with some guidance and kind words the book has been transformed into something great. I can now sleep soundly knowing that this is the best, kindest and most inclusive version of the manuscript it could've been. All around this has been an amazing experience - get your books checked, people!
- P.S. Sherry, author of Little Miss Fortune
synopsis:
When your luck won’t change, sometimes you have to.
In Fuko Brewer’s world, luck is not evenly distributed. Some people coast through life on perfect timing and green lights, while Fuko lives with an affliction of “small misfortune.” Trains stall when she's late, luggage disappears, and when the forecast promises clear skies, it somehow rains on her anyway. After two years of unemployment, she returns to her hometown in Japan to visit her mother’s grave, only to be handed a strange gift-shop amulet by a temple monk. It comes with an unusual ability: it will ring when her luck changes. It chimes for the first time at a secluded mountain hot spring… right as a stranger accidentally walks in on her. Moments later, an invitation to interview in London lands in her inbox.
Back in the city, Fuko is determined to treat the interview like a lifeline, until she realizes the hot-spring stranger, Toby Lewis, is on the panel and has definitely recognised her. Somehow, she lands the internship anyway, and Toby becomes part of her everyday life. He's charming, quick-witted, and inconveniently hard to avoid, and the closer he gets, the more Fuko’s luck seems to misbehave. When Toby finds out about the amulet, he makes a bold suggestion: if she wants that bell to ring for the better, she has to stop hiding from life, take a few risks, and let him teach her how. But as a work crisis threatens her hard-won second chance and Toby’s own carefully guarded truths begin to surface, Fuko learns that luck is only part of the story. The next time that amulet rings, it might not be her fortune changing. It might be her.