CW: arachnophobia, racism, death (parents, children, everyone), kidnapping, prejudice,

I really enjoyed this book, it would have been 4½ stars but those damn spiders and even tho they're spiders but I would have wanted to know more about the lore of the(view spoiler)

It's World War II and Japanese people are sent to internment camps all around US.
Meiko and her daughter, despite being American and Meiko's father is in the US Navy, are sent to one of the Midwest camps.
Meiko shares stories of the demons, yokai, to Aiko to pass the time at the camp.
There is a strange illness making rounds at the camp, a common cold or so they thought. The ones who became sick, quickly develop aggression, violent outburst and death.
What first thought to be infecting the Japanese people, starts to spread and no one seems to know where it came from and is there a cure.

In the same time outside of the camps, people are finding these weird balloons that are coated with some dust. Some of them have even exploded. German expat journalist Fran finds one of these are she starts to investigate, going from city to city and interviewing people who have been in contact with these. But soon she is getting blocked by the army.
In another City Archie, a small town widowed minister, is trying to handle his grief and stay sane among all the conspiracy theories.

When I bought this book, it was one my findings from my local bookstore's annual sale.
I read the back of the book and was hooked and even the cover looked amazing!
I should have looked at the cover a little better and realise the spider theme, but sometimes you're just too excited to find an interesting book with a good price. It was also the reason why it took me so long to read this, the descriptions of the spiders and their moving was little too vivid so I had to pace myself. This was my first book from Alma Katsu and I am definitely getting her other ones.
The idea was nice and the different perspectives to the same issues was a nice touch, all though at times I found myself getting slightly bored on Fran's side.

What kept me reading and not DNFing the book were the shared experiences Alma Katsu wrote about her family's and other Asian Americans from that time period, and how they are still treated to this day. Those were the real horror aspects of the book (and well the spiders).
In the Afterword Katsu talks more deeply about her feelings and thoughts and also the two incidents the book is based on, the internment camps after Pearl Harbor and "the fire balloons" or Fu-Go.
The story doesn't dig too deep on Fu-Go and she recommends those who are interested to read Fu-Go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America by Ross Coen.
She also lists the violent attacks on Asians on U.S. soil, newest being the coronavirus which increased the crimes against Asians almost by 200%.

I highly recommend this if you're interested in historical fiction with horror aspects. ⭐