Harriet Lee’s gingerbread recipe has been passed down through generations. You can taste it as Helen Oyeyemi describes it in her novel Gingerbread. The gingerbread feels real and tangible.

But is Harriet Lee real? It is difficult to find evidence of her realness in her interactions with the world around her. A friend who she has lunch with everyday has no idea who Harriet is when she receives a phone call from her. A tin of gingerbread that she tries to give to another parent at her daughter’s school somehow ends up on the floor. Even Druhástrana, the country from which the Lee family hails, has only a dubious existence; nobody can agree whether or not it is real and it does not even have a Wikipedia page.

When Harriet’s daughter, Perdita, comes to harm in an attempt to visit the country of her mother’s birth, Harriet agrees to tell her everything if Perdita will tell her about her journey. We sit with Perdita and her dolls while Harriet tells us about how she and her mother, Margot, left the terrible and wondrous country of Druhástrana and her family’s connection with the Kercheval family.

Each sentence is like another puzzle piece. Will we get enough pieces to solve the mystery? And what is the mystery?

This delightful book will definitely make you crave gingerbread, so I recommend reading it at a time of year when that substance is abundant.