I picked up Kyoko Mori when I was still in junior high, I think, and read Shizuko's Daughter. Looking back, it's a novel that's very much remained with me (I still remember the parts about the pottery and the drawings of the kimonos, and the flowers at the mountain retreat). Years later, I picked up Stone Field, True Arrow at the King's English and bought it.
It's not a perfect novel, but Mori has some sense of truth in all her writing-- reading reviews, some people categorize her as bitter, but she always strikes me as being simply, elegantly truthful. There's some shy beauty, and as with most of her work, an emphasis on the redemptive power of art and creativity. Mori's writing always strikes me as having an underlying layer of pain, and she never allows you to forget the difficulties and sadness people cause for each other. The novel is still semi-autobiographical (Maya's mother is a difficult person, her father is loved but remote and dead, relationships stall, etc.). I was surprised to see that Mori hasn't published more fiction than her three novels. She might have only one story to tell, but she always tells it in a way that makes you forget anything else.