Original title:

夕闇通り商店街   コハク妖菓子店

Original language: 

Japanese

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Publication info:

Poplar

10 May 2022

218 pages in Japanese 

Genre:

Commercial upmarket fiction

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Rights handled by New River: 

Foreign rights excl. Asia 

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Rights sold:

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The Amberglow Candy Store in the Night Alley  
 by Hiyoko Kurisu

Lonely and insecure because of her distant boyfriend, high schooler Kana is visiting a shrine to pray when she notices a gap in the trees behind it. This is the entrance to Gloaming Lane, a mysterious, dreamlike row of stores accessible only to yokai – supernatural beings of Japanese folklore – and humans in a liminal, vulnerable state.

Drawn to the Amberglow Candy Store, Kana finds a half-fox shopkeeper called Kogetsu offering magical wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) purporting to change people’s lives for the better. So begins The Amberglow Candy Store in the Night Alley, a book of linked stories with a sprinkling of cosy fantasy and a fable like touch, and featuring charming elements that bring to mind Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. We follow characters from various walks of life as they learn valuable life lessons through their encounters with the half-fox Kogetsu, who himself observes his customers unseen after their purchases to learn more about human emotions, offering arch commentary in interludes between chapters.

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About the author

Hiyoko Kurisu (1984-) was born in Ibaraki Prefecture. She is the author of several novels and light novels, and her debut Confectionary Senpai’s Delicious Recipes won the Special Award of Starts Publishing’s ‘Become a Novelist’ Prize. Her most recent book was The Twilight Post Office in the Night Alley, which is the sequel to The Amberglow Candy Store in the Night Alley.