The Amberglow Candy Store - Hardcover

Kurisu, Hiyoko

 
9780593854921: The Amberglow Candy Store
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593854926 ISBN 13: 9780593854921
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

"Sweet and delicious!" —Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

"Delightful." —Samantha Sotto Yambao, New York Times bestselling author of Water Moon

In this charming, fable-like book from Japan, a fox spirit sells magical confections to troubled humans, only for them to get a little more than they bargained for.

Welcome. We don't get many humans here.

In a cozy night alley lies a very special store. It's only open between the full moon and the new moon, and accessible only to yokai and those vulnerable, through a gap in the trees that leads to Gloaming Lane. It's shelves are full of wagashi, and each candy cures an ailment of the heart or the mind. They will give you what you most desire, but not always in the way you expect.

From the young woman who craves more quality time with her boyfriend, and the man who yearns to be invisible, to the friends grappling with long-buried resentments, each customer will learn a valuable lesson, be it with the "All-Is-Revealed Chestnut Monaka" or the "Surrogate Caramels." 

But who is the mysterious proprietor behind them? And why does his shadow feature a pair of fox ears? Surely, not a tail? If he is a half-fox spirit, so be it. But why is he so stern about each candy's "dosage"? Patience. Like the center of a gooey caramel, the best things take time to reveal themselves.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Hiyoko Kurisu's first book was Kanoko Senpai no Oishi Reshipi (Confectionary Senpai’s Delicious Recipes), which won the Special Prize at the Novelist Naro x Starts Publishing Bunko Grand Prize. Her other books include Koi Suru Kinyoubi no Otsumamigohan – Kokoro Tokimeku Sanshoku Gyoza (Snacks From a Friday In Love – Three Coloured Gyoza To Make Your Heart Flutter) and Isekai de Okashi wo Furumattara, Oji to Ryukishi to Mofumofu ni Natsukaremashita (When I Served Sweets in Another World, a Prince and a Dragon Knight Grew Fond of Me.) She lives in Japan.

Matt Treyvaud is an Australian-born translator who lives south of Tokyo.His other translations include Natsume Soseki’s Ten Nights Dreaming, Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku, and Fukumi Shimura’s The Music of Color.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Craving-More Konpeito

I missed my boyfriend.

He hardly ever texted or called me anymore. I knew it wasn't his fault he had so little time for me. He was busy studying for his college entrance exams. But I was still lonely.

When he'd told me he wouldn't have much free time before the big exams, I'd dutifully assured him it was all right, playing the perfectly understanding girlfriend-but I hadn't realized there would be practice exams every single month.

"At least you have a boyfriend," my friends would tell me. "You should count your blessings." They didn't understand at all.

My boyfriend was one year ahead of me in school. I'd had a crush on him since junior high, where he was president of the student council. He was so cool and so smart, but always friendly and kind to those around him. I was smitten.

I studied myself half to death to get into the same high school as him, but for most of my first year there, all I could do was admire him from afar. When I finally worked up the courage to ask him out, he said yes. Me, a completely average person, not especially beautiful or brainy, dating someone as perfect as him! It was like a miracle.

But the honeymoon only lasted until spring break. Once he started his third year of high school, he had to buckle down and study for college entrance exams.

Weekend dates were a thing of the past. We didn't even walk to and from school together anymore, because he was always either at cram school or in the study rooms revising.

We were still an item, of course, which should have been better than pining for him from afar. But the truth is, I was more anxious than ever.

I didn't want him to get sick of my selfishness. I didn't want him to decide I was too much of a hassle and break up with me.

But I did want to see him. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted him to show more affection.

Was I asking too much? Should I just grin and bear it until his exams were over? But it was only May. Ten more months of this would be torture.

Plus, when he started college, the distance between us would only widen. What if he met another girl in a school club or part-time job, and lost interest in me? What if I spent a whole year waiting patiently, and then we just drifted apart? The thought was unbearable.

But what could I do about it? It wasn't like I could magically redirect his attention my way.

So I did the next best thing: one day after school, I went to pray at the shrine.

It was old and weathered, hidden among the trees on a small hill at the edge of town. I had gone there to pray for luck before my high-school entrance exams and before asking my boyfriend out, and things had worked out for me both of those times, so now I went whenever I had something important coming up. Only in secret, though-I didn't want people to think I was weird for asking the kami for help all the time.

Fortunately, once you climbed the stone staircase up the hill and stepped into the tree-lined shrine precinct, no one outside could tell you were there.

I tossed my coins into the box, rang the rusty bell, and put my hands together to pray.

May my boyfriend and I stay together forever. May our relationship get closer and stronger.

But even as I prayed, dark thoughts were rising within me.

What if my boyfriend was only with me now because he couldn't be bothered to dump me? What if he'd only agreed to be my boyfriend in the first place on a whim?

What proof did I have that he even truly liked me?

Hot tears stung my eyes.

I knew I was overthinking it. I was on my way to becoming one of those annoying, clingy girls the magazines say boys hate. But he was the first boyfriend I'd ever had. How was I supposed to get everything right when I had no experience to draw on?

It was during this crisis of confidence that I noticed an unusual fragrance in the breeze. I couldn't quite place it, but it was strangely appealing, like a fond memory. I glanced toward the rear of the shrine precinct, where the breeze was coming from, and my eyes widened in surprise.

Beyond the wooden shrine itself, among the row of trees surrounding the precinct, there was a gap. A passageway into the forest.

Had a shrine priest done some pruning? But why only there?

I was sure the fragrance was coming from the opening. It was a mysterious smell, like incense, or old timber.

Gripping my schoolbag tightly, I walked around the shrine toward the opening. Once I got close enough, I saw something even more surprising beyond it: a long, unpaved road lined with retro-looking stores. The stores were all made of wood and hung with round paper lanterns in red and white, like the kind you see at festivals. The setting sun lent the whole scene a warm orange tone.

"But . . . why?" I murmured to myself.

Had this shopping street always been back here? Why did it end at the shrine instead of the main road? It was as if the shrine itself was the gateway.

Something seemed off about the street, but it was also oddly familiar, like the kind of streetscape you see in old films. In the end my curiosity won out, and I walked through the opening.

The surface under my well-worn loafers wasn't asphalt, but more like compressed sand, with pebbles here and there. Did it even count as a "street"?

The buildings were old and run-down, and none of the stores were open. Some had signs in their windows reading Closed. Others had been slammed shut as soon as I stepped through the gap in the trees. That was a little rude, to be honest.

It was impossible to tell from the outside what most of the stores actually sold. And some of the signs were written in eerie characters I didn't recognize at all. There were no streetlights, and the dangling paper lanterns had a strange unreality about them that gave me goosebumps.

Still, I kept walking. I couldn't even tell you why. Maybe all that brooding over my troubles had left me in a reckless, self-destructive mood. What's odd is that I was normally the first to chicken out of things like this. I couldn't even go inside the makeshift haunted houses some classes ran at the school festival. If my boyfriend had been with me, I probably would have clung to his arm and begged to turn back.

The street ended at a T-junction, and that was where I finally found a store that looked open, with light spilling from inside. It was the very last building on the street, and made of rich, caramel-brown timber, as old as its neighbors but kept in much better shape. The carved wooden door had a window set in it, and beside it was a pink paper lantern held up on a tall stand.

The handwritten sign read Amberglow Candy Store.

Amberglow?

The days of operation were strange, too: "Closed when the moon is new or full."

Still, if it was just a candy store, I probably wouldn't get pressured into buying something I couldn't afford. And I was in the mood for something sweet.

I pushed at the door. It opened with a creak, revealing the store's gloomy interior.

A lantern hanging from the ceiling illuminated a haphazard collection of waist-high tables on which the store's wares were arranged. The stock was a strange mixture of timeless, traditional Japanese sweets like daifuku and manju and modern-but-retro confections like konpeito, Kintaro candy and caramels.

"Welcome," a voice said, making me jump. "We don't get many humans here."

I peered into the gloom and saw a man dressed in a kimono and hakama trousers standing at the back of the store. He was, in a word, hot. He had a pale complexion, with blond hair a little too long to be called short, and narrow golden eyes. I got the impression he wasn't from around here. His age was hard to guess, too-maybe mid-twenties?

And, just for a...

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2025
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593854926
ISBN 13 
9780593854921
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
208
Kontakt zum Hersteller
preigu GmbH & Co. KG
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
Niedersachsen
49078
Deutschland

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