Emily Itami Livres

Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 'The perfect marriage of Sally Rooney and early Murakami' Kathy Wang, author of Impostor Syndrome 'A brilliant modern love story . . . atmospheric and transporting but also wise, clever and universal in its exploration of love, family and identity. I loved it' Cathy Rentzenbrink Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It's everything a woman like her could want . . . isn't it? One rainy night, she meets Kiyoshi. In him, she rediscovers freedom, friendship, a voice, and the neon, electric pulse of the city she has always loved. But the further she falls into their relationship, the clearer it becomes that she is living two lives - and in the end, we can choose only one.

A wry and tender novel from the author of Fault Lines about three very different sisters reunited in adulthood for one short summer, for readers of Hello Beautiful and Blue Sisters. Rei, Kiki, and Ai are three sisters divided by distance and circumstance. Ambitious Rei works in finance in London; Kiki is the single mother of a young son, working in a retirement home in Tokyo; and Ai, the youngest, is a peripatetic Japanese music idol. Having lost both parents, one way or another, the sisters rely on each other as family, far-flung as they are. When Ai is embroiled in a scandal, Rei and Kiki pause their own lives to rescue their baby sister. Over the course of a summer spent in their childhood home on the Japanese coast, the sisters will reunite with their sharp-edged grandmother, care for Kiki's irrepressible son, and silently worry about Ai, all while carefully not talking about the circumstances of their mother's death fifteen years before. But silence between sisters can only last for so long... A transporting and redemptive novel, Kakigori Summer is a hopeful meditation on love and loss, sisterhood and family, and a profound exploration of the stories we tell ourselves about our past that enable us to move forward into the future.

Mizuki hat alles, das perfekte Leben: Zwei gelungene und geliebte Kinder, einen erfolgreichen Ehemann, ein schönes Apartment in Tokio. Ihre Karriereträume hat sie aufgegeben, um das Leben einer guten Hausfrau und Mutter zu führen. Was darin nicht vorgesehen war: Der Ehemann ignoriert sie, die Kinder gleichen manchmal kleinen Psychopathen und die größtmögliche Freiheit ist ein Abend mit Freundinnen. Erst in der Begegnung mit einem inspirierenden, charmanten jungen Mann entdeckt sie gleichberechtigte Freundschaft, ihre Freiheit und ihre Stimme wieder. Mizuki hat nur ein Leben und muss sich doch zwischen zwei entscheiden – zwischen familiärer Verantwortung und den eigenen Bedürfnissen.