Review by Booklist Review
Amid proliferating J-healing titles is a subgenre featuring magical locations that can only be found when they're most needed: think We'll Prescribe You a Cat or The Full Moon Coffee Shop series. "We don't get many humans here," Amberglow's proprietor Kogetsu explains about Gloaming Lane. "The only beings who come here are spirits, specters, and humans in a precarious and unstable state." Needy (and lucky) customers arrive to find their favorite sweets and leave with a delectable antidote to alleviate personal challenges. Konpeito strengthens a high-school romance. Wasanbon provides a seeming aura of invisibility for an office worker. Monaka allows college friends to share their true feelings. Caramels engender beautiful music in a middle-school brass band. Candy apples encourage restored empathy between exhausted new parents. The closing chapter spotlights Kogetsu's own fascinating backstory as a reluctant friend and recalcitrant confectioner. Gently translated by Japan-domiciled Australian Treyvaud, Kurisu's charmingly approachable, warmly reassuring novel provides quite the satisfyingly toothsome treat. Amberglow's sequel, The Twilight Post Office in the Night Alley, will hopefully reach U.S. shores soon.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
When people feel disconnected from their lives, they may stumble across an archaic shopping district. The stores are all closed except for a candy shop run by a fox spirit in disguise. His wares have names such as "enlightening candy apples" and "invisible wasanbon" that are far less whimsical than they sound. When customers--including a high schooler who fears that her bad luck will cost her a trumpet solo, a businessman who hates his cuddly appearance, and a college student too timid to speak her mind--sample the shop's treats, the unexpected effects spur them onto better paths. The narration is split by gender between Hingley and Thomson, with Hingley taking four chapters and Thomson two, plus a coda about the fox spirit that wraps up every chapter. He keeps these sounding distinct, even in his own chapters, by employing a much haughtier voice for the spirit. Hingley has the task of performing characters with a wide range of ages, from high-schooler to housewife, and she distinguishes them primarily by their emotional breadth. VERDICT Kurisu's first adult novel to be translated into English is a gentle, uplifting listen centered on the healing power of small joys.--Matthew Galloway
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