Loveaholic

Minazuki is stuck. A mousy divorcée scraping by as a part-time translator and bento seller, she moves through life cautiously, haunted by past mistakes that shattered her marriage. She knows better than to make reckless choices for love again. Then she meets Itsuji - the charming celebrity author and walking red flag. When he sweeps her into his life as both his lover and assistant, Minazuki is well aware she's stepping onto dangerous ground. The mix of public scrutiny, tangled power dynamics, and her own history of self-destructive love should make her run. Instead, she leans in, unable to resist the thrill-even as she watches herself unravel.

Darkly funny and psychologically sharp, Loveaholic is a gripping portrait of a woman drawn toward her own undoing and shows Fumio Yamamoto's gift for creating heroines whose flaws are not mere quirks but rather avenues for illuminating deep, uncomfortable truths about what it means to be a woman in Japanese society. With piercing insight into desire, power, and the precarious balance between devotion and self-destruction, Fumio Yamamoto delivers an unforgettable novel about what it means to lose oneself in love.