Bookstore Girls

Can two very different women put aside their differences to save the bookstore they love? The Japanese bestseller that kicked off a seven-book series - adapted for TV and 200,000 copies sold Riko Nishioka is assistant manager of the flagship Pegasus bookstore in Kichijoji. After working her way up from a part-time position, she is now, aged forty, a respected figure in the Japanese publishing industry. But she has a nemesis. Aki Kitamura, twenty-seven, has waltzed in as a full-time employee thanks to her family connections. A free spirit with a rebellious streak and a silver spoon in her mouth, she's anything but a team player. The two are always clashing - both at work and over their personal lives. But when Riko is given notice that the store will be closing in six months' time, they face a stark choice. Can they put their petty enmities aside to boost sales and save their livelihoods or will they go down fighting . . . each other? Translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell

Kei Aono was born in 1959 in Nagoya, Japan and studied at Tokyo Art university. After starting her career at an anime magazine, she worked as an fiction editor at a publishing company. In 2006 she made her novel debut with The Reason I Won't Quit, and in 2014 Bookstore Woman won the Grand Prize in the "Book I want made into a movie" category at the Shizuoka Bookstore Awards.