Collected's 24in24 - Frankie recommends... The Third Love - Hiromi Kawakami

Frankie recommends... There is no author alive today who captures the nuance of human emotion like Kawakami. The prose and patterns of 'The Third Love' are inimitable in depth, reason and longing. Told through a weaving of dreams and alternate characters, we follow love through time and space with the tender grace that Kawakami is known for. I will be thinking about Kiko and her dreams for a very long time - with resounding affirmity, this is my best read of 2024. I sat and stared at the wall for at least an hour after finishing with my heart in a puddle on the floor. 

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From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo, a novel that moves between Japan past and present to tell a time-bending story about desire and destiny.

Having married her childhood sweetheart, Riko now finds herself trapped in a relationship that has been soured by infidelity. One day, by chance, she runs into her old friend Mr Takaoka, who offers friendship, love, and an unusual escape: he teaches her the trick of living inside her dreams. And so, each night, she sinks into another life: first as a high-ranking courtesan in the 17th century, and then as a serving lady to a princess in the late Middle Ages.

As she experiences desire and heartbreak in the past, so Riko comes to reconsider her life as a 21st century woman, as a wife, as a mother, and as a lover, and to ask herself whether, after loving her husband and loving Mr Takaoka, she is now ready for her third great love.