At this late stage in Revenge, Ogawa has moved horror directly into a home. The characters do not have to break into an abandoned post office or dig in a garden to find the macabre. It is on display in plain sight, used just as a table or a chair or a record player.

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder | Waterstones

A conspicuously gifted writer…To read Ogawa is to enter a dreamlike state tinged with a nightmare, and her stories continue to haunt. She possesses an effortless, glassy, eerie brilliance' GuardianYou could gaze at this perfect picture all day—an afternoon bathed in light and comfort—and perhaps never notice a single detail out of place, or missing.

Revenge (Vintage Editions) eBook : Ogawa, Yoko, Snyder Revenge (Vintage Editions) eBook : Ogawa, Yoko, Snyder

Eleven carefully calibrated creepy stories… This deliciously dark new collection should bring new fans to the prolific Japanese author Yoko Ogawa.” —Jane Ciabattari, The Daily Beast A woman goes into a bakery to buy a strawberry cream tart. The place is immaculate but there is no one serving so she waits. Another customer comes in. The woman tells the new arrival that she is buying her son a treat for his birthday. Every year she buys him his favourite cake; even though he died in an accident when he was six years old. If creepy were a place, Ms. Ogawa has come up with many ways to get there… Even while punctuated [by] macabre flourishes her book maintains its restraint, like a dark alley that's too quiet, or an insane person acting too calm.” —Susannah Meadows , The New York Times Alan Cheuse of National Public Radio wrote that "this collection may linger in your mind — it does in mine — as a delicious, perplexing, absorbing and somehow singular experience." [3] Not one person in the crowd on the square knew that a young woman was crying in the kitchen behind the bakery. I was the only witness.The cakes here are delicious," she said at last. "They use our spices, so you know there's nothing funny in them."