Dear Reader,
It is a great thrill to share Hooked, my new novel in English translated by the brilliant Polly Barton. I am so grateful to you for your amazing support of Butter. I am now truly excited for you to read Hooked.
Hooked is a novel about friendship and obsession, about loneliness and desire, and about the experiences of women when it comes to work, love and fulfilment.
It follows Eriko, whose life appears to be perfect, but beneath her flawless surface she is terribly lonely. She becomes unhealthily obsessed with a housewife blogger named Shoko, who seems her messy opposite.
After Eriko contrives a meeting, they strike up an adoring friendship, but it is only a matter of time before things start to sour and both their lives are turned upside down.
If there is one thing that I want people to take away from this book, it is the importance of friendship. There are many people that we lose touch with over the course of our lives, for all kinds of reasons. If you read this book and think of a particular person whose friendship meant something to you but who you no longer see, then I would encourage you to get in touch with them. It is never too late to reach out to an old friend
“If there is one thing that I want people to take away from this book, it is the importance of
friendship.“
The success of Butter was beyond my wildest dreams, and I will remain thankful for that forever. I hope you will enjoy Hooked.
— Asako Yuzuki
About the book
12 March 2026
Eriko really wouldn’t mind being savaged, if it was her best friend doing the savaging …
Eriko’s life appears perfect – devoted parents, pristine apartment and a high-flying job in the seafood division of one of Japan’s largest trading companies. Her latest project, to reintroduce the controversial Nile perch fish into the Japanese market, is characteristically ambitious. But beneath her flawless surface she is wracked by loneliness.
Eriko becomes fascinated with a popular blog written by a housewife, Shōko. Shōko’s posts about eating convenience-store food and her untidy home are the opposite of the typical Japanese housewife’s manicured lifestyle. When Eriko tracks Shōko down at her favourite restaurant and befriends her, Shōko is at first charmed by her new companion. But soon Eriko’s obsession with Shōko begins to spiral out of control, threatening her carefully laid plans. How far will she go to hold on to the best friend she’s ever had?