Books like Embers
Two old friends meet after 41 years to confront betrayal, love, and a night that ended everything.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of Embers
Iza's Ballad
After her father's death, a well-meaning Budapest doctor brings her widowed mother to live in her modern flat and slowly dissolves the old woman's place in the world.
The Sense of an Ending
Tony Webster, retired and settled, receives a solicitor's letter about a small bequest from the mother of his university girlfriend, and it forces him to revisit his friendship with Adrian, the brilliant schoolfriend whose story he thought he understood.
Skylark
An ageing provincial couple send their plain daughter to relatives for a week and discover, in her absence, a life they had hidden even from themselves.
The Door
A Hungarian writer hires a fiercely private old housekeeper who never lets anyone through her front door, and their decades-long bond turns into love, dependence, and betrayal.
Kokoro
A student in Meiji-era Tokyo befriends a withdrawn older man he calls Sensei, whose long final letter reveals the betrayal that hollowed out his life.
The Master of Go
Kawabata's novelised reporting on the 1938 retirement match of the old Honinbo master of Go, lost to a younger, modern challenger across six months of play.
Betrayal
A seven-year affair between Emma and Jerry, her husband's best friend, told backwards, from its end in 1977 to its beginning.
The Sound of the Mountain
An ageing patriarch in postwar Japan listens to the mountain and contemplates his family's slow dissolution, beauty, and the nearness of death.
Sweet Bean Paste
Sentaro, an ex-convict working off a debt at a Tokyo dorayaki stall, reluctantly hires Tokue, a woman in her seventies with misshapen hands, and her homemade bean paste starts drawing customers to his counter.
The Spare Room
Helen gives her spare room in Melbourne to her old friend Nicola, who has come down from Sydney for three weeks of quack cancer treatment, and has to nurse her through it.
Tirra Lirra by the River
Nora Porteous, in her seventies, comes home to the Brisbane house where she grew up after decades in Sydney and London, and remembers her life.
The Optimist's Daughter
A woman returns to Mississippi after her father's death and has to contend with his young second wife and her own memories of home.