Someone to Watch Over You - Kumi Kimura, Pushkin Press

An unsettling, poignant story about two troubled strangers finding refuge in each other during the pandemic As coronavirus spreads, paranoia overtakes a quiet northern Japanese town. People keep strict social distance, they disinfect their groceries and doorknobs, they fear-especially anyone from a teeming city. In these tense, antiseptic circumstances, two odd loners meet. One bears the burden of possibly causing a protestor's death, the other worries her behaviour led to a student's suicide.In their remote lives, there is no relief. But then an unlikely connection begins to grow between them. As the world collapses around them, can they become one another's refuge?