"A female demon is no mere fanciful creature," writes Takako Takahashi in this newly translated work. "An ordinary woman can turn into a demon in an instant. She may even sprout horns. Her eyes may slant way up and turn golden. There's nothing extraordinary about a human face doing such things."
In fact, it is ordinary in the meticulously observed work of Takahashi, who chronicles the often demonic emotions of her heroines. It is these emotions that bind together the five short stories in this collection, all of them linked by certain characters, themes or plot elements.
One of the women admits to something that may surprise many men: She makes a date, then sits, watches him arrive and finally leave. "How much more exciting this sort of encounter was to her than actually meeting a man. She wished that she could go so far as to gaze at a man through binoculars."