Anthologies & Short Stories

Book SynopsisAt a weekend house-party at ancient Canonbury Manor, Alli is caught between fantasy and reality, past and present, in the life of Caroline Rand, a famous singer from the late Sixties, who reportedly killed herself in that house. Alli soon learns that evil infests the once-holy building. A sinister cabal controls it, as it has for centuries. Before long, her fate will be sealed, and she will learn about her role in the after-death of Caroline Rand. It begins with a chilling greeting: "Welcome to The Columbine, Miss Sinclair. You are expected."Trade ReviewAbout In Darkness, Shadows Breathe. “Cavendish breathes new life into familiar horror tropes in this spine-tingling tale of past and present colliding” -- Publishers WeeklyAbout In Darkness, Shadows Breathe. "A compelling, immersive, and intense time-slip horror novel with sympathetic characters that readers actively root for. The tale reads like The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle if it were written by Sarah Pinborough." -- Library Journal

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Book Synopsis"Without a doubt, Christi Nogle is one of my favorite new voices in horror. Her fiction is by turns devastating, horrifying, and beyond beautiful. With her collection, The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future, she's created something truly remarkable, the kind of horror that's filled with grit and heart. Don't miss this book; it's sure to be one of the very best collections of 2023."- Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and Reluctant Immortals The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future collects Christi Nogle’s finest psychological and supernatural horror stories. Their rural and small-town characters confront difficult pasts and look toward promising but often terrifying futures. The pieces range in genre from psychological horror through science fiction and ghost stories, but they all share fundamental qualities: feminist themes, an emphasis on voice, a focus on characters’ psychologies and a sense of the gothic in contemporary life. Stories here may recall Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Shirley Jackson’s “The Renegade,” or Kelly Link’s “Stone Animals.”Trade Review"An astonishingly original collection of dark tales - mysterious, haunting, challenging and disturbing, written in crystalline prose as compressed as poetry. Read and then reread and be doubly rewarded!" -- Ramsey Campbell, author of Fellstones"Christi Nogle takes readers on a dark yet wondrous journey through perils, horror, and thrills in this extraordinary debut collection. Behold the timelessness of these lives, these tales!" -- Eric J. Guignard, award-winning author and editor, including That Which Grows Wild and Doorways to the DeadeyeJust as you think you have a handle on what a Christi Nogle story might be, you turn a page and are surprised anew. Enigmatic, surreal yet shockingly visceral, often rooted in a deceptively familiar domesticity turned nightmarish, these strange and unsettling tales unfold in lyrical prose that belies their savagery. 'The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future' is a haunting and memorable debut. -- Lynda E. Rucker, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Moon Will Look Strange and You'll Know When You Get There"Christi Nogle's The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future is unsettling and terrific short fiction in the vein of Shirley Jackson." -- Kelly Link, author of GET IN TROUBLE"Without a doubt, Christi Nogle is one of my favorite new voices in horror. Her fiction is by turns devastating, horrifying, and beyond beautiful. With her collection, The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future, she's created something truly remarkable, the kind of horror that's filled with grit and heart. Don't miss this book; it's sure to be one of the very best collections of 2023." -- Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and Reluctant Immortals"Sophisticated, psychological horror that enfolds the reader in a shroud of fear. The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future transported me into unfamiliar and terrifying worlds where the usual laws of nature don’t apply. Suspenseful, scary, addictive." -- Catherine Cavendish, author of Dark Observation"Christi Nogle uses lush, inventive descriptions with surreal touches to create stories which both haunt and surprise. Her voice is distinctive, her characters richly and deeply portrayed. I was swept away." -- Steve Rasnic Tem"THE BEST OF OUR PAST, THE WORST OF OUR FUTURE brings to mind Big and Little Edie from Grey Gardens, but toss in some paranormal, tons of creepiness, and a Brian Evenson-esque descent through thick dread. Each story is gloriously laced with it." -- Stephanie Nelson, author of The Vein"[Nogle] makes everything she writes look easy and effortlessly ingenious [...] Nogle has all the goods, a singularly weird imagination, a tremendous sense of pacing and voice, and a mastery of clarity and control on the sentence level." -- Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism"In this stunning collection, the familiar takes on strange and unsettling proportions. Christi Nogle’s stories are crisp, uncanny, haunting, and utterly captivating, with echoes of Shirley Jackson resonating through Nogle’s sharp and distinctive voice." -- Jo Kaplan, author of When the Night Bells Ring

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Book Synopsis"Without a doubt, Christi Nogle is one of my favorite new voices in horror. Her fiction is by turns devastating, horrifying, and beyond beautiful. With her collection, The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future, she's created something truly remarkable, the kind of horror that's filled with grit and heart. Don't miss this book; it's sure to be one of the very best collections of 2023."- Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and Reluctant Immortals The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future collects Christi Nogle’s finest psychological and supernatural horror stories. Their rural and small-town characters confront difficult pasts and look toward promising but often terrifying futures. The pieces range in genre from psychological horror through science fiction and ghost stories, but they all share fundamental qualities: feminist themes, an emphasis on voice, a focus on characters’ psychologies and a sense of the gothic in contemporary life. Stories here may recall Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Shirley Jackson’s “The Renegade,” or Kelly Link’s “Stone Animals.”Trade Review"An astonishingly original collection of dark tales - mysterious, haunting, challenging and disturbing, written in crystalline prose as compressed as poetry. Read and then reread and be doubly rewarded!" -- Ramsey Campbell, author of Fellstones"Christi Nogle takes readers on a dark yet wondrous journey through perils, horror, and thrills in this extraordinary debut collection. Behold the timelessness of these lives, these tales!" -- Eric J. Guignard, award-winning author and editor, including That Which Grows Wild and Doorways to the DeadeyeJust as you think you have a handle on what a Christi Nogle story might be, you turn a page and are surprised anew. Enigmatic, surreal yet shockingly visceral, often rooted in a deceptively familiar domesticity turned nightmarish, these strange and unsettling tales unfold in lyrical prose that belies their savagery. 'The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future' is a haunting and memorable debut. -- Lynda E. Rucker, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Moon Will Look Strange and You'll Know When You Get There"Christi Nogle's The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future is unsettling and terrific short fiction in the vein of Shirley Jackson." -- Kelly Link, author of GET IN TROUBLE"Without a doubt, Christi Nogle is one of my favorite new voices in horror. Her fiction is by turns devastating, horrifying, and beyond beautiful. With her collection, The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future, she's created something truly remarkable, the kind of horror that's filled with grit and heart. Don't miss this book; it's sure to be one of the very best collections of 2023." -- Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and Reluctant Immortals"Sophisticated, psychological horror that enfolds the reader in a shroud of fear. The Best of Our Past, The Worst of Our Future transported me into unfamiliar and terrifying worlds where the usual laws of nature don’t apply. Suspenseful, scary, addictive." -- Catherine Cavendish, author of Dark Observation"Christi Nogle uses lush, inventive descriptions with surreal touches to create stories which both haunt and surprise. Her voice is distinctive, her characters richly and deeply portrayed. I was swept away." -- Steve Rasnic Tem"THE BEST OF OUR PAST, THE WORST OF OUR FUTURE brings to mind Big and Little Edie from Grey Gardens, but toss in some paranormal, tons of creepiness, and a Brian Evenson-esque descent through thick dread. Each story is gloriously laced with it." -- Stephanie Nelson, author of The Vein"[Nogle] makes everything she writes look easy and effortlessly ingenious [...] Nogle has all the goods, a singularly weird imagination, a tremendous sense of pacing and voice, and a mastery of clarity and control on the sentence level." -- Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism"In this stunning collection, the familiar takes on strange and unsettling proportions. Christi Nogle’s stories are crisp, uncanny, haunting, and utterly captivating, with echoes of Shirley Jackson resonating through Nogle’s sharp and distinctive voice." -- Jo Kaplan, author of When the Night Bells Ring

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Book SynopsisPromise collects Christi Nogle’s best futuristic stories ranging from plausible tech-based science fiction to science fantasy stories about aliens in our midst: chameleonic foils hover in the skies, you can order a headset to speak and dream with your dog, and your devices sometimes connect not just to the web but to the underworld. These tales will recall the stories of Ray Bradbury, television programs such as Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone, and novels such as Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin or Under the Skin by Michel Faber. They are often strange and dreadful but veer towards themes of hope, potential, promise FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress

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Book SynopsisPromise collects Christi Nogle’s best futuristic stories ranging from plausible tech-based science fiction to science fantasy stories about aliens in our midst: chameleonic foils hover in the skies, you can order a headset to speak and dream with your dog, and your devices sometimes connect not just to the web but to the underworld. These tales will recall the stories of Ray Bradbury, television programs such as Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone, and novels such as Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin or Under the Skin by Michel Faber. They are often strange and dreadful but veer towards themes of hope, potential, promise FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress

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Book SynopsisEvil runs deep at Mordenhyrst Hall… When Grace first sets eyes on the imposing Gothic Mordenhyrst Hall, she is struck with an overwhelming sense that something doesn’t want her there. Her fiancé’s sister heads a coterie of Bright Young Things whose frivolous lives hide a sinister intent. Simon, Grace’s fiancé, is not the man she fell in love with, and the local villagers eye her with suspicion that borders on malevolence. Her friend, Coralie, possesses the ability to communicate with powerful spirits. She convinces Grace of her own paranormal gifts – gifts Grace will need to draw deeply on as the secrets of Mordenhyrst Hall begin to unravel.Trade Review'Cavendish breathes new life into familiar horror tropes in this spine-tingling tale of past and present colliding.' -- Publishers Weekly on In Darkness, Shadows Breathe'A compelling, immersive, and intense time-slip horror novel with sympathetic characters that readers actively root for. The tale reads like The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle if it were written by Sarah Pinborough.' -- Library Journal on In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

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Book SynopsisA lovesick kraken slowly drags the object of its desire – a ship of sailors – into the sea; a group of cantankerous saints materialise in a well-appointed parlour, and must unravel the mystery of how they got there; ageing fathers are sunk to the bottom of the ocean in pressure-sealed crates in a time-honoured ritual. Andreasen romps through the lunatic and surreal with a tender generous ease; there is a joyous absurdity to each premise. Just because a sister is born without a head doesn't mean her brother won't love and protect her; just because an adulterous tryst ends in alien abduction doesn't mean the man doesn't miss his wife. Simultaneously daring and deeply familiar, unfolding in wildly inventive worlds whilst emphasising our common yearning for connection and understanding, The Sea Beast Takes a Lover uses the supernatural and extraordinary to expose us at our most human.Trade ReviewA treasury of fantastic tales - full of mermaids, prophetic dancing bears, exploding children, and distraught time travellers. It's also a collection of longing, of loss, of loving deeply, and of learning what it means to care for others. A brilliant book, daring and wonderful -- Alexander Weinstein, author of Children of the New WorldSits on a small shelf of books that I will read a dozen times over. It is full of explosions of magic -- Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and PlentyUncannily inventive yet unfailingly grounded in all-too-familiar struggles of the heart, these are stories that vary widely in subject matter but never in the confident distinctiveness of Michael Andreasen's voice. What a voice it is! What a vision! For what is more exciting to a reader than discovering a new way to see the world? This thrillingly original debut gives us just that in every story, on every page -- Josh Weil, author of The Age of Perpetual LightAndreasen has a big, roomy imagination, and a command of language to furnish the worlds he creates with both precision and grandeur. These stories are, by turns, timeless and urgent, dreamy and nightmarish, heartbroken and hopeful. A brilliant collection -- Charles Yu, author of Sorry Please Thank You and How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

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Book SynopsisWelcome to Cross River, Maryland. Established by the leaders of the country's only successful slave revolt, history casts a long shadow over its residents. Among them are David Sherman, a struggling musician who just happens to be the last son of God; Jim, a Robot Personal Helper desperate to escape the master who enslaves him; and James-my-man, who travels the path of the Underground Railroad year after year.Not to forget the water women who lure men to their watery graves and the screecher birds who cry out for sacrificial flesh... PRAISE FOR THE WORLD DOESN'T REQUIRE YOU: 'I wandered into Cross River, not knowing a damn thing. Now I'm shuddering, gasping in wonder, reading stories over and over, and doing just about anything so that I never leave' MARLON JAMES 'A musical and visceral explosion. The book makes you laugh even as it stabs. The truth told in a completely new way' NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH 'Flat-out unputdownable' LAURA VAN DEN BERG 'Rion Amilcar Scott doesn't hold back or tiptoe around issues about race. He's the most courageous writer I know; and this collection is an excellent example and significant achievement. He's now made his mark as a force to reckon with' NICOLE DENNIS-BENN 'Surreal, intertextual, and darkly comical... With breathtaking cruelty and devastating humor, Scott adduces the whole world in one community' NAFISSA THOMPSON-SPIRESTrade ReviewRion Amilcar Scott proves himself an impressive myth-slayer and fable-maker... The World Doesn't Require You reminds us that having to fight racism has a strange way of distorting everything one touches' * New York Times Book Review *A rich, genre-splicing mix of alternate history, magical realism and satire that interrogates issues of race, sexism and where both meet here in the real world * Los Angeles Times *Bizarre, tender and brilliantly imagined, The World Doesn't Require You isn't just one of the most inventive books of the year, it's also one of the best * NPR *A bleak and beautiful collection of short stories... Scott demonstrates the skill and long-range vision of a writer we need right now. The World Doesn't Require You requires a commitment from readers, one that will be greatly repaid in literary satisfaction' * USA TODAY *Surreal, intertextual, and darkly comical stories... Rion Amilcar Scott writes in the tradition of George Schuyler and Ishmael Reed but with a distinctive wry, playful voice that is wholly his own. With breathtaking cruelty and devastating humor, Scott adduces the whole world in one community' -- Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored PeopleI wandered into Cross River, not knowing a damn thing. Now I'm shuddering, gasping in wonder, reading stories over and over, and doing just about anything so that I never leave -- Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of A History of Seven KillingsA musical and visceral explosion. The book makes you laugh even as it stabs. The truth told in a completely new way -- Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday BlackA bold new talent emerges with this boundary-shattering collection * Esquire *Scott joins a growing tradition of African-American authors fusing the folksy dystopian humor of George Saunders with the charged satire of Ishmael Reed and expands on it brilliantly * New York magazine. *God may have forsaken [these characters], Scott does not. The World Doesn't Require You is full of horrible, ridiculous people, but it's full of grace, too * A.V. Club. *A major unique literary talent * Entertainment Weekly *Flat-out unputdownable -- Laura van den Berg, author of The Third HotelRion Amilcar Scott doesn't hold back or tiptoe around issues about race. He's the most courageous writer I know; and this collection is an excellent example and significant achievement. He's now made his mark as a force to reckon with -- Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PatsyPowerful and revelatory * Salon *Weaves incisive criticism, dark humor, and magical realism in profound explorations of belief, love, justice, and violence * BuzzFeed *We have so far to go and so little time to get there, Scott seems to say. Maybe spending a few hours in Cross River will help build a bridge. Or blow one up, if need be * Washington Post *An 'impressive myth-slayer'... [Scott] shows that 'sidelining' white racist characters doesn't erase the effects of slavery' * New York Times Sunday *Thought-provoking tales that will flow from page to page, steeped in abstract mysticism * Bad Form Review *Threading together tales of adrenaline, violence and rhythm, American writer Rion Amilcar Scott presents a stunning narrative that bestows its shine from its sharp edges... The World Doesn't Require You reminds us of the fruitful space between the surreal, the horrific and the run-of-the-mill. Rion Amilcar Scott is a writer that we will continue to expect great things from' * Glass *

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Book Synopsis"Adorable, gorgeous, amazing" - just three of the words regularly used by friends everywhere when Bobby and Bubba, of the British bulldog breed, venture onto the streets of Chelsea. The biggest celebrity cult since 'Made in Chelsea', Bob Marley and Roman Abramovich, the two brothers have already appeared on TV, magazines and their own Instagram page without letting on just how really naughty they are. These are their little stories...written for children of all ages, particularly if you're a parent looking for a way to break the vice-like grip of the iPhone and the internet on growing minds. They're lovable, funny, poignant and even a tiny bit exciting - much like Bobby and Bubba themselves. Hope you love them as much as we all do!

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Kate O'Brien Award 2020 Shortlisted for the John McGahern Annual Book Prize 2019 Shortlisted for the Dalkey Literary Awards Emerging Writer category 2020 Longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2020 Shortlisted for the Butler Literary Award 2020 In these eleven stories, debut author Lucy Sweeney Byrne invites us to experience travelling the world alone as a young woman, with all its attendant pleasures and dangers. The staff of a boat moored in Brooklyn rebel against their tyrannical boss. A drifting writer house-sits in the wilds of Donegal in the midst of a health scare. In a Texas dive bar, two former lovers try to salvage a friendship from their intense connection. And in Mexico, a frustrated artist navigates a city both dangerous and alluring. Whether set in New York, Oaxaca, Havana or back home in Dublin, the result is by turns sharp, fearless and heartbreaking. Laced with biting humour and devastating observations, Paris Syndrome introduces a unique literary talent. Praise for Paris Syndrome: 'Full of vitality and precision, and so rawly funny - this is a fabulous debut.' Kevin Barry 'A feisty portrayal of the bleakness of modern life, full of fruitless longing, misplaced knowing and black irony.' Sara Baume 'Gripping and beautiful, Paris Syndrome is spiced with the tang of many places, but it's through the territory of the human soul that it ventures most bravely. It doesn't just give you the world, it presents a universe.' Gavin Corbett 'With its tone of appalled hilarity, its roving portraiture of twentysomething lostness, and its narrator's youthfully cruel perceptions - often turned squarely on herself - Paris Syndrome is an addictive, keeps-you-up-till-the-birds-are-singing read.' Rob Doyle 'Fearless and wryly funny, the stories in Paris Syndrome are a finely calibrated mix of rage and wonder.' Danielle McLaughlin 'Harrowing and hilarious in equal measures - and often, somehow, at the same time - Paris Syndrome is an unforgettable portrait of millennial womanhood.' Paul MurrayTrade Review"Gripping and entertaining with a strong feminist bent...a commendable debut" - The Irish Times "Consistently exciting, invigorating, challenging, surprising" - The Irish Independent "The theme of loneliness haunts this masterful collection" - RTE.ie

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Book Synopsis'A seething excavation of want and human error' Raven Leilani, author of Luster'Glorious, ecstatic, devastating... A gorgeous debut from a wickedly talented new author' Lauren Groff, author of Florida'Sultry, dark, thick with the heat of bodies and minds in sin and transgression. Incredible' Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky ManA thirteen-year-old girl watches her white best friend totter along the edge of a building roof; a woman who lost her child in its first trimester finds empathy and horror in the waters of a city aquarium; a mother protects her teen daughter from a predatory love interest by taking revenge over a very French supper; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their dead father's ashes - rediscovering one another and reckoning with all the ways that trust can be betrayed and love can be redeemed. Set in the suburbs and the cities of the modern world but about the ancient essences of who and what we are, Milk Blood Heat is a collection of love and sex, birth and death. Through the stories of ordinary characters confronted by extraordinary moments of violent yet often beautiful reckoning, Dantiel W. Moniz contemplates human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance, and the elemental darkness in us all. Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat showcases that the world in which we live can be a place of obstacles and heartbreak... but also one of grace and splendour. A Roxane Gay Bookclub PickTrade ReviewDantiel W. Moniz sings of Florida, girlhood, family, loss, and the glorious, ecstatic, devastating human body in Milk Blood Heat. A gorgeous debut from a wickedly talented new writer. * Lauren Groff, author of Florida *This collection is a seething excavation of want and human error. Moniz writes about the hard incongruities of intimacy with great urgency and tenderness. * Raven Leilani, author of Luster *The stories in this memorable debut have the mood of late summer evenings, sultry and dark, thick with the heat of minds and bodies engaged in sin and transgression, suffused with complicated desire, boldness, and shame. I suggest you pay attention to this book and to this voice, wherever it goes on to take us. With this cast of lovable, heartbreaking characters, Dantiel Moniz is announcing her incredible range and sensitivity, as well as her fearlessness in looking squarely at our human condition, in all its raggedness and beauty. * Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man *The stories in this book are rigorous and complex, lush and surprising. They are visceral, full of the intimate awe of existing in flesh. A wonder of a debut. * Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black *A collection for the ages, incandescent and seething. Equal parts grief, violence, and want, and you'll be glad for this jagged awakening. * T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls *These stories and the characters that drive them are like lightning - spectacular, beautiful, carrying a hint of danger. A stunning and important debut. * Danielle Evans, author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self *Like the title of Dantiel Moniz's Milk Blood Heat, there's a comfort and a piercing in these stories, a prickling on the skin, an astutely honest gaze sometimes searing through places and emotions I both wanted to escape and to linger with. Moniz has crafted a stunning debut collection of stories with living, pinprickly prose, like a hot Florida day or a finger traced up the back. Highly attuned to small power struggles, these are full-bodies stories, with blood and bones and heartbeats, at once otherworldly and completely real. * Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored People *Wild and lush, Milk Blood Heat is teeming with beautifully complex women and girls: the contours of their relationships, their fears, their many desires. Moniz mesmerizes and unnerves in prose so precise and decadent it rises to incantation. Each story in this debut feels urgent, necessary, utterly pulsing with life. * Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light *Dantiel W. Moniz wields language with strength and tenderness, her voice unfiltered but never careless, tapping into the floors of our desires, the ceilings of our joys, and everything between. These spectacular stories are snapshots of the everyday and extraordinary, moments of haunting and grief, of violence and ecstasy. * Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of Open Water *This powerful debut collection is a wonderland of deep female characters navigating their lives against the ever changeable backdrop of Florida. The feminine is sublime throughout these stories, featuring girls and women who are submerged in loss, love, death, temptation, and the cruelty and benevolence of motherhood, two sides of the same coin. Each story vibrates with a thrumming undercurrent of primal power, found in both nature and in the most shadowy parts of ourselves... Dark and lushly layered, these stories will bewitch you. * Kirkus *Excellent... Focusing on marginalized communities and limning relationships, longing, and our uneasy passage through a world that often confounds us, she nails aching moments of naked human emotion in direct if luscious language. While many story collections suffer from a sameness of theme, character, or plot, that's not a problem here. The tales are generally set in Florida, but the similarities end there; each entry is distinctive in its premise, and each will surprise the reader in a different way. What gives the collection coherence is Moniz's distinctive vision. * Library Journal, Starred Review *The stories in Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz are glorious. We meet an eclectic cast of Floridians grappling with questions of what it is to be human and how to live in the world: difference, girlhood, womanhood, manhood, pleasure, loss, and the visceral desire to belong. The prose pulsates with wonderment, easing us into moments of discovery that surprise, and deepen, both our and the characters' sense of the world. I enjoyed, particularly, the ways in which these stories are filled with incisive bursts of ecstasy, broadening our experience of joy and heartache. * Novuyo Tshuma, The Millions *The stories in Moniz's debut collection - many of which shine a multihued light on Black girlhood in Florida - are to not only be read but felt. Like Danielle Evans and Lauren Groff, Moniz is unafraid to expose the darkened corners of the Sunshine State, and of female desire. * O, The Oprah Magazine *Mortality is the undercurrent in Dantiel W. Moniz's electrifying debut story collection, "Milk Blood Heat," but where there's death there is the whir of life, too. A lot of collections consist of some duds, yet every single page in this book is a shimmering seashell that contains the sound of multiple oceans. Reading one of Moniz's stories is like holding your breath underwater while letting the salt sting your fresh wounds. It's exhilarating and shocking and even healing. The power in these stories rests in their veracity, vitality and vulnerability. * Washington Post *Black and Latinx girls and women in Florida are the main characters in Dantiel Moniz's thrilling debut story collection. Not-yet-girls, not-yet-women traffic not in princess dresses but in guts and risk. You think writing about menstruation is taboo? What about little girl characters literally drinking blood? Moniz serves up a feast for anyone ready to move beyond the "sugar and spice and everything nice" lie. * Glamour *Explores the myriad messy ways people - siblings, cousins, mothers, daughters - love, or try to love, each other in prose that is both nuanced and so lush you can taste it. Moniz delivers stories that dance with the themes of identity, coming of age, race, human connection, and violence. * Shondaland *Powerful and exceptionally written [...] there isn't a single wasted word or sentence that isn't beautifully crafted. [...] This is all thriller and no filler [...] fiction at its finest. * Simon Savidge, Frank Magazine *Outstanding [...] her perspective is so unusual, and her descriptions so visceral, her stories are a dark but thrilling joyride off the beaten track. [...] Despite all its gothic pretensions, Milk Blood Heat is a celebration: of fraught but fierce relationships, and life in all its fractured glory * The Big Issue *Stunning. Each story is beautiful and complex... This is an outstanding collection of stories that I am sure to return to over and over. I'm really looking forward to seeing what she does next. * Bookanista *In Dantiel W. Moniz's hypnotic collection of short stories, the body is a lascivious, disobedient thing, a crucible for her Black female protagonists' latent, unspoken desires and fears... Milk Blood Heat is largely notable for its resistance to catharsis, and its bold play with abrupt endings and shorn down perspective. It is particularly effective in Moniz's exploration of race; offering no pat lessons or easy conclusions, this collection has little interest in catering for a white gaze. * The Skinny *What makes Moniz stand out isn't so much the blazing talent as the consistency of her literary brilliance. Every single piece - indeed, almost every line - is wrought with remarkable precision and care, and utterly charged with life. It's the best short fiction collection I've read in years. * Sydney Morning Herald *Polished and refined. Moniz's talent really shines when she's writing about girlhood, and her coming-of-age style stories manage to convey a similar theme without ever feeling repetitive. Her writing is descriptive and bright - meaning that reading feels filmic at times * Mslexia *Moniz writes with an emotional agency that aims to shock, excite and leave you wanting more... Startling, dark and lushly layered, Milk Blood Heat is a wonder of a debut * Bad Form *

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Book SynopsisStrange lands in fiction stretch from deep below the earth, to the outer reaches of space. This incredible new collection combines the talents of a new generation of writers with classic and ancient storytellers: from H.G. Wells to Edgar Allan Poe, Daniel Defoe to Jules Verne. Find here too the Land of the Lotus Eaters from Homer’s Odyssey and the mad horrors of H.P. Lovecraft, the utopian fantasies of Samuel Butler and, from Hans Christian Andersen an early fantasy about visiting the moon. ‘Strange Lands’ is fabulous collection of enduring and brand new tales. New, contemporary and notable writers featured are: Rhoads Brazos, Ed Burkley, Ramsey Campbell, Victoria Dalpe, Philip Ellis, Marissa Harwood, R. Leigh Hennig, Gordon Linzner, Christian Macklam, S.R. Masters, P.L. McMillan, Hannah Onoguwe, Alex Penland, Kelly Sandoval, Sam Stark, and M. Elizabeth Ticknor. The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

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Book SynopsisDesmond Hogan is one of most remarkable literary talents to have come out of Ireland in the past half-century. Larks’ Eggs affirms that stature. Here, with twenty-two classic stories taken from earlier collections and twelve fresh narratives, Hogan displays anew his lyricism, compassion and sheer prismatic brilliance. His subject is exile and self-image, explored through isolates and eccentrics, brittle lives trapped by poverty, personal histories and restless identities, giving a voice to those on the margins – travellers, the misplaced, the dispossessed. Larks’ Eggs‘ compelling tales of diaspora are both global and local, telling of subsumed identity and allurement, of past merging with present through landscape and mindscape. Desmond Hogan’s fragmented personas are repositories for childhood memory and a collective unconscious that is distinctly Irish and history-burdened, while exhilaratingly and wholly universal and modern. ‘Here’s to the storytellers. They made sense of these lonely and driven lives of ours.’ The Lilliput Press is proud to reintroduce one of Ireland’s most evocative prose writers. Desmond Hogan takes his place alongside Joyce, Plunkett, Trevor, O’Faolain, Kiely and McGahern.Trade Review‘[The Airedale] is profound, moving and exquisitely executed. Hogan is one of the finest writers alive today and deserves to be much better known.’ – Cressida Connolly, The Oxford Book of Short Stories ‘Elegiac, daringly sustained prose poem; a collage of meticulously rendered Irish scenes that weaves in and out of tales of tinkers and youths.’ – on ‘Winter Swimmers’, Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement. ‘Desmond Hogan’s mastery of language and characterization rivals that of Flannery O’Connor and Anton Chekhov; never has the psychological landscape of the exile been rendered with such incisive, haunting prose.’ – The San Francisco Chronicle‘[The Airedale] is profound, moving and exquisitely executed. Hogan is one of the finest writers alive today and deserves to be much better known.’ – Cressida Connolly, The Oxford Book of Short Stories ‘Elegiac, daringly sustained prose poem; a collage of meticulously rendered Irish scenes that weaves in and out of tales of tinkers and youths.’ – on ‘Winter Swimmers’, Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement. ‘Desmond Hogan’s mastery of language and characterization rivals that of Flannery O’Connor and Anton Chekhov; never has the psychological landscape of the exile been rendered with such incisive, haunting prose.’ – The San Francisco Chronicle

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Book SynopsisThese eleven stories by Desmond Hogan, his first publication since Larks’ Eggs: New and Selected Stories (2005), collect newly minted shards of experience focused on the lives of the dreamers and marginalized who populate his imagined worlds. They range in time and place from France, Germany and Italy in the nineteenth century to Ireland of the 1950s and the present day. Their concerns are fragility and identity expressed through the outer semblances of dress and deportment, and inner realities of involuntary memory and the retrieval of shared pasts. Close observation of nature combines with psychological unveilings, much of it in the form of erotic reverie. This bricolage of melded history and a fragmented modernism renders truth-to-experience like no other contemporary voice.Trade Review“In an age of sound bite and cliche, Hogan sets the standard both in his use of language and his intensely individual vision. He demonstrates that, at its artistic best, the short story is as rich and demanding as poetry.” –The Irish Times “Hogan paints his picture with such tiny brushstrokes that the impression is not a narrative but a history, open-ended and amorphous, subject to change, but not boiled down into plot, character, beginning and end.” –Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisThese twelve masterful short stories are by one of Ireland’s leading practitioners of the art (previous collections include Adventures in a Bathyscope, 1998, and Lipstick on the Host, 1992). Mathews is a writer worthy of Joyce, whose condensed language conveys learning, sophistication, true feeling and poignancy. The range of subject matter is conveyed in the story titles: ‘Charlie Chaplin’s Wishbone’, ‘Access’, ‘Barber-Surgeons’, ‘Waking a Jew’, ‘Cuba’, ‘The Seven Affidavits of Saint-Artaud’, ‘A Woman from Walkinstown’, ‘In the Form of Fiction’, ‘The Logos of the Zoo’, and ‘Information for the User’. The stories are set in Ireland and principally in Dublin of the 1960s. Characterisation is rich and the dialogue lively and expressive, while the understated dramas and emotions of the tales themselves subtly washing over the reader. The verbal flair of Aidan Mathews is second to none, and the seriousness and the gravity of his contemplations a welcome counterweight to our desiccated, Anglo-American digital culture. This gathering marks a welcome return of a major voice in Irish literature, unpublished since the 1990s.

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Book SynopsisA collection of twelve mint fresh stories from the award winning Irish author, described by Neil Jordan as 'the real thing - a writer of great originality, dramatic flair, linguistic invention - who remakes the world every time he puts pen to paper.' These tales lead the reader around the fringes of Irish society through the eyes of the marginalized.Trade ReviewThis is a troubled collection from a troubled genius whose narrative technique won’t appeal to traditionalists. -- Brian Maye * The Irish Times *Desmond Hogan in this book is writing at a very high pitch of ambition—he is trying to build the cathedral. The project is immense. -- Kevin Barry * The Stinging Fly *

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Book SynopsisIn this slim, attractive collection of short stories, Harry Crosbie colourfully describes life in Dublin in the 1960s. These funny and poignant pieces are told from the perspective of a teenage boy working in Dublin’s docklands and illuminate an older Dublin that will be familiar to many readers. Written during the lockdown of 2020, writes from the heart and will charm and delight with tales of docklands life.Trade ReviewThese wonderfully direct and vivid tales catch the essence of Dublin life half a century ago. They are by turns rambunctious and touching, clear-eyed and accepting, warm though never sentimental, and frequently hilarious. Harry Crosbie has done his native city, and its natives, more than proud … Harry Crosbie knows how to tell a tale, how to evoke a scene, how to sketch in a vivid and unforgettable character. His work is never sentimental, frequently funny, and always affecting. -- John BanvilleIt’d be self-congratulating to say that if Crosbie-the-writer didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him. It’d also be hopeless, because we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t manufacture a writer who knows all the weird, grainy and hilarious stuff Crosbie knows, & magically combine that with the civilized urge to set it all down for others’ delectation. Mark Twain was that sort of writer. Ring Lardner was. Nelson Algren. It’s heartening to know Crosbie’s is not yet a dying art. -- Richard FordHe is the man who turned a disused railway station into Ireland’s biggest music venue which some of us still call The Point. But if Harry Crosbie has his way, he will also be remembered as a writer. -- A collection of funny and poignant tales told from the perspective of a teenage boy working in Dublin's docklands. * The Irish Times *The Independent * Niamh Horan *It’d be self-congratulating to say that if Crosbie-the-writer didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him. It’d also be hopeless, because we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t manufacture a writer who knows all the weird, grainy and hilarious stuff Crosbie knows, & magically combine that with the civilized urge to set it all down for others’ delectation. Mark Twain was that sort of writer. Ring Lardner was. Nelson Algren. It’s heartening to know Crosbie’s is not yet a dying art. -- Richard FordHe is the man who turned a disused railway station into Ireland’s biggest music venue which some of us still call The Point. But if Harry Crosbie has his way, he will also be remembered as a writer. -- Des MacHale * The Irish Times *Could Wilde have built the Point? No but he’d have loved to have played it. Could Joyce have started Vicars Street? No, but he would have loved to have got up and sung in it. Yeats did manage to start the Abbey, which is fair enough, but it’s doubtful whether he or anyone else could have built the Docklands … But Harry Crosbie did all that and more and then out of the blue he turns out to be a fabulous writer. Harry Crosbie is a wonderful writer and this book is the evidence. -- Bob Geldof

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Book SynopsisWhether set in the Jamaican past or the Miami present, whether dealing wittily with sexual errantry, inventively with manifestations of the uncanny (when Brother Belnavis tangles with a vampire), or disturbingly with teenage homophobia, Geoffrey Philp's second collection displays again the gold stamp of the born story-teller. But beyond their capacity to engage and entertain the reader, these are the multi-layered stories of a perceptive and humane observer of contemporary life. In particular, an acute empathy with troubled childhoods and adolescence offers adult readers a rewarding reconnection with the turbulence of earlier selves. There is great variety here – a lively mash-up of genres and styles. There are stories that work with quietly understated stealth – casual talk around a game of dominoes in 'Beeline Against Babylon' reveals a deep undercurrent of affection between father and son – and stories that have a ragga boldness and laugh-out-loud inventiveness, but throughout them all there runs the signature of an engaging personal voice.Geoffrey Philp was born in Jamaica. He now lives and works in Miami.

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Book SynopsisTell Tales Four is a groundbreaking collection of short stories from the UK-based Tell-Tale literary collective. Taking as its theme, The Global Village, Tell-Tales 4 has drawn writers together from around the world. Set in India, Africa, Jamaica, Trinidad, New York, London, cyberspace and the future, the stories are ambitious and very contemporary. Love, sex, death, war, global warming, immigration and crime are just some of the topics stories treat in often dark and funny ways. We are introduced to drug smugglers, a call-centre workers, tourists, ghosts and even a talking robotic job. The twenty-six stories bring together exciting new talents and the work of established writers such as Caribbean luminary Olive Senior, well-known UK-based authors such as Matt Thorne, Sophie Woolley and Adam Thorpe; award-winning travel writer Justin Hill, hip hop journalist Michael Gonzales and Next Gen poet and short story writer Catherine Smith. There is a huge variety of individual voices, but what unites all the writers is a passionate commitment to telling stories and exploiting the possibilities of the short story form.The Tell-Tales collective was founded by the novelist and short-story writer Courttia Newland and the writer and literary activist Nii Parkes of Flipped Eye Press in 2003.

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Book SynopsisA boy is killed on a government minister's orders as part of his mission to clean up the country and others made complicit must explore their consciences; a youth gets ready to play his role in the country's lucrative kidnap business; a sister tries to make peace with the parents of the white American girl her brother has murdered; a gangster makes his posthumous lament: Trinidad in all its social tumult is ever present in these stories, but so too are the lives of those with private griefs: a woman mourning the still-birth of her child; a mother grieving the loss of her breasts and trying to protect her children from the knowledge of her cancer.The stories in this collection range across Trinidad's different ethnic communities; across rural and urban settings; include the moneyed elite (and the illicit sources of new wealth) and the poor scrabbling for survival; locals and expatriates; the certainties of rational knowledge bumps up against the mysteries of the unseen and the uncanny.What ties the collection together are not only the characters who thread their way across different stories, and the intensive focus on women's lives, but Sharon Millar's achievement of a distinctively personal voice: cool, unsentimental and empathetic; a keen sense of place and her ability to bring it to the reader's eyes. If irony is the only way to inscribe contemporary Trinidad, there is also room for both generous humour and the possibility of redemption.Trade Review"Women have turmeric eyes, men are too beautiful to die, children dance the cocoa and unborn babies are made born as baby sharks. This book made me catch my breath. It made me shake my head and sigh. The characters barb and the language sings" Tiphanie Yanique

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Book SynopsisThis debut collection promises to be a series of politically-charged snapshots of Trinidadian life.

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Non Fiction. Beginning with the promptings of the erotic title story, Jacqueline Bishop came to see the hybrid format of this book, with its mix of short stories, essays and interviews could begin to encompass her desire to see where she had arrived at in a creative career that encompassed being published as a novelist, poet, critic and exhibited as an artist. How did these sundry positions connect together? What aspects of both conscious intention and unconscious, interior motivations did they reveal?The stories, none more than a few pages long, can be read at several levels. The mentor who teaches the child gymnast a contortionist’s erotic positions, the adoptive mother who shoots down ex-partner and adopted child when the former debauches the latter as the subject of pornographic photographs; the relationship between tattooist and the woman who offers her naked body for decoration are all sharply and persuasively realized as short fictions, but they also hint at a writer’s interior dialogue and can be read as parables about the relationship between the free imagination and the controlling and even potentially betraying power of art.The essays explore more conscious areas of expression. They deal with the experiences of maternal separation, family histories and mythologies, the search for grounding in the life of a Jamaican grandmother, the relationship with a male writing mentor, travel to Morocco, the inspiration of the writing lives of Jamaicans Claude McKay and Roger Mais and how 9/11 showed her how deeply she had become a New Yorker.The interviews, which investigate sometimes her writing, sometimes her art, and occasionally both, provide context for the stories and the essays. They are at their most revealing when interviewers ask Jacqueline Bishop questions she hasn’t asked herself.

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Book SynopsisDiscover some of the best in speculative short fiction from the Caribbean's up and coming voices. Edited by writer Karen Lord, New Worlds, Old Ways encompasses science fiction, fantasy and more. It is the third publication of Peekash Press, an imprint of Akashic Books and Peepal Tree Press committed to supporting the emergence of new Caribbean writing, and as part of CaribLit project.Do not be misled by the ‘speculative’ in the title. Although there may be robots and fantastical creatures, these common symbols are tools to frame the familiar from fresh perspectives.Here you will find the recent past and ongoing present of government and society with curfews, crime and corruption; the universal themes of family with parents and children, growth and death, love and hate; the struggle to thrive when power is capricious and revenge too bittersweet. Here too is the passage of everything – old ways, places, peoples, and ourselves – leaving nothing behind but memories, histories, stories.This anthology speaks to the fragility of our Caribbean home, but reminds the reader that although home may be vulnerable, it is also beautifully resilient. The voice of our literature declares that in spite of disasters, this people and this place shall not be wholly destroyed.Read for delight, then read for depth, and you will not be disappointed.Edited by Karen Lord, with stories by Tammi-Browne Bannister, Summer Edward, Portia Subran, Brandon O’Brien, Kevin Jared Hosein, Richard B. Lynch, Elizabeth J. Jones, Damion Wilson, Brian Franklin, Ararimeh Aiyejina and H.K. Williams.

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Book SynopsisIn 2011, the Trinidad government declared a state of emergency and an overnight curfew. The SoE, brought in to combat the crime and killings associated with the drugs trade, was meant to last 15 days but lasted four months. This is the background to these chronicles, but not their substance. They are an imaginative response to the undertones of those days. Taking place over 24 hours, Curfew Chronicles brings together, like a Joyce’s Ulysses in miniature, the lives of two dozen characters (including a father and son searching for each other) whose lives intersect in mostly fortuitous but sometimes quite deliberate ways.From the Minister and his wife, to those targeted by the state; from those in regular jobs, to those who scuffle for a living on or over the edge of the law; from those who speak out, to the hidden hands prepared to silence them: no one is unaffected by the SoE. What makes these stories individually rich (as well as collectively ingenious) is the depth of characterisation. There is Scholar the street-corner prophet, Ragga with his vision of better days, Keeper tempted into crime to the distress of his redoubtable partner Maureen, Sumintra, the Pentecostal convert struck dumb in prayer, Marcus the assassin whose life is a movie, Amber the security guard and poet and her policeman lover Calvin, eager to retire from clearing up little matters like the “weed” found in the PM’s residence, and many more. Each has a resonant backstory; each is caught at a moment of decision or revelation.

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Book SynopsisListen carefully: a world within a world echoes in these short stories from Christine Barrow. Here, the unmuffled pulse of Barbados beats. Barrow brings us scenes of family squabbles, bitterly unhappy housewives, superstitious salt-of-the-earth grandmothers, disillusioned scholars burning with subterranean desire, alongside young men brined and buttressed by the sea. Each story skillfully unmasks the lie of an ordinary life, or an ordinary island: these characters wrestle with the ghosts of the Panama Canal; they grow up motherless and rudderless, reaching across the Atlantic towards England, their navel strings planted deep in St. Lucy and Bridgetown.Barrow artfully arrests miniature details -- a too-sharp crochet hook; a glinting pearl pendant; sea glass that sparkles in sunlight -- and from these fragments and slivers, she assembles potent realities. Her prose confronts the weight of plantocracy and its embedded privilege, in stories that show how Barbadian history seeps into the rum, rebellion and rhythm of contemporary life.

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Book SynopsisBreanne Mc Ivor is a bold new voice in Caribbean fiction. The Trinidad of her stories is utterly contemporary but also a place defined by its folk mythologies and its cultural creations, its traditions of masking and disguises. Her stories confront the increasing economic and cultural divisions between rich and poor, the alarming rise in crime, murders and an alternative economy based on drug trafficking. Their daring is that they look both within the human psyche and back in time to make sense of this reality. The figure of the loup-garou, the violent rhetoric of the Midnight Robber – or even cannibalism lurking far off the beaten track – have become almost comic tropes of a dusty folklore. In Mc Ivor’s stories they become real and terrifying daylight presences, monsters who pass among us. Her great gift as a writer is to take us to unexpected places, both to seduce us into a kind of sympathy for her monsters of greater and lesser kinds, and sometimes to reveal a capacity for redemption amongst characters we are tempted to dismiss as shallow, unlikable human beings. The problem, in a world of masks and disguises, is how to tell the difference.In these carefully crafted stories, with room for humour, though of a distinctly gothic kind, Breanne Mc Ivor reaches deep into the roots of Trinidad folk narratives to present us with very modern versions of our troubled selves.

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Book Synopsis“The all-seeing eye and the all-listening ear, roving all over the island, stopping here and there to listen in on conversations.” This, as Jacqueline Bishop writes in her introduction, is what Hazel Campbell has been doing for almost fifty years – and there are few writers with such a sharp ear for how Jamaican people speak. But Hazel Campbell is much more than just a recorder. This is a writer who never tells the reader what to think, but challenges them to come to their own conclusions, but it is also clear enough that Campbell’s is a radical vision of Caribbean possibility combined with an apprehension of how reality so often falls short. Sharply observant of the inequalities of Jamaican society, her writing is also wholly unsentimental or judgemental over the way her characters so often make the wrong choices. In the space between desire and outcomes, there is often the deepest and most painful kind of comedy. And for a writer who recognises how much of the Jamaican soul is rooted in the nation’s churches, what could be more natural than that the devil makes several appearances throughout the collection? But even Lucifer is no match for the sheer cussedness of Jamaican politics. In “Jacob Bubbles”, Hazel Campbell weaves a double narrative criss-crossing from the days of slavery to the years of political warfare between rival communities. As ever, there is no telling the reader what to think. She tells a story and leaves you to ponder. Which of the two Jacob’s is in truth most free? In what respects have the lives of Jamaica’s poorest black people really been emancipated? This work is drawn from earlier published collections The Rag Doll and Other Stories, Women’s Tongue and Singerman and eight new stories. Across their range Jamaica emerges from colonialism to the present, years of struggle, violence but also of continuing hope in the people’s capacity for both endurance and re-invention.

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Book SynopsisThe land along Pacific palisades in Hollywood is apt to slip away without warning, hence the road-side signs - Slide Area. Seven interrelated stories, this volume tells the tale of lost souls marooned on a glittering wasteland.

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Book SynopsisIn an English seaside town, lovers and children, young men and middle-aged women, weave in and out of each other's lives and stories.A mother is tormented by her daughter's tattoo; another only pretends to love her baby. A wife stalks her husband and his new lover; a broken egg through a letterbox tells a story that will not go away; the cat thinks he knows best. Threaded throughout are longings for love and poignant disappointments, surprising pleasures and temptations. Some will fall but some, like the small boy at the circus who sees his babysitter fly past on a trapeze wearing little more than a blue bra and spangles, will retain their feeling of awe.PERFECT LIVES, follows Polly Samson's rapturously received first collection, LYING IN BED. They are rueful, knowing, witty, poignant, bashful, bold. Her genius is in the nuance.

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Book SynopsisGathered from throughout Stead's career, these stories are a reminder of his deft storytelling and literary power. They are clever, sensual, wry and beautifully written, with Stead's subtle sense of humour evident at every turn.The collection can be read as a meditation on the writerly life, and includes a number of new, previously unpublished stories, including Last Season's Man, which won the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, as well as older stories that have been revised and rewritten. Set in locations as diverse as the South of France, Sydney, Zagreb, Auckland, San Francisco and Oxford, each story is vividly drawn.This extraordinary collection, along with Stead's history as New Zealand Poet Laureate (2015-17), confirms his position as an exceptionally talented writer.

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