Description

‘Stories that start like delicate webs and finish like unbreakable wire traps’ Neil Gaiman

Naomi Ishiguro’s fresh, magical and delightfully speculative short story collection merges the inventiveness of David Mitchell and the fairy-tale allure of Angela Carter to form its own powerful magic.

Witness what happens when a space-obsessed child conjures up a vortex in his mother’s airing cupboard in Shearing Season. Watch unexpected possibilities open up in The Flat Roof when a musician makes friends with a flock of birds.
Get lost in the world of The Rat Catcher where, finding himself potentially out of his depth when he is summoned to a decaying royal palace, a rat catcher is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom.

In this stunning debut collection, the characters yearn for freedom and flight, and find their worlds transformed beyond their wildest imaginings.

‘Naomi Ishiguro’s crystal clear prose delights and intrigues’ Sharlene Teo

‘Winsomely written and engagingly quirky, these are inventive tales that favour imagination over gritty realism.’ The Sunday Times

‘Ishiguro’s imagination is a place where the fantastical lurks in the margins as a possibility, a flavour rather than a genre’ The Herald

Publisher Review

It's whimsical, often melancholy tales are populated by people you feel you've met * Kimberley Ballard, SFX Magazine * All the emotional power comes from how these tired, stressed, anxious characters could be people that you pass on the street. They could be us * Chloe Walker, Culturefly website * A wide-ranging speculative short story collection from a striking new voice in fiction * Rabeea Saleem, 'Fabulous February Books Out In The UK', BookRiot website * Ishiguro, daughter of the 2017 Nobel Laureate, is already being touted as a writer of rare talent herself * RTE Guide * Escape Routes sees Ishiguro find inventive and unexpected new ways to explore her themes of freedom, flight and individuality * Netgalley Reader Review, Shelf Indulgent Reader website * An imaginative collection full of wide eyed wonder and millennial wit * Sharlene Teo *