Description

Discover this brooding collection of short stories from one of Britain’s finest writers. A world where everyday life crackles with the electricity sparking between men and women, between parents and children, between friends.

A son confesses to his mother that he is cheating on his girlfriend; a student falls in love with her lecturer and embarks on an affair with a man in the pub who looks just like him. Young mothers pent-up in childcare dream treacherously of other possibilities; a boy becomes aware of the woman, a guest at his parents’ holiday home, who is pressing up too close against him on the beach.

Hidden away inside the present, the past is explosive; the future can open unexpectedly out of any chance encounter; ordinary moments are illuminated with lightning flashes of dread or pleasure. These stories about family life are somehow undomesticated and dangerous.

‘She is the writer we didn’t know we were waiting for, until she arrived’ Anne Enright, Guardian

Publisher Review

The stories sparkle...Hadley is fascinating for the way she admits a fantasy or a missed chance can be more significant than the actual events that shape a life * Metro * Brilliant... Hadley's style is as discreet as good tailoring * Independent * Truly absorbing... a masterful yet understated read... More please * Sunday Express * She has such great psychological insights into human beings, which is rare. She is one of the best fiction writers writing today -- Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie Few writers give me such consistent pleasure -- Zadie Smith