Description

An elderly schoolteacher recalls the single act of youthful passion that changed her life forever. A young gardener has an unsettling encounter with a suburban housewife. A teenage girl strikes up an unlikely friendship with a lonely bachelor.

In these twelve haunting stories award-winning writer Mary Costello examines the passions and perils of everyday life with startling insight, casting a light into the darkest corners of the human heart.

Publisher Review

This is a writer unafraid of the graveside, or the bedside, of filling the space of the story to the brim. Large events happen in small lives . . . Her writing has the kind of urgency that the great problems demand . . . With a bit of luck, they could keep her at the desk for the rest of her life -- Anne Enright * * Guardian * * Poised and beautiful -- Donal Ryan * * Guardian * * So intricately wrought, so unique and enthralling as to be utterly bewitching * * Sunday Independent * * Simply a masterpiece * * Irish Independent * * Echoing Thomas Hardy, she reveals how even ordinary lives can be full of drama and incident . . . Beautifully crafted but never pretentious, Costello's stories are stark and honest and her characters linger long after you close the book * * Books Ireland * * These stories want all of you, mind and body and soul, like a consummation -- Sonya Chung * * The Millions * * In 15 pages, we feel the breadth and depth of a life and its regrets * * Irish Times * *