Twenty-one short stories from award-winning writer Wendy James, ranging from the vignette to the compact epic, the suburban kitchen to the outback and the world, an instant to a lifetime and beyond. A stay-at-home father is consumed by his frustrations.

In Salzburg, a fortepiano maker struggles to preserve his family. Generations of women recall the family matriarch—was she really a witch? And in a kaleidoscopic tour de force, a young mother finds herself on the run with a desperate criminal.

These are stories about memory and perspective, patterns and deviations, longing and escape: a glittering collection from a master of the form. ‘Absolutely amazing… There is something for everyone in this fantastic book.

’ —Bookseller and Publisher‘Emotionally astute, vivid and eloquent, underpinned by eroticism, James’s fiction traces the contours of her characters’ lives as they grapple with responsibility, freedom, and love, propelled by multifarious desires. These fresh, sensuous stories are by turns witty, perceptive and coruscating, many with a delicious wry twist.

’ —Felicity Plunkett‘A penetrating picture of our life and times … a knockout. ’ — Sara Dowse, Canberra Times‘What quiet confidence, what an honest setting down of things as they are, nothing extenuating … This is a gifted story-teller and these are unusually arresting stories.

’ — Robert Lumsden, Adelaide Review‘From single-page tales to the long sequence that ends the book, James’s sure hand leads us through sometimes harrowing, sometimes redemptive moments in her beautifully rounded characters’ lives. ’ —Who magazine‘James … has already attracted accolades for her two novels … The calibre of her short stories will enhance her reputation further.

’ — Dianne Dempsey, The Age. .