_______________________ A SHORT STORY COLLECTION FROM THE AUTHOR OF WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN WINTER _______________________ 'The flaunt of the writing asks for admiration ... this is Candia McWilliam at her remarkable best' - Helen Dunmore, The Times 'McWilliam is a magically original writer, arranging words like sweets, making phrases sumptuously fortuitous' - Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday _______________________ A woman sleeps rough on the step of a bank, eating soap to keep herself clean inside while the flowers on her blanket talk to each other; two children at a wake discover friendship over forbidden food; a husband and wife eat fish and chips in their car with the windscreen wipers on high speed just for the fun of it. Carrying the reader from the landscape of the author's native Scotland to the rivers and woodlands of England, these twenty-four stories are tales of unremarkable lives and loves, remarkably told. _______________________ 'For sheer writerly distinction this year, my palm goes to Candia McWilliam for her collection of short stories' - Joanna Trollope, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year