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Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781860499289

Price: £9.99

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‘Dauntingly fresh’ OBSERVER

‘Hot, sparkling and exciting’ INDEPENDENT

‘Mercurial and elusive’ ADAM MARS-JONES

A. L. Barker dissects the unnerving emotions of everyday life with the sly humour and exquisite feel for language that prompted Auberon Waugh to declare that she ‘writes like an angel and I love her’.

In her tenth collection of stories, Barker unfolds tales of cunning, fancy and shifting alliances. Here a young boy fosters grand illusions; a wife faces broken promises; a dutiful committee woman meets a sparky old gentleman; a witch is drowned; an intruder insinuates himself into a lonely woman’s holiday; and commonplace superstition mingles effortlessly with submerged desire.

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Reviews

She writes like an angel and I love her
Auberon Waugh
Barker has come full circle, and the short story reigns triumphant
Elizabeth Berridge, Guardian
Almost dauntingly fresh -- glancing, mercurial, elusive
Observer
Glancing, mercurial, elusive
Adam Mars-Jones
Her prose is like the botanical flower paintings at Kew: 17 washes precede the final glaze
Jane Gardam, Spectator
Marries the deadpan timing of Kingsley Amis at his driest with a tinge of eerie nature-mysticism that brings Iris Murdoch to mind .... Hot, sparkling, exciting
Boyd Tonkin, Independent