Reviews

''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.