In these stories we meet more of Amy Bloom's irresistible characters: a woman recovering from cancer while her best friend and husband face their loneliness and a new friendship; a mother coming to know that her wonderful little girl is a boy; a man and his stepmother in a complicated dance of memory, anger and forgiveness.

These are stories on the frontiers of emotions, stories about the uncertain gestures of love, the betrayals of the flesh and the surprises of the heart.

'Connectedness, or the lack of it, is the theme of nearly all the stories . . . They are small masterpieces' Sunday Times

'Amy Bloom gets more meaning into individual sentences than most authors manage in whole books' New Yorker

'Any new book by Amy Bloom is a cause for celebration and this fabulously titled collection of stories is no exception... Bloom, already hailed as one of the best short story writers of her generation, is wickedly knowing with the sort of perfectly paced writing which can blow the reader away with the tiniest detail' The Times