Penelope Lively is a genius and this collection is a joy. In any circumstances, from a wedding to a Christmas shopping expedition, Lively finds an emotional dilemma, engaging the reader as thoroughly as if they were reading a novel and leaving them speechless.

Relationships, in many strange and beautiful manifestations, are danced around in this collection of short stories. Lively's stories are as delicate as they are powerful and are a joy to read.

Penelope Lively is rightly celebrated for her elegant, understated style and her piercing perceptions, and each individual story is a pleasing morsel. Take one at bedtime.

The fourteen brief stories in Beyond the Blue Mountains reveal Penelope Lively at her most polished and perceptive. "The Slovenian Giantess" is a condensed masterpiece.

The title story in this marvellous new collection gives us a portrait of a marriage in ten short pages, saying more than many authors would tell us in a book.

This is a crafted, talented display.

Hadley is a writer of exceptional intelligence and skill Only Alice Munro and Colm Toibin, among all the working short story writers I’m aware of, are so adept at portraying whole lives in a few thousand words. With Married Love, Hadley joins their company as one of the most clear-sighted chroniclers of contemporary emotional journeys

Tessa Hadley writes like a dream, the prose precise, but funny, too

These stories are shored up with sentences and paragraphs that demand immediate re-reading for their cleverness and warmth…This party is well worth attending

This collection shows a writer quietly growing in style, perception and grace. She conveys to the reader that rare ability to see completely into someone else’s head

Accomplished ... confident

The ghost of Katherine Mansfield hovers lightly over these deceptively delicate snapshots which zero in on the much maligned territory of the domestic and make it new and vital again