Marquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do

A haunting and beautiful collection that deserves to be read slowly and savoured but which you won’t be able to put down.

Masterly… A spiritual, haunting book.

Burnside’s prose glitters.

Burnside brings a poet’s linguistic precision and emotional acuity… The writer’s deep, bloody engagement with the stuff of life can't fail to leave the reader enlivened, and keen to feel more.

Each [story] is a perfectly pitched, perfectly weighted gem.

Burnside’s sentences flow with a music and logic that is inevitable yet compelling and display the keenest ear for life.

There is much familiar Burnside landscape here – the harsh beauty of dune-grass and headland, the casual and deadly knifing in the pub, the domestic violence… Magical.

For those unacquainted with his sublimely terrifying oeuvre, this is the place to start… Violence simmers under the surface of every story, breaking out in the kind of stark detail that becomes unforgettable.

John Burnside’s career is among the more remarkable in contemporary literature… Even his most routine stories have beauty and intelligence: he is never less than something like brilliant.

Expect elegant prose to counterpoint the gritty themes.

Very sharp, penetrating short stories; some of the best I’ve read for a while.

There is little that the poet, novelist and short story writer Burnside cannot turn his hand to, and this collection simply exemplifies his tremendous talent… Both disturbing and yet perfectly structure, these stories embody something of the modern condition in their glimpses of ordinary people's lives.

All the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.

Even Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.

A tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.