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<p><strong>BY THE AUTHOR OF THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AND 2022 WOMEN'S FICTION PRIZE-SHORTLISTED GREAT CIRCLE</strong></p> <p>'The same chilling brilliance of Daphne du Maurier's most unsettling short fiction' FINANCIAL TIMES</p> <p>'It's a rare writer who can create a world as convincingly over a few pages as in a 600-page novel; Ship stead's fluency in both forms is testament to the skill she modestly casts as a work in progress' Stephanie Merritt, GUARDIAN</p> <p>'Maggie Shipstead combines cinematic scope with a poet's attention to detail' THE TIMES</p> <p>A collection of sparkling award-winning stories from Maggie Shipstead, epic storyteller and astonishing chronicler of the daring and the damaged. Diving into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of unforgettable characters, Shipstead traverses the ordinary and extraordinary with cunning, compassion, and wit.</p> <p>Meet the silent cowgirl and horse wrangler escaping an ugly home life, only to fall into a decade-long triangle of unrequited love; a male novelist who is just reckoning with his own pretentiousness as his debut novel goes to print; a honeymoon couple's time in the hills of Romania builds into a moment of shattering tragedy. In the title story, a famous child actress breaks away from a religious cult, as she tells - with brittle candour - her tale of childhood damage and the dark side of fame.</p> <p>Exuding both tenderness and bite, Shipstead exposes complicated truths in this dazzling collection sealing her reputation as an astonishingly versatile master of fiction.<br /><br />'Shipstead is a writer who can vividly summon whatever she chooses, taking the reader deep inside the world she creates' FINANCIAL TIMES</p> <p><strong>'Shipstead observes people beautifully' THE TIMES</strong></p>