[close] One long hot summer, Eveline drowns a wasps' nest, and while digging amongst the tiny corpses makes a sinister discovery; a university professor arrives unannounced at the door of an Arizona fortne-teller, little knowing how this woman will alter his life; as the Prussian army encroaches, the besieged city of Paris asks an enormous sacrifice of its city zookeeper; and over a Coca-Cola in and Andalucian village bar, a woman hears from a stranger the worst thing a mother can do.

The characters in Clare Wigfall's stories are all searching for something missing, something absent. As they go about their seemingly ordinary lives, the dark undercurrent of life, with all its complications and imperfections, is gradually revealed.

Extraordinarily compelling, incredibly skilled and pitch perfect in tone, these stories mark Clare Wigfall as a debut writer of enormous talent. [close]