From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates comes a collection of four dark and compelling novellas about love gone wrong.

From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE, now a major motion picture, a collection of four dark and compelling novellas about love gone wrong. The young fourth wife of a prominent intellectual thinks herself happy until the first wife comes to stay. A shy teenager meets a dazzling kindred spirit. But the first sparks of young love soon take on a darker shade... A spoiled frat boy decides to murder his parents, only to be floored by the power of his mother's love; and a fragile woman reveals deeply buried secrets to her curious lover with devastating consequences... All of these stories are about love, just not as we like to think of it. Reviews for Joyce Carol Oates: 'A writer of extraordinary strengths.' Guardian 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday.' Sunday Express 'Both haunting and sublime.' Literary Review 'Splendidly chilling.' Financial Times 'Visceral, psychologically involving, and socially astute.' Booklist

"PRAISE FOR JOYCE CAROL OATES: 'This collection of stories is Oates at her best – spare, swift, beautifully observed and quietly lethal' The Times. 'Both haunting and sublime' Literary Review. 'An unsettling read worth every resulting jump in the night... [Oates is a] literary goddess' Daily Mail. 'As usual with Oates, it is horribly readable, but driven by something disturbingly like genuine misanthropy' Sunday Times. 'Oates chillingly depicts the darkness lurking within the everyday' Sunday Express. 'A writer of extraordinary strengths' Guardian. 'A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around'" - New York Times Book Review