Samanta Schweblin, three-time International Booker nominee and one of the world's greatest contemporary short story writers, comes to Picador with her first collection in ten years.

The International Bestseller

'Just stellar - extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled' - Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren
'These stories are perfect for the times we dwell inside' - Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon

The strange and explosive new collection from the incomparable imagination of Samanta Schweblin, a master of the short story.

A gripping blend of the raw, the astonishing and the tragic, every story is as perfectly unexpected as a snare: tightly, exquisitely wound, ready to snap at a touch.

Here, a young father is haunted by the consequences of a moment of distraction; tragedy is complicated by the inexplicable appearance of an injured horse; an attempted poisoning leads two writers to startling conclusions; a lonely woman’s charity is rewarded with home-invasion. And in the shocking opening story, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring.

Guilt, grief and relationships severed permeate this mesmerizing collection – but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love and longing, each sinister and beautiful. Step by step these unnerving stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life – ourselves.

‘No one writes like Samanta Schweblin’ – Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home