Rose Tremain's fiction often finds itself drawn into the "wide skies and watery byways of East Anglia". The short stories gathered in Wildtrack, selected from her collections published over three decades, convey the sense of isolation, darkness and secrecy the region fosters: a sense that has long fired Tremain's imagination.

At first sight, these four stories might seem to have little in common apart from their East Anglian settings. But some of the protagonists also share a feeling of anxiety that there is something wrong or missing in their lives which they must confront. The title story, Wildtrack, and Peerless both tackle the question of how we find meaning in a secular life, while in A Shooting Season, the main character believes she has found a safe haven, free from intervention of any kind – but then The Past makes an appearance.