13 Tales of loss and longing.

Young people who find solace in a vintage shop in a town that seems to be developing around them without including them.

Ellie works in a mortuary and lives on the premises. And then she falls in love with someone her employers consider totally unsuitable.

Fleeing an abusive relationship, a young woman returns to her hometown and her bereaved mother. ***Please Note: This story is also available in the collection "Indelible and Other Stories".***

Dating is different in a dystopian world...

A woman waits for her friend on a station concourse even though she knows she will never arrive. Winner of the 2012 Waterstones' Crime in the City Competition

“Many who waded through the water coloured it with their blood, wine-red – a new meaning for the wine-dark sea of legend…” The battle of Marathon, fought in a time of treachery, danger and intense fear and superstition, was a military disaster for the Persians. But it was not the end of danger for Greece, and the courier’s famous triumphant journey, commemorated in the Olympic race, carried a frightening secret: “His own shadow, long and thin in front of him, was like a rope pulling him towards Athens; as he neared his destination so it gradually shortened, so the sun rose, so the enemy fleet moved towards Phalerum.” What of the Athenian runner himself? Surely, there was no way he could have known how his feat would be celebrated: “Thousands upon thousands of people running. In all the known world, and even lands beyond.” He would surely not have known or cared how fast he was running. And he would not have been able to predict that two messengers, not one, would be named in the annals. Or would he?