INTIMACIES PB – LUCY CALDWELL

*Includes the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award* Precise and beautifully controlled fictions but with strange, wild energies pulsing along just beneath the surface. A tremendous collection. Kevin Barry, author of Night Boat to Tangier Intimacies exquisitely charts the steps and missteps of young women trying to find their place in the world. From a Belfast student ordering illegal drugs online to end an unwanted pregnancy to a young mother s brush with mortality; from a Christmas Eve walking the city centre streets when everything seems possible, to a night flight from Canada which could change a life irrevocably, these are stories of love, loss and exile, of new beginnings and lives lived away from home . Taking in, too, the lives of other women who could be guiding lights – from Monica Lewinsky to Caroline Norton to Sinead O Connor – Intimacies offers keenly felt and subtly revealing insights into the heartbreak and hope of modern life. Heart-stoppingly good. Lisa McGee, writer and creator of Derry Girls