Three women, each destined to play the role of a poet's wife: Catherine Blake, the wife of William Blake - a poet, painter and engraver who struggles for recognition in a society that dismisses him as a madman; Nadezhda Mandelstam, wife of Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, whose poetry costs him his life under Stalin's terror; and the wife of a fictional contemporary Irish poet, who looks back on her marriage during the days after her husband's death...

Louise Barnsley is chagrined to learn that the hunky man who kissed her in a bar turns out to be her new, married boss, therapist David Martin. Louise and David agree that the flirtation would be just a onetime thing, but their interactions become more complicated when David's gorgeous wife, Adele, bumps into Louise and cultivates her friendship. Sections set in different time frames provide an ominous backdrop for the triangle, with references to...

Offers a selection of the author's short stories that often deal with everyday English domestic life and its nuanced emotional undercurrents.