Heather O'Neill's distinctive style and voice fill these charming, sometimes dark, always beguiling stories

Heather O'Neill's unforgettable novels, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Lullabies for Little Criminals, captured readers with their disarming characters and irreverent descriptions of life on Montreal's St Laurent Boulevard. Here, O'Neill's voice takes flight in a collection of original stories that evoke sorrow, laughter, and heartbreak. From the title story of a naive cult follower in "Dear Piglet" to the struggle of two young women in occupied Paris in "Snow-White and Rose-Red" to the story of generations of failed Nureyev clones in post-Soviet Russia in "The Ugly Ducklings", these stories surprise and delight at every page, showing once again that Heather O'Neill is a remarkable talent and among our best, most inventive writers.