I'm a fan of Maria Savva, so I was delighted to read her new short story collection. Having read her longer work, I wasn't sure what to expect--often a novelist has trouble mastering the compact form of the short story. But Savva rises to the challenge and excels.

The stories here are intimate and, as is the case with all her work, I feel as though I really know each character immediately. Each story in this collection is very different, some genre stories and others more subtle and literary, but the collection is bound by keen insights and the characters' unique longings. A tell of Savva's work is that her characters always feel real, never overdone or overly glamorized. I can honestly say that there wasn't a story in here that didn't pull me in and keep me close. Some of the stories have a melancholy feel, but never without a sense of purpose or drive, and each delivers an immaculate portrait that speaks to a necessary truth that is at the same time universal and uniquely delivered.