BY THE AUTHOR OF THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AND 2022 WOMEN'S FICTION PRIZE-SHORTLISTED GREAT CIRCLE

'The same chilling brilliance of Daphne du Maurier's most unsettling short fiction' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Has an innate charm of its own. Beautifully realised' DAILY MAIL

'It's a rare writer who can create a world as convincingly over a few pages as in a 600-page novel; Shipstead's fluency in both forms is testament to the skill she modestly casts as a work in progress' Stephanie Merritt, GUARDIAN

'Maggie Shipstead combines cinematic scope with a poet's attention to detail' THE TIMES

A collection of sparkling award-winning stories from Maggie Shipstead, epic storyteller and astonishing chronicler of the daring and the damaged. Diving into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of unforgettable characters, Shipstead traverses the ordinary and extraordinary with cunning, compassion, and wit.

Meet the silent cowgirl and horse wrangler escaping an ugly home life, only to fall into a decade-long triangle of unrequited love; a male novelist who is just reckoning with his own pretentiousness as his debut novel goes to print; a honeymoon couple's time in the hills of Romania builds into a moment of shattering tragedy. In the title story, a famous child actress breaks away from a religious cult, as she tells - with brittle candour - her tale of childhood damage and the dark side of fame.

Exuding both tenderness and bite, Shipstead exposes complicated truths in this dazzling collection sealing her reputation as an astonishingly versatile master of fiction.
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'Shipstead is a writer who can vividly summon whatever she chooses, taking the reader deep inside the world she creates' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Shipstead observes people beautifully' THE TIMES

The same chilling brilliance of Daphne du Maurier's most unsettling short fiction * FINANCIAL TIMES *
It's a rare writer who can create a world as convincingly over a few pages as in a 600-page novel; Shipstead's fluency in both forms is testament to the skill she modestly casts as a work in progress * Stephanie Merritt, GUARDIAN *
Shipstead observes people beautifully * THE TIMES *
Has an innate charm of its own. Beautifully realised * DAILY MAIL *
Shipstead's prose is lovely. Precise, vivid, vital * DAILY EXPRESS *
Reaching across decades and set in a diverse array of locations both domestic and exotic, Shipstead's latest will find a home on bookshelves beside the works of Andre Dubus, Jane Smiley and Richard Russo * BOOKLIST starred review *
Accomplished. It's the glimpse of a writer honing her craft that is most satisfying * DAILY MAIL *
For GREAT CIRCLE: So beautiful, so daring, so complete * TAYLOR JENKINS REID *
Distinctive and dazzling * TELEGRAPH *
Shipstead displays luminous, exacting language as she demonstrates her flair for creating distinctive characters * LIBRARY JOURNAL US *

MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD is the author of the New York Times bestselling novels SEATING ARRANGEMENTS - winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and L A Times Book Prize for First Fiction - ASTONISH ME and the Booker-shortlisted GREAT CIRCLE. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Guardian, Conde Nast Traveller, The Best American Short Stories and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. YOU HAVE A FRIEND IN 10A is her first story collection. Maggie Shipstead grew up in California and lives in Los Angeles, California.