“She managed her practical duties effortlessly. But in Donbury she had more time to think, without the corralling influence of her parents. She couldn’t help wondering if something was missing. The truth was, her upbringing had prepared her for everything, apart from coming face-to-face with herself.” A darkly humorous, quirky collection of short stories, deliberately set in an unspecified part of England. Constrained, apparently powerless women transcend their expected selves, in subtle and sometimes more flamboyant ways. Quiet daughters, mothers and wives, who seem bound to be directed and moulded by supposedly well-meaning yet controlling spouses, families and professional carers, manage to hold on to threads of their own purpose and freedom. Hope, inspiration, escape and retribution come in unanticipated forms and from improbable sources. Roles are reversed; what goes around comes around. At times deceptively light and playful, these psychologically aware stories relate to poignant, restrictive experiences that can be part of real lives. Balancing clear-sighted observation with sympathy for her characters and their human predicaments, Tanya Ravenswater aims to entertain and communicate with women, and the men who seek to love and understand them. About the Author The Author: Tanya D. Ravenswater was born in County Down, Northern Ireland. She graduated in modern languages from St Andrews, Scotland and later gained an M.A. in Counselling Studies from Keele University, Staffordshire. She has worked as a general nurse, as a counsellor and in counselling education. Tanya writes fiction and poetry for adults and children, and has facilitated numerous writing projects within an educational context, including creating nature and place-themed anthologies for schools. Her short stories have been published among short-listed entries for the Cheshire Prize for Literature, and her poems have appeared in poetry magazines, such as, among others, Orbis and Obsessed with Pipework. Tanya currently lives in Cheshire with her husband, two teenage children and an alpha Jack Russell. The Artist: After obtaining a degree in Creative Arts at Manchester University, Jon Clayton gained experience as an artist and illustrator in various contexts, before becoming a Primary school teacher. He has a particular interest in mixed-figure and landscape painting and continues to develop his practice as an artist, undertaking commissioned works, including book illustrations and cover images.

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