Each beautifully told story in this fine collection resonates with a moving depth of emotional understanding. Having won prizes in major national competitions for four of these stories, had several selected for anthologies of significant New Zealand writing, with numerous broadcast on radio and one even translated into Mandarin, Carl Nixon was long overdue for a book of his own, collecting his stories together. So, here they are. Stories that evoke the South Island landscape as well as the New Zealand urban expanse. Stories that take surprising turns as they explore such things as ‘saving’ a pet parrot, a fruiterer’s true love, a return to Crete, an anticipated seduction and the dreams of a suburban mercenary. There are characters to charm and alarm the reader, characters that are startlingly different and characters that are just like us. There are songs of love and tales of loss, there’s humour and there’s poignancy.