by Lucy Wood
Lucy Wood is the author of Diving Belles, a critically acclaimed collection of short stories based on Cornish folklore. She has been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and was a runner-up in the BBC National Short Story Award. She has also been awarded the Holyer an Gof Award and a Somerset Maugham Award. Lucy Wood has a Master’s degree in creative writing from Exeter University. She lives in Devon.
By the Same Author
Diving Belles
Also available by Lucy Wood
Diving Belles
Along Cornwall’s ancient coast, from time to time, the flotsam and jetsam of the past can become caught in the cross-currents of the present and a certain kind of magic floats to the surface... Straying husbands lured into the sea can be fetched back, for a fee. Houses creak, fill with water and keep a fretful watch on their inhabitants. And, on a windy beach, a small boy and his grandmother keep despair at bay with an old white door. In these stories, hopes, regrets and memories are entangled with catfish, wreckers’ lamps and baying hounds as Cornish folklore slips into everyday life.
‘A startling, and startlingly good, debut’ Jon McGregor
‘Wood’s imagination is extraordinary … Superb’ Kate Saunders, The Times
‘Lucy Wood has an intensity and clarity of expression, deeply rooted in a sense of place. Her stories have a purity and strength, and an underlying human warmth; they resonate in the mind’ Philip Hensher
‘Wood’s finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Carter and recalls the playful yet political transmogrifications of Atwood and Byatt’ Guardian
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First published in Great Britain 2015
This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © 2015 Lucy Wood
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4088 4094 8
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