Tinder Press Common Ground Исигуро Наоми

Naomi Ishiguro's fresh, magical and delightfully speculative short story collection merges the inventiveness of David Mitchell and the fairy-tale allure of Angela Carter to form its own powerful magic • Witness what happens when a space-obsessed child conjures up a vortex in his mother's airing cupboard in Shearing Season. Watch unexpected possibilities open up in The Flat Roof when a musician makes friends with a flock of birds • Get lost in the world of The Rat Catcher where, finding himself potentially out of his depth when he is summoned to a decaying royal palace, a rat catcher is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom • In this stunning debut collection, the characters yearn for freedom and flight, and find their worlds transformed beyond their wildest imaginings

The Professor lives in Brooklyn; her partner Nathan left her when she couldn't have a baby. All she has now is her dead-end teaching job, her ramshackle apartment, and Nathan's old moggy, Cat. Who she doesn't even like • The Actress lives a few doors down. She's famous and beautiful, with auburn hair, perfect skin, a lovely smile. She's got children - a baby, even. And a husband who seems to adore her. She leaves her windows open, even at night • There's no harm, the Professor thinks, in looking in through the illuminated glass at that shiny, happy family, fantasizing about them, drawing ever closer to the actress herself. Or is there?

Mallory sees the woman for the first time at her college gym and is immediately transfixed. As a naturally reserved person who is now reeling from the loss of her mother, Mallory finds herself compelled by the woman's assurance, and longs to know her better. Despite the discovery that she is a professor at the college, Mallory finds herself falling into a complicated love affair with the woman, the stakes of which she never quite understands • In the years that follow, Mallory must come to terms with how the relationship shaped her, for better or worse, and learn to become a part of the world that she sacrificed for the sake of a woman she never truly knew • In this enthralling debut novel, the complexities of influence, obsession, and admiration reveal how desire and its consequences can alter the trajectory of a life

On a cold February afternoon, Stella catches sight of a man she hasn't seen for many years, but instantly recognises. Or thinks she does. At the same moment on the other side of the globe, in the middle of a crowd of Chinese New Year revellers, Jake realises that things are becoming dangerous • They know nothing of one another's existence, but both Stella and Jake flee their lives: Jake in search of a place so remote it doesn't appear on any map, and Stella for a destination in Scotland, the significance of which only her sister, Nina, will understand

It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper. He doesn't come back. The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone. None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share

When Lily moves into Marcus's flat and plunges headlong into a relationship, she must contend not merely with the disapproval of flatmate Aidan, but with a more intangible, hostile presence. Could it be that Sinead, Marcus's ex, is trying to communicate with her? When Lily begins to 'see' Sinead, first about the flat, and then on the streets of London, she must question not merely her sanity, but whether the man she loves is someone she can, or indeed ought, to live with at all

The party has to end sometime • It all starts on New Year's Eve. A night that has to be a success, whatever the cost. For Joni and her friends, it'll be a party that promises all the high stakes and glamour of any other, but by sunrise they'll be dealing with something darker than the usual post-party comedown • Not that they let this stand in their way. For this is their year to revel in all that the playground of London has to offer: sneaking into places they shouldn't, breaking every rule, falling in love with the wrong people. All the while avoiding one undeniable truth: it's not if the party ends, it's how • Just For Today is a bittersweet evocation of the end of innocence, and an exhilarating celebration of having nothing to lose - until suddenly, you do

Sylvie and Gabe meet and fall in love at boarding school in Northern California when they are just teenagers. Their headmaster is the enigmatic and mysterious Dr Keller, a man obsessed with the idea that people's waking stress and trauma can be cured in their dreams. The young couple can't help but be drawn into his magnetic pull and slowly become involved in his research • Years later, Sylvie and Gabe are once again working on Dr Keller's experiments and Sylvie slowly begins to realise there is more both to her employer and her lover than meets the eye, and that the line between dreams and reality has become dangerously blurred

Edinburgh in the 1930s. The Lennox family is having trouble with its youngest daughter. Esme is outspoken, unconventional, and repeatedly embarrasses them in polite society. Something will have to be done • Years later, a young woman named Iris Lockhart receives a letter informing her that she has a great-aunt in a psychiatric unit who is about to be released • Iris has never heard of Esme Lennox and the one person who should know more, her grandmother Kitty, seems unable to answer Iris's questions. What could Esme have done to warrant a lifetime in an institution? And how is it possible for a person to be so completely erased from a family's history?

After the birth of her daughter Emma, the usually resilient Majella finds herself feeling isolated and exhausted. Then, at her childhood home, Majella discovers the diary of her maternal ancestor Ginny, and is shocked to read a story of murder in her family history • With the famine upon her, Ginny Doyle fled from Ireland to America, but not all of her family made it. What happened during those harrowing years, and why does Ginny call herself a killer? Is Majella genetically fated to be a bad mother, despite the fierce tenderness she feels for her baby? • Determined to uncover the truth of her heritage and her own identity, Majella sets out to explore Ginny's past - and discovers surprising truths about her family and ultimately, herself

Celebrated artist Rachel Kelly dies alone in her Penzance studio, after decades of struggling with the creative highs and devastating lows that have coloured her life. Her family gathers, each of them searching for answers. They reflect on lives shaped by the enigmatic Rachel - as artist, wife and mother - and on the ambiguous legacies she leaves them, of talent, torment and transcendent love