You may love Eric - or want to shake him! Passionately idealistic about his work as a librarian, and his mission to extend literacy and literature into the wider community, he's also ruefully aware that he's not exactly Superman. Forced to hide his mysterious background and mortifying fears, he's a man with secrets - withheld even from close friends. His once homely wife, now a fashionista, has abandoned him, to live in Seattle with a high-powered corporate kingpin; taking their only child, a moody minx-in-waiting, about to turn thirteen. Yet, against the odds, Eric sets out to prove himself - indeed, even to find a soul-mate. Whether braving 'Choco-love' Speed-Dating (chocolates provided, but is he a hard nut or a melting cream?); running Wandsworth Prison Book Club; attending an American Church that champions the Gospel of Prosperity, or rescuing his daughter from near-rape - he finally comes to epitomize the truth of Hemingway's words: 'The world breaks everyone and...

In this, her eighth short-story collection, Wendy Perriam casts a spotlight on both mothers and lovers, exploring, on the one hand, the influence of bad parenting on our future happiness, and, on the other, the power of transformative sex to transport us from mundane reality to an electrifying realm. She also chronicles the lives of those lonely, thwarted, or unduly pressured by their jobs. Many of these, however, succeed in effecting lucky escapes or making courageous bids for freedom. A feisty octogenarian flees the cramped horizons of a care home; a stressed businesswoman renounces the straitjacket of nine-to-five; a bride-to-be breaks off her engagement to a man whose obsession with numbers threatens her chance of marital harmony. As always in her work, Perriam is fascinated by the intrepid search for self-fulfilment in an uncertain world, and by those crucial moments in ordinary lives that prove to be epiphanies or turning points. Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers explores such...

Three generations of women, all with very different ideas as to what constitutes the good life. For Hanna, 95, it's always been based on duty, piety, and service to others, but for her granddaughter, Amy, it means wealth success and status. Amy's mother, Maria, is more ambivalent; attracted by both Hanna's high ideals and by the new hedonistic lifestyle she encounters when, after the death of her mother, she moves from Hanna's shabby Northumberland cottage to Amy's stylish London home. After 39 years of celibacy, her second self - a wild sensualist-in-waiting - is awakened by the passionate artist, Felix, who also encourages her long-dormant artistic talents. But should she say 'an enormous yes' to a new life of sexual and artistic self-fulfilment, or follow her mother's example and devote herself to Amy, now pregnant with her first child? An Enormous Yes poses fundamental questions about what constitutes living well, and the choices we are forced to make between wants and needs,...

Five brilliant stories by the popular short story writer and novelist, Wendy Perriam, who is much praised for her story collections, which boldly mix sex, religion and humour.

In Wendy Perriam's arresting short stories, we are plunged into the dreams and delusions of contemporary life and love. Her frail and fallible characters seek solace through the power of the imagination, finding release in fantasy worlds. Escape, whether make-believe or literal, is an all-important theme. Another common thread is conflict: between desire and impotence, freedom and suppression, rational thought and a belief in the miraculous. In such ambiguous territory, happy endings may be few, but there is always hope, in even the darkest stories, of self-fulfilment and personal redemption. Perriam's wide ranging humanity, coupled with her lively mix of comedy and menace makes this, her fourth collection, a deeply satisfying read.