From a young girl�������������������������������¢����������������������������������������������������������������s improper visit to an adult neighbour to a family�������������������������������¢����������������������������������������������������������������s relief at the lifting of sex abuse charges, from a fasting Christmas Dinner guest to a messy stumble with an urn of ashes, these stories effortlessly mix the menacing and the comic, and handle real-life situations with warmth and subtlety. Relief introduces an astonishingly mature and confident new voice in New Zealand fiction. First published May 2009.

Anna Taylor was born in 1982. She completed the MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University in 2006, and won the Adam Prize in Creative Writing for the manuscript she wrote during that year. She lives in Wellington. This is her first book