[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]

i picked up this collections of short stories awhile back but it got lost in the holiday shuffle. finished it today and it was wonderful. each story so vivid and on the edge of your seat with dramas that play in your head. it was absolutely, utterly fantastic.

as an aside, i felt sure the author was a man (the name on the cover was maile meloy, so no clues there) - particulary in a few of the stories due to language choice & attitudes, but it's actually a woman! it's a credit to her writing ability that i felt 'male' channeled throughout those male pieces. other than that, it felt as good - if not better - than an alice munroe collection.