The first thing that strikes you about these stories is how different they are, how separate; how sturdily and confidently they nestle next to each other in this, Clare Boylan's third published collection. In The Spirit of the Tree, two children defy their father and make a Christmas tree out of crepe paper and Sellotape; in Life on Mars a woman whose husband has died a long, slow death finds extra terrestrials in her kitchen; The Secret Diary of Mrs Rochester takes a tough line on Ms Bronte's handsome hero. Their thematic and tonal unity only creeps up on you afterwards, for they are all concerned with women who fight back after suffering grave disappointments, often - though not always - inflicted by men, and they make you want to cheer the way the heroines of Mozart operas make you want to cheer when, having poured out the misery of heartbreaks past, they suddenly take off into the future, with a deft change of key/flick of the hips.
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