Press Reviews

• Scotland on Sunday

  'While Tinti writes well about things that slither and crawl, what's most impressive is her understanding of human loneliness. These stories resonate with one mournful grace-note after another... Tinti delivers with poise uncommon among first-time writers. Like Edgar Allan Poe and Patricia Highsmith, [she] has a brilliant feel for the uncanny' Scotland on Sunday

• Leeds Guide

  [A] lovely and exotic zoo of short stories... Funny, off the wall, economical and bright with inventive language... This is my advice to reluctant short story readers: buy this collection for the bus into town, for the 20-minute train journey, for the five minutes before you go to sleep at night, and you will have animal fun all day and in your dreams at night' Leeds Guide

• Guardian

  'Tinti revisits the familiar territory of the American short story - troubled homes, dysfunctional families and peevish marriages - but gives it a shot of grotesque vigour through these connections to the animal kingdom. They're tart and unnerving with a delicious shudder of gothic.' Guardian, 02/04/05

• New York Metro

  'Tinti can hook a reader with a first sentence' New York Metro

• Bournemouth Daily Echo

  'Eleven lively, original, but rather black short stories ... Not a book for the faint-hearted' Bournemouth Daily Echo, 06/05/05

• Daily Mail (Lee Langley)

  'Children and beasts of all sorts dominate Hannah Tinti's first book... a quirky, often disturbing collection. Hers is a world where things are jarringly out of kilter, a world of transformation, casual violence and twisted feelings... Animals and humans alike, Tinti gets under their skin' Daily Mail (Lee Langley)

• Glasgow Herald

  'Don't be deceived by the animals prancing about the cover of this short-story collection. There are dark, dark tales within... Tinti laces her stories with a fine thread of black humour... Refreshingly original, bold and accomplished' Glasgow Herald

• Guardian

  'Tinti revisits the familiar territory of the American short story - troubled homes, dysfunctional families and peevish marriages - but gives it a shot of grotesque vigour through these connections to the animal kingdom. They're tart and unnerving with a delicious shudder of gothic.' Guardian, 02/04/05

• Saturday Telegraph

  'Tinti writes a sharp, snappy, deadpan prose that shifts easily between black, knockabout comedy and a more tender form of irony. This is a witty, lively and inventive collection of stories' Telegraph

• Roger Deakin (author of WATERLOG: A Swimmer's Jour

  'A stunning new writer. These are important stories and they really are crackers - told with tremendous wit, brilliance and verve. They may well be the 'Just So' stories of our troubled times' Roger Deakin (author of Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain)

• Independent on Sunday

  'At times her style recalls Flannery O'Connor; the stories embedded with incidental Gothic details ... considerable writing skill' Independent on Sunday