Tenterhooks

Tenterhooks
Suzannah Dunn

The best book yet from this witty writerIn these ten stories, Suzannah Dunn shows her considerable talent for writing short fictionWonderfully funny, clever observations of womens’ lives: Auntie Fay comes to Spain for the summer, survives on insulin injections, tans to the hue of a blood blister and routinely saves the skins of Renee and her unfortunate family; the sixth form do Pembrokeshire, on a field trip of stale cigarettes, smuggled scotch, and finally, mutiny; a young woman remembers her first real love – for the ghost of her aunt’s boyfriendDunn is poised to win a major prize -Venus Flaring was called in by the Booker judges

SUZANNAH DUNN

Tenterhooks

PRAISE (#ulink_f14e8e0c-38a7-5401-b571-12eaba06c75b)

BLOOD SUGAR

‘Blood Sugar is lit up by images of rare vitality and beauty.’

MAGGIE GEE

‘Suzannah Dunn is that rarity among contemporary novelists: a genuine stylist. Her prose is like truffles – rich, rare, dark, but never cloying.

WENDY PERRIAM

‘Suzannah Dunn is a writer with a brilliant touch.’

MALCOLM BRADBURY

PAST CARING

‘Poignant and believable… Past Caring is a perceptive novel by a writer who skilfully blends the everyday with the fantastic.’

HELEN DUNMORE

‘Suzannah Dunn writes in loaded and knowing prose, like a hip Edna O’Brien or Muriel Spark.

Glasgow Herald

‘Suzannah Dunn is a gifted writer.’

POLLY TOYNBEE, The Times

QUITE CONTRARY

‘The writing is loaded with vibrant, visual images of so strongly evocative, so poetic a quality that they seem about to burst and to yield up a weight of hidden meaning.’

Literary Review

‘A compelling debut novel from a writer steadily gathering critical plaudits for her penetrative eye and unfussy style… a luminous, honest and haunting portrait of a single woman doing a demanding job and trying to stay alive inside as well.’

Scotland on Sunday

‘A brilliant portrayal of a young woman coming to terms with her past and present.’

Company

VENUS FLARING

‘The prose is precise, images bloom like bruises or blood drops… compact worlds are contained in the simplest of descriptions. Dunn is a surgeon of the heart, and her observations are sparky’.

EITHNE FARRY, Time Out

‘A writer with a subversive wit that few of her peers can match.’

JONATHAN COE

‘Venus Flaring treats familiar themes to a witty and original overhaul. Dunn marries plot and themes, to create a haunting, melancholy tone perfectly suited to the sense of loss which afflicts even minor characters.’

ALISON WOODHOUSE, TLS

‘After reading Venus Flaring no other book will strike quite so close to your soul… Dunn time after time stuns the reader. This is a vital, refreshing, terrifyingly brilliant novel that demands to be read’.

SUSANNA GLASER, Finetime

DEDICATION (#ulink_718da6e3-9955-57bf-9bd8-f07693f283d4)

With love and thanks to my editor,

Charlotte Windsor

CONTENTS

Cover (#ueed100a9-5444-5f81-bb8c-d68bb133aeab)

Title Page (#uc6f9a792-cb81-59f3-aa7a-8eb0285a3a54)

Praise (#uaf10f58e-5173-552f-90d7-ecf4253ea126)

Dedication (#u8535e103-2a14-567d-9b4f-8c478dfbb9c7)

1 White Goods (#u91d51da6-2298-56d8-b7c0-dd87ac1a05d6)

2 Sync (#u11652b57-352e-58d0-ac63-3b1ae821a27c)

3 Tie-Breaker (#uce17041b-177b-591a-bb9e-239a67eab8db)

4 Night Flight (#litres_trial_promo)

5 Possibility Of Electricity (#litres_trial_promo)

6 Guts For Garters (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Slipping the Clutch (#litres_trial_promo)