Award-winning author Amra Pajalic showcases her gritty, poignant and sometimes bruising voice in this eclectic short story book of previously published and prize-winning stories. Featuring powerful and moving stories of family dissolution, deprivation of war, tenderness of family and the heart-rending experiences of mental illness. As well as suspenseful new thriller stories with a twist of vindictiveness and retribution, and love stories that make the heart sing, Pajalic will delight and entertain.
The Cuckoo's Song
-Francesca is ten when a gypsy fortune-teller told her the day and the hour of her death and she has been waiting since.
Fragments
-Seka and her brother forage for books in a bombed-out school in Srebrenica during the Balkan war.
Friends Forever
-Two lifelong friends share a room at a nursing home, as well as a secret or two.
School of Hardknocks
-Amina is a new high school student after migrating from Bosnia and struggles to acclimate to the Aussie way of life.
Woman on Fire
-A young girl lives with her mother's boyfriend when her mentally ill mother is admitted into hospital.