A collection of 15 short stories, all of them feature the lives of women of all ages from 30 to 80 and their differing abilities to cope with the present circumstances of their lives. A lack of companionship and restricted finances is a recurring theme of the stories and Jackie Kay sketches the varying approaches of the women to overcome and compensate for these disadvantages. She writes with an eye for compassion for these women as some struggle with their situations and she empathises with their sometimes failures to control their own destinies.

As with any collection, there are some stories that are better than others. There are a couple that are related, with the same day being told from two different viewpoints, which makes for an interesting compare and contrast. The story of the woman starting her diet is absolute genius. It is so well observed and true to life that it caught me (who has been on her latest diet for ~ 4 months) a little sharply at times. It has such an ambivalent ending that your are left wondering what happens the next day. A couple of the stories have an air of uncertainty about them. the last one, for example, has a woman who is clearly suffering from some mental breakdown and receives a visitor. But you're left wondering who she is, where she came from, where she goes and if she is even real.
Narrated by multiple women, this was a really good listen and I would recommend it. ( )