Escape Routes

In this debut short story collection, the author of the acclaimed Rainshadow Orphans merges the inventiveness of David Mitchell and the fairytale allure of Angela Carter to create a powerful magic.

A space-obsessed child conjures up a vortex in his mother's airing cupboard. A musician finds her friendship with a flock of birds opens up unexpected possibilities. A rat catcher, summoned to a decaying royal palace, is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom. Two newlyweds find themselves inhibited by the arrival in their lives of an outsized and watchful stuffed bear.

Whether snared in traps artfully laid for them, or those of their own making, the characters in Naomi Ishiguro's delightfully speculative debut collection yearn for freedom and flight, and find their worlds transformed beyond their wildest imaginings.

In this stunning debut collection, characters yearn for freedom and flight, and find their worlds transformed beyond their wildest imaginings.

'Naomi Ishiguro's crystal clear prose delights and intrigues' Sharlene Teo

'Winsomely written and engagingly quirky, these are inventive tales that favour imagination over gritty realism' The Sunday Times

'Ishiguro's imagination is a place where the fantastical lurks in the margins as a possibility, a flavour rather than a genre' The Herald