First ever short story collection by acclaimed and best selling author of Little Face, Hurting Distance, The Point of Rescue, Lasting Damage, The Other Half Lives, and a Room Swept White.The Secret's finally out...but beware, once you've read Sophie Hannah's fantastic stories, everyday life will never seem the same again... Everybody has their secrets, and in Sophie Hannah's fantastic stories the curtains positively twitch with them. Who, for instance, is the hooded figure hiding in the bushes outside a young man's house? Why does the same stranger keep appearing in the background of a family's holiday photographs? Why does a woman stand mesmerised by two children in a school playground, children she's never met but whose names she knows well? What is the former deputy director of a literature festival doing sorting soiled laundry in a shabby hotel? All will be revealed...but at a cost. As Sophie Hannah uncovers the dark obsessions and strange longings behind the most ordinary relationships, everyday life will never seem quite the same again.