Grace, Tamar and Laszlo the Beautiful - Tapa blanda

I liked Deborah Kay Davies's story 'Whatever' because of its build-up of tension and the way it came to the subject (of sex) aslant. --Michele Roberts, Guest Editor, Mslexia magazine

Deborah Kay Davies's 'Radio Baby' is shocking and disquieting - good qualities for a short story. --Jackie Kay, Guest Editor, Mslexia magazine

Deborah Kay Davies's 'Stones' is striking and felt real: Grace's attitude toward her missing sister, the intimacy of the little girls' knowledge of one another, is fresh and poignant, and the writing is toughly sensuous, imitating the child's charged awareness. --Tessa Hadley and Meic Stephens, Rhys Davies Competition judges (2008) and Editors, Eagle in the Maze (Cinnamon Press)

This stunning collection of short stories is a hot contender for my personal book of the year. Davies's writing thrills on all levels, capturing images and emotions with equal intensity. With sisters Grace and Tamar as the central characters throughout, each story has been deftly writteb both to stand independently and to contribute to a sequence that tracks the girls lives from childhood to maturity. Psychologically acute, Davies's stories of sisterhood are at once tender, funny and profoundly shocking. Suzy Ceulan Hughes The Western Mail --Suzy Ceulan Hughes, The Western Mail

Deborah Kay Davies has achieved something rare: a collection of short stories wherein each story is complete in its own right (many were competition winners, or radio broadcasts) but which also work together as a novella-length sequence. The connecting thread is the two sisters Grace and Tamar: this is a study of a lifelong sibling rivalry, or rather, sister rivalry, since though they do have a brother he is not important enough even to merit a name. In fact, the male characters are shadowy and undeveloped in all these stories. Grotesque and violent incidents abound: Tamar is nearly killed as a toddler when Grace pushes her out of a tree; later in life, Tamar nearly drowns Grace in retaliation for the latter's sexual exhibitionism on the beach. Tamar likes to put baby snails up her nose; one disappears and never comes back. One story features sexual intercourse with a basset hound. Sometimes, indeed, the reader is led to wonder whether the events "really" happened or whether they are fantasies. Davies's first book was a volume of poetry and her gift for imagery is is evident here: eating a scallop is described as "like eating a virgin mermaid's buttock". --Brandon Robshaw, The Independent on Sunday

Are Grace and Tamar the sisters from Hell? Grace is a moony, bookish, devious Daddy's girl and her little sister Tamar is a force of nature. Their competitive, sometimes violent relationship simultaneously explodes and strengthens the myth of sisterhood. Set in the eastern valleys of south Wales from 1970 to the present day, this collection of linking stories relates the history of Grace and Tamar, their volatile childhood, disruptive coming-of-age and dubious maturity. The book is part novel, part fantasy, part social history. More than anything it tells dark, universal tales about how utterly strange it is to learn to be human.