Playing sardines - Michele Roberts

Playing Sardines - a game in the dark, a game about desire, about wanting, all whipped up in a tale about the erotic allure of recipes: a cook whose obsessive love turns hungry and dangerous; a fan who tries to get into a celebrity novelist's sheets; a fanatical dieter and maker of lists working out how to deal with a husband who snores; a faddy eater thrown off-course by a miracle; a child greedy for love who faces up to her demon of jealousy - just some of the characters who shape this wonderful collection.

Women yearning for what they haven't got - prepared to be wily, deceptive, cunning and perverse - all these strategies for survival in love and life are deployed here to mouth-watering effect.