White Time

A collection of ten electrifying short stories from the astonishing Margo Lanagan, internationally acclaimed author of Red Spikes and Tender Morsels.

This collection shows a vivid imagination

Themes here are genuinely adult and their treatment devoid of simplification or condescension

An entertaining and original collection of short stories

Margo Lanagan's novels and short story collections have excited readers the world over, and won many prizes, including four World Fantasy Awards - for 'Singing My Sister Down' (Best Short Fiction, 2005), Black Juice (Best Collection, 2005), Tender Morsels (Best Novel, 2009), and Sea-Hearts (Best Novella, 2010). 
 
She lives in Sydney, Australia.

Time out of time, people call it, but they're wrong. It's all time, like white light is all colours, or white noise is all pitches of noise coming at you together. 
 
In this transcendent collection of short stories, Lanagan deftly navigates a new set of worlds in which the boundaries between reality and possibility are paper-thin . . . and sometimes disappear altogether. 
 
Prepare to be unsettled, intrigued and dazzled by what a master storyteller can do in a few short pages.

Yellow Cake

From the internationally acclaimed, multi-award winning author, Margo Lanagan - a new collection of evocative, moving and richly imagined stories.

Another beautifully crafted collection of literary short stories form the pen of Margo Lanagan. One to reach for again and again

Children's Books Ireland: recommended reads

Each rereading will offer another chance to luxuriate in the richness of the language . . . For thoughtful and reflective young adult(and adult) readers.

The absolute pinnacle of short fiction writers for any  age group . . . I’m sure Lanagan  has been compared to Angela Carter elsewhere but the often over-looked strange  stories of Robert Aickman also spring to mind. Lanagan has a beguiling  imagination while her prose is luxurious quicksand and its all too easy for the  reader to become dragged under.

10 emotional short stories - all beautifully and hauntingly written...These are not stories to race through, they are stories to be savoured.

We should always make time for short stories. Especially if they are written by  Margo Lanagan...Everything is earthy even when it's magic, and so, so believable. I get lost in  the worlds she creates and sometimes it's quite difficult to wake myself up when  I've finished reading.

There  is simply no better author than her...so raw that it made my eyes fog up even though I was just reading black and  white print!

A writer that never ceases to bewilder, startle and enchant her readers.

Yellow Cake brings together another ten short stories from this extraordinarily talented writer - each of them fiercely original and quietly heartbreaking. 
 
Ranging from fantasy and fairy tale to horror and stark reality, what pervades these stories is the sense of humanity. The people of Lanagan's worlds face trials, temptations and degradations. They swoon and suffer and even kill for love. In a dangerous world, they seek the solace and strength that comes from family and belonging. 
 
These are stories to be savoured slowly and pondered deeply because they cut to the very heart of who we are.

The Brides of Rollrock Island

A passionate, mesmerizing tale of haunting sea magic from the author of Tender Morsels.

Outstanding . . . Margo Lanagan is a writer whose violently sexy reworkings of Grimm have previously been more for teenagers, but her new book stays within the allusive fairy tale tropes and will enthrall readers of 11+. Nothing is predictable in this astonishing novel, which expands on classic tales about selkie brides with unsettling imaginative thoroughness

Lanagan's prose is always a joy . . . she shows writing of the highest order: subtle, powerful, poetic

Margo Lanagan’s writing is dangerously beautiful; it knows how to dance, and it knows how to fight

Powerful, beautiful, dangerous, unsettling, truthful, earthy, challenging, poetic, wonderful, absorbing. I can't recommend it highly enough. Margo Lanagan has a unique, uncompromising and lyrical voice and she brings it to the folk myth of selkies in a soaring journey of passion and pain . . . Read this selkie novel. It's heartstoppingly gorgeous. And you won't find anyone else with a voice like Margo's. Five stars

A gorgeous piece of work, perhaps less startling and visceral than Tender Morsels, but in many ways a richer and more complex novel.

There is something about the way Margo Lanagan writes that seems to hold magic. Brides is a story of desire, love, loss, heartbreak and heartache and the sea. You can smell the salt sea and sealskin, and feel the sway of the water. This book contains the joy and the horror of love, the magic and the bitterness and the cruelty and the kindness of love...The Brides of Rollrock Island, everything I could hope for, in a book. Beautiful.

The Brides of Rollrock Island is a dark, brooding and windswept tale of longing and despair in which Lanagan' s writing is as beautiful is ever...It reads like a classic. It is a wonderful book and it is unlikely that many better will be published in the genre this year. Existing fans of Lanagan should rejoice and I strongly suggest that those who have not already read her work, do so.

The Brides of Rollrock Island is written beautifully with great confidence and vigour, cleverly charting both the social and the emotional impact of the bewitching of the Rollrock men. Lanagan's masterful storytelling will both warm your heart and tug at its strings; the inevitable and tragic fates of the selkies, the Rollrock men and their children will leave you fighting back the tears right down to the last page.

This earthy novel is unsettling and dangerous. It dissects everything that love can be; joyous and tender but equally cruel, painful and totally all-encompassing.

Margo Lanagan writes a hauntingly beautiful folktale of the poor fishermen of Rollrock Island...It is easy to see why this was originally an award-winning novella. Lanagan creates a magically tale that is almost lyrical in ambience. It is a heart breaking story.

a heartbreakingly beautiful novel about persecution and revenge, love, betrayal, sacrifice. The conflict - the bringing of the sea wives to Rollrock Island by the witch Misskaella - plays out over three generations or so, which reminded my Bronte-saturated mind of Wuthering Heights... As a richly poetic and atmospheric novel...Highly, highly recommended.

The language of The Brides of Rollrock Island is beautiful. The stories are distinct but flow from one to the other. The selkies are enchanting but the human women are full of life. There are moments of wonder here - the boys swimming through the sea, forgetting their human lives, to name just one. Despite the heartache, the worry and the loss, one abiding feeling to emerge from The Brides of Rollrock Island is the power for love.

loved the way the language helped infuse the novel with a strong sense of place. I loved the atmosphere of Rollrock Island itself - barren and beautiful and every bit as alive as any of the characters. And I loved that the different sections of the novel give us what feels like mere glimpses of a much larger story - the tip of the iceberg, in the best possible sense. It's not that the novel feels incomplete; it's that it manages to make readers sense how much more must have been going on in this place than we get to see. And when you finish the book, you almost suspect that the puzzle pieces will go on to rearrange themselves, and whenever you read it again you'll see entirely different parts of the whole and deepen your understanding of what really happened in this island. 
Margo Lanagan has done it again. The Brides of Rollrock Island is a beautiful book, and one that will stay with me for a very long time.

A new Lanagan novel...is an event to be met with both delight and a faint dread: it’s likely to be excellent, but it’ll also put you through the emotional wringer. Brides is indeed not a cheerful tale, but it is a richly nuanced one...Brides is a bleakly beautiful, highly atmospheric be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale. 4 1/2 stars

Lanagan’s story is wonderfully unpredictable — never letting the reader become complacent, never letting the prose be any less than pitch-perfect. Regardless of who the narrator is, the language is always heavy with mood — perfectly atmospheric for such a storm-tossed setting.

The writing is captivating, full of warmth, beauty and understanding and there is much for any reader to take from this fascinating story.

It's just beautiful. From the sea-maidens' transformation right down to their homesickness, everything is tasteful, wonderful and never feels at all silly...a fascinating look at the selkie myth

Enthralling...This beautifully written story will keep readers enchanted until the very last page.

When fairytales grow up the are often rebranded fantasy, a genre that readers tend to love or hate. I picked up this novel on the strength of having been previously impressed by Red Spikes, a collection of the author's short stories. Margo Lanagan can inhabit an unusual character, see the world from their point of view and transfer that to the page. The Brides of Rollrock Island relates to selkie myths which have often been retold, but Margo Lanagan makes them her own by treating her characters as individuals, rather than types. She particularly considers the motivation of the witch Misskaella who can call beautiful, biddable women from the bodies of seals and uses this power to destroy a community that has shunned her. As the book moves through its different sections, time passes and we trace the effects on Rollrock Island from the point of view of different characters. As Margo Lanagan is completely inside her characters' experiences, information is slowly revealed and sometimes needs unravelling, a strength in the writing but one which may prove challenging. A brilliant novel that draws you in to its particular world and holds you spellbound.

Readers will find themselves beguiled by Lanagan’s deliciously unsettling and haunting prose

This book is utterly enchanting, the dark atmosphere adding to the tension within the narrative. A brilliantly written story that I highly recommend.

Rollrock is an isolated, windswept island; a wild and salty landscape where fishermen and their families must wring a living from the stormy seas. But Rollrock is also a place of eerie magic, and of powerful desire. 
 
Down on the beach, the outcast witch of Rollrock casts her spells, and draws mysterious girls from the sea. These are girls with long, pale limbs and faces of haunting innocence - the most enchantingly beautiful creatures the fishermen of Rollrock have ever seen. 
 
The island is envied, and many a man is lured to Rollrock with the promise of a sea wife. But the arrival of these women is the ruin of countless families - and to the despair of the men of Rollrock, magic always has its price. The brides do not belong on land. One day, the sea will claim them back.

Tender Morsels

An astonishing adult re-working of a classic fairy tale, brilliantly reviewed and perfect for fans of Angela Carter and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Tender Morsels...is funny, tragic, wise, tender and beautifully written. It also left me gasping with shock...It is with a mixture of respect and delight that I greet any book capable of blasting an entire genre out of the water with its audacity and grace. Tender Morsels is such a book

A work of genius, with richly inventive language and a brilliantly imagined fairy tale context... the brutal moments are woeven in like dark threads in a rich and complex tapestry

A novel that explores the most profound human emotions with a clear gaze; it made me weep like a child at the end

A striking retelling of the Grimms' Snow White and Rose Red, told in a rich yet remote prose style, it is, like Lanagan's award-winning collection of short stories, Red Spikes, likely to appeal to teenage girls with a taste for the original and the sinister

It's a rewardingly complex and emotional story told in highly imaginative prose. The worlds Lanagan creates are so rich and multi-layered it's easy to get lost in the book's 500 pages, never wanting to leave

As complex and brilliant as it is disturbing

Carried along by its inventive style, resulting in a compulsive read

Unusual book... romantic, but not a romance, and a fantasy story but nothing like most in the genre... Tender Morsels feels most akin to books by writers such as George McDonald and Angela Carter, with is roots firmly in fairytales rather than epic fantasy

In her inspired re-working of the fairy-tale Snow White and Rose Red Margo Lanagan has created characters that are vivid, passionate, flawed and fiercely devoted to their hearts' desires, whether these desires are good or evil. It is the story of two worlds - one real, one magical - and how, despite the safe haven her magical world offers to those who have suffered, her characters can never turn their backs on the real world, with all its beauty and brutality. 
 
Tender Morsels is an astonishing novel, fraught with the tension between love and horror, violence and tenderness, despair and hope.

A dark and vivid novel from an author acclaimed for the fearless range of her imagination, the emotional intensity of her stories and the virtuosity of her writing.

Funny, tragic, wise, tender and beautifully written. It also left me gasping with shock . . . It is with a mixture of respect and delight that I greet any book capable of blasting an entire genre out of the water with its audacity and grace. Tender Morsels is such a book

A striking retelling of the Grimms' Snow White and Rose Red, told in a rich yet remote prose style, it is, like Lanagan's awardwinning collection of short stories, Red Spikes, likely to appeal to teenage girls with a taste for the original and the sinister

Ambitious and difficult with multi-layered prose that will work its way into your very soul

It grips the reader from the outset, and as it is read, layer upon layer of psychological and intertextual meaning can be unpicked and analyzed. It is certainly an immensely powerful contribution to both fairy-tale and fantasy genres

This is an astonishing and beautifully written novel with very strong cross-over appeal

To condemn it as merely wilful taboo-breaking is to miss the humanity in what is one of the strangest and most moving works of children's literature I have read in years . . . Look beyond the shocking scenes and this is a novel that explores the most profound human emotions with a clear gaze; it made me weep like a child at the end

Enthralling, at times unsettling but always richly imagined

This is a multi-layered novel which requires and deserves attentive reading, regardless of the reader's age; it is unlikely, though, to have much appeal for the censorious adult or for anyone under 16

Liga endures unspeakable cruelties at the hands of her father, before being magically granted her own personal heaven, a safe haven from the real world. She raises her two daughters in this alternate reality, and they grow up protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever . . . 
 
Magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga's refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?

Margo Lanagan

RED SPIKES - ten stabs to the heart. 
 
Ten tales to jab and poke - at your darkest fears, your secret desires. 
 
Margo Lanagan's short stories take place in worlds not quite our own, and yet each one illuminates what it is to be human. They are stories of yearning for more, and learning to live with what you have. Stories that show the imprint love leaves on us all. 
 
For anyone who likes to be surprised, touched, unsettled, intrigued, or scared, prepare to be dazzled by what a master storyteller can do in a few short pages.

Margo Lanagan

Red Spikes

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