In these stories gender refuses to be fixed: a dashing travelling
companion is not quite who he seems in the intimate darkness of a
mail coach, a girl on the cusp of adulthood gamely takes her father's
place as head of the house, and an actor and patron are caught up in
dangerous game-playing. In the more fantastical tales there are talking
rats, flirtations with fascism, and escape from a post-virus 'utopia'.
These are stories of sexual awakening, coming out and redefining one's
place in the world.
Release and a certain heady license may be found in the distant
cities of Europe or north Africa, but the stories are for the most part
located in familiar Welsh settings - a schoolroom, a provincial town, a
mining village, a tourist resort, a sacred island. The intensity of desire,
whether overt, playful, or coded, makes this a rich and often surprising
collection that reimagines what being queer and Welsh has meant in
different times and places.