This smorgasbord of stories explores love's dark underbelly. The author kickstarts the collection with a riotous story about a tiger in a zoo which falls in love with its keeper. In a frenzy of passion, it commits an act that sets off a series of events in which, after escaping from captivity, it kills a baby and a woman in the most guileless, unintentional manner.
In 2009 I was asked to be one of the Orange Prize for Fiction judges. I loved it. Although my boyfriend groaned every time I opened another book, I revelled in it.
Magic and animals seem to have been the major themes of my favourite books whilst growing up, and luckily I can find both in Oz! But there was another witch that whet my appetite for magic at an early age, and she is Mildred Hubble, the main character in Jill Murphy's series 'The Worst Witch'.
You might be shocked to know, but my love of reading a book from start to finish has only just happened in the last 2-3 years.
"That book is amazing! Everyone should to read it," said the woman sitting next to me on the train. Through my shock at someone speaking to me on the packed 7:50am service to Bedford I realised that the words were a carbon copy of my colleague's when she lent me How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran.