A desperate mother buys a love potion to win back her daughter’s affection. An actress has a forbidden encounter with her animal body double. An idyllic new home comes with an unexpected lodger – a poltergeist.
Exploring themes of desire, womanhood, and obsession, Abi Hynes’ collection of short stories is sometimes funny, sometimes uncanny, but never too far from the truth.
Praise for Monstrous Longing
A wonderful, heady brew. Deft, incisive and compulsive. This collection kept me reading long into the early hours of the morning.
~ Irenosen Okojie
Monstrously good. I highly recommend this.
~ Priya Sharma
This collection has renewed my faith in everything the short story can be. With the seductive confidence of a writer who trusts in language and in voice, Hynes introduces us to worlds peopled – and creatured – with so many varieties of monster and so many varieties of longing. These fictions will leave you reeling, wanting both to pause and gasp for breath, and to rush forward and devour every word.
I counsel you to take your time. These are stories worth savouring.
~ Tania HershmanMonstrous Longing is a masterful collection of short stories, by a writer who uses the short story form with precision and efficiency to offer both memorable and challenging tales… For anyone who likes their fiction strange, inventive, unsettling, playful and disturbing.
~ Hannah’s Bookshelf, North Manchester FM
Abi Hynes 