These are poignant stories of love, betrayal, dreams and tribulation, corruption and redemption. Whether we’re reading about the Hong Kong girl who reconciles with her estranged father following a chance encounter with an African musician, or the hangman whose life is torn apart by demons from the past, these stories take the reader on a journey that is as emotional as it is culturally rich.

A Girl’s Arm is a collection of stories homing in on the pressure points in the lives of its characters. Although a mixed bag from a variety of backgrounds — an apparently nerveless woman rock climber, a young classicist on the academic make, an estranged son just dropping by after many years — with a couple of exceptions they would be classed as ‘ordinary’.

Here are five haunting stories – two of them virtual novellas – about the shifting landscapes of mind and place. In beautifully evoked locations – France, Russia, Latin America, the Far East – lives unfold and unravel under pressure, to sometimes shocking outcomes.

Mangeot's characters face complex situations or decisions that define the nature of what it means to be human: our capacity for good, evil, strength and weakness. His writing shifts effortlessly between haunting, poetic rhythms and fast, sharp-edged dialogue. And his capacity to conjure a strong sense of place is at times redolent of Maugham and Hemingway. If you like writing that is authentic, unexpected and imbued with the scent and mystery of other lands, this collection will not disappoint you.

In mid-60s Belfast, Eddie Francey is a young comedian trying to get a break. He wonders if he has what it takes, but he has responsibilities: a wife and young son. He worries if he is the kind of guy who will take the necessary risks, the kind to jump off a cliff. This is the point when an explosive passion for another woman, who could not be more off-limits, overtakes him. Family means a lot to him. All he has ever dreamt of is success. The last thing he needs at the moment is to fall for the last woman on earth he ought to fall for. A Man Walks Into A Kitchen is both love story and comedy. But will the comedy in the end turn into a tragedy?

In these tiny stories are brief lives that will make you laugh and pity and love. Each story crams a whole world into a couple of pages – you can sneak them one at a time whenever you have a spare minute, or gobble the lot – with a cast of hundreds – in a single day.

Aromabingo is the much aniticipated sequel to Gaffney’s highly-acclaimed ‘Sawn-off Tales’, offering yet more weird, edgy, ultra-short stories, together with several longer ones – the perfect opportunity to spend more time inside the baffling, hilarious and sometimes moving world David Gaffney paints for us.

Aromabingo is the much aniticipated sequel to Gaffney’s highly-acclaimed ‘Sawn-off Tales’, offering yet more weird, edgy, ultra-short stories, together with several longer ones — the perfect opportunity to spend more time inside the baffling, hilarious and sometimes moving world David Gaffney paints for us.

'Oblivious to human exploits,’ it says in the story ‘Aire', ‘rivers continue'. Twelve rivers, twelve stories. These waterways – eight in England, one in Portugal, one in Germany and two in France — are the backdrop to the meetings, partings, confrontations and imaginings in As Rivers Flow/