Synopsis

Can we believe in magic and spells? Can we put our faith in science?

A young mother married to a scientist fears for her children’s safety as the natural world around her becomes ever more uncertain. Until, that is, she meets a charismatic stranger who seems to offer a different kind of power… But is he a saviour or a frightening danger? And, as her life is overturned, what is happening to her children whom she vowed to keep safe? Why is her son Danny now acting so strangely?

In this haunting, urgent and timely novel, Elizabeth Baines brings her customary searing insight to the problems of sorting our rational from our irrational fears and of bringing children into a newly precarious world. In prose that spins its own spell she exposes our hidden desires and the scientific and magical modes of thinking which have got us to where we are now.

Praise for this Book

‘Moving and compelling’ —Sarah Salway

Reviews of this Book

‘On “Balancing on the Edge of the World’:

A stunning debut collection’ —Melissa Lee-Houghton

‘On “Balancing on the Edge of the World’:

Impressive collection... She finds and plucks out important and remarkable moments from the otherwise ordinary. It is quite a skill.’ —Scott Pack

‘Elizabeth Baines is a superb stylist – a latter-day fabulist in fact – and her writing reminded me of Chekhov's in that it was spare and paid attention to the subtleties of everyday experience.’ —Clare Dudman

‘Elizabeth Baines has led me through a myriad of seemingly ordinary moments and invested them with extraordinary power… It is the microscopic quality of Elizabeth Baines' eye that makes each and every one of these stories so special.’ —Dovegreyreader

‘'One of those books I had to force myself to put down just so the experience of reading it wouldn't end.’ —Tania Hershman

‘Each story strikes to the heart.’ —Sue Guiney

‘An innovative and committed writer of distinctly pure talent.’ —The Short Review

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Too Many Magpies

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