Madame Zero by Sarah Hall

Madame Zero is a remarkable collection of dark, sensuous stories set in sometimes conflicting landscapes – rural, industrial, psychological – all of which are hauntingly resonant with dread. Whether set in an apocalyptic storm, a local swimming pool, or a surgical theatre, Sarah Hall’s celebrated stories inhabit a hinterland between the natural and urban, the mundane and surreal, human and animal.

(Faber)