Secret Lives

'These novellas are small, sad gems...by three completely different stylists who are implicitly banging the drum for individuality, compassion and understanding. From Wakefield's fat lady who meets and finds friendship with a lonely gay man on holiday in Tunisia, to Gale's tough career girl who compromises her independence, to King's proud Japanese servant, lover of a barrister dying of AIDS, these tales are subtle, spare, beautifully crafted. Tom Wakefield has a deceptively naive style which hides great emotional perception; Patrick Gale has a fine line in pricking contemporary cultural yuppiedom; Francis King has never, even in his early novels, been better on cultural and emotional incomprehension? Mary Hope, Financial Times