St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Her debut collection paints a refreshingly surreal vision of small-town life… Selected by Granta as one of America’s best young novelists, Russell is an intuitive writer with a gift for arresting prose * Independent *An exuberant collection; each story bursts forth from the pages with a cacophony of imagery that sweeps up the reader * The Times *Outrageously imaginative and profoundly funny… surreal… impressive in many ways… Her imagination is agile, like the body of a champion gymnast, and she lets it dance… Does anyone over here write like this, with such freedom, such vivacity? A wild and brilliant first book * Irish Times *Arcane, magical tales of adolescent transformation… reminiscent of Angela Carter but wonderfully confident and refreshing in its own right * Guardian *Delights in the quirky…truly magical and creepy settings * Daily Mail *Dazzling and moving * Independent on Sunday *Ten hugely entertaining short stories - including the hilarious titular tale of 15 lupine adolescents - from hot young US writer Russell * Financial Times *Russell proves herself the heir to Angela Carter in this simply dazzling collection of short stories. With macabre humour, dark fantasy and a haunting tone this is unforgettable stuff - even just titles such as ‘Lady Yeti And The Palace Of Artificial Snows’ are staggering. * Scotland on Sunday *These 10 inventive stories, set mostly in the Florida Everglades, mix satire and sophisticated whimsy * New York Times *Karen Russell has produced an engaging debut. Her ability to integrate mythology and the supernatural with the very contemporary…is reminiscent of Angela Carter, but unlike Carter’s many imitators, Russell never descends into whimsy… In St Lucy’s, humans, ghosts and animals are utterly real; and Russell sells the genuine article, a seemingly effortless writer – Alisa Cox * Mslexia *

Karen Russell, a native of Miami, has been featured in the New Yorker’s debut fiction issue, was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007, and was most recently named one of New Yorker magazine’s 20 Under 40. Her first collection of short stories, St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was longlisted for the Guardian first book award. Her novel, Swamplandia!, was longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize and shortlisted for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and her second short story collection, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, was recently published to critical acclaim.