For the commitment-averse women in these eleven sublime laugh-out-loud stories, falling in love is never easy and always inconvenient. “Single, Carefree, Mellow is a lot like the women who populate it: smart and sexy and a little bit ruthless.” —Entertainment Weekly “Something like Cheever mixed with Ephron.” —The New York Times Book Review Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie’s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living above her garage will hear her kids swearing than that he will find out she’s sleeping with her running partner. The women grapple with love amidst everything from unwelcome houseguests to disastrous birthday parties as Katherine Heiny spins a debut that is superbly accomplished and endlessly entertaining.

'Katherine Heiny's work does something magical: elevates the mundane so that it has the stakes of a mystery novel, gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve - and makes you laugh along the way' Lena Dunham Maya's dog is dying, and she is planning to leave her boyfriend. On the whole she feels worse about the dog. Nina thought it might be difficult to summon the moral fortitude to have an extramarital affair with a Presbyterian minister living above the garbage, but she discovers that almost anything is possible. A teenager finds an affair with her history teacher too sealed off from the rest of her life, like the last slice of cake under a glass dome. These women are best friends, roommates and mistresses. They tipple and titillate, fantasize and fumble, worry and wander. They make poor choices in men and children's magicians and wise choices in what to wear to meet their lovers' wives. None of them are single (or carefree or mellow) but all are irresistible and all too familiar.

The wonderful story collection from the author of Standard Deviation ‘Heiny's work does something magical: gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve and makes you laugh along the way’ Lena Dunham ‘Like Cheever mixed with Ephron’ New York Times ‘Simply wonderful, I savoured every page’ Guardian

TheSkimm’s Best of Skimm Reads NPR’s Guide to Great Reads The Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Fiction of the Year Minnesota Public Radio’s The Best Books to Give and Get: Fiction Picks of the Year An uproarious novel ("Both heart-piercing and, crucially, very funny." —Louise Erdrich, The New York Times) from the celebrated author of Single, Carefree, Mellow about the challenges of a good marriage, the delight and heartache of raising children, and the irresistible temptation to wonder about the path not taken. When Graham Cavanaugh divorced his first wife it was to marry his girlfriend, Audra, a woman as irrepressible as she is spontaneous and fun. But, Graham learns, life with Audra can also be exhausting, constantly interrupted by chatty phone calls, picky-eater houseguests, and invitations to weddings of people he’s never met. Audra firmly believes that through the sheer force of her personality she can overcome the most socially challenging interactions, shepherding her son through awkward playdates and origami club, and even deciding to establish a friendship with Graham’s first wife, Elspeth. Graham isn't sure he understands why Audra longs to be friends with the woman he divorced. After all, former spouses are hard to categorize—are they enemies, old flames, or just people you know really, really well? And as Graham and Audra share dinners, holidays, and late glasses of wine with his first wife he starts to wonder: How can anyone love two such different women? Did I make the right choice? Is there a right choice? A hilarious and rueful debut novel of love, marriage, infidelity, and origami, Standard Deviation never deviates from the superb.

Alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, a wise, bighearted novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family—from the acclaimed author of Standard Deviation, who has been called the "literary descendant of Jane Austen, sharing Austen's essentially comic world view" (NPR). Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere—at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, a woman with shiny hair and pale milkmaid skin, still has Duncan mow her lawn. His coworker, Jimmy, comes and goes from Duncan's apartment at the most inopportune times. Sometimes Jane wonders if a relationship can even work with three people in it—never mind four. Five if you count Aggie's eccentric husband, Gary. Not to mention all the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices. But any notion Jane had of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Soon Jane's life is permanently intertwined with Duncan's, Aggie's, and Jimmy's, and Jane knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But could it be possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of Jane's eyes? Katherine Heiny's Early Morning Riser is her most astonishingly wonderful work to date.

For the commitment-averse women in the eleven sublime stories of Single, Carefree, Mellow, falling in love is never easy and always inconvenient. Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie’s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living above her garage will hear her kids swearing than that he will find out she’s sleeping with her running partner. The women grapple with love amidst everything from unwelcome houseguests to disastrous birthday parties as Katherine Heiny spins a debut that is superbly accomplished, endlessly entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny.

"Dance like nobody gives a crap. Drink like you don't have a family to go home to. Love because what else is the point." So says one of the characters in Lara Williams' extraordinary debut story collection. Treats is a break-up album of tales covering relationships, the tyranny of choice, and self navigation. This fresh, beguiling new voice paints a portrait of contemporary adulthood, balancing wry humour with a pervading sense of alienation in the digital era. Williams' characters struggle with how to negotiate intimacy within relationships and isolation when single, the pitfalls and indignities of dating, dragged down by dissatisfaction. Meanwhile the dilemmas of life play out, including abortion, depression, extra-marital affairs, infatuation, new baby anxiety, bereavement, hair loss, sexual ethics, cats, and taxidermy. Praise for Treats: 'What a wonderful collection. Very smart and VERY funny. A stunning mix of measured wisdom and raw emotion. There's also a real sense that these stories - beautiful in their own right - belong together. I loved the connection between them, and the way ideas were subtle and steadily developed from beginning to end.' Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals 'Maybe you meet someone. Maybe you fall in love. Maybe you break up. Maybe someone writes a book about your life. This is that book. Brilliant stories; awesome debut.' Nicholas Royle, editor of Best British Short Stories 2015 'Funny and witty and sad and painfully self-aware.' Chris Killen, author of The Bird Room and In Real Life '[Treats] is described as a break-up album of tales covering relationships and their aftermath. So far, so Adele - but if the inescapable singer is the beige paint on a crumbling wall, this is more akin to sniffing that paint and seeing every colour in the rainbow.' The Skinny 'Each of these stories blows like a bracing wind - brilliantly written, devastating in parts but an acuity, a sense of the smallness and frailty of human relationships. Stories that make you seek shelter out of their keen urbane gaze.' Helen McClory, author of On The Edges of Vision