The Woman at the Window — Emyr Humphreys

Gentle but haunting, this selection of short stories takes a closer look at the importance of parental and filial love down the generations. The protagonists reminisce over the pattern of their lives, looking back as well as forward, for the chance to rekindle lost loves and find a home for themselves. Throughout these eclectic tales, three comfortably retired men find their sedate dinner transformed into a conflict with a knife-wielding escaped prisoner in a pre-Celtic tomb, a trip to the site of their first meeting brings a married couple face to face with a corpse, and illusions are shattered when a retired teacher reunites with his first love. Examining the threads of survivors' lives from childhood to old age, this anthology utilizes the backdrop of a shifting postwar Europe and Wales. Weighing the best part of a century of European history, this is a complex study of mature reflection, loss, and survival.