This is a collection of short stories. They are wildly different and there is no way I can summarize. I don’t do this often but here’s the publisher’s description.

A love triangle plays out over decades on a Montana dude ranch. A hurdler and a gymnast spend a single night together in the Olympic village. Mistakes and mysteries weave an intangible web around an old man’s deathbed in Paris, connecting disparate destinies. On the slopes of an unfinished ski resort, a young woman searches for her vanished lover. A couple’s Romanian honeymoon goes ominously awry, and, in the mesmerizing title story, a former child actress breaks with her life in a Hollywood cult.

The stories are riveting and the writing is amazing. I just didn’t connect with them. For me there was an element of revulsion in each one. I was glad when it was over. It’s funny because that’s pretty much how I felt with the author’s book from last year, The Great Circle. Except that was very long and this collection rather brief.

I finally found a short story collection that I liked! This is definitely something new and unexpected for me. Most of the stories in this collection was so engaging; now I want them to be full novels on their own. I want to know about what actually happened between rancher, his nephew, and wrangler. I want to know how this child star ended up in a cult, I want to know how the women on that tiny island lived. I have so many questions about these unique characters yet there is not enough in these stories.

There is always that binding theme or sentiment between stories in these type of collections. I think I missed what it was for this collection, but interestingly I didn't feel so lost. Each story had such character that it didn't require to be connected to previous or next one with some anchor.

I'm truly looking forward to read more by Maggie Shipstead. I like the exciting environments she creates. She showed that she can do both brick-size novels and bite-size stories. If you are interested in short stories, this is a great option.

Maggie Shiptead is an absolutely beautiful writer and, as always, these stories reach deep into their characters for depth while simultaneously pulling the essence of the -- often naturalistically beautiful -- settings. I'm not a short story person, so I miss the immersion in lives that comes from a longer narrative arc, however I'll read anything that Shipstead writes.

When I read Maggie Shipstead's novel, Great Circle, it took me a while to decide it was one of my favorite books of the year simply because it was so massive. It's a huge book and I needed time to process everything. Once I did, I acknowledged all the good things about it outweighed the length. So obviously I had a great time with a book of short stories with the same writing style/quality. The stories have the same scope, and the characters are just as deep despite the shorter length. Shipstead is definitely on my watchlist from now on.

I want to thank Net Galley , Knopf Publishing and Emily Reardon for the chance to read this collection of short stories from Maggie Shipstead. I read her book Great Circle last year and was curious to read this one- a collection of short stories. I enjoyed Great Circle , but felt it was a bit too long. Paradoxically, I wanted most of these to be longer. It is an interesting collection of stories written over the past 10 years. Several of them feel like they have the potential to be expanded (Angel Lust, Souterrain), some are perfect as they are ( Cowboy Tango, Backcountry). I didn't love all of them, but to paraphrase a movie-life is like a book of short stories- you never know what you will get. Angel Lust is the story of a movie producer and his two daughters as they clean out his late fathers house. It speaks to relationships, and expectations, and loss. The characters are well written and engaging. This is one that I would like to see expanded, to see more of the family's story.The situations are unique, yet have a familiarity to them. All of the stories are worth a read, or two.They all show the talent and promise in Maggie Shipstead. I am very glad to have had this opportunity to read them.

Maggie Shipstead's work has been excellence in fiction, and now she presents a short story collection written over many years. Every story is set in a new locale, with new character developments, and the tone of each story is original.

Some stories work better than others, and it's subjective. For me, the most engrossing was the story of two men and a woman worker on a farm in Montana, told over many years and the changes in their relation to each other, the animals, and the land. Another powerful story is that of a couple on honeymoon in eastern Europe, the details of their perilous marriage outlined and the devastating conclusion to the marriage.

There is a story about two athletes at the Olympic Village who spend a night together . I wish their characters had been fleshed out as much as the details of their one-night stand had been.

Shipstead's writing is always complex, and there is much to read between the lines.