Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical

The first love song in the world, as composed by a pig in the Garden of Eden. The Devil, alarmed when his hobby of writing romantic fiction begins to upstage his day job. Hearts kept in Tupperware boxes, small countries that vanish from the European mainland overnight, and a kidnapper who gets more than he bargained for when his victim associates him with George Clooney.

By turns macabre and moving, horrific and laugh-out-loud funny, Robert Shearman's short stories come from a place just to the left of the corner of your eye. Following his World Fantasy Award-winning Tiny Deaths, this new collection puts a bizarre twist on the love story. What is love, why does it hurt so much, and how is it we keep coming back for more?

Love Songs is sometimes poignant, sometimes cruel - but always as startling and fresh as Shearman's fans have come to expect.

With a foreword by Steven Hall.