Frank depictions of family, mental health, youth, ageing, love and lust speak to the fragility of life, and to the dangerous games we play when we cross boundaries. Hidden beneath the mundanity is violence and decay, mirroring the natural environment so lyrically recreated in Prendergast's raw prose ... pollen that stains the local estuary water an unsettling red-Bloodrust.

'A rare voice, honest and unsparing in its savage poetry. Admirably complex and

unsentimental in its portrait of a woman's desire.' Amanda Lohrey

'Here is writing that is fraught and vulnerable, raw and openhearted; here are stories that are full of soul sass wit and bite; stories that land, stick around, and linger longer in the memory.'

Irish author, Alan McMonagle