It's gone dark over Bill's Mother's

The title is a Potteries' saying that means it's looking a bit bleak, a little like rain - an expression that sums up this fabulous debut collection of award-winning stories by Lisa Blower. Blower celebrates her characters with stories that they wouldn't want told. She makes the bleak funny, in a voice reminiscent of Alan Bennett, and strikes a new chord in regional and working-class fiction.