Buy it here.

Reviews:

'Alison MacLeod’s collection is a baker’s dozen of excellence book-ended by brilliance... At the core of the "tale"’ – and these are modern fables that unravel and decipher reality as much as create it – is a series of complex meditations on the idea of attraction.... MacLeod’s stories detail the wayward flickerings of desire with settings from, among others, the bleak twilight
world of IKEA, coastal Nova Scotia and the wistful seediness of Brighton... "Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction" is a potent and heady mix. Avoiding the perils of both overt erudition and sentimental whimsy, the whole is ably piloted by MacLeod’s total control of her material. Highly recommended. ' Time Out (London)

'Alison MacLeod is a strikingly original voice. Her stories create
intimate worlds... and make the reader live in them with an
intensity which is haunting, disturbing and above all beguiling.' Helen Dunmore, novelist, poet

'MacLeod's fictions are modern indeed. They are fragmentary evocations of desire and its mysteries, passing glimpses into minds and hearts: tender; pierced; translucent.... [Her] characters are strong, and they are worth listening to...' The Guardian

'Beautifully crafted, they range from brilliantly observed humour - customers stampeding in Ikea at the store's launch in Notes for a Chaotic Century - to the haunting and heart-rending - the tender elegy to a middle-aged love affair in Dirty Weekend. Immensely readable.' The Big Issue

'...it is great that Alison MacLeod is so unafraid of pushing what a story can be, what shape it can take, what things it can say... Taken together, the tales are consistently provocative and intelligent.' www.Pulp.Net

'...Alison MacLeod is fast becoming one of my favourite writers.' Tania Hershman, editor, The Short Review

'...beautiful, understated and touching love stories, which capture the attention at once and keep it until the last page. They are tales of intimacy and often of loss, gracefully and powerfully told...' The Tablet

'[S]tunning...an intelligent set of stories bound by the rules of attraction. It is cerebral but not weighty, sexy but not sleazy and, in some cases, achingly sad but hopeful.' www.bookgroup.info

'I’ve long been a fan of Alison MacLeod’s lyrical, funny and poignant writing, and her new collection of short stories Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction doesn’t disappoint.  MacLeod is a master at nuance with a wry sense of humour that’s often tinged with the faintest tinge of darkness.  A delightful and disturbing commentator on the human condition.'  Julie Wheelwright, New Books Magazine

'Her observations are brilliant... she continually makes the ordinary shocking and the shocking marvelous and inevitable...These stories make compelling, humbling reading.' Sue Roe, critic, biographer

'Her stories are about attraction turned upside down: a young woman who falls for an unconscious hospital patient precisely because of his immobility, a couple divided by the London bombings of 2005, and a young girl whose tongue gets her into all kinds of trouble. These are nimble, magical stories.' Sunday Business Post (Ireland)

'[P]erfectly executed tragedies and brave, exciting new ideas...All round excellence.' Rocks Magazine

'MacLeod's range – spanning the movingly real to the mysteriously surreal – is excitingly, imaginatively realised and unified by an awareness of the dark menace of love's uncertainty.' Metro (London)

'...not conventional love stories, they are a modern and enjoyable take on how love finds us and leaves us' Sunday Express

'Alison MacLeod is an adventurous storyteller... Seductively absorbing, [these stories] lurch and twist from moments of tenderness and innocence to the dark and hauntingly disturbing... Relationships do not always blossom and MacLeod's realisation of this makes her stories unbearably poignant and bittersweet.' Brighton Argus

'Clever, full of depth and at times bust-a-rib funny -- four stars.' New Woman magazine  

2008

Sept. 20: Alison MacLeod and Simon Robson read from their recent collections at the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Festival. 7p.m. at the Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, Ireland.

July 5: 'From Mystery to Revelation: Exploring Short Story Form' - a short story workshop with Alison MacLeod. The IpArt Festival, Ipswich.

May 24: The Charleston Literary Festival - Alison MacLeod chairs 'Literary Inspirations': Helen Dunmore and Lloyd Jones in conversation. 2.30 p.m. at the Charleston Farmhouse, East Sussex.

May 21: The Charleston Literary Festival - Alison MacLeod chairs 'Past TImes': Linda Grant and Emily Perkins in conversation. 8 p.m. at the Charleston Farmhouse, East Sussex.

May 5: Back by popular demand... The Brighton Moment. Many of the city's finest writers turn a spotlight on life in Brighton in this one-night-only literary cabaret. Produced by Alison MacLeod and Susanna Jones. Venue: The Komedia Upstairs, 7.30 pm. (Sorry - sold out! But you can buy The Ilustrated Brighton Moment here.)

April 5: Foyles' Bookshop, London, all-day (and evening) short story extravaganza. Join story readers, publishers, writers and edtors. In the first slot of the day, Alison MacLeod and Adam Marek read from their recent collections (10 am). Listen to both authors read from their work.

January 17: reading from new collection for the 'Short Fuse' story event, The Komedia Studio Bar, Brighton