“If you think you can predict where this story is leading you, think again. Like the horribly-believable TV game show of the title, Missing Link teases you, tempts you to think you’re as smart as the programme makers who manipulate, backbite and play out cut-throat rivalries behind the  scenes. Just when you think you’ve got its measure—as tart satire on mass entertainment, as comedy of manners, even as romance—it opens a trapdoor on dizzying questions of science and morality. Like its enigmatic and dark-edged romantic lead, Elizabeth Kay’s prescient novel layers its witty and intricate mind games with a heartfelt indignation, and even a hint of human vulnerability.”

Philip Gross

“A skilled and ingenious piece of work, and a pleasure to read, as Kay delivers jab after wicked  jab at the TV programmes we love to hate and stay to watch. Enemies turn into friends, friends into relatives, the  horrid turn out to be loveable and vice versa,  at such speed this reader had  no choice or wish but to read on, horrified and laughing at the same time.”

Fay Weldon

THE SPIRIT COLLECTION

Behind the scenes, there’s a collection

For the things you can’t pin down.

The ticks that won’t go in boxes,

The nymphs that stay on the shelf,

The leggy spin-doctors who take silk

And follow the law of the jungle.

The red-hot larva of the hawk moth,

The star-sign with a sting in the tail,

Bottled up, impotent, and labelled.

Hoards of harvestmen, in alcohol –

Life in the wild not on the cards.

Test-tubes of termite queens,

The chenille of the chalk carpet,

The widow’s mite, and the mortal coils

Of millipedes seen through glass, darkly.

Backstage, there’s a desperate game of tag

To discover and describe everything

From squid to sow-bug, slug to centipede,

Leech to louse, before it’s too late.

Those without the backbone

For our habitat are disappearing -

Until they remain only in spirit.

Beware of Men with Moustaches

shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize, 2013

Four British poets accept an invitation to make a cultural visit to a little-known ex-soviet country and soon find themselves in a Kafkaesque labyrinth of mistaken identity, fake email addresses, impossibly high stilettos and impossibly cheap vodka. Clever, inventive and funny, Beware of Men with Moustaches twists and turns its way through the literary and scenic highlights of Karetsefia, as its characters gradually become aware of their own insularity in a country which is struggling to come to terms with its new identity - and where people have more to worry about than whether or not their next poetry collection is going to be published.

Caroline Taggart

bestselling author of I Used to Know That

Extracts:

“I forget to say,” said Ivanka, turning round in her seat as the driver took both hands off the steering wheel to light a cigarette. “Your poetry group is very welcome to Karetsefia. Our versifiers keenly anticipate your readings.”

    “We’re honoured to have been invited,” replied Steve expansively, “and we hope to take something of your country back with us.”

    “Not icons,” said Ivanka. “You cannot take back icons.”

    “No, I didn’t mean that, I meant the spirit of the place.”

    “Yes, vodka you take.”

“You are not to blame,” the official continued,  in a kindly tone. “You are a man. But we do not like fallen women to ply their trade on our trains.”

    “She’s not a prostitute.” said Steve, thinking more clearly now that the threat of pederasty had passed. “She’s a physiology student.”

    “There are many ways to pay for a university course,” agreed the official. “But not on our trains.”

“That passport,” said Sybil. “What’s it covered with? Something on the CITES list?”

    “CITES? What is this CITES?”

    “The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.”

    Ludmilla looked none the wiser.

    “That,” said Sybil, pointing to the passport cover. “What’s it made of?”

    “I think you call hedgehog?”

    Sybil gave up.

This is an anthology by several authors but it contains the best short story I’ve ever written, Cassie, so I’ve included it here.

Extract:

She’s playing now. I watch her, the way her dark head tilts as she talks to her farm animals, telling them what they’re doing as she shuffles them across the floor. I did wonder whether to get her the plastic models; they’re more realistic. But in the end I decided against it - the pre-war lead ones are perfectly adequate - better in some ways. I know their contours, the solid feel they have in the palm of your hand. I owned a set of them when I was a boy. Her pig has a missing leg, and her cow has a moon-shaped dent in its side. All good stuff when you’re playing the vet game. The paint’s poisonous, of course, and it does peel off. She licks her finger. You can worry about that if you like.