ELEMENTALS

In the same delectable format as the matisse stories, this collection deals with betrayal and loyalty, quests and longings, loneliness and passion - the mysterious absences at the heart of the fullest lives a scholar pursues an elusive biographer, stumbling upon buried fragments of distant lives; a woman walks out of her previous existence and encounters an ice-blond stranger from a secretive world; a schoolgirl draws a blood-filled picture of jael; a swimming pool reveals a beauteous monster in its depths the settings range from the heart of provence in summer to the cold forests of scandinavia, form chalk-strewn classrooms to herbscented hillsides, from suburban streets to rocky wilds