In these sublimely sophisticated tales, Cate Kennedy opens up worlds of finely observed detail. Her stories are populated by people at tipping points in their lives - moments that find them poised between a familiar past and an unfamiliar future. In ‘The Testosterone Club’, a neglected wife plans an unsavoury revenge on her boorish husband. In ‘Resize’, a married couple realise their too-tight wedding rings may symbolise wider aspects of their relationship. And in ‘Cold Snap’, a young boy senses that the newly arrived tree changer may have some sinister intents.

Heartbreaking, evocative and richly comic, Dark Roots unveils the traumas that incite us to desperate measures, and the coincidences that drive our lives.