Shonagh Koea's short stories have been widely admired for their dexterity with language, startingly original imagery, a fine sense of irony that slices through any pretence and a wicked, black humour. Her first short stories were published in such magazines as the Listener and Metro and in 1981 she won the Air New Zealand Short Story Competition. Two collections followed: The Woman Who Never Went Home and Other Stories and Fifteen Rubies by Candlelight.Blackly humorous yet poignant and multi-levelled, finely crafted and thoroughly entertaining, this short-story collection is from a unique writer with a rare and distinctive talent.