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  • Published: 17 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448125609
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 29

A Place in the Sun/Al and Christine’s World of Leather/The Spectator (Storycuts)



Three short stories: a wry, tongue-in-cheek story about our culture of body-worship; although romance may be dead, the beat lives on in revenge; and a clear-eyed dystopian vision of where popular hysteria about paedophiles is leading.

In 'A Place in the Sun', Platinum is the beach everyone aspires to be on - the exclusive Beach of Beaches. Only the most beautiful bodies are permitted to enter. The old, the plain and the overweight have to accept that they will never be allowed in, in spite of all the facelifts, boob jobs and lipos that money can buy.

In 'Al and Christine's World of Leather', Christine and Candy meet at Weightwatchers, and are soon firm friends. The knitting coven they start turns into a thriving hand knitting business, with Candy the designer, and Christine the workforce. But when Candy's designs turn to leather, and Christine starts wondering what the big flap in the trousers is for, their friendship starts to unravel...

In 'The Spectator', elderly Mr Meadows, a retired teacher - before his profession was abolished - likes to take his morning walk past the school, ignoring the signs saying SCHOOL: NO UNACCOMPANIED ADULTS, because he innocently likes to watch the children playing. Surely there can't be any harm in that?

Part of the Storycuts series, these short stories were previously published in the collection Jigs & Reels.

  • Published: 17 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448125609
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 29

About the author

Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris’s Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is the author of many other bestselling novels, including Lollipop Shoes and Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, both also featuring Vianne Rocher, as is her new novel The Strawberry Thief. She has also written acclaimed novels in such diverse genres as fantasy based on Norse myth (Runemarks, Runelight, The Gospel of Loki), and the Malbry cycle of dark psychological thrillers (Gentlemen & Players, Blueeyedboy, and Different Class).

Born in Barnsley, of an English father and a French mother, she spent fifteen years as a teacher before (somewhat reluctantly) becoming a full-time writer. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE. She lives in Yorkshire, plays bass and flute in a band first formed when she was sixteen, and works in a shed in her garden.

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