Ghost Pains

‘Stevens’ impeccable artistry manages to overlay the gauzy romance of the stranger in a strange land atop the grim economic and interpersonal realities that so often accompany relative youth, relative freedom, and relative love. Erudite, eloquent, and bittersweet – these stories are like chewing on the orange rind for a last bitter taste of the drink.’ Kirkus Reviews

‘Stevens returns with a skillful and expansive collection ranging from Nabokovian confessions to fabulist sketches. Stevens remains a distinctive prose stylist with a wry sense of humour and an inventive approach to plot. Readers will enjoy visiting Stevens’s delightfully weird world.’ Publishers Weekly

‘The humour is deep enough to coexist with the heartbreak; together, they form a life-affirming whole. There’s fun throughout Ghost Pains, but there is also an ambient dread that never quite goes away. The point, which builds in clarity and intensity from a dizzying array of angles throughout the collection, seems rather that whatever these forces of destruction are, the ones that we begin to hear through the din of the party, the chatter at the bar, the static of the screen, they will not be content to go unnamed for much longer.’ Jack Hansen, 4Columns

‘Another book making the case for 2024 being a banger of a year for short fiction, Ghost Pains collects Stevens’ fiction from The Baffler, Harpers, The Paris Review and elsewhere into a “shambolic” journey. (I’m in.) Fans of The Exhibition of Persephone Q and slightly hallucinatory The Visitors will be excited to see where she takes them next.’ Lithub, Most Anticipated of 2024 list

‘There’s an atmosphere of late-capitalism dread looming over everything... Stevens’ writing is so witty and startling that Ghost Pains feels entirely unique.’ Megan Gibson, New Statesman

‘A collection of 11 stories, sardonic and elegant, imbued with a sense of isolation and self awareness... Stevens has fun with fantasy... All our paranoid techno-dread is here: be careful what you wish for.’ Lee Langley, The Spectator

‘Displaying an admirable range of tone and subject matter, these 11 stories constantly circle back to illuminate the human condition with wit and insight. Ghost Pains skewers the discomforts and disappointments of millennial life.’ Peter Whittaker, New Internationalist

‘There’s a fragility to the worlds constructed in this collection, an inescapable feeling that, narratively and aesthetically speaking, the rules aren’t set.’ Charlie Hope-D'Anieri, Los Angeles Review of Books

‘The stories in Ghost Pains build upon one another to ask incisive questions about how we live today: interpersonally, economically and politically, and morally.’ Regan Mies, Chicago Review of Books

‘These tightly crafted stories are captivating and sophisticated, giving a sense that every word has been carefully chosen; the language is as important as the actions it portrays.’ Terri Jane-Dow, Mslexia

‘All of these are wry, mischievous takes on late-capitalist living, suffused with all its dread, and mark Stevens as one of the sharpest, most playful young prose writers working today.’ Dominique Sisley, AnOther