"These are wonderful stories."
--Books in Canada

"Shields is able to give some of the most complex accounts of human nature I've read in a short story."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Infused with a sly humour, these poignant stories revel in the ordinary, with a few side trips to the sublime... both moving and wry."
--Washington Post

"Reading [these stories] gives you a sense of art spilling over into life... Even the briefest and apparently arbitrary details of life seem incandescent."
--Toronto Star

"Shields is a sympathetic storyteller who brings her quirky, touching characters to exuberant life."
--New York Newsday

"A wise, expansive voice... the author turns normal everyday memories and events into poetic prophecy."
--Newsday