Knots

Four spellbinding tales, selected from Wendy Walker's critically-acclaimed short fiction collections Sea-Rabbit, or, The Artist of Life (1988) and Stories Out of Omarie (1995), showcase some of her finest work as she takes on the themes of art, memory and tragic love in pre-modern Europe and North Africa. ''Twin Knots'' presents the Goddess of Love's take on an affair between a knight and an unhappy queen. In another tale, a count punishes his daughter for the attempted murder of her husband by placing her in a barrel and sending her out to sea, where adventures with pirates and a powerful sultan ensue. Publishers Weekly writes, ''Walker's sentences grow and ramify as luxuriantly as vines in an enchanted wood.''