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Two-time winner of the Booker Prize and #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Wolf Hall Trilogy Hilary Mantel presents a dazzling collection of loosely autobiographical stories.

Absorbing and evocative, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village "scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues." For the young narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, and get out. In "King Billy Is a Gentleman," the child must come to terms with the loss of a father and the puzzle of a fading Irish heritage. "Curved Is the Line of Beauty” is a story of friendship, faith and a near-disaster in a scrapyard. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In "Third Floor Rising," she watches, amazed, as her mother carves out a stylish new identity.

With a deceptively light touch, Mantel illuminates the poignant experiences of childhood that leave each of us forever changed.

Kepler's is honored to present a pre-recorded conversation between Hilary and Hamilton Cain, Contributing Books Editor at Oprah Daily and O, the Oprah Quarterly. Hamilton's memoir, This Boy's Faith: Notes from a Southern Baptist Upbringing (Crown, 2011), was praised as "thoughtful, leisurely" by the Boston Globe and lauded by the New York Times Book Review: "Cain excels at portraying the confusing miasma of childhood…his prose complements this delicate inquiry, simultaneously exhibiting grace and exactitude."

Photo of Hilary Mantel by Els Zweerink