Heather O'Neill's distinctive style and voice fill these charming, sometimes dark, always beguiling stories

Heather O’Neill’s unforgettable novels, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Lullabies for Little Criminals, captured readers with their disarming characters and irreverent descriptions of life on Montreal's St Laurent Boulevard. Here, O'Neill's voice takes flight in a collection of original stories that evoke sorrow, laughter, and heartbreak. From the title story of a naive cult follower in "Dear Piglet" to the struggle of two young women in occupied Paris in “Snow-White and Rose-Red” to the story of generations of failed Nureyev clones in post-Soviet Russia in “The Ugly Ducklings”, these stories surprise and delight at every page, showing once again that Heather O’Neill is a remarkable talent and among our best, most inventive writers.

HEATHER O’NEILL is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her most recent novel, When We Lost Our Heads was a #1 national bestseller and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal. Her previous works include The Lonely Hearts Hotel, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads, as well as Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Daydreams Of Angels, which were shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. She has won CBC’s Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives there today.

Heather O'Neill's profile page

Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlisted for the Quebec Writers’ Federation Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction —

“The storytelling is inventive, but the writing is as spectacular. . . . These are great stories superbly written by someone sure to be a major star.” — NOW Magazine

“[These stories are] united by the now-unmistakable O’Neill stamp: compassionately drawn characters from society’s fringes acting out tales of hardship, resilience and sometimes redemption, all told in deceptively simple prose - nobody, but nobody, does simile quite like O’Neill - that at its best attains the level of music.” — Montreal Gazette

“Magical and inventive.” — Maclean's

“Though still a voice for the gritty, lively histories of Montreal’s underbelly, O’Neill finds ample room to grow in a collection that seeks to celebrate the magic and madness of those often relegated to society’s margins.” — Quill & Quire

“The writing in Daydreams of Angels is characteristically crisp and playful, but with an undercurrent of cruelty that only amplifies each story’s beating heart.” — National Post

“Daydreams of Angels is proof that Heather O’Neill’s here to stay.” — PRISM