There is a new Tessa Hadley novel coming at the end of the month (The Party). Hearing that news while I was browsing in Hatchard’s recently prompted me to pick up an older collection of short stories, Married Love, first published in 2013. The cover includes a gushing quote from The Times‘s review, describing the collection as “unexpected, exhilarating, life-changing”. Married Love is none of those things. It’s an uneven collection that includes masterful stories and some that miss the mark. The best of them are a reminder of what a supremely accomplished writer Hadley is. I have pre-ordered The Party and will devour it once it arrives.