One of the strongest stories in the collection is ‘Clear Blue Seas’, which charts the increasing discomfort of a young bride on her honeymoon in the sun-soaked Maldives. Kat is ill at ease with the obsequious hotel staff, but her new husband, Raf, a wealthy Iraqi migrant, feels at home among the frosted champagne glasses and the foot massages. He chides Kat that any one of the hotel staff would swap places with her ‘in a heartbeat’.

Other stories explore the subtle power dynamics of the patient–doctor relationship. In ‘Macca’, a young doctor worn down by other people’s problems begins to wonder about the fate of one of her patients. The word loneliness is seldom used in the stories, but the emotion is everywhere. In ‘Allomother’, a woman who was a surrogate mother for her sister grapples with her sideline role in the life of the child she has carried.

Cheng has a remarkable sense for the portentous drama in everyday lives. She focuses on the way her characters respond to change or tragedy rather than on dramatic plot turns, and she does this with a deftness and an economy of language that is breathtaking.