Haunting chronicle of broken relationships

Wish I Was Here, by Jackie Kay, Picador, €18.95.

Love as a central theme to a novel is hardly new territory. However, Scottish writer Jackie Kay has spun a distinctive web on this all-consuming emotion and how it fundamentally affects the self, through her latest book, a collection of short stories entitled Wish I Was Here.

The various narrators have one thing in common: rejection.

Their loves are not the cushioned affections of ...