The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its tenth year. Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or, more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume. Featuring: Richard Lawrence Bennett, Luke Brown, David Constantine, Tim Etchells, Nicola Freeman, Amanthi Harris, Andrew Hook, Sonia Hope, Hanif Kureishi, Helen Mort, Jeff Noon, Irenosen Okojie, KJ Orr, Bridget Penney, Diana Powell, David Rose, Sarah Schofield, Adrian Slatcher, NJ Stallard, Robert Stone, Stephen Thompson and Zakia Uddin.

Beautiful Place is a novel about leaving and losing home and making family. It is about being oppressed and angry and wanting a better life - but how is a better life to be defined? The Villa Hibiscus is a house by the sea on the exquisite southern coast of Sri Lanka, home to Padma, a young Sri Lankan woman. The owner of the villa, Gerhardt, is an elderly Austrian architect to whom Padma was taken when young by her scheming father, Sunny, who had hoped to seduce the wealthy new foreigner in the area with his attractive child. Gerhardt adopts Padma and pays Sunny to stay away until she's grown up - when Gerhardt expects to have sent Padma to university, far away. But Padma fails her exams and is lonely in the city, gladly returning to her beloved old home by the sea. With Gerhardt's help she creates a guesthouse at the villa and soon guests start to arrive, opening new vistas for Padma through their friendship and love. Then Sunny appears, ready to reclaim his daughter...