The story waits in the shadows. The writer has a deadline and the story wants to be told, but the story has patience. It is in no hurry. The writer gets up from the computer and goes for a walk, hoping the story will emerge and show itself, or at least give some hint of its being-a scent, a slight stirring, a restless rustling or a small anticipatory shiver. Award winning writer Daphne de Jong opens up the files to deliver this final collection of short stories. In this collection Daphne explores life, death, love and relationships. Each story shows a twist of the muse that hooks the reader and stays with them long after the story finishes. Daphne de Jong was born in Dargaville. Her first published story was written at sixteen and she went on to write over eighty romance novels and achieve national and international success in this genre. Literary Prizes include the Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award (1981) and the Lilian Ida Smith (PEN NZ) Award for short non-fiction (1986). Her poems and short stories have been published in magazines and broadcast both in New Zealand and overseas. Stories have been included in anthologies by Oxford University Press, New Women's Press, in collaborative collections with other prizewinning authors and a previous solo collection, Crossing the Bar.