Women and girls walk a perilously thin line between ruin and redemption in these stories as they try-with varying degrees of success-to outmanouver the violence that threatens to define their lives. There's the physical violence of men against their bodies-and sometimes the violence they exact in revenge. While doubts about a romantic partner, an abandonment by a sister, the fallout of a parent's pornography addiction, the betrayal of a friend, even the desire to touch a stranger's fur-like body are subtler aggressions that pack their own kinds of punches. Moving between contemporary New Zealand and London, and a dreamlike landscape that isn't quite real, this debut collection shimmers with a brutal kind of hope, exploring power and its contortions, powerlessness and its depravities, and the ends to which we will go to claim back agency. 'Ruin is a machine for the exposure and exploration of power. It turns the intricacy and activity of relationship over in the cogs of its deft craft. It's an incredible confirmation of what short fiction can do and be: beautiful, confronting, validating.' -Pip Adam, author of The New Animals and Nothing to See 'There is a smart delicacy to these taut and unnerving stories. Hislop's characters are caught in riptides of desire, betrayal, loss, often treading dark water before they realise any place of safety is a long way off.' -Anthony Lapwood, author of Home Theatre Emma Hislop (Kai Tahu) is a Taranaki-based writer. Her work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in New Zealand and overseas, including Action Spectacle, Sport, Huia, Newsroom and Takahe. She has a Masters of Creative Writing from the IIML and in 2021 received the Creative New Zealand Louis Johnson New Writers Bursary.