Copyright © 2020 Naomi Ishiguro

The right of Naomi Ishiguro to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

First published as an Ebook in 2020 by Tinder Press

An imprint of Headline Publishing Group

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978 1 4722 6487 9

Cover design by Yeti Lambregts

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

An Hachette UK Company

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London EC4Y 0DZ

www.tinderpress.co.uk

www.headline.co.uk

www.hachette.co.uk

About the Author

Author pic © Rosie Powell

Naomi Ishiguro lives in London, and has worked as a bookseller and bibliotherapist. ESCAPE ROUTES is her first book.

Praise

‘An imaginative collection full of wide-eyed wonder and millennial wit. Naomi Ishiguro’s crystal-clear prose delights and intrigues’ Sharlene Teo

‘Naomi Ishiguro flits playfully between genres. She threads magic through carefully observed realism. This is a writer whose voice I hope to be following for many years to come’ Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

About the Book

A space-obsessed child conjures a vortex in his mother’s linen cupboard. A musician’s fascination with the birds who flock to her balcony offers a startling new perspective on the city. A rat catcher, summoned to a decaying royal palace, is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom. Two newlyweds find themselves inhibited by the arrival in their lives of an outsized, watchful stuffed bear.

Whether snared in traps artfully laid for them, or those of their own making, the characters in Naomi Ishiguro’s delightfully speculative debut collection yearn for freedom, flight and new beginnings – and find their worlds transformed beyond their wildest imaginings.

For my parents,

and for Ben