Tristram and Isolde

The second of Michele Roberts' stories from her newly published collection, Mud: Stories of Love and Sex, is very much concerned with both these themes. Inspired by the famous love story of Tristram and Isolde, it describes the passion of a girl for her lover, the delight in his company when the rest of the world has been banished, and the desire to keep him to herself for ever. But there's an unexpected twist to this love story that plays on some very deep, and potentially disturbing, emotions. The reader is Siobhan Redmond.