Sun Dog

Sun Dog introduces a writer of tremendous originality and maturity, with a warm and startling gift for revealing the magic in the everyday. August is a large, awkward recluse, with bright orange hair and sun-shy eyes, hiding his unnatural body away behind the counter of a Shepherd's Bush deli. One winter's day he finds a rash on his arm that looks like frost. Later, something like snow begins to fall about his head. Is it some rare disease that has triggered this strange reaction, or the reappearance of his mother's old lover, Cosmo Could it even be an allergy to the deli's new orange cheese that mocks his own colouring As Cosmo's continuing presence taunts him with questions about his birth and upbringing, August's body begins to change with the seasons. But the most remarkable thing is that, for the first time, he feels marvellous. Through a year's wonderful metamorphosis - through snowstorm, heat wave and eclipse - August changes into himself.

Monique Roffey is a graduate of the Lancaster Writing School and was once a journalist for the Independent. She was born in Trinidad, and now lives in North London.