Fans of Mary Borsky’s first short-story collection, Influence of the Moon, will be pleased to see that in two stories from her new collection, she revisits not only the characters of Irene Lychenko and her family, but also the setting of Salt Prairie, Alberta. “The Ukrainian Shirt” opens the collection, with a young Irene bringing her new, and obviously out-of-place, anthropologist husband home to meet her family. And “Parcel for the Ukraine” ends the collection with a vivid portrait of the sudden shock of realizing that an aging parent is no longer capable of fending for herself.

The other seven stories have just as much, if not more, to offer. Of these, “Wish” is the strongest, with a nine-year-old protagonist who longs for her mother to find happiness (in the form of a boyfriend) almost as much as the mother herself. The beauty in this story is Borsky’s brilliant ability to get within the mind of a young girl while simultaneously capturing the crushing desperation of a mother who is trying too hard, for her own sake as well as her daughter’s, to land a good man.

Borsky’s strength lies in her ability to infuse sad or infuriating situations with just enough humour to make them feel true to life. Her characters are like people we know, from the single mother in the apartment down the hall to the person reflected in the mirror. Whether the stories are set in Alberta (Borsky’s birthplace) or Ottawa (her adopted city), the homes and streets feel familiar, as do the emotions Borsky presents so perfectly.