**A Sunday Times Paperback of the Year**
**A Granta Best of Young British Novelist**
**Winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022**
**Winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2022**
**Shortlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2023**

In ten dazzling stories, Saba Sams dives into the world of girlhood and immerses us in its contradictions and complexities: growing up too quickly, yet not quickly enough; taking possession of what one can, while being taken possession of; succumbing to societal pressure but also orchestrating that pressure. These young women are feral yet attentive, fierce yet vulnerable, exploited yet exploitative.

Threading between clubs at closing time, pub toilets, drenched music festivals and beach holidays, these unforgettable short stories deftly chart the treacherous terrain of growing up – of intense friendships, of ambivalent mothers, of uneasily blended families, and of learning to truly live in your own body.

With striking wit, originality and tenderness, Send Nudes celebrates the small victories in a world that tries to claim each young woman as its own.

‘Beautiful, compressed, fleeting.’ Sally Rooney on ‘Overnight’

‘I fell for this stunning collection with a rare, consuming passion.’ Megan Nolan

‘A fresh new voice in fiction, wry and sharp and raw.’ Emma Cline

‘I still remember where I was when I first encountered a Saba Sams story.’ Nicole Flattery

‘A roiling, raw, gut-punch of a debut collection, best read in one sitting . . . I sat motionless for about half an hour after reading them; I can’t wait to see what she writes next.’ Pandora Sykes

‘A seriously impressive debut. Saba Sams digs into the chaos, euphoria and menace of sexual attraction, friendship and family with bravery and wit.’ Chris Power

‘Saba Sams is adept at wrongfooting our assumptions, creating a set of unique, multi-dimensional characters with rich internal lives.’ Elizabeth Day

‘Saba Sams’ writing is dark and glittering. Her collection twists the world on its axis and filters it through an unsettling light. Her precise, wry sentences and sticky, uncompromising characters got beneath my skin.’ Jessica Andrews

‘I really liked Saba Sams’ spare, blunt style and her quirky take on adolescence and young womanhood. The stories covered such a wide range of moods and experiences and the various humiliations and disappointments were treated with a wonderfully clear and unsentimental eye . . . I hope this collection brings her lots of new readers.’ Clare Chambers

‘Unfalteringly different, ensnaring, often frightening stories about characters caught between childhood and adulthood, who are feeling out their boundaries, desires and limits for the first time. Sams’ writing is intoxicating.’ Claire Kohda

‘In Send Nudes Saba Sams provides an alluring glimpse into contemporary life by presenting familiar experiences in entirely new and electrifying prose.’ Zeba Talkhani

‘An exhilarating debut.’ Guardian

‘Ten short stories about the treacherous terrain of growing up, learning to live in your body, friendships, mothers and blended families introduce a promising debut author, whose work has appeared in The Stinging Fly.’  Irish Independent, Hottest Books of the Year