Dolores is a glowing, beating heart of a book; Curtis' sentences manage to be both mysterious and precise, creating a potent atmosphere that resonates beyond its brevity -- Megan Hunter, author of THE END WE START FROM

Dolores reads the way a first novel should: short, lyrical, intense, and with adventurous ambition -- Nell Zink, author of THE WALLCREEPER and MISLAID

Rich, melodic and marked by a troubling sensuality, Dolores depicts the strange pleasures a young girl might take in her body, and the perils and liberations such pleasures hold -- Sue Rainsford, author of FOLLOW ME TO GROUND

On a hot day in late June, a young girl kneels outside a convent, then falls on her face. When the nuns take her in, they name her Dolores.

Dolores adjusts to the rhythm of her new life - to the nuns with wild hairs curling from their chins, the soup chewed as if it were meat, the bells that ring throughout the day.

But in the dark, private theatre of her mind are memories - of love motels lit by neon red hearts, discos in abandoned hospitals and a boy called Angelo.

And inside her, a baby is growing.