Angel maker

Though Sara Maitland's interests are as varied as the people who inhabit her stories, there is a common theme to this work that extols risk taking over safety. Acrobats, women warriors, a girl who wants to become a garden, a long-distance runner, housewives and mothers, and a reformed sixteenth-century conquistador are among the characters revealed in this collection. Familiar names from literature - Gretel, Eurydice of the green fields, the shepherd Prince Endymion, Lady Artemis - commingle with contemporary characters called David, Meg, and Liz, who desperately seek love and fulfillment and…