“Laine looks at the attractive man sitting across from her and can’t decide: does she like his forwardness or not? But she’s been single for so long, maybe it’s worth trying again. Her husband left over ten years ago, and she hasn’t really dated since . . . If this one doesn’t work out either, then she’ll keep living like she has been—but if it does work out? Severīns notices her lingering stare, and his lips once again stretch out at the corners. It must really be his smile, then. She likes it better when he doesn’t smile.”Eight stories, eight women, an emotional multitude. In her short-story collection, Birthday, Jana Egle distinctly straps the male presence into the back seat and lets the female voice ring free. Not to be taken as “a book for women” or “women's literature, ” the themes and situations in Birthday present a familiar, yet uneasy, vantage point for any reader, regardless of personal, real-life experience. A design-firm employee who finds herself dating a potential sociopath, a woman suffering a terrible loss and having to find the strength to ask for help, the navigation of a mental health crisis, the fears of old age, revisitng a past love—Egle explores these universal themes, and more, with a scalding, narrative realism that leaves your skin crawling and your mind begging for more.