Three tales of the vicissitudes of love, by the author of Trainspotting and Shallow Grave . Lorraine Goes to Livingston features an authoress who suffers a stroke; Fortune's Always Hiding is a corporate drug romance; The Undefeated is set in the grim backstreets of modern Edinburgh.

The characters in this collection by the author of Trainspotting are often - on the surface - depraved, vicious, cowardly and manipulative, but their essential humanity is never undermined. Stereotypes are at once celebrated and destroyed, as the protagonists find themselves on unfamiliar ground.

This novel, which has always been regarded as one of Scott's finest, opens with the Edinburgh riots of 1736. The people of the city have been infuriated by the actions of John Porteous, Captain of the Guard, and when they hear that his death has been reprieved by the distant monarch they ignore the Queen and resolve to take their own revenge. At the cente of the story is Edinburgh's forbidding .

A young drama teacher in the West of Scotland suffers deep psychological problems which affect all areas of her life. She fails to find meaning in anything around her, but in her search she strips situations of their conventional values and sees them in a sharp, new light.

So when he nips out for a quick drink on the eve of returning to his native Scotland after twelve years in America, anything could happen. Anything at all. Just one quick drink to help him sleep but there's something about this town and this bar that reminds him of his ex.

Isis Whit is a member of the Elect of God , a religious cult based near Stirling. When her cousin Morag renounces her faith, it falls to Isis to venture out into the techno-ridden barreness of nineties Britain to save her. But Morag has embraced the ways of the unsaved with surprising vigour.