Bad Dreams (2017) by Tessa Hadley is a collection of six separate but thematically connected short stories. Broadly, they tell the stories of people who have to deal with difficult situations. One story follows two sisters who begin to fight because of an inheritance and a new baby. Another tells the story of a child who begins to explore their home in the darkness, amused by what their house has become. The next story follows a young housekeeper who discovers that her client has many buried secrets. Other stories focus on the consequences of actions people take over the course of a number of generations.
Before the publication of Bad Dreams, Hadley was best known for writing novels. Despite working with a different form, Hadley's collection Bad Dreams received rapturously positive reviews. It won countless awards, including NPR's Best Book of the Year and Edge Hill Short Story Prize. In their glowing review of the novel, Kirkus Reviews called the novel "Achingly lovely, though never sentimental, Hadley's collection renders common lives with exquisite grace."
