Features 'The Calm', longlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards Writing.ie Short Story of the Year 2020.

Some Days Are Better Than Ours is a startling collection that explores human life in all its forms. These stories will make you draw breath as you race through compelling accounts of the dark places people escape to and from.

Through her masterful use of language, Barbara Byar skilfully invites the reader into imagined futures and regretful pasts – from war to childhood to road trips to relationships. Her pieces are visceral, sometimes brutal but sliced through with hope. These stories, and the characters in them, strike straight at the realist heart of the human experience and will linger long after reading.

A must-read collection These stories stopped me in my tracks.
—Gaynor Jones, Northern Writer of the Year

These are searingly truthful fictions. Pitched at the border of poetry and prose, they catalogue lives lived at the edge, survivors facing the beauty and cruelty of the world. These fictions will take your breath away.
—William Wall, author of Suzy Suzy and Grace’s Day

Betrayal and brokenheartedness, sex and sadness, disaster and divorce – in Some Days Are Better Than Ours: A Collection of Tragedies, the wants and wounds of Byar's characters are stark, startling, and unforgettable.
—Meg Pillow, 2019 Wigleaf top 50

Barbara Byar writes flash like no one else; in each of these lucid and furious twenty-nine stories — some no longer than a single page — are wholly unforgettable glimpses into the lives of her individual characters.
—Peter Jordan, author of Calls to Distant Places

Some Days Are Better Than Ours delves into lives misshapen by abuse, exploring the dark side of the will and the flaring of lost souls. Byar’s language is gritty with rage, giving a lucid voice to the vulnerable, the marginalised, the roughshod, all fighting for what has been stolen and squandered, and looking for love between the cracks.
—Catherine McNamara, author of The Cartography of Others

Some Days Are Better Than Ours is an incredibly well-written and emotionally complex journey to the dark places of human experience. Clever, introspective and fearless, this collection will take you to places you never imagined before. A raw and relentless debut collection.
—Anita Goveas, author of Families and Other Natural Disasters (forthcoming, Reflex Press)

Barbara Byar’s Some Days Are Better Than Ours is a collection of flash fictions that dig deep into trauma, tapping into a well of strong emotions. You won’t be able to forget these hard-hitting stories very soon.
—Sophie van Llewyn, author of Bottled Goods, longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

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