This is a collection of 12 short stories, each very unique and slightly bizarre, all inspired by folklore and fairytales but with modern and unusual twists. I have to be in the right mood for short stories, and fortunately I was for these – I really enjoyed them. I won’t detail each one, but here are a few of the ones that stuck with me:

The first story Animals: this is set in a world where animal hearts are easily transplanted to keep people alive, but also gives the transplantee a new personality from whatever animal the heart comes from. A man keeps his wife alive by choosing new hearts for her based on what he wants from her – a new look at the concept of consent.
In the Dark: this was particularly short and random, but a man walks into a woman’s kitchen one evening, doesn’t say a word, eats and leaves. It’s odd but entrancing.
The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night: this gives its name to the whole collection and was the one that made the most impact on me. It was sad and heartfelt but funny and personal. In the middle of the night, a couple discuss what beginnings are and what they mean, but there’s more to it than that as the story ends. Everyone knows that feeling of late night talks about nothing and everything.
Aunt Libby’s Coffin Hotel: this was probably the most fun story of all – a woman and her niece run a hotel filled with coffins where people go to experience death for a night. It was slightly predictable, filled with fun mythological references and probably the easiest one to read from the collection.