From Joyce Carol Oates, literary icon and author of BLONDE , now a major motion picture, come four psychologically daring and chillingly suspenseful stories where women face threats both past and present. A Pennsylvania academic unearths a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine from a stranger. A lonely pubescent girl befriends a feral cat that protects her from the increasingly aggressive men that surround her. A brilliant but shy college sophomore realizes she is pregnant and, distraught, allows a distinguished visiting professor to take her under his wing. And a widower remarries, but finds his young bride haunted by his