People, flowers, memories: how do we preserve the past? Set in Cumbria's Lake District, the shifting mosaic of the narrative explores life, love and prejudice through three very different women: Ruth, a taxidermist; Madeleine, a widowed sheep-farmer; and, Lisa, an achondroplasic mathematician. As Lisa is drawn into the group it becomes clear that the other women have strange secrets: Ruth's essays on embalming have an increasingly dark theme. "The Embalmer's Book of Recipes" is a story about harsh decisions: eugenics in the post-genomic age; the politics of marginalising people and communities; the desperate responses to Foot & Mouth Disease; and, the illogicality of human love.But these stark themes are offset by the warmth and humour of the rural community to which the women are bound.