The published author of three nonfiction books* already, short stories have always been Sharyn's first love. For this collection, she has chosen just those stories that fit the theme of stages of life. 

Previously only available in winners' anthologies or literary journals, these award-winning short stories are here brought together for the first time. The decision to do so was triggered by a health scare and the realisation that time might be running out!

The title comes from her excursions into places like cafés and railway stations, where she would partly cover her face as she secretly jotted down observations that would later turn into short stories as her imagination took those notes into fiction. Sometimes a story was triggered by an autobiographical memory, but it always became fiction. The settings were usually real, as Sharyn is a sensory writer, and her words take the reader right into the story and that place.

The three sections are linked by brief nonfiction introductions as Sharyn shares her thoughts about that stage of life, and to these she has added a personal photo from that stage, selected from the few that survived the flooding of her home in 2021.

Sharyn writes to make sense of life. As the subheading, 'Glimpses of childhood, old age… and the dangerous bits in between' suggest, she understands the childhood and old age stages, but not yet the 'dangerous' middle part, when most of our life decisions are made. She is writing towards it from both ends, hoping for wisdom!

It was said that reading 'The Woman on the Mountain' might change your life; reading 'Peeping through my fingers' will surely enhance it, as the stories and stages ring memorably true. 

* 'The Woman on the Mountain', 'Mountain Tails' and 'Rich Land, Wasteland.