In this collection of vivid and engrossing stories Rebecca Miller explores the lives of seven multifaceted women.

From vastly different backgrounds and futures, the women are united by their struggles. But most of all they are bound together by their will to overcome and survive, the desire to get by and beyond.

We meet Greta, a cookbook editor who is catapulted to dizzying heights in her career, while her marriage struggles to stay afloat; Paula, a pregnant twenty-one-year-old who is haunted by the horror of a man who was hit by a car and died while walking her home from a nightclub; Delia, an abused working-class wife who goes into hiding with her children; and Louisa, a painter who moves from one lover to the next, acting out a self-perpetuating drama over which she has no control.

Edgy, fearless and beautifully spare, Personal Velocity marks the emergence of a singular new voice in American fiction.

'Seven women each have a fascinating, sometimes disturbing story to tell. Miller's simple yet tightly woven prose draws you in to each and every one.' Cosmopolitan