Early autumn. The air was damp and cool against her face. White morning fog swirled around her, its separate particles as visible as tiny snowflakes. Above the ground, where the fog grew sheer in the pale sunlight, rose the walls of a medieval city with corner towers and three arched gates.

This opening to Hall's Fair Maiden is typical of skill in painting scenes, and in this one she portrays a romantic image of a place where a young woman may well find the man of her dreams. Then the scene is interrupted: Sounds came to her through the fog, the slamming of a car door, a scolding voice, and overhead the roar of a jet lifting from the airport.

In these few phrases Hall establishes the contrast between romantic fantasy and modern reality that underlines the whole of her narrative.

Hall is also skilled at...