Unsettled Ground

Unsettled Ground

Written by: Fuller, Claire

From bestselling author Claire Fuller comes a portrait of life on the fringes of society, a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival.

What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant?

What would you do to get it back?

Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At fifty-one years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty.

But when Dot dies suddenly, threats start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother’s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.

From bestselling author Claire Fuller comes a portrait of life on the fringes of society, a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival.

What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant?

What would you do to get it back?

Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At fifty-one years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty.

But when Dot dies suddenly, threats start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother’s secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.

Published By House of Anansi Press Inc — May 18, 2021
Specifications 304 pages | 5.5 in x 8.5 in
Written By

CLAIRE FULLER is the bestselling and award-winning author of three previous novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliot Prize and was a finalist for the ABA Adult Debut Book of the Year Award and the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award; Swimming Lessons, which was a national bestseller; and Bitter Orange, which was longlisted for the Dublin International Literary Award. She has an M.A. in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.

Written By

CLAIRE FULLER is the bestselling and award-winning author of three previous novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliot Prize and was a finalist for the ABA Adult Debut Book of the Year Award and the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award; Swimming Lessons, which was a national bestseller; and Bitter Orange, which was longlisted for the Dublin International Literary Award. She has an M.A. in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.

Short-listed, Women’s Prize for Fiction

Commended, American Booksellers Association IndieNext Pick

Commended, Amazon Best Book of the Month

Fuller is a master of building suspense … At once unsettling and hopeful, her book checks all the boxes of an engrossing mystery.

” —Kirkus Reviews

In Unsettled Ground, Claire Fuller uncovers marginalized lives we don’t often see on the page in the rich and sensory prose that has gained her a strong following.

” —The Literary Sofa

Another engrossing book.

” —Entertainment Weekly

[Fuller’s] memorable characters will work their way into your head and heart.

” —Good Housekeeping

Fuller explores the painful realities of poverty and social isolation with immense sensitivity in this multi-layered and emotionally astute novel.

” —Guardian

Fuller writers agonizingly well about the poverty, and the cruelty of predatory villagers who smell fresh blood. The scenario is thick with jeopardy — just when you think things can’t get worse, they do — yet, blessedly, the climax pulls back from the abyss without losing a jot of drama. Superb.

” —Daily Mail

Fuller’s prose is often graceful, lyrical ... Fuller has a remarkable way of juxtaposing beauty with ugliness, resilience with despair, and her portrayal of these troubled but appealing siblings is as sensitive as it is powerful. Unsettled Ground shows us that at any age, the unexpected can trip us up and force us to rewrite not only our present but our past.

” —Toronto Star

A revelatory experience … [Claire Fuller is] a novelist doing her strongest work yet … This is a powerful, beautiful novel that shows us our land as it really is: a place of shelter and cruelty, innocence and experience.

” —Times (U.K.)

Claire Fuller’s Unsettled Ground is so sharply, so utterly brilliant that I found myself holding my breath while reading it, dazzled by Fuller’s mastery and precision. Not since Flaubert’s A Simple Heart have I encountered a narrative that shows, with such clear and patient fury, how breathtaking vulnerability can come from poverty, pride, and helpless family love.

” —Lauren Groff, New York Times–bestselling author

Unsettled Ground is a gorgeously written celebration of the natural world as well as a moving portrait of a family struggling against time. Through buried secrets and private longings, the Seeders emerge as multi-layered characters living at the fringes of society. This book is ultimately about redemption — about the unexpected importance of neighbours, lovers, and friends, and the ways in which we can re-envision our lives for the better, even after the unimaginable has occurred.

” —Lucy Tan, author of What We Were Promised

Unsettled Ground is another sly psychological treat from Claire Fuller, who just keeps on getting better with each book.

” —Laline Paull, bestselling author of The Bees and The Ice

Fuller’s prose is darkly elegant, her eye for character astute and humane, and her sense of place vividly atmospheric — here is a writer of great skill, sensitivity, and subtlety.

” —Lucy Atkins, author of Magpie Lane

Claire Fuller strikes the perfect balance between beauty and melancholy in this relevant and powerful exploration of isolation and life on the fringes of society.

” —Clare Mackintosh, author of After the End