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Clare Chambers's first job after university was working for Diana Athill at Andre Deutsch. Her first novel Uncertain Terms was published in 1992 and she is the author of eight other novels. Small Pleasures, her first work of fiction in ten years, became a word-of-mouth hit on publication, was selected for BBC 2 Between the Covers book club and for BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, and was selected as a Book of the Year by The Times, the Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, Spectator, Metro, Red and Good Housekeeping. It also won Pageturner of the Year Award at the British Book Awards 2022 and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021.
Absolutely beautiful - tender, moving, so clever about human beings and human frailty, and about love. It is also laugh out loud funny in places. As with Small Pleasures, the little telling details are brilliantly done. Clare Chambers is a genius -- INDIA KNIGHT Shy Creatures is a magnificent novel, elegantly written, beautifully devised and radiant with treasures to surprise and delight. It is both a compelling mystery about a lonely man with a hidden past and a deeply involving study of human frailty, divided loyalties, and what it means to help someone. Clare Chambers is a writer of formidable skill and this is her best work yet, penned with such intelligence, tenderness and emotional acuity, it took my breath away. I loved it to its bones -- EMMA STONEX I adored Shy Creatures and eked out this addictive treat as long as I could and now can only urge anyone with an interest in psychiatry, siblings, Croydon, buried trauma, adultery, the early 60s or simply humanity to seek it out. Once again, Clare Chambers reveals her unflinching grasp of human fallibility and eye for the resonant detail that make the reader care deeply about her characters' fates. A lively, funny, forgiving novel which I bet will do just as well as Small Pleasures -- PATRICK GALE Shy Creatures reads easily and delightfully and yet is rich with emotional truth, and completely absorbing. I loved it, and didn't want it to end -- LISSA EVANS Beautiful . . . A rich and tender story of kindness and compassion and the survival of the human spirit against enormous odds -- RUTH HOGAN A beautiful, immersive, pitch-perfect novel -- LAURA BARNETT A tender, moving story -- Sarra Manning * RED, The month's best books * Shy Creatures is a warm, multi-layered mystery brimming with all the same nostalgia, wit and tenderness as Small Pleasures, the 2020 novel which made this author so beloved -- Anna Bonet * i PAPER, Top Fiction Pick *
