—

Humans are useless at learning from their mistakes. We just have to keep making new plans.

When Neffy wakes up from an uneasy sleep in a hospital bed, nothing is as it should be. There is no food, and nobody to tend to her. The city streets outside her window have fallen silent. She doesn’t know it yet, but a debilitating new virus is sweeping the globe, and the world will never be the same again.

Feverish, confused, and wary of the strangers trapped inside with her, Neffy finds solace in her own memories of the past – even the memories of the mistakes that led her here.

But as the days turn into weeks, it is clear that Neffy will have to make a choice. How do you choose between a past that has already disappeared forever, and a future you can’t begin to imagine?

—

‘Unsettling, moving and thoughtful, with horror lurking at the edges, this is a subtle, elegant novel. Claire Fuller is a huge talent’ Lucy Atkins, author of Magpie Lane

‘Compulsive and thoroughly convincing. Terrific!’ Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

—

But she isn’t here, no one is here. And I have a terror of being alone, in this building, in London, in the world.

Neffy is a young woman running away from grief and guilt, and the one big mistake that has derailed her career. When a debilitating new virus sweeps across the globe, volunteering in a vaccine trial offers her a way to make up for her past. But then, the virus mutates, and the future she had dreamed for herself is gone.

As the London streets outside the medical unit fall silent, and food begins to run out, Neffy must decide where safety lies. Might she find solace by revisiting her own heady memories of the past? Can she trust the strangers trapped inside with her – despite her growing suspicions? Or is her best chance of a future to be found in the terrifyingly unknown world outside?

Haunting and compelling, The Memory of Animals is a novel about freedom and captivity, survival and sacrifice, and what we cling to when everything else has been taken away, from the Costa Award-winning, Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of Unsettled Ground.

‘Unsettling, moving and thoughtful, with horror lurking at the edges, this is a subtle, elegant novel. Claire Fuller is a huge talent’ Lucy Atkins, author of Magpie Lane

‘Compulsive and thoroughly convincing. Terrific!’ Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

‘Her strongest yet… a powerful, beautiful novel that shows us our land as it really is: a place of shelter and cruelty, innocence and experience’ THE TIMES
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When you live on the edge of society, it only takes one step to fall between the cracks

Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.

But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood 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.

Unsettled Ground is a powerful novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness.
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‘The way she writes (with empathy but never sentimentality) moves my heart’ ELIZABETH DAY, author of Magpie

‘A relevant and powerful exploration of isolation and life on the fringes of society’ CLARE MACKINTOSH, author of Hostage

‘An atmospheric thriller that’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming’ RED

When you live on the edge of society, it only takes one step to fall between the cracks

Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.

But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood 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.

Unsettled Ground is a powerful novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness.
____________________________________________________________________

‘Her strongest yet… a powerful, beautiful novel that shows us our land as it really is: a place of shelter and cruelty, innocence and experience’ THE TIMES

‘A relevant and powerful exploration of isolation and life on the fringes of society’ CLARE MACKINTOSH, author of Hostage

‘An atmospheric thriller that’s both heartbreaking and heartwarming’ RED

‘Gil Coleman looked down from the window and saw his dead wife standing on the pavement below.’

Twelve years ago Flora’s mother Ingrid disappeared, vanishing from a Dorset beach, presumed drowned. Everyone – especially her sister and father Gil – believes Ingrid is long dead. Everyone, except Flora. So when she hears that her father has had an accident, and is insisting that he saw his wife, Floral rushes home.

But the answers she seeks are nowhere to be found – only further questions:

Is Ingrid dead? Or did she leave? And do the letters hidden within Gil’s books hold the answer to the truth behind his marriage, a truth hidden from everyone including his own children?

‘Thrilling, transporting, delicately realised and held together by a sophisticated sense of suspense’ Sunday Times

‘Assured, multi-layered, wellcrafted, compelling, excellent’ Mail on Sunday

‘A beautifully told story of motherhood, marriage and infidelity’ Good Housekeeping

*A Richard and Judy Book Club Pick*

FROM THE COSTA AWARD-WINNING, WOMEN’S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF UNSETTLED GROUND

Every parent lies. But some lies are bigger than others?

In the summer of 1976 eight-year-old Peggy Hillcoat is taken from London by her survivalist father to live in a cabin in a remote European forest. When they arrive he tells Peggy that her mother and the rest of the world are gone.

Now the two of them must scratch a living from the earth: trapping squirrels, foraging for berries, surviving winter as best they can. But it is easy to lose you way in the forest, to lose yourself. How long will Peggy trust her father’s story? How long can you stay sane when the world is lost? And what happens when you stop believing in everything?

‘Extraordinary’ The Sunday Times

‘Remarkable’ Penelope Lively

‘Haunting, suspenseful ? As warped and sinister as any Brothers Grimm fairytale’ Metro

‘A rivetingly dark tale ? Spellbinding’ Sunday Express