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Goldsboro Books

9781399602556

Shy Creatures

Shy Creatures

by Clare Chambers

Publisher W&N

Genre: General Fiction

Released:

  • Signed by the author
  • Hardback
  • UK First Edition, First Printing

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About the book

'A magnificent novel. I loved it to its bones' EMMA STONEX

'A lively, funny, forgiving novel' PATRICK GALE

'Completely absorbing' LISSA EVANS

'A rich and tender story of kindness and compassion' RUTH HOGAN

In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.

Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with Gil: a charismatic, married doctor.

One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen's home. A thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

Shy Creatures is a life-affirming novel about all the different ways we can be confined, how ordinary lives are built of delicate layers of experience, the joy of freedom and the transformative power of kindness.

About the Author

Clare Chambers

Clare Chambers's first job after university was working for Diana Athill at André Deutsch. Her first novelUncertain Termswas 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 2Between the Coversbook club and for BBC Radio 4Book at Bedtime, and was selected as a Book of the Year byThe Times, theEvening Standard,Daily Telegraph,Spectator,Metro,RedandGood 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.

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