Swimming Lessons

Swimming Lessons

Summary

The second novel from the Women's Prize-shortlisted author of Unsettled Ground explores the mysterious truths of a troubled marriage and the ripples it creates.

'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*

Reviews

  • Thrilling, transporting, delicately realised and held together by a sophisticated sense of suspense . . . more than matches the power of Fuller's debut . . . Powerful , pleasing and pleasurable.
    Sunday Times

About the author

Claire Fuller

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn't start writing until she was forty. She has written four previous novels: Unsettled Ground, which in 2021 won the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award, and Bitter Orange. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.
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