Claire Fuller

This is not your typical horror book… this feels more like watching someone unravel in real time.

Hunger and Thirst by Clair Fuller is less jump scare horror and more slow, unsettling dread that creeps up on you.

We follow Ursula, a teenager who grew up in the care system and finally starts finding some stability working at an art school and living in a halfway house. Then she gets pulled into this chaotic friend group filled with toxic dynamics, messy relationships, and bad decisions.

The show more tension building underneath all of it was SO uncomfortable in the best way.

The story takes its time getting there, but once it does, the horror elements HIT. There’s this constant feeling that something is deeply wrong, and because Ursula is such a vulnerable character emotionally, everything feels heavier.

What I really liked though was how the book explores trauma AFTER the horrific event happens. Instead of just focusing on the shocking moment, it shows how one night can completely infect the rest of someone’s life.

Also the commentary on true crime culture, class, and how women’s stories get framed over time was super interesting.

I will say that I didn’t fully emotionally connect to all the characters, which kept this from being a full obsession for me. BUT if you like atmospheric horror, morally messy characters, and stories that feel haunting instead of outright terrifying… definitely check this out!

Thanks to Zando for providing me with an eARC through Netgalley. All thoughts are my own.

Confession: I love books that leave me feeling emotionally unsettled for days.

QOTD: What’s a book that genuinely left you unsettled after finishing it? show less

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize 2020

A book for anyone who has a too sentimental view of life in the British countryside - Fuller's vision is most realistic where it is furthest from rural idyll.

The story opens with a death. Dot has been scraping a living in a run-down cottage on the edge of a farm since the death of her husband, and her 51-year old twins Jeanie and Julius still live there too - Jeanie helps with running the house and growing vegetables, her ambition limited after being show more told in childhood that she has a weak heart, and Julius is a casual labourer and dreamer. When Dot dies suddenly after a stroke, the twins have to fend for themselves almost unprepared, as Dot has not told them enough about what underpins their living arrangements.

Most of the story is told in the third person from the perspective of Jeanie, as everything her life depends on is taken from her in a series of horrific episodes - first they find that Dot has left them no money, so they can't afford to have her decently buried, then their farmer landlord has them evicted for non-payment of rent they believed they did not owe, and they are forced to move to a dilapidated old caravan on a patch of common woodland, where they are defenceless against local troublemakers.

Jeanie's troubles reach a nadir when Julius is left paralysed after being shot in the dark, but the final part set a year later shows her achieving a tentative state of fulfilment.

Fuller's command of her story is impressive, and for all of the dark subject matter there is plenty to enjoy in the book, particularly its musical elements. I did feel that the ending was a little hard to believe after the rest of the book, but without it the story might be too dark for many readers to stomach. show less

Hunger and Thirst is the story of 16 year old Ursula. After a childhood trauma followed by a succession of children’s homes, she’s now working in the post room of the local art school where she meets Sue, a slightly older and much more worldly-wise woman who becomes Ursula’s friend and whose large and chaotic family she wishes were her own. Ursula lacks any real joy in her life and so when she’s invited to share a deserted bungalow she jumps at the chance of the new experience. The show more Underwood has a sinister past, though, and events take a turn for the worse, leading to an incident that haunts Ursula for the rest of her life.

The first half of this book set the scene and built up the tension, whilst the second half became virtually unputdownable. Is Ursula an unreliable narrator? Did she do what she thinks she did? To be honest, I got to the end and I still don’t know but somehow it doesn’t really matter as the writing is so strong and it’s such a consuming story. It’s unsettling to witness Ursula apparently unravel before us as some very weird and disturbing things happen. It’s unclear if it’s the malevolence of the Underwood that’s to blame or Ursula’s own deluded mind playing tricks on her. Either way, it makes for a really gripping and dark read with a thrilling horror element.

Claire Fuller is such a great, versatile writer. She nails Ursula’s inner demons and Sue’s devil-may-care attitude and portrays perfectly the uneasy creepy feeling of the vividly-described abandoned bungalow with all the previous owners’ belongings still in place. Hunger and Thirst is a mesmerising novel which I’m still thinking about it days after I finished it. show less

Claire Fuller’s gothic-tinged 3rd novel, Bitter Orange, tells a mesmerizing tale of repressed desire and wayward lust set during the sweltering summer of 1969. Lyntons is a dilapidated 17th-century estate, long abandoned, located in the countryside outside London. The property has been purchased by a wealthy American, Mr. Liebermann. However, when we first meet our narrator, Frances Jellico, it’s 20 years after the fact and she’s lying ravaged by disease on her deathbed recalling show more events from that fateful summer. Twenty years earlier, 39-year old Frances’ mother has just died, freeing her from the thankless task of caring for a woman who is both demanding and unfeeling. Frances—friendless, socially inept, overweight, tentative—has been hired to catalogue the buildings and other structures in the estate’s gardens and prepare an assessment of their architectural value for the new owner. When she arrives at Lyntons, Frances is surprised to find two other people already on site, Cara and Peter, whom (in her innocence) she assumes to be a married couple. Peter is handsome in a raffish sort of way, while beautiful Cara appears to Frances to embody the hot-blooded Mediterranean temperament she has heard about but never witnessed first-hand. Frances moves into the mansion’s attic room while Cara and Peter occupy the rooms directly below hers. Peter, she soon learns, has been commissioned by Liebermann to write a report like the one Frances is working on, but focusing on the main house and its contents. Frances is at first wary around the younger couple, intimidated by Cara’s beauty, unpredictable moods and impulsive nature, though as days and then weeks pass, she finds herself drawn to them, and them to her. Soon the three are eating meals together and spending entire days in each other’s company, engaged in languid summer pursuits, depleting the estate’s wine supply, neglecting their assignments, and making discoveries about the property. With the three of them living in a bubble, personal disclosures are inevitable. But gradually it dawns on Frances that Peter and Cara’s history is more complex than she’s been led to believe, that Cara takes refuge in deception when the truth doesn’t suit her, and indeed often appears to be living in a fantasy world. As time passes Fuller raises the emotional temperature, with Cara’s behaviour growing increasingly erratic, and Frances—unhinged by misguided passion—succumbing to Peter’s physical charms. The story is stunningly atmospheric and brilliantly paced, drawing the reader in despite the fact that none of the characters is particularly likable. The writing is richly lyrical, brimming with evocative detail. Like the best who-dun-it, Bitter Orange spirals slowly but inevitably toward a tragic denouement. Fuller lays a compelling groundwork: we know something is going to happen. But when it does, it still comes as a shock. The result is a poignant, suspenseful, immensely satisfying and deliciously lurid high-stakes drama. show less