This is my first Claire Fuller and I will be seeking out more. Unsettled Ground is a bittersweet novel about 51 year old Jeanie and her twin brother Julius who are forced to carve out their own lives after their mother, who they live with in a rural cottage, dies suddenly. The ending really transformed the story and I’ll be thinking about this for some time. I would have liked more from Julius’s perspective - there was more to develop there and he was sidelined too soon for me. Audiobook narration by Rachel Bavidge brought even more depth to the characters.

Really enjoy books about family dynamics but didn’t love whatever was going on between the brother and sister in this.

Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller is a captivating novel that explores the themes of family, identity, and survival. The story follows the lives of twins Jeanie and Julius, who are in their fifties and still live with their mother Dot in a remote cottage. When Dot dies unexpectedly, their world is turned upside down and they have to face the harsh realities of poverty, isolation, and secrets.

What an incredible book. It’s a dark difficult read
This book has a narrative of difficult relationships
A well written book

i struggled to get into the book, and had to restart, i think the subject was told very realistically, and the rural idyll is well and truly shattered with rich and poor living within a few hundred yards of one another. Once into the book, i needed to know how it would end, a good story, and claire fuller is the best at rural writing

Oh wow ! Stunning one of my favourite books of last year a wonderful wonderful heart breaking tale. Superb writing I couldn’t put it down . I’m now going to read everything by the author I loved it so much and have bought it for my bookclub and friends everyone I know also loves it . Simply Brilliant !! Read it !!

I struggled to connect with the characters sometimes and found myself forgetting their age because of their young mentality and mindsets. I thought it was a really thought-provoking book and found myself thinking about my own relationship with my mum, and the differences in what she has taught me compared to those which Dot taught Julius and Jeanie. It really contrasted my life, where Julius and Jeanie were taught to rely on their mother.

I enjoyed the book, and I think it explored a lot of important topics, but for me it was just a bit too slow-paced.

A thoroughly enjoyable novel - with characters that I invested in and the most wonderful world-building. From a personal point of view, I found the ending a little bit difficult to deal with. But even months after reading this book, the setting and characters have stayed with me.

Sometimes the best novels creep up on you. They aren't big blockbusters. They are understated glimpses into a life other than your own, reflections of humanity.

Unsettled Ground is just one of those books. Claire Fuller explores the lives of Jeanie and Julius, twins who at 51 years old have never lived without their mother. When she passes away, the siblings are forced to navigate the world outside of their isolated cottage in order to survive.

Having been sheltered from a number of realities by their mother, the siblings struggle against a world and society which has at best little patience or kindness, and at worst is cruel and exploitative. As Julius begins to gain independence and form new relationships, Jeanie's peaceful and idyllic existence with her dog Maude in their cottage starts to unravel. This poignant exploration into the lives and relationships of the siblings highlights deeply personal experiences of death, grief, love, changing relationships and even finding your identity and place in the world. All of this is set against the backdrop of the British countryside, reflecting deep social issues in modern Britain.

As well as trying to navigate the present and plan for the future, Jeanie and Julius are confronted with their past. As secrets and lies are uncovered the twins must relearn what they thought they knew about themselves and their world. It isn't often that you see characters in their middle age portrayed so closely at all, never mind with such vulnerability.

Jeanie and Julius are possibly literature's most unassuming protagonists, but Fuller uncovers the harsh reality of rural isolation and poverty, not to mention how society treats those on it's margins, through their story. However, she also shows us the hope and resilience that can be found in even the toughest situations. We see glimpses of kindness triumph as people in the village offer their support, and we see the simple, but powerful bonds between the siblings themselves, and purer still between Jeanie and Maude. And finally, we see the unexpected strength of two people who society has left behind. Unsettled Ground is a powerful book which forces the reader to reflect on their own part in such a society, with quiet but complex characters who will stay with you long after the final page.

Unsettled Ground, by Claire Fuller
Publication Date: Now
Rating: 4/5
The opening of this novel is one of the most hard-hitting and profound pieces of writing that I've ever read. Fuller's dark, atmospheric writing grabs you with both hands, and pulls you into the novel headfirst. I found myself fascinated by Jeanie's and Julius' story, and loved following Jeanie around as she unearthed her mother's secrets. Betrayal, injustice, rejection and grief weave their way through this powerful story, and are as palpable as the characters themselves. I can easily see why this was short-listed for the Women's Prize

Another well written book by Clare Fuller and yet again a difficult subject at its heart. Twins Jeannie and Julian aged 51 and still living at home with their mother are distraught when she suddenly passes away. The basic and sheltered lives start to disintegrate around them and without their mothers support they are at a loss. As we read on, secrets their mum has been withholding are revealed and they strive to overcome them.

Not an easy read for me but I still recommend it.

Thanks to Netgalley the author and Fig Tree publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

The story revolves around a brother and sister, middle-aged twins, their lives turned upside down when their mother dies. There’s a darkness to the story but there’s also resilience and I just loved the character of Jeanie.

Family drama novel about parents, poverty and isolation

Content warning: themes of control, parental death

I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher. This is actually the second book I have read by this author and I was looking forward to it.

“Unsettled Ground” by Claire Fuller is a novel about twins Jeanie and Julius who unusually, at age 51, still live at home with their mother Dot in a small rural cottage in England. However when their mother suddenly dies, Dot’s carefully balanced, hand to mouth existence begins to crumble around them. The twins begin to realise just exactly how many secrets their mother was keeping from them, and how much she was keeping them from the rest of the world.

This is a disquieting novel that really resonated with me. When I was 18 years old, I lived in the West Midlands in the UK for about 6 months with relatives in a rural area, and Fuller really captured that village setting perfectly. Fuller unpacks in an incredibly realistic way have unnavigable society is for people who are disadvantaged, and examines in close detail the practicalities of life without access to a car, running water or electricity. I thought that Fuller handled writing about literacy difficulties especially well, and watching the recent TV documentary “Lost for Words” shortly afterwards helped me see just how accurately Fuller captured the stigma around lack of literacy but also the workarounds people develop to get by. The other thing I really liked about this book is the relentlessness of the life administration, even and especially in death, and how Dot doing everything for her children really left them unequipped to cope. Fuller pushes this scenario to its extreme, exploring each individual vulnerability to its limit while still remaining well within the realm of possibility.

While the setup for this book was extremely engaging, I’m not sure that in the end it landed. Fuller tiptoes around Dot’s character, and while I appreciate leaving some things to the imagination, there is never really much speculation about why she limited her children’s interaction with the outside world so much. Throughout the book, Jeanie and Julius learn more about their mother’s personal life through those closest to her, but never really why she had absolute control over the way the home was run and made absolutely no contingency plans whatsoever. Of course I accept that this happens all the time in real life, but in many ways Dot was the most interesting character in the book and we got only the faintest spectre. I also appreciate that people fall between the cracks, and it is hard to know what truly goes on in someone’s home. That being said, none of Dot’s friends seemed to think it was particularly strange that her two adult children in their 50s lived at home with her and had next to no life skills whatsoever.

Fuller proves again that she is a master of exploring the intricate and disturbing minutiae of an isolated life and if the ending is not full of drama, the journey certainly is.

Woah, the plot was unlike anything I’ve read before. Extremely memorable and at times uncomfortable to read. The two main sibling characters are superbly rich and complicated, their plight is both moving and gripping. I have to say I finished the book feeling a little emotionally exhausted and a bit like I’d been punched in the gut. Saying that it’s fantastically written and there is a glimmer of hope amongst the darkness,

A beautifully written book as ever by Claire Fuller that was worthy of nomination for the Women’s Prize, this is the story of Jeanie and Julius, twins who have led a very sheltered life. When their mother dies suddenly they are left without an anchor and struggle to make sense of their everyday lives.
Aged 51, Jeanie and Julius have to grow up overnight, having never had to make their own decisions before. It seems like the whole village in which they live know more of their mother’s secret than they do.
The characters are so well written that this book will leave you thinking of them for a long time after you have finished reading it. Another superb piece of writing by Claire Fuller.

We are in rural England, in a rundown cottage. It is cold and bleak, and twins Julius and Jeanie Seeder wake up to find their mother, Dot, dead on the kitchen floor. They are fifty-one, they are lonely, and they have never left home. Their father, Frank, was killed in a tractor accident, when they were twelve.“The different lives they might have lived are too enormous to comprehend.”

Until now, they have led a simple life on the edge of modern society. They have no television, no internet, no bank accounts. Julius works as a handyman, jumping from gig to gig. They grow their own vegetables in the garden, they have a dog, they tend their hens, they play folk music together. Now, everything is about to unravel, and nothing will be the same: “None of them are the people we thought they were.”

Jeanie and Julius don’t even have time to mourn Dot. They discover their mother was in debt; that she borrowed money; this money is nowhere to be found; and, to make matters worse, they are handed an eviction notice. Their life is about to fall apart, bit by bit. They will bury their mother and unearth a few secrets: their ground will shift under their feet, unsettled.

“’I don’t think you understand. We’re going to lose the cottage.’ Jeanie puts her palms on the table. The creature is in her throat. If she opens her mouth wide enough and screams, it will come sliding out, new-born and slippery, ready to fight.”

Fuller is a master at building tension and atmosphere, she excels at character development, and her writing is very rich and sensorial – but, plot-wise, the novel loses its grip at about two thirds of the way through, and the drama in the end feels a bit too rushed, too much.

Still, the book has thrown me inside Jeanie and Julius’ entrapment in homelessness, lies, and poverty – their lack of options, their awkward attempts at holding their small world together. I loved the novel’s underlying melancholy, and its shy tinge of hope. The animal in Jeanie’s heart is stirring. It must first be uprooted and its soil must be unsettled, before its seeds can find home and ripen anew.

I rated this book at 2 but it is really a 2.5 – I found it average, not bad but it didn’t blow my mind.

It seems to begin with the mystery of Dot’s death and Jeanie and Julius’ lives completely upturned, but the investigation and final solving of the story is quite frustrating and dragging. Some parts, like the link between Dot and Mr Rawson, are quite obvious since the very first pages but the uncovering of the mystery is woven into the plot so slowly that the idea the characters are unable or unwilling to see the truth becomes unnerving.

I enjoyed Fuller’s writing and the idea behind the book: two 51-year-old twins left clueless to themselves when their mother suddenly dies after a life of secrets and untold truths. Now Jeanie and Julius have to face the outside world unprepared to what life is really like and with no means against the ugliness and meanness of people.

Quite slow paced but certainly a book worth reading.

This is without doubt one of my stand out novels of 2021. I have read Claire Fuller novels before but Unsettled Ground absolutely raises the bar.
Unsettled Ground is the story of 51 year old twins, Jeannie and Julius and their Mum, Dot. They live together in a run down cottage, with a garden full of vegetables and herbs, a dog named Maude and some chickens. When Dot dies, the world outside comes flooding in and Jeannie and Julius must navigate the mechanics of modern life and the emerging truth of their past.
This is the kind of book which you want to linger over, marvelling at the story revealing itself and the delight of words so beautifully woven into sentences, laden with adjectives, calling to the reader’s every sense. The characters develop gradually through the story as little by little they are fleshed out: the determined, brave and kindly Jeannie, tending the land, nurturing its growth, shepherding her chickens and her beloved dog. Julius, devoted to his twin and his Mum, labouring to provide for the family but yearning to be somewhere else, to find other relationships, torn between both worlds. This book is quite simply perfect. I am so glad I read this slowly, I feel that if I read it again it will yield even more. I have had time to ponder on the use of the Scarborough Fair quote at the beginning of the book, to drink in the names of old fashioned plants, Angelica and lovage, apple blossom and red campion, and to wonder at the title, Unsettled Ground which seems to me to be a metaphor for so much that happens in the story.
With many thanks to Netgalley, Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking and Penguin for a digital copy of this book.

Yet another absolutely breath-taking book from Claire Fuller, who has long since been one of my favourite writers. It In addition to reexamining her usual themes of secrecy, deception and the complexity of human relationships, Fuller tackles the problems of poverty and illiteracy in an increasingly technological world which demands transparency and constant visibility - both technological and physical - from its occupants. While the novel does not give any definite answer to the questions it raises, there is nonetheless a certain consolation in the humanity and fallibility of Fuller's characters and their close relationship.

A story of middle-aged twins who after their mother dies find themselves evicted from their life long home, their lives overshadowed by tragedy and threatened when they are at the lowest. Beautifully written, the characters finely drawn and the author weaves a sense of menace into the narrative.