Author: Claire Fuller

The Imposters by Tom Rachman

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

The Imposters is the second novel where Tom Rachman has chosen to tell the narrative in short stories. He did the same with his debut, The Imperfectionists. Maybe I didn’t like it quite as much as that book, and my favourite is still The Italian Teacher, but The Imposters has made me no less of a Rachman fan.

Dora is an aging Dutch writer whose last novel didn’t sell, and who seems to want to give up writing, but then appears to be writing the book we’re reading, taking memories from her own life and expanding those into stories about other people.

Some of the stories are incredibly moving, disturbing and wonderful. The best of them would be my favourite stories of the year, but of course in any story collection, even those that form a novel, there will be some that are less successful.

The best include a girl backpacking in India in the 1970s when one of the men she meets disappears and there is nothing to be done; Beck, a comedy writer in LA stuck inside during COVID; Amir detained and then tortured in an Iranian prison; and woman who decides to meet the murderer of her children.

Read it and forgive Rachman for Dora and the slightly weaker stories. Highly recommended.

*

Buy The Imposters by Tom Rachman from Bookshop.org.

I listened to this as an audio book from Xigxag. Buy it here.  

*
If you’re not already, would you like to subscribe to my monthly newsletter? Updates about my next novel, what I’ve been reading, tailored recommendations and more. Sign up here.  

Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

It was a joy (in the saddest way) to read this straightforward story about the death of Sarah Perry’s father in law, David.

I have been tired for a long time of memoirs about death, bereavement, grief or illness that feel the need to bring in some kind of healing journey or action. I think I was was tired of them before H is for Hawk and that was quite a while ago.

This story, told simply and very beautifully (I underlined so many sentences) documents David’s cancer diagnosis and only nine days later his death. Sarah writes about the facts and about her feelings, including the frustrations, the irritations and the love. There is so much love in this book, and it moved me to tears.

I suppose I am in place (dealing with, thinking about the recent death of my own father albeit in utterly different circumstances) where I am open to the message that its helpful to talk (write) about death in the most uncomplicated ways, but still, I recommend it to all. 

Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry will be published on 2nd October 2025. You can pre-order it from Bookshop.org here.

If you’re not already, would you like to subscribe to my monthly newsletter? Updates about my next novel, what I’ve been reading, tailored recommendations and more. Sign up here.  

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

/ Claire Fuller / 2 Comments

Five big stars for The Friend by Sigrid Nunez. I chose this book for the book club I run at the Cabinet Rooms in Winchester. It was pretty divisive, with lots of people actively disliking it, but I adored it.

An unnamed narrator is a writer and creative writing teacher living in Manhattan when a close friend of hers – someone she had a brief affair with and is also a writer and teacher – kills himself. The narrator is persuaded by the man’s widow to look after his Great Dane, Apollo even though her apartment doesn’t allow pets. This rather slight story is interspersed with musings about creative writing teaching, loss, suicide, friendship and much more. My father had recently taken his own life when I read it, and rather than it distressing me because of the links (I am still distressed by everything, so a book makes no difference) it brought everything into focus.


And it made a brilliant book club book even though many people hated it. There was so much to discuss and some of the things other members pointed out were brilliantly revealing.

Buy it from Bookshop.org here.

If you’re not already, would you like to subscribe to my monthly newsletter? Updates about my next novel, what I’ve been reading, tailored recommendations and more. Sign up here.  

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

/ Claire Fuller / 1 Comment

I love how whatever Ian McEwan writes surprises me. He hasn’t settled for a genre and I like that it feels as though he’s still playing and enjoying himself.

In What We Can Know, which will be published in September, it’s about 100 years in the future from now, the seas have risen and in England only islands remain. Tom, an academic, is obsessed with a lost poem from about 2014 written by a famous poet for his wife, Vivian, whom Tom also obsesses over to the detriment of his own relationship with Rose.

The first part of the book is Tom’s search, both in surviving papers and then via an actual treasure hunt (I love this bit especially), where Tom tries to piece together where the poem might be and what it is about. The second of the novel is the ‘true’ story, which I also really enjoyed, although none of it came as a revelation (maybe it wasn’t supposed to). But of course, there is throughout the brilliant McEwan writing, and the easy story-telling. I really enjoyed this.

Does this sound appealing? Are you going to be reading it?

Buy it from Bookshop.org UK here.

Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

Well, that was brilliant, and weird.

It’s the late 1970s in California and housewife Dorothy lives with her husband Fred whose been having affairs since their son died and Dorothy miscarried a daughter. She hears on the radio that a monster / frogman has escaped from a nearby laboratory. Later that evening as she is cooking dinner for Fred and a colleague, the frogman who introduces himself as Larry walks into Dorothy’s kitchen. She gives him some celery and he eats it. She lets him stay in the spare room without Fred knowing and she and Larry start a relationship – sexual, emotional, loving. Dorothy tells no one, including her best friend, Estelle…

Ingalls packs so much into this novella (really a long short story): grief, difference, frustration, feminism, female friendship and more. I loved it. We read it for book club (my choice) and there was surprisingly, a lot to discuss, and it was mostly well liked. 

Thanks to Gina Chung for bringing it to my attention when she chose her three Books Under the Radar.

Buy Mrs Caliban from Bookshop.org or follow my Books at Breakfast on Instagram.

About Claire Fuller

/ Claire Fuller / 1 Comment

I’m a novelist and short fiction writer. I studied sculpture at Winchester School of Art and didn’t begin writing fiction until I was 40, after many years working as a co-director of a marketing agency. I have a Masters (distinction) in Creative and Critical Writing from The University of Winchester. I live near Winchester, England with my husband and a cat called Alan, and I have two grown-up children.

My five published novels are: The Memory of Animals, (2023);  Unsettled Ground (2021) (which won the Costa Novel Award 2021, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction); Bitter Orange (2019) (longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award); Swimming Lessons (2017) (shortlisted for the Encore Prize for second novels, and Livre de Poche Prize in France); and Our Endless Numbered Days (2015) (winner of the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction). They have been translated into more than twenty languages.

People say that the thing that brings them all together is that none of them are alike. But they are all literary fiction with strong stories. Some of them are dark, some of them are darker than others.

My sixth novel, Hunger and Thirst will be published in May 2026 in the UK, and June 2026 in the US and Canada.

Scroll down to buy my books.

My short stories have been published in many literary journals and shortlisted in prizes. Baker, Emily and Me, won the 2014 BBC Opening Lines competition (read it here), and my story, A Quiet Tidy Man, won the Royal Academy and Pin Drop short story award 2016, (Listen to Juliet Stevenson reading it), and it has been included in the Pin Drop / Simon & Schuster anthology: A Short Affair. My most recent story, Another Land Beneath was published in the 2025 collection, Unquiet Guests.

*

I am represented by Jane Finigan from Lutyens & Rubinstein.

*

I also teach writing on various short courses. I have taught fiction at Arvon, short story writing at Winchester Writer’s Festival, and at Jane Austen’s House Museum, and flash fiction at The End of the Road Festival. Get in touch if you’d like me to teach a writing course. Forthcoming courses can be found on my events page.

*

And finally, I have judged many competitions including the Bridport Novel Prize, ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award, Jane Austen 200, Rye Literature Festival, Reflex Fiction Flash Fiction, the Raymond Carver short story contest, and Faversham Short Story competition. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss me judging your fiction writing competition.

*

Buy my books


Buy my books from Bookshop.org in the UK

Buy my books from Bookshop.org in the US

Buy my books from Indigo in Canada

Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

I’m not sure where I saw Whose Names are Unknown by Sonora Babb recommended but at some point I put it on my presents list and my Librarian Husband bought it for me.

It was written in the 1930s and bought by Random House but never published by them because five months later The Grapes of Wrath was published and sold 430,000 copies and they believed it covered the same ground.

The Dunne family, mother, father, grandfather, and two daughters are barely getting by farming in Oklahoma when the dust storms arrive. Their neighbours are struggling too and everything depends on the crops surviving. When they don’t, the family scrabble the money together to buy a car and leave for California. There, things are different but just as bad. This is a story about small farmers not making a living, being hungry and being poor in America. It’s also about the very start of unionisation.

I really enjoyed it, if enjoy can be the word.

Buy it from Bookshop.org

Follow Claire’s Books at Breakfast on Instagram

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

I loved the dark undercurrent of The Book of Guilt, a looming sense of foreboding, knowing that something was very wrong, but not being able to work out what is was. Chidgey is a master at drip-feeding the right amount of information at the right time.


In an alternative 1970s England, three identical brothers are the last remaining boys looked after by Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon, and Mother night. The rest of the occupants of their peculiar children’s home have either died from the Bug or have got better and been taken the the mythical Margate. Vincent is the narrator and we discover what is actually going on at the same time as he does.
We also meet Nancy, living in Exeter with her parents who never let her leave the house. And also the Minister for Loneliness, responsible for dismantling the Sycamore Homes where the boys live.


There are clear parallels with Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro, but The Book of Guilt is more about the political and is perhaps slightly less literary. I really enjoyed it and it kept surprising me with its twists and turns. Buy it from Bookshop.org

Follow Claire’s Books at Breakfast on Instagram

7 Gripping Novels Full of Suspense

/ Claire Fuller / Leave a comment

An open vintage book page displaying detailed black and white illustrations of various bats.
Photo by focal insight photography on Unsplash

This article was originally written for Crime Reads.

Mysteries or Suspense

Publishers, booksellers, and many readers like to know the genre of a novel. Where will it sit on the bookstore shelf? How to categorise it online? Which types of readers will it appeal to?

Sometimes it’s easy to slot a book into a category or genre: romance, crime, or indeed, mystery. But there are lots of novels which are too slippery for that. They have plenty of suspense and often a good dose of secrets and the unexplained to propel the story forward, even though their premise is not built around a central mystery which follows a trail to a satisfying conclusion.

My novels have often been categorised as mysteries and although I’m okay with that, I don’t write them with that genre in mind. But I do try to use suspense in a number of ways. In my fourth novel, Unsettled Ground, a close reader might see some clearly placed clues in the first chapter, but whether a reader does spot them or not, the suspense which builds and the revelations that are scattered throughout the novel are more about the protagonist, Jeanie, discovering these surprises, rather than the reader.

One way a skilled writer can create suspense is to make us – the readers – develop it in our own minds. Leave just enough unsaid, and we will fill in the gaps. And the images in our heads are always worse than the reality. That’s why a writer or a screenwriter should never actually show the monster.

Another way to create suspense is to not allow the reader inside the head of the character who is able to provide the answers, and instead show us only glimpses through the eyes of others. Or alternatively, have the reader so close inside the protagonist’s head we experience their confusion and are kept in the dark for as long as they are.

Sometimes writers will show us the “terrible thing” right at the start of the book, and then circle back in time, as with The Secret History by Donna Tartt. There’s no mystery about what was done or who did it, but the suspense is created by making us guess when it is going to come and why the terrible thing was done.

Whichever suspense techniques I might use, when a reader contacts me after they’ve read one of my books to tell me that the suspense kept them reading long into the night, I know I’ve done my job.

Here are seven recommended novels which aren’t mysteries but are full of suspense. Click on the images to purchase on Bookshop.org where available:

Continue reading →

From Editing to Publication: How a Book makes it onto Book Shop Shelves. Copyedits

/ Claire Fuller / 5 Comments

This is the second part in a series about how my next book, Hunger and Thirst moves through the process of editing to arriving onto bookshop shelves. The first part covered structural and line edits with my UK and US editors at Fig Tree/ Penguin and Tin House / Zando. And in this part I’m going to be looking at copyedits which I’ve just finished checking for my US editor.

What are copyedits?

Copyedits are done on a novel to check for inconsistencies, missing words, repetition of words, that the publisher’s house style is being used, and many more things. Is a character’s eyes blue at the start of the book and brown at the end? Are capital letters and italics used in the right place? I’ve even had a copyeditor spot a plot hole in a previous book that no one else had. They are life savers.

Continue reading →