One mystery after another arises and two siblings who have been left behind by the modern world face changes both gentle and profound.Ī darkly poignant novel about an unusual family. shadowy family saga, which is marked by illicit love, violence and blood debts.Ī simple but powerful story of rural poverty, sibling relationships and, perhaps above all, resilience.Īn unnerving and emotional novel of family secrets, vulnerability and resilience.

In Unsettled Ground, award-winning author Claire Fuller masterfully builds a tale of sacrifice and hope, of homelessness and hardship, of love and survival, in which two marginalized and remarkable people uncover long-held family secrets and, in their own way, repair, recover, and begin again.

And just when it seems there might be a way forward, a series of startling secrets from their mother’s past come to the surface, forcing the twins to question who they are, and everything they know of their family’s history. Seeing a new future, Julius becomes torn between the loyalty he feels towards his sister and his desire for independence, while Jeanie struggles to find work and a home for them both. The cottage they love, and the security it offered, is taken back by their landlord, exposing the twins to harsh truths and even harsher realities. To an outsider, it looks like poverty to them, it is home.īut when Dot dies unexpectedly, the world they’ve so carefully created begins to fall apart.

Inside its walls, they make music, and in its garden, they grow everything they need to survive. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protection against the modernizing world around them. 'Full of dramatic twists and turns right up until its moving, beautiful end.' -NPR BooksĪt fifty-one years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation in the English countryside. Named a Best Book of the Month by Entertainment Weekly, PopSugar, Bustle, Chicago Review of Books, PureWow, a Best Book of Summer by Daily Beast and one of Good Housekeeping's Best Books of 2021 Finalist for the Women's Prize in Fiction

Unsettled ground book review