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- Small pleasures : a novel / by Chambers, Clare,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.1957, south-east suburbs of London. Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and on the brink of forty living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a friend, and her quirky and charming daughter Margaret a sort of surrogate child. And Jean doesn't mean to fall in love with Gretchen's husband, Howard, but Howard surprises her with his dry wit, his intelligence and his kindness and when she does fall, she falls hard. But he is married, and to her friend who is also the subject of the story she is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness. But there will be a price to pay, and it will be unbearable.- Subjects: Historical fiction.; Interpersonal relations; Miracles; Mothers and daughters; Women journalists;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Shy creatures : a novel / by Chambers, Clare,author.;
"The London suburb of Croydon, 1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she's an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor. One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she's admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors, with only his two now-deceased aunts for company. Westbury Park becomes his refuge. When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man's past, Helen's own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel ... "--- Subjects: Historical fiction.; Bildungsromans.; Novels.; Adultery; Art teachers; Artists; Man-woman relationships; Psychiatric hospital patients; Psychiatric hospitals; Secrecy; Social isolation;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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