Shy Creatures

Just as good - if not better - than Small PleasuresINDEPENDENT

As compelling as you want fiction to beSUNDAY TIMES

One of our most talented authorsGUARDIAN

Extraordinary FINANCIAL TIMES

It all started the weekend the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park . . .

Croydon, 1964. Art therapist Helen Hansford is working in a psychiatric hospital, where she has been having passionate but precarious affair with her married colleague, the charismatic Dr Gil Rudden.

Helens structured life is upended when William Tapping - a silent, thirty-seven-year-old man with a beard down to his waist - arrives at the hospital. As Helen helps William express himself through art, she becomes increasingly entangled in his mysterious past.

Inspired by a true story, Shy Creatures is a life-affirming exploration of loneliness, love and the quiet forces that shape our lives, reminding us that freedom can come in unexpected forms.

Reading a Clare Chambers novel can feel like entering a modest bungalow and finding yourself in a cathedralSUNDAY TIMES

A warm, multilayered mystery with all the charms of Small Pleasuresi PAPER

A lively, funny, forgiving novel PATRICK GALE

Chambers is such a humane writer and this novel is full of exquisite detailEVENING STANDARD

A beautiful story of unfolding secrets and unforeseen consequences HOLLY GRAMAZIO, author of THE HUSBANDS

*Small Pleasures was a Silver Award bestseller according to Nielsen BookScan UK, 10 November 2023