Unsettled Ground

De: Claire Fuller

Narrado por: Kim Bretton

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

From the award-winning author of Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons, and Bitter Orange comes a brilliant novel about an unusual family held together by a string of lies, a small town with too many questions, and a sudden death that threatens to undo them all.

©2021 Claire Fuller (P)2021 Audible, Inc.

Moving and utterly brilliant!

Gorgeously written and brilliantly performed by Kim Bretton this modern folktale had me gripped from start to finish. Such memorable characters. I'll be thinking about this audiobook for a long time....

Great Book

Loved it This is great book. Every time you thought you knew what was going to happen you are surprised!

Very strange and sad story

This book is not what I expected or hoped. The narrator's voice was quite dry and the accents used were all over the place. The story itself was depressing and full of unanswered questions.

Weirdly engaging.

Not bad but found the two main characters annoying - unable to get out of their own ways.

Truly Sad!

Very well written sad & depressing story. Some hope at the end though. When love inhibits and suffocates- is it love or selfishness? I wonder. I have to read something light hearted after this.

Fantastic reader!!!

A nailbiting, entertaining read! What made this thriller come to life was the narration! The reader placed you smack in the story with voices so believable whic allowed the listener the privilege of really knowing the characters!

For a minute I thought I was in 1920s Ireland

A disappointing novel. The descriptions of poverty and homelessness was full of pathos, primroses and pity. A misunderstanding, folk-singer siblings, a kindly gossip, a nasty lad, a woke young single-mother, subsistence farming, a mean-spirited wealthy landowner, a freckled and feckless lass …

Yet we have smart-phones and an up-market deli in a tiny village, and references to the effects of Brexit on the cost of organic milk. Plus an apparently generous welfare system idealized and exaggerated, appearing suddenly story-years after the damage is done.

Verging at times on Mills and Boon albeit a well-written one, I was uncertain what century or country I was in. In the cottage gardens reminiscent of those of Agnes in Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, 51 year old Jeannie tends her vegetables with love when she is not cooking, cleaning, worrying about overdue bills, or playing folk music about lovelorn villagers. Meanwhile twin brother Julius spends time doing odd-jobs and having a pint, or suffering PTS by throwing up if he has to sit in a car.

The narration is maudlin middle-class English which does not sit well with the underlying Irish vibe. Chapters are announced with the emotion of the previously read chapter, which is disconcerting. As is the nasal accent of the upper-class landowner, contrasting jarring with the dulcet tones that fit perfectly with the well-written descriptions of povert. If only that there weren’t so many of them.

I can’t write any more or I’d spoil-pun-intended the story, and I would never do that. Or would I?

Loved it. Unique and interesting. Strong female lead.

More of this please! We need to hear from strong, albeit “outside the box”, women. Gloriously written and strong performance. My only tweak, the very strong accent could be a little softer.

New author to follow!

4.25 stars for Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller. This strange little story about 50 year old twins who live with their mother and are forced to start taking care of themselves after she passes away (literally in the first paragraph - not a spoiler!) was just weirdly addictive. I never fully knew where this book was going and I think that kept me compulsively turning the pages. If you like unique tellings or reading books that just don't quite fit into genre comfortably - this is for you. I was constantly arguing with the main characters in this story - Jeanie and Julius - who were frustratingly clueless about functioning as adults after their mother died, but that internal dialogue is proof I was invested in finding out what was going to happen next. This odd ball of a book really has a bit of everything tossed into the mix ~ dysfunctional family drama, some secrets and mystery, and some cultural and psychological elements as well. The best comparison I have to it is Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. I personally LOVE a unique story with a bit of weirdness to keep me interested and I enjoyed this one so much I immediately downloaded another title by Claire Fuller, The Memory of Animals, which was also very different and equally good.