Bitter Orange is Claire Fuller’s third novel and it’s the third I’ve reviewed here. Our Endless Numbered Days made it on to my books of the year list in 2015 and I included Swimming Lessons on my (then) Baileys prize wish list last year. I’m something of a fan, as you can tell, so expectations were a tad high for her new one but I’m glad to report that Fuller has outdone herself. Set largely during the summer of 1969, Bitter Orange tells the story of three people thrown together by circumstance, two of whom have been commissioned to write a report on a dilapidated, abandoned English country mansion. As the summer wears on, an intimate friendship develops but who is telling the truth and who is not?
Fran lies on her deathbed recalling her summer at Lyntons twenty years ago. In 1969, just a few months after the domineering mother she had cared for most of her life had died, Fran was commissioned to survey the garden at Lyntons for its American owner. From her bare attic bedroom she watches two people caught up in disagreement: Peter whose job is to survey the house’s interior and his partner Cara, vividly alive and apparently Italian, or so Fran thinks. Fran barely sees either of these two for days until she’s invited to dinner by Cara, arriving trussed up in her mother’s formal wear to find Cara and Peter in déshabillé, no signs of dinner in preparation. Lonely, socially awkward and naïve, Fran assumes these two to be deeply in love but as she’s pulled into their orbit, listening to Cara’s story of how they got together then finding herself Peter’s confidante about Cara’s instability, Fran begins to wonder what the state of their relationship really is and increasingly drawn to Peter. Slowly but surely tensions rise.
Fuller sets her readers up for an absorbing but suspenseful read, throwing up questions at every turn while spilling clues and foreshadowing the future. Fran is a satisfying narrator, hinting at unreliability by telling us that her illness has destroyed her memory but that the events of 1969 are clear and vivid to her. She’s an expertly drawn character: a self-proclaimed voyeur, an outsider ripe for the intimate seduction of friendship that Cara seems to offer. Fuller treats us to a luxuriously long reveal which suits the novel’s vividly evoked sultry heat well, delivering a satisfying climax at its end. I would have enjoyed Bitter Orange whatever the weather but it turned out to be the perfect read for the early days of July when the UK was in the grips of a heat wave which looks set to make a reappearance.
Can’t wait to read this. It’s next on my pile.
I hope you love it as much as I did, Annabel. It sounds as if your reading might coincide with the hot weekend ahead.
I really like the sound of this one, although I have to admit (much to my shame): I have the two previous books by Claire Fuller on my Kindle and still haven’t read them.
I think you’d like her, Marina. She has a nice line in unreliable narrators.
She’s come and signed a pile of copies here at the shop, and I am SO EXCITED to send them out! It just ticks all the boxes, doesn’t it?
It certainly does, and it looks so beautiful too! Always a delight when publishers get the jacket right. I bet that pile of signed copies won’t last long.
Hearing so many good things about this book…and this author. On the strength of your comments about this one, I need to make an effort to read one of her books soon.
I’m sure you’d like her writing, Cathy. It’s both intelligent and inventive.
Good to read your review, Susan – I loved this book with a passion…!
Me, too, Anne. So much so I put it on my Man Booker wish list but the judges saw to differ. More fool them!
I’ve made it one of my choices for the Not the Booker instead…
That’s a great idea. I’ll join you.
I read and enjoyed Swimming Lessons so I’m sure I’ll like this one too.
I’m sure you will, too, Helen. A treat in store!
Brilliant review – really looking forward to this one 🙂 I loved Our Endless Numbered Days and I’m a huge fan of gothic, so it sounds like a win-win!
Thank you, Evie. This one sounds right up your alley, then! Hard not to swallow it in one gulp.
This does sound like a great read for the hot and heady days of summer. It’s had nothing but rave reviews. I think I read another piece somewhere which likened it to L. P Hartley’s The Go-Between, one of my favourite summer reads in recent years. High praise indeed!
I’d not seen that but it certainly is high praise, Jacqui. I’m a big fan of Fuller’s writing and I think she’s surpassed herself with this one. Oustanding piece of fiction!
Sounds good 🙂 I enjoyed Our Endless Numbered Days but I haven’t read Swimming Lessons yet. I need to catch up on my Fuller reading!
Swiming Lessons has the advantage of being in paperback, too, although I know you’re in book-buying ban land…
I will be seeing what the library has for me 🙂 I suspect there’ll be a waiting list for Bitter Orange…
Good plan, although I suspect you’re right about that waiting list.
I’ve never read anything by Fuller but keep hearing how good her novels are so should really get around to reading her one day
I’ve enjoyed them all, Karen, as you’ve probably gathered. It’s very pleasing to see such a talented writer steadily gathering a following.