Shy Creatures

Clare Chambers is the author of nine novels, including Small Pleasures, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She lives with her husband in southeast London.

"With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details." - New York Times on Small Pleasures

?"Gripping...penetrates the secret hopes and passionate inner lives of ordinary working people. The characters provoke so much empathy, readers may have trouble remembering that they're fictional." - Booklist on Small Pleasures

"There's compassion and quiet humour to be found in this tale of a putative virgin birth in postwar suburban London... Chambers's eye for drab, undemonstrative details achieves a Larkin-esque lucidity... The postwar suburban milieu of Chambers's work has drawn comparisons to Barbara Pym, although perhaps a closer parallel could be made with Anita Brookner, with whom she shares an interest in intelligent, isolated women destabilised by the effects of an unexpected and unsustainable love affair." - Alfred Hickling, Guardian (UK), on Small Pleasures

"I loved this novel, which simmers with repressed emotions, and the gut punch of an ending really stayed with me." - Jo Finney, Good Housekeeping Book of the Month, on Small Pleasures

"Small Pleasures is a tender and heart-rending tale that will draw you in from the first page and keep you gripped until the very end. Exquisitely compelling!" - Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things