LoveReading Says
An atmospheric, stormy beauty of a read which made me positively ache for the characters. As Frances lies on her deathbed she revisits the summer of 1969 when she met Cara and Peter at an abandoned country house, as the summer progresses vulnerabilities are highlighted and tragedy strikes. Claire Fuller peels open the lives of the characters with exquisite care.
Feelings spin and slice across the page, freedom, isolation, menace all tumbling together in an uncertain dance. The house is a hugely important part of the tale, creating a setting that alternates between forsaken and decadent. Whenever the story left Lyntons, whether to the village beyond or the Frances of now, I felt an easing of pressure, I was able to relax muscles sitting in tense anticipation.
‘Bitter Orange’ sets a chilling yet poignant stage and allows access to the memories of the past, the emotions are touchable, the ending so perfect it hurt.
Featured in Episode 5 of the LoveReading Podcast
About Bitter Orange
From the attic of a dilapidated English country house, she sees them - Cara first: dark and beautiful, clinging to a marble fountain of Cupid, and Peter, an Apollo. It is 1969 and they are spending the summer in the rooms below hers while Frances writes a report on the follies in the garden for the absent American owner. But she is distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she discovers a peephole which gives her access to her neighbours' private lives.
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Claire Fuller Press Reviews
Rich and compelling. Fuller is an accomplished writer - Observer
Reminds me of JL Carr's A Month in the Country, Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, and Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Incredibly atmospheric, vivid, and intriguing. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't reading a forgotten classic. - Emma Healey
A stealthy shocker about thwarted desire. A sinister, slow-burn tale that saves its most heart-wrenching revelation for last - Metro
A delicate and disturbing read, alive with love, lust, envy and guilt - S Magazine
A twisty, thorny, darkly atmospheric page turner about loneliness and belonging - Gabriel Tallent, author of My Absolute Darling
As haunting as tuberose and delicate as a scalpel - Laline Paull
Bitter Orange reads like an assured, old-school, du Maurieresque classic. It's an atmospheric page-turner that speeds us towards a bloody climax of shocks and surprises - Irish Times
Heady, claustrophobic . . . makes for perfect heatwave reading. Echoes Penelope Lively's Booker-winning Moon Tiger, Anita Brookner's Look At Me, and Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger - Independent
A rich and hypnotic read - Tatler
A sinister story that considers the terrifying lengths people will go to escape their pasts. In the vein of Shirley Jackson's bone-chilling The Haunting of Hill House, Fuller's disturbing novel will entrap readers in its twisty narrative, leaving them to reckon with what is real and what is unreal. An intoxicating, unsettling masterpiece. - Kirkus
Sinister and suspenseful, this gothic novel simmers with guilt, lust and envy - Mail on Sunday
Bewitching, otherworldly . . . full of dark foreboding. Claire Fuller is a dazzling storyteller. - Scotsman
It is rare for me to put down a novel and then immediately consider rereading it to see what cleverness I might have missed. This time, though, I am tempted. - Lucy Atkins, Sunday Times
This darkly smouldering, desperately sad, superior psychological thriller contains shades of Zoe Heller's Notes On A Scandal - Daily Mail
A compulsive page-turner. Fuller creates an atmosphere of simmering menace with all the assurance of a latter-day Daphne du Maurier - The Times
A rich, dark pressure cooker of a novel that simmers with slow heat and suppressed tension - Ruth Ware
Dark, beautifully written. It reminds me very much of Ian McEwan's Atonement, with similar slow-build tension and claustrophobic atmosphere - The Pool
An exquisite and skilfully written novel, which worms its way under your skin while Frances's loneliness seeps off every page - Red
Fuller is a master at summoning the atmosphere of a heady, hot summer that thrums with tension - Stylist
Multi-layered, lush, twisty and brilliantly clever - The Sunday Mirror
A smart creation from a skilled writer: a heady psychological novel that builds its layers carefully to allow gradual revelations and stomach-churning surprises - Financial Times
Beautiful and sinister with a gothic thriller feel - Prima
Atmospheric. Rich, clever and very readable. - Amanda Craig, Telegraph
Full of complex characters and narrative richness - The Sunday Times Culture
Loneliness, guilt and atonement are at the heart of the atmospheric Bitter Orange - Good Housekeeping
Naturally engaging and elegantly written. Fuller is an amply gifted storyteller - Spectator
With shades of Brideshead and Manderley, Claire Fuller's atmospheric third novel plays a satisfyingly unpredictable game with reader expectations. Prepare to be meticulously unsettled and horribly enthralled - Country Life
Full of dark foreboding. Claire Fuller is a dazzling storyteller - Belfast Telegraph
Cannily releasing clues on the way to an explosive finale . . . The lush setting and remarkable characters make for an immersive mystery - Publishers Weekly
Elegant, atmospheric, vivid - The Big Issue
