Unsettled Ground by critically acclaimed author Claire Fuller (Bitter Orange; Our Endless Numbered Days) is a moving portrait of two unusual siblings desperate to find a place to belong in their small, rural English hometown. Fifty-one-year-old twins Jeanie and Julius have always lived with their mother, Dot, tending to the garden near their small, rented cottage. But when Dot dies suddenly, and the cottage landlords claim the twins owe years' worth of rent, Jeanie and Julius find themselves overwhelmed by both grief and poverty as they face eviction. While Jeanie scrambles to find a job and a way to hold onto their home, Julius begins to see that there may be ways to live other than the limited and dependent life their difficult mother led them to.
Fuller's ability to craft nuanced and affecting characters is on full display in Unsettled Ground. Jeanie in particular stands out as a lesser-seen heroine who may stumble through the unrelenting obstacles in her way, but nonetheless holds tight to her loyalties, convictions and desires to carve out a small and quiet place for herself in a fast-changing and often unforgiving world. Like Fuller's other novels, Jeanie and Julius's story is tinged with a haunting atmosphere of loss. From a worn wooden piano rutted in mud to a rusted and gutted camper lost deep in the woods, the novel is filled with evocative images that embody the deep-rooted pathos of the book's setting and characters. And while the slow-burn tension of the plot builds gradually, the unexpectedly explosive climax will reward reader anticipation in this devastating and contemplative family drama. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor