Shy Creatures

From the author of bestselling sensation Small Pleasures comes an extraordinary story of love, family and the joy of freedom.

'Clare Chambers is a genius' — India Knight

'Just as good - if not better - than Small Pleasures' — Independent

'As compelling as you want fiction to be' — Sunday Times

'One of our most talented authors' — Guardian

'Extraordinary' — Financial Times

It all started the weekend the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park...

Croydon, 1964. Art therapist Helen Hansford is working in a psychiatric hospital, where she has been having passionate but precarious affair with her married colleague, the charismatic Dr Gil Rudden.

Helen's structured life is upended when William Tapping — a silent, thirty-seven-year-old man with a beard down to his waist — arrives at the hospital. As Helen helps William express himself through art, she becomes increasingly entangled in his mysterious past.

Inspired by a true story, Shy Creatures is a life-affirming exploration of loneliness, love and the quiet forces that shape our lives, reminding us that freedom can come in unexpected forms.

'Reading a Clare Chambers novel can feel like entering a modest bungalow and finding yourself in a cathedral' — Sunday Times

'A warm, multilayered mystery with all the charms of Small Pleasures' — i Paper

'A lively, funny, forgiving novel' — Patrick Gale

'Chambers is such a humane writer and this novel is full of exquisite detail' — Evening Standard

'A beautiful story of unfolding secrets and unforeseen consequences' — Holly Gramazio, author of The Husbands

*Small Pleasures was a Silver Award bestseller according to Nielsen BookScan UK, 10 November 2023