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In a Good Light

Fr om the highly-acclaimed author of SMALL PLEASURES - longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021

Without even noticing, Esther Fairchild has become locked into routine.

Living with her adored brother, Christian, she divides her time between illustrating children's books, nightly shifts as a waitress, weekly visits to her father and fortnightly meetings with her married lover.

Then one day she encounters a face in the crowd which jolts her out of her mundane existence and makes her question both her life and the past that has helped to shape it. Memories she had long chosen to forget begin to resurface. Memories of an eccentric childhood in a large and shabby house, where the children were left to fend for themselves within the loose boundaries of their parents' unorthodox values. A chaotic existence peopled by a rich collection of feckless 'guests'.

And into this shambolic world came Donovan - regularly deposited by his unreliable mother - and Penny, Christian's girlfriend and Esther's idol. Until tragedy struck and shattered their joint existence. But now, it seems, their lives are about to become intertwined once more . . .


384 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

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About the author

Clare Chambers

23 books1,079 followers
Clare Chambers was born on 1966 in in Croydon, Surrey, England, UK, daughter of English teachers. She attended a school in Croydon. At 16, she met Peter, her future husband, a teacher 14 years old than her. She read English at Oxford. The marriage moved to New Zealand, where she wrote her first novel. She now lives in Kent with her husband and young family. In 1999, her novel Learning to Swim won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.

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485 reviews5 followers
November 15, 2022
Devo ancora trovare un libro di Clare Chambers che non mi piaccia. La sua scrittura è sempre affascinante, le ambientazioni semplici ma coinvolgenti. Una storia che non si vorrebbe smettere di leggere mai.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review