Shy Creatures

From the author of bestselling sensation Small Pleasures comes a life-affirming exploration of love, loneliness and the quiet forces that shape our lives.
'Beautiful, tender, moving. Clare Chambers is a genius'
INDIA KNIGHT

'A warm, multi-layered mystery brimming with all the same nostalgia, wit and tenderness as Small Pleasures'
i PAPER

'Like entering a modest bungalow and finding yourself in a cathedral'
SUNDAY TIMES

'One of our most talented authors'
GUARDIAN

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 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.

'As compelling as you want fiction to be'
SUNDAY TIMES

'Extraordinary'
FINANCIAL TIMES

'A lively, funny, forgiving novel'
PATRICK GALE

'Chambers is such a humane writer and this novel is full of exquisite detail'
EVENING STANDARD

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