Book description
When aspiring novelist Christopher Flinders drops out of university
to write his masterpiece (in between shifts as a fish delivery man and
builder's mate), his family is sceptical.
But when he is taken up by the London editor Owen Goddard and his
charming wife Diana it seems success is just around the corner.
Christopher's life has so far been rather short of charm - growing up
in an unlovely suburb, with unambitious parents and a semi-vagrant
brother - and he is captivated by his generous and cultured mentors.
However, on the brink of realising his dream, Christopher makes a
desperate misjudgement which results in disaster for all involved.
Shattered, he withdraws from London and buries himself in rural
Yorkshire, embracing a career and a private life marked by mediocrity.
Twenty years on a young academic researching into Owen Goddard seeks
him out, and Christopher is forced to exhume his past, setting him on
a path to a life-changing discovery.
Clare Chambers was born in Croydon in 1966 and read English at
Oxford. She wrote her first novel,
Uncertain Terms
, during a year in New Zealand, after which she worked as an editor for
a London publisher. She is also the author of
In A Good Light
,
Back Trouble
,
A Dry Spell
and
Learning to Swim
, which won the 1999 Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award. She lives
in Kent with her husband and three children.
