She also has a wonderfully creative side and musical talent. It's moving the way we follow her uneasy steps in trying to adjust to living in the larger world and how she falls into desperate circumstances. But there's also a danger to this insular pastoral lifestyle because now she's a middle-aged woman who has never had a paid job and who can only read at an extremely rudimentary level. Jeanie's life has been fairly harmonious up until this point keeping her garden, playing music and enjoying the steady companionship of her family. It's a heartrending story, but also a compassionate portrait of individuals not often represented in fiction. Gradually family secrets are uncovered as their impoverished situation becomes increasingly dire.

But when Dot dies at the very beginning of the novel these sheltered adults struggle to manage the practical difficulties of keeping the cottage, paying the debt their mother has left behind and determining how their lives will continue going forward. Twins Jeanie and Julius are 51 years old and have lived here their whole lives with their mother Dot. Fuller's settings are typically in remote locations and this new novel primarily revolves around a cottage on a rural farm and country estate. I've read and admired all of her novels ever since her debut “Our Endless Numbered Days”. It was thrilling to see Claire Fuller's “Unsettled Ground” recently listed on this year's Women's Prize for Fiction.

Claire fuller unsettled ground review