Learning To Swim

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Summary

From the highly-acclaimed author of SMALL PLEASURES - winner of the 2022 British Book Awards Page-Turner

Abigail Jex never expected to see any of the Radley household again.

The Radley's were extraordinary, captivating creatures transplanted from a bohemian corner of North London to outer suburbia, and the young Abigail found herself drawn into their magic circle: the eccentric Frances, her new best friend; Frances' mother, the liberated, headstrong Lexi; and of course the brilliant, beautiful Rad.

Abigail thought she'd banished the ghost of her life with them and the catastrophe that ended it, but thirteen years later a chance encounter forces her to acknowledge that the spell is far from broken...

Praise for Clare Chambers:

'Modern, intelligently observed and highly original' Daily Mail

'This delicious novel is a joy from beginning to end - a perfect novel' Lisa Jewell

'Charming - A funny and moving story with a great deal of style' Sunday Telegraph

'A spirited account of growing up and falling in love' Good Housekeeping

'An intelligent and escapist read - well written, and very funny' Daily Express

About the author

Clare Chambers

Clare Chambers was born in south east London in 1966. Her first novel, Uncertain Terms, was published when she was 25. She has since written nine further novels, including Learning to Swim (Century 1998) which won the Romantic Novelists' Association best novel award and In a Good Light (Century 2004) which was longlisted for the Whitbread best novel prize.

Clare began her career as a secretary at the publisher André Deutsch, when Diana Athill was still at the helm. They not only published her first novel, but made her type her own contract. In due course she went on to become an editor there herself, until leaving to raise a family and concentrate on her own writing. Some of the experiences of working for an eccentric, independent publisher in the pre-digital era found their way into her novel The Editor's Wife (Century, 2007).

Small Pleasures (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020) was her first novel in a decade and became a word-of-mouth hit. It was selected for BBC2 Between the Covers, and was chosen as a book of the year by The Times, the Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, and Spectator among others. It went on to win Pageturner of the Year at the British Book Awards and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Her latest novel is Shy Creatures (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2024).

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