Bitter Orange

FROM THE COSTA AWARD-WINNING, WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF UNSETTLED GROUND
Frances Jellico is dying. A man who calls himself the vicar visits, hoping to extract a deathbed confession. He wants to know what really happened that fateful summer of 1969, when Frances - tasked with surveying a dilapidated country house - first set eyes on the glamorous bohemian couple, Cara and Peter. She recalls the relationship they forged through sweltering days, lavish dinners and elaborate lies, and the Judas hole through which she would spy on the couple. Were the signs there right from the beginning?
Or was it impossible to avoid the crime that split their lives open like rotten fruit?
'Compulsive ... A latter-day Daphne du Maurier' THE TIMES
'Clever, compelling ... A rewarding slow burn' PAULA HAWKINS
'Bewitching, otherworldly ... full of dark foreboding. Claire Fuller is a dazzling storyteller' SCOTSMAN
'Sinister and suspenseful, this gothic novel simmers with guilt, lust and envy' MAIL ON SUNDAY
'A darkly smouldering, superior psychological thriller' DAILY MAIL

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn't start writing until she was forty. She has written five previous novels including: Unsettled Ground, which in 2021 won the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.