Claire Fuller for Hunger & Thirst

'An absolute masterpiece.

Utterly absorbing, genuinely unsettling' - Jennie Godfrey'Atmospheric, psychologically vivid, and unputdownable' - Alice WinnWe're delighted to be welcoming the Costa Award winning and Women's Prize shortlisted author, Claire Fuller, to the bookshop this May.We'll be talking all things _Hunger & Thirst,_ an addictive, propulsive, and unsettling work of literary horror.

She is a favourite amongst our booksellers.We hope to see you there.1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job in the postroom of a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and-delightfully- some new friends, including wild-child, Sue.

When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can't resist the promise of a readymade, hodgepodge family.__But as Sue's behaviour and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry-for food-and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend's terrible dare.

It's a decision that will haunt her for decades.__Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker who is digging into an unsolved disappearance.

But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula's whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.__From critically acclaimed and award-winning author, Claire Fuller, Hunger and Thirst is a compelling and chilling tale of loneliness and female friendship, of the dangerous line between wanting and needing, and of how far a person will go to truly belong._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.