Learning To Swim

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I am delighted to see that Audible are going to release some of Clare Chambers' books (including this one) before the end of the month. Clare’s gift for storytelling and her quirky but incredibly accessible style make her novels a sheer joy to read. Abigail Jex never expected to see any of the Radley household again, and thought that 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. In dramatic contrast to her own conventional family, 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.

And I found it strange that she started spending all her time with the Radleys, not to mention the fact that she never spoke to Abigail again after she was broken-hearted and instead started going out with Rad all by herself. I really enjoyed the first half of this book, however I did feel it dragged on a little, and I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending which felt somewhat anticlimactic. I wasn't glued to the book wanting to know what would happen next; instead I read it slowly as though savouring a good wine. A light read, well written, but a somewhat unoriginal story - teenager drawn into the life of her school friend's eccentric family, with added romance and some family secrets, playing out over a couple of decades.Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. I had the sense that Clare Chambers' characters had taken over the plot and then left her in the lurch as to what to do with them. I also felt that Abigail let Rad off with way too much-I'm not sure I would have been that forgiving. The smart wit and brilliant characters remind me a little of Kate Atkinson but comparisons are in some ways unfair because this author has her own unique voice and style and should be recognised in her own right, which now after the success of Small Pleasures I hope and think she is. 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.

I did see a couple of the mini twists coming but that took little away from a thoroughly enjoyable book. Perfect holiday reading, but I don't mean by that to disparage the writing or brand it as merely lightweight. On the other hand certain episodes seemed unlikely to me, even for the Radleys, in particular the scene which causes Rad to be so angry with Abigail. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's daily session limit. She studied English at Oxford and spent the year after graduating in New Zealand, where she wrote her first novel, Uncertain Terms, published when she was 25.It’s a story about friendship and inter-family relationships and although the pace is fairly slow at times the author draws you in with her descriptive style of writing. Clare Chambers's writing reads so effortlessly, it's like you're reading something you wrote yourself, as she adds some thoughts about life that you'll probably identify with.