Bitter Orange

2020 Longlist

It is 1969 and Cara and Peter are spending the summer in the rooms below Frances. To Frances’ surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to spend time with her. It is the first occasion that she has had anybody to call a friend, and before long they are spending every day together: eating lavish dinners, drinking bottle after bottle of wine, and smoking cigarettes. It becomes clear that not everything is right between Cara and Peter. The stories that Cara tells don’t quite add up  and as Frances becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of the glamorous, hedonistic couple, the boundaries between truth and lies, right and wrong, begin to blur. Amid the decadence of that summer, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand all their lives forever.

About the Author

Claire Fuller was born in England. Her first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days, won the Desmond Elliot Prize and was a finalist for the ABA Adult Debut Book of the Year Award and the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester.

Librarian’s Comments

A story that takes the reader to the dark places of human emotions. Unreliable narrators keep you off balance as you join the life of a young, previously friendless woman who becomes enmeshed with a couple whose hedonistic lifestyle she finds both troubling and enviable.  Cape Breton Regional Library, Canada