Swimming Lessons is a character-driven novel about a family, a love, a marriage, and how hope can be the worst thing sometimes. Here, the hope of Gil Coleman and his daughters, Nan and Flora, has haunted the family for twelve years, ever since Ingrid Coleman (Gil's wife and the girls' mother) disappeared and was never found. Though Ingrid presumably drowned, the lack of a concrete answer plagues the family: could that woman disappearing around the corner be her? Could the phone ringing in the middle of the night be their mother finally wanting to return home? It's a beautiful, quiet, sometimes eerie novel. On the one hand, it's simply a compelling story of people's lives - from Flora's perspective in the present, and through Ingrid's letters that reveal the history of her relationship with Gil - but on the other, it constantly has the reader wondering what is real. Did Gil really see Ingrid that day? Or is it the delusions of an old man keeping Ingrid alive? The best parts of the story are Ingrid's letters. They weave a tale of a young woman who gets caught up in a love affair with her enigmatic college professor, before becoming pregnant and settling into a troubled marriage. Secrets emerge and tragedy arises, all in the author's straight-forward, non-manipulative style. "All books are created by the reader." I really loved, perhaps most of all, the running theme of how the reader brings their own interpretations and experiences to a book. Early on, we see a young Gil collecting used books with notes in the margin, because he believes these are special little insights into the readers themselves. And then, of course, Ingrid's story and all the answers Gil, Nan and Flora seek are hidden within the books of Gil's collection. Ingrid leaves her letters - and little pieces of herself - behind in the books scattered around the house, meaning the answers were always right there, within reach. The author leaves us with this thought-provoking message: books contain the stories of the readers, are defined and interpreted by the readers; no two readers ever read the same book, or leave the same things behind in it.

I was so impressed by Claire Fuller's debut novel, Our Endless Numbered Days. I read it pre-publication and I was delighted when it went on to be such a huge success, and won the Desmond Elliott Book Prize 2015. It's not only the author that has the 'dreaded second novel' fear, readers get it too. We wait in anticipation for the next release, but have that inner fear too. What if it's not as good as novel one? What if I've waited this long and I hate it? What it? Well, phew! I can breath, I can shout with excitement and happiness because Swimming Lessons is an outstanding second novel. I loved it, every single page of it. I loved it more than I loved Our Endless Numbered Days, it really is a stunning story. Swimming Lessons is a story of family relationships, of long-covered secrets and the gradual emergence of the truth. It is a story that is both compulsive and raw. The reader is taken on a journey that is often painful, yet so masterfully imagined and told. Gil Coleman, a successful author in his day. Now an old man who lives surrounded by hundreds of old books that he has collected for many years. The books were not bought because of the words inside them, but because of the additions made to them by their readers. A note in a margin, a scribbled drawing, a bookmark or photograph left amongst the pages, and in some .... a letter. Gil's wife Ingrid, the mother of his two daughters, Nan and Flora disappeared without trace twelve years ago. When Flora receives a frantic phone call from older sister Nan, she learns that Gil has had an accident. He fell and injured himself, he says that he saw Ingrid, and had chased after her. Flora returns to the family home and at last, the mystery of Ingrid's whereabouts and the details of her marriage to Gil may be revealed. As the family are coming to grips with their discoveries, and facing up to the future, the reader also learns about Ingrid, in her own words. Told through letters written to Gil, but never sent and spanning back to the very first day that they met and finishing on the day that she disappeared, these letters are a brutal, honest and raw account of the other side of the marriage. Ingrid wrote down her every thought and these letters were placed inside books that belong to Gil, alongside the other random items hidden away by various owners. Very cleverly, Claire Fuller includes at the bottom of each letter, the title of the book that it is hidden in. Each title has a bearing on the contents of the letter, and this is a simple, but beautiful addition to the novel. The author expertly explores the mechanisms of the unsual marriage of Gil and Ingrid. Both characters are flawed, and these flaws have a long reaching impact on both Nan and Flora. Flora's slow realisations and Nan's burdens of responsibility are tender and raw, like exposed nerves that shape their characters, and the plot. Swimming Lessons is a bewitching and original story, full of characters who are so real that you genuinely feel as though you really do know them. It hypnotises and seduces. Savour this one slowly, it really is a stunning story.

'Swimming Lessons' is the second novel from the award winning Claire Fuller and concerns the deceits and concealments that families deal in, much to everyone's detriment. I have long accepted the notion that all families are dysfunctional and each one in its own way and the Coleman family is one such. Gil, the father is an elderly novelist on a downward spiral, not helped by the sudden disappearance of his wife Ingrid years before. She left behind two children, Nan who remained near her father to look after him and the unworldly Flora who believes implicitly in her father and goodness. Except, when Gil falls after following what he thinks is his wife onto the seafront, the family is drawn back to the old swimming pavilion that serves as home on the coast. The novel switches between the early courtship between the charming and faithless Gil and his student, Ingrid. We are prompted in these reminiscences by Ingrid's letters, stashed amongst Gil's huge collection of books, and which he unearths from time to time as he burrows through them. And slowly, Flora's idealised view of her father is torn down as letter follows letter and some sort of truth emerges from the confusion. These could be dark and unforgiving themes but Fuller's writing style precludes the kind of dark angst that another writer might have drawn from the material. Instead, we never dwell too long on anything, even the most unsavoury moments and with the author as our guide we move swiftly from the original accident that provides the motor to the plot to a satisfying conclusion. It is the author's style that marks this out as a significant novel. The prose is deft and suffused with light and of the highest quality, spare and exact in all it achieves. The story might not be the most original but you will return to Fuller's work for her superb style that renders any story luminous and beautiful. She is a novelist at the start of what is a very promising career.

Ingrid has been missing for 12 years. Her husband Gil and daughters Nan and Flora have no idea what happened to her. they have hoped for 12 years that the phone would ring or the door would knock but nothing, no clues. Gil is quite a bit older than Ingrid and when he announces that he saw her in the street he is treated like a delusional old man, seeing what he wants to see. Throughout the book the story of their marriage, their lives, is told through letters written to Gill by Ingrid going back to the first day they met, but never given to Gil, instead placed into different books belonging to Gil for him to find. I really enjoyed this book and the way that the story unfolded.