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Our Endless Numbered Days

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Our Endless Numbered Days

By: Claire Fuller
Narrated by: Eilidh L. Beaton
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About this listen

Winner of the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize

1976: Peggy Hillcoat is eight. She spends her summer camping with her father, playing her beloved record of The Railway Children, and listening to her mother's grand piano, but her pretty life is about to change.

Her survivalist father, who has been stockpiling provisions for the end, which is surely coming soon, takes her from London to a cabin in a remote European forest. There he tells Peggy the rest of the world has disappeared.

Her life is reduced to a piano that makes music but no sound and a forest where all that grows is a means of survival. And a tiny wooden hut that is everything.

©2015 Claire Fuller (P)2015 Audible, Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Survival

Critic Reviews

"Like all good fairy tales, this is a book filled with suspense and revelation, light and shadow and the overwhelming feeling that nothing is quite as it seems in the Hillcoats’ lives. It’s spellbinding, scary stuff." ( The Daily Express)
"Fuller handles the tension masterfully in this grown-up thriller of a fairytale, full of clues, questions and intrigue." ( The Times)
All stars
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I’ve become a massive fan of Claire Fuller’s. Her writing is so intricate and beautiful, an incredible understanding of nuanced human behaviours especially when no one is looking. This book was ever so her and yet a completely different story to any of her others. Heart wrenching and otherworldly but so very real I could touch it. Thank you again Claire for your writing!

Another brilliant novel by Claire Fuller

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What a beautifully written book – I think so far this has been my most memorable read for 2017, and one that will stay with me for a long time to come.

In the summer of 1976, eight-year-old Peggy Hillcoat is growing up in a spacious house in London as the much-loved daughter of a famous concert pianist and a survivalist father. All is well in her world until her mother Ute goes away on a concert tour to Germany, leaving her in the care of her father James, who seems to slowly unravel the longer Ute is away for. Soon James is teaching Peggy survival skills instead of sending her to school , and the pair are living in a tent in the garden, living off squirrels and other foraged foods. After a heated argument with one of his survivalist friends, James packs a few belongings into a rucksack and takes Peggy away for a “holiday” to a remote mountain cabin in the European Alps away from civilisation. After sitting through a violent thunderstorm one night, James tells Peggy that the rest of the world has perished, and that they are the only two human survivors left. Thus, life in the wilderness alone with her father becomes Peggy’s reality for the next nine years, until a twist of fate finally delivers her back into civilisation.

I absolutely loved Peggy, and she became so real to me that it felt like I lost an old friend when the book finished. Her voice is innocent, fresh and original, drawing me in from the first page, taking me by the hand and luring me into her world. Through Peggy, Fuller managed to create such vivid scenery in my mind that I could see “die Hütte” quite clearly in front of my eyes, hear the rustling of the wind in the trees and the soft gurgle of the river in the distance. I didn’t just read this book, but I feel like I LIVED it, transported like Aladdin on a magic carpet to faraway lands. Days after finishing it, I still miss being part of Peggy’s journey. Simply magical, beautiful, tragic & heartbreaking all at the same time.

This book is not for people who want action or suspense, but its power lies in the small everyday observations and feelings that make up Peggy’s reality, and Fuller has a way with words that creates true-to-life characters and an atmospheric setting until it seems like a living, breathing being itself. Her descriptions of nature were stunning, as they were raw and brutal at times. Fuller’s account of James’ slow spiralling deeper and deeper into mental illness was well drawn and realistic, creating an undercurrent of danger and impending doom throughout the novel. At times I felt like biting my nails as the story unfolded, fearing for Peggy. Whilst I had a premonition of the ending to come, I was still saddened and shocked by the full extent of Peggy’s ordeal.

I chose the audio version of this book, and a huge credit goes to Eilidh L. Beaton, for her wonderful narration of the story. With her amazing ability to give each character their own unique voice, including authentic foreign accents, she brought the characters to life for me and made my daily commute a pleasure I looked forward to every day.

Magical, beautiful, tragic & heartbreaking

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Such a sad story, Poor little Punzel - completely helpless in a world where the adults in her life should have protected her, not one of them had her back. Disturbing in many ways, but I have to say I couldn't stop listening. Very good narrator too.

Memorable

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