Bitter Orange
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
An NPR Best Book of the Year
"Unsettling and eerie, Bitter Orange is an ideal chiller." —Time Magazine
From the author of Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming Lessons, Bitter Orange is a seductive psychological portrait, a keyhole into the dangers of longing and how far a woman might go to escape her past.
From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she's distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors' private lives. To Frances's surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to get to know her. It is the first occasion 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 until the ash piles up on the crumbling furniture. Frances is dazzled. But as the hot summer rolls lazily on, 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, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand their lives forever.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Claire Fuller. (2018). Bitter Orange. Tin House Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Claire Fuller. 2018. Bitter Orange. Tin House Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Claire Fuller, Bitter Orange. Tin House Books, 2018.
MLA Citation (style guide)Claire Fuller. Bitter Orange. Tin House Books, 2018.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 0 |
There is 1 hold on this title.
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781947793163
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B07CC7Y8H4
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781947793163
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781947793156
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Claire Fuller
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Bitter Orange
- dateAdded
- 2022-02-01T21:38:46.65Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=569&titleID=3949096
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: NorthNet Library System (CA)
- id: 2323
- sortTitle
- Bitter Orange
- crossRefId
- 3949096
- id
- 9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1
- starRating
- 3.2
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: BitterOrange_9781947793163_3949096
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 4895060
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781947793163
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 10/9/2018
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=9dedcf51-3bdb-4cf2-8b21-4c0337bc34d1&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: BitterOrange_3949096
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B07CC7Y8H4
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 10/9/2018
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=9dedcf51-3bdb-4cf2-8b21-4c0337bc34d1&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: BitterOrange_9781947793163_3949096
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781947793163
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 10/9/2018
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=9dedcf51-3bdb-4cf2-8b21-4c0337bc34d1&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: unsettling
- value: sensuous
- value: Friendship
- value: 1960s
- value: mansion
- value: eerie
- value: psychological thriller
- value: novel
- value: Atmospheric
- value: Dread
- value: Patricia Highsmith
- value: country estate
- value: Secret past
- value: unreliable narrator
- value: english countryside
- value: food and wine
- value: literary mystery
- value: plot twist
- value: literary horror
- value: shirley jackson
- value: sarah waters
- value: daphne du maurier
- value: Ruth Ware
- value: Emma Healey
- value: gabriel tallent
- value: Claire Fuller
- value: Swimming lessons
- value: twisting plot
- value: Daniel Magariel
- value: bitter orange
- value: our endless numbered days
- value: unsettled ground
- value: the memory of animals
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Fuller, Claire
- bioText:
Claire Fuller is the author of Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize; Swimming Lessons; Bitter Orange; and Unsettled Ground, which won the Costa Novel Award and was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.
www.clairefuller.co.uk - name: Claire Fuller
- publishDate
- 2018-10-09T00:00:00-04:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Bitter Orange
- fullDescription
An NPR Best Book of the Year
"Unsettling and eerie, Bitter Orange is an ideal chiller." —Time Magazine
From the author of Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming Lessons, Bitter Orange is a seductive psychological portrait, a keyhole into the dangers of longing and how far a woman might go to escape her past.
From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she's distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors' private lives. To Frances's surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to get to know her. It is the first occasion 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 until the ash piles up on the crumbling furniture. Frances is dazzled. But as the hot summer rolls lazily on, 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, a small crime brings on a bigger one: a crime so terrible that it will brand their lives forever.- reviews
- premium: False
- source: The New York Times Book Review
- content: Fuller, a skilled stylist, is very good at letting you know Frances by degrees and at describing a setting in which the ordinary rules of life feel suspended . . . You can taste the wine, smell the musty fabrics and the overripe fruit, hear the hum of lazy insects and track the teasing suggesting that something will go terribly wrong.
- premium: False
- source: Entertainment Weekly
- content: Bitter Orange twists and bends, arouses and agitates, like a seductive nightmare. . . . With sensations so alive on the page, you're constantly kept on your toes, attuned to the mania. You'll ask, beguiled: What's really going on here?
- premium: False
- source: The Paris Review
- content: Page by page, Fuller enchants us with prose as thick as clotted cream, only for us to realize too late that she's been ensnaring us at every turn.
- premium: False
- source: Vulture, Best Crime Books of the Year
- content: Lovely and lush prose that only adds to the sense of dread pervading the novel . . . Bitter Orange is an absorbing exploration of the many lies we tell to others—and to ourselves.
- premium: False
- source: Elle, Most Anticipated Books of Fall
- content: English mansion? Check. Dazzling couple? Check. Yearning outsider? Now you have all the ingredients for a psychological powder keg, ready to explode during the summer of '69.
- premium: False
- source: NYLON, Best Books of Fall
- content: Fuller is a master of the quietly eerie; she's excellent at creating an aura of pervasive dread—and sustaining it till the very last page.
- premium: False
- source: Publishers Weekly
- content: Cannily releasing clues on the way to an explosive finale, Fuller moves fluidly between the time of the story and a period 20 years later . . . The lush setting and remarkable characters make for an immersive mystery.
- premium: False
- source: Kirkus, Starred Review
- content: In the vein of Shirley Jackson's bone-chilling The Haunting of Hill House, Fuller's disturbing novel will entrap readers in its twisty narrative, leaving them to reckon with what is real and what is unreal. An intoxicating, unsettling masterpiece.
- premium: False
- source: Booklist, Starred Review
- content: Fuller is a master of propulsive action, making the ground spin as each unreliable narrator takes center stage. Every measured sentence builds on itself with the crumbling estate providing the saturated backdrop for this ultimately macabre tale. Bitter Orange offers a gripping and unsettling look at the ugly side of extreme need and the desperate measures taken in the name of love.
- premium: False
- source: Criminal Element
- content: A literary mystery that fans of Sarah Waters, Daphne Du Maurier, and Shirley Jackson won't want to miss. . . . This high intrigue, along with the inherent eeriness of the setting, makes Bitter Orange a perfect fall read.
- premium: False
- source: Shelf Awareness, Starred Review
- content: Exquisitely written and carefully paced, Bitter Orange imbues the dis-ease and sickening sweetness of old-fashioned literary horror with a new, modern flare . . . A haunting contemporary echo of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith.
- premium: False
- source: Gabriel Tallent, New York Times bestselling author of My Absolute Darling
- content: A twisty, thorny, darkly atmospheric page turner.
- premium: False
- source: Daniel Magariel, author of One of the Boys
- content: Like Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, Bitter Orange sings, enchants, haunts. If not for Claire Fuller's stunning language and mastery of control, I'd have succumbed to the temptation to blaze through these pages just to see how the suspense resolves. A beautiful novel.
- premium: False
- source: Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10
- content: A rich, dark pressure cooker of a novel that simmers with slow heat and suppressed tension.
- premium: False
- source: Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth Is Missing
- content: Claire Fuller is such an elegant writer and this book is incredibly atmospheric, vivid, and intriguing. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't reading a forgotten classic.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from August 1, 2018
Fuller's (Swimming Lessons, 2017, etc.) latest novel is seductive on the outside, but hidden within is a sinister story that considers the terrifying lengths people will go to escape their pasts.It's the summer of 1969, and for the first time in 39 years, Frances Jellico is free of any routine. One month ago, she buried her mother, the callous woman she'd been bound to since birth. When she's commissioned to survey and write a report on the garden architecture of Lyntons, an old English country house outside London, Frances leaves her home, and turbulent past, to settle into the mansion's furnished attic for the summer. From the moment she meets Cara and Peter, the attractive couple staying in the rooms below hers, Frances is besotted. Peter, she learns, has been hired to assess the foundation and state of the house, which, after years of neglect following the war, is in poor condition. Frances becomes enraptured by the carefree, unbridled passion Peter and Cara seamlessly exude. All her life, she has yearned for that sense of freedom--to be unburdened of her loneliness, her insecurities, her endless guilt. After discovering a peephole in her bathroom floor, Frances takes to watching their intimate lives play out from above. Equally intrigued by Frances, the couple invites her into their lives, eager to share their desires and secrets with a captive audience. The three spend their languid days indulging in decadent meals, drinking, sunbathing, and reveling in the frivolity of one another's company. But as Fuller's novel progresses, Frances' friendship with the couple turns claustrophobic. The stories Cara and Peter have fed Frances slowly begin to unfurl, revealing a labyrinth of deceptions that Frances finds herself in the middle of. When strange things begin to happen throughout the house, Frances realizes she knows nothing about Cara and Peter. Much like Lyntons, they're "beautiful on the surface, but look a little closer and everything is decaying, rotting, falling apart." In the vein of Shirley Jackson's bone-chilling The Haunting of Hill House, Fuller's disturbing novel will entrap readers in its twisty narrative, leaving them to reckon with what is real and what is unreal.An intoxicating, unsettling masterpiece.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
August 13, 2018
Fuller’s brooding latest (after Swimming Lessons) is set in one of those decaying British mansions tailor-made for a story of dysfunctional relationships. In the summer of 1969, socially awkward and anxious Frances Jellico is 39 and has been hired by an American who just bought a crumbling estate in the British countryside to survey the landscape and buildings on it. Making herself at home in a decrepit attic room, she is surprised to discover a young couple there, living in the rooms below hers, and can’t resist spying on them through a peephole that conveniently links her bathroom to theirs. Peter, handsome and welcoming, has been hired to survey the contents of the manor, though he spends more time drinking up the contents of its wine cellar. Cara, Irish and pretentious, tells Frances long, implausible stories of her life, which the credulous Frances soaks up. Frances falls in love with Peter and believes he reciprocates her feelings while ignoring the more suitable vicar of the local church. Cannily releasing clues on the way to an explosive finale, Fuller moves fluidly between the time of the story and a period 20 years later, when Frances is lying in a hospital and close to death. The lush setting and remarkable characters make for an immersive mystery. Agent: David Forrer, InkWell Management.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from September 1, 2018
For most of her adult life, Frances Jellico has colored within the lines while her lackluster life was made hollower by a complete lack of companionship. When she arrives on assignment to study the architecture at Lyntons, a decaying estate in the English countryside, she discovers an unexpected bonus, friendship with a young, hedonistic couple, Peter Robertson and Cara Calace. Peter has been assigned to inventory the valuables on site, while the tempestuous Cara keeps him company. Over the heady summer of 1969, the three form an increasingly volatile trio as they are sucked into a complicated vortex defined by each character?s complicated past. Fuller (Swimming Lessons?, 2017) is a master of propulsive action, making the ground spin as each unreliable narrator takes center stage. Every measured sentence (??I used to be a big woman,? voluptuous Frances once said. ?Now my flesh has melted away but the skin remains and I lie in a puddle of myself.??) builds on itself with the crumbling estate providing the saturated backdrop for this ultimately macabre tale. A distracting plot element or two notwithstanding, Fuller?s tale offers a gripping and unsettling look at the ugly side of extreme need and the desperate measures taken in the name of love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from October 15, 2018
In summer 1969, bookish Frances Jellico is hired by an American named Mr. Liebermann, the new owner of Lyntons, an abandoned English country estate. Her job is to evaluate the neglected grounds for restoration. When Frances arrives, she is surprised to find another couple settled in the mansion rooms below hers. Antiques expert Peter, also hired by Liebermann to report on needed repairs, and his girlfriend, Cara, a flighty, unstable woman, who tells Frances elaborate lies about her background. Frances finds the habits of this hedonistic couple troubling, so different from her own sheltered life in London, but when she confides in the local vicar, he warns her not to get involved. However, as the hot summer unfolds, Frances revels in her new freedom and is drawn in by reckless Cara and particularly Peter, who raids the wine cellar, sells off the Lynton family heirlooms, and pockets most of the money to pay alimony to his wife. Partly narrated by Frances 20 years later from her death bed, this story spirals and twists to a shocking conclusion. VERDICT Desmond Elliott Prize-winning Fuller's stunning third novel (after Swimming Lessons) is a masterpiece that takes us to the dark places of human emotions.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- popularity
- 1609
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/9dedcf51-3bdb-4cf2-8b21-4c0337bc34d1/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 9dedcf51-3bdb-4cf2-8b21-4c0337bc34d1
- starRating
- 3.2
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0044-1/{9DEDCF51-3BDB-4CF2-8B21-4C0337BC34D1}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fiction
- value: Literature
- publishDateText
- 10/09/2018
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781947793156
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
An NPR Best Book of the Year
"Unsettling and eerie, Bitter Orange is an ideal chiller." —Time Magazine
From the author of Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming Lessons, Bitter Orange is a seductive psychological portrait, a keyhole into the dangers of longing and how far a woman might go to escape her past.
From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 in the rooms below hers while Frances is researching the architecture in the surrounding gardens. But she's distracted. Beneath a floorboard in her bathroom, she finds a peephole that gives her access to her neighbors' private lives. To Frances's surprise, Cara and Peter are keen to get to know her. It is the first occasion she has had anybody to call a friend, and before...- sortTitle
- Bitter Orange
- crossRefId
- 3949096
- publisher
- Tin House Books
- bisacCodes
- code: FIC019000
- description: Fiction / Literary
- code: FIC025000
- description: Fiction / Psychological
- code: FIC044000
- description: Fiction / Contemporary Women
