The first thing I liked about this book was its construction – the present day story punctuated by Ingrid’s letters, not sent but placed within the pages of books with links to their subject matter. And the letters tell a fascinating story of indifference and betrayal, of passion and wrongdoing – an ill-founded marriage in a constant state of disintegration, painful to watch. Ingrid was possibly the only character in this book I remotely warmed to, and I loved the clarity of her voice – it’s a real tribute to the writing that it’s possible to care about a cast of characters that I wouldn’t otherwise give the time of day to. And the strength of the writing was the other thing I loved – an immense depth of human detail, an eye for the little things, the layers of story coupled with the watery imagery that pervades the book as a whole.

Both stories, past and present, are totally absorbing, the unfolding of a mystery: while I’ll admit that some of the nuances and deeper meanings may have passed me by (my fault, not the author’s) there were parts of this book that I lingered over, even re-read, because they made such a strong impression. And Flora, Nan, Richard, even Gil himself – they might not be people I’d choose as my social circle, but I found it quite impossible to tear my gaze away from them. Lest you doubt it, I loved this book – very different from Our Endless Numbered Days other than in the quality of the writing, but every bit as compelling.

It takes a while to really get a handle on the story within this book. There are two main threads of which one is the present day. In this thread Gil is an elderly man who has taken a tumble and whose daughter Flora comes back home to help look after him with her sister Nan. Flora's current boyfriend makes the journey as well. There are a lot spiky relationships within this group. The second thread takes the form of letters written by Gil's missing wife, Ingrid. In these Ingrid tells the story of their relationship from her point of view with her feelings. These letters are hidden within books (the precise ones are detailed at the end of each letter) but we never know if Gil found any of them.

I had a strange relationship with this book. I enjoyed reading it but once I put it down, the book just went from my mind. Usually I spend time thinking about a book whilst I am doing other things but this was not the case with this one. The characters just didn't really hold my interest and I wasn't that bothered about what happened to them. To be fair, the characters are not particularly nice. Gil is a serial womanizer and poor provider for his family. He leaves his family for quite long periods of time, supposedly promoting his book. Ingrid isn't a particularly nice person either though not a serial adulterer. She leaves her family when Flora is just 8 years old. She walks away and disappears. It is a surprise that Nan has grown up quite stable and no surprise that Flora doesn't!

There is a lot of description within this book. This is something which the author is good it and uses to great effect. I had no trouble in picturing the scenes.

I am not entirely sure if I enjoyed this book. I think I did but it really hasn't left much of an impression. I am not left with any desire to know if Ingrid returns or how things turn out with Flora and Richard. This is the second book that I have read by this author and is not, in my option, as good as her previous work - Endless Numbered Days. This book just never got under my skin.

This is a character driven story rather than an action packed read. I enjoyed the first part of the book more but felt it started to lose its way half way through. I wanted to know what had happened to Ingrid and whether she was still alive. There was some feeling of anticipation as to whether the youngest daughter, Flora would discover a terrible secret but sadly for me, this anticipation just fizzled out. An ok read but not sure I would rush back to read more by the same author.

Claire Fuller' s first novel was clever and interesting, but this one, in my opinion, is a perfect little masterpiece. It is a beautiful, elegiac piece of writing, brooding over the lives of an writer and his wife, who disappeared years earlier. As the novel proceeds we read her letters to him, recounting their shared life. Letters that were written and then hidden inside volumes of his vast collection of books.

Gradually the reader comes to understand the nature of the pivotal relationships within the novel and to follow the writer to his final days.

Quite beautifully written, with a precise sense of place, time and personalities. A novel to revisit.

Thank you Net Galley and Penguin Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book. It was an interesting read, not a beautiful one. The story is told from two different perspectives: on the one hand we have Ingrid's letters to her husband from which we slowly discover details about their life, marriage and the birth aof their two daughters. On the other hand, we have Flora's perspective (the youngest daughter), her response to Ingrid's disappearance and her relation to her older sister Nan.
I know most of the readers connected so much to Ingrid through her letters, however I did not happen for me. Actually I did not manage to connect with either of them. I expected more from the characters. What kept me reading this book was just curiosity: is Ingrid still alive or not? I expected to see the characters change along the story, There is so much silence in this novel, which made my reading become so frustrating.. I felt compassion for Ingrid at the beginning of the novel, when she hears about ther husband's affair, but I ended up hating her.

A few years ago somebody told me that in any relationship there is always an "Ernie" and a "Bert" (from Sesame Street, you know?). I am always the Bert and I used to not particularly like that - because being the Ernie is more fun and people tend to like the Ernie's of the world more. Even at 17, I was always the person to tell others to be more quiet at parties as to not disturb the neighbours, I was the one blowing out candles when the drunkest person in the room decided having candles would make the party more intimate (that did happen on more parties I went to than you would believe), and teenagers tend to not appreciate this person at parties. 

Why am I telling you this? 

Because Flora - one of the main characters of this book and the focus of most chapters - is such an Ernie and her poor older sister had to take on the role of Bert when their mother disappeared. Flora drove me up the walls; she is so unbelievably self-centered and just refuses to grow up and then has the nerve to be annoyed at her sister for being responsible. I think that was not the emotional response I was supposed to take from this book and it made this at parts really difficult to read for me. 

The story is told both in the present when Gil had an accident and his two daughters come to look after him and in the past through a series of letters that their mother Ingrid left for her husband to find in different books all over the house. I love stories framed in an unconventional manner, so this structure worked extremely well for me. I like how the two story lines were woven together and how Claire Fuller uses this device to show how memory can be deceiving.

Ingrid was by far my favourite characters and I so wanted her to be happy. She is also the most convincing, fully fleshed out character out of this family and I would have liked to spend even more time with her. 

It is a pretty great book, but in the end, I couldn't ignore my emotional response to it. But this is pretty much a me thing and I am sure lots of others will love this book more than me.

___
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Books, Fig Tree in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!

Dull, undeveloped cookie-cutter characters, boring plot, poorly paced, and lacks tension. It was very readable, somehow, yet I could've stopped at any point without wondering what happened next. Disappointingly mediocre.

I couldn't put this book down. The lyrical writing was beautiful and the exploration of the social constrictions on Ingrid was thought-provoking and poignant. I would definitely recommend this book.

Swimming Lessons alternates between the perspectives of Flora and her mother, Ingrid, who has been missing for twelve years.

Flora's tale focuses on the present day, when her father, Gil, think that he has seen his missing wife. This brings his two daughters back to their home by the sea to confront the question of whether Ingrid, who was a keen swimmer, really drowned. 

Ingrid's story is told through letters which she wrote before her disappearance, which describe how she met Gil and their subsequent marriage. She places each letter within one Gil's books which corresponds to the subject of the letter. I enjoyed these literary references, for example in a letter about a tutorial in which they discussed Shirley Jackson, she placed the letter within a copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

I also loved the conversations about a reader's relationship with a book. For example, Gil is an obsessive book collector but collects books for the ticket stubs and notes which their readers have left within them. The family play games analysing what these notes tell you about the reader. The theme was really nicely summed up in one of Ingrid's letters, which says that 'writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from a novel, from a chapter, from a line.'

My only real criticism of the book is that I disliked the epilogue. I won't provide details as it is central to the plot, but I found it unnecessary and would find the story more believable without it.

I read Claire Fuller's first novel Our Endless Numbered Days last year and have found with both books is that whilst they are not typical mystery/thrillers and instead focus more on the characters and their relationships, this in no way detracts from the amount of suspense in the book. She manages to combine beautiful writing with a plot that makes the book a definite 'page turner' which for me is rare when reading more literary fiction. 

All in all, a brilliant book and I look forward to whatever she writes next.

An unusual story; one I initially found a little difficult to get into but so glad I did so.  Well written and so much more than chic lit (not that there is anything wrong with that).  If you fancy something different, something well written then this is it.

Flora's mother went missing when Flora was ten years old.  Now an adult she has to rush home when her father has an accident, claiming that he has seen her mother.  In fact the plot is little more than that!  This is a multi-layered novel about characters and reading and not a lot more.  Some reviewers have raved about the writing and in parts I really enjoyed this book,  However I found other parts very self-indulgent and irritating

I didn't really know what to expect when going into Swimming Lessons. I haven't read the author's previous work - Our Endless Numbered Days - and I couldn't decide from the synopsis whether I was going to get myself into another thriller spawned by the Gone Girl craze, or a quiet contemporary like, say, Everything I Never Told You. I can say confidently now that it's more the latter.

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?

The opening chapter sees Gil suffering an accident after seeing his long lost wife standing below his window. His daughters rush home to be with their father, but are perturbed by Gil's claims that he saw Ingrid and that she is alive. Mysterious phone calls in the middle of the night from withheld numbers make Nan and Flora even more anxious, especially when Gil claims their mother was on the phone.

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.

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 am really torn with my review for this book. It is a strong 3.5* (oh how I wish GR gave an out of 10 rating!).

I absolutely loved Claire's debut, Our Endless Numbered Days, and was extremely excited about being given an opportunity to read this as a review copy for an honest review.

There is so much that is absolutely beautiful and unique about this story, The writing is faultless - the story covers three main points in time - when Ingrid & Gil meet and start their relationship, the time before Ingrid disappears (both through letters from Ingrid to Gil hidden in relevant books within his overflowing 'library') and from Flora's point of view when she has returned home when Gil falls ill.

The descriptions of the house, and Ingrid's letters are especially evocative. However, this just didn't quite live up to Our Endless Numbered Days, and missed a little spark for me.

Flora seemed such a forthright, precocious, self-centred child, and yet Flora almost seemed indistinct to me as an adult.

Perhaps this was the wrong time for me to read it - it may be one that I read again in the future. It definitely wasn't a bad book - far from it, but I felt that I missed something.

A really gripping read with characters that you could really relate to and complex relationships.   the structure which was not chronological meant the book was well paced and the reader learns a bit more about the characters as the story develops.   the literary references attached to Ingrid's letters were also a good device for linking the separate stories together.   A book i really enjoyed.

When she learns her father is ill Flora travels back home together with her boyfriend. Gil thinks he's seen his wife Ingrid, Flora's mother. She disappeared, presumably drowned, and has been missing for over a decade. She left Flora and her older sister Nan behind. The possible sighting gives them hope. Gill is an old man and needs care. All over the house there are letters written by Ingrid hidden in books. Maybe these will shed some light on what happened to her?

Swimming Lessons is a beautiful family story. Claire Fuller alternates between the past, through Ingrid's letters, and the present, told from Flora's point of view. This construction works very well and I found myself engrossed in both parts of the story. Gil used to be Ingrid's professor. They fell in love and got married. There were happy times, but Ingrid's life was mostly filled with sadness. My heart ached for her and I sometimes had tears in my eyes while reading her letters. Flora is a little bit lost, but returning to her childhood home makes her find something unexpected and possibly amazing. Swimming lessons is a bittersweet story. There are tragic moments, but there's hope as well. I love it when a book makes me go through many different emotions and Claire Fuller has definitely achieved that with her story.
 
I'm a big fan of stories about sisters and the relationship between Flora and Nan is an interesting one, which made the book even more special for me. The connections of the main characters are difficult and they kept fascinating me from beginning to end. They have a certain attraction that spellbound me. I couldn't stop reading about them and wanted to know everything I could know, everything I was allowed to find out. That's something about Swimming Lessons I greatly admired.
 
Swimming Lessons is a unique story. It's about love, loss, heartache, determination, family and friendship. Claire Fuller's writing is terrific, I immediately fell in love with her easy flowing writing style and the gorgeous words she chooses. There are many questions and those intrigued me. Claire Fuller skillfully administers small doses of answers in each chapter. Everything about this book is almost perfect, but not quite and that is what I loved most about the story. I highly recommend Swimming Lessons, it's not just a story, it's an experience, which is surprising and unique.

When famous author Gil Coleman thinks he spots his long-vanished wife out the window, he rushes after her and ends up falling. His two daughters return home to look after him and gradually the mystery of their mother’s disappearance begins to be unravelled. Through alternating perspectives – that of Flora, the youngest daughter who finds it hard to accept that her mother is dead, and that of Ingrid herself, who narrates her own story through a series of unsent letters to her husband which she has hidden in his treasured books – the background is filled in and both protagonists and readers come to some sort of understanding. A nice idea and on the whole it is effectively carried out, but I found that the characters lacked depth and often acted in clichéd and stereotypical ways, and the dialogue was often unconvincing. Claire Fuller writes well but sometimes doesn’t pull all the threads together. Some of her metaphors, whilst having an immediate impact, aren’t integrated well enough into the narrative. All in all, I didn’t particularly enjoy the novel and found much of it predictable.

Title- Swimming Lessons

Author- Claire Fuller

Rating- 5/5

Review-

So, to start with, I loved this book. I have read Our Endless Numbered Days, by the same author and really wasn't that keen on it. I actually didn't realise this was by the same author when I first got it, and I'm glad, because if I had I might not have picked it up. I read something about this book that, along with the title, made me think it might be a rip off of the Julia Roberts movie, Sleeping with the enemy. Spoiler alert, in that the wife disappears, her husband is abusive so she fakes a drowning after learning to swim in secret, and he later finds her. Anyway, back on topic, this isn't like that, despite the book title! 

The book is told in two different times, the past and present. The present day, which follows Gil, the husband/father, and his two adult daughters Nan and Flora. The past is told by Ingrid, the missing wife/mother, in the form of hidden letters. 

The book starts with Gil thinking he sees Ingrid, twelve years after she disappeared. He gets injured following her, which brings the two girls home to look after him. Gil is an author and has always collected books which cover the house. Ingrid hides her letters in these books in the last year or so before she disappears. You know from early on that Gil has found at least one of them, but you never really know if he reads them all, or actually any of the others.

Ingrid's letters are my favourite part of the book. They go back to when he first meets Gil, and talks you through their entire marriage, the good and the bad. Flora was very young when Ingrid disappeared and remembers only the good, the letters show you all the hidden problems of the marriage. Despite Flora thinking everything is rosy throughout the book, the present day narration shows from the outset that Gil feels guilty, as he should. This is actually a pretty sad book, without giving too much away, Ingrid put up with a lot.

Throughout the book there are questions surrounding Ingrid's disappearance, did she leave? The letters could certainly make you think she might. Or did she die? She did like to swim in the sea after all, which can obviously be very dangerous. Different characters have different opinions and it's not only Gil that feels guilty. The book shows how much something like this can damage people, how even the slightest thing, wrongly worded can damage a child forever.

There isn't much more I can really say about this book beyond description, I found no faults with it. The narration was clear, the characters were interesting and well developed, as was the story, it wasn't too long, or too short, there was a good pace throughout. It took a little while to get used to a baby and then young adult being called Nan, short for Nanette, but that was it. It really was a great book.

So, if you have read Our Endless Numbered Days and didn't really like it, don't let that put you off.