ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller

Posted on 13th May 2026 By Nicola

Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller is published by Penguin Figtree and is available now. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy (along with ‘squashed fly’ biscuits and some Yorkshire Tea bags).

1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job in the postroom of a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and―delightfully― some new friends, including wild-child, Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at The Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can’t resist the promise of a readymade, hodgepodge family.

But as Sue’s behaviour and demands become more extreme, Ursula who has always been hungry―for food―and more importantly for love, acceptance and belonging, carries out her friend’s terrible dare. It’s a decision that will haunt her for decades.

Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned, reclusive sculptor living under a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by true-crime documentary-maker who is digging into an unsolved disappearance. But it is not only the filmmaker who has discovered Ursula’s whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without.

From critically acclaimed and award-winning author, Claire Fuller, Hunger and Thirst is a compelling and chilling tale of loneliness and female friendship, of the dangerous line between wanting and needing, and of how far a person will go to truly belong.

Hunger and Thirst is the story of 16 year old Ursula. After a childhood trauma followed by a succession of children’s homes, she’s now working in the post room of the local art school where she meets Sue, a slightly older and much more worldly-wise woman who becomes Ursula’s friend and whose large and chaotic family she wishes were her own. Ursula lacks any real joy in her life and so when she’s invited to share a deserted bungalow she jumps at the chance of the new experience. The Underwood has a sinister past, though, and events take a turn for the worse, leading to an incident that haunts Ursula for the rest of her life.

The first half of this book set the scene and built up the tension, whilst the second half became virtually unputdownable. Is Ursula an unreliable narrator? Did she do what she thinks she did? To be honest, I got to the end and I still don’t know but somehow it doesn’t really matter as the writing is so strong and it’s such a consuming story. It’s unsettling to witness Ursula apparently unravel before us as some very weird and disturbing things happen. It’s unclear if it’s the malevolence of the Underwood that’s to blame or Ursula’s own deluded mind playing tricks on her. Either way, it makes for a really gripping and dark read with a thrilling horror element.

Claire Fuller is such a great, versatile writer. She nails Ursula’s inner demons and Sue’s devil-may-care attitude and portrays perfectly the uneasy creepy feeling of the vividly-described abandoned bungalow with all the previous owners’ belongings still in place. Hunger and Thirst is a mesmerising novel which I’m still thinking about it days after I finished it.

Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn’t start writing until she was forty. She has written five previous novels including: Unsettled Ground, which in 2021 won the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her husband.