Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller

From Goodreads 

What if the life you have always known is taken from you in an instant?

What would you do to get it back?

Twins Jeanie and Julius have always been different from other people. At 51 years old, they still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation and poverty. Inside the walls of their old cottage they make music, and in the garden they grow (and sometimes kill) everything they need for sustenance.

But when Dot dies suddenly, threats to their livelihood start raining down. Jeanie and Julius would do anything to preserve their small sanctuary against the perils of the outside world, even as their mother's secrets begin to unravel, putting everything they thought they knew about their lives at stake.

Unsettled Ground is a heart-stopping novel of betrayal and resilience, love and survival. It is a portrait of life on the fringes of society that explores with dazzling emotional power how we can build our lives on broken foundations, and spin light from darkness.

My thoughts

This was a read of my local Library reading group, it's possibly not a book that I would have chosen myself as Claire Fuller is not an Author that I was aware of (not as far as I can remember), but she is one that I will read again.  As unlike the rest of the group I quite enjoyed this story and will look for other books by her.

Telling the story of twins Jeanie and Julius, they are an unusual pair as they are in middle age and still living at home with their mother Dot.  Following the passing away of their mother, they soon realise that things aren't as solid as they thought.  Dot had had a secret life that they weren't aware of, as this secret life began to reveal itself, their lives changed and not for the better.

This was a well written story, that leads the reader from one dilemma to another as their lives as they know it come tumbling down around their ears following the death of their mother Dot.  It just goes to show that none of us really knows what is happening in the lives of those nearest and dearest to us.  We all often keep some secrets to ourselves that we don't always divulge to others.