Set in the suburbs of London in the 1950s, the story follows Jean, a journalist as she investigates a story from a young mother, Gretchen, who claims her daughter was the result of a virgin birth. Written from Jean’s perspective, this is a gentle and poignant exploration of the bonds between women, especially mothers and daughters. Jean is unmarried and lives with her mother, and appreciating the “small pleasures” of life seems all that she can expect until she becomes involved with Gretchen and her family. Beneath the surface is a sense of sorrow and frustration, as life does not always take the path you wish. I very much enjoyed this, the vintage feel of the narrative (with household hints from the 1950s) and the characters who are beautifully drawn and sympathetic. Has Gretchen been impregnated by a holy visitation? The ending takes an interesting turn as Jean becomes closer to the truth, which like the book, has much more below the surface. This would be a great choice of book for a book club or reading group as there are so many points of discussion. I am still mulling it over after completion.

I wanted this book to go on, I hated the ending, it was too sad for me. I felt transported into Jean’s world as her needs and desires grew. I felt so sorry for all the main characters trapped in their lives out of duty. This book both lifted me and saddened me. I felt so driven to change my own lives. Thank you @Reading Agency our book club won copies.

Lovely book. Lovely story. Expected more because I read Shy Creatures first. The book starts with the possibility of immac conception and ends in a love story. Weird and nice but a little too soft for me...

I'm making my way through the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021 long list, and this was one of the books I was more looking forward to for some reason. Although I'm giving it a firm 4 stars my overall feelings are quite mixed about it to be honest. A first small technicality is that this is not an LGBTQ+ book at all? If anything the one queer 'relationship' presented here is actually not only arguably not significant enough but also quite negative as it's basically emotional abuse from one of the characters? So that bothered me as I was looking forward to LGBTQ+ representation in the 1950s and didn't get it at all. Secondly the 4 stars is mostly for the atmosphere that Clare Chambers weaves and the fact that I really didn't want to put down the book at all as I was really rooting for the characters. It is evident through how much impeccable detail Chambers presents the 1950s London (and England), that she did a lot of research, which paid off. Every time I picked up the book, it took no effort to be transported into the world that Chambers has created in Small Pleasures (partly assisted by the fact that it was inspired by real life events), which is not only a great technical literary accomplishment but also makes it very enjoyable for me as a reader to settle into reading the story and enjoying it. I also absolutely loved the characters of Jean, Margaret and Howard and was rooting for them the whole time. However, the negatives include a lot of things too. Maybe I've read too many similar stories but the plot was entirely predictable and at no point did I ever develop a 'oh my god what will happen next' sense - I was enthralled purely because of the brilliant world that Chambers presents and the admirable characters, but in terms of the plot it was actually a very dull guessing game of I pretty much guessed what had happened and it was just a matter of when would the perpetrator be introduced. I'm a bit ambivalent to the ending (which seems to have rubbed up a lot of people the wrong way) and not in a good way either. Because I never developed this gripping 'whodunnit' sense whilst reading the story because of the predictable plot, I don't really feel let down nor vindicated by how it ended. To be honest I'm really not sure why this is on the long list - even with some other contenders for this year that I absolutely loathed, I can still sort of comprehend why they made the long list though. But with this for me, no matter how pleasant it was reading it for me, it doesn't really make sense why it's on the long list so even though I'm happy it didn't make the short list, I'm still glad that I read this book! Despite all these negatives, the fact that it was still enjoyable is a testament to the positives that Chambers presents in the story and the characters! (

The story is set in the late 1950s focussing on Jean, a single middle-aged journalist, who lives with her mother. She receives a letter from a woman, Gretchen, who claims she had a virgin birth whilst at a convent school in Broadstairs. She is now married and lives with her husband, jeweller Howard, and daughter Margaret. As Jean investigates the story she becomes too involved with the family, and her attachment to the daughter and husband, step over boundaries. The narrative contains an element of detection mixed with romance which should keep the interest of any reader. The author does toy with the reader over the certainty of a happy ending and I found the ending came out of nowhere.