Creatures of a Brief Season

Creatures of a Brief Season
by Clare Owen

Creatures of a Brief Season is a gentle novel about intimacy born of necessity, and what it means to rethink your life when the one you’d imagined hasn’t gone to plan. 

Leonard is elderly, overweight, and battling with failing eyesight, the last thing he wants is a stranger moving in.
 
After years spent caring for her mother, Vanessa has been left struggling to find work. Leonard is her only option.
 
As the lives of two very different people intertwine, something unexpected happens: assumptions begin to shift, boundaries between obligation and companionship become less certain, and a friendship is forged.

Written as a dual narrative, the unflinching look at the challenges of old age seen through the eyes of a complex, often cantankerous protagonist, is comparable to Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge; in putting a carer and her attempts to carve out space for herself centre stage as well, the novel is also akin to the international prize winning When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén.

“By turns lyrical and uncompromising, Creatures of a Brief Season is a deeply immersive and compassionate novel told in perfect, pellucid prose.”  Jane Johnson

‘Creatures of a Brief Season’ is a book that settles beside you, quietly, and then refuses to leave. There is a tenderness and honesty to the writing: the way Owen allows Vanessa and Leonard to be contradictory, frustrating, funny and wounded, rather than characters neatly shaped to earn our sympathy. This is a novel about care, ageing, family, regret and the things we carry for far too long … but also about movement, second chances and the possibility that a life which feels closed down might still open onto somewhere unexpected. There are moments of real sadness here: not the easy kind, but the sort found in connection, in being seen, and in discovering that we are never quite as fixed as we imagine.' Paul Taylor-McCartney

Paperback
Language: English
published by Hermitage Press
Due for publication in August 2026