For your Reading Group

• Shelter has a strong sense of place throughout. How important do you feel the forest is to the novel? Would the story have worked in another location? What do you think this strong connection to place lends to a story?

• Both Connie and Seppe are trapped in different ways – Connie by her secret and Seppe in the POW camp – and yet they feel a sense of freedom in the forest. Why do you think this is? Could you relate?

• Did you know about the lumberjills before reading Shelter? To what degree do you think our attitudes about women doing very physical ‘men’s work’ were changed by the lumberjills and others like them?

• How much did you know about the POW camps in England, and the relative freedom that some POWs had? How do you think POWs would be received in the UK today?

• It is rare to read a wartime novel where fighting isn’t the focus of the story. How do you feel about the Second World War after having read Shelter?

• What do you think of Amos’ reaction to his world being so dramatically altered? Are there parallels in our lives today?

• The novel explores what it’s like to be an outsider in a closed community, whether by choice or by circumstance. Is this something you can relate to from your own personal experience? How would you have dealt with these experiences?

• How do you feel the meaning of the title, Shelter, developed as the novel progressed?

• Does Connie remind you of any characters from other works of fiction?

• How do you feel about Connie’s decision at the end of the novel? What would you have done in her position?

• How do you think Connie’s choices would be received if she were making them today? Would they be so polarised?

• The novel deals in part with maternal ambivalence. Do you feel this is something we should talk about more? Is this still problematic today?

• The author has purposely left the ending open for interpretation. How do you feel about this? What do you think would happen next?

• Throughout the story, Seppe is portrayed as more sensitive and less ‘strong’ than Connie. How did you feel about the way ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are explored in the novel? Do we need a more rounded exploration of what it means to be male and female in our fiction?