Clare Chambers knows how to hook readers, with her previous novel, Small Pleasures, winning The British Book Awards 2022 Pageturner Book of the Year. She looks set to do it all over again with her latest, Shy Creatures, which unearths the story of a mute patient in a psychiatric hospital. We sat down to talk about factual inspiration, the influence of lockdown on even this period piece, and why human flaws provide such narrative fuel.