Changes

|title=The Shifting Pools

|sort=Shifting Pools

|isbn= 978-1785630361

|website= https://www.zoeduncan.co.uk/

}}

Perhaps the most overused phrase in fiction publishing is ''life-affirming'', closely followed by ''human condition''. The Shifting Pools takes this to a whole new level. Its blurb boasts that it is ''charged throughout with the beautiful urgency of life'', whatever that means. It isn't. And that's the problem. This isn't a bad book, but it sets itself up to fail. A cardinal rule of writing is ''focus on the small stuff''. If you set out to write a ''life affirming'' novel that answers all the ''big questions'', you'll struggle. And it is this trap that Zoe Duncan falls into. In her quest for profundity she loses her way.