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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BeattyJeremy Cooper|title=The SelloutDiscord|rating=3.5

|summary=''This may be hard to believeDiscord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, coming from a black manthings, but I've never stolen anything.''or ideas)

Isn't that one The principal example of discord within the great opening lines novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of literature? Our black hero the novel, Rebekah Rosen and narratorEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, surname Metraditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, first name unknownwhile Evie is a force of nature, was born in bounding onto the southern Los Angeles suburb of Dickens musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and subjected charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to an isolated upbringing dominated by his fathereye, their approaches different and Evie's extreme progressive views on raceat odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, supposedly something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264}}{{Frontpage|author=Polly Barton|title=What Am I, A Deer?|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject of a psychological memoir which will solve their financial problemsand governing metaphor. The narrator, but cruel and unnatural newly relocated from London to anyone with an ounce Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of humanity. To add insult localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to injury Me discovered after his father's death (a racially provoked shooting) that there was no memoirnew audience. A drive-by shooting produces nothing more substantial than Barton treats this as a bill paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for a drive-through funeraluniversality, language is endlessly repackaged, but it starts Me on the path which will end in the Supreme Courtits originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the subject of novel opens out into a race trialwider, resonant question: ''Me v the United States of America''.to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070154</amazonuk>1804272175

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nir BaramMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Good PeopleThe Disappearing Act

|summary=Thomas HeiselbergDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's self-focus pays off when he attracts message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the best clientele town of F for a literary festival she is to the American advertising firm he helps establish across Europe from his German homebe a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Meanwhile Swept up in Russia Sasha Weissberg is struggling with being this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a literary, free-thinking family that doesn't go down too well with Stalin's regimecircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. As World War II arrivesThe train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, both while the circus embodies the reshaping of their worlds are shaken. As identity and a result both decide to become collaborators rather than resistance fighters for different reasons and with far reaching effectsretreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911231006</amazonuk>1804272329

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|author=Ian McEwanMakenna Goodman|title=NutshellHelen of Nowhere

|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Trudy. Successfully living It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in a large and valuable London home, she your life is heavily pregnantnot quite right. The protagonist, and in between two men – she has swapped a disgraced professor on the homeowner, poet brink of losing both his career and publisher Johnhis relationship, for someone completely different, namely Claudeembodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a nastyforce which is seductive, brutish radical and short typeunnerving: Helen. Some people cannot work out why on earth she has made that decision, including our narrator. Oh, The connection between Helen and he himself, our narrator, the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the child sheformer owner of the countryside house he's pregnant with. He is considering, Helen represents a very alert young thingvolta in his life, with nothing else her past tied to do but kick here and therehis potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and practice what you might well call mindfulnessdescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, and listen beyond form''. Although she lives in on Claude and Trudyan assisted living facility now, as they calmly talk their way to plotting and carrying out murder…Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911214330</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Matt WilvenOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Blackbird Singularity|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Thirty-something writer Vince Watergate sees his partner's pregnancy as a fresh start. He stops taking his lithium and the new clarity of mind lets him start writing his best work in ages. He befriends a blackbird in the garden with the help of a bag of sultanas, and begins preparing the baby's room. For a short while, everything seems full of peace and hope. But Vince and Lyd's first child, despite having died a couple House of years earlier, might not have completely left them and the blackbird might not be as friendly as Vince first thought. Lithium withdrawal, stressDay, and the pressure House of appearing 'normal' push Vince into a frightening, irrational place. Can he fight his way through it and return to his family?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079689</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carolyn Parkhurst|title=HarmonyNight

|summary=Josh and Alexandra Hammond have two daughters. Iris is eleven years old and neurotypical: her brain works in the same way as most people''What's, but her elder sister, Tilly, is thirteen and the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on the autistic spectrum. Her parents are finding calmly living in it difficult?'' The title of this spellbinding work, if not impossible''House of Day, to cope with her. Even her special and rather expensive school has indicated that they canHouse of Night't continue. She's subject to mood swings and unpredictable and inappropriate behaviour. Josh is lucky - he goes to work , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - but Alexandra is stuck with the problemsmall, subtle changes which is why Scott Beangovern our lives, like the shift from day to night, educator and expert in parentinghowever quotidian, appeals to hercausing chaos. The name came to her attention on a couple of occasions: she subscribed to his newsletterBut, heard him speak and what he had to say rang a bell. Before long he was coming to the constant in that image is the house for private consultations, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340978171</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William RyanThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Constant SoldierTower

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Paul Brandt returns home to his village without ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the arm he left at identity of T, the Russian Front in defence protagonist of Germanythis tale. The village looks pretty much Just as T's story is being told, the same as he left itstory of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, with the exception daughter of a wealthy family in the lack 19th century, who died of young men and tuberculosis after being locked in a new buildingtower, captures T's imagination. His home now boasts an SS rest hutAnnie's fate is, providing officers with entertainment and respite breaks from the fighting. As Paul passes the hut for the first timeabove all, he sees something… or rather someone… that will make him return an enticing story to work for those he despisesT. The subject of his decision? A girl he once got into trouble with under different circumstances – before It is a story which she wore the stripes consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of a concentration camp prisonermyth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447255011</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela JohnsonJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Taking in WaterVaim

|summary=Pamela Johnson's third novel is set in 2002 but has its roots in a real-life tragedy from nearly 50 years earlier: in 1953 a storm surge hit the Norfolk coast, destroying Lydia Hutton's grandmotherAll was strange''s home and sweeping her whole family out to sea. Seven-year-old Lydia was .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the only one to survive, clinging to the wreckage and singing hymns to herself to survive. It's a dark part pervading sense of her past she's never told anyone except Luc, the half-French lover whose iconic performance art piece, ''Taking otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Water''Vaim, she participated in during a spell fictional fishing village in New York City in the 1960sNorway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, when she was known as 'Layla' and hung around with two of the likes of Andy Warholprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1534627243</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A N WilsonClaire-Louise Bennett|title=ResolutionBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934}}{{Frontpage|author=Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Lili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Jonathan Buckley|title=One Boat

|summary=In 1772 Reinhold Forster and his son George were hired as ship's naturalists for the ''ResolutionOne Boat''is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the vessel Captain James Cook piloted to New Zealand and back on reader into a three-year voyage contemplative realm of discoveryphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Once Set against the evocative backdrop of a Lutheran pastor near Danzigsmall coastal Greek town, Reinhold seemed unable this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to settle to one line provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of work both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and had deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a higher opinion book that not only requires but inspires depth of himself than was prudentthought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=1804271764}}{{Frontpage|author=Eowyn Ivey|title=Black Woods Blue Sky|rating=3. In Wilson5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky''s vision tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life on beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''Resolutionwild card'', Reinhold seems fussyshe feels stuck in her day-to-day life, argumentative and rather heartless, as when he offers George's dog up as fresh meat when yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the captain is desperately illNorth Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. GeorgeWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, just 18 when who says he joins the expeditionhas a cabin over there, is a selfshe feels called to go -taught illustrator and botanist bring Emaleen with a keen ear for languagesher. Though precociously intelligentWithout realising it, he is emotionally immature this calling will transform hers and cannot keep a handle on his masturbation habit or deal with their servant NallyEmaleen's crush on himlives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782398279</amazonuk>1472279042

And {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in 1666Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, poet and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries laterbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. |isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short StoriesBut where does |summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling come from that the world is about to end?because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636507</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emily BittoJames Baldwin|title= The StraysGiovanni's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Lily comes from ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an ordinary suburban familyAmerican man living in Paris, but on her first day at as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a new school she meets Eva: the super-confident middle daughter of artist Evan Trenthamgay bar. The girls fast become firm friendsWhile David is engaged to Hella, to who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the exclusion of all those ar ound them and it isn't long before Lily is spending more time at novel arises not from his infidelity but from the Trentham's than she does at homedeeper conflict within himself. Why wouldn't she? Their life It is everything her familyDavid's isn'tcrippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079514</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eowyn IveyAlba de Cespedes |title=To the Bright Edge of the WorldForbidden Notebook

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=If you're going to go pioneering across unexplored landsThis Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, at least be prepared to accept what you seek – namelyValeria Cossati, what you've never seen before. That lesson seems quite obviouspurchases her forbidden notebook, but back and learns about herself in the time most intimate and revealing ways.|isbn=1782278222}}{{Frontpage|author=Ottessa Moshfegh|title=My Year of 1885 Allen Forrester Rest and Relaxation|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At best, this novel is a little too naïve to heed it. A career soldier, he is tasked with scouring the potential scathing critique of modern society and reveals the Wolverine River that threads south to the shores fragility of Alaskahuman relationships; at worst, even though it is the Russians (who cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of course used to own the Territory) have had all manner of lethal encounters with those already living therean unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and even though a major stretch of newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the river has world, but resolves not to be traversed lose sleep over it: in winter when entirely frozen overfact, as the cliffs either side are too impenetrableher solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=1784707422}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4. Allen leaves 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a much younger, new bride behind – drunk and right from the get-go chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his journals force him artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to pen words about strange happeningshis studies, strange encounters cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and things of legend coming to lifeset himself high but achievable ambitions. Like I say, what he's never seen before…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472208609</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Talulah RileyB0C47LV1PC|title= Acts of LoveFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 4.5|genre= Women's Literary Fiction |summary= Bernadette St John presents herself as the very face of contemporary feminine independence. She is strong, career-driven, beautiful…and definitely holds the attention of the public. For Bernadette is the Can you make a ''Man WhispererYo birthing person''joke? And if you could, winning herself fame with her ability to coax secrets from is the richest and most powerful men of question should you make it? Or is the world, exposing them with controversial distaste in her articles. Hidden behind such a conniving and judgemental persona, howeverquestion if you did, would it land? The catch is a deep insecurity, and a desperate longing to be loved by the perfect man. She has already decided that the newly engaged Tim Bazier is the only candidate answer for such a position in her heart, and will stop at nothing to win him back from his all-too-lovely fiancéboth could well be.... Yet what is perfect is a subject for discussion, and charismatic entrepreneur Radley Blake's unwavering attention has also fallen upon the feisty journalistno. It is a weaving tale of  ''will-they-wont-theyFragility'' that Riley spins hereis set as the city of Portland, Oregon, one that I found myself unable cautiously begins to put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473637902</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jesse BallMosby Woods|title=How to Set a Fire and WhyA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=Lucia Stanton The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is a sarcastic 14-year-old misfit who lives with her elderly Aunt Lucy in a garage they rent from an evil landlord at the bottom best course of his large gardenaction. Governments are flailing. She never comes right out and explains why she's A war here, a push for climate action there, but if you read between the lines you work out . A feeling that her father is dead and her mother nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a mental hospital – presumably for his murderman with precognition. Aunt Lucy is dignified and principled – ''Don't do things Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you aren't proud of'' is her motto – even though they are undeniably poor: Lucia only has one what will happen given any set of clothes and mostly lives off of liquorice and Aunt Lucy's terrible homemade breadcircumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925355470</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenn Ashworth0571379559|title=FellThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Now her parents have died''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, Annette returns to sell her old childhood home but thereinstead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's work stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to do on complete the decrepit building firstdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. As she wanders around They have twin boys - Sonny and tries to make some order of Max, the overgrown shambles, sherainbow twins. Sonny's watched by the ghost of her colouring reflects his mother, Netty; a spirit with regrets's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. Netty reminisces about AnnettePeople don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's childhood and the turning point their lives reached an assumption when the mysterious healer Timothy Richardson came to stay. It was a time Max is out with his mother that promised so much but one for which Netty now needs to make amends, even if she is beyond the grave's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473630606</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue GeeClaire North|title=TrioHouse of Odysseus|rating=45|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=In ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the winter of 1936, Steven Coulterexcellent ''s wife, Margaret, dies of tuberculosis, leaving their Northumberland cottage cold and empty. His work as a history teacher at Kirkhoughton BoysIthaca' School isn't enough to distract him from his grief; he spends his long evenings writing letters to Margaretpicks up a few months after where we left off. GraduallyIn the palace of Odysseus, thoughwith delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, as spring arrives he starts who sailed to take an interest in other thingswar at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. His colleague Frank Embleton invites him to a performance As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the Hepplewick Trio: Frankchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's sister Diana shores, Queen Penelope is on cello; pianist Margot Heslop, whose mother died when she was young and who looks after her father, the brink of a coal mine managerfragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, at Hepplewick Hall; and their friend George LiddellKing of Mycenae, the violinist and leaderhis sister Elektra, who is a Royal College of Music graduateseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784630616</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stephanie DanlerKay Chronister|title= SweetbitterDesert Creatures

|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= Twenty –two year old Tess With a world that is a restless graduate from a broken family. With the intention of finally starting her lifebecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, she moves to New York City with no real plan but a need to do somethingpost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. She manages to get Whether it is a job at one of the most exclusive restaurants in town as robotic takeover, a back-waiter and Tess is thrown into the comforting commotion world devoid of New York life. It's at her new job that she becomes fascinated by two people: Simone, water or a know-it-all server and Jakenuclear holocaust, this genre is a handsome yet moody bartenderway for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. While the restaurant becomes her home and her colleagues her new family, ''SweetbitterDesert Creatures'' follows Tess through by Kay Chronister is a year new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of her life as she grows and learns about the complexities of human relationshipsfears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780749155</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Rodrigo Hasbun and Sophie Hughes (translator)Eric LaRocca|title=AffectionsThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionHorror|summary=If you thought your teenaged years were Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a struggle way to work out the world, reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and yourselfprocess them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', consider whether that of Heidi Ertl. Or either of her sisters – this book serves as is a home invader, a monster or a sort of tribute to these three real-life womenghost, it usually something tangible and , by the lives that came out end of their very disjointed youththe story, forced to be rarefied from the norm by their family uprootingbeatable. Father Hans was one of Leni RiefenstahlEric LaRocca's key cameramen, and ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a Nazi military photographer, before taking the whole family into post-war exile in Bolivia. Their mother would have followed him to the ends collection of the earth – as short stories more interested in part would their daughters, the older two horrors of which start the book by joining him on an expedition to discover a lost Incan city. Heidi finds youngillness, instant love on the trek – but sees the dark side of such emotions, toogrief and humiliation. Older sister Monika, who might well be manic depressive, finds something else, while the baby of the family stays at home with a maudlin mother. So much here could be the hook on which Horrors that linger and are harder to hang a full novel, but if anything itdefeat than any ''Big Bad''s the reaction of them all to this unusual formative journey that inspires this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272135</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sun-mi HwangMadelaine Lucas|title= The Dog who Dared to DreamThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=From the very beginning''Love, I'd read, Scraggly knows that she is different was supposed to her brothers be a light and sisters. Her siblings have short, glossy coatsweightless feeling, but ScragglyI had always longed for gravity's blue/black fur is ' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long, wild and untamedrelationship that once defined her. She may be an outsiderOverlaid with later wisdom, but she still enjoys life the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her family in Grandpa Screechersenior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's sunny yard, even if it means putting up deepening relationship with the evil cat next door. Scraggly dreams that things can stay this way foreverher older lover, but fate has other plans. One tragic nightdepicting its all-consuming nature, everything she loves is cruelly ripped away from how it changed her. As she struggles to rebuild a new life perspective on both romantic and family for herself, she comes to understand that sadness, betrayal familial relationships and loss are an inevitable part of lifehow it altered her irrevocably. Can Scraggly ever learn to trust another human again?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349142106</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah PerryMichael Grothaus|title= The Essex Serpent|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I confess to a bias… when I came across a reference to Sarah Perry's latest novel; I wanted to read it for two reasons only. She is a local writer, and the book is set in a place not too far away, but that I have yet to explore and which fascinates me: the Blackwater estuary in Essex. That's a place of the kind of wide open skies and mud creeks that you will find up much of the Norfolk and Suffolk coast as well, and a landscape type that probably only appeals to a certain type of person.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178125544X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Susan Beale|title=The Good GuyBeautiful Shining People

|summary=California''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. Summer 1969. Fourteen year old Evie Boyd is a thoughtful yet bored teenager from a broken home. The attention she craves is nowhere And I'm willing to be found in the form bet most of her neglectful, serial dating motherwhat we fear will never happen, or even in we can take steps to change it.'' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the friendship question of her fickle best friend Connieidentity and acceptance. Abandoned by those around her, Evie's path collides with Suzanne – a mysterious older girl who introduces Evie Of what it means to a strange yet thrilling new lifebe human. Of what is real and what is artificial, offering her and whether the intimate relationship her life back home lacksdevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784740446</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Simon Van BooyJennifer Saint|title= Father's DayAtalanta|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=When devastating news shatters the life of six year old Harvey, she finds herself in the care of a veteran social worker, Wanda, and alone in the world save for one relative she has never met - a disabled ex-con, haunted by a violent past he can't escape. Moving between past and present, Father's Day weaves together the story of Harvey's childhood on Long Island, and her life as a young woman in Paris.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780749694</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Thomas Keneally|title=Napoleon's Last Island|rating=4.5

|summary=It's 'I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not usual to open a review with just in the history name of how the book came to be written but with ''Napoleon's Last Island'' the story sheds an intriguing light on the plotgoddess. In 2012 author Thomas Keneally It was given tickets to an exhibition for the sake of Napoleonic artefacts: uniformsmy name, furniture, china, paintings, military decorations, snuff boxes and memorabilia as well as Napoleontoo. Atalanta''s death mask Princess. Warrior. Lover. He was intrigued as to how the exhibits and particularly the mask came to be in AustraliaHero. Some pieces in the exhibition had been bought in later but most came from  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the descendants protective eye of the Balcombe familygoddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who came longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the colony in the first half Argonauts, a fierce band of the nineteenth centurywarriors, descendent from St Helena via Englandthe Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. The result What follows is a whirlwind of Keneally's research into the story is ''Napoleon's Last Island'challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis'fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473625335</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Natural Way of ThingsAmanthi Harris|authortitle=Charlotte WoodBeautiful Place

|summary=Yolanda and Verla wake up disorientated. They realise they've been drugged. Yolanda thinks that perhaps they are in some kind of mental facility - She knew she was not madPadma, but all lunatics thought that. Verla just sitsa young Sri Lankan, still and frozen, waiting. And soon enough, two men arrive has returned to reveal their fatethe Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. Yolanda and Verla, along with eight other girls, have been brought to This is a remote farmhouse surrounded by an electrified fenceplace she spent her formative years. Their heads are shaved. They are dressed in uncomfortable, scratchy, Amish-style clothes. They are tied together like a chain gang. And, like any chain gang, their days are marked with forced labour. Two men, one more cruel than the other, and a so-called nurse are their jailers, It is not their guardians.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760291870</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Emma Geen|title=The Many Selves of Katherine North|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=As a Bristol-area 'phenomenaut'place she was born into, nineteen-year-old Kit projects herself into but the lab-grown bodies one she thinks of all sorts of creatures. She's recently spent a lot of time as a fox (appropriate given her nickname) and got particularly close with a vixen named Tomokohome. It's becoming much harder for her How she came to leave the animal world behind be at the end of her 'jumps'. Even after BuckleyVilla, how it became her neuroengineerhome, signals and the machinations that have flowed through her to life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'Come home' for this gentle and she resumes yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her original body, she has trouble giving up animal tendencies past and much like territorialismthe musical score of a film, toileting outdoors and raiding binsthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408858436</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sjon and Victoria Cribb (translator)178563335X|title=Moonstone: The Boy Who Never WasSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=SixteenWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Mani Stein Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter- Moonstone in translation - existed on the fringes of societylaw won't let her see her grandson. He lived in Reykjavik and in 1918 the night sky (and the day for that matter) was lit by the eruptions of Holthorpe, on the Katla volcano. The Great War was ragingNorfolk coast, or possibly grinding onis a lovely place, but life Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the capital carried on much as usual. There were shortagesvicar, such as coalGail, but there was then she's been doing the new fashion and it was job for the movies that Mani lived, seeing every production he could, sometimes several timesmore than thirty years. He dreamed about Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the films, changing beach would do them to suit his tastes, working his own life into the plotssome good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. But there was another reason why Mani was a misfit: Mani was gay and frequently made a living as a sex workerAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473613132</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Conor O'Callaghan1398515388|title=Nothing on EarthThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=On a sweltering night First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in what is a blisteringly hot summer a young girl hammers at a man's door the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and when let into this, in turn, caused the house tells him that her father has disappeared ''too''nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. Gradually her story emergesThe deaths were uncountable, of a home on one of those estates so common in Ireland after and the collapse loss of the Celtic Tiger with only the occasional house occupied and others only part builtlivelihoods was widespread. It could be any one of hundreds of Irish towns at The fact that time and its main feature is many pets were separated from their owners came far down the lack list of hope that it will never be any betterpriorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Our narrator tells her story, much, He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he says, as it was told would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to him open his car door and we hear of a life on the edge of poverty, with strange noises in Tamon the night, words written dog jumped in the dust on the windows mirrored by those written in blue ink on her skin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781620342</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Per Olov Enquist and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)0989715337|title=The Parable BookPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=3.54

|summary=It's not only springtime when a man's fancies turn to thoughts of love – he can also do it Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the autumn fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of his lifetheir eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as does he filled them.'' How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the man involved here. But being a well-known author, form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and being beholden laconic to silencewistful and musing, can he really put his thoughts turning on paper? It happened a long time agosixpence. And author Marco North, and he only met who has the woman concerned a couple most wonderful turn of timesphrase, but with it being such a powerful event and such a slightly unusual circumstance, what should he do? It takes a notebook of his father's love poems to his mother, that starts as he finds both incomplete and scorched, to give him the green light – the voice from the past that says means to him, 'go for it'. And what we read here is a resulton.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857059912</amazonuk>