Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= David Szalay295967572X|title= All That Man IsPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Two teenage boys on an Inter Rail trip around Europe find themselves staying Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with a frustrated housewife on his companion Django. Where they're going and what the outskirts purpose of Prague, a driftless young Frenchman discovers sexual fulfilment on a package holiday in Cyprus, a lovestruck Hungarian minder this journey is embroiled in a prostitution racket at an upmarket London hotel, a Belgian academic is forced uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to confront his egotism when his partner becomes pregnant, a Danish tabloid journalist exposes a highaccompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either -ranking politician's love affair, a property developer inspects a new project but we are probably in the French alps, a Scot living in Croatia fails in love past as the pair travel to the station by coach and business, a Russian millionaire confronts divorce, an elderly English politician survives the train is a road accident in Italysteam locomotive. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593696</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elizabeth HayMakenna Goodman|title= His Whole LifeHelen of Nowhere|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= If you think It could be argued that ''unthe pervading theme of this book is malaise -puta hard-downto-able'' place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the greatest accolade for brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a bookforce which is seductive, think againradical and unnerving: Helen. ''Put-down-able'' can be stronger praise: ''His Whole Life'' The connection between Helen and the protagonist is put-down-ableindirect yet intimate. It encourages you to put it down, to wrap yourself in the slow-moving story, the exquisite writing, As the subtleties former owner of the characterscountryside house he's considering, and just walk around for Helen represents a while with them slowly sinking volta in; it encourages you his life, her past tied to come back to it again his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and again; mostly it encourages you to put it downdescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, to read it slowlybeyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, because you don't want it to endHelen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857055445</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phillip LewisOlga Tokarczuk|title= The BarrowfieldsHouse of Day, House of Night|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Just before Henry Aster''What's birth, his father, the good of a frustrated novelist and lawyerworld that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, reluctantly returns to the remote North Carolina mountains in which he was improbably raised and installs his young family in a gothic mansion - nicknamed 'the vulture house' - worthy House of his hero Edgar Allan Poe. ThereDay, Henry grows up under the desk House of Night'', somewhat reflects this fierce and brilliant mannotion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But when a death , the constant in that image is the family tips his father toward a fearsome unravellinghouse, what was once a young son's reverence stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is poisoned, and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home againperceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636825</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paula CocozzaThea Lenarduzzi|title= How to Be Human|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention and every hair bristling with his power to surprise - it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they are gifts), and gradually makes himself at home. And as he listens to Mary, Mary listens back. She begins to hear herself for the first time in years. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on the fringes of her life, would be appalled. So would the neighbours with a new baby. They only like wildlife that fits with the decor. But inside Mary a wildness is growing that will not be tamed. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786330334</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Helen Dunmore|title=Birdcage WalkThe Tower

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached ''How unctuous are the zenith fats of his another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream's work: building a terrace '. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of prestigious houses overlooking T, the Avon Gorgeprotagonist of this tale. In a time of turbulence Just as France reaches T's story is being told, the dawn story of revolutiona second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in the daughter of a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe wealthy family in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to allthe 19th century, including women. In other words, they think nothing who died of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned the French flames. Howevertuberculosis after being locked in a tower, thatcaptures T's not Lizzieimagination. Annie's only problem… there fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a darkness story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in her husband's past service of which she's unawaremyth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma HendersonJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title= The Valentine HouseVaim|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and picked, it is believed, to ensure they donAll was strange't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the start pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strangefictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind two of farming. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by war, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mystery. And protagonists caught in 1976, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use itits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hannah TintiClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Twelve Lives of Samuel HawleyBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5

|summary=When she turns twelveEverything in this book, Samuel Hawley teaches his daughterhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, Loo (short for Louise)is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, how to use her grandfather's rifle. Shooting usually a gun symbol of intimacy and hotwiring a car prove to be useful skills for this daughter closeness, becomes evidence of a fugitivelove lost. Hawley is a lawless modern cowboy whoWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''s had many close shaves come over his years on the run for committing robberies here and making dodgy deals. He and his young daughter form kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a cosy unit of their own; they live off of Chinese food and vending machine snacks in motel rooms and move on every six months or so desperate attempt to avoid the consequences confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of his criminal activities. But when they get to Olympusthis plea is Xavier, Massachusettsher ex-partner, Hawley decides it's time a ghost she conjures to settle down. He buys a house by the water – with cash – and becomes a clean-living fishermantest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472234367</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nicole Dennis-Benn Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= Here Comes the Sun Lili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= You have to assume the team behind the cover sleeve for Nicole Dennis-Benn's debut First published in 1953 in French, this novel Here Come's is a timeless text which wrenches the Sun have a keen sense hearts of ironyits readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Either that or none Like the lives of them read beyond the first pageher characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178607124X</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Polly ClarkJonathan Buckley|title= LarchfieldOne Boat|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when 'One Boat'' is a young poetdeeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on drawing the west coast reader into a contemplative realm of Scotland philosophical musings and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wifeprotagonist, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrongTeresa. As Set against the battle begins for her very sense evocative backdrop of selfa small coastal Greek town, Dora comes to find this work masterfully captures the realities magic of small town life suffocating, its setting and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way its power to escape reality altogetherprovoke profound introspection. Another poet, Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she discovers, lived in Helensburgh oncehas visited it after the death of both her parents. Wystan H. AudenPrompted by her mourning, brilliant her narrative voice is meditative and awkward at 24deeply self-aware, with his first inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of poetry publishedthought, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he since its narrative structure is mocked for his Englishness fragmentary and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love ironically relies on analepsis for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fearsits propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)Eowyn Ivey|title=The Longest NightBlack Woods Blue Sky

|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the dead restyoung mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and love the livingher accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. The problem with thatWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, as a 96-year-oldstrange, taciturn and solitary man, is that who says he has a cabin over there are too few living left, and so while the love remains she will feels called to go through - and bring Emaleen with her memories. Without realising it, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|isbn=1472279042}} {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the major events chessboard of her lifeand is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husbandHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, who gets snatched from as her at workcharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, fleeing the central one for readers to another place to wait for peaceunravel 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, and wait for him a successful lawyer living in vainDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, moving to Holland and finding the brothers' already strained relationship faces new lovetrials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and so on – this wispy journey will show all temperaments with remarkable clarity.|isbn=0241619785}}{{Frontpage|author=James Baldwin|title=Giovanni's Room|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the impacts of warnarrator David, an American man living in Paris, from rationing right up to exileas he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, death and survivalan Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. The memories are coming strongly here and nowWhile David is engaged to Hella, as Emma who is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visittravelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and then she will die…denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marisa SilverAlba de Cespedes |title= Little NothingForbidden Notebook|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=In This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an unnamed country at the beginning air of suspense and tension from the last centurymoment our protagonist, a peasant couple longs for a child. In despair they turn to gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptionsValeria Cossati, and one cold wintery nightpurchases her forbidden notebook, the couple's wish comes true. But the silence that follows the birth forewarns of darker days to come. Strangers look on askance and fall speechless learns about herself in the child's presence, most intimate and villagers protectively hush their children as they pass on narrow market lanes. Pavla is no ordinary child, but then this is no ordinary talerevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786071274</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)Ottessa Moshfegh|title=The Yellow HouseMy Year of Rest and Relaxation

|summary=If you were the needy kindAt best, would you really join in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel does. But he has something that will really get him noted, well-thought-is a scathing critique of, included. He has come to modern society and reveals the south fragility of France to set up an artists' collectivehuman relationships; at worst, where he can live and work alongside his counterpartsit is the cynical, who can inspire each other predictable and best each other to create wonderful artslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. In fact This unlikely heroine, a much-respected guest is on his way nowslim, so surely he can find kinship? The guest's name attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties isdisillusioned with the world, after allbut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, Gauguinher solution lies in her hibernation. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer DownMatthew Tree|title=Our Magic HourWe'll Never Know

|summary=There had always been KatyTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Audrey a drunk and Adam. They've been friends since school chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and now, along with Audrey's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionalswho had endless crises of self confidence. ThenSo Tim applied himself to his studies, one day, Katy kills herself. No warning, no reason just no Katy. The four are suddenly three trying to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure it outcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ayobami AdebayoB0C47LV1PC|title= Stay With MeFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= I have Can you make a ''thingYo birthing person'' about blurbs which give away far too much of joke? And if you could, is the stories. Not this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if question should you make it? Or is the burden is too much and stays too long even love bendsquestion if you did, cracks, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does break.'' ''But even when would it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, land? The catch is that doesn't mean it's no longer love…'' That is the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read in a long time – and it sums up this storyanswer for both could well be... This is a story about love not being enough…but still being love. I hope this becomes a classic, not just in its native Nigeria but around the worldno. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Michael Farris Smith|title= Desperation Road|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Maben is on the run. For a long while it's not clear whether she's running from something or towards something, or simply back to where it all started. SheFragility's got her small daughter with her, and they've been walking for a very long time. It's hard on is set as the childcity of Portland, Oregon, but it's also clear that if it wasn't for cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the child Maben would stop running, and it's clear that that would not be a good thing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843449870</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)Mosby Woods|title=Fever DreamA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=Meet CarlaThe 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 the best course of action. Governments are flailing. She's a glamorous older woman, with poise and beautyA war here, and someone who still looks a treat push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in a golden bikiniactual charge. But insideImagine then, she's different. The biggest issue she seems to bear relates to an event there was a few years ago, when her horse breeder husband had the drama of both a hired, valuable stallion, and their son, being poisonedman with precognition. Away from Imagine the right medical treatment, Carla took David to strategic advantage in this asset; a woman man who said the only hope was a 'migration' – basically, to farm out part can tell you what will happen given any set of David's spirit and swap it with someone else'scircumstances. That man would be valuable, to dilute right? Perhaps the toxinmost valuable asset in history. This was a successImagine then, as David seems to have survived, although Carla is sure it was the wrong decision – she now sees David as at least part monster. But another odd thing about that this man loses this tale is that it isn't being narrated by Carla, but by her neighbour, another mother called Amanda, who is renting a holiday home nearbyability. And the further odd thing is What would governments do to whom she is narrating this story – get it's to David…back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shanthi Sekaran0571379559|title=Lucky BoyThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=Solimar wants more from her life than her Mexican home can offer and now she''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's 18roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she can go find lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her target is husband, Richard, struggles to get grow his vegetables, to complete the USA, a target so blinding that she doesn't realise what reaching out for it will costdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. Meanwhile Kavya is living They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the American dreamrainbow twins. SheSonny's colouring reflects his mother's rich in friendshipJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, family, a loving husband much less twins and life prospects and yet Kavya has a baby-shaped hole in her world. The problem there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that thereshe's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>his nanny.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassClaire North|title= For House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a Little Whilefew months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures

|genre= Short StoriesDystopian Fiction|summary=With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''For a Little WhileDesert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a collection new work of twentypost-five short stories from Rick Bassapocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was It is a wonderful introduction to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped back, simple fables featuring often mundane situations, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters in each tale are beautifully crafted and the stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death shocking novel that still manages to choices made and chances takenfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Dorthe NorsEric LaRocca|title=MirrorThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, Shoulderby the end of the story, Signalbeatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=3.5

|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novels''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a novella light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a story collection. The protagonist of her latest novelretrospective view, fortya young woman unravels the year-something Sonjalong relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, has the narrator relives the affair with a problem with balance man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – literallyto its sorrowful end the summer after. Due to Set against the backdrop of an inner ear condition, if she bends over sheisolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt's crippled by dizziness. It's inconvenient given that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. Shedetails the 24-year-old narrator's already doing poorly – deepening relationship with her angryolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, sweary instructor Jytte doesn't trust her enough to change gears so does how it all for changed her – perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and so can't have them finding out that she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is how it altered her instructor, but he's an odious lecher. She really can't winirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273123</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice HoffmanMichael Grothaus|title= FaithfulBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to a life in New York City, Shelby remains damaged by the loss of her best friend, stumbling through life blindly and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at all. But, as she grows, she discovers emotion, survival and happiness, bundled up with dogs, food, books and men she's probably best avoiding… Deep in New York City she find a circle of lost and found souls, and the angel who's been watching over her since that fateful night all those years ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471157717</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)|title=Octavio's Journey|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Octavio. He's a large lunk, a gentle giant, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetingly, had fame, fashion and success through a minor miracle, but has none any longer. Octavio, it seems, has some unusual habits – here he is, marching off to the chemist's with a table across his back, for it was all the doctor had at the time to write a prescription on. Now we never learn exactly what the cause of the prescription was, but we soon find out what the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot read, and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow the wound to let him escape the need to write. Until, that is, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read and write, and to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there is a whole host of other things he can put his mind to, both for good, and for bad…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Spring Garden|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Murakami, and (long before the film) Endo's ''Silence''. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writing. But now there's Tomoka Shibasaki, and her noted work ''Spring Garden''. Which, make no mistake, is definitely Japanese. For instance, if I told you it starts with a man looking up to watch his female neighbour on her balcony, and concerns obsession, you could well think it was his about her. But no – perhaps only in the west is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers here, and it – and the novel – concern a singular house. And the very singular country it lives in, and the changes it is going through…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Laura Kaye|title= English Animals|rating= 5

|summary= When Mirka gets a job in a country house in rural England, she has no idea of the struggle she faces ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to make sense bet most of a very English couplewhat we fear will never happen, and a way of life that is entirely alien or we can take steps to herchange it. Richard '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and Sophie are chaotic, drunken, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous and kind acceptance. Of what it means to Mirka, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriagebe human. Mirka Of what is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money-making enterprise, taxidermy, real and soon surpasses him in skill. After a traumatic break two years ago with her family in Slovakia, Mirka finds to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hall. But when she tells Sophie that she what is gayartificial, everything she values is put in danger and she must learn whether the hard way what she really believes indevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140870823X</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles D BlanchardJennifer Saint|title=Kingdom's EndAtalanta|rating=45

|summary=The rats made their massive colony inside the ruins ''I was as worthy as any one of an abandoned motion picture palace, where for thirty long dark years, an aged blind leader ruled over them. A beloved figure held in high regardI would get on board that ship, he rules with patienceI vowed. I would take my place, understandingnot just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, justice and lovetoo. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. When  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a young upstart challenges all he has builtson, ruling with harsh punishments Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and rash decisionsfashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the rats must decide how best opportunity comes – to protect their colony in order to preserve all that they have built together. As join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the rats clash amongst Gods themselves, some fail – Atalanta seizes the chance to notice the ever growing threats fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and dangers through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that the outside world provides - who if she marries, it will come out on top in this very literal rat race?be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148344936X</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian BarryAmanthi Harris|title=Days Without EndBeautiful Place

|summary=It's the mid nineteenth century and Thomas McNulty has left his home in SligoPadma, his family dead from faminea young Sri Lankan, has returned to make a new life in the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a new nationplace she spent her formative years. He teams up with prairie fairy - It is not a dancer in drag - John Cole and together they sign up for place she was born into, but the US Armyone she thinks of as home. Their journey will take them through How she came to be at the American Indian wars Villa, how it became her home, and eventually to the Civil War. Along machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the way, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona ''score'' for this gentle and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennesseeyet subtly violent novel. It Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the story musical score of perhaps a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the most violent birth of a nation in history but it's also a convention-defying love storyVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rose Tremain178563335X|title=The Gustav SonataSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Gustav Perle grew up When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a small town in neutral Switzerland: PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the horrors of the Second World War seemed distantchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense of those who would seek refuge in the countrywhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. GustavThelma's father died daughter-in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his mother, Emilie, she was cold and indifferent to him-law won't let her see her grandson. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was a lonely child with just one toyHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a tin trainlovely place, but he and Anton met at kindergarten where it fell Rachel is struggling to Gustav to look after develop a real bond with the nervous boy. Anton is Jewish parish - and heshe's a talented pianistin awe of the vicar, Gail, but he lacks then she's been doing the confidence to perform in publicjob for more than thirty years. Throughout much of his life he relies Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on Gustav's support, the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but fails to appreciate just how important, how necessary it is to his wellbeingwas probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Tomaszewski1398515388|title=The Eleventh LetterBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=At the end First of all, it was the working dayearthquake, Christopher is looking over deep in the ghosts of his occupancy of some rooms on Harley Streetocean floor, before moving up which created the road to different chamberstsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and pastures newutter devastation. He's half impelled and half reluctant to revisit a pair of audio cassettesThe deaths were uncountable, on which are interviews by him and someone else the loss of a woman called Louise, who livelihoods was arrested in Italy in the 1980s for the double murder of two close friends, Kate and Johnwidespread. Hardly aware he's being snowed in by a London blizzard and The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the usual British response to any bad weather, he spontaneously provides shelter to a flamelist of priorities but -haired beauty, Kay, who provokes him into playing six months after the tapestsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. ItHe wasn's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at t a dog person but the therapistconvenience store owner's couch. Indeed, the closer comment that he gets would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to Kay, open his car door and Tamon the closer he gets to the voice of the victim from decades agodog jumped in. What on earth could be the connection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steinunn Sigurdardottir and Philip Roughton (translator)0989715337|title=The Good Lover|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Karl is a global example of the Icelandic species, with more than one home abroad and an amanuensis-cum-assistant to do his scheduling and arrange housework while he's going here and there being a businessman. He has a string of lovers that has stretched into three figures, partly because with one exception three is the limit of liaisons he'll have with each. But he's also got a heart devoted to Una, his teenaged love whom he adores, despite her splitting with him decades ago. On a whim he leaves a beach holiday to go back to one of the icy limbs of Iceland, witnesses the changes wrought by fifteen years Papa on her – and then ends up staying the night with the woman next door. This is purely platonic, but what with his host knowing everything about the situation, an ever-present taxi driver, and an ex on the line in America, is there a way he can snatch his love from her marriage and find happiness?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380139</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewMoon|author=Eric Beck Rubin|title=School of VelocityMarco North|rating=4.5

|summary=Jan's head is dropping him in it'Some frogs had gotten into the well. He's a trained concert pianist' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, but is having difficulty performingnaked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with a horrendous problem, in that he can hear any discordant music, or just in fact horrid noise, when in tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the wings waiting to perform, opening and never barked down at the strange noise of the score buckets as he filled them.'' How is due to follow. that for an opening? The devil's tinnitus, you might call it. With another failure behind him, but dignity somewhat intact, Jan decides he has to work back through his life to tell us style of this novel in the cause – form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and we're likewise dropped into an extended flashback, laconic to his formative years at art schoolwistful and musing, with turning on a pretentious drama studentsixpence. And author Marco North, Dirk. The book is a fast-moving exploration of what Jan finds who has the most wonderful turn of note (pun intended) through his lifephrase, and all that might have caused his mental problemstarts as he means to go on. But is cognisance of what might lie behind it going to help?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993506275</amazonuk>