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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!{{Frontpage|isbn= B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work -take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Hunchback|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I was in the middle of a self- Remove imposed book-->buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in was the book's bold fuchsia cover, followed by its striking title: ''Hunchback''. This is a word I recognised to be loaded with historical and cultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and turned to the back inside cover. There, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. I had to read it.|isbn=0241700787}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt HaigJen Beagin|title=Big Swiss|rating=4.5|genre=Humour |summary=I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How ? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just makes it more exciting. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a fly on the wall. That is, until Greta decides to Stop Timeunglue her fly-feet from the safety of the wall and buzz far too close to the sun. The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to Om, fly out of the window. She's in too deep.|isbn=0571378579}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784745758|title=Three Days in June|author=Anne Tyler|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The day before your daughter's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. First, it was her job as assistant head at the local school. There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the subject of 'people skills' and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (in the middle of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there with a cat. He thinks that he'll be staying and that Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life.}}{{Frontpage|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital

|summary=Tom is an albatross. ThatIn 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital's not to say he has a freakish wingspan, or anything, but it means he's not a mayfly. In contrast to all us regular humans with our temperamental bodies living out short lifespans, he ages at a speed roughly one-fifteenth of compact yet profound work that at which we do, and barely gets touched by any disease. It means he will live for several more centuries than the ones he has witnessed so far, but ever since his mother was drowned as unfolds over a witch due to his teenaged self never ageing, he has known the best thing for him – and others – is to regularly move on. Solitude has been tempered since single day in the late Victorian era, when other people even older than him press-ganged him into their society lives of albatrosses, but the fact a group of astronauts aboard the matter is that falling in love really is International Space Station. Through a no-no. But narrative lens thatmirrors the astronauts's not to say it never happenedorbital perspective, and that's not Harvey invites readers to say that he can't feel things for the albatross daughter he's not seen for centuriessee our planet in a wholly new light. It might be the only thing he has to live for…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782118616</amazonuk>1529922933

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Dane HuckelbridgeHan Kang|title= Castle of WaterThe Vegetarian|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Barry Bleeker This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and Sophie Ducel are two very different people destined penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to take the same journeyunputdownable as it gets. As they are both aboard a flight It more than lives up to the Marquesas Islands, their tiny plane crashes leaving Barry and Sophie the only survivorsacclaim. Until recentlyThe story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, Barry was an investment banker in New York before he decided to leave his life behind and pursue his dream of painting. Sophie meanwhile, was a French architect who along with her husband Etienne was planning a honeymoon of a lifetime. Now Barry and Sophie are alone on an uninhabited island in the South Pacificvividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, where they must learn to put aside their differences and surviveelusive souls.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008217858</amazonuk>1803510056

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= M L RioSally Rooney|title= If We Were VillainsIntermezzo|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Murder most horrid amongst a group Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of 4th Year university students life and is something of Shakespearea grandmaster at putting it into words. We open Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as our protagonist 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 released from jail having served the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his time for older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD|title=Nowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=In a crime that quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he may or may not have committedmakes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. What did Some last reflections, and then he do? What happened that year? Why did things turn out the way they did? We have says goodbye to push our way through his wife, the undergrowth of flashbacks to find outworld, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785656473</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Martha Conway1739526910|title= The Floating TheatreWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone and penniless on the shore of the Ohio''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, she finds work on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the riverhe arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Her creativity and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among the colourful troupe Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of actorsreconnecting with everything he has lost. She finds friendsBut as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and possibly the promise of moresurprising romantic possibilities. But cruising the border between the Confederate South and the 'free' North is fraught }}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Lecoat|title=Beyond Summerland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with dangerher mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. For During the sake of a debt that must be repaidwar, May is compelled Jean's father was arrested for listening to transport secret passengersa banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, under cover leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of darknesshim. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, across and the river and onwar is finally over, along the underground railroadtheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as May's secrets become harder to keepa relief, she learns she must endanger those now dear to her.  or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And to save what other secrets have been kept throughout the lives of others, she must risk her own... occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785762907</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel Kehlmann and Ross Benjamin (translator)Onyi Nwabineli|title=You Should Have LeftAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|genre=General Fiction |summary=Our narrator is a screenwriterAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, tasked with coming up with a sequel thanks to his hit movie her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri'Besties'' – a film which helped pay s childhood for a housesponsorships and influencer deals and, but which his actress wife keeps letting him knowbasically, isn't ''art''monetary gain. To concentrateNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the family – hecontent about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, the wifefailing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and their four year old daughter – have rented a large, modern house at the end of a horrid, hairpin bend-filled road, in a charming alpine landscapesecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. But things aren't right. The couple are at loggerheads too muchMost importantly, things keep unsettling our narratorshe is desperately worried about her little sister, and the sole shopkeeper for miles around who is ready with the Hammer Horror styled warnings new focus of strange events. Quickly we see the bookOphelia's title in all its galling clarity – but it isn't too late to get out… is it? online empire. And out of whatCan she save her sister, exactlyand perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786484048</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Craig1529153298|title=The Lie List of the LandSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=The Bredins canIt't afford to divorces 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) The house in London She's not what'woulds worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they' sellve been murdered, but not for a priced that would allow Quentin and Lottie ( she with her son and their two girls) to each get somewhere to livehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Unemployment has barrelled into the equation too: LottieMiv's upset because she's lost overheard that her job as an architect and Quentinfather wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you's prowess as re from Yorkshire, Down South is a journalist is in reducing demandfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. There's not much in For Miv, the way of family help available: Lottie's mother's house might be worth six millionmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, but and she barely scrapes by on her income'll do anything to prevent that. ThereShe's one solution not worried about the dangers or that just might work: the house in London can be let and theyher Mum'll move s stopped talking - to somewhere cheap in the country and live as best they can on the rent they receiveanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408709295</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author= Ann ODaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to ' LoughlinCallas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title= The Ludlow Ladies' SocietyPerfect Passion Company|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''The Ludlow Ladies' Society'' Perfect Passion Company is the story of two women a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and their struggle operating as an alternative to come to terms with all the terrible tragedies online apps in their livesproviding a more personal, tailored service. Connie Carter arrives at Ludlow Hall, a property Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she has inherited in Irelandcould come and look after the business, with no clue as Ness is planning to what take a trip to expectCanada to get away for a while. The close-knit community are curious about ''The American Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend,'' who seems and so jumps at the chance to have no desire come home to integrate herself into the communityEdinburgh. Nearby And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, lives Evebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, a widowthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who formerly lived at Ludlow Hallquickly begin to charm. She Katie has no experience in running a business, tooor in match-making, but Ness has painful memories full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and scars that are slow to healrather handsome) neighbour, William, but as she begins to form lend a friendship with the reclusive Connie, the two form a bond that will help them both face their grief together.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785301276</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tina SeskisDean Koontz|title= The HoneymoonBad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= ThrillersParanormal|summary= For as long as she can rememberBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, Jemma and someone has been planning the perfect honeymoon. A fortnight's retreat to delivered a fivereally weird, disturbing coffin-star resort in the Maldivessized object to his home, complete with luxury villas, personal butlers and absolute privacy.It should be paradise. But it's turned into possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nightmarenice person. Because A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the man Jemma married delivery to his house is a new friend, a week ago bad weather friend called Spike, who has just disappeared been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from the island without nefarious forces for being a tracegood person. And now her perfect new life Spike is vanishing just as quickly before her eyes. After everything theygoing to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny've been through togethers enemies, if he, Benny, how and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can this be happening? Is there anyone on the island figure out who Jemma can trust? And above all - where has her husband gone? exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405917970</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreview <!-- remove 17/6 -->Frontpage|author=Hugo DriscollKatherine Howe|title=Seven Days A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with Youa family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|isbn=0861547438}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5

|summary=There was little Jamie Matson works in eighteenan upper-year-old Sean Johnsonclass grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's life to give him joyson, Bo, 'has his problems'. He was a farmhand in the small town of Bloxford 's asthmatic and the highlights of his life were his daily chats with his friend Tommore you read, helping out at the animal sanctuary and a trip to more you'll suspect that he's on the pub on a Saturday nightautistic spectrum. The downsides were Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the boring job local A&E and having sometimes Bo's not fit enough to live with a drunken father who seemed go to have no intention of getting over the death of his wife many years earlierschool. But it would Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be the animal sanctuary which brought joy into his life controlled and put in the form of Sophia Hillingdon, daughter of one of the top lawyers in the country and about to go to Oxford to study law herselfwrong. It was their love of animals which would spark their love for each othergoing to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B07113VFF3</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas BoardB0CKD1L5JL|title= Time of LiesRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary= The Labour Party has split Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in two. So have the Conservativesforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. The smaller parties have descended into squabbling After Bear dies and internal strife. Brexit negotiations have trundled on a brief sojourn in dribs human company, and drabsarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, held up at every turn by Petr goes on a slow-moving journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and mostly unwilling Europerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785630342</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Dan MooneySarah Marsh|title= Me, Myself and ThemA Sign of Her Own|rating= 43.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= As witty After a bout of scarlet fever as it is unsettlinga child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, Dan Mooney offers everything about her life changes. Living in a story with time when the potential use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to open lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up public conversation around mental health in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the human response to distress same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and traumaEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079255</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paula McGrathB0BC3YTCMR|title= A History of Running AwayGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating= 24.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= There's a point early on in Paula McGrath's novel where I had that pleasant feeling This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of discovering her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a newbit too nerdy if truth be told, exciting author who was going and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to take me hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a multitude of different directions. This feeling black girl whose skin is fading fast after 40 pages84% white. By 60 pages I'm scrabbling around for redeeming features She had a crush on seventeen-year- maybe some of the characters introduced earlier who have all mysteriously disappeared will reappear old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and administer life supportReggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. After 100 pages all hope is lost She went to his house and I just want he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to finish the damn thinggive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473641780</amazonuk>

In Victorian England{{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, Gerard Manley Hopkins lives a life full of confusion had left the family home and contradictionrefused to return, but discovers Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a calling for poetry that threatens pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to overrule his calling the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to God. Andlove her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, speaking but was wary - and frightened - of Godher grandfather, Five nuns leave persecution retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to travel the Junta and expected his family to a new world – only uphold his values but saw no reason to find themselves in more trouble that they could ever have imagined… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785630334</amazonuk>accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Benjamin LudwigDean Koontz|title= The Original Ginny MoonAfter Death|rating= 53|genre= General Fiction|summary= To GinnyMichael Mace, Head of Security, at a child with autismtop secret biological research facility, the word Forever means until the police comeis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Five years ago Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the police forcibly removed her from the home shrouded bodies of her abusive birth motherhis dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, Gloriahe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. Now fourteen, and in her fourth Forever Home, Ginny remains hell-bent on finding her way back to Gloria ''Everything''s apartment. She has no illusions about her mother Michael isn't ''Michael''s addictions or lack of parenting skillsanymore. She knows that it might be dangerous – that it might even kill her|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. Still she plots, obsessed with returning to GloriaIt's to find something she insists she left behind, something she hid under her bedsurrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. Her teachersThe black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, therapistroofs on homes, and new Forever Parents are even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in turn frustrated, infuriated, the village and perplexed. As Gloria returns to her lifethat is the reason Volushka, the reader follows Ginny on a journey filled with danger and discoverydrunken, self-indulgent, in her quest to find lazy lout of a place she can truly call her Forever Homeman is tolerated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848456611</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Harriet CummingsB0BYF82CXT|title=We All Begin As Strangers|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary=In the summer of 1984, a Chilterns village was gripped with fear and suspicion as a mysterious intruder known as ''The Fox'' broke into the homes of several residents in the area. Despite an increased police presence, regular patrols and vigilante groups, this slippery character still managed to evade detection. A huge police ''Foxhunt'' followed, and finally, forensic evidence led to the eventual capture of the perpetrator. This realSemi-life news story sparked the imagination of a young Harriet Cummings, who went on to create a fictional version of events, which invites the reader to turn detective and try and unmask ''The Fox'' from a range of possible suspects.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409169049</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDetached|author=Val Harris|title=Hunting GroundDeborah Stone

|summary=Nyara Camp is one ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of the newest camps in the Masai Mara boredom and disappointment, when Terry and it's run by James Fiona – glamorous, successful and Alexia Sackville. The guests might sleep very much in tents, but it's still luxury accommodation love – move in anybody's booknext door. Chui CampDespite their different outlooks on life, on the couples befriend each other hand, sticks with the traditional way that safaris were run, including bucket showersand life appears to improve for both pairs. Owner Ralph Somerton But all is convinced that's not what the guests ''should'' want it seems, and he won't listen to any of his wife Tessa's suggestions their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for updating the tired venuetragedy. It's beginning to be reflected in the profits Chui makes, but instead of upping his own game Somerton would rather see Nyara as unfair competition and it's only a small step from that reasoning to looking at ways of ensuring Nyara's failure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955599717</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Dominic SmithShalini Boland|title= The Last Painting of Sara de VosSilent Bride|rating= 53|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= If you find the techniques used by Rembrandt Alice and Vermeer fascinating, ''The Last Painting of Sara de Vos'' provides Seth are a masterclass match made in how to work up a canvas in stagesheaven. Framing the novel as the story of a seventeenth century Dutch painting He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the main contours of his characters funny; total and the three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way throughutter husband-material. Sara She is one of the few women artists of the period and her painting is of children skating on all he could possibly want in a frozen canalwife; beautiful, her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born successful, confident… and he so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the patent lawyer from whom it wedding is stolen in 1950s Manhattanplanned and set. Ellie Shipley forged a copy of When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the painting in aisle by her postgraduate student years father, beaming with pride and in 2000 finds herself at excitement as she surveys the centre of a gathering storm which threatens congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to destroy her reputation as one of Sydney's foremost fine art academics. Satisfying though those first descriptions areface his approaching bride, we then understand these are merely the authorAlice's equivalent of world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the delicate chalk lines used by painters of man at the Dutch Golden Age altar is, who is waiting for her to mark out the composition which will followbecome his wife. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>192526680X</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stewart O'Nan1787636003|title= Last Night at the LobsterThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=The Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain is closing some of its poorly-performing branches just before ChristmasIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Amid the Christmas lights Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, office parties and forced jollity Manny DeLeonperhaps, the manager of one of these failing outletsnaive, has to keep it all together for one last day. Shortso when thirty-four-year-handed, with most of the staff who've bothered old Alistair Wright started to turn up facing unemploymenttake an interest in her, he tries to make the best of she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a bad job, all the while knowing this will be the last day before he'll spend with the waitress he shouldn't still be in love with, particularly not now he's about made any sort of physical approach to be a dadher and by that time she was obsessed by him. Oh Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and there's a blizzard on in particular in the bar where all the waygirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760293865</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Delia EphronAmanda Craig|title=SiracusaThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary= Michael and Lizzie are a writer–journalist couple from New York City; Finn and Taylor live with their tenFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-yearthe-old daughter, Snow, in Portland, Mainenation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, where Finn (crafting an old flame image of Lizziethe country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's) owns a restaurantpractically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. After meeting up by chance on She has such a trip to London last year, they decide to go away together gift for a proper holiday in Italy, to weaving the Sicilian island ongoing issues of Siracusa via Rome. In alternating chapters, the narrative moves fluidly between day into the perspectives lives of the four adults, all of whom are reflecting – with the help of hindsight her characters in a way that feels natural and therapy – on what ended up being a disastrous trip. Although we don't learn until very late on lived-in the book exactly what went wrong, there's a sense that it might be something to do never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with Snowissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786071541</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Caro Fraser152915118X|title= The Summer House PartyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= In ''Pineapple Street'' is the gloriously hot summer story of 1936, a group of people meet at a country house party. Within three yearswomen: Sasha, England will be at war, but for now, time stands stillDarley and Georgiana. Dan Ranscombe is clever Darley and good-looking, but he resents the wealth George are sisters and easy savoir-faire of fellow guest, Paul LatimerSasha is married to their brother Cord. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that They're Stocktons, wouldnonly Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she? And what about Diana, Paulisn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, exacerbated when the Jewish outsiderclan matriarch, MadeleineTilda, restless asks Cord and dissatisfied with her role as childrenSasha if they's nanny? And artist Henry Haddond like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, their hosta street or so away, no longer youngwhich they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, but secure so Sasha and Cord can move straight in his power as a practised seducer. As these guests gather Nominally, none has any inkling the choices they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through had a choice but that wasn't the war reality. Darley and beyondGeorgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. Or They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786691485</amazonuk>GD'.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PitoniakEmily Critchley|title=The FuturesOne Puzzling Afternoon

|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck''Love, he has just started at Yale CollegeI'd read, where he plays ice hockey. Like lots of the other playerswas supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, he is actually Canadianbut I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, from smalla young woman unravels the year-town British Columbialong relationship that once defined her. One night Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm and they go out . Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for pizza. She technically has a boyfriend from Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her Boston boarding school daysolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, but they soon break up how it changed her perspective on both romantic and before long Julia familial relationships and Evan have become inseparable, as they will remain for the rest of their college yearshow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lizzy Mumfrey0008506337|title=Fall OutThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=CharltonThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's the sort of village where people aspire to liveLeary was all-consuming, despite its apparent ordinarinessapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. ThereRichard was twenty-one and described by Margo's the usual mix of commuters (itmother as 's not an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard'too'' far s influence would take her away from London) what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and those who make their lives in the villagehaving a glittering career. Richard Hughes is a commuter, but his wife Jessica works at In the local academyevent, where both their children - Alfie they eloped and Hannah - are pupilsRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Pete Cole is Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a newlywell-promoted police superintendent respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and clearly still fond of his voluptuous wife, SusieSasha. ActuallyLife was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, some the family home on the Isle of that voluptuousness might be better described as fat - Pete suspects that he might need longer arms to hug her before longWight. Less popular is Gary Webber. HeEven then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's the sort of man who causes people mind: ''she would never be able to heave a sigh of relief when he joins someone else for a drink at the golf clubleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911079840</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Clare Fisher1914585402|title= All the Good ThingsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Nature, nurture, chance and circumstance; all combine to produce the story of Bethany Mitchell, a young adult who writes from her prison cell. We know only that she has committed a I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'bad things Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There', s Only One Danny Garvey]] a bad thing that she sees as the end couple of her storyyears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Armed with It was a simple taskgripping, Erikaemotionally wounding read, a psychologist, sets out to challenge this. She asks Beth simply to compile a list and rereading my review of all the good things in her lifeit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024127575X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Robert HarrisLucy Ashe|title= ConclaveClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= It The year is hard 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to believe detail – and some things, that Harris has managed to bring such pace to ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the often lengthy and complex process of classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a conclavehard-worker, but he has wrung out every piece of mystery and the result had me reading through long into the night. I simply could not put this downa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784751839</amazonuk>0861544080