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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alison Jean LesterB0FK5LHKD9|title= Yuki Means HappinessThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating= 34|genre= General Fiction|summary= High-tech and high-riseIt's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, kimonosso we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, and big-eyed visuals – through there's a dynamic juxtaposition mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of the ultra modern and the traditional, Japan has succeeded Money''. We like this running theme in branding itself both as an intriguing travel destination that does not cease to surprise, author's work - take a mystery but at the same give it different flavour and atmosphere each time defies being ever wholly full understood by outsiders. All }}{{Frontpage|author=Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Hunchback|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I was in the middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this has come to be encapsulated and reinforced one. What first drew me in Sofia Coppolawas the book's cult classic bold fuchsia cover, followed by its striking title: ''Lost in TranslationHunchback''. 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: the iconic still Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of Scarlett Johansson standing at the scramble crossing her life. The title took on new complexity in Shibuya has come light of her biography. I had to represent Japan in pop culture as much as the more traditional cherry blossom imageryread it. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549628</amazonuk>0241700787

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= S V BerlinJen Beagin|title= The FavouriteBig Swiss|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionHumour |summary=Siblings Edward I found the premise of this book totally original and Isobel Vernon havenaddictive. 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't spoken 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 years and live life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a fly on opposite sides of the Atlanticwall. When their mother Mary dies unexpectedlyThat is, they are thrown together until Greta decides to sort through unglue her fly-feet from the family homesafety of the wall and buzz far too close to the sun. With EdwardThe sun in this analogy is the sex coach's diffident but devoted girlfriendnewest patient, Juliewho Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', making an awkward threesomeand who, each stumbles through like the practicalities of funeral preparation sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and house clearing, trying irresistible to make sense of their emotions and their feelings toward one anotherGreta. Isobel makes a disturbing discovery and her fateful decision has consequences for all of themSuddenly, challenging their beliefs about the pastconfidentiality agreement, hopes for the future and understanding ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to Om, fly out of Marythe window. She's role in keeping them at once apart and togethertoo deep. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993563384</amazonuk>0571378579

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Claiborne Johnson1784745758|title=Be Frank with MeThree Days in June|author=Anne Tyler

|summary=In June 2009 Isaac Vargas sends his 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, twenty-four-year-old Alice Whitley, head at the local school. There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to Bel Airhead but the discussion moved into the subject of 'people skills' and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, California to help Mimi Gillespie produce 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 longex-awaited second novelhusband was there with a cat. Under He thinks that he'll be staying and that Gail will be adopting the name Mcat.M And that's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life.}}{{Frontpage|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital|rating=4. Banning5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Mimi issued a wildly successful novel back in Samantha Harvey won the 1970s, Booker Prize for ''PitchedOrbital'', which quickly became a modern classic on every American adolescentcompact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts's list orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|author=Han Kang|title=The Vegetarian|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This novel, winner of assigned reading the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for schoolLiterature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls.|isbn=1803510056}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4. She's 5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the sort chessboard of life and is something of figure Harper Lee was for decades: 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-hit literary wonder for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and an infamous reclusePeter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. But thereFollowing their father's one key difference here: Mimi has passing after a nine-year-old sonlong battle with cancer, Frankthe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782399208</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD|title=Nowhere Man|author=Kay LangdaleDeborah Stone|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1739526910|title=The Way Back to UsWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=4.5

|summary=A household revolves around its weakest member and because it's revolving there'One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's always a danger that some people - such as a spouse - will be spun to the outsidelife, whilst other children, loosely attached he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to the main carer will be recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at a distancehis former manager’s holiday home, never completely close, but never escaping eitherhe dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. In the centre are the carer and the person who needs that careBut as those tentative plans falter, bonded together he becomes swept up in such a way that it's actually difficult to offer help or even friendshiplocal world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities. So it is with Anna and Teddy, who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA as it's generally known. He's five now, confined to a wheelchair or his Whizzybug and not putting on much weight as chewing and swallowing are difficult.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473618363</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Hendrik Groen and Hester Velmans (translator)Jenny Lecoat|title= The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ years OldBeyond Summerland|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= As Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the old adage goeswar, to walk a mile in someone elseJean's shoes is father was arrested for listening to gain some understanding a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of what it is to be that personhim. Admittedly As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, Hendrik Groen isn't much up for long walks any moreand the war is finally over, but he does acquire a swish mobility scooter to zoom around in; one could say their hopes rise that we get to zoom they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a mile in Groen's shoes, and ohrelief, 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 what fun shoes he wears!other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405924004</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah FranklinOnyi Nwabineli|title= ShelterAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Connie Granger has escaped Anuri spent her bombedchildhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-out city homemother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, finding refuge in the Womenwhere she posted every step of Anuri's Timber Corpschildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. For Now Anuri is in hertwenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, this remote community must now serve a secret purposesuing her step-mother to take down the content about her.<br>Seppe Anuri is battling alcoholism, an Italian prisoner of warfailing to start her PhD, is haunted by his memoriesundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. In the forest camp Most importantly, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But as they are drawn togethershe is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the world outside their forest haven is being torn apartnew focus of Ophelia's online empire. Old certainties are crumbling Can she save her sister, and both must now make a life-defining choice.<br>What price will they pay for freedom? What will they fight to protectperhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer McVeigh1529153298|title=Leopard at the DoorThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=18 year old Rachel Fullsmith returns home to Kenya after being away at school in England It's 1979 and finds a lot can change in 6 yearsMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) Of course she realises her motherShe's death would alter things but shenot what's not prepared for her fatherworrying Miv's live-in family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared'companiondoesn' Sara nor Sarat sound quite so frightening. Miv's son Harold sleeping in Rachelupset because she's old roomoverheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Michael the Kikuyu servant boy she grew up with When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is still there though and now a man with his own ideasfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Meanwhile For Miv, the unrest between the British rulers move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the local Mau Mau fighters is increasing and about dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to blowanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241247616</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lucy Daniels1035906708|title= Summer at Hope MeadowsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Animal Ark'' was a popular series We tend to think of children's books written between 1994 and 2008. The stories focus on a young girl called Mandy HopeMaria Callas as Greek, the daughter of two vets who run a practicebut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, Animal ArkNew York, in the Yorkshire town of WelfordDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Along with Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her best friend James, the children seek father changed it to 'Callas' to help out creatures make it more manageable in needthe States. The series consisted of 94 books When she was back in total and Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was written raised under the Nazi occupation by a collection mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of authors writing under the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. ''Summer at Hope Meadows'' is the first in a new series her preference for adult readersher elder sister, continuing grown-up Mandy's story now that she is a fully qualified vetJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473653878</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)Alexander McCall Smith|title=Madame Bovary of the SuburbsThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=24.5

|summary=''It starts with becoming The Perfect Passion Company is a homeownerdating agency in Edinburgh, then settling run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps inproviding a more personal, then reproducingtailored service.'' WellNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, it actually starts as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a lot before then, while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a set of fractured memories of our heroine's childhood – things she recalls her parents bad boyfriend, and relatives saying both so jumps at the chance to and about hercome home to Edinburgh. It goes through her childhoodAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, and pen letters bringing us to a best friend conveying her wishes for her lifean Edinburgh we already love, those wishes being revised thanks to 44 Scotland Street and affirmed by the liberty of university yearsIsabel Dalhousie novels, those wishes being met but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or denied by married life… Someone archly could point out that you should be careful what you wish forin match-making, but not even our wiseNess has full confidence in her abilities, modern woman could not see the next step after the reproducing – and there''standing disappointed in front of the refrigerator''.s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857054686</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania HershmanDean Koontz|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=Short Stories Paranormal|summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Going through from A-ZHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, witnessing a bounty of ideas and characters in short order can be too muchhis house gets trashed. Oh, but do you have the right to pick and choose according someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to what appealshis home, and what time you have to fill? it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The sequence has carefully been consideredthing is, surelyBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. Such would appear A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to be the case herehelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. The last time I read one Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of this authorBenny's collectionsenemies, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]]if he, Benny, the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get Harper (a whopping forty pieces of writing, waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are also spread into sections.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jane JohnsonKatherine Howe|title= Court of LionsA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction |summary= Kate Fordham arrived Hannah Masury is living in the sunlit city of Granada Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a year agoyoung age. In the shadow When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the Alhambratown, one of the most beautiful places on earthshe decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, she works as a waitress serving tourists Hannah finds herself embroiled in a busy baryoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She pretends shehides away, so that they don's happy with t find and kill her new life – but how could she be? Kate's alonetoo, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about then to bring her face-escape them completely she runs away to-face with her greatest fear. Five centuries agosea, dressing as a message, 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 hand few could readmutiny on board, was inscribed and from there we are caught up in blood her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|isbn=0861547438}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a stolen scrap control freak with all the subtlety of papera half brick. The paper was folded and pressed into one of the Alhambra Jamie's wallsson, Bo, 'has his problems'. There it has lain He's asthmatic and the more you read, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, more you'll suspect that he's on the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers itautistic spectrum. Born of love, Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in a time of danger the local A&E and desperation, sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the fragment will need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the catalyst that changes Kate's life foreverwrong. It was going to come to a head. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie CohenB0CKD1L5JL|title=TogetherRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=54

|summary=This Petr is a love story told backwardsan orphan. Rescued by the strange, in the most beautiful mannerreclusive Bear, so that we know he is brought up far from the very beginning that Emily bustling cities and Robert love each other enormouslybusy human society, and that he is about to break her heart in the most dreadful way in order to protect a secret that theyforests of Washington've lived with for decadess Olympic Peninsula. Seeing their love unfold After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in reverse is beautiful. We get to know them once they have already gotten to know each otherhuman company, and it makes for an unusual and interesting structure. The secret they hold is referred to throughoutarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, but it isn't revealed until very late in broadcasting the book. I'm guessing very few readers will figure it out. Even once you knowstrange, you want to go back wild and read the whole story again in the light of the information you now holdrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409171744</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate MildenhallSarah Marsh|title= SkylarkingA Sign of Her Own|rating= 43.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Kate and Harriet are best friends growing up together on an isolated Australian capeAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. As the daughters Suddenly plunged into a world of the lighthouse keeperssilence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the two girls share everythinguse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, until Ellen is sent to a fishermanschool where she is taught to lip read, McPhailbut physically restrained from signing. From here, arrives she ends up in their small communityanother school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. When Kate witnesses At the desire that flares between him same time, Bell is working on other inventions and Harrietideas, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. An innocent moment Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in McPhail's hut then occurs that threatens to tear their peaceful community aparta complicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Zoe DuncanB0BC3YTCMR|title= The Shifting PoolsGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating= 24.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Perhaps the most overused phrase in fiction publishing is ''life-affirmingThis story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, closely followed by ''human condition''. The Shifting Pools takes this a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to a whole new level. Its blurb boasts that hug her in case it is ''charged throughout with the beautiful urgency of life'', whatever that meanss contagious. It isn't. And that's the problemnot easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. This isn't She had a bad book, crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but it sets itself up to failnever thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. A cardinal rule of writing is ''focus on the small stuff'' She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. If you set out She went to write a ''life affirming'' novel that answers all the ''big questions'', you'll struggle. And it is this trap that Zoe Duncan falls intohis house and he raped her. In her quest for profundity shock, she loses even allowed him to give her waya lift home. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785630369</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sarah Healy1472263936|title= The Sisters ChaseFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating= 4.5|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, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Bunny. ThatHamish (Helena's how parents) felt that it has always been ever since Bunny was bornwould be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Two sisters with an unbreakable bond, twisted together so tight that they were two sides Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the same coin. Bunny was Maryfamily's whole world; nothing else really mattered; school...friends...boys...wellmaid, maybe one boyDina, but he was something altogether extraordinarywary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. When He was proud of his close connections to the unthinkable happened, Mary Junta and Bunny found themselves completely alone in the world, expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and thatgreen eyes - inherited from her father's when Mary decided to take an unforgettable road trip, just the two of them, across the United States, in search of a place where they could belongScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0544960076</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joy RhoadesDean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. 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 shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Woolgrower's CompanionGrave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=1945: The war village is in isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its dying days bread-like fruit provides nutrition and creating problems far from its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the different fronts. For instanceforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, in Australiaand even gallows, what can be done with the Italian POWs brought into the country? if needed. The solution seems to be their use as cheap labour. In this way Kate Dowd's father agrees to take two onto his sheep farm fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in drought-ridden New South Wales. Kate is initially wary of the two men – Vittorio village and Luca – but gradually she realises that not all dangers come from outside her community. Life on is the reason Volushka, a sheep station may be harsh but for Kate it's going to get drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a lot worseman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784741345</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jonathan LeviB0BYF82CXT|title= Septimania|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= First and foremost a tale of love, Septimania delivers the frustrations and agony of two people who find each other and then lose each other, all on the same day. But what a momentous day! Life takes Malory and Louisa off in totally different directions but strangely their paths cross again and again. Malory, searching to uncover his past, moves to Rome and discovers great and incredible facts about his ancestry. Louisa, a brilliant mathematician, is head hunted for 'secret' work and is signed up by her father for a life time's contract with the American Government. She completely disappears from Malory's life and he has no way of knowing how to find her again. They are both trapped in their separate lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071565196X</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSemi-Detached|author=Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)|title=The PortraitDeborah Stone

|summary=Meet Pierre''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-Francois. He should by rights be an antiques dealerdetached house, as he made stuck in a fortune selling on his first collection (depressing rut of erasers) while at school, and funded both his university boredom and carnal education, with prostitutes, by trading too. He is, howeverdisappointment, a patent when Terry and intellectual property lawyerFiona – glamorous, successful and his wife is forever demanding a reduction very much in the space his collections take up love – move in next door. Despite their flat. But he still dabbles – although this latest visit to the showrooms will cause a lot of unexpected incident. In amongst the grot at a low-key sale he finds an ancient pastel, showing himself – a bewigged, antique version of himself, even if, howeverdifferent outlooks on life, nobody else sees the connection between Pierre-Francois couples befriend each other and the picture's subjectlife appears to improve for both pairs. StillBut all is not what it seems, as an effeminate uncle told him, ''real objects carry memory of and their past ownersincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'' – and Pierre-Francois is intent on finding the truths behind those memories. Little does he know just what he will discover…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477435</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Virginie Despentes and Frank Wynne (translator)Shalini Boland|title= Vernon Subutex 1The Silent Bride|rating= 53|genre= General Fiction|summary= Vernon Subutex is Alice and Seth are a wanted manmatch made in heaven. Following the death of Alex Bleach He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, Vernon's generous benefactor funny; total and publicly adored musicianutter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, Vernon now has confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the last recordings of Alex's drug induced ramblingswedding is planned and set. Kicked out of his apartment When the story follows Vernon as he couch surfs his way across Parismuch-anticipated day arrives, pursued Alice is walked down the aisle by journalists her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and media moguls desperate when Seth turns to cash in on Bleachface his approaching bride, Alice's death. Eventually finding himself out of luckworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, friends and money Vernon who is left sleeping rough, half mad and forced waiting for her to bear witness to a shocking act of violencebecome his wife. In a world of capricious friends and grasping avaricious journalists who can Vernon trust?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857055410</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rowena MacDonald1787636003|title= The Threat Level Remains SevereGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Grace Ambrose isnIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't Brigitte Jonesexactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, honest; for one thing she doesn't keep was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a diarywhile before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Grace is our typical misogynistic Hollywood stereotype supporting female character. She is Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the ''secretly hot chick'' who will suddenly take off their glasses, shake out their hair island and reveal themselves to have been beautiful in particular in the bar where all along. We follow Grace and her romantic adventures (and misadventures) over three years of her life at the House of Commonsgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709158</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt HaigAmanda Craig|title=How to Stop TimeThree Graces

|summary=Tom is an albatrossFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. ThatThere's not to say he has a freakish wingspansomething so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, or anything, but crafting an image of the country as it means hestands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's not a mayfly. In contrast to all us regular humans practically synonymous with our temperamental bodies living out short lifespans, he ages at a speed roughly one-fifteenth the genre of that contemporary social fiction at which we do, and barely gets touched by any diseasethis point. It means he will live for several more centuries than the ones he She has witnessed so far, but ever since his mother was drowned as such a witch due to his teenaged self never ageing, he has known gift for weaving the best thing for him – and others – is to regularly move on. Solitude has been tempered since ongoing issues of the late Victorian era, when other people even older than him press-ganged him day into their society of albatrosses, but the fact lives of the matter is that falling her characters in love really is a noway that feels natural and lived-no. But that's not to say it in, never happenedmaking them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and that's not to say that he can't feel things for the albatross daughter he's not seen for centuriesgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. It might be the only thing he has to live for…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782118616</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dane Huckelbridge152915118X|title= Castle of WaterPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Barry Bleeker ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and Sophie Ducel George are two very different people destined sisters and Sasha is married to take their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the same journeytribe. As The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they are both aboard 'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a flight to street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the Marquesas Islandsfurniture from Pineapple Street, their tiny plane crashes leaving Barry so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Sophie Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the only survivorsgold digger'. Until recently, Barry was an investment banker She's living in New York before he decided ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to leave his 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life behind , but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and pursue bring Edie to live with his dream family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of painting. Sophie meanwhileher childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a French architect who along with her husband Etienne secret she was planning a honeymoon keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of a lifetimewhat happened all that time ago. Now Barry and Sophie are alone on an uninhabited island After 'seeing' Lucy in the South Pacifichigh street, just as she was the last time she saw her, where they must learn she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to put aside their differences her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and survivemore in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008217858</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= M L RioMadelaine Lucas|title= If We Were VillainsThirst for Salt|rating= 4.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= Murder most horrid amongst ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a group of 4th Year university students of Shakespeare. We open as our protagonist is released light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from jail having served his time for a crime retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that he may or may not have committedonce defined her. What did he do? What happened that year? Why did things turn out Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the way they did? We have summer after finishing university – to push our way through its sorrowful end the undergrowth summer after. Set against the backdrop of flashbacks to find outan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785656473</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Martha Conway0008506337|title= The Floating TheatreGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating= 5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=When young seamstress May Bedloe is left alone The love affair between Margo Garnett and penniless on the shore of the Ohiopoet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, she finds work apparently on the famous floating theatre that plies its trade along the riverboth sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her creativity parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and needlework skills quickly become invaluable and she settles into life among having a glittering career. In the colourful troupe of actors. She finds friendsevent, they eloped and possibly Richard took her away from the promise Isle of moreWight. But cruising the border between the Confederate South Margo did go to Oxford and the 'free' North is fraught with dangerwent on to become a well-respected journalist. For the sake of a debt that must be repaid The couple had three children: Rachel, May is compelled to transport secret passengersImogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, under cover of darkness, across the river and family home on, along the underground railroadIsle of Wight. But as May Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's secrets become harder to keep, mind: ''she learns she must endanger those now dear would never be able to herleave him in charge''.

And to save the lives of others, she must risk her ownThen Richard left them... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785762907</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Daniel Kehlmann David F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and Ross Benjamin (translator)rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lucy Ashe|title=You Should Have LeftClara and Olivia

|genre=General Fiction |summary=Our narrator The year is a screenwriter1933. 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, tasked with coming up with a sequel to his hit movie either. Because there''Besties'' – s a film which helped pay for lot that builds a housedancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, but which his actress wife keeps letting him knowattention to detail – and some things, isnthat 't 'je ne sais quoi'art', that don't come from the classroom. To concentrateA stage presence, the family – he, the wife, and their four year old daughter – have rented a largecharm, modern house at the end of a horrid, hairpin bend-filled road, in a charming alpine landscape. But things aren't right'joie de vivre''. The couple are at loggerheads too much, things keep unsettling our narratordifference between a hard-worker, and the sole shopkeeper for miles around is ready with the Hammer Horror styled warnings of strange eventsa star. Quickly we see the book's title in all its galling clarity – but it isn't too late to get out… is it? And out of what, exactly?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786484048</amazonuk>0861544080