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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now 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 content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy 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 'Callas' 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 Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin- Remove sized object to his home, and it's 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 nice person. 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 help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a 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=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice ->she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
{|classLavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo -"wikitable" cellpadding="15" people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--><!-- Collishaw -->|-| style="width: 10It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84%; verticalwhite. She had a crush on seventeen-align: top; textyear-alignold Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: center;"|[[imageLavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed:1787198812.jpg|link=httptutoring was something she gladly did at church://wwwthis was just an extension.amazon She went to his house and he raped her.co In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.uk/dp/1787198812/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]}}
{{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, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. 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 family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean 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 Grave Listeners
|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded 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. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.
}}
{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=Semi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces| stylerating="vertical4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-alignnation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: top; textshe's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-alignin, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: left;"Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=[[A Child Called Happiness 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by Stephan Collishaw]]the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more 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?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
[[image:4starTold from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. 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. Set against the backdrop of an 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.jpg|linkisbn=Category:{0861546490}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:=5|genre=General Fiction|General Fiction]]summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both 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 parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.
Mazowe Valley, 2011 – Natalie hears a sharp cry that she thinks at first might be a bird, but turns out to be a baby, abandoned to the birds on the kopjeThen Richard left them. She is there with her uncle and they take the child, back to his farm initially and then to a local village where it is taken in. They do not report it to the police. [[A Child Called Happiness by Stephan Collishaw|Full Review]]}}
<!-- Syson -->{{Frontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|-author=David F Ross| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[image:Syson_PeacockThere'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 rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lucy Ashe|title=Clara and Olivia|rating=4.jpg5|leftgenre=General Fiction|linksummary=http://wwwThe year is 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.amazonAnd not on stage, either.coBecause there's a lot that builds a dancer.uk/dp/1785761862/refSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|isbn=nosim0861544080}}{{Frontpage|author=Heather Fawcett|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here?tag What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|isbn=0356519120}}{{Frontpage|isbn=thebookbag1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami -21]]Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Bowden
|title=Mr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.
|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Partitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder...
|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...| styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"B09STS96HS}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM|title=The Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=[[Mr PeacockIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's Possessions by Lydia Syson]]===minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.}}
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] On a remote volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand, a family of settlers struggle to make such an unforgiving place a home. When a ship appears, they feel that their wishes have been granted and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when a vulnerable boy disappears. As both settlers and newcomers come together in the search for the child, they uncover far, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both the island and those who inhabit it. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson|Full Review]] <!-- Parkin -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1787198405.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787198405/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Underwater Breathing by Cassandra Parkin]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] A tumble-down Edwardian house that will sooner rather than later tumble down the mud cliffs and away into the sea is where we meet Jacob and Ella. They share a bathroom in the turret, old and cold and not really supposed to be used…but this is where they hide away from the shouts of their parents' arguments. Here they play the Underwater Breathing game, submerging themselves in the water holding their breath for as long as they can. For sixteen year old Jacob it's just a way of drowning out the arguments…but for Ella it is more than that. She is terrified of the sea, of the fact that it will come and swallow their house. She needs to know that she can survive under water. She has to practice. [[Underwater Breathing by Cassandra Parkin|Full Review]] <!-- Makkai -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0708899137.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0708899137/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT Fiction|LGBT Fiction]] ''The Great Believers'' follows a group of friends whose lives are devastated by the AIDS crisis in Chicago during the late 1980’s. Beginning in 1985, the reader follows Yale and his friends as they come to terms with the increasingly virulent illness spreading throughout their community, alongside their demonisation at the hands of a conservative America. Thirty years later Fiona, a devoted friend to Yale, is searching for her estranged daughter on the streets of Paris, trying to rebuild a relationship beset by memories and old hurt. [[The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai|Full Review]] <!-- Koomson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:178089600X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178089600X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] In 1993, two teenagers stumble across a horrific scene on the beach as they're sneaking home after an un-authorised night out: a body of a young woman, partially stripped, totally deceased. The find hits the girls in different ways. Nell becomes obsessed with finding the identity of the girl – who she calls ''the Brighton Mermaid'' because of a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happened. Fast forward 25 years and Nell is still haunted by what happened that night. With few leads to go on, the Police closed the case without cracking it, and so it remains one of those unsolved mysteries that become part of local folklore, but Nell struggles to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, lie. As for Jude, well no one knows if the discovery still haunts her because no one knows where she is. Shortly after that fateful night, she too disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. There's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seems. [[The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson|Full Review]] <!-- Coulton -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473669588.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473669588/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Falling Short by Lex Coulton]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]] Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague, and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old. [[Falling Short by Lex Coulton|Full Review]] <!-- Elisabeth Hyde -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473679737.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473679737/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday night. He might be a retired lawyer, a state legislator, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrived. Ruth, a corporate lawyer, would find fault and want to talk about him going into a retirement home. George, a nurse, would argue and Lizzie, a professor of English Literature, who lived locally and kept and visited him regularly, would be unpredictable. Murray hoped that all would go smoothly, but that simply wasn't going to happen. [[Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde|Full Review]] <!-- Hogan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473668999.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473668999/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Masha's son Gabriel died some years ago. She'd been a single parent with help from her friend, Edward, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out in the immediate aftermath of the drowning, but there's now a new love interest) Masha is still stricken, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal to Gabriel if she was to be happy. An independent, rebellious woman has somehow been diminished. [[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan|Full Review]] <!-- Houm -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1782273778.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273778/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Jane Ashland is dying. That's a description of a very early scene here – but also, of course, a platitude that can apply to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going up and down in levels of pleasure, energy – sobriety – in these pages, but we soon learn that it recently found a very deeply dark down place. Here then, scattered through a timeline-bending narrative, we have her days finding a Lincolnesque lover as a student in New York, glimpses of therapy, a drive to find her ancestors that takes her from rural America to Norway – and a trip there with a new-found friend to watch the musk oxen, of all things. And nowhere in sight is anything like a platitude… [[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Rogers -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Rogers_Tale.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787198529/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Tale of a Tooth by Allie Rogers]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Danny lives in a small Sussex town with his mother, Natalie. Life is poor, but they manage - until they're threatened by a benefits sanction. A Job Centre employee looks to be their salvation - but her impact on the family goes far beyond what they first expect, and the resulting changes are described to the reader through the naive yet perceptive and wholly original eyes of four-year-old Danny. [[Tale of a Tooth by Allie Rogers|Full Review]] <!-- Trevelyan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Trevelyan_Claudia.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473664772?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473664772]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Claudia by Anthony Trevelyan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] When Claudia is called to the reception of her Manchester Office block to meet a visitor, she doesn't expect it to be her father figure – a man she hasn't seen for fifteen years. Samson Glaze – otherwise known as Wild Samson, The Aztec and The Sun King, walked out of Claudia's life and into a world of success as a solar panel salesman – but now he's returned and he needs Claudia's help. Reggie, Samson's son, has joined a mysterious cult called ''Tarantula'', a group who prepare for the end of the world and encourage humanity to embrace their impending doom. Claudia's journey takes her far from her home in Manchester to the end of the world – where encounters with hammer-wielding assassins make things very difficult indeed… [[Claudia by Anthony Trevelyan|Full Review]] <!-- Gayle -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Gayle_Man.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473608988?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473608988]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Man I Think I Know by Mike Gayle]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] James DeWitt and Danny Allen are both men in their early thirties whose lives haven't taken them where they were supposed to go. At an all time low time for both of them, the two men reconnect and slowly find they're exactly what the other needs. Together, they help each other put their lives back together. This is a beautiful story about friendship and what it really means to help another person. [[The Man I Think I Know by Mike Gayle|Full Review]] <!-- Butland -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Butland_Curious.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/785764403/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]] Ailsa Rae has been sick her whole life, and just as she was edging closer to death she finally, finally got the call that she needed, that a heart was available for her to have a transplant. Previously she had felt so helpless that she had used her blog to make decisions for her, running polls amongst her readers to decide on her actions. But with her new heart, she has been given a new life. Can Ailsa manage to start to live on her own, and will her mother let her do that? [[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland|Full Review]] <!-- Mohamed -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631426.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631426/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Falling Leaves by Stefan Mohamed]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]],  When your best friend vanishes, how can you begin to move on? How can you live your life not knowing whether they're okay? And what would you do if they reappeared in your life? – all questions that Vanessa faces every day, even seven years after her best friend Mark vanished. When he reappears, she's shocked not only by his presence back in her life, but also by the fact that he hasn't aged a day – for him, no time has passed since his disappearance. Shocked, confused and emotionally reeling, Vanessa must return to her home town in order to help Mark find the answers he so desperately craves. But what's waiting for them is far more surprising than either of them could ever have dreamt… [[Falling Leaves by Stefan Mohamed|Full Review]] <!-- Santorella -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788038096.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788038096/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Dyed Souls by Gary Santorella]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] The USA, early 1980s. Charlie (or Charles, if he's feeling belligerent, and he often is) is being taken back to his home by his drop-out, slutty mother. The home is called a Cottage, and while the book doesn't guide us to understand it perfectly, it seems to mean he has a private room in a large self-contained bungalow, Move on a gated compound with round-the-clock adult supervision. There's a paddock with horses for the kids to ride, their own school – and all the adults are armed with Thorazine to calm the kids down. Charlie, despite his obvious bookish intelligence, is struggling to get to grips with why and how he's ended up where he is, but it must have something to do with his single parent mother being violent, and the fact he is no longer allowed to stay with his grandfather. This book is a slightly woozy look at his thoughts, as he tries to build a relationship with a girl in a different Cottage, and work out his lot. He certainly has a lot on his plate for a thirteen-year-old. [[Dyed Souls by Gary Santorella|Full Review]] <!-- Simsion -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473675405.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473675405/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] When I read the blurb for this book, I found myself instantly interested in its premise of two people trying to start their lives again following serious life changes. The book did not disappoint. [[Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist|Full Review]] <!-- Forman -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Forman_Lost.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1471173720/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''I Have Lost My Way'' tells the story of three individuals who have each lost something important to them leading to them losing their way. Freya has lost her voice, Harun has lost his love and Nathaniel has lost everything. However, these three elements do not give justice to the extent of what each character has lost. In this expertly written novel, Gayle Forman writes about how these three dissimilar individuals each came to lose what was most important to them, causing them to all meet one fateful day in New York City. [[I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman|Full Review]] <!-- Schimmelpfennig -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857057014.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857057014/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[One Clear Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Jamie Bulloch (translator)]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] First, forgive me if I don't refer to this book with its full title often. It's pointedly precise, accurate, and rather ungainly – when in fact the book it describes has only the former two attributes in any quantity. What happens in January is that a wild wolf walks across the frozen river separating Poland and eastern Germany. Which means that, when the book starts properly, mid-February, it has had time to get a lot closer to Berlin – within 80 kilometres, to be precise, for that is the road marker where one of our main characters sees it. He is trying to get back to work in Berlin for the first time in a month, and to be with his girlfriend, not knowing she has had an infidelity while he was away. Also fancying the bright lights and big city are a teenaged pair of love-birds, the boy and girl next door to each other in an eastern village, who flee an unhappy lot on the off-chance of a better one. You just know there is a chance that these characters – human and lupine alike – are sucked into one combined narrative, but you won't know quite what that will entail…[[One Clear Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Jamie Bulloch (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Banks -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Banks_W.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/ISBN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[W by John Banks]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] On the slopes of Mt Hood in Oregon, an 1000-year old Viking is discovered frozen - three thousand miles further west than any previously known Viking exploration. Josh Kinninger is inspired by the Viking discovery - three personal catastrophes having left him angry, unmoored and with his world in turmoil. Beginning a journey westward, he's filled with a desire to wreak vengeance on the individuals he finds morally corrupt. [[W by John Banks|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}

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