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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tahi SaihatePolly Barton|title= Astral SeasonWhat Am I, Beastly SeasonA Deer?|rating= 3.54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for our past even though it universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the novel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, or loved?|isbn=1804272175}}{{Frontpage|author=Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the town of F for a literary festival she is to which we can never returnbe a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Tahi SaihateSwept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in her debut for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329}}{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''Astral Season, Beastly Seasonon the floor somewhere'' illustrates how these roseand has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either -tinted glasses often liebut we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|author=Makenna Goodman|title=Helen of Nowhere|rating=4. Her novel 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a meditation disgraced professor on youth the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and how the things we do as protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a teenager can seem intensely important volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and often life alteringdescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn= 19162771011804272205

|author=Laura Imai MessinaThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldTower

|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the northeast protagonist of Japanthis tale. Just as T's story is being told, in Inwate Prefecture the story of a man installed second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a telephone box wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in his gardena tower, captures T's imagination. Annie''Inside there s fate is an old black, telephoneabove all, disconnected, that carries voices into the windan enticing story to T.'' It is a real placestory which she consumes avariciously, both in a necessary placequest for truth and knowledge, and I am pleased to see in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799}}{{Frontpage|author=Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the IMPORTANT NOTE that pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829}}{{Frontpage|author attaches to her story=Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, that the place is not steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a tourist destinationsymbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a sacred placedesperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a place that must be left ghost she conjures to those who really need ittest her detachment.|isbn=178658039X1804271934

|author=Amin MaaloufHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The DisorientedLili is Crying

|summary= Adam has lived First published in 1953 in Paris for yearsFrench, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the lives of her characters, speaks French more easily than his native Arabicthey are often left tragically incomplete. In fact he hasn|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Jonathan Buckley|title=One Boat|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''One Boat''t been back is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to his homeland for 25 yearsprovoke profound introspection. An old friend is dying…or Teresa herself recognises these qualities as Adam prefers to think the reason she has visited it after the death of him a formerboth her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-friendaware, perhaps inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=1804271764}}{{Frontpage|author=Eowyn Ivey|title=Black Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as harsh a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as an exa ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-friendto-day life, or maybeand yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. The falling out was When she meets Arthur Nielson, a long time agostrange, taciturn and Adam's partner solitary man, who says he has no idea what it was abouta cabin over there, even so she urges him feels called to go knowing that he'll regret not doing so- and bring Emaleen with her. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants toWithout realising it, or simply because he was asked, hethis calling will transform hers and Emaleen's on the next planelives forever. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1472279042

|author=Joanne M HarrisSally Rooney|title=A Pocketful Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of Crowslife and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights

|genre= Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary= I have As always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violencein Dostoyevsky, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. ''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from her adult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris character work is mistress of the modern fairy talesublime. This One is no different. It never left wondering what a character is an utter delightthinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|isbn=14732221840241619785

|author=Frederic Beigbeder James Baldwin|title=Giovanni's Room|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and Frank Wynne (translator)denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Alba de Cespedes |title=A Life Without EndForbidden Notebook

|summary=I looked at This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the calendar the other weekmoment our protagonist, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I knowValeria Cossati, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numberspurchases her forbidden notebook, but and learns about herself in the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizonmost intimate and revealing ways. And then a few |isbn=1782278222}}{{Frontpage|author=Ottessa Moshfegh|title=My Year of the big 0-numbers, Rest and if all goes wellRelaxation|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At best, I'll be an OBE. (Which this novel is a scathing critique of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's modern society and reveals the extent fragility of my mid-life crisishuman relationships; at worst, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phraseit is the cynical, but he might be said to be living onepredictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviewsThis unlikely heroine, and they end up with a childslim, which attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is at least a way of continuing disillusioned with the life of his genesworld, and a motive but resolves not to keep on goinglose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=16428606701784707422

|author= Maryse CondéMatthew Tree|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaWe'll Never Know|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live in a post- world: post-colonialism, post-modernism, post truth. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelto be different from his father, ''The Wondrous a drunk and Tragic Life chronic underachiever whose dreams of Ivan being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupehis studies, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1642860697B0CVFXPGP8

|authorisbn= Ukamaka OlisakweB0C47LV1PC|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at the trauma and heartache of being Can you make a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightYo birthing person''. Ogadinma joke? And if you could, is the eponymous heroine of question should you make it? Or is the story.. We are with her in every scene and question if you did, would it land? The catch is her narrative voice that leads the story, although Olisakwe writes in third personanswer for both could well be.... This provides a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinmano. She is exiled from her father ''Fragility''s home and sent to Lagos where she is married set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.|isbn=1911648160emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|author=Elliot ReedMosby Woods|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingWhirly Man Loses His Turn

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the story best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a young boyman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, William Tyceright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, who that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is being raised by his uncle after the death story of his mother and his fatherfour people. Tess Hembry's abandonmentroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. HoweverInsubstantial as it might look, it isn't told in s stood the usual narrative waypassage of time, storms and floods. InsteadHer husband, the book is made up of glossary entriesRichard, written by Williamstruggles to grow his vegetables, as a way of describing certain events, situations to complete the delivery rounds - and emotionsto bring in sufficient money. It runs alphabeticallyThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDERthe rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. As I began to read I did find myself thinking People don'what on earth?!t believe that they' but I soon grew used to the stylere related, much less twins and was instead caught up in Williamthere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's storyhis nanny.|isbn=1911545418

|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)Claire North|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasHouse of Odysseus|rating= 45

|summary= ''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuela. It begins with the death of Adelaida FalconWhat could matter more than love?'s mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape it. Danger stalks the shadows and, in a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? |isbn=0062936867}}

The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingrating= 4|genre="15"Dystopian Fiction<!|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post- Caroline Scott -->apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|-title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"5|genre= Horror[[image:1471186393.jpg|linksummary=http://wwwHorror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that.amazonIt is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation.coHorrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.uk/dp/1471186393/ref}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=nosim?tagThirst for Salt|rating=thebookbag-21]]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''

''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=[[Photographer ''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the Lost by Caroline Scott]]===goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''

[[image:4Princess.5starWarrior. Lover. Hero.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]

May 1921Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. Edie receives When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a photograph through fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the postchance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. There What follows is no letter or note with a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, itwill be her undoing. There is nothing written |isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the back southern coast of the photographher home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a picture place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, FrancisChristopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Francis has been missing for four yearsThelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. TechnicallyHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, he has been "missingis a lovely place, believed killed" but that Rachel is not something that struggling to develop a young widow can believereal bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. She hangs Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the word 'beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing'.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|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, disbelieving and the word killedloss of livelihoods was widespread. [[Photographer The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - 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 Lost by Caroline Scott|Full Review]]dog jumped in.}}

<!-- Ann Patchett -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=0989715337| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Papa on the Moon|author=Marco North[[image:1526614960.jpg|linkrating=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526614960/ref4|genre=nosim?tagLiterary Fiction|summary=thebookbag-21]]''Some frogs had gotten into the well.''

| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy How is distant and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family owns. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each other. It's a bond which only death will break. [[for an opening? The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]] <!-- Tove Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954899520.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954221710.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954221710/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]] Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an afternoon this Summer, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process form of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is to stay in the town away interconnected short stories goes from the real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictional. It really is a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Hewitt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1509896465.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509896465/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Nightjar'' is an unusual succinct and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins laconic to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation wistful and particularlymusing, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2turning on a sixpence.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the And author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum upMarco North, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in has the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Anstruther -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]] <!-- Laguna -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Choke by Sofie Laguna]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] There's a dull, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like that, but doubly so. [[The Choke by Sofie Laguna|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can wonderful turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USAphrase, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying starts as he means to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk go on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan|Full Review]]