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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KisteB0FK5LHKD9|title=The Man on the MoorColour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1913 relations with Germany It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were deteriorating steadilyvery glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, but there didn't seem to be any connection with the international situation when s a London clerk, George Stephens, was found dead in a country lane on mystery at the edge heart of Dartmoor. ''The moor had been his passion and heColour of Money''d always been keen to escape London and return to Devon. It was an odd death but We like this running theme in all probability it would have been put down as an accident if Georgeauthor's mother had not announced that George was the son of the Kaiser. Despite her fondness for gin the story she told was oddly compelling and when work - take a mystery but give it was linked up with the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm George's death seemed less different flavour and less like an accidentatmosphere each time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances Day|title=Dead Cat With Firelighter|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=We're in the world of modern art. A couple who met at art college are on the verge of breaking up, as her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptual, pompous bits of Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (almost literallytranslator) rubbish and nothing. We're also in the world of the wannabe stars and starlets, trying to make the jump from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre to Hollywood. And in the background in both instances, are guru-type Svengalis, pulling strings, and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - and a lot more - to get their charges to fame. And a bit of contract killing and murder on the side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Billy Hopkins|title=Tommy's WorldHunchback
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tommy Hopkins I was born in October 1886 the middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in Collyhurst, one of was the poorerbook's bold fuchsia cover, inner-city suburbs of Manchesterfollowed by its striking title: ''Hunchback''. His father had quite This is a good job word I recognised to be loaded with historical and there wasn't a lot of money cultural baggage, often used to spare but Tommy remembered dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the home as being filled with love display table and laughterturned to the back inside cover. He was an only child but thought There, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that he was spoilt in terms causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of affection rather than her life. The title took on new complexity in the form light of worldly goodsher biography. All that was to change when his father died of spinal meningitis and he and his mother I had to move into cheaper lodgings. Even that tenuous security wasn't to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldread it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>0241700787
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane ChamberlainJen Beagin|title=The Bay at MidnightBig Swiss|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionHumour |summary=The story starts properly when a letter is discoveredI found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. It will have devastating consequences for several families - Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and life will never be the same againfears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. ApparentlySure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the wrong person was convicted sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just makes it more exciting. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a murderfly on the wall. MoreoverThat is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the writer safety of the wall and buzz far too close to the sun. The sun in this letter appears to know analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who did commit this crime. Unfortunately, like the writer dies before able sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to make contact with the policeGreta.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel McHaffie |title=Right to Die|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just onceSuddenly, but for Naomithe confidentiality agreement, Adam's death is just the beginning. Coming across his personalethics of her professional position, private diary of his time from diagnosis her loyalties to subsequent demiseOm, she is forced to relive fly out of the awful months during which his body began to betray him and his will to live was replaced with a will to diewindow...on his own termsShe's in too deep.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>0571378579
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Morag Joss1784745758|title=The Night FollowingThree Days in June|author=Anne Tyler
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted by the discovery that her husband has been having an affair, a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lane, killing Ruth Mitchell, an elderly cyclist. The woman doesnday before your daughter't wait s wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for the police to arrive; she goes home and parks her car in the garage where she smashes . First, it almost beyond recognition. When was her arrogant husband sees job as assistant head at the damage he believes it's been done to punish him and he packs his bagslocal school. After There was a few days moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the woman goes to discussion moved into the home subject of the dead woman; she doesn't go to the door, but from a hidden spot nearby people skills' and before she can see the widowerknew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, an elderly gentleman depending on who is clearly not coping wellwas explaining the situation. Wracked with guilt, When she got home (in the middle of the woman makes a decisionday: the only way she can atone for who would have thought that could happen?) her actions is to step into ex-husband was there with a cat. He thinks that he'll be staying and that Gail will be adopting the shoes of cat. And that's before Gail discovers that the dead womangroom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonSamantha Harvey|title=The Haunting of Hill HouseOrbital|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There was a time before Stephen King. There was time before In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''The ShiningOrbital''. There was a time when 'horror' was not rooted in blood, guts and gore. I owe a slight apology to Mr King, because along with the gutsier side of the genre, I will own compact yet profound work that he is unfolds over a master at suspense.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julian Barnes|title=Staring at the Sun|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle Leslie, hyacinths and golf tees. It's perhaps best forgotten, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large single day in her life - mostly on the golf course - until lives of a group of astronauts aboard the War comes and he runs away to AmericaInternational Space Station. He's replaced by Tommy Prosser, Through a grounded pilot who once saw narrative lens that mirrors the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michaelastronauts' orbital perspective, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off Harvey invites readers to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures see our planet in the bedrooma wholly new light. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>1529922933
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell Celyn JonesHan Kang|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) Vegetarian
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in a post-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built on feudalism 2016 and horsepower penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the main means of transportacclaim. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one anotherThe story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, towns still have sink estatesvividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their liveselusive souls. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>1803510056
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen SheersSally Rooney|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Intermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In Sally Rooney has studied the old tale, Branwen chessboard of life and is the sister something of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of Britaina grandmaster at putting it into words. She marries the King of IrelandHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, who doesn't treat as her wellcharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. She manages Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and war and killings ensuePeter KoubekIn this new taleIvan, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers whosocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak, are despoiling Dublin. Following their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her father's passing after a story involving long battle with cancer, the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affairbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J R StephensonB0DGDJRHYD|title=Crooked JusticeNowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone|rating=2.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounce. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it backIn a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprusmeticulous man, he goes there for a customary breakmakes sure of every preparation, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as down to the bar dancerlast detail. He manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague Some last reflections, and some Greek rivals. And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed then he decides says goodbye to pack up his wife, the world, and shut uphis life. It's a big stone that hides himhorribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, but he leaves who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revengewhile before Diana realises what Patrick has done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Rice1739526910|title=Angel TimeWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toby O'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for music, history and playing his beloved lute. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago. One day while on year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley'job' s life, he is visited by arrives in an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees unfamiliar Devon town to become the Angel's human instrument and help save lives rather than take themrecover. He is sent on Living with an assignment to help unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a Jewish couple accused local world of murder in 13th Century Englandunlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E SmelcerJenny Lecoat|title=The Great DeathBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they brought with them diseases against which are celebrating the end of the indigenous people had no natural immunityoccupation. At During the beginning war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished Channel islands from a pandemic of measles, smallpoxthe Nazis, and influenza. No community was spared. In most casesthe war is finally over, half their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a village's population died within a week. In some casesrelief, there were no survivors. It or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to informer who told the Nazis about the dreadful period as radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the Great Death.'occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendOnyi Nwabineli|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and livingAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, quite literallythanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. Itwhere she posted every step of Anuri's not quite how life was supposed to turn outchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into Now Anuri is in her school uniform, twenties and she is slowly trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, regain her confidence and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of get her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' showlife back, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits suing her step-mother to take down the toilet content about her. Anuri is really the last thing he needs. And yetbattling alcoholism, the worst is still failing to comestart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Think a crumbling economy Most importantly, redundancyshe is desperately worried about her little sister, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in who is the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – itnew focus of Ophelia's going to be a tough year for the Molesonline empire. Can she save her sister, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back perhaps herself and watch his life spin out of control around him.her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>0861546873
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Theroux1529153298|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set in IndiaIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, familiar territory for Therouxthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared'doesn'A Dead Handt sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' tells s overheard that her father wants to move the story of a travel writer suffering from writerfamily 's block (also known as Down South'dead hand. When you') until re from Yorkshire, Down South is a chance letter from an American ex-patfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the mysterious Mrs Ungermove would mean leaving her best friend, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him Sharon, and she'll do anything to release his creativity in very unexpected waysprevent that. The story is more She's not worried about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerdangers or that her Mum's Tantric charmsstopped talking - to anyone. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers1035906708|title=The Wild ThingsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end We tend to think of the stick about adultsMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendNew York, or gets a bit feisty in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsshe was thirteen. He is a bit of a rascal Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to say make it more manageable in the leastStates. But all When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that might change when he finds himself travelling to she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a strange land mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of roisterous animalsher preference for her elder sister, and ends up installed as their kingJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harlan CobenAlexander McCall Smith|title=Tell No OneThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've been meaning The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's workthe online apps in providing a more personal, because tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if the reviews are to be believed she could come and you are a fan of look after the 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thrillerbusiness, the man as Ness is quite simply not capable of turning out planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a duff novelwhile. But you know how it Katie iscoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books 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 be read 44 Scotland Street and reviewedthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, I just somehow hadn't managed but with some new characters who quickly begin to give him my full attentioncharm. Until now.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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>1846976596
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie Nickels Dean Koontz|title=Another Kind of LovingThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Mike Hennessy was 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 journalist whose speciality was the warreally weird, disturbing coffin-torn parts of the world sized object to his home, and October 1992 found him in Sarajevo visiting a childrenit's home 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 get deserve all this bad luck. He is a storynice person. The orphanage was on A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the right side of town – away 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 the main barrage – but it had few other advantagesnefarious forces for being a good person. There was no heat Spike is going to take care of Benny, and little food or waterwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, but it was here that if he found Jasminka, part SerbBenny, part Bosniak and eleven or twelve years old. In a phone call to his wife Mike suggested that perhaps Jasminka could come and stay with them for Harper (a whilewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=rashbreKatherine Howe|title=The TriangleA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Brian's trip Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to the art gallery was live with a treatfamily who run an inn, courtesy of a private ticket and being made to work there from a friend and the white room was much better than the last gallery he'd visitedyoung age. It was, though, When she hears there is to be his last such visit as he was silently knifed by a professional hit manhanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. His friends were stunnedEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, not just at his Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death, but at the way in which it had come abouthands of two vicious pirates. What could Brian have been doing to attract ''She hides away, so thatthey 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' sort of attention? s pirate ship as a cabin boy. Jake had given him She soon finds herself in the ticket thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and it dawned from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on him that he had been the target rather than Brianocean waves. Some recent events clicked into place…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1425171893</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Solomon1471180158|title=An Imitation of LifeMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are introduced to the baby girlJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, Celia for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a detailed, blow-by-blow account of her dreadful physical condition, from her unusual eyes, her even more unusual teeth, her lumpy body and the ever-growing hump on her shoulderhalf brick. Forget the Elephant ManJamie's son, here we have elephant baby. Everything is stacked against her. She is abandoned by her motherBo, her father is unknown'has his problems'. And as if all that wasnHe't enough to make s asthmatic and the more you weepread, she is unceremoniously dumped the more you'll suspect that he's on a doorstep - to diethe autistic spectrum. But Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she doesn'ts a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. She livesMissed 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. And what an extra-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out for herIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tamsin Reeves B0CKD1L5JL|title=A Place of SafetyRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There are lots of reasons to take in a lodger for your spare roomPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, but for Martha one of the best he is to get one brought up on her recently departed scoundrel far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of an ex-husband. And itWashington's not like her financial situation is looking too rosy since he left her for another woman – a woman who is also pregnant with his childOlympic Peninsula. The fact that her lodger is After Bear dies and a Hebrief sojourn in human company, and that he's armed with only a Foreigner (and from Afghanistanpirate radio transmitter, no less) is just Petr goes on a journey through the icing on forest, broadcasting the cake. Colin's going to be furiousstrange, wild and Martha can't waitrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849231370</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithSarah Marsh|title=The Comfort A Sign of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie 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=As always with Alexander McCall Smith''This 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, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, this fifth book in the Sunday Philosophy series benefits and suffered from being read vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in sequence with the previous titlescase it's contagious. One of the beautiful aspects of his writing It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is that his characters develop slowly, gently, over the series so although you could probably dive in here 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and get a fair idea of his style you really should start Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at the beginning to thoroughly enjoy the pleasure of church: this was just an AMS readextension. In this episode Isabel is busy taking care of her son, Charlie, looking after her niece Cat's delicatessen, editing the review She went to his house and struggling with her own personal fears over he raped her relationship with Jamie. And she wouldn't be Isabel if she didn't, somehowIn shock, get entangled in someone else's problems, someone else's life, and here she finds herself trapped into investigating the case of even allowed him to give her a doctor whose career has been ruinedlift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120552</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Hilton1472263936|title=Dead Men's DustThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Joe Hunter helps peopleIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. That's what he does. He's been around She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the block family home and refused to say return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that he has learned it would be a trick pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or two along understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the way might family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be something the first of an understatementseveral annual visits. NoShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary -one really knows much about Joe Hunter and certainly frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his past is not something that many would be brave enough close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to poke around inaccommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340978236</amazonuk>
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{{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}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Imogen Parker B0BVDC2VWH|title=This Little WorldThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I havenThe village is isolated and poor. It't read s surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the first two books in villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the trilogy but that didn't spoil my enjoyment forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of ''This Little World''. They all stand alone as individual novels being buried alive is an existential superstition in their own right. Those readers who have already enjoyed the first two books will know most of village and that is the characters and will be keen to find out reason Volushka, a drunken, self- what happens nextindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552151548</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Donohue B0BYF82CXT|title=Angels of DestructionSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In an opening chapter reminiscent of Cathy's ghostly appearance at the window 'Bill and Amanda are living in [[Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte|Wuthering Heights]]a semi-detached house, widowed Margaret Quinn opens her front door stuck in the middle a depressing rut of a wintry night to a half-frozenboredom and disappointment, waif-like child, Norahwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, who appears to have arrived out of nowhere. Lonely successful and withdrawn very much in the wake of her daughter Erica's disappearance many years earlier, Margaret takes love – move in apparently-orphaned Norahnext door. Despite their different outlooks on life, passing her off as her granddaughterthe couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But Norah all is no ordinary child…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086138</amazonuk>not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
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 {{newreview|author=Walter Moers |title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naseem Rakha Shalini Boland|title=The Crying TreeSilent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Irene Stanley had lived Alice and Seth are a match made in Illinois all her life, on a farm which had heaven. He is everything she has been in her family searching for generations ; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and where the boundary of the property was the Mississippi riverutter husband-material. She had friendsis all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, family confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and her church in the area wedding is planned and it came as a shock when Nate came home one set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and said that he was considering taking a job excitement as a Deputy Sheriff in Oregon (that's pronounced ''Organ'' she surveys the congregation only tourists say ''Or-ee-gon''). It wasn't long before they and their children, Shep friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and Bliss, made the long overland journey when Seth turns to their new home. Shep was a quiet boyface his approaching bride, a talented musician but against his motherAlice's expectations he settled into his new life well. Irene wasn't totally convincedworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, but accepted that life wasn't too bad who is waiting for the family. That all changed when she was called home from work her to find that Shep had been murderedbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230740847</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johan Minto 1787636003|title=The Virtuous SaintGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Marcus Hoag has been searching for It was the lost Regula Monachorum of St Benedict for summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the last island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty five years and the fruits of his research are recorded -four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a notebook which while before he carries with made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. He's been searching Alistair worked for clues Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in stained glass windows particular in churches and cathedrals and the discovery of two previously unknown windows at his old university, St Peter's in New York, sets him on a journey to Englandbar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855756</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire Connor and G P Taylor Amanda Craig|title=Rosie: Note to SelfThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the first state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of a five book deal Claire Connor, writing in partnership with GP Taylor, brings us a modern romance based loosely on the story atmosphere of Ruth from the Bible. This is total chick-litday and capture it, and from crafting an image of the first few pages I thought country as it was just going to stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be a very light, funny romance storyembarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. However, the story quickly takes She has such a depressing turn and gift for weaving the rest ongoing issues of the book is as much an exploration day into the lives of grief as it is her characters in a romance novelway that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1850788332</amazonuk>140871468X
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Audrey Niffenegger 152915118X|title=Her Fearful SymmetryPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Elspeth Noblin dies ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of Leukemiathree women: Sasha, she leaves behind a strange bequest that will have dramatic Darley and tragic consequencesGeorgiana. She leaves her London flat Darley and George are sisters and all the trappings of her life Sasha is married to the their brother Cord. They'mirrorre Stocktons, only Sasha isn' twins of her own twin sister who currently live outside Chicago. This is news to the twins who didnt a Stockton by birth so she isn't even know that they had an auntreadily accepted into the tribe. The only condition of her legacy is that problem's exacerbated when the twinsclan matriarch, Tilda, Julia asks Cord and Valentina, have Sasha if they'd like to live in move into the flat, which is adjacent Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to Highgate Cemeteryanother property, for a year before street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can sell itmove straight in. It is clear from Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the outset that Elspeth has secrets about her relationship with her twin sister Edie, which she is keen reality. Darley and Georgiana start to keep hidden from call Sasha 'the twins, but when gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it turns out so often that Elspeth hasnthey abbreviate it to 't quite left the apartment after her death, things get a whole lot messier for everyoneGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085611</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G Cottam Emily Critchley|title=Dark EchoOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=3.54|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In Rouen 84 year old Edie has lived in September 1917the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a French detachment are guarding the Cathedral. Guarding it and using it move as a barracks her son wants to move to another house and still doing their best bring Edie to treat it live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a house secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of Godwhat happened all that time ago. After all'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, you cannot make a fortress out she starts to find pockets of a place designed memories coming back to be welcomingherOne night And yet as she remembers the fog descendspast, thick she is forgetting more and eeriemore in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and reminiscent of the gas attacks in the trenches.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340953896</amazonuk>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''
{{newreview|author=Patrick Taylor |title=An Irish Country Village|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Dr Barry Laverty is working for Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the olderyear-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, and somewhat irascible Dr Fingal O'Reilly, in the fictional Ulster village of Ballybucklebonarrator 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. They, their housekeeper Mrs Kinkaid, and Set against the residents backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the village were introduced in the book [[An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor|An Irish Country Doctor]]24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, which I haven't readdepicting its all-consuming nature, so how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it took me a few chapters to get into this novelaltered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224024</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith 0008506337|title=The Lost Art of GratitudeGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I should say to begin with that it would probably be tricky to leap into reading this series with this latest bookThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. This is the sixth book Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'Sunday Philosophy Cluban older man'. Her parents worried that Richard' series s influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and returns us to having a glittering career. In the life of Isabel Dalhousieevent, our gentle philosophising heroine. She is still living with her partner, Jamie, they eloped and Richard took her son Charlie, editing her philosophy journal, and of course interfering in away from the lives Isle of othersWight. Her niece, Cat, has another dodgy boyfriend, this time Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a tightrope walkerwell-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. Her Even then the doubts about Richard'enemys drinking were never far from Margo', Christopher Dove, is causing more friction and somehow, at a toddlers mind: 's birthday party, Isabel simply can't help herself and finds herself embroiled she would never be able to leave him in the woes of a previous foe, Minty Auchterloniecharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700638</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Agnes Owens |title=The Complete Novellas|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Who is Agnes Owens? A Scottish author who portrays working class life from the nineteen forties and fiftiesThen Richard left them. Now an octogenarian, apparently Agnes Owens started writing at the age of 58. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new edition, a companion volume to her short stories, published in 2008. I don't think you'll be disappointed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Dunn 1914585402|title=The Good Bride GuideDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As he approaches I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a milestone birthday, Ben begins to think couple of years back on his old relationshipsand remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. While none of them seemed right at the timeIt was a gripping, he's not quite sure that the other option – his current single status – is really any better. With a good friend about to enter into an arranged marriageemotionally wounding read, Ben has the by this point predictable yet wacky idea and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that he needs the same thing – a nice young woman hand-picked for him by his parentsI might not have lavished enough praise on it. After all, who knows him better than they do?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847395236</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick Brownlee Lucy Ashe|title=BaitClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jake Moore was in The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the Flying Squad outside but a bullet put paid to his career and ten years later he's running a game-fishing business not, we learn, on the Kenyan coastinside. Times are hard and And not on stage, either. Because there's every chance a lot that the business will fold unless he builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and his partnersome things, Harrythat ''je ne sais quoi'', can find that don't come from the money to pay their billsclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. Some strange things are happening in the game fishing business too – one of their number has died in The difference between a mysterious explosion on his boat hard-worker, and the body of a man who shouldn't have been aboard has been washed up on the shorestar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749928840</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreview|author=Thomas Pynchon |title=Inherent Vice|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=The close of the '60s, the dawn of the '70s. San Francisco. Some people say the most influential people are Nixon and his cronies. Some people say they're Charlie Manson and his cronies. Some people call the smog surrounding everyone in the Bay Area air pollution, others a drug haze. Doc, the sole proprietor of LSD Investigations, is approached by different people, requesting two jobs of him, which both point to the same bigwig property developer. One of these is from his ex, now with said mogul, another is from a man whose prime interest immediately dies. How will this escalate into a manic mystery, hitting Move on mysterious yachts taking odd journeys, missing people, Nixon, dead people coming back to life, unusual retreats, and a host more?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408948X</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]