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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon RobsonJeremy Cooper|title=CatchDiscord|rating=43.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Catharine's husband Tom is away on business in BirminghamDiscord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, and so Catharine awakes alone for or ideas) The principal example of discord within the first time in their little cottage at the end novel, as with most instances of their lanediscord, is easily located. They moved there a few months previouslyThe two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and since then Catharine has spent her days quietly awaiting her husband's return from workEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. She Rebekah is sure that she will figure outan uptight, some daytraditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, what her purpose in life while Evie is. She thought it might be to have a babyforce of nature, but they have been trying for some time and it hasn't happened bounding onto the musical scene as yet. Meanwhile she waitsa precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and thinkscharm. The two, and waits. In the lounge stands her pianopredictably, a stark reminder of the life she didndon't manage always see eye to realise because although she studied music she foundeye, quite quickly, that in spite of being passionate she lacked any kind of talent for it whatsoever. So, on this day, alone their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at home, Catharine finds herself tormented by the pianoodds with Rebekah's presence and over-thinking every second of the dayconservative leaning. She worries away at who she isHowever, and what her life is, as her loneliness and something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the day itself unravel around herclamour.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090232</amazonuk>1804272264
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe MenoPolly Barton|title=The Great PerhapsWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when he sees cloudsPolly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. His wife Madeline worries about everythingThe narrator, not least the way the pigeons that she is studying are murdering each other. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia wants newly relocated from London to overthrow Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the evil empire process of capitalism and is making her own bomblocalisation, while fourteen year old Thisbe is looking for God and praying rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to hima new audience. Jonathan's fatherBarton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, seventy six year old Henryin striving for universality, language is planning his disappearanceendlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. Jonathan and Madeline may be on From this, the verge of splitting upnovel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to the dismay of both daughters.what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, accepted, or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330512471</amazonuk>1804272175
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth KostovaMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Swan ThievesDisappearing Act|rating=24
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=1999 – A renowned painter, Robert Oliver, goes madDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, attacking a painting with a knife. HeStepanova's arrested, and sent 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 psychiatrist who literary festival she is also an artistto be a guest speaker at. The psychiatrist, Andrew Marlowe, can't get his patient to talk to him, but tries to investigate what drove him to this Detoured by talking to his wife erratic train schedules and his girlfriendnudged by forces beyond her control, and reading some letters Oliver seems obsessed withher journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. 1879 – Beatrice de Clerval, aspiring artist, corresponds with her uncle-by-marriage Olivier VignotSwept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to step in for a more experienced paintercircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. Their letters will be found by Robert OliverThe train functions as a motif of transience and impermanence, 120 years laterwhile the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and a retreat into fantasy, and will lead to his loss an impulse that lies at the very heart of sanitythe novel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442404</amazonuk>1804272329
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Atiq Rahimi295967572X|title=The Patience StonePale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Set in AfghanistanOur 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 ''The Patience Stoneon the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is a partly allegorical tale of a Muslim wife tending to her comatose soldier husband who has been shot clear either - but we are probably in the neck. As she cares for him, for past as the first time ever she is able pair travel to speak to him without fear of censorship and he becomes, for her, like the mythical Patience Stone to which you tell your troubles station by coach and when the stone finally bursts, you are free from your torments. But also this might mean the Apocalypsetrain is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184167</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joyce Carol OatesMakenna Goodman|title=A Fair MaidenHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I've recently read It could be argued that the terrific short story collection ''The Female Of The Species'' also by Oates and couldn't wait pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to start her latest book. I felt sure -place feeling that I was something in for your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a literary treat - disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and I washis relationship, embodies this feeling. FirstlyHowever, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the book itselfprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a hardback with a beautifully nostalgic cover 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 describes her as ''an entity that is a book loverpure consciousness, beyond form''s delight. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847248586</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Olga Tokarczuk
|title=House of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas Trofimuk Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Waiting for ColumbusThe Tower|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I was hooked instantly by ''How unctuous are the title. Originalfats of another's life, thought-provoking, quirky. The book revolves around a youngish man who has been admitted to an insane asylum (these two words alone make me want to shiver) how dizzying their sugars in modern-day Spain. The staff have their work cut out. He doesnour bloodstream't remember his name or anything at all about his past. He's sporadically violent - and he says he is Christopher Columbus! As the Americans would say, go figure. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330518844</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain BanksJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The Steep Approach to GarbadaleVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It took me a while to realise that Iain Banks is, most ''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of allotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a teller of tales - I would call him a story-teller had this term fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not became a compliment-cum-invective usually reserved feel more real for the Jeffrey Archers Jatgeir and Dan Browns Eline, two of the modern publishing world. This ability to tell stories - not to plot as much as to weave a yarn - combines with a penchant for creating appealing contexts for Banks' narratives to unfold in (this gets magnificently realised protagonists caught in the world building of his [[:Category:Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]] alter-ego) and populating them with memorable, larger than life but usually short of caricature, charactersits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349119287</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary McCarthy Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The GroupBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='Given the attention paid to relations between the sexesEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, it would be tempting to call The Group usually a forerunner symbol of today's chick litintimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. ItWhen the narrator cries out internally, 's not.' So writes Candace Bushnell, the writer behind the TV series Sex come over here and the Citykiss me, in the introduction '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to this new Virago Modern Classics edition confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of The Group by Mary McCarthy. First published in 1963, this novel plea is about the lives of a group of young women after leaving college in 1933Xavier, including careersher ex-partner, relationships, sex, babies, parents, and moneya ghost she conjures to test her detachment. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844085937</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janice GallowayHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Collected StoriesLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=In this collection, stories are taken from two previous volumes, Blood and Where You Find It. The forty-two snap shots of life are mainly of women and young girls, struggling with emotions, sometimes realized and sometimes not. In all, there seems to be an underlying link of isolation and truth. The settings are varied, from a visit to the dentist to the place known as home, to a walk in the evening. We have a peek into the deepest darkest corners of everyday relationships, with lovers, partners and most of all ourselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540398</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Herta Muller|title=The Passport|rating=3
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet Windisch. A miller First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a small village, he trudges through there, timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and through his neighbours, sentences from their proper position on the page and through his lifepositions them elsewhere, counting his days and hoursdisjointed, for reasons that are not initially clear. But he does want something - he is waiting for a passport so he can leave for other climestruncated. The perks of his job are Like the bags lives of flour he leaves by the mayor's house with regularityher characters, as an open bribe, but there might be a bigger sacrifice to have to makethey are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1852421398</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonJonathan Buckley|title=Truth or FictionOne Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Caroline Wallace ''One Boat'' is not a happy womandeeply 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. She has waited ten years for her lover to propose to herSet against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and now just its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as he finally does, the reason she has to go to Dublin to interview faded literary star Desmond Fitzmauricevisited it after the death of both her parents. Desmond promises his tale will be brimful of 'sex Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and violence'deeply self-aware, but Caroline has no idea of inviting the mystery reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that lies at the heart not only requires but inspires depth of his storythought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755330544</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian BarnesEowyn Ivey|title=Staring at the SunBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle Leslie'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 a bar waitress, hyacinths a setting which enables her bad habits and golf teesher accidental neglect of Emaleen. ItDescribed as a ''wild card''s perhaps best forgotten, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large she feels stuck in her life day- mostly on the golf course to- until day life, and yearns to cross the War comes Wolverine river and he runs away live on the North Fork to Americafulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. He's replaced by Tommy ProsserWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, a grounded pilot strange, taciturn and solitary man, who once saw the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as says he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michael, has a policemancabin over there, whom Jean eventually marriesshe feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and he doesnEmaleen't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedrooms lives forever. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell Celyn JonesSally Rooney|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) Intermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change Walesgrandmaster at putting it into words. Life Her dialogue is different in gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the main means of transportfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. But Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in many ways itDublin. Following their father's much passing after a long battle with cancer, the same - people still fight one anotherbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time on the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their hands innermost dispositions and precious little meaning in their livestemperaments with remarkable clarity. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen SheersJames Baldwin|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Giovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the old talenarrator David, Branwen is the sister of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of Britain. She marries the King of Irelandan American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, who doesn't treat her wellan Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. She manages While David is engaged to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war and killings ensue. In this new taleHella, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers whois travelling in Spain, the real tension in the wake of novel arises not from his infidelity but from the devastating foot and mouth outbreak, are despoiling their heritage by rustling deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her a story involving the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower denial of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affairhis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonAlba de Cespedes |title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleForbidden Notebook|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by a series This Italian work of matter feminist fiction holds an air of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister suspense and death cap mushroomstension from the moment our protagonist, and everyone else in Valeria Cossati, purchases her family is dead. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other peopleforbidden notebook, and they live near a village. Merricat believes that 'The people of learns about herself in the village have always hated us', most intimate and tells us that she hates them toorevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah GregoryOttessa Moshfegh|title=Dancing With The DeadMy Year of Rest and Relaxation
|rating=3
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead''At best, because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born cynical, predictable and brought up)slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. I felt This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with all these linksthe world, the novel could but resolves not fail to interest me – but this was not the caselose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth BainesMatthew Tree|title=Too Many MagpiesWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation can Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be become your constant companions. In this novelladifferent from his father, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientist. They attempt to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit drunk and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any adverse affects from them were disprovedof his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins So Tim applied himself to struggle as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with himhis studies, begins to let things slip at home cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and with the children, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present dangerset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine MayB0C47LV1PC|title=Burning OutFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Violet has it all – Can you make a well-paid job''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her meals, her clothesthe question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the life she it land? The catch is leading is beginning to take its toll. On that the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home townanswer for both could well be. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girlno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary DixonMosby Woods|title=When Rooks Speak of LoveA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Arthur Transcombe 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 best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a middle-aged, grey-haired, self-effacing poetpush for climate action there. Unremarkable really - on the outsideA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. He hasImagine then, however, managed to achieve some success there was a man with his poemsprecognition. (Being Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a guest speaker at man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat)most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. He is also a babe magnet!What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Malouf 0571379559|title=RansomThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Taking his theme from a small part ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of Homerfour people. Tess Hembry's Iliadroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, Malouf tells but instead, she lives in the story of house on the king riverbank, built of Troybroken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, Priamit's grief-stricken voyage into stood the Greek camp passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to ransom Troy's wealth for the body of grow his fallen sonvegetables, Hector, killed by to complete the equally griefdelivery rounds -stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed and to bring in battle before Achilles took his cruel revengesufficient money. Malouf tells the story in sparse They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, yet lyrical and poetic fashion suggesting the personal stories behind the epic themes rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that Homer they're related. It , much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as a great piece of story tellingout with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Milan KunderaKay Chronister|title=The Book of Laughter and ForgettingDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=It's with With a somehow guilty feeling world that I admit that I have never been particularly fond of Milan Kunderais becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. He's certainly Whether it is a very good writer and undoubtedly robotic takeover, a very intelligent man capable world devoid of interesting philosophical insights. All those qualities contributed to water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a cult status accorded way for humans to Kundera, compounded cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the frisson of political subversion – never a harmful thing fears that exist for humanity today. It is a writer from what used shocking novel that still manages to be known as Eastern Europe (but which returned to its status as Middle (or Central) Europe with the fall of the Iron Curtain)find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057117437X</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Andrew Miller Eric LaRocca|title=One Morning Like A BirdThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Tokyo in 1940 Horror 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 place ''Big Bad'', whether that we British tend not to give is a home invader, a monster or a great deal of thought to. Japan entered the warghost, we sayit usually something tangible and, with by the end of the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941story, completely forgetting beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that Japan, like most . It is a collection of short stories more interested in the rest horrors of the worldillness, was already a country at wargrief and humiliation. She had been fighting in China since 1937 Horrors that linger and was making in-roads into European colonial territory in the area as wellare harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340825154</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A complex class society which evolved into a highly sophisticated culture is invariably ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a fertile ground for development of social satire, light and British literature would have been hugely depleted if all novels that can be regarded as such were suddenly to disappear. Evelyn Waugh made the genre his ownweightless feeling, and ''A Handful of Dustbut I had always longed for gravity'' is a sublime example of his mastery of it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141183969</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bryony Doran Michael Grothaus|title=The China BirdBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Edward is a sad ''But fearing something and solitary figurehaving it come to pass are two different things. Late middle-aged, twisted-spined and hump-backed, a loner who works in the archive basement of the library, lodges with Mrs Ingrams who makes his tea and ruins his laundry, and hoards letters from his mother. Like many an unmarried man with an aging, widowed mother, Edward finds his relationship with her somewhat strained. Unlike many And I'm willing to bet most of those menwhat we fear will never happen, his relationship was always that way. She is rude and demanding, and he either doesn't have the strength or the inclination we can take steps to force the issue with herchange it. Apart from an occasion half-hearted reprimand, he stands back, ignores, makes excuses.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095556302X</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Agnes Owens Jennifer Saint|title=The Complete NovellasAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Who is Agnes Owens? A Scottish author who portrays working class life from the nineteen forties and fifties''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. Now an octogenarianI would take my place, apparently Agnes Owens started writing at not just in the age name of 58the goddess. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new editionIt was for the sake of my name, a companion volume to her short stories, published in 2008too. I donAtalanta't think you'll be disappointed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erick Setiawan Amanthi Harris|title=Of Bees and MistBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The first few chapters of this amazing workPadma, had me scratching my heada young Sri Lankan, and pondering, 'what has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on earth the southern coast of her home country. This is this abouta place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, and where is it going?' It struck me but the one she thinks of as simply bizarrehome. However How she came to be at the Villa, I was quickly reeled inhow it became her home, and the initially disparate cast 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 charactersa film, who seemed more like caricatures, soon had lives of their own - and fascinating ones that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at that!the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755348532</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Mantel178563335X|title=Wolf HallSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A revisionist look at Henry VIIIWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's ministera trainee vicar, Thomas Cromwellsitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Rich Her husband, absorbing Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and intelligenther elder brother, itJamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a beautifullovely place, beautiful bookbut Rachel is struggling to develop a real 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. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007230184</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A S Byatt1398515388|title=The Children's BookBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Antonia Byatt's Booker-nominated ''The Children's Book'' (her first novel for seven years) is a staggeringFirst of all, it was the earthquake, complex and multi-layered bookdeep in the ocean floor, set between which created the last years of Victoria's reign tsunami and the end of the First World War. Although this is undoubtedly an intelligent book, full of learning and ideasin turn, ranging from class, early feminism, Fabianism caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and anarchismutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, it is highly readable and accessiblethe loss of livelihoods was widespread. The author's stance is fact that this was a unique time for children in the UK, freed many pets were separated from their owners came far down the 'be seen and not heard' list of priorities but - six months after the early Victorian age, tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but before the convenience store owner'treat them like adults' of the post war loss of innocence. It was a time when children, at least rich children, were allowed s comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to be free open his car door and adult authors like JM Barrie wrote both about and for children and was also widely read by adultsTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701183896</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colm Toibin 0989715337|title=Brooklyn|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Colm Tóibín's quietly powerful new novel, Brooklyn, opens in the author's own home town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford in the 1950s. We are sitting with his conscientiously introverted heroine, Eilis Lacey, as she watches through the upstairs living room window as her more glamorous older sister Rose walks briskly home from work. Rose is popular at the local golf club, with many male admirers. Meanwhile, Eilis' three brothers have all gone to England where there is work to be had. There are few opportunities in Enniscorthy, for employment or anything else. Eilis is lucky to be offered a Sunday job in Miss Kelly's grocery shop, a shop Eilis' widowed mother will not enter. Later, Eilis will entertain her mother and sister with imitations of Miss Kelly's voice. Showing everything only through Eilis' eyes, Tóibín brilliantly evokes life in Papa on the claustrophobically tight-knit town.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918121</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Shandi Mitchell |title=Under This Unbroken SkyMarco North|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A photograph opens ''Some frogs had gotten into the storywell. A black and white picture of a family, husband, wife and their three children, smiling for the camera. Thin, underfed, in their summer clothes despite the four inches of snow, they smile. Partly they smile because they do not know what is to come. A page and five years later we catch up with the Mykolayenkos. In the Spring of 1938 Ivan and his cousin are catching mice in the barn and taking bets on which of the farm cats will pounce on the individually released rodents first. The game is interrupted by a man with a loaded .22 rifle. It takes a while for it to sink in, that this is Ivan's father, Teodor, free after a prison sentence for stealing his own grain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856588</amazonuk>}}'
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