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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Lake295967572X|title=In DarknessPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Shorty is lying in the rubble of the great Haitian earthquake of 2010. If he's not rescued soon, he will die. Shorty is from Site Soley, the sprawling slum of Port-au-Prince. After the murder of his father and abduction of his twin sister, Shorty has allowed himself to fall further and further into the slum's gang culture. But Route 9 isn't all about drug-dealing and gun-running - it's also about feeding the poor and educating the children. And Shorty has a great deal to teach his readers, as he recounts his life while waiting to die.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408824183</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John Burnside
|title=A Summer of Drowning
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they''A Summer re going and what the purpose of Drowningthis journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets '' is a book in which for much of on the time floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not a lot happens ? Not much else is clear either - but always spookily. Set on we are probably in the Norwegian island of Kvaløya in past as the Arctic Circle, pair travel to the story is narrated station by Liv who is now 28 but who recalls events of a summer when she was 18. Liv resides with her artist mother in, if not isolation, then certainly seclusion. The book makes much of coach and the midsummer madness that 24 hour daylight induces and in that respect it train is wholly successful. It aims for a dream-like and timeless quality which it largely achievessteam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022406178X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue EcksteinMakenna Goodman|title=InterpretersHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Julia Rosenthal whilst visiting her childhood haunts, It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is invited malaise - a hard-to go around what used to be her family home-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. As she wanders around The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the roomsbrink of losing both his career and his relationship, she relives her past and seeks to understand why her parents (particularly her mother) were as they wereembodies this feeling. Julia also desperately seeks reassurance that she has notHowever, in turnGoodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, damaged her own daughter, Susannaradical and unnerving: Helen. Meanwhile The connection between Helen and the reader protagonist is given indirect yet intimate. As the privilege former owner of knowledge unavailable to Julia. Via transcriptions of discussions with counsellor, the reader learns about Juliacountryside house he's mother first hand. Slowlyconsidering, Helen represents a volta in alternating chaptershis life, whilst Julia goes over her far from normal 1970s upbringingpast tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her mother haltingly and touchingly reveals 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 secret life which almost destroyed hersense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956559964</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?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonThea Lenarduzzi|title=ShadowstoryThe Tower|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Polly grows up ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in an Anglo-Irish our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the years following World War II. Her father 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in the wara tower, captures T's imagination. Her mother sends her off Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to spend school holidays with her grandparents at KildarraghT. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a great house quest for truth and knowledge, and in the countrysideservice of myth, far away from Dublinfable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755383478</amazonuk>1804271799
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fabrice HumbertJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The Origin of ViolenceVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fabrice Humbert's French Orange Prize winning 'The Origin of ViolenceAll was strange'' has a young French teacher as a narrator who, while leading a school trip to Buchenwald concentration camp, sees a photograph of a Jewish prisoner taken in 1941 and is struck by ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the similarity in appearance pervading sense of the man to his own father. However, he discovers that not only does the man otherworldliness which permeates this story set in the photo have a different name to hisVaim, but the man died in 1942. Clearly there are dark family secrets afoot that he sets about discovering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687500</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Gordon|title=Landfall|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary='Most people at one time or another of their lives get a feeling that they must kill themselves; as a rule they get over it fictional fishing village in a day or two' ('How Girls Can Build Up The Empire: the handbook for Girl Guides' 1912) Excerpts from the handbook precede each section of ''Landfall'' and it is hard to know what to make of them – other than to take on board that women are Norway which paradoxically could not, by any stretch, the weaker sex, just the feel more emotional one 'They can even…shoot tigers, if they can keep cool'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490828</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Conny Braam|title=The Cocaine Salesman|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Picture a world of hellish exclusion, nightmarish noise real for Jatgeir and imagesEline, and horrid violence. Picture one person trying to live through the sleepless nights, the isolation among his peers, the permanent sense two of dreadful threat. Picture him needing drugs. His best friend might even be called Charlie. But don't picture an inner city slum, 2012, but a man on the front protagonists caught in World War Oneits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bruce DuffyClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Disaster was my GodBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The life of Arthur Rimbaud must be one of the most outrageous Everything in literary historythis book, more scandalous than Wildehowever sweet or seemingly innocent, more self-destructive than Malcolm Loweryis steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, Rimbaud was the boy poet usually a symbol of intimacy and iconoclast who took on the literary establishment at end closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the nineteenth century and won. So Duffynarrator cries out internally, 's fictional account, based closely around the actual facts of Rimbaud's life, was bound to be an exciting come over here and furiouskiss me, and he doesn't disappoint' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. This The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a difficult book ghost she conjures to put downtest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685273</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin BrophyHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Berlin CrossingLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It's First published in 1953 in French, 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 1990s page and Herr Doktor Ritter - to give Michael his full title - is about to lose his teaching job. Although a German nationalpositions them elsewhere, disjointed, he teaches Englishtruncated. Apparently Like the Social Review Committee has been doing some 'reviewing' lately and it doesn't look good for Michaellives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755380851</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=German SadulaevJonathan Buckley|title=I Am A Chechen!One Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=That exclamation mark in the title says ''One Boat'' is a lot. It says deeply introspective novella thatdefies traditional narrative structure, in spite drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of everythingphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, in spite Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of Sadulaev leaving his homelanda small coastal Greek town, it still tugs at his heartstrings - and will probably do so throughout this work masterfully captures the rest magic of his lifeits setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. The short author's note at Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the beginning ends with reason she has visited it after the arresting sentence death of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self- ''Sadulaev's work has unleashed heated debate in Russiaaware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations.'' And I'm thinkingIt is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, brave author indeed since its narrative structure is fragmentary and I also couldn't wait to find out what all the fuss was aboutironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532352</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
 {{newreview|author=Mark Mustian|title=The Gendarme|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=There are times when you will want to shut 'The Gendarme' and just walk away from the despair and disgust that this account of genocide engenders. Don't. Ultimately this tale of an old Turk revisiting his terrible past is both touching and important - an exploration of memory and forgiveness that shouldn't be missed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688390</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Otto de Kat|title=Julia|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The book opens with Chris as an elderly man who is nearing the end of his life. Turn a page or two and he is, in fact, dead. Suicide apparently. It's all very sad. He lived alone and a paid employee, his young driver, found him in his study. 'Suicide for the posh' his driver thinks looking at the corpse. But we have to travel back down the decades to find out why. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050559</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Howard J Booth (editor)Eowyn Ivey|title=The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard KiplingBlack Woods Blue Sky
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rudyard Kipling''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, born in India in 1865the young mother of toddler Emaleen, is still who longs for a life beyond the youngest ever Nobel literature laureateAlaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. He was Described as a prolific author ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and at yearns to cross the turn of Wolverine river and live on the century up North Fork to the first World War an immensely popular onefulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. Even now When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he remains the most frequently quoted of all English authors (has a cabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with the possible exception of Shakespeare) – albeit often taken out of contexther. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521136636</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Padgett PowellSally Rooney|title=You and IIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=I've often wondered how men Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and women is something of letters can pack a grandmaster at putting it all ininto words. People churn out a career of fictionHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as well as reading all her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the classicsmany relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and offering pages and pages of diaries and letters on their deathPeter Koubek. Padgett Powell can get to be Ivan, a professor of bookssocially awkward chess prodigy, and therefore I assume is duty-bound to read and write lotscontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, but still find time to knock out novels, however shorta successful lawyer living in Dublin. It was only a few months ago I was reading Following their father''The Interrogative Mood'' for s passing after a review elsewherelong battle with cancer, and here is another new release from him. Serpent's Tail will cheat in 2012 by giving the British audience Powellbrothers's debut novel, almost two decades oldalready strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688167</amazonuk>0571365469
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Art SpiegelmanFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=MetaMAUSWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic NovelsShort Stories|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy As always in Dostoyevsky, the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a child-like near-fable for all]], character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and before it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation of an equally brilliant volumetemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Javier MariasJames Baldwin|title=While the Women are SleepingGiovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction |summary=The first thing ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the trivially minded will note 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 that this engaged to Hella, who is not travelling in Spain, the complete edition of While real tension in the Women are Sleeping, for novel arises not all the stories in from his infidelity but from the original Spanish volume are heredeeper conflict within himself. You might think thatIt is David's because some have been hived off for a future 'best crippling shame and denial of' compilation. But if this isn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what ishis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph HellerAlba de Cespedes |title=Catch 22Forbidden Notebook|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=At the heart This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the very black comedy that is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarianmoment our protagonist, a World War II American bombardierValeria Cossati, who wants to survive purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the war. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanity, most intimate and surely a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks to be grounded, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety. If he is sane, he can't be grounded. This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas E KennedyOttessa Moshfegh|title=Falling SidewaysMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=KennedyAt best, although a New Yorker, has lived in Copenhagen for over twenty years so he'll have a good feel for the European slant on the this novel, I would think. It is one a scathing critique of four called the Copenhagen Quartet. The top brass, the movers modern society and reveals the shakers fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the 'Tank' are introduced to the reader one by one and have a whole chapter devoted to their individual livescynical, both professional predictable and privateslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. So we get This unlikely heroine, a very good idea indeed of their homesslim, their neighbourhoodsattractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, their families and perhaps more importantlybut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, their thoughts on the Tank and of their colleaguesher solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408812398</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hari KunzruMatthew Tree|title=Gods Without MenWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Quite literally at the heart of Hari Kunzru's latest novel stands not a personTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, but strange geographical feature in the California desert - three large rocks known as 'The Pinnacles'. If you've ever looked at a feature of the landscape drunk and wonder what it has meant to those who have gone before, then you will find a similar stance here. Kunzru's episodic narrative takes in various points in time from 1775 to 2009 all chronic underachiever whose dreams of which centre around this rock structure which has had different meanings for different generations. There are echoes being exceptional at any of the past in each new version, but no more than that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114311X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Hoffman|title=The Dovekeepers|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Set in the last desperate days before the Roman siege on Masada (70CE), the lives of four women collide his artistic passions all failed miserably and merge. They are Yael, the daughter of a Sicarii assassin; Revka, the wife of a gentle baker who witnessed her daughters' rape and murder; Aziza, raised as a boy with the skills had endless crises of a great warrior and Shirah, born in Alexandria to a mother well versed in ancient magicself confidence. All four have crossed the heartless desert on separate journeys So Tim applied himself to arrive at the last outpost against the Roman Legionhis studies, where 900 Jews held out for many, many months. Here they have little power cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and less hope, set himself high but each refuses to be a victim. All are harbouring deep secrets about their pasts, as they become the Masada's dovekeepers. With supplies dwindling and certain death drawing near, their uneasy bonds to each other strengthen as their truths are unveiled. They find an uneasy comfort that becomes true loyalty and empowerment. While few in their company survive to recount the tale, their story has lived on to haunt the deepest of memoriesachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857205420</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Irene NemirovskyB0C47LV1PC|title=The Wine of SolitudeFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Helene adores her father but hates her motherCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, who neglects her and sees her as nothing more than an inconvenience. She grows up with is the realisation that question should you make it? Or is the only way question if you did, would it land? The catch is that her mother can hurt her is to sack her French governess – the only person who has ever tried to give Helene a stable upbringinganswer for both could well be... The winds of war blow them all from a fictional Kiev, to a harsh St Petersburg and on to a snowy Finland to end up – finally – in France at the end of the First World War. Helene's father has made a lot of money from mining in Siberia but whilst the family might have money – ridiculous amounts of it – they have nothing elseno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185570</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Per Petterson|title=It's Fine By Me|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We see Audun start his new school in Oslo. The building'Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, the classroomsOregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the teachers, even restrictions imposed during the other pupils all seem to scare him. He refuses to conform and insists on wearing his sunglasses - indoors. It's not an affectation though, apparently he has some facial scarring around his eyes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553695</amazonuk>covid pandemic
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John O'ConnellMosby Woods|title=The Baskerville Legacy: A NovelWhirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=1900, and a man on a ship coming back from The West isn't the Boer War to edit the Daily Express meets one of his heroes dominant force it once was. Nobody in the form of Arthur Conan Doyle. With similar experiences and interests yet different enough West is quite sure how to bounce off each other they take up mend this or even if mending it is the idea best course of collaborating on action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a plotpush for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. When they do fix on time to do soImagine then, it leads to literary prospects, which lead to there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a week's research together on Dartmoorman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, which leads to ''The Hound of right? Perhaps the Baskervilles''most valuable asset in history. But perhaps in a way Imagine then, that only one of them intendedthis man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595465</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenzaburo Oe0571379559|title=The Silent CryHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Featuring rioting and looting ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of corporate supermarkets time, storms and anger against immigrantsfloods. Her husband, this is a timely reRichard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys -issue of Nobel Prize for Literature winner’s Kenzaburo Óe’s 1967 classic Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they'The Silent Cryre related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she' which was cited by the Nobel committee as s his key worknanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688078</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
{{newreview|author=Hector Tobar|title=The Barbarian Nurseries|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Torresfollow-Thompsons seem up to have it allthe excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. A beautiful homeIn the palace of Odysseus, two healthy boys and enough money not with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to have rule without her husband, who sailed to worry about practical matterswar at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. The cherry on As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the cake is their employment throne of their maid Araceli. She works like a trouper and keeps the large house spick and spanWestern Isles. She is lucky enough to have her own private quarters (if small Having survived – politically and rather basic) in physical – the back garden area. She knows within herself chaotic storm that she should be grateful, should really be jumping up and down with glee and thanking her lucky stars Clytemnestra brought to have this job. SheIthaca's managed to escape the poverty and violence of Mexico after all. But as she goes about her daily housekeeping duties she feels like some alien living shores, Queen Penelope is on another plant. Planet America. Araceli is young, single and childless and at times she misses the hustle and bustle brink of her old lifea fragile peace. And here Tobar gives an excellent account of One that shatters however with the affluent part return of LA where the Torres-Thompson's live - ' ... in this house on a hill high above the oceanOrestes, on a cul-de-sac absent King of pedestrians or playing childrenMycenae, absent of traffic .and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge..'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444726757</amazonuk>0356516075
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair MacLeodKay Chronister|title=No Great MischiefDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=No Great Mischief With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a novel which captures the essence robotic takeover, a world devoid of belonging and the need water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to be a part of onecathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures''s history. This by Kay Chronister is the story a new work of a small part post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of Clann Calum Ruadh, the people of Red Calum, emigrants to Canadafears that exist for humanity today. It sweeps from contemporary Toronto to evoke Cape Breton in the fifties and back to the clearances of Scottish history. MacLeod tells the tale with the dignity and stature of an ancient myth, holding up is a shocking novel that still manages to our gaze what it means to be a part of a race, a family and a placefind hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099283921</amazonuk>1803364998
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 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=William GiraldiEric LaRocca|title=Busy MonstersThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=General FictionHorror|summary=Charles Homar loves his GillianHorror 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. HeMost horror fiction feature a 's proved 'Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it to us, if not to herusually something tangible and, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper the end of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat insteadstory, beatable. But lo and behold, sheEric LaRocca's declared she's off to discover the real love of her life - the giant squid'The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. Failing to stop this, Charlie spends too long with It is a Nessie obsessive, then goes on a hunt collection of his own - for Bigfoot, all short stories more interested in the whilehorrors of illness, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative of the same grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columnsdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colson WhiteheadMadelaine Lucas|title=Zone One|rating=4|genre=Horror|summary=To start, Thirst for once, with the book's style - this has probably the least dialogue of any book you'll read this year. There are some comments from characters, but they're few and far between - as are those characters that can actually speak. For we're in a devastated New York, later this century, and our three main protagonists are cleaning up after a worldwide plague of zombies. The active ones have mostly been gunned down by the military, but there are a few still locked away in hidden corners - as well as inactive ones, called stragglers, who seem stuck in one instant, whether finishing off their last office job for the millionth time, or like a ghost haunting a place relevant to them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846555981</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michela Murgia and Silvester Mazzarella (Translator)|title=AccabadoraSalt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This beautiful, slim volume has won no less than six literary prizes. Murgia paints an early and evocative picture of the young central character''Love, Maria as she makes mud tarts. But this innocent activity is about to come to an abrupt halt. Her birth mother struggles to feed and clothe all her children (Maria is the fourth child and is really a nuisance) so when an opportunity arises which I'solves the problem of Maria' if you liked read, then she grabs it with both hands. Maria is quickly and rather unceremoniously adopted by an older woman who just happens was supposed to be a widow. She has no children of her own light and seems to lead a rather lonelyweightless feeling, insular life. She is old enough to be a grandmother, let alone a mother. Will she be able to cope with a noisy youngster under her roof? You wonder why shebut I had always longed for gravity''d want to take in a raggedy child, or any child for that matter, in the first place. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050451</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Khaled Hosseini|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A confession. If there's one book I'm not likely to readTold from a retrospective view, it's that which everyone else is reading. If it turns into a hugely popular film for all young woman unravels the leftyear-wing chattering classes to rave over, then long relationship that's just more grist to my mill – I'll always have a chance to catch up on it once defined her. Overlaid with later onwisdom, even if I never take that opportunity. I'm not alone in acting like this the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university see a friend and colleague's similar admission when reviewing [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith]]to its sorrowful end the summer after. But at least, through Set against the medium backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the graphic novel, the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I24-year-old narrator'm missing, s deepening relationship with this adaptationher older lover, by Italian artistsdepicting its all-consuming nature, of a hugely successful – how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and therefore delayable – novelhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408815257</amazonuk>0861546490
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonMichael Grothaus|title=Lord of MisruleBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=West Virginia, 1970. We're at a rundown race track, of the dusty kind rundown horses 'But fearing something and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race having it come to interrupt the boredom. Into pass are two different things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing. His girlfriend is here too And I'm willing to help outbet most of what we fear will never happen, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen or we can take steps to change it all before. Also in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run and won.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Joan Leegant|title=Wherever You Go|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Religion kicks off this book, even before ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the first page. The title is from a passage from the Book question of Ruth. The only female central character, Yona is travelling from her home in America to visit her sister identity and large familyacceptance. She's not really looking forward Of what it means to itbe human. She's nervous. The two sisters live very different lives Of what is real and what is artificial, and haven't seen each other for a decade. Leegant tells us all about whether the massive rift in their relationshipdevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393339890</amazonuk>191458564X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles FrazierJennifer Saint|title=NightwoodsAtalanta|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you have read Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain'I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, or indeed seen the film, then you'll have a fair idea what to expect from his latest offering - 'Nightwoods'I vowed. As with 'Cold Mountain'I would take my place, not just in the landscape name of the Appalachians is the dominant character, this time set in the 1950sgoddess. He even manages to get his requisite bear into It was for the story although thankfully it fares rather better than the unfortunate beast in his first book. The darksake of my name, oppressing majesty and beauty of the mountains and woods pervades the whole storytoo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444731246</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
{{newreview|author=Shuichi Yoshida|title=Villain|rating=3Princess.5|genre=Crime|summary=Well, I suppose I'd better begin with the bad which was there were moments at the start of this novel when I thought I couldn't possibly read it right to the endWarrior. It's written in such a stilted, factual style with details about the road networks of the local area and exactly how much anyone pays for anything they eat or buy or rent! Faced, for example, with the paragraph ''cars setting out from Nagasaki that take the pass road to save money take the Nagasaki Expressway from Nagasaki to Omura, then to Higashi-Sonogi and Takeo, and get off at the Saga Yamato interchangeLover. Intersecting this east-west Nagasaki Expressway at the interchange is Route 263'' I thought I'd never manage to read more than a couple of lines before falling asleep! Still, I persisted and actually, I'm glad I didHero.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526654</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Mike French|title=The Ascent Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of Isaac Steward|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Isaac is married the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to Rebekah. They have sonsjoin the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, Esau descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and Jacob, naturallycarve out her own legendary place in history. There What follows is a half-brother Ishmael whirlwind of challenges and a back-story of marital betrayal discovery and the out-casting of sonsthrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956881017</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=A PortsmouthAmanthi Harris|title=The Beautiful Torment of a DreamPlace|rating=35
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This is Padma, a beautifully presented book with its enigmatic front cover and equally enigmatic title. After reading young Sri Lankan, has returned to the blurb Villa Hibiscus on the back cover I was left with a feeling southern coast of wishy-washiness however, as regards the storyline. Unfortunately, the contents confirmed this for me.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956493602</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kevin Wilson|title=The Family Fang|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be againcountry. But it has come to this - her film actress career This is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gunplace she spent her formative years. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in It is not a whole career of performance art piecesplace she was born into, designed to enact a point but the one she thinks of life or just cause havocas home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Roth|title=Nemesis|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able How she came to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at handthe Villa, if how it were coolerbecame her home, and if the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there were no polio epidemic happeningprovide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. But there is, Padma's present fails to escape her past and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it much like the musical score of a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacksfilm, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Wolfe178563335X|title=A Man in FullSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=IWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she'll hold my hands up right now s a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and say that no, I havenwondering why they't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed [[The Bonfire of re held when you need to pick the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire of the Vanities]]children up. I've heard a lot about itHer husband, Christopher, over the yearscollects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I ''have'' read itJamie, mind youwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. So IThelma'm really pleased to have the chance to read this muchs daughter-in-awaited novellaw won't let her see her grandson. At Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with Wolfethe parish - and she's particular style in awe of prosethe vicar, ItGail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a veritable feast for readerswalk 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>0099554771</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J M Coetzee1398515388|title=Scenes From Provincial LifeThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary='Scenes from Provincial Life' is a compilation First of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published all, it was the earthquake, deep in 1997the ocean floor, 'Youth' published in 2002 which created the tsunami and [[Summertime by J M Coetzee|Summertime]] published this, in 2009turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition The result was complete and yet they utter devastation. The deaths were initially published separatelyuncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. What strikes The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the reader list of this compilation is priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the change in style convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and focus of Tamon the third book dog jumped in the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554853</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henning Mankell0989715337|title=DanielPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland of Sweden and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desert. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with 'Some frogs had gotten into the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dull, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friendswell. It's also plain that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climes. But at what cost?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009948143X</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Mohammed Hanif|title=Our Lady of Alice Bhatti|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Alice is nervous. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospital. Even although her nursing skills are far from ideal, she believes she's in with a shout. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to work. She's now employed and earning some muchWalter stood waist-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082051</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Evelio Rosero|title=Good Offices|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Here is a church deep in Bogota nobody seems to want to leave. In part one it is a large group of the elderly, given a weekly, tasteless meal from the charitable funds, but bitterly refusing to quit the placefragrant water, making our main character Tancredo fear naked except for his passivitybeaten leather hat. In part two it is the congregationLong strands of their eggs wove around him, as a rare need for a stand-in priest seems to be a blessingsticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. And in part three it is that priest himself, stuck among Two of the household of Tancredo, dogs leaned over the girl who loves him, opening and chorus of three weird old women.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050672</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Barry Unsworth|title=The Quality of Mercy|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The Quality of Mercy' picks up barked down at the story strange noise of the author's Booker Prize-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although if you haven't read the first book, you won't be greatly disadvantaged buckets as the relevant story lines are explainedhe filled them. What you might miss out on is some of the feeling for a few of the main characters, most notably the Irish fiddler, Sullivan who, when this book picks up in spring 1767, has just escaped from prison where the remaining shipmates of the slave ship, the 'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracy. Slavery and abolition thereof remains a central theme of this sequel, but the book draws some poignant similarities with those in bondage due to poverty, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937124</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Zadie Smith|title=White Teeth|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Some books sneak up on you. Others are thrown at you from every corner How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the media form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to the extent that you almost make wistful and musing, turning on a conscious decision NOT to read them, or at leastsixpence. And author Marco North, not yet. Let who has the furore die down. If they're still around in a few yearsmost wonderful turn of phrase, your subconscious whispers, maybe we'll starts as he means to go see what all the fuss was abouton. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241954576</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Michael Ondaatje|title=The Cat's Table|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=For the first half or so of this book, which sees an 11 year old boy called Michael (or Mynah to his friends) leave his home of Ceylon to travel to school in England, I wasn't really sure if it even had a plot. Focusing Move on his journey in the 1950's aboard the ship to England, although occasionally leaping forward to his later life where he gives us tantalising glimpses as to what happened to his fellow passengers after the voyage, this originally seems to be nothing more than a series of incredibly well-drawn character sketches. In fairness, I should say that ''nothing more'' is rather harsh in this case – the men, women and children Ondaatje creates, from a supposedly cursed rich man seeking a cure, to a friendly thief, to Michael's beautiful cousin Emily, are so beautifully conjured that I could have lived without a plot perfectly happily. However, we eventually realise there's a little more to this narrative, and that this skilful author has been foreshadowing the events at the novel's climax all along.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093614</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]

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