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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ned Beauman295967572X|title=The Teleportation AccidentPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=It's hard Our unnamed narrator is about to know where to start in reviewing Ned Beaumanbegin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation Accident''. Reading it, you feel like re going and what the parent purpose of an ADHD-suffering child. At times it this journey is lovable, brilliant and entertaining, at others you just want to reach for is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the Ritalin floor somewhere'' and tell it has persuaded our narrator to sit in a corner quietly while it composes itselfaccompany him. A clue to both the brilliance and frustration of Beauman Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the vast range of writers past as the pair travel to whom he has been compared in both this and his first novel [[Boxer, Beetle the station by Ned Beauman|Boxer, Beetle]]. There are hints of people as wide ranging as [[:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]], [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P G Wodehouse]], [[:Category:Douglas Adams|Douglas Adams]], Raymond Chandler even [[:Category:Angela Carter|Angela Carter]] to name just a few. Beauman takes a huge range of styles coach and genres and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be the train is a challenge keeping up with him at timessteam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340998423</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah LevyMakenna Goodman|title=Swimming HomeHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Joe, It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a poet and Isabelhard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent a luxurious villa in disgraced professor on the South brink of France losing both his career and invite their friends Laura and Mitchell to join themhis relationship, embodies this feeling. On their first day there Nina finds what appears to be However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a naked body floating in the swimming poolforce which is seductive, but it's Kitty Finchradical and unnerving: Helen. She pleads a mix-up over booking dates The connection between Helen and when told that all the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers her protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the use former owner of the spare bedroom at the villa. Therecountryside house he's no obvious reason for why she does thisconsidering, Helen represents a 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, but what does become clear and describes her as ''an entity that is that Kitty suffers from depression - and pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she's stopped taking her medicationlives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276029</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?''
{{newreview|author=Manu Joseph|The title=The Illicit Happiness of Other People|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls this spellbinding work, ''the underdog familyHouse of Day, House of Night''. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinkingsmall, and by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma hassubtle changes which govern our lives, shall we saylike the shift from day to night, problemshowever quotidian, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next doorcausing chaos. But their other son Unni , the constant in that image is a ''cartoonist hottie'' - a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world - or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and outputhouse, trying to seek stoic against the cause of this suicide, and what we have here ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truthperceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>1804271918
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi AldermanThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Liars' GospelTower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In ''The LiarsHow unctuous are the fats of another' Gospels life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Naomi Alderman gives Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the perspective identity of four people on the recent death of a Jewish man named YehoshuahT, who is more commonly known these days by the anglicized name protagonist of Jesusthis tale. These perspectives include Miryam (Mary), the teacherJust as T's motherstory is being told, Iehuda the story of Qeriot (Judas Iscariot)a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a one time follower of wealthy family in the man19th century, Caiaphas, the High Priest who died of the great Temple tuberculosis after being locked in Jerusalem and finally Bar-Avoa tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, Barabbasabove all, a rebel who is determined an enticing story to bring down the occupying Roman presenceT. What makes this such It is a remarkable book is the sheer visceral nature of the story telling. Each story is vividly toldwhich she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and Alderman evokes the time in service of myth, fable and place to such a level that you half expect to have developed a sun tan while reading the bookfantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091990X</amazonuk>1804271799
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pat BarkerJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Toby's RoomVaim|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Elinor Brooke and her brother Toby had always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than is acceptable. The trick then, as Toby said, ''All was to get back to how their relationship was before. Toby concentrated on calling her strange'sis', whilst Elinor was never quite certain how they could turn the clock back to a time when they were more innocent. But looking back, .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the summer pervading sense of 1912 would seem idyllic: otherworldliness which permeates this story set in 1917 Toby was reported 'MissingVaim, Believed Killed'. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was a fellow student Eline, two of hers at the Slade School of Art and who was protagonists caught in the fox hole when Toby met his fateits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144574</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Daylight GateBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=1610s Lancashire, and Alice Nutter is the best landowner you could wish for. Single, rich and connected, she takes no sides in the religious schisms James I has inherited, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress the poor, putting them up and feeding them when no-one else will. But those poor are seen as sinful by others - amoral, dirty in mind, body and spirit, and in league with the devil. And people are beginning to question Alice's attitudes, choice of company - and ageless beauty. This, then, is the based-on-truth story of how Alice Nutter got to be one of the accused in the Pendle Witch trials.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099561859</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tupelo Hassman
|title=Girlchild
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rory Dawn Hendrix (RD for short) lives with her mother Everything in the ironically named Calle de las Flores this book, however sweet or Street of Flowers; a pretty name masking a less than idyllic settingseemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. For Calle is Even a trailer park for those living kiss, usually a life sentence symbol of povertyintimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the inhabitants being as upwardly mobile as their staticnarrator cries out internally, seedy homes. RD has half brothers but they live with their father, leaving RD to live alone with her mother ''come over here and nearby grandmotherkiss me, '' it is less an invitation than a father being a luxury that Rory Dawn has learnt desperate attempt to live withoutconfirm her emotional numbness. Rory Dawn The imagined recipient of this plea is also Xavier, her ex-partner, a Girl Scout and has a handbook ghost she conjures to prove it but she's in a troop of one, alone with the ideals of an organisation that she only glimpses through disadvantage and in the same way that she glimpses the materialistic world beyond test her meansdetachment. However, her mother wants more for her than the teen pregnancies that seem to have become their family heirloom and there is hope as RD is highly intelligent; but can this be enough?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178087104X</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita DesaiHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Artist of DisappearanceLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist of Disappearance'' First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a collection timeless text which wrenches the hearts of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set in modern day India, all involve some looking back in time its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and all three involve some consideration of the creative art - who it is for, what happens to it once it leaves sentences from their proper position on the artist's control page and who 'owns' it. Most of allpositions them elsewhere, each one is beautifully writtendisjointed, with strong characters and evocative descriptions of personal losstruncated. In terms of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in Like the story just as much as if you had read a novel lives of more conventional lengthher characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=James KelmanJonathan Buckley|title=Mo Said She Was QuirkyOne Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mo may have said ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that Helen was quirky - neurotic might have been defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a more accurate assessment contemplative realm of his partner thoughphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Although not Set against the evocative backdrop of a first person narrativesmall coastal Greek town, James Kelman's latest is another dramatic monologue, although this work masterfully captures the first time he has placed a female as his main charactermagic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Helen is a single mother, working nights Teresa herself recognises these qualities as a croupier in a London casino. Mo is her Asian boyfriend. In fairness to Helen, the reason she has a lot to worry about - a damaged upbringing that has seen visited it after the death of both her older brother leave home without trace, a failed marriage, and a life of constant struggleparents. As usual with KelmanPrompted by her mourning, his approach her narrative voice is tendermeditative and deeply self-aware, yet gritty and often gently amusinginviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. He's always sympathetic to his main characters. However, if you are new to Kelman, be warned that he It is a writer book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is heavy fragmentary and ironically relies on a distinctive style more than plot per seanalepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144566</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonEowyn Ivey|title=The Book Lover's TaleBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failed''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, and so he had to join his wife in interior designthe young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where he can use his love she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of books Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to arrange - at a cost - day life, and yearns to cross the contents, design Wolverine river and most importantly live on the colours, North Fork to fulfil her desires of upper class people's home libraries for thema simple life surrounded by nature. He'll concede that it's When she meets Arthur Nielson, a good way to get into the housesstrange, taciturn and bedssolitary man, of rich womenwho says he has a cabin over there, such as his latest flameshe feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, Claudiathis calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever. But why is this, his confession, talking of murder?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BanvilleSally Rooney|title=Ancient LightIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=The narrator in John Banville's ''Ancient Light'' Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is Alex Cleavegripping and so brilliantly frustrating, a stage actor in as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the curtain call of his career. For reasons that become clearer towards many relationships woven into this story, the end of central one for readers to unravel is the bookfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, he is recalling contrasts sharply with his first relationshipolder brother Peter, when as a teenager successful lawyer living in 1950s Ireland, he had Dublin. Following their father's passing after a passionate affair long battle with cancer, the mother of his best friend. However, his past is also blighted by recollections of his own daughterbrothers's suicide ten years previouslyalready strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670920614</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David RainFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Heat of the SunWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=David Rain As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is far too young to be writing this exquisitelysublime. That's all I'm going to sayOne is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarityOh, you need me to justify that comment? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857892037</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersJames Baldwin|title=The Vintage and the Gleaning|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Smithy, a retired sheep shearer, now works on a vineyard in the countryside of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire and too ill from the after effects of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to the physically arduous world of shearing, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and daughter-in-law. Meanwhile rumours abound about the deeds of local thug, Brett Clayton and, whether true or not, he's definitely someone to be avoided. However, when BrettGiovanni's wife Charlotte leaves him and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without a second thought. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him to remember his own past and dreams. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Timeri N Murari|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubRoom
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We all know''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, or think we knowan American man living in Paris, how oppressive life was for Afghansas he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, particularly Afghan womenwho is travelling in Spain, under the Taliban regime, real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but when you read this novel, boy do you get a sense from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of how tough it really washis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alix OhlinAlba de Cespedes |title=InsideForbidden Notebook|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Grace, a therapist, stumbles upon a young man in the woods who has attempted to commit suicide, and her vocational interests are immediately engaged. The novel takes us through their complex relationship, both its surface routines This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and day to day moments but also Grace's eventually successful search for tension from the reasons behind Tug's desperation. Ohlin interlaces with this the story of Mitch, Grace's ex-husbandmoment our protagonist, and of AnnieValeria Cossati, one of purchases her clientsforbidden notebook, chronicling both their relationship with Grace, but also their network of families and friends, acquaintances learns about herself in the most intimate and colleaguesrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michel HouellebecqOttessa Moshfegh|title=The Map My Year of Rest and the TerritoryRelaxation|rating=53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jed MartinAt best, initially this novel is a photographer scathing critique of modern society and later painterreveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, has a singular take on it is the world cynical, predictable and his craftslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This novel takes him from obscurity as unlikely heroine, a reclusive student to fame as the doyenne of the contemporary art scene slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in this journey we see exposed both the underlying values but in many ways the essential emptiness of her twenties is disillusioned with the art world. He is 'taken up', feted and courted by critics and patrons, by those who know nothing but monetary value, and Houellebecq doesn't let any opportunity for a sharp gibe at galleries, art critics and agents go past. The key resolves not to Jed's fame is ironically his complete anonymitylose sleep over it: in fact, and Houellebecq’s creation of the catarrh dribbling agent Marylin who manages Jed’s ‘outing’ is one of the classics of modern satireher solution lies in her hibernation. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554577</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jose SaramagoMatthew Tree|title=CainWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Death is only the beginning, or so some sayTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and the first death chronic underachiever whose dreams of one human being exceptional at the hands of another - Cain's slaying of Abel with what always seemed an unlikely murder weapon - is the start any of this excoriating drive through what Cain felt when set against the god that both snubbed his sacrifices artistic passions all failed miserably and allowed, despite alleged omnipotence, the murder in the first place. Riding a donkey, this Cain takes up life as personal guard and lover to Lilith, but also leaves the Land of Nod for diverse Old Testament locations, where he sees the stories of the golden calf, the tower who had endless crises of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah and more at first handself confidence. All they ever do is make him realise the gulf between what god is supposed So Tim applied himself to benevolently embody, and how he acts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552248</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Quigley|title=The Conductor|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Composer Dmitri Shostakovich can block anything out whilst he's writing music: his wife Nina's voicestudies, cultivated his children arguing, even the side effects of living in Stalinist Leningrad. However, life is about to become more abilities rather than an annoying distraction from music as Germany declares war on Russia and gradually initiates what history will come to know as the Siege of Leningrad. Shostakovich then realises, just as gradually, that his music may serve a purpose to sustain his compatriots in the absence of sufficient food daydreams and hope. His Seventh Symphony becomes a protest against oppression, set himself high but he needs an orchestra to play it and the top musicians have been evacuated to save the country's cultural heritage. He therefore turns to Karl Eliasberg, the aspiring but third rate conductor of a cobbled together orchestra. Music can create miracles but, for Eliasberg and his musicians, being able to play it will be the biggest miracle of all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190880002X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Umberto Eco|title=The Prague Cemetery|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=If the popular press is to be believed, then those of us who write book reviews do so to show off our own (non-existent) talents as writers whilst trying to condemn the abilities of far greater worth. Well, not quite. I would not pretend to have a tiny iota-fragment of the talent that Umberto Eco has. Nor would I seek to decry his latest opus.  On the other hand, I am an ordinary reader – one moreover that enjoyed The Name of the Rose immensely – and I really struggled with ''The Prague Cemetery''. I didn't struggle to get through it. It is actually quite an easy read, if you just read the surface of it. I did struggle to see the point of it. It may well just be me. I put my hands upachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555972</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
{{newreview|author=Sam Thompson|title=Communion Town|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Communion Town – one city but it may as well be many as each person's perception of it 'Fragility'' is coloured by their experiences within it. Each chapter introduces us to a different story, a different viewpoint and therefore, practically a different set as the city. Starting with the ominous, creepy story of Nicolas, through stories encapsulating such themes as recaptured friendshipPortland, murder and an enigmatic take on the life of a private investigatorOregon, we start cautiously begins to piece together emerge from the nature of Communion Town... or do we?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007454767</amazonuk>restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Austin RatnerMosby Woods|title=The Jump ArtistA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Austin Ratner's debut novel, ''The Jump ArtistWest isn'', first published t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the US in 2009, West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is a fictionalised account of the extraordinary life best course of celebrated photographeraction. Governments are flailing. A war here, Philippe Halsmana push for climate action there. Born a Latvian JewA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, as there was a young man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in 1928 he was walking in the Austrian mountains when he saw his father fall to his deaththis asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. This That man would be traumatic for anyonevaluable, but the issues were compounded when he was accused of murder by right? Perhaps the Austrian courts in what was probably anti-semitic and certainly xenophobic most valuable asset in explanationhistory. Philippe's second trialImagine then, the first failing potentially because his mother had engaged a Jewish lawyer, details the fundamental lack of evidence and shoddy police work behind the accusationthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Amis0571379559|title=Lionel AsboThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Martin Amis can ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be relied upon to create some pretty nastyhappier there, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but instead, she lives in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms house on the riverbank, built of classbroken bricks. He Insubstantial as it might look, it's violentstood the passage of time, uncouth storms and ignorantfloods. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block with Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his nephewvegetables, Des, who in fact is to complete the central character delivery rounds - and to bring in the booksufficient money. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic They have twin boys - intelligent Sonny and kindMax, that is if you overlook the fact rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that as a 15 year old he had they're related, much less twins and there's an affair assumption when Max is out with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no onethat she's perfecthis nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
{{newreview|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In Ben FountainThe follow-up to the excellent 's 'Ithaca'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk'', Billy and what is picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalists. The US armyOdysseus, keen with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite the fact that they are all rule without her husband, who sailed to be re-deployed the next weekwar at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. The majority of the book takes place on As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the last day throne of this tour when Billy is in his home-state of Texas, where the Bush link makes it even more pro-war, as Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the boys are invited chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to attend that most American of PR eventsIthaca's shores, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. Accompanying the troop Queen Penelope is a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised on the soldiers that he can sell their story to brink of a movie studio for mega-bucksfragile peace. If only it were One that simpleshatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>0356516075
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=L R FredericksKay Chronister|title=FarundellDesert Creatures|rating=3.54|genre=Historical Dystopian Fiction|summary=American Paul Asher With a world that is damaged by memories and dreams originating from World War Ibecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, or at least he thinks that's where they're frompost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Once the war Whether it is over anda robotic takeover, as he's estranged from his father in the USa world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, Paul decides this genre is a way for humans to remain in the UK to find workcathartically experience their most existential fears. Work comes to him as he's asked to assist Lord Percy Damory at Farundell, the Damory ancestral home. Paul's job Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is straightforward: Sir Percy needs someone to whom he can dictate memoirs a new work of a wellpost-travelled life among distant tribesapocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. However Paul's life at Farundell will be anything but straightforward thanks It is a shocking novel that still manages to the Damorys' apparent eccentricities, an ancestor from the 18th century who refuses to be labelled as a ghost and, of course, there's Sylviefind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184854328X</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=L R FredericksEric LaRocca|title=FateThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionHorror|summary=Horror taps into something primeval within us. It's the 18th century and 11 year old Francis Damory is spoken used as a way to by great great grandfatherreflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', Tobias. Nothing odd except whether that Tobias is dead a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and speaks via a portrait in Farundell, by the familyend of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's Oxfordshire home''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. Hence begins It is a collection of short stories more interested in the obsession horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that will take the adult Sir Francis across the world linger and through a lifetime of adventures are harder to track Tobias down. The longer Francis looks, the more he realises that Great Great Grandfather isndefeat than any ''Big Bad't dead and that, therefore, Francis wants whatever he's on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854331X</amazonuk>
}}
{{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=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)|title=Every DayTold from a retrospective view, Every Hour|rating=4a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her.5|genre=Humour|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friendsOverlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. In normal situations one might add Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''and a whole lot moreThirst for Salt'' to that sentence, but Dora and Luka are in Kindergarten, which makes their intense details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship hard to define. As they grow into adultswith her older lover, howeverdepicting its all-consuming nature, how it becomes obvious that there is something between them changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight this it is there and is not going to fade away. Dora’s parents move altered her across the continent, careers develop and flourish, out of nowhere they are enveloped by family lives, but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back to one anotherirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alissa Walser and Jamie Bulloch (translator)Michael Grothaus|title=MesmerizedBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Celebrated scientist (at least in his own mind) Franz Anton Mesmer is called upon ''But fearing something and having it come to cure the blindness of 18 year old piano virtuoso and courtier's daughter Marie Theresia Paradispass are two different things. Despite the unease of her parents, Mesmer installs Marie into his 'magnetic hospitalAnd I' where, alongside his other patients, she settles in m willing to a regime bet most of treatmentwhat we fear will never happen, including free access or we can take steps to Mesmer's beloved pianochange it. Mesmer is the Paradis' last resort and so they're happy to pay for success but they come to realise that the final cost may not be entirely financial and he realises that the result may not be beneficial to all parties.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051008</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Nikita Lalwani|title=The Village|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A BBC film crew is sent to India to make a documentary about an Indian prison with a difference. There are no walls, ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the prisoners hold down jobs question of identity and their families live with them as a condition of acceptance. In fact, Of what it means to all intents be human. Of what is real and purposes, it seems like an ordinary village which what is all the more unusual when you consider that they all share the same crime category; all the prisoners have been convicted of murder. The programme makers (20-something British-bornartificial, Indian director Ray, ruthless producer Serena and ex-convict-turned-presenter, Nathan) are expecting an eventful shoot and, in return, whether the inhabitants are expecting a film unit exhibiting the standards for which the BBC has become world famous. Both parties will be sorely disappointeddevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917087</amazonuk>191458564X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lionel ShriverJennifer Saint|title=The New RepublicAtalanta|rating=35
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Lionel Shriver adds a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal in The New Republic and immediately has it fighting for independence, taking a wry look at terrorism ''I was as well worthy as the ethics any one of the international press corpsthem. After a series of international terrorism actsI would get on board that ship, the Os Soldados Ousados De BarbaI vowed. I would take my place, or not just in the SOB for short, have gone quiet at name of the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a tracegoddess. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barrington's post: Kellogg on It was for the hunt for serial killerssake of my name, as it weretoo. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
{{newreview|author=Anne Sward|title=Breathless|rating=3Princess.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are those who say that, on an individual level, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate itWarrior. Oh, if only it were so easyLover. Hero.
Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis''Breathless'' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is one a whirlwind of those challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that I neither love nor hateif she marries, and yet am not totally uninspired by eitherit will be her undoing. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary MantelAmanthi Harris|title=Bring up the BodiesBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Thomas Cromwell is now very far from his humble beginnings. He is Henry VIII's chief minister. Katherine of Aragorn is no longer Queen. The Princess Mary has been disinherited. Anne Boleyn wears the crown and has produced a daughter, Elizabeth. But there is no sign of a son and Henry is beginning to regret his secession from Rome. We pick up from Wolf Hall during the royal progress of 1535 and from there, we chart the destruction of the new Queen.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007315090</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Martin Kohan
|title=School for Patriots
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There's Padma, a fair chance that if you pick up a South American novelyoung Sri Lankan, it's going has returned to score quite highly the Villa Hibiscus on the 'seriously odd' scale. Martín Kohan's School for Patriots, translated by Nick Caistor, doesn't disappoint in that regardsouthern coast of her home country. The main character, María Teresa, This is an innocent, shy teaching assistant at a Buenos Aires school that is run on military academy style disciplineplace she spent her formative years. The running of the school It is itself something of not a surprise place she was born into, but that's not what makes this strangethe one she thinks of as home. What ramps up How she came to be at the 'odd' factor here is Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she spends vast amounts of this short novel hiding in first arrived there provide the boys' loo, ostensibly to catch young boys smoking despite there being no evidence that any student has contravened 'score'' for this rule in this locationgentle and yet subtly violent novel. One might say she has nothing Padma's present fails to go on. Then againescape her past and much like the musical score of a film, best not in that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the circumstancesVilla. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687438</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alonso Cueto and Frank Wynne (translator)178563335X|title=The Blue HourSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Adrian OrmacheWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, middle class Peruvian lawyer, has sitting in on a beautiful wife, two daughters of PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the sort to make any parent proud and a comfortable lifestylechildren up. His parents divorced when he was small soHer husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, as he lived with his motherJamie, he has fragmented memories of whilst Rachel holds a gruff, distant dadsobbing parishioner. Despite his fatherThelma's aloofdaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, dictatorial manneris a lovely place, Adrian has always comforted himself but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the fact he played a useful role as a landparish -bound naval officerand she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, fighting Senderista terrorists but then she's been doing the job for the good of Perumore than thirty years. After Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the death of his mother everything changesbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. Adrian finds documents that lead him away from his beliefs, towards a truth that will shatter more than his father's imageAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019410</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fannie Flagg1398515388|title=I Still Dream About YouThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=At the age First of 60all, Maggie Fortenbury's glory days seem to have passed her by. An ex-Miss Alabamait was the earthquake, she headed for deep in the fame she dreamt of in 'ocean floor, which created the Big Apple' tsunami and endedthis, insteadin turn, making disastrous life choices that took her along a different routecaused the nuclear meltdown. However she had made one good decision: to work for the diminutive Hazel Whisenkott, midget The result was complete and founder of Red Mountain Realtyutter devastation. Now, as Hazel is deadThe deaths were uncountable, and despite her friendship with her colleagues (obese, optimistic Brenda and moaning Ethel), suicide seems the next logical steploss of livelihoods was widespread. It has to be done correctly as Maggie comes The fact that many pets were separated from an era when you wouldntheir owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't want a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to let anyone down or any commitment unfulfilled. Therefore picking her final day becomes increasingly difficult when other things get open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in the way, including a troupe of Whirling Dervishes. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555484</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fiona McGregor0989715337|title=Indelible InkPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Once wealthy, middle class Australian suburbanite Marie King never thought she'd be starting a new life at 59 but here she is, divorced and having to sell the marital home. Unfortunately, attached to the marital home is the marital garden into which Marie didn't only give life but also pour her own life. However, Marie tries to be positive and decides that if she's going to be a new person, she may as well go the whole way. This means tattoos (much to her offsprings' horror) and an unlikely friendship with tattooist Rhys. With that comes the realisation that the privileged suburb of Mossman isn't all there is to Sydney. There's much more to the city, and indeed herself, than she first thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857894129</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jude Morgan|title=The Secret Life of William Shakespeare|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Books about Shakespeare vary hugely both in terms of approach and quality. Some focus on historical fact, while others play rather more loosely with frogs had gotten into the romance of his life. Fortunately for readers, Jude Morgan's books are rather more reliably excellent. What's more, he has a track record of fiction that concerns great writers, having previously tackled the Brontës (''The Taste of Sorrow'') and the romantic poets (''Passion'')well. So my expectations were already quite high coming into his ''The Secret Life of William Shakespeare'' - expectations that he has again surpassed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755358228</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=David Vann|title=Dirt|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We're back in the mid'Walter stood waist-nineteen-eighties deep in a suburb of Sacramento and Galen lives with his mother on the family walnut farm. The farm's not what it wasfragrant water, largely having been left to its own devices since the death of Galen's abusive grandfather some years beforenaked except for his beaten leather hat. Galen's ''father'' is something Long strands of an unknown quantity - his mother won't even discuss who he was or tell Galen anything about their eggs wove around him, but then she's able to shut her mind to most things which she finds unpleasantsticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. ''Her'' mother has been moved from Two of the farm to a nursing home - she's still quite active but her memory is going. Suzie-Q's sister, Helen is determined to get her hands on dogs leaned over the family money for opening and barked down at the benefit strange noise of her seventeen-year-old daughter, Jenniferthe buckets as he filled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021962</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Chuck Palahniuk|title=Invisible Monsters Remix|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary='Don't expect How is that for an opening? The style of this to be novel in the kind form of story that interconnected short stories goes: from succinct and then, laconic to wistful and thenmusing, and thenturning on a sixpence.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk booksauthor Marco North, upon his first, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush who has the most wonderful turn of British successphrase, and never got round to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired starts as he means to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it after allon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Marie N'Diaye and John Fletcher (translator)|title=Three Strong Women|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As it says Move on the tin, this powerful novel revolves around three women, connected by their strength and two countries and diverse cultures (France and Africa) but also other, more subtle factors. (More of that later.) First there's lawyer, Norah, returning to Africa at the behest of her estranged father. There has never been love lost between them, mainly because her father prefers to ignore his female offspring; therefore his reason for the summons is a mystery, until... The second story is that of African teacher, Fanta, forced by an event beyond her control to leave Africa and settle in France with her husband Rudy. Then the final section belongs to Khady, widowed after three years of marriage and sent to France by her Cinderella-esque mother-in-law. As Khady's status as a childless widow is financially unattractive, it has been deemed that she would be of more use sending money back from Europe... once she has entered France as an illegal immigrant.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050567</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]