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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mette Jakobsen295967572X|title=The Vanishing ActPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Minou lives on a sparsely occupied, temperate island. In fact the only occupants apart from Minou and her Papa are Priest (the Priest), Boxman (a maker of magical boxes) and a dog called No Name. Minou’s mother used Our unnamed narrator is about to live there too. She arrived on begin a boat train journey with a bowl containing a peacock (a real live one called… yes… Peacock)his companion Django. But then one day Mama disappeared completely apart from one shoe. Minou misses her Where they're going and what the way that she encouraged Minou’s imaginationpurpose of this journey is, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlookis uncertain. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried Django found the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come back.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572478</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ned Beauman|title=The Teleportation Accident|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ittickets 's hard to know where to start in reviewing Ned Beauman's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation Accidenton the floor somewhere''. Reading it, you feel like the parent of an ADHD-suffering child. At times it is lovable, brilliant and entertaining, at others you just want has persuaded our narrator to reach for the Ritalin and tell it 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?''
}}
{{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=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=Short Stories
|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.
|isbn=0241619785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=James Baldwin
|title=Giovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.
|isbn=0141186356
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alba de Cespedes
|title=Forbidden Notebook
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=David Rain is far too young to be writing this exquisitelyThis Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways. That's all I'm going to say. Oh, you need me to justify that comment? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857892037</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersOttessa Moshfegh|title=The Vintage My Year of Rest and the GleaningRelaxation|rating=53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=SmithyAt best, this novel is a retired sheep shearer, now works on a vineyard in the countryside scathing critique of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire modern society and too ill from reveals the after effects fragility of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to human relationships; at worst, it is the physically arduous world cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of shearingan unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son attractive and daughter-newly orphaned girl in-law. Meanwhile rumours abound about her twenties is disillusioned with the deeds of local thugworld, Brett Clayton and, whether true or but resolves not, he's definitely someone to be avoided. Howeverlose sleep over it: in fact, when Brett's wife Charlotte leaves him and asks Smithy to take her solution lies 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 dreamsher hibernation. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Timeri N MurariMatthew Tree|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all know, or think we know, how oppressive life was for Afghans, particularly Afghan women, under the Taliban regimefailed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but when you read this novel, boy do you get a sense of how tough it really wasachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1742378846</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.
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alix OhlinMosby Woods|title=InsideA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Grace''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, a therapistbut instead, stumbles upon a young man she lives in the woods who has attempted to commit suicidehouse on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and her vocational interests are immediately engagedfloods. The novel takes us through their complex relationship Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, both its surface routines to complete the delivery rounds - and day to day moments but also Gracebring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's eventually successful search for the reasons behind Tugcolouring reflects his mother's desperationJamaican heritage. Ohlin interlaces with this the story of MitchMax takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, Gracemuch less twins and there's ex-husband, and of Annie, one of her clients, chronicling both their relationship an assumption when Max is out with Grace, but also their network of families and friends, acquaintances and colleagueshis mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Michel HouellebecqEric LaRocca|title=The Map Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and , by the Territoryend of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jed Martin''Love, I'd read, initially was supposed to be a photographer light and later painterweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, has a singular take on young woman unravels the world and his craftyear-long relationship that once defined her. This novel takes him Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from obscurity as a reclusive student its inception – the summer after finishing university – to fame as its sorrowful end the doyenne of the contemporary art scene and in this journey we see exposed both the underlying values but in many ways summer after. Set against the essential emptiness backdrop of the art world. He is an isolated Australian coastal town ''taken upThirst for Salt', 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 to Jeddetails the 24-year-old narrator's fame is ironically his complete anonymitydeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and Houellebecq’s creation of the catarrh dribbling agent Marylin who manages Jed’s ‘outing’ is one of the classics of modern satirehow it altered her irrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554577</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah QuigleyJennifer Saint|title=The ConductorAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Composer Dmitri Shostakovich can block anything out whilst he's writing music: his wife Nina's voice, his children arguing, even the side effects I was as worthy as any one of living in Stalinist Leningradthem. HoweverI would get on board that ship, life is about to become more 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 LeningradI vowed. Shostakovich then realisesI would take my place, not just as gradually, that his music may serve a purpose to sustain his compatriots in the absence name of sufficient food and hope. His Seventh Symphony becomes a protest against oppression, 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 orchestragoddess. Music can create miracles but, It was for Eliasberg and his musicians, being able to play it will be the biggest miracle sake 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 believedmy name, 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 worthtoo.Atalanta''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam ThompsonAmanthi Harris|title=Communion TownBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Communion Town – one city but it may as well be many as each person's perception Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of it her home country. This is coloured by their experiences within ita place she spent her formative years. Each chapter introduces us to It is not a different storyplace she was born into, a different viewpoint and therefore, practically a different citybut the one she thinks of as home. Starting with How she came to be at the ominousVilla, creepy story of Nicolashow it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through stories encapsulating such themes as recaptured friendship, murder her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and an enigmatic take on much like the life musical score of a private investigatorfilm, we start to piece together that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the nature of Communion Town..Villa. or do we?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007454767</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Austin Ratner178563335X|title=The Jump ArtistSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Austin RatnerWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's debut novela trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma'The Jump Artist's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, first published in on the US in 2009Norfolk coast, is a fictionalised account of the extraordinary life of celebrated photographerlovely place, Philippe Halsman. Born but Rachel is struggling to develop a Latvian Jew, as a young man in 1928 he was walking in the Austrian mountains when he saw his father fall to his death. This would be traumatic for anyone, but the issues were compounded when he was accused of murder by real bond with the Austrian courts in what was probably antiparish -semitic and certainly xenophobic in explanation. Philippeshe's second trialin awe of the vicar, the first failing potentially because his mother had engaged a Jewish lawyerGail, details but then she's been doing the fundamental lack of evidence job for more than thirty years. Rachel and shoddy police work behind Christopher hoped that a walk on the accusationbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Amis1398515388|title=Lionel Asbo|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nasty, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads The Boy and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. He's violent, uncouth and ignorant. 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 his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character in the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent and kind, that is if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk''First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, Billy which created the tsunami and what is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from this, in turn, caused the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistsnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The US armydeaths were uncountable, keen to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next week. The majority of many pets were separated from their owners came far down the book takes place on the last day list of this tour when Billy is in his homepriorities but -state of Texas, where six months after the Bush link makes it even more protsunami -war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American of PR events, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadiumKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Accompanying the troop is He wasn't a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised dog person but the soldiers convenience store owner's comment that he can sell their story would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simpleopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L R Fredericks0989715337|title=FarundellPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=3.54|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=American Paul Asher is damaged by memories and dreams originating from World War I, or at least he thinks that's where they're from. Once the war is over and, as he's estranged from his father in the US, Paul decides to remain in the UK to find work. Work comes to him as he's asked to assist Lord Percy Damory at Farundell, Some frogs had gotten into the Damory ancestral home. Paul's job is straightforward: Sir Percy needs someone to whom he can dictate memoirs of a well-travelled life among distant tribes. However Paul's life at Farundell will be anything but straightforward thanks to the Damorys' apparent eccentricities, an ancestor from the 18th century who refuses to be labelled as a ghost and, of course, there's Sylvie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854328X</amazonuk>}}
}}