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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Year of Miracle and GriefJeremy Cooper|authortitle=Leonid BorodinDiscord|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=From Discord: a space lack of 25 yearsagreement or harmony (as between persons, things, our narrator looks back on what happened when he was 12 years oldor ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. Twenty five years that had to elapseThe two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, because that was the promise that he madeare as different as they come. He Rebekah is now happyan uptight, happy traditional and no-nonsense composer close to have kept retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the secret musical scene as he promised Sarma he woulda precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and happier that he can now tell the storyEvie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: he can tell us a sort of everything that happened in his childhood that year on fragile alliance formed within the shores of the oldest lake in the world, Lake Baikalclamour.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373246</amazonuk>1804272264
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Rabbit Back Literature SocietyPolly Barton|authortitle=Pasi Ilmari JaaskelainenWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=3.54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ella Milana Polly Barton's debut novel is a language an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and literature supply teacher currently teaching in her hometown of Rabbit Back and dealing with challenging revelations in her lifegoverning metaphor. Ella is unexpectedly invited The narrator, newly relocated from London to join Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the hugely successful and influential Rabbit Back Literature Societyprocess of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a group of nine authors who were hand selected and mentored from childhood by Finland’s greatest author (Laura White) to become literary icons in their own rightnew audience. There weere always intended to be ten members of the society but Laura White has not selected Barton treats this as a new member paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for decades and universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. From this, the appointment of Ella is novel opens out into a massive literary event. The ceremony wider, resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in honour of Ella’s new membership order to the incredibly elite society is unfortunately overshadowed by Laura White’s disappearance at the ceremony itself.be understood, accepted, or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908968982</amazonuk>1804272175
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela YoungMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Speaking of LoveThe Disappearing Act|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=For some people it's impossible to tell another person that they love them and both are damaged. Iris could not tell her daughter, Vivie, that she loved Despite her anonymisation of place names and Matthewpeople, VivieStepanova's childhood friend, neighbour and would-be lover could not tell her how he feltmessage in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. For all three A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the result was years town of separation with Vivie feeling that F for a literary festival she was fundamentally unloveable is to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and the whole situation was further complicated nudged by Iris's mental disintegration and forces beyond her treatment removing most of control, her memories journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of Vivie's childhoodevents, M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. If that sounds depressing The train functions as a motif of transience and soul-destroying then I am doing ''Speaking impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of Love'' identity and a retreat into fantasy, an injustice because it's also a story impulse that lies at the very heart of trust, reconciliation and learning to speak about your feelingsthe novel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00G4401G4</amazonuk>1804272329
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Call of the UndertowPale Pieces|author=Linda CracknellG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you read Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a lot train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of booksthis journey is, then the fact of your life is that you are always part-way through at least one of themuncertain. You read all of Django found the tickets ''on the timefloor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Over breakfast, Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the bath, waiting for trains, on trains, between trains. You make a cup of tea in order past as the pair travel to have an excuse to sit-the station by coach and-read for half an hour. But even so, most of your reading the train is done in stolen moments – often in moments when a nagging voice from the gremlin-centre of your brain is reminding you that you ''should'' be doing something elsesteam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754303</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Crow BlueMakenna Goodman|authortitle=Adriana LisboaHelen of Nowhere|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Having lost her mother at It could be argued that the age pervading theme of thirteen, Evangelina embarks on this book is malaise - a quest hard-to -place feeling that something in your life is not only find her biological fatherquite right. The protagonist, but to delve into a disgraced professor on the past and discover things about her mother she never knew. Set predominantly in North America brink of losing both his career and Brazilhis relationship, embodies this novel explores Vanja's journeysfeeling. However, both physical and emotional, as well as her relationships Goodman counteracts his discomfort with key charactersa force which is seductive, in particular, that radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of her Motherthe countryside house he's ex husbandconsidering, Fernando. Uprooting herself when barely Helen represents a teenagervolta in his life, Vanja leaves her home country of Brazil past tied to live with Fernando in Coloradohis potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, the only connection she has at and describes her disposal to enable her to trace her roots and biological familyas ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Narrated beautifully Although she lives in the first personan assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader is propelled into gets the thoughts and feelings of the young but courageous, determined and, at times, very wise, adolescent girlsense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408838303</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Close Your EyesOlga Tokarczuk|authortitle=Ewan MorrisonHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=1981: Emma remembers driving through ''What's the good of a blizzard. That isworld 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'', her mother was drivingsomewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, she was just a child. She remembers her mother singing. Throughout everythingsubtle changes which govern our lives, what she rememberslike the shift from day to night, what everyone remembershowever quotidian, is how her mother sangcausing chaos. ActuallyBut, she remembers lots of other things about her mother. Snippets mostly. Then she remembers losing her… being dropped the constant in London at her Dad'sthat image is the house, who didn't really seem like stoic against the dad she remembered… then ''the Social'' taking her awayancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099565757</amazonuk>1804271918
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The CommitmentsThea Lenarduzzi|authortitle=Roddy DoyleThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It's the mid to late 1980s, and Outspan, Derek and Ray have just formed a band. The trio is three days old, with 'Ray on How unctuous are the Casio and his little sisterfats of another's glockenspiellife, Outspan on his brother's acoustic guitar, [and] Derek on nothinghow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream', as he can't afford a bass. They already feel directionless. They don't mind Depeche Mode In this compelling novel, but Derek and Outspan draw Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the line at The Human Leagueidentity of T, which is one the protagonist of Ray's favourite groupsthis tale. Such musical differences are already darkening the bandJust as T's conception. There story is also being told, the story of a problem with their namesecond protagonist is unveiled: And And And. Ray believes they should have an explanation mark Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after the second Andbeing locked in a tower, as it would captures T'look deadly on the posterss imagination. Annie'. Outspans fate is, howeverabove all, thinks Ray's an idiot, and tells him where enticing story to stick his second exclamation markT. But Outspan has It is a plan. They need to find Jimmy Rabbittestory which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for when it comes to musictruth and knowledge, and in service of myth, Jimmy knowsfable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958753X</amazonuk>1804271799
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Madonna on the MoonJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |authortitle=Rolf BauerdickVaim|rating=34
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Things are certainly ''All was strange in ''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the small rural town pervading sense of Baia Luna; all the stereotypes one would suspect otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a newly-Communist mountain fictional fishing village are turned on their head. People vocally in Norway which paradoxically could not feel free to dismiss the Soviet changes more real for Jatgeir and technologyEline, but secretly at the dead two of night enter the fields to try and hear the sounds of Sputnik blipping protagonists caught in its orbit overheadmelancholic current. Gypsy men willingly get baptised into the ways and religions of their ''gajo'' neighbours. The most forceful character is a teenager called Fritz, best friend of narrator Pavel, and son to an ethnic German photographer. Part of Fritz's power seems to rest on him knowing a lot more than others about the village schoolteacher – enough, perhaps, for her to disappear overnight?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848875045</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aimee BenderClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Color MasterBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Another parade Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of fascinatingintimacy and closeness, unusual personalities and oddevents from the author becomes evidence of [[Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender|WillfulCreatures]]love lost. This time When the narrator cries out [[:Category:Aimee Bender|Aimee]]introduces us to people like Hans the fake Naziinternally, young William to whomall people look the same ''come over here and Janet who decides kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to spice up confirm herloveemotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-life with detrimental results. Among other things we alsowitness partner, a less-than-altruistic anti-war demonstration and an oddoccurrence in an orchard showing how odd an apple-only diet could makeusghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091953898</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David VannHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Goat MountainLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The eleven-year-old boy, his father, grandfather and TomFirst published in 1953 in French, this novel is a family friend, were on their annual hunting trip to timeless text which wrenches the family's 640-acre ranch in northern California. Strictly the boy wasn't old enough to hunt but family lore said that this time he would be allowed to kill his first buck. On the way to hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their camp they spotted a poacher and proper position on the boy's father set up his rifle page and loaded it - hoping that shooting the bolt would tell the poacher that he'd been spotted. The boy - we never know his name - was allowed to look through the rifle sitepositions them elsewhere, disjointed, but he pulled the triggertruncated. Nothing would ever be Like the same again. For any lives of themher characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434021989</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Over My Dead BodyJonathan Buckley|authortitle=Hazel McHaffieOne Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The mother of a patient in dire need of ''One Boat'' is a heartdeeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, and drawing the reader into a pair contemplative realm of lungsphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, ceases to pray for Teresa. Set against the survival evocative backdrop of her son for a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the following uncomfortable reason: 'Feels like you're asking for somebody else magic of its setting and its power to dieprovoke profound introspection.' Though merely an extra in Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the main plot death of McHaffie's ''Over My Dead Body''both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the situation reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of this mother quite successfully conveys just how complex the ethics of organ donation arethought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992623103</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Stjernstrom and Rod Bradbury (translator)Eowyn Ivey|title=The Best Book in the WorldBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Titus Jensen may not have written many great novels ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a while (if ever) but his festival readings of others' life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works are renowned. Whyas a bar waitress, his rendition a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''The Diseases of the Swedish Monarchs from Gustavas Vasa to Gustav Vwild card'' has been compared favourably , she feels stuck in her day-to his offerings from ''Handbook for Volvo 245''. However-day life, one drunken night he and romantic poet Eddie X agree that their fame yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the festival circuit would be insignificant North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by comparison if they could write the best book in the world; nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a combination of all genrescabin over there, appealing she feels called to all tastes go - and making all the best seller categoriesbring Emaleen with her. They start work on Without realising it the next day but, rather than collaborate, each wants the lone glorythis calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever. The race (or should that be battle?) to the publishing date is on!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843914808</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adriaan van DisSally Rooney|title=BetrayalIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary= Dutchman Mulder renews his acquaintance with his old friend Donald as he returns to South Africa, a land he knew well in Sally Rooney has studied the days chessboard of apartheid. Life may have moved on life and apartheid ceased but some things have worsenedis something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Have Mulder Her dialogue is gripping and Donald made any difference at all? As so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they recall their shadier youthfeel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, they have the central one more chance for readers to struggle for someoneunravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's freedom against all odds passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, 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 a violent societytemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051849</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Her Privates WeJames Baldwin|authortitle=Frederic ManningGiovanni'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=Ernest Hemingway called Frederic Manning's ''Her Privates We'' 'The finest and noblest book of men in war' he had ever read. But Hemingway wasn't a very trustworthy man, so we tend to defer judgement. He is, however, useful for contrast. Hemingway's tales This Italian work of war (such as ''A Farewell to Arms'' and ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'') usually involve macho misfits and trite love stories, feats feminist fiction holds an air of derring-do suspense and filmic dialogue; all tension from the thingsmoment our protagonist, in fact, that have no place in Manning's First World War novel. Why is this? Well, by the time Hemingway started driving a Red Cross ambulance on the Italian front (1918)Valeria Cossati, Manning's service was already over. Neverthelesspurchases her forbidden notebook, unlike the illustrious (and self-mythologising) Hemingway, Manning spent his war deep learns about herself in the trenches of the Somme, mixing it with the proletarian soldiery. As such, ''Her Privates We'' is a brutal novel concerning the 'subterranean, furtive, twilight life' of the average Tommy, a work of startling power, most intimate and one that completely eclipses the war novels of the romantic Hemingwayrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668787X</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth OzekiOttessa Moshfegh|title=A Tale for the Time BeingMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=4.53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Ruth finds At best, this novel is a 'Hello Kitty' bag washed up on scathing critique of modern society and reveals the shore fragility of Whaletownhuman relationships; at worst, it is the small Canadian island that she cynical, predictable and her husband Oliver call homeslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. As Ruth opens it and begins reading the diary safely protected insideThis unlikely heroine, she learns about Naoa slim, a teenager attractive and newly orphaned girl in Japan. Through her writing Nao becomes real and twenties is disillusioned with the tales of her varied lifeworld, struggles at school and fascinating relatives compels Ruth but resolves not to search for lose sleep over it: in fact, her, or at least to discover solution lies in her fatehibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857867970</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian FaulksMatthew Tree|title=A Possible LifeWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Geoffrey swaps a career as a public school master for an existence as an English officer behind German lines during WWII, an experience that will take a lifetime to expunge. Billy is a child sent to the workhouse Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to give be different from his family father, a chance drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of survival. Elena has to come to terms with an adopted brother, Jeanne the French nursemaid lives in the shadow being exceptional at any of a one-off encounter his artistic passions all failed miserably and Jack? He bears the indelible heart print who had endless crises of a girl who travels with a guitarself confidence. Five livesSo Tim applied himself to his studies, five stories, one human, emotional threadcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099549220</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=Tash AwMosby Woods|title=Five Star BillionaireA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=China 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 booming economy push for people climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a position to take man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantagein this asset; people like Gary the pop star who once won a talent show, Yinghui the lingerie magnate or her childhood friend and property developer Justin man who feels the weight can tell you what will happen given any set of his family's expectationscircumstances. Then there's PhoebeThat man would be valuable, moving to Shanghai from right? Perhaps the country on a promise and a belief most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to attract success one must act as if one already has it. Life will bring them into each other's orbit but get it won't leave any of them the same as when they started.back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007494157</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jhumpa Lahiri0571379559|title=The LowlandHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Subhash and Udayan Mitra are brothers growing up in an India growing into its post-independence status''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Subhash goes along with UdayanTess Hembry's ideas 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 Udayan who's stood the radicalpassage of time, fighting against the injustices of an elitism that remains once the British have left Indiastorms and floods. Eventually they go their separate waysHer husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, one studying abroad to avoid conflict complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the other becoming more deeply embroiledrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. Life canPeople don't go on like this forever believe that they're related, much less twins and it doesnthere't but the reverberations seem to, affecting generation after generation as Subhash realises s an assumption when Max is out with his mother that the search for peace isnshe't always an external things his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408828111</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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colum McCannKay Chronister|title=TransAtlanticDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Dystopian Fiction|summary=In 1845 exWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-slaveapocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, black American Frederick Douglass visits Ireland this genre is a way for a lecture tour about freedom and emancipation only humans to discover hecathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures's not preaching ' 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 the converted after allfind hope. In 1919 Alcock and Brown climb |isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a rickety aircraft way to fly the Atlantic reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and land in Limerickprocess them. In 1994 Senator George Mitchell also travels to Ireland watched by Most horror fiction feature a world ''Big Bad'', whether thatis a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's about to see ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a miracle collection of negotiationshort stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Meanwhile through it all Lily Horrors that linger and her descendants are also there, not only watching history but living it on both sides of the Atlanticharder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408829371</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The LuminariesMadelaine Lucas|authortitle=Eleanor CattonThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Eleanor Catton's 'Love, I'The Luminaries'' is set in the New Zealand gold rush of the late 1860s. It's d read, was supposed to be a story about greed, power, gold, dreams, opium, secrets, betrayal light and identityweightless feeling, but most of allI had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, it's a celebration of young woman unravels the art of story tellingyear-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, both in terms of Catton's book and the stories narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her characters have senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to tellits sorrowful end the summer after. ItSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's the kind of book that is perfect escapism and which wraps you up in deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its world. If you like bigall-consuming nature, chunky books that you can get lost in for hours, then this is one for youhow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847084311</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.''
''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Four New Words for LoveJennifer Saint|authortitle=Michael CannonAtalanta|rating=35
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Christopher meets Gina ''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on Waterloo Bridgeboard that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. He is newly widowedIt was for the sake of my name, she is newly homeless; hetoo. Atalanta's an elderly Londoner, she's Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a young Glaswegian. It daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a defining event in both their livesformidable huntress, but that only becomes clear in one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the future. Of pressing concern in Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the present is Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the rather rude policeman looking chance to move Gina on. The situation is nearing crisis. Sensing fight in Artemis' name and carve out her desperation, Christopher impulsively asks her to come home with him, a proposal she tentatively acceptsown legendary place in history. Yet it What follows is this one benevolent act that gives birth to an odd and platonic friendship, a relationship based on silences whirlwind of challenges and lacunas, discovery and one which Michael Cannon's fourth novelthrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis''Four New Words for Love''fatal warning: that if she marries, looks to delicately unravelit will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908754249</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eve Amanthi Harris|title=The Marrying of Chani KaufmanBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=After waiting till all Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her elder sisters' weddings were done and dusted in true ultra-orthodox Jewish stylehome country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, it's now 19-year-old Chani's turnbut the one she thinks of as home. She's only met Baruch How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her fiancéhome, four times and he hasn't even seen the machinations that have flowed through her elbows but life ever since she first arrived there provide the match is made ''score'' for this gentle and the day eventually arrivesyet subtly violent novel. Baruch secretly studies forbidden gentile literature Padma's present fails to escape her past and Chani has an inquisitive streak often perceived as rebellious so God knows what much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the future holdsVilla. Perhaps they should take the Rabbi's marriage as an example? Or perhaps not…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908737433</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison MacLeod178563335X|title=UnexplodedSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=ItWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's 1940 and Britain lives a trainee vicar, sitting in fear of on a Nazi invasion that could happen any dayPCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. In case the worst happensHer husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, Evelynwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's husband Geoffrey has buried a little something for daughter-in-law won't let her see her and their young son Philip in the gardengrandson. He tells her Holthorpe, on the tin contains Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a bit of money real bond with the parish - and his favourite photo she's in awe of them. As she digs it up from impulse rather than necessitythe vicar, Gail, but then she discovers that there's no photo but what there is instead makes Evelyn doubt that she knows been doing the man she marriedjob for more than thirty years. The events Rachel and Christopher hoped that follow make Evelyn realise that indeed she doesn't. Meanwhile the war continues and a German does invade their lives, but not in walk on the way that either of beach would do them could envisagesome good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142636</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hannah Kent1398515388|title=Burial RitesThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=FridrikFirst of all, it was the earthquake, Agnes and Sigridur are accused of murdering two men one Icelandic night deep in 1829 before setting fire to their home. Now Agnes awaits executionthe ocean floor, imprisoned in which created the farm of a lowly local family whotsunami and this, rumour has itin turn, wouldn't be too great a loss if caused the prisoner becomes dangerousnuclear meltdown. Margrit Jonsdottir (the farmer's wife) doesn't feel threatened The result was complete and sets the shocked, malnourished Agnes to workutter devastation. Gradually Agnes reveals The deaths were uncountable, and the events loss of that night to Margrit and Toti, a young priestlivelihoods was widespread. Her version seems to be a little different The fact that many pets were separated from what everyone else concluded, predictably… Or perhaps not so predictably.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447233166</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Harvest|author=Jim Crace|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As harvest comes in, a village finds itself under threat. Invaded by a series of unfamiliar visitors, it will find itself utterly transformed over a short but apocalyptic seven days. We watch through the eyes of Walter Thirsk as three vagabonds escaping the enclosure of their fields are blamed for owners came far down the trangressions list of others, as priorities but - six months after the chartmaker Mr Quill enumerates the common land, and as Master Kenttsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn's benevolent rule is overtaken by t a new dog person but the convenience store owner, who comes with enforcers in the name of ''profit, progress s comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and enterprise'' - or sheep farming as Walter quickly realisesTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330445669</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Meg Wolitzer0989715337|title=The InterestingsPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Back in 1974 six teenagers met at summer camp and did all those things which you get to do when your parents are not around to stop you. They smoked pot, drank vodka and Tangs - and talked way ''Some frogs had gotten into the night about anything and everythingwell. Plays were put on, animations were perfected, but most importantly friendships were made that would last for years - for some it would be a lifetime. Back in 1974, as Nixon left the White House under a particularly heavy cloud, 'The Interestings', as one of their number called them, knew that they could achieve anything they set their minds to. For three summers they returned to Spirit-in-the-Woods and then they faced the real world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701188278</amazonuk>}}
}}
