134,836
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!{{Frontpage|author=Jeremy Cooper|title=Discord|rating= 3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-- Remove -->nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy TanPolly Barton|title=The Joy Luck ClubWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= The Joy Luck Club was Jing MeiPolly Barton's mother's ideadebut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. After arriving in the US The narrator, newly relocated from China in 1949 she invited three other Chinese immigrant ladies London to join. The four would meet Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to play Mah Jong and feast on morsels that none of them could really afforda new audience. Once played outBarton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for universality, language is endlessly repackaged, they shared stories its originality at risk of the land they'd leftdisappearing altogether. The evenings evolve over time; the food becomes affordableFrom this, men join the discussions but the core remains the same. Four Chinese mothers living novel opens out into a new life while sharing moments enjoyed and regrettedwider, discussing their children and parents and telling stories of wisdomresonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, happiness andaccepted, sometimes, intense pain.or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B0031Y9DPU</amazonuk>1804272175
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam ByersMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=IdiopathyThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Katherine no longer seeks or expects to be happy. She's stuck in a Despite her anonymisation of place names and a job she hates and her relationship with Daniel broke up over a year ago. Since then shepeople, Stepanova's had sexual encounters with a few men but her motivations have been confusing and disturbing - not least to Katherinemessage in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. She has a vicious wit A novelist named M travels from B (actually, calling it ''wit'' is perhaps stretching the point a little...ostensibly Berlin) which repels the people she'd like to attract and attracts the people town of F for a literary festival she'd prefer is to repelbe a guest speaker at. Daniel is with Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a new girlfriend (welltraveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, there was M eventually offers to step in for a ''slight'' overlap) but he's not certain that he loves Angelicacircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. He's in The train functions as a difficult situation: not telling her that he loves her becomes tantamount to telling her that he doesn't love her motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of identity and as a result he has to tell her retreat into fantasy, an impulse that he loves her just to keep on lies at the very heart of the levelnovel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007412088</amazonuk>1804272329
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sathnam Sanghera295967572X|title=Marriage MaterialPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=On the morning after his father's funeral Arjan Banga was surprised Our unnamed narrator is about to see begin a train journey with his mother opening up the family shopcompanion Django. She was in her sixties, recovering from cancer Where they're going and besideswhat the purpose of this journey is, Bains Stores wasn't exactly thrivingis uncertain. You could even be forgiven for wondering if it was Django found the tickets ''openon the floor somewhere'', with the advert for a bar of chocolate discontinued in 1994 having pride of place in the window and the security shutter stuck at a quarter openhas persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Much as he might wish otherwise Arjan has no choice Why not? Not much else is clear either - but to stay we are probably in Wolverhampton the past as the pair travel to help his mother, leaving his job as the station by coach and the train is a graphic designer and his girlfriend, Freya, in limbo. They were supposed to be getting married in December, but that looked increasingly unlikelysteam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021903</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Kerrigan in CopenhagenMakenna Goodman|authortitle=Thomas E KennedyHelen of Nowhere|rating=24.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Terrence Einhorn Kerrigan It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is an Irishmalaise - a hard-to-Danish American living place feeling that something in Copenhagenyour life is not quite right. He is 'The protagonist, a full-time writer disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and translator'his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, who 'thinks of himself as Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a failed poet, force which is a less complicated concept than a failed human being'seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. His newest writing assignment, however, The connection between Helen and the protagonist is to indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he'select s considering, Helen represents a sampling of one hundred of the bestvolta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the most historic, protagonist around the most congenial of Copenhagen's 1house shares stories about Helen,525 serving houses and write them up for one of a one-hundred-volume travel guide: describes her as ''The Great Bars of the Western World'an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. KerriganAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, though, 'does not wish Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the book to be written. He wants only to research it. Forever' - and preferably in reader gets the company of his green-eyed Associate, Annelisesense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408841940</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lois WaldenOlga Tokarczuk|title=AfterworldHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The Duvalier family owe their wealth to sugar cane although their gratitude is shown in varying degrees and various ways. From ''What's the patriarch William (who never recovered from being hit by good of a manhole cover) through his wife and children, down to Theodore, the lad who gained comfort (and a certain amount of secrecy) from travel and world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on to their black servant Rheta B, each has had a life. Each also has a story to tell and, whether alive or calmly living in Afterworld, theyit?''re going to tell it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908129859</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michele ForbesThea Lenarduzzi|title=Ghost MothThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Belfast 1949: Katherine is about to become engaged to fireman George Bedford when she meets Tom McKinley. He''How unctuous are the fats of another's bright fun and makes her feel more alive than dependablelife, boring George ever couldhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. The weight In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the decision Katherine eventually makes will haunt her for a lifetimeprotagonist of this tale. We fast forward to Belfast 1969 and Just as T's story is being told, the troubles story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in Northern Ireland exacerbatethe 19th century, as do the cracks who died of tuberculosis after being locked in Katherinea tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's marriagefate is, above all, an enticing story to T. In fact 20 years It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and four children laterin service of myth, they've become chasmsfable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297870440</amazonuk>1804271799
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=A Sixpenny SongVaim|rating=34
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Annie's father is dead. She's not particularly upset as itAll was strange's a decade or so since they've had any contact. Dada (he preferred to be called 'Father') had wanted her to go into .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the family business, to make money. She'd wanted to go to Trinity College pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Dublin to read English LiteratureVaim, but instead she'd packed a suitcase fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and left for LondonEline, where she still is - working in a bookshop. Her mother died when she was young - Dada had sent the child off to boarding school and did his best to ensure that her mother's name was never referred to again - and it wasn't too long before he remarried. His death brought Annie back to Ireland and she found that the money had been left to wife number two (as he was confident that she would know how to look after it) but of the house now belonged to Annieprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472209222</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex KovacsClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Currency of PaperBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Maximilian Sacheverell Hollingsworth was - as the name might suggest - of aristocratic birthEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, but had broken off all contact with his family and in consequence found himself labouring for forty hours a week is steeped in a printing works in Dagenham. He came upon the idea of planning out his entire life anguish and this he did in the course of a single afternoon whilst enjoying a little illicit sick leave in a pub in Bloomsburydistortion. He would first become Even a counterfeiter - on kiss, usually a massive scale - symbol of intimacy and then a sculptorcloseness, filmmaker, collector becomes evidence of artefactslove lost. When the narrator cries out internally, sound artist ''come over here and mystickiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. Circumstances would also turn him into a recluseThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, except on certain wellher ex-ordered occasionspartner, most of which would occur - somewhat a ghost she conjures to his initial surprise - later in his lifetest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1564788571</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charlie Hill|title=Books|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses the sudden untimelydeath of two tourists in a bar while on holiday. Birmingham bookshop ownerRichard Anger happens to be in the same bar so together our single holidaymakers decide to team up as an investigatory force to be reckoned with.(Well, Lauren teams up for that. Richard's reasons are more physical thanintellectual to begin with.) The murders seem to emanate from author GarySayles, a legend in his own mind Helene Bessette and, apparently, fatal to read. Elsewherehippy exhibitionists Kate Briggs (in an over-18 waytranslator) Zeke and Pippa, are planning theart installation to end all art installations and, are determined to makeGary the centrepiece, whether he realises it or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251630</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice McDermott|title=SomeoneLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Marie is growing up First published in 1953 in 1920s Brooklyn andFrench, although not financially rich she's this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the secure, cared for child hearts of Irish parents its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from one of the many waves of immigration which their proper position on the US has promised to welcome. Marie's friend Pegeen is from Irish/Syrian stock page and is dying for romantic love to come her way. Marie's brother Gabe is singled out for Catholic seminary and priesthoodpositions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Marie thinks Like the future is as safe as the loved ones around lives of her but the future is an unknown country and her journey towards it hasn't finished yetcharacters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408847248</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Ice-Cold HeavenJonathan Buckley|authortitle=Mirko BonneOne Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=From ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a space contemplative realm of 25 years, philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator looks back on what happened when he was 12 years oldand protagonist, Teresa. Twenty five years that had to elapseSet against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, because that was this work masterfully captures the promise that he mademagic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. He is now happy, happy to have kept Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the secret as he promised Sarma he woulddeath of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and happier that he can now tell deeply self-aware, inviting the story: he can tell us of everything reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that happened in his childhood that year on the shores not only requires but inspires depth of the oldest lake in the worldthought, Lake Baikalsince its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373246</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Rabbit Back Literature SocietyEowyn Ivey|authortitle=Pasi Ilmari JaaskelainenBlack Woods Blue Sky
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ella Milana is ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a language life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and literature supply teacher currently teaching in her hometown accidental neglect of Rabbit Back and dealing with challenging revelations Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life. Ella is unexpectedly invited , and yearns to join cross the hugely successful Wolverine river and influential Rabbit Back Literature Societylive on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a group of nine authors strange, taciturn and solitary man, who were hand selected and mentored from childhood by Finland’s greatest author (Laura White) to become literary icons in their own right. There weere always intended to be ten members of the society but Laura White says he has not selected a new member for decades cabin over there, she feels called to go - and the appointment of Ella is a massive literary eventbring Emaleen with her. The ceremony in honour of Ella’s new membership to the incredibly elite society is unfortunately overshadowed by Laura White’s disappearance at the ceremony itselfWithout realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908968982</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela YoungSally Rooney|title=Speaking of LoveIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=For some people Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it's impossible to tell another person that they love them and both are damagedinto words. Iris could not tell her daughter, Vivie, that she loved her Her dialogue is gripping and Matthew, Vivie's childhood friendso brilliantly frustrating, neighbour and would-be lover could not tell as her how he feltcharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. For all three Among the many relationships woven into this story, the result was years of separation with Vivie feeling that she was fundamentally unloveable and central one for readers to unravel is the whole situation was further complicated by Iris's mental disintegration fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and her treatment removing most of her memories of Vivie's childhoodPeter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. If that sounds depressing and soul-destroying then I am doing ''Speaking of Love'' an injustice because itFollowing their father's also passing after a story of trustlong battle with cancer, reconciliation and learning to speak about your feelingsthe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00G4401G4</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Call of the UndertowFyodor Dostoyevsky|authortitle=Linda CracknellWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=If you read a lot of booksAs always in Dostoyevsky, then the fact of your life character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is that you are always part-way through at least one of themthinking 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. You read all of 5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the time. Over breakfastnarrator David, an American man living in the bathParis, waiting for trainsas he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, on trains, between trainsan Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. You make a cup of tea in order to have an excuse While David is engaged to sit-and-read for half an hour. But even soHella, most of your reading who is done travelling in stolen moments – often Spain, the real tension in moments when a nagging voice the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the gremlin-centre deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of your brain is reminding you his sexuality that you ''should'' be doing something elseultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908754303</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Crow BlueAlba de Cespedes |authortitle=Adriana LisboaForbidden Notebook|rating=3.54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Having lost her mother at This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the age of thirteenmoment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, Evangelina embarks on a quest to not only find purchases her biological fatherforbidden notebook, but to delve into the past and discover things learns about her mother she never knew. Set predominantly in North America and Brazil, this novel explores Vanja's journeys, both physical and emotional, as well as her relationships with key characters, in particular, that of her Mother's ex husband, Fernando. Uprooting herself when barely a teenager, Vanja leaves her home country of Brazil to live with Fernando in Colorado, the only connection she has at her disposal to enable her to trace her roots and biological family. Narrated beautifully in the first person, the reader is propelled into the thoughts most intimate and feelings of the young but courageous, determined and, at times, very wise, adolescent girlrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408838303</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Close Your EyesOttessa Moshfegh|authortitle=Ewan MorrisonMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=1981: Emma remembers driving through At best, this novel is a blizzard. That scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it isthe cynical, her mother was drivingpredictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, she was just a child. She remembers slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her mother singing. Throughout everythingtwenties is disillusioned with the world, what she remembersbut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, what everyone remembers, is how her mother sang. Actually, she remembers lots of other things about her mother. Snippets mostly. Then she remembers losing her… being dropped solution lies in London at her Dad's, who didn't really seem like the dad she remembered… then ''the Social'' taking her awayhibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099565757</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The CommitmentsMatthew Tree|authortitle=Roddy DoyleWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It's the mid Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to late 1980s, and Outspanbe different from his father, Derek and Ray have just formed a band. The trio is three days old, with 'Ray on the Casio drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his little sister's glockenspiel, Outspan on his brother's acoustic guitar, [and] Derek on nothing', as he can't afford a bass. They already feel directionless. They don't mind Depeche Mode, but Derek artistic passions all failed miserably and Outspan draw the line at The Human League, which is one who had endless crises of Ray's favourite groups. Such musical differences are already darkening the band's conception. There is also a problem with their name: And And Andself confidence. Ray believes they should have an explanation mark after the second And, as it would 'look deadly on the posters'. Outspan, however, thinks Ray's an idiot, and tells him where So Tim applied himself to stick his second exclamation mark. But Outspan has a plan. They need to find Jimmy Rabbittestudies, for when it comes to music, Jimmy knowscultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958753X</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=The Madonna on the MoonFragility|author=Rolf BauerdickMosby Woods|rating=34
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Things are certainly strange in the small rural town of Baia Luna; all the stereotypes one would suspect in Can you make a newly-Communist mountain village are turned on their head. People vocally feel free to dismiss the Soviet changes and technology, but secretly at the dead of night enter the fields to try and hear the sounds of Sputnik blipping its orbit overhead. Gypsy men willingly get baptised into the ways and religions of their ''gajoYo birthing person'' neighbours. joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The most forceful character catch 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 that the village schoolteacher – enough, perhaps, answer for her to disappear overnight?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848875045</amazonuk>}}both could well be.... no.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David VannMosby Woods|title=Goat MountainA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The eleven-year-old boy, his father, grandfather and Tom, a family friend, were on their annual hunting trip to West isn't the family's 640-acre ranch dominant force it once was. Nobody in northern California. Strictly the boy wasn't old enough West is quite sure how to hunt but family lore said that mend this time he would be allowed to kill his first buckor even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. On the way to their camp they spotted A war here, a poacher and the boy's father set up his rifle and loaded it - hoping push for climate action there. A feeling that shooting the bolt would tell the poacher that he'd been spottednobody is in actual charge. The boy - we never know his name - Imagine then, there was allowed to look through a man with precognition. Imagine the rifle site, but he pulled the triggerstrategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. Nothing That man would ever be valuable, right? Perhaps the same againmost valuable asset in history. For any of themImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434021989</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=Over My Dead BodyThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Hazel McHaffieFiona Williams|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''The mother House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of a patient four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in dire need the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of a hearttime, storms and a pair of lungsfloods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, ceases to pray for complete the survival of her son for the following uncomfortable reason: 'Feels like you're asking for somebody else delivery rounds - and to diebring in sufficient money.' Though merely an extra in They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the main plot of McHaffierainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don'Over My Dead Bodyt believe that they're related, much less twins and there', the situation of this s an assumption when Max is out with his mother quite successfully conveys just how complex the ethics of organ donation arethat she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992623103</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=Peter Stjernstrom and Rod Bradbury (translator)Eric LaRocca|title=The Best Book 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 end 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 Worldhorrors 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=Titus Jensen may not have written many great novels for ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a while (if ever) light and weightless feeling, but his festival readings of othersI had always longed for gravity'' works are renowned Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. WhyOverlaid with later wisdom, his rendition of ''The Diseases of the Swedish Monarchs narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from Gustavas Vasa its inception – the summer after finishing university – to Gustav Vits sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town '' has been compared favourably to his offerings from Thirst for Salt''Handbook for Volvo 245details the 24-year-old narrator''. Howevers deepening relationship with her older lover, one drunken night he and romantic poet Eddie X agree that their fame on the festival circuit would be insignificant by comparison if they could write the best book in the world; a combination of depicting its all genres-consuming nature, appealing to all tastes how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and making all the best seller categories. They start work on how it the next day but, rather than collaborate, each wants the lone gloryaltered her irrevocably. The race (or should that be battle?) to the publishing date is on!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843914808</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|author=Adriaan van DisJennifer Saint|title=BetrayalAtalanta|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Dutchman Mulder renews his acquaintance with his old friend Donald ''I was as worthy as he returns to South Africaany one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, a land he knew well not just in the days name of apartheidthe goddess. Life may have moved on and apartheid ceased but some things have worsenedIt was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Have Mulder Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and Donald made any difference at all? As they recall their shadier youthfashioned into a formidable huntress, they have one more 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 struggle for someonefight in Artemis's freedom against all odds name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a violent societywhirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051849</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Her Privates WeAmanthi Harris|authortitle=Frederic ManningBeautiful Place|rating=4.5
|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 Padma, a very trustworthy manyoung Sri Lankan, so we tend has returned to defer judgementthe Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. He This is, however, useful for contrast. Hemingway's tales of war (such as ''A Farewell to Arms'' and ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'') usually involve macho misfits and trite love stories, feats of derring-do and filmic dialogue; all the things, in fact, that have no a place in Manning's First World War novelshe spent her formative years. Why It is this? Well, by the time Hemingway started driving not a Red Cross ambulance on the Italian front (1918), Manning's service place she was already over. Neverthelessborn into, unlike but the illustrious (and self-mythologising) Hemingway, Manning spent his war deep in the trenches one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the SommeVilla, mixing how it with became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the proletarian soldiery. As such, ''Her Privates Wescore'' is a brutal for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel concerning . Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the 'subterranean, furtive, twilight life' musical score of the average Tommy, a work of startling powerfilm, and one that completely eclipses the war novels of strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the romantic HemingwayVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668787X</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Ozeki178563335X|title=A Tale for the Time BeingSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Ruth finds When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they'Hello Kitty' bag washed re held when you need to pick the children up on the shore of Whaletown. Her husband, Christopher, the small Canadian island that she collects six-year-old Hannah and her husband Oliver call homeelder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. As Ruth opens it and begins reading Holthorpe, on the diary safely protected insideNorfolk coast, she learns about Naois a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a teenager real bond with the parish - and she's in Japanawe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Through her writing Nao becomes real Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the tales of her varied life, struggles at school and fascinating relatives compels Ruth to search for her, or at least to discover her fatebeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857867970</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sebastian Faulks1398515388|title=A Possible LifeThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Geoffrey swaps a career as a public school master for an existence as an English officer behind German lines during WWIIFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, an experience that will take a lifetime to expungecaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. Billy is a child sent to The deaths were uncountable, and the workhouse to give his family a chance loss of survivallivelihoods was widespread. Elena has to come to terms with an adopted brother, Jeanne The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the French nursemaid lives in the shadow list of a onepriorities but -off encounter and Jack? He bears six months after the indelible heart print of tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a girl who travels with dog outside a guitarconvenience store. Five lives, five stories, one human, emotional threadHe wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099549220</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tash Aw0989715337|title=Five Star BillionairePapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=China is a booming economy for people ''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in a position to take advantage; people like Gary the pop star who once won a talent showfragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, Yinghui sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the lingerie magnate or her childhood friend dogs leaned over the opening and property developer Justin who feels barked down at the weight strange noise of his familythe buckets as he filled them.'s expectations. Then there's Phoebe How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, moving to Shanghai from the country turning on a promise and a belief that to attract success one must act as if one already sixpence. And author Marco North, who has it. Life will bring them into each other's orbit but it won't leave any the most wonderful turn of them the same phrase, starts as when they startedhe means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007494157</amazonuk>
}}
Move on to [[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]
