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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=TaraShea Nesbit295967572X|title=The Wives of Los AlamosPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=1943: In the US Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a group of men, women and children are uprooted from their homes train journey with hardly any notice and after being sworn to total secrecyhis companion Django. Their destination is a hastily knocked up, unfinished small town in the New Mexico desert; a place where muddy water drips from the taps Where they're going and their lives are turned upside down for nearly 3 years. This isn't mass abduction by a malevolent power but what the US government's plan to end WWII. The men (and some purpose of the women) are scientiststhis journey is, the place is Los Alamos, uncertain. Django found the site of tickets ''on the project that will result in Robert Oppenheimer stating floor somewhere''Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worldsand has persuaded our narrator to accompany him." His story has been well documented Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past; now as the voices belong pair travel to the Los Alamos Wivesstation by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408845997</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=OrfeoMakenna Goodman|authortitle=Richard PowersHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he'No one thinks twice s considering, 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, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the quietsense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, older bohemian in House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the American Craftsman at 806 South Linden…people take up all kinds good of hobbies a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in retirement.it?''
Seventy-year-old Peter Els is an out-The title of-this spellbinding work composer in Pennsylvania. He teaches music appreciation at a senior centre, but much ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of his spare time is devoted to chemistry experiments. As a college student he agonised over shifting realities - the choice between chemistry and musicsmall, in factsubtle changes which govern our lives, and these days he wonders if he got it wrong. His avant-garde compositionslike the shift from day to night, such as a three-hour opera based on medieval German historyhowever quotidian, were infrequent and never very well receivedcausing chaos. Should he have gone into biochemistry after all? ThusBut, thanks to a few thousand dollars' worth of semi-professional equipment purchased off the Internetconstant in that image is the house, Els stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is now engaged in a new kind of composition – with bacterial DNA taking the place of musical notesperceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782391614</amazonuk>1804271918
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thea Lenarduzzi
|title=The Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.
In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ron ButlinJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Ghost MoonVaim|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Maggie sits in an elderly persons' care home tgryig to exist through the ever tightening grip of dementia. Her son, Tom, visits trying to jog her memory but she doesn't even recognise him. To Maggie, Tom is All was strange'Michael' a name that means nothing to a son getting more desperate to break through to his mother once again. However there was once .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a Michael, fictional fishing village in a life that bubbles with secrets that even Tom doesn't know; Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for onceJatgeir and Eline, long ago, Maggie was youngtwo of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907773770</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The One I WasClaire-Louise Bennett|authortitle=Eliza GrahamBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In 1939Everything in this book, before the outbreak of the Second World Warhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a boy arrived at Harwich docks. He was kiss, usually a Kindertransport refugee fleeing the anti-Semitism in Nazi Germanysymbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. Benjamin Goldman would change his name to Benny Gault when his idea that When the war wouldnnarrator cries out internally, 't happen 'come over here and he could go home to Germany came to nothingkiss me, but in the meantime he was adopted by Lord and Lady Dorner. Six boys were '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to live at their country home - Fairfleet - and be educated by a private tutorconfirm her emotional numbness. On the face The imagined recipient of it Benny's luck could not have worked out betterthis plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, but he was hiding a secretghost she conjures to test her detachment. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910229016</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Indecent ActsHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|authortitle=Nick BrooksLili is Crying|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet Grace. She's First published in 1953 in her fortiesFrench, living with this novel is a hit-and-miss family in a Glasgow council flat, and in timeless text which wrenches the middle hearts of a whole host of issues. She has issues about her parents, its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their moving proper position on or death; she has issues about her sister who might or might not have had a much superior life pattern than Grace; she has issues about her children – Francis who has left Grace with her own daughter to spend time with drink or drugs instead, the page and son Vincentpositions them elsewhere, who will like as not create an issue by joining the army and moving on himself. Grace also has issues with the fact that she is nearly as blind as a batdisjointed, and can neither read nor writetruncated. She's started Like the novel where she shouldn't be – at home in Glasgow, struggling, as she was due to fly to meet lives of her sister at lastcharacters, yet packed her glasses in the case that must be the other end, and completely missed her flightthey are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908754451</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Well-Tempered HeartJonathan Buckley|authortitle=Jan-Philipp SendkerOne Boat|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ten years on ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the previous episodeevocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, Julia Win, successful corporate lawyer specialising in intellectual property rights is exhausted, unhappy this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and aloneits power to provoke profound introspection. Somewhat distant in all senses Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of the wordboth her parents. Prompted by her mourning, if not exactly estranged, from her mother narrative voice is meditative and brotherdeeply self-aware, she has recently left inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a relationship book that should have worked not only requires but just didn't inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and her only real connection is with her artist friend Amy Leeironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184697285X</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Something Like HappyEowyn Ivey|authortitle=John BurnsideBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=How do you pick a name ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a short story collection? It seems to me life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''...and other storieswild card'' add, she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on is like picking the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a favourite childsimple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a promotion of one portion of the content above the rest. [[:Category:John Burnside|John Burnside]] strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has got a title story herecabin over there, but such is the mood of the book that he seems she feels called to have nailed the mattergo - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and picked the most apposite name. Emaleen''Something Like Happy'' could in a way be the title for practically every piece heres lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575590</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Brief Loves That Live ForeverSally Rooney|authortitle=Andrei MakineIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction |summary=Our unnamed narrator Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is inspired something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to think back through his life on unravel is the girls fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and women he has been in love withPeter Koubek. Ivan, partly because of a time spent socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with an associate – his older brother Peter, a time marked by successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a seemingly most unremarkable encounter long battle with a further woman – whom he deemed had never been loved. The associatecancer, you see, had spent half his adult life in Soviet camps for political instruction – our narrator himself was an orphan in the 1960sbrothers' Soviet Unionalready strained relationship faces new trials. This snappy volume takes us through episodes in several lives at different points during and since the second half of communist rule – and finally explains the import of that unremarkable encounter…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780870493</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Prajwal ParajulyFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=Land Where I FleeWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=Chitralekha Guraamaa As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is preparing for her 84th birthday celebrations - her Chaurasi - and her grandchildren (or rather grandadults as they are now) arrive from around the worldsublime. They went away in search of One is never left wondering what a better life but better comes at a cost. Baghwati married beneath her caste, Manasa character is resentful of an apparently helpless disabled father-in-law and Agastaya hides a man-sized secret. All have one thing in common: the dread of facing thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their manipulative, powerful grandmother innermost dispositions and their inability to get on temperaments with each otherremarkable clarity. Worlds may collide but let the festivities commence!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780872984</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Collected Works of A J FikryJames Baldwin|authortitle=Gabrielle ZevinGiovanni's Room|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=A J Fikry is not having a good time. He''Giovanni's lost his wife to a car crash, and heRoom''s not making that much money. The book store he runsfollows the narrator David, stuck out on a limb on a quiet island communityan American man living in Paris, is too remote to turn a profit year-round, and as he has just dismissed the latest publisher's rep to turn up at navigates his door, partly because her previous counterparttorturous affair with Giovanni, an inconsequential part of A J's life when all is said and done, had died and Italian bartender he didn't know about itmeets in a gay bar. But his bad time While David is about engaged to get a lot worseHella, who is travelling in Spain, as the one thing he owns worth real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the most – a rare book, more valuable than deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his house, sexuality that ultimately dooms his business, anything – is about to vanishrelationship with Giovanni. Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704617</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Last Boat HomeAlba de Cespedes |authortitle=Dea BrovigForbidden Notebook
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Then: On This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the farm above a remote Norwegian hamletmoment our protagonist, in 1976Valeria Cossati, schoolgirl Else is waiting for purchases her mother to return through the wind forbidden notebook, and the snow. She is also clutching at the kitchen table as the contractions worsen. Now: fast forward to 2009. Else now lives learns about herself in the town the hamlet has grown into, on the back of oil money. Her daughter has a daughter of her own, but still spends many a night not coming home. ''She must have met someone'' the eleven-year-old granddaughter says matter-of-factly. Else has made a life for herself, running a spa, looking after her daughter most intimate and her granddaughter. A quiet life, but not such a bad onerevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091954290</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Beggar and the HareOttessa Moshfegh|authortitle=Tuomas KyroMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=4.53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Our hero, VatanescuAt best, this novel is a fish out scathing critique of water. He's a father without his family, a man without a home, a possibility without a chance. He's being transported across Europe by a criminal people-smuggler, who is also packing Vatanescu's sister off to the cosmetic surgeon then the prostitute trade. Our hero is destined to sit in discomfort, sleet modern society and in hateful gazes of others as a beggar on reveals the streets fragility of Helsinki. But human relationships; at worst, it is the same time impossibilities are amassing – one of which splits Vatanescu from his minder/mentorcynical, predictable and leaves him on the run with a fistful slightly trite tale of useless currencyan unlikeable protagonist. A further impossibility gifts him This unlikely heroine, a friendlyslim, warm companion – a rabbit being chased by local youths jumps into attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the sanctuary of his armsworld, and becomes a welcome source of focus. From then on many more jumps will be made from one impossibility but resolves not to anotherlose sleep over it: in fact, as the life of this illegal immigrant begins to resonate across his adopted homeland…her solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780721641</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Blazing WorldMatthew Tree|authortitle=Siri HustvedtWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='All intellectual 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 endeavours…fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof it can locate a cock passions all failed miserably and a pair who had endless crises of ballsself confidence.' Thus we are introduced So Tim applied himself to the unforgettable Harriet Burden – larger-his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than-life, six-foot-tall amazon artist – and to some of the novel's essential elements: musing on what makes intellectual products successful in a postmodern marketplace, feminist resentment of the overvaluing of male achievement, his daydreams and an unapologetic, playful boldness with languageset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444779648</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Clever GirlFragility|author=Tessa HadleyMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Stella grows up with her single mother in Bristol in the 1960s; her father left when she was Can you make a baby''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, but her mother has cultivated is the convenient myth that he died. In question should you make it? Or is the stand-alone first chapterquestion if you did, Stella recounts a disturbing incident of domestic violence would it land? The catch is that affected her Aunt Andythe answer for both could well be. Sordid snippets from the ensuing court case stay with Stella over the years; ... no. ''Fragility'Innocent-seeming fragments would get in past my defences…then stick to my imagination like tar.' Even so, the novel that follows is about set as the way in which we engage with memory – facts that linger versus those wecity of Portland, deliberately or subconsciouslyOregon, choose not cautiously begins to tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570521</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=All That is Solid Melts into AirMosby Woods|authortitle=Darragh McKeonA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Moscow, 1986The 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, and a nine-year old piano prodigy push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is trapped in a subway station by bullies, who carefully break one of his little fingersactual charge. Rehearsal cancelledImagine then, the boy finds his favourite aunt, who takes him to treatment only to discover her ex-husband the doctor involved. Many miles away there was a slightly older young man is off on his first hunting trip with precognition. Imagine the men strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of the village, only to find diseased cows, and the grouse they seek sickly and weirdly uncoordinatedcircumstances. What has affected themThat man would be valuable, and will of course affect all right? Perhaps the characters most valuable asset in the bookhistory. Imagine then, is the nuclear disaster in the plant at Chernobylthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670922706</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The Black SnowHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Paul LynchFiona Williams|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Barnabas Kane returned to his birthplace in Ireland with his family with ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the goal story of setting up his own farm and raising his son four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in a better setting than New York. With his farm of a decent size and a good herd of cattle all seems well with Kane until out ploughing one day he and his farm hand Matthew Peoples spot smoke Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the sky from house on the direction riverbank, built of his byrebroken bricks. The fire marks Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the start passage of a sometimes bleak downward spiral time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and Kane is forced to rely on bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the kindness of rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his neighbours who still see him as father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an outsiderassumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782062041</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=Truman CapoteKay Chronister|title=Breakfast at TiffanyDesert 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}}{{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 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 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=Holly Golightly. Who doesn't know her? Whether in the pages of ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'', the short novel by Truman Capote or capture on film by Audrey HepburnLove, sheI's an American icon. A young country girl becomes a New York socialited read, trading on amusement value was supposed to make be a life paid light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for by rich men who are titillated by her outrageous opinions and anecdotes. We gravity''want'' to know her. And the narrator ''wants'' to know her as much, if not more, than we do. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HX9UTSE</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Patrick Ness|title=The Crane Wife|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Crane Wife'' ticks all my boxes. It's by Patrick Ness who is one of my favourite writers of Young Adult fiction. It has Told from a basis in myth and legend and still better in an ancient story new to me. It doesn't go on and on and Ariston for half retrospective view, a billion pagesyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Best of allOverlaid with later wisdom, the author includes a shout-out for narrator relives the brilliant Decemberists. I agree affair with Ness: this is a band you should look upman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. A heavy reading schedule meant I didnSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town 't get to it last 'Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year when it was first published but now it-old narrator's out in paperback deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and here I am. I wasn't disappointedfamilial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857868748</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.''
{{newreview|author=Jill Dawson|title=The Tell-Tale Heart|rating=4''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Being told that you have six months Of what it means to live concentrates the mind most wonderfully: fifty be human. Of what is no age to die, even if you have lived life to the full. Patrick's heart was giving up on him real and the Professor of American Studieswhat is artificial, philanderer and heavy drinker was at whether the head development of the list for a heart transplant. His other problems - entirely of his own making - faded into insignificance. Sixteen-year-old Drew Beamish died in a motorcycle accident in the village where he lived in rural Cambridgeshire and it will be his (still beating) heart which technology is transplanted into Patrick. The two, who had never met, would be permanently joinedexciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444731068</amazonuk>191458564X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The People in the PhotoJennifer Saint|authortitle=Helene GesternAtalanta|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Hélène Hivert works at the Museum of the History ''I was as worthy as any one of the Postcardthem. It is a job she lovesI would get on board that ship, as she finds delving into other people's lives 'most exciting'I vowed. LuckilyI would take my place, she is 'regularly sent collections to catalogue', and each time not just in the 'moment name of discovery' gives her a thrillthe goddess. It may be 'addictive', but 'There is something very moving about was for the thought that just two or three sources can be enough to build a picture sake of an entire life'my name, too. But what happens when the sources are a bit too close to home, when Hélène must play Holmes among the artefacts of her own familyAtalanta's past, pondering 'the silence of surfaces'? Well, the professional detachment goes straight out the window, and what had been a genuine pleasure, tinged by wonder, now becomes an uncomfortable obsession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313544</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|title=The Atheist's Prayer|author=Amy R Biddle|rating=3Princess.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I don’t shy away from a book with a little edge, in fact [[:Category:Chuck Palahniuk|Chuck Palahniuk]] is one of my favourite authors and his books can be so sharp you can shave with themWarrior. On the surface ''The Atheist’s Prayer'' would seem to be courting controversy; why else have such a provocative title? But, is it really that shocking? NopeLover. This is a story about how people deal with the modern world and what happens when dangerous ideals infect a vulnerable groupHero.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780995822</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|title=The Three Musketeers|author=Alexandre Dumas Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and Will Hobson (translator)|rating=4fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Leaving his home When the opportunity comes – to try and join the famous musketeers in ParisArgonauts, a fierce band of warriors, young Gascon d'Artagnan encounters troubles on descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the way but quickly falls chance to fight in with title characters Athos, Aramis Artemis' name and Porthoscarve out her own legendary place in history. Soon, the quartet are caught up in What follows is a diabolical plot whirlwind of the wicked Cardinal Richelieu challenges and discovery and his accomplice Milady de Winter - can they save the Queenthrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis's honour?fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849907498</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
 {{newreview|author=Eric Lundgren|title=The Facades|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Sven and Molly Norberg live in the American mid-western town of Trude. At least Sven still does; Molly has gone missing. Night after night Sven leaves Kyle, his teenage son, home alone while he scours the streets, revisiting places that he and Molly wandered through together in order to find her. Meanwhile Trude has problems of its own and the librarians are armed and ready!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715647679</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Romy AshAmanthi Harris|title=FlounderingBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Loretta collects Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her boys Jordy and Tom from school formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as if it's home. How she came to be at the most normal thing in the worldVilla, but how it's not; not for them anyway. Jordy became her home, and Tom the machinations that have been living with their grandparents after being abandoned by this woman who refuses to be called flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'Mum'for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. As they get further from their eastern Australian home it remains an adventure for Tom but Jordy Padma's more sullen. Once they arrive at their ultimate destination - present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a ramshackle caravan park - Tom begins to understand why but not before both lads realise film, that strand weaves its way through everything that their worries are just beginninghappens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1921922087</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Audrey Magee178563335X|title=The UndertakingSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Peter Faber has decided When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to become part of pick the new Nazi initiativechildren up. He will marry Katharina SpinellHer husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a woman he sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't even meet till their honeymoonlet her see her grandson. In return heHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she'll receive honeymoon leave from s in awe of the Russian front while vicar, Gail, but then she will secure a widow's pension should anything happen to him, hopefully providing been doing the Reich with one or two job for more Aryan babies on the waythan thirty years. Peter may not be Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the sonbeach would do them some good -in-law Katharina's parents envisaged it was stormy but their disappointment is blunted by their luxurious lifestyle under the patronage of the sinister Dr Weinartit was probably what they needed. However, this is still wartime and Peter must eventually return to Russia and whatever fate awaits himAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782391029</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pamela Erens1398515388|title=The VirginsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Set First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in 1979-80 the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in an elite boarding school on turn, caused the east coast of the USA ''nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The Virgins'' tells deaths were uncountable, and the story loss of two young peoplelivelihoods was widespread. The story is mainly narrated by Bruce Bennettfact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami -Jones who would have liked to have Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a close relationship with Aviva Rossner but her unlikely choice was Seung Jungconvenience store. TheyHe wasn're not shy about flaunting their relationship and itt a dog person but the convenience store owner's the talk of Auburn Academy, but whilst the watchers believe comment that the relationship is one of unalloyed passion, the truth is rather different he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the couple are set on a path to an inevitable tragedydog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Crumbs0989715337|authortitle=Miha Mazzini|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are in a hell of man's own making – a town that is basically one huge foundry, whose men go from working there to a bar then to (someone's) bed in three eight hour shifts, or so it seems. Egon isn't one of those men, or isn't any more, for he works at other things than the foundry – namely churning out trashy low-brow fiction, and a lot of wheeling and a lot more dealing. He still keeps his shift in at the bar and in people's beds, though, all the while looking out for number one. He has several friendships Papa on the go, and several sexual partners at the same time, yet drinks so much it's hard to say he exactly cherishes himself above all – if anything he doesn't care that much about anyone. He certainly cares for something however – his beloved stash of Cartier cologne has run out, and he'll as like as not do anything for more…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754397</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Amy Grace Loyd|title=The Affairs of OthersMarco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Five years ago Celia Cassill's husband died leaving her the owner of 'Some frogs had gotten into the Brooklyn apartment block in which she liveswell. She's fastidious as to whom she lets and is understandably hesitant when George (one of her longstanding tenants) wants to temporarily sub-let to a friend while he goes abroad. Celia eventually agrees and so in moves Hope, a lady who has just left her husband and for whom life is as complicated as she makes Celia's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871188</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Donal Ryan|title=The Thing About December|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Johnsey Cunliffe was always a nice boy, but a little slow ''Walter stood waist- the one that the other kids picked on and it's much the same deep in adult life. If you were to ask Johnsey he'd say that he was a gom. Even if you've never met the word before you know what it meansfragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. It wasn't too bad whilst Daddy was there - he was a man Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with a certain presence and even when it was just Johnsey and his mother he had some supporttadpoles inside them. But after her death Johnsey was dependant on small kindnesses from other people Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the mercy strange noise of those for whom the buckets as he was an easy targetfilled them. His life might have continued in this rather unsatisfactory way for some time but for the collision of two events.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781620091</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=James McBride|title=The Good Lord Bird|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Henry 'The Onion' Shackleford lives as Henrietta (or just plain Onion) until he's 17 due to a misunderstanding How is that may prove too dangerous for him to correct. an opening? The reason is that the person under style of this misapprehension is novel in the fiercely well-meaning slavery abolitionist (with the emphasis form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on the 'fiercely') John Browna sixpence. As Onion accompanies him on his quest to free every slave they encounterAnd author Marco North, he discovers that Brown's philanthropy only stretches so far. Meanwhile it's that time who has the most wonderful turn of the 19th century when a shadow spreads over Americaphrase, one that will cause a historic scar almost starts as great as that of slavery but Brown is oblivious he means to this. He doesn't; want to start a civil war, just an armed slave revoltgo on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594486344</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Ashley Hay|title=The Railwayman's Wife|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mackenzie and Anikka Lachlan have all they could possibly want. They live in Thirroul, a close New South Wales coastal community, are parents to a lovely little girl and now, in 1948, Mac has come through the war years unscathed due to his job at home Move on the railways. However in a single moment all their luck changes and Anikka becomes a widow, another grieving shadow. Alongside her neighbours (a war poet who can't write now he's home and the local GP who experienced hell while not being able to bring anyone back from its grasp) Anikka must learn the most difficult lesson: how to go on living.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1743318014</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]

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