Newest General Fiction Reviews
Theory of Mind by Sanjida O'Connell
Sandra works in a zoo, studying the minds of chimpanzees, mankind's nearest living relatives. Her involvment with the animals starts to affect her own relationships, in particular that with her new boyfriend Corin. His energy stimulates her, his passion excites her and his work as a TV producer fascinates her, but are his feelings real, or does he want to control her? As her feelings preoccupy her, Sandra continues her research into the emotions of chimps and whether or not they are capable of empathy. During a visit to the zoo, Sandra meets a strange and isolated child, Paul, son of one of the keepers, and she also meets Kim, a scientist who has built a killer instinct into the robots she makes. As Sandra worries about her friends and her relationship, things race to a thrilling climax - putting much more than Sandra's emotions at risk. Full review...
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
The USA is an odd place at times, and not just during election season. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies, places that time forgot, places that ‘’people’’ forgot. Broken Wheel, Iowa is one such place. You’d have no reason to go unless you knew someone there. And Sara does, her pen-pal Amy. Invited by Amy to come for a visit, and with time on her hands due to a recent redundancy, Sara packs her bags (and her books) and buys a plane ticket from her native Sweden to the US of A. Full review...
Whilst I Was Out by Sara Stewart
Sara Stewart's debut novel, Whilst I Was Out, opens with all the promise of a book intent to delve head-first into invention and oddness. The narrator of the story, Alice, is stuck in traffic with her husband – who she refers to throughout the book as My Dear Husband (or MDH for short) – when he suddenly jumps out of their car and runs off for seemingly no reason. The scene opens with a mention of domestic abuse but seems much more interested in the inherent malfunction of Alice's husband as she describes his fixation with his bicycle and how her and their three children have taken a back seat to his 'finding himself' through affairs and cross-country cycling. Full review...
The Last Night by Cesca Major
Spring 1952: Two best friends; Abigail and Mary, sit together on a bench, looking out to sea. They have big plans, but know that whatever happens they will always be together. They dream of a new life in America, each with a handsome husband and a happy family. When Abigail's mother dies unexpectedly, however, she is sent to live with her estranged sister in Devon, and the friends are torn apart. Little does she realise that tragedy lies just around the corner, and that the last night will change everything forever. Decades later, in 2016, a shy furniture-restorer called Irina has been given an unusual commission: to restore an old bureau containing many hidden secrets. As the two stories merge, curious Irina tries to piece together exactly what happened on the Last Night. Full review...
Rockadoon Shore by Rory Gleeson
Cath is worried about her friends. DanDan is struggling with the death of his ex, Lucy is drinking way too much and Steph has become closed off. A weekend away is just what they need. They travel out to Rockadoon Lodge, to the wilds in the west of Ireland. But the weekend doesn't go to plan. JJ is more concerned with getting high than spending time with them, while Merc is humiliated and seeks revenge. And when their elderly neighbour Malachy arrives on their doorstep in the dead of night with a gun in his hands, nothing will be the same again for any of them... Full review...
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
I love it when I get a book so very few have read yet, but it's hard to say what needs to be said, when you're not allowed to quote. All good secrets have a taste before you tell them… Full review...
Holding by Graham Norton
The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, and yet the inhabitants are troubled. Sergeant PJ Collins hasn't always been this overweight, mother-of-two Brid Riordan hasn't always been an alcoholic, and elegant Evelyn Ross hasn't always felt her life a total waste. When human remains are discovered on a farm, thought to be those of Tommy Burke, an ex lover of both Brid and Evelyn, the village's dark past begins to unravel. As the frustrated PJ struggles to solve a case for the first time in his life, he unearths a community's worth of anger, resentment, secrets, and regret. Full review...
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
Meet Trudy. Successfully living in a large and valuable London home, she is heavily pregnant, and in between two men – she has swapped the homeowner, poet and publisher John, for someone completely different, namely Claude, a nasty, brutish and short type. Some people cannot work out why on earth she has made that decision, including our narrator. Oh, and he himself, our narrator, is the child she's pregnant with. He is a very alert young thing, with nothing else to do but kick here and there, and practice what you might well call mindfulness, and listen in on Claude and Trudy, as they calmly talk their way to plotting and carrying out murder… Full review...
Crush by Frederic Dard and Daniel Seton (translator)
In this story of Thelma and Louise, it's Louise we meet first, through her narration. She's a seventeen year old, telling us of a quite awful and smelly satellite town of Paris she lives in, with the sight of factories and stench of food processing plants keeping her company. She lives at home with her mother, complete with hare-lip, and abusive step-father, and is working at one of those factories until she sees a paradise in their midst – the ever-sunny, sexy and sophisticated life of an American NATO worker and his wife. Impulsively, she asks to be their maid – and indeed moves into the couple's large, messy home. But little does she know what lurks in the shadows in that building, behind their gigantic car and their cute porch swing and al-fresco dining – the unhappiness, and even the tragedy… Full review...
The Cornish Guest House (Tremarnock) by Emma Burstall
The Cornish Guest House is the sequel to the best-selling Tremarnock which introduced us to hard-working Liz and her disabled daughter Rosie who were adjusting to life in a small Cornish village by the sea. The sequel begins six months after the first book, and Liz and Rosie are happily settled in their new lives and enjoying the warmth of the close-knit community. The village is soon abuzz with gossip, however, as a new couple have just moved in and are planning to open a guest house. The affable and good-looking Luke soon charms the neighbours by immersing himself into village life. His wife Tabitha, on the other hand, seems aloof and reserved. Could she be hiding a secret? Full review...
The Dhow House by Jean McNeil
Rebecca Laurelson is an English doctor working in an African field hospital in the midst of a political conflict when she is suddenly and inexplicitly forced to leave her post. She goes to stay with her estranged Aunt Julia and her family on Africa's east coast away from the violence and daily blood shed of war, however their lives are full of beach and cocktail parties which contrast greatly to Rebecca's way of living. But the threat of war is on the horizon for Julia's family and their fellow white Africans – terror attacks are on the rise all along the coast and Rebecca knows more about it than the rest of her family. With unrest brewing will the true reason for Rebecca's hasty departure from her post be revealed? Full review...
The Purple Shadow by Christopher Bowden
Colin Mallory is a young actor in Paris. Colin had been working with a theatre company putting on English language Shakespeare productions. They were popular but unprofitable so Colin is now at a loose end while his partner, Bryony, is off shooting a film. Before returning to London, Colin meets up with Paul Barnard, an art gallery director and his sister's partner. At the Galerie Marion Ducasse, Colin and Paul come across a painting. The portrait of a young woman turns out to be Sylvie Ducasse, the great-aunt of the gallery's owner. Full review...
Beneath The Skin by Sandra Ireland
Robert Walton is ex-military – a soldier suffering from combat stress and what he now realises is clearly PTSD. He prefers to be called Walt; it's short and simple and Walt likes things that are not complicated. Alys is fragile, damaged and complicated and not the kind of woman Walt is looking for. A taxidermist by trade – a rather macabre one at that – Alys enjoys creating Walter Potter style tableaus in a slightly horrifying tribute to her sole career influence. Alys runs her business from her home, which she shares with her sister, Mouse and Mouse's son William. It's a strange set up and though Walt needs the job – of handyman/gopher/taxidermy assistant must not be squeamish – room and board included, he wonders what he has let himself in for. Full review...
Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop
Postcards from Greece keep arriving at Ellie's flat addressed to former occupant Sarah Ibbotsen by a man signing himself as 'A'. They may not be for Ellie but she keeps them anyway and displays the pictures of blue sea, beaches and countryside until she can't resist it any longer; Ellie's off to Greece for a break. Just before she leaves home a package arrives from A. Something very different from the fragmented comments on the cards. This is a journal full of the stories told by people he's met while travelling and coming to terms with a love affair that ended almost before it began. So for Ellie the journal becomes her guide book and the journey begins. Full review...
Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith
Friendships can be funny things, and that is often the case with Precious and Grace. This is their seventeenth book now, and so we have seen their friendship grow and develop a great deal over the years. Both women have grown to understand, respect and love each other, through business hardships, personal difficulties and all their many and varied cases. In their current case the pair have a strong difference of opinions, and yet all is not quite what it seems with their investigation, and so perhaps it is a case of neither one of them being right, and the situation being something else entirely? Full review...
The Doll House by Fiona Davis
New York City, 2016: Rose has quit her job as a newscaster and investigative journalist – not entirely voluntarily – and now works for an on-line outfit with the self-mockingly clumsy name of Wordmerge. Full review...
Leave Me by Gayle Forman
When you've had a heart attack and frightened the hell out of not just yourself, but your husband, your children – if they had known - your mother and your best friend, you imagine that some long overdue TLC is about to come your way. You're thinking cards, flowers, being waited on hand, foot and finger and even though the imminent influx of culinary gifts are likely to be low fat, low sugar and taste like the box they came in, they're coming, right? And you'll probably get a couple of months off work and not even have to think about the laundry. Or the housework? Or taking the twins to school? Right? Right???? Full review...
Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger
Finlay Montgomery, like her grandmother Eloise before her is a very powerful and gifted psychic. Sensitive to the unseen, unheard and unknowable, she spends her days among the dead. Visited, bothered, harassed and sometimes taunted, Finlay does her best to manage the gifts that Mother Nature has sought to bestow. But life is not that simple and studying for your degree is testing with five other visitors in the room who are all trying to get your attention in the loudest and most distracting way possible. Full review...
Thirty Days by Annelies Verbeke
Thirty Days doesn’t seem to know what it is about. The novel follows Alphonse, a Senegalese painter decorator living in the Flanders region of Belgium with his girlfriend and childhood friend Cat, who is recovering from cancer. Verbeke puts a major emphasis on their intimate but often volatile and unsteady relationship, as they try to navigate a new lifestyle in a small town, away from the city. However, there are several other storylines which vie for our attention: Alphonse’s troubled clients who treat him as a sounding board and therapist, his experiences of racism as a black man in a rural area, Cat’s difficult, warring parents, the couple’s elderly neighbour Willem who is obsessed with war graves and has a knack for appearing at precisely the wrong moment, and an illegal refugee camp in field trenches a few miles away. Full review...
The Oldest Game by Sue Leger
Moving and eye-opening story of a Romanian woman trafficked into Amsterdam and forced to work as a prostitute. Sue Leger gives us all pause for thought here. Full review...
Men Like Air by Tom Connolly
One April in Manhattan, the destinies of four very different men are about to collide. Nineteen year old Finn has just arrived in the city along with his volatile girlfriend Dilly, determined to even the score with his older brother Jack for abandoning him in the UK in the aftermath of their parents' deaths. Across town, successful gallery owner Leo Emerson is haunted by loneliness, unsettled by the contrast between his life and that of his brother in law and oldest friend William, who is content in both his faith and his marriage. When Finn wanders in to Leo's gallery, a series of unexpected and interconnected events unfold, changing the lives of all four men together. Full review...
How I Became a Drifter by Christmas Philip
Fictionalised autobiography told in a stream-of-consciousness style. An unconventional voice speaking of the universal search for love and acceptance. Full review...
My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry
Autumn 2000. Newly married lawyer Lily and her artist husband Ed have a small apartment in London. Fresh from the honeymoon, they're still settling in to their new roles, and their neighbour Francesca and her 9 year old daughter Carla help to take the pressure off a little bit. Full review...
The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies
Clashes of cultures or cultural enrichment? Xenophobia or embracing diversity? Today's hot topics focus much on cultures meeting and notions of foreignness, especially in the context of migration. As such, Peter Ho Davies could not have chosen a more current and thought-provoking theme for The Fortunes: through four different stories, the novel documents some of the history of Chinese people in America over more than century. From railroad workers, laundry owners, and prostitutes to film stars and adoptive parents, The Fortunes tells tales of searching for identity on both national and personal levels. Full review...
The Art Teacher by Paul Read
Patrick Owen managed seven years at Highfields Secondary School without punching a pupil in the face. A mediocre teacher, stuck in a struggling school ruled by violent pupils, Patrick goes home every night to an empty flat, and an existence filled with reminders of his life as a faded rock star. When one pupil over steps the mark, a brief mistake plunges Patrick into a world of danger, violence, and the glare of the media. Full review...
The Bertie Project: A 44 Scotland Street Novel by Alexander McCall Smith
Catching up with old friends is a pleasure, and it's good to be back on Scotland Street, finding out what everyone is getting up to. Irene is back, of course, from her travels to the middle-east. Bruce has fallen in love, Matthew and Elspeth have triplet troubles, and somebody has an extremely unfortunate accident… Full review...
Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
This is the debut novel from Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, but you would never know it. It is an accomplished, unusual, poetically written story about a young Japanese girl, Yuki Oyama, who has lived most of her life in New York. As such, she feels an outsider: the American girls at school ignore her and she finds the rituals of her parents' home suffocating. Her father has hopes of her studying medicine, but the only thing Yuki enjoys is art. Full review...
Owl Song at Dawn by Emma Claire Sweeney
Maeve Maloney runs the Sea View Lodge guest house that her parents ran before her. The house has harboured many memories for Maeve over the past 80-years-plus, most of which she's managed to keep at bay. However, her suppression is endangered when Vincent comes to call. Far from being an ordinary guest, Vincent is a link to that past Maeve thought she'd outrun but now has to relive. Add that to trying to teach Steph and Len to fib effectively and life becomes very difficult indeed. Full review...
The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
Special Agent Will Trent is back. Collected by his partner, Faith, to attend the scene of a rather brutal murder, Trent queries why the GBI has been called in to what would usually be a standard homicide investigation for Atlanta PD. Arriving at the scene, their boss, Deputy Director Amanda Wagner is somewhat characteristically pacing and barking orders; the victim is none other than ex-cop and all round bad egg, Dale Harding. There is a lot of blood, presumably due to the door-knob and spindle sticking out of Harding's neck. Full review...
