Difference between revisions of "Newest Women's Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:Women's Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Women's Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Women's Fiction]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Women's Fiction]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
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{{newreview
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|title=The Mill River Redemption
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|author=Darcie Chan
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|rating=4
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|genre=Women's Fiction
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|summary=Rose and Emily are sisters who co-exist rather than interact. In the past, a devastating event drove them apart, and now they both have their own lives, far away from sleepy Mill River, Vermont, where they grew up. When their mother Josie dies, they are brought back together first in their mourning and then in their frustration at a message from beyond the grave: their mother is determined to achieve in death what she couldn't while still alive, a sisterly reconciliation. She has left her estate to the girls, but in order to access the funds they will need to cooperate and coordinate efforts to unearth the clues she has left them. With neither in a position to walk away from the potential gold mine, they have to put aside their differences, if only for the summer.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00L845NR2</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{newreview
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Little Lies
 
|title=Little Lies
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|summary=Yvonne and Gerry are proud new parents.  However, as they've only recently moved to Gerry's native Dublin, Yvonne mourns the lack of a support network.  This all changes when she turns to Mammynet, a web-based online forum and chat room for new and soon-to-be mums.  It works too - Yvonne quickly makes a local online friend but then the friend disappears without warning.  Meanwhile Garda Sergeant Claire Boyle is investigating the murder of a young woman.  There may be a connection but will Claire discover it before the killer strikes again?
 
|summary=Yvonne and Gerry are proud new parents.  However, as they've only recently moved to Gerry's native Dublin, Yvonne mourns the lack of a support network.  This all changes when she turns to Mammynet, a web-based online forum and chat room for new and soon-to-be mums.  It works too - Yvonne quickly makes a local online friend but then the friend disappears without warning.  Meanwhile Garda Sergeant Claire Boyle is investigating the murder of a young woman.  There may be a connection but will Claire discover it before the killer strikes again?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782067221</amazonuk>
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782067221</amazonuk>
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=TaraShea Nesbit
 
|title=The Wives of Los Alamos
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=1943: In the US a group of men, women and children are uprooted from their homes with hardly any notice and after being sworn to total secrecy.  Their destination is a hastily knocked up, unfinished small town in the New Mexico desert; a place where muddy water drips from the taps and their lives are turned upside down for nearly 3 years.  This isn't mass abduction by a malevolent power but the US government's plan to end WWII.  The men (and some of the women) are scientists, the place is Los Alamos, the site of the project that will result in Robert Oppenheimer stating ''Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."  His story has been well documented in the past; now the voices belong to the Los Alamos Wives.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408845997</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 06:17, 27 August 2014

The Mill River Redemption by Darcie Chan

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

Rose and Emily are sisters who co-exist rather than interact. In the past, a devastating event drove them apart, and now they both have their own lives, far away from sleepy Mill River, Vermont, where they grew up. When their mother Josie dies, they are brought back together first in their mourning and then in their frustration at a message from beyond the grave: their mother is determined to achieve in death what she couldn't while still alive, a sisterly reconciliation. She has left her estate to the girls, but in order to access the funds they will need to cooperate and coordinate efforts to unearth the clues she has left them. With neither in a position to walk away from the potential gold mine, they have to put aside their differences, if only for the summer. Full review...

Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Death and kindergarten are not two things you would normally think went together, but this time they have. Someone is dead. A murder investigation has been launched. But why are the police finding it so hard to get answers? What actually went on that night? And can an incident in the playground on the first day really have come to this? Full review...

Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

Mara and Scott are both on a countdown. Each has five days left. But when the weekend comes, who will be happy, who will be mourning, and who will be out of the picture forever? Full review...

The Girls from Corona Del Mar by Rufi Thorpe

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

Exploring the friendship of Mia and Lorrie Ann, two girls who grew up together in 1980's Corona Del Mar, this novel is unexpectedly tragic; definitely not just another trashy, girly work of fiction. Written from the point of view of Mia, it tells the journeys of the two friends and the events which have led them to where they are now. The Girls from Corona Del Mar explores not only the subjects of friendship, growing apart and growing up, but also those of death, war, drugs, abortion and coping with a disabled child. And, in my opinion, Rufi Thorpe does this brilliantly; sometimes with subtlety and elegance but often through the frank, brutal honesty of the character's narration. Full review...

Rock Chick Rescue by Kristen Ashley

2star.jpg Women's Fiction

Jet McAlister is working two jobs to help pay for her mother's medical expenses, after a stroke left her mostly paralysed on one side. It's okay - Jet likes taking care of people - but she can't deal with any more complications in her life. Full review...

Follow Me Home by Cathy Woodman

2star.jpg Women's Fiction

Cathy Woodman has written a number of books about life in the Devon village of Taylton St George. These all tell the tale of the comings and goings of the different villagers as they go about their daily lives. You don't have to have read the earlier ones in order to enjoy the stories although if you have read them you are more likely to appreciate the bigger picture. Full review...

Beautiful Day by Elin Hilderbrand

5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Jenna is getting married and no one would be more excited than her mother Beth. But Beth passed away before she could see the baby of the Carmichael family happily hitched. Knowing she wouldn't live to see the day, she drafted The Notebook, a guide to help Jenna plan her nuptials with wise, motherly advice on every aspect. Full review...

Paper Swans by Jessica Thompson

4.5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Ben Lawrence has a charmed life it would seem. There’s the highly successful and lucrative career in PR, the fast car, and more girlfriends than he can possibly remember. However, despite all this, Ben is sad and lonely. He is scared to commit to any woman because of a tragic incident from his past. Even visiting his therapist does not seem to make a difference. Therefore, he is completely taken by surprise when, after meeting Effy Jones, the founder of the charity that Ben’s firm is sponsoring, he finds that he cannot stop thinking about her. Full review...

The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan

5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Eaden and Son is looking for the next Mrs Eaden. The original Mrs Eaden, Kathleen, has recently died and in her honour the upmarket grocery store is running a baking competition to find someone to advise the store on its baking products; to write a monthly magazine column; and to front Eaden’s advertising campaign. It’s an extremely appealing prospect and attracts many willing contestants that are eventually whittled down to five who will take part in weekly bake-offs in order to showcase their talents in all aspects of baking. Full review...

Any Other Mouth by Anneliese Mackintosh

4star.jpg Short Stories

With a title like Any Other Mouth, you know from the outset that this is, shall we say, a rather niche book. It’s not all about orifices, though. Partially autobiographical, this is the messy, ludicrous, wildly entertaining story of a girl who’s just a little bit different. Ok, make that a lot different. Full review...

Jam Tomorrow by Lorraine Jenkin

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

Joss Jeffries is a farmer. Not a farmer's wife and general help on the farm but the one who has to get out there and make it work. Her husband departed a while ago leaving her with their young son and a mountain of debt, so what she needs is money coming in, and preferably as quickly as possible. She and her father, Mick, come up with what seems like a good idea: walking holidays in the magical mid-Wales countryside. It looks to be quite a sound plan too. They'll take well-paying, decent people on great walks and let them experience the joy of camping and living close to nature. Only... Full review...

Train That Carried The Girl: 2 (Riccarton Junction) by W Scott Beaven

3.5star.jpg Women's Fiction

A few years have passed since we last met Kikarin, the then teenager growing up in the wilds of the Scottish borders surrounded by some pretty wild people. Her parents have gone back to live in Japan while her brother has fled abroad as a result of the family's near fatal brush with the criminal underworld. This leaves Kiri to continue her life with her friends Ainslie and Melanie filling the void. Although disappointed to have missed out on her honours degree in archaeology, Kiri finds alternative employment selling double glazing for commercial premises. Some things change but Kiri is still scarred by the past. She wants to settle down but will this past let her? Full review...

A Place For Us (Part 1) by Harriet Evans

3.5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Martha and David Winter live at Winterfold. David Winter is a famous cartoonist but he and his wife are getting on a bit and life isn’t quite as easy as it used to be, or, indeed for their children and grandchildren. As we meet them in August 2012 Martha is sending out invitations for her eightieth birthday and she makes it clear that she’d like them all to be there. Son Bill is the local GP and he’s struggling in his second marriage to the much younger Karen, but he’s still close to his daughter Lucy. The girls are much further away. Florence lives in Florence, just to confuse matters. She’s a Professor, ferociously intelligent and emotionally naive. Daisy is in India. Her childhood was ‘’difficult’’ but she’s now doing charitable work - which isn’t a lot of consolation for her daughter Cat whom she abandoned when she was a few weeks old. Full review...

A Proper Family Holiday by Chrissie Manby

5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Chelsea can think of few things worse than a family holiday. Except maybe a family holiday to a cheap hotel in Lanza-grotty. Or a family holiday where she’ll be constantly ridiculed for her ‘posh London ways’ and her inability to manage the most obvious things in life like holding down a boyfriend or starting a family of her own. It’s going to be a long week. Full review...

Two Weddings and a Baby by Scarlett Bailey

3star.jpg Women's Fiction

Tamsyn Thorne was not looking forward to returning to Cornwall for her brother Ruan's wedding. They had fallen out years ago and had not spoken since. However, for the sake of the family, she had agreed to attend, and even be a bridesmaid, but as far as she was concerned, she would leave the little Cornish village at the first opportunity. Full review...

Goodbye Piccadilly by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

4star.jpg Historical Fiction

It's July 1914 and the world is becoming unsettled. There's fierce unrest brewing in Ireland and Sarajevo is being put on the map for all the wrong reasons. Back in England life is continuing as usual – at the moment. Viscount Dene, Charles Wroughton wants to marry for love rather than materialism. Laura Hunter is fighting for women's suffrage. As for Beattie Cazalet, her main worry is the rumour concerning the manner in which her servant Ethel is carrying on in public. All fears are about to deepen and worries put in sharp relief though: war is coming and a war like none the world has fought before. Full review...

The Time of Their Lives by Maeve Haran

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

The four women had been friends for over forty years. Claudia, Ella, Laura and Sal had met at university and they know each other well - or think they do. They - like me - are what I call 'upper middle aged' - those people who are technically old, but not yet prepared to accept it. They'd gone their separate ways in life but still lived close enough to meet up each month for drinks and to catch up with what was happening. To the women it was one of their strongest relationships - although some of their families thought of the group as 'the coven'. Full review...

Fallout by Sadie Jones

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

Have you ever been in love? Truly, madly, deeply (as the cliché has it) in love? Sincerely, selfishly, selflessly, in love?

With the wrong person?

If you haven't then you'll find Fallout an exploration of how it happens, and how we deal with it, or not. Full review...

You're the One that I Want by Giovanna Fletcher

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

Maddy, Rob and Ben have been friends forever. There’s nothing unusual about that in general, but it’s less common in literature, perhaps, and I can’t think of another book where two boys and a girl are the trio at the centre of a friendship. As the book starts, Maddy and Rob are about to marry, and Ben stands proudly by as their best man. Full review...

A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray

4star.jpg General Fiction

The Bradley family are constantly busy as you might expect when there are four children but their most testing time comes on seven-year-old Jacob's birthday. His elder sister, Zippy and elder brother Alma have other things going on in their lives but his little sister isn't feeling well. Four-year-old Issy has retreated to bed and she's rather hoping that her mother will come and make her better, but Claire is trying to cope with Jacob's birthday party and it's quite a while before the family realise that Issy is very ill. She has meningitis and that night she dies in hospital. Full review...

To Have and to Hold by Helen Chandler

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

We're looking at a few months in the lives of three women. On the face of it Ella has it all. She's got a happy marriage and two gorgeous children along with a home in the village-y part of Walthamstow. But she wants something more - and her husband doesn't agree that another child is the answer. Her friend Imogen and partner Pete used to have a fun relationship but after the birth of Indigo things changed, with Imogen needing to focus on the baby and Pete becoming more distant and less involved. Then there's Phoebe. She's just fifteen years old and bullied at school: she's that unfortunate girl in the class who is overweight and under cool. She and her mother simply don't get on - Liz is a model and a size eight - but she's close to her father, but round about the time of her GCSEs her parents split up and that closeness was lost. Full review...

No-one Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday by Tracy Bloom

5star.jpg Women's Fiction

Matthew and Katy were together as teenagers but now years later both are with other significant others, and both Katy and Matthew’s wife, Alison are pregnant. Oh, and they’re in the same antenatal class. And, oh yes, Katy’s not 100% sure who the father of her baby is, current boyfriend Ben or, you’ve guessed it, long lost flame Matthew. Cue a comedy of errors, misunderstandings, fisticuffs and emotional outbursts, not all triggered by swarming hormones. Full review...

The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby

3.5star.jpg General Fiction

In November 1963 the world was shocked by the assassination of President John F Kennedy, but the picture which brought home to us the horror of what had happened was not of JFK but of his wife in the iconic pink suit, soaked with her husband's blood. 'Let them see what they have done', she said. I've always assumed that the suit was new for the occasion - but it had a back story too and it's told in The Pink Suit, a work of historical fiction based on facts. Full review...

After The Honeymoon by Janey Fraser

5star.jpg Women's Fiction

A TV star and his make-up artist wife, and a dinner lady and her husband are not two couples you would expect to end up honeymooning at the same place, but through a twist of fate (ok, a teacher at the school one works at and the other sends her kids to) both women and their new husbands end up on the same secluded Greek island at the same time. It’s run by a British woman who left for the continent 15 years ago, and it’s the perfect spot to get away from it all, be it your toddler's safely left with grandma, or the paparazzi who are desperate for an exclusive. Full review...

Can Anybody Help Me? by Sinead Crowley

4star.jpg Thrillers

Yvonne and Gerry are proud new parents. However, as they've only recently moved to Gerry's native Dublin, Yvonne mourns the lack of a support network. This all changes when she turns to Mammynet, a web-based online forum and chat room for new and soon-to-be mums. It works too - Yvonne quickly makes a local online friend but then the friend disappears without warning. Meanwhile Garda Sergeant Claire Boyle is investigating the murder of a young woman. There may be a connection but will Claire discover it before the killer strikes again? Full review...