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Newest General Fiction Reviews (view source)

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===[[The Great Believers Vera Magpie by Rebecca MakkaiLaura Solomon]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT General Fiction|LGBT General Fiction]] ''I have murdered three husbands.''
As an opening line that must take some beating, but Vera''s telling us the truth. The Great Believersfirst two husbands, Gary and Harry were abusive, but Larry was a treasure, a keeper, and it's difficult to understand why Vera would have killed him, particularly when she was likely to get found out very quickly and now she' follows s in prison with a group of friends whose lives are devastated by the AIDS crisis in Chicago during the late 1980’smandatory life sentence. Beginning in 1985 Her only friend is Shirley, a lesbian, the reader follows Yale and his friends as they come but Vera's not one to terms let herself be a victim. She's not keen on having a sexual relationship with Shirley (she wouldn't risk the increasingly virulent illness spreading throughout their community, alongside their demonisation at security of her life in prison for the hands sake of a conservative America. Thirty years later Fiona, a devoted friend to Yalefling), but she is searching keen on getting an education and she's studying for her estranged daughter on the streets of Paris, trying to rebuild a relationship beset by memories and old hurtdegree in English Literature. [[The Great Believers Vera Magpie by Rebecca MakkaiLaura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[The Brighton Mermaid Black Light by Dorothy KoomsonLaura Solomon]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
[[imageJim is a university student and, as the saying goes, he hasn't got his troubles to seek. His father committed suicide when he was young and somehow he's never really managed to connect with his step-father. His younger brother would be kindly described as having learning difficulties:4if you were being honest you'd just say that he was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for him.5star Jim's in love with a woman, but she finds him repulsive and you can understand why: the looks, the attitude, the (lack of) conversational ability and the clothing all leave a lot to be desired.jpg|link=Category Despite all that's he's not about to sit back and allow his life to drift:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] he's actually writing ''two'' novels and he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pub. [[:Category:General FictionBlack Light by Laura Solomon|General FictionFull Review]]
In 1993, two teenagers stumble across a horrific scene on the beach as they're sneaking home after an un-authorised night out: a body of a young woman, partially stripped, totally deceased. The find hits the girls in different ways. Nell becomes obsessed with finding the identity of the girl – who she calls ''the Brighton Mermaid'' because of a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happened. Fast forward 25 years and Nell is still haunted by what happened that night. With few leads to go on, the Police closed the case without cracking it, and so it remains one of those unsolved mysteries that become part of local folklore, but Nell struggles to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, lie. As for Jude, well no one knows if the discovery still haunts her because no one knows where she is. Shortly after that fateful night, she too disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. There's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seems. [[The Brighton Mermaid by Dorothy Koomson|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Short Redemptor Domus by Lex CoultonGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakesA young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on the scenic North Wales coast, failures, and relationshipssent far from his family in the Far East. The main protagonistAs the boy travels to the school, Frances Pilgrima family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at the school a vulnerable orphan, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, an uncertain future. Plunged into a work colleagueschool full of danger and betrayal, and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship boy is complicated seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, it comes to the fact boy to attempt to clean up the pit of filth that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years oldthe school has become. [[Falling Short Redemptor Domus by Lex CoultonGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer The Long Path To Wisdom by Elisabeth HydeJan-Philipp Sendker]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for On my travels around the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday night. He might be a retired lawyerworld, I have a state legislator, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer but he knew tendency to end up in any bookshop that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrived. Ruthis selling English-language books, a corporate lawyer, would find fault and want to talk about him going into a retirement home. Georgewhile I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, a nursewhat I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybe, would argue and Lizziethe maps definitely, a professor of English Literature, who lived locally and kept and visited him regularly, would be unpredictablebut above all: the folk tales. Murray hoped that all would go smoothlyIf I ever get to Burma, but that simply wasnI won't going need to happenhunt, I can read before I go. [[Go Ask Fannie Farmer The Long Path To Wisdom by Elisabeth HydeJan-Philipp Sendker|Full Review]]
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===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Katalin Street by Ruth HoganMagda Szabo]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] This is a story about the past. A specific past, certainly, in the form of pre-war Budapest, but also a story about how that past can impact on the present and the future. In this book, the first of three Magda Szabó wrote on the same theme between 1969 and 1987 and now newly translated and reissued, we witness a heart-rending nostalgia for happier days, guilt about those who did not survive, and a dogged but doomed determination to cling to long-gone times, feelings and experiences which mark the here and now, staining and warping it into another, subtler misery. [[Katalin Street by Magda Szabo|Full Review]]
Masha's son Gabriel died some years ago. She'd been a single parent with help from her friend, Edward, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out in the immediate aftermath of the drowning, but there's now a new love interest) Masha is still stricken, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal to Gabriel if she was to be happy. An independent, rebellious woman has somehow been diminished. [[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan|Full Review]]
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===[[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)]]===
===[[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston]]=== [[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary FictionFor Sharing|Literary FictionFor Sharing]]
Jane Ashland is dying. That's a description of a very early scene here – but also, of course, a platitude that can apply to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going up and down in levels of pleasure, energy – sobriety – in these pages, but we soon learn that it recently found a very deeply dark down place. Here then, scattered through a timeline-bending narrative, we have her days finding a Lincolnesque lover as a student in New York, glimpses of therapy, a drive to find her ancestors that takes her from rural America to Norway – and a trip there with a new-found friend to watch the musk oxen, of all things. And nowhere in sight is anything like a platitude… [[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)|Full Review]]
Something's gone horribly wrong. It's Christmas Eve and everything is very busy in Santa's grotto. The presents are all ready and waiting to be loaded onto the sleigh and the reindeer are itching to get going. But Santa? Santa is just not in the mood. He is tired of delivering the latest toys to children who only play with them for five minutes. He wishes people would remember what Christmas is really about - a time for families to come together for love and friendship and goodwill to one another. [[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston|Full Review]]<!-- Rogers Mandeville -->
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===[[Tale Every Colour of a Tooth You by Allie RogersAmelia Mandeville]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Danny lives Zoe believes in a small Sussex town with his mother, Natalieadding life to years as well as years to life. Life is poorHer world, but they manage - until they're threatened by a benefits sanction. A Job Centre employee looks to be their salvation - but like her impact on the family goes far beyond what they first expectname, is bursting with life and colour. She is the resulting changes are described to sort of girl who would sing a rainbow is she could. Tristan (or ''Tree'' as she calls him) is the reader through the naive yet perceptive and wholly original eyes opposite. Fresh out of four-year-old Dannyhospital following a prolonged stay in a psychiatric unit, he sees a world as a grey place. [[Tale Every Colour of a Tooth You by Allie RogersAmelia Mandeville|Full Review]]
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===[[Claudia A Spark of Light by Anthony TrevelyanJodi Picoult]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
When Claudia The Center is the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi and is called to the reception source of her Manchester Office block great controversy when it comes to meet a visitorthe Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice debate. It is at The Center where one man, George Goddard, she doesn't expect takes it upon himself to be her father figure – a man she hasn't seen get revenge for fifteen years. Samson Glaze – otherwise known as Wild Samsonthe loss of his grandchild, The Aztec and The Sun King, walked out in the form of Claudia's life and into a world mass-shooting. What arises is a novel that details the lives of success the remaining hostages, as a solar panel salesman – but now he's returned and he needs Claudia's helpwell as other characters central to the story. ReggieOne of these characters is Hugh McElroy, Samson's son, has joined a mysterious cult hostage negotiator called ''Tarantula''in to help deflate the situation, a group who prepare for the end of the world soon discovers that his sister and encourage humanity daughter, Wren, happened to embrace their impending doombe at the clinic that day. Claudia's journey takes her far from her home in Manchester to the end of the world – where encounters with hammer-wielding assassins make things very difficult indeed… [[Claudia A Spark of Light by Anthony TrevelyanJodi Picoult|Full Review]]
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===[[The Man I Think I Know Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by Mike GayleM B Vincent]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] Dr Jess Castle, the self proclaimed failure of the prestigious Castle family has returned home to the sleepy, idyllic chocolate box town of Castle Kidbury. Rather than being delighted, her family are suspicious, especially her father, the judge. Luckily for Jess, she doesn't have to try too hard to dodge her family's suspicions as a series of gruesome local murders are taking place and that's all anyone is talking about. Jess accidentally finds herself in the thick of the investigation, and to her delight finds that she can actually be useful. But with the small population dwindling and the sense of danger moving ever closer to home, has Jess made a grave mistake getting involved? [[Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by M B Vincent|Full Review]]<!-- Stone -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1789014921.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789014921/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[What's Left Unsaid by Deborah Stone]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
James DeWitt Sasha has a lot on her plate. Husband Jeremy is distant and absent and Danny Allen are both men in their early thirties whose lives haventhe marriage needs work. Son Zac is entering a rebellious adolescent phase and it't taken them where they were supposed s hard to goknow how to redirect him. At Mother Annie, an all time low time for both of themalcoholic, is beginning the two men reconnect journey into dementia and slowly find they're exactly what has never been an easy person at the other needsbest of times. TogetherThank heavens for her lovely dog, Sebastian, they help each other put their lives back together. This is a beautiful story about friendship and what it really means to help another personhis unconditional love. [[The Man I Think I Know What's Left Unsaid by Mike GayleDeborah Stone|Full Review]]
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===[[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland]]===
===[[The Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''Edward is six weeks old and I’ve had no sleep. I had thirty stitches in my perineum, [[:Category:Womenthe wounds still tug and itch. They had to do the stitches twice because the first lot became infected. The old-school midwife told me I wasn’t paying enough attention to personal hygiene. I must shower twice a day, or better still, take a salt bath. Do they really expect me to do that? Have they ever tried to shower when a baby is crying and you’re so tired you can barely stand and your partner is banging around downstairs because he’s late for work again?'s Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Ailsa Rae has been sick her whole life, and just as she was edging closer to death she finally, finally got the call that she needed, that a heart was available for her to I think most women have a transplant. Previously she had felt so helpless that she had used her blog to make decisions for her, running polls amongst her readers to decide on her actions. But with her new heart, she has been given like this shortly after having a new lifebaby. Can Ailsa manage Many of them simply managed to start to live on her own, put one foot in front of the other until things calmed down but some will have found it harder and will her mother let her do that? developed post-natal depression[[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae Place Where Love Should Be by Stephanie ButlandElizabeth Ellis|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Leaves by Stefan Mohamed]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:General Fiction|General FictionThe Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], ===
When your best friend vanishes, how can you begin to move on? How can you live your life not knowing whether they're okay? And what would you do if they reappeared in your life? – all questions that Vanessa faces every day, even seven years after her best friend Mark vanished[[image:4star. When he reappears, she's shocked not only by his presence back in her life, but also by the fact that he hasn't aged a day – for him, no time has passed since his disappearance. Shocked, confused and emotionally reeling, Vanessa must return to her home town in order to help Mark find the answers he so desperately craves. But what's waiting for them is far more surprising than either of them could ever have dreamt… jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Falling Leaves by Stefan Mohamed:Category:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral Fiction]]
Hugh Mullion goes away to Dorset for the weekend and, while waiting for his wife to arrive, finds a mysterious key down the back of an antique chair. The grubby and torn label to which is attached reads... [[The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden|Full Review]] <!-- Santorella Hajaj -->
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===[[Dyed Souls The Water Thief by Gary SantorellaClaire Hajaj]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:TeensGeneral Fiction|TeensGeneral Fiction]], [[:Category:General Literary Fiction|General Literary Fiction]]
The USA, early 1980s. Charlie (or Charles, if Nick is in the middle of wedding preparations when he's feeling belligerent, and he often is) is being taken back decides to leave his home by his drop-out, slutty mother. The home is called a Cottage, fiancée behind in London and while the book doesn't guide us to understand it perfectly, it seems to mean he has take up a private room post in a large self-contained bungalow, on a gated compound with roundsome un-named west African country providing engineering support for the-clock adult supervision. There's building of a paddock with horses for the kids to ride, their own school – and all the adults are armed with Thorazine to calm the kids down. Charlie, despite his obvious bookish intelligence, is struggling to get to grips with why and how hechildren's ended up where he is, but it must have something to do with his single parent mother being violent, and the fact he is no longer allowed to stay with his grandfather. This book is a slightly woozy look at his thoughts, as he tries to build a relationship with a girl in a different Cottage, and work out his lothospital. He certainly has a lot on his plate for a thirteen-year-oldno idea what he is getting himself into. [[Dyed Souls The Water Thief by Gary SantorellaClaire Hajaj|Full Review]]
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===[[Two Steps Forward Landslide by Graeme Simsion and Anne BuistMelissa Leet]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]The area where Jill and Susie lived wasn't highly populated so it was fortunate that they became such good friends, despite the fact that Susie was a year older than Jill. Susie lived with her mother, an alcoholic, and Jill lived with ''her'' mother, who dedicated herself to her garden. Jill's father was Jay Tutle, the photographer, but he spent much of his time working away - often for months on end. In reality there was little difference between the two families: Mrs Smith's alcoholism caused serious illness whilst Susie was still young. Joy and tragedy would visit Jill's home. ''Landslide'' is the story of how what happened determined the course of Jill's life and how great tragedy can breed resilience and hope. [[Landslide by Melissa Leet|Full Review]]
When I read the blurb for this book, I found myself instantly interested in its premise of two people trying to start their lives again following serious life changes. The book did not disappoint. [[Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist|Full Review]] <!-- Forman Wilson -->
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===[[I Have Lost My Way Aftershocks by Gayle FormanA N Wilson]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In a country very much like New Zealand, but at the same time most avowedly not, two women will find love. Strong love too, for our narrator will say that her first attraction for her partner was the only thing to make sense of all those exaggerated songs she'd heard, and books and poems she'I Have Lost My Wayd read, and plays she'd acted in – works of art that had until then seemed sheer hyperbole. It was entirely unrequited love for quite some time, but it does burgeon, or so we' tells re promised from the story off, because of three individuals who have each lost something important to them leading to them losing their wayquite drastic – a major earthquake very much like the one that hit Christchurch, but at the same time most avowedly not. Freya has lost her voice, Harun has lost his love This book then is the combined exploration of the lovers and Nathaniel has lost everything. However, these three elements do not give justice to the extent story of what each character has lost. In this expertly written novel, Gayle Forman writes about how these three dissimilar individuals each came to lose what was most important to them, causing them to all meet one fateful day in New York Citythe quake. [[I Have Lost My Way Aftershocks by Gayle FormanA N Wilson|Full Review]]
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===[[One Clear Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century Hell's Unveiling by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Jamie Bulloch (translator)Laura Solomon]]===
[[image:4star3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
First, forgive me if A little while ago I donreally enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha't refer s Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to this book with its full title oftenread the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's pointedly precise, accurateprobably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and rather ungainly – when in fact the book it describes has only the former particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two attributes shoes' in any quantityHell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. What happens in January Daniel is that framed for a wild wolf walks across the frozen river separating Poland crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and eastern Germanyrefused permission to return to live with Marsha. Which means that Then, when of course there are all the book starts properlyother children who are not only targeted, midbut - worst of all -February, it has had time to get a lot closer subverted to Berlin – within 80 kilometres, to be precise, for that is the road marker where one of our main characters sees itdevil's evil ends. He is trying 's out to get back to work in Berlin for the first time in a month, prey on their fears and weaknesses and to be as with his girlfriendmany foster children, not knowing she has had an infidelity while he was awaytheir self esteem is very fragile. Also fancying the bright lights and big city are a teenaged pair of love This is no small-birdsscale operation, either - the boy and girl next door to each other in an eastern villagedevil has set up a training complex on earth, who flee complete with an unhappy lot on the off-chance of a better oneelevator to Hell. You just know there is a chance that these characters – human and lupine alike – are sucked into one combined narrative, but you won't know quite what that will entail…[[One Clear Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century Hell's Unveiling by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Jamie Bulloch (translator)Laura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[W Staying On by John BanksC M Taylor]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
On Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honest, Yorkshire's where he'd really like to be. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfect, but he's living in a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde and running a pub. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really like to sell it and return to the UK, what with the slopes uncertainty of Brexit and everything, but there are a couple of Mt Hood in Oregonproblems. First off, an 1000his wife -year old Viking is discovered frozen Laney - three thousand miles further west than any previously known Viking explorationrefuses to go back to the UK. Josh Kinninger is inspired by She'd have you believe that she's not well, but there's a backstory there that's not being talked about. Then there's the Viking discovery - three personal catastrophes having left him angrypub, unmoored and with his world in turmoilwhich isn't doing well enough to sell. Beginning a journey westward, heIn fact Tony's filled with cleaning the swimming pools of expats who have left Spain and returned home, in order to make a desire bit of money to wreak vengeance on the individuals he finds morally corrupttry and make ends at least come in sight of each other, even if they never meet. [[W Staying On by John BanksC M Taylor|Full Review]]
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===[[The Family Next Door Day of the Orphan by Sally HepworthDr Nat Tanoh]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Pleasant Court Saga is a culeighteen and, like many eighteen-deyear olds, his prime concerns are listening to what his mum calls ''hop-sac a few minutes from the beach in Melbourne. Kids play in the street and ithip''s the sort , eating copious amounts of place people aspire tofood, and learning about girls. Certainly that's how the families who live there feel Living in an affluent, liberal and there's protected suburb, he has a good sense of communitylife. However, the suburb is in Africa, where childhoods can be snatched in an instant. Ben When his friends and Essie family are glad that Essie's mother is living next door as Essie had a mental breakdown three years ago when her first daughter was having difficulty sleeping. Mia's come through that stage, but now there's Poppy, who's been dragged into the perfect baby for conflict raging around the first six months of her lifedictatorship that Saga lives under, but he is just starting forced to be difficultbecome an unlikely revolutionary. Ben, in particular, is pleased that Can chubby Saga really stand up to a murderous regime? And can he can rely on Barbara stay one step ahead of the soldiers desperate to keep an eye on the situation whilst he's out at work. stop him? [[The Family Next Door Day of the Orphan by Sally HepworthDr Nat Tanoh|Full Review]]
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===[[Ask For Blues Murmuration by Malcolm WaltonRobert Lock]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
[[image:3''Murmuration'' follows the lives of a host of characters from 1863 to the present day.5starFrom a risqué comic to a fortune teller, we see the birth of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamour.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]]There is a hint of mysticism to the tale, [[:Category:Entertainment|Entertainment]]with the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the sea. [[:Category:General FictionMurmuration by Robert Lock|General FictionFull Review]]
Malcolm Walton's book is clearly a memoir about his introduction to the Trad Jazz scene of the late 1950's and early 1960's, but he has chosen to write it in the form of a novel, claiming in his prologue that this would give the book a different approach to the music memoir. His protagonist 'Martin' takes on Malcolm's mantle, and begins with his first discovery of the Salvation Army band with his grandfather. This catapults him into a love of music, initially taking piano lessons, and later delving into his true love – the trumpet. [[Ask For Blues by Malcolm Walton|Full Review]]<br><!-- Bala Laurain -->
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===[[The Boat People Smoking Kills by Sharon BalaAntoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Among the 500 Sri Lankans Meet Fabrice Valantine. He's a headhunter, and a successful one too, in an office in Paris. All around him however his world is changing – yes, there is a rickety boat making its way to Vancouver Island are Mahindan and new ban on smoking in all workplaces. Goaded by his sixnon-year-old son Selliansmoking wife, even though they met over an ashtray, of sorts, he sees a hypnotist who had success with a mutual friend in stopping their nicotine habit. When The session seems to have been successful, however he faces the boat arrives prospect of having such a change to his own personality, his imbued habits and lifestyle, with fear, when he realises it will never again grant him any pleasure. He needs this pleasure when further changes at work come about – but it's what he replaces the Canadian authorities take all habit with that will surprise the passengers into custody, placing the women most. [[Smoking Kills by Antoine Laurain and children in a separate facility from the menLouise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Bennett -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1471407535.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co. uk/dp/1471407535/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Island by M A gruelling series of hearings will decide Bennett]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] A contemporary take on the fate savage classic ''Lord of each individual or familythe Flies'': whether they will be allowed a group of mismatched, modern-day teenagers must fight to stay in Canadasurvive on a deserted island. Link is a fish out of water. Newly arrived from America, or deported back he is finding it hard to Sri Lankasettle into the venerable and prestigious Osney School. The government fears that up Who knew there could be so many strange traditions to half understand? And what kind of these asylumschool ranks its students by how fast they can run round the school quad -seekers however ancient that quad may have links to be? When Link runs the Tamil Tigersslowest time in years, a terrorist group, so judges he immediately becomes the butt of every school joke. And some students are instructed determined to have a firm handmake his life more miserable than others... [[The Boat People Island by Sharon BalaM A Bennett|Full Review]] <br!-- Cullen -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0718189140.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718189140/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
William Woolf is a letter detective, working in the Dead Letters Depot in East London. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses, tracking down mysterious people and reading endless letters of love, guilt, death, hope, and everyday life. [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen|Full Review]]
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