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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Juan Gabriel VasquezMatthew Tree|title=The Secret History of CostaguanaWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In 1904 Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad wrote Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his novel about father, a self-publicising Italian expatriate by the name drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of ''Nostromo'', set in the fictitious South American republic his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of Costaguanaself confidence. Columbian writerSo Tim applied himself to his studies, Juan Gabriel Vásquez imagines that the fictitious José Altamirano has assisted Conrad in his research by telling him cultivated his own story, only to find that the British novelist has subsequently inexcusably omitted him from abilities rather than his book. Now, he is seeking to daydreams and set the record straight by telling the reader, who he imagines in the role of a jury, as well as someone named Eloísa (who we later find out about) the same story to pass judgement on if this was fairhimself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800187</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kenzaburo OeB0C47LV1PC|title=The ChangelingFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The novel starts at Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the end. Therefore we know that one of question should you make it? Or is the two principal charactersquestion if you did, namely Goro, appears to have committed suicide. would it land? The question catch is why. And that the whole novel is an attempt to provide that elusive answerfor both could well be... Goro was an extremely successful film director of international repute. He was based in his native Japan but travelled extensively with his workno. And you have to ask yourself why would a man such as this decide to end his life?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843547341</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MackenzieMosby Woods|title=City of StrangersA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Paul Metzger – mid thirties, with a failed marriage, a broken relationship with his brother (who converted The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to Judaism)mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, and a dying father (who push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is an ex-Nazi)in actual charge. Straight away Imagine then, there are obvious flaws was a man with his family dynamicprecognition. As his writing career fails to take off he's left to churn out thousands Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of words for articles that have no meaning to himcircumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the dregs of the publishing worldmost valuable asset in history. His life isn't quite as high flying as he hoped. But Imagine then Paul gets offered a lucrative book deal; the one thing he has wanted for years, that this man loses this ability. The only catch is he has What would governments do to write about his father.get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531852</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Yorke0571379559|title=Pictures The House of LilyBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=As soon as Georgia Myers turns eighteen, she ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is going to find her biological parentsthe story of four people. And Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she has lots might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of questions for them too; like where else broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might she have lived if she had not been given up look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and does she have any brothers and sisters? floods. MostlyHer husband, howeverRichard, Georgia just wants struggles to ask grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'why?s Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. Why was she given up for adoption? Why her?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014124</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph O'ConnorClaire North|title=Ghost LightHouse of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=An unknown voice introduces the reader to actress Molly. She doesn't know it but she will be dead fairly soon. It's almost as if she's talking to herself throughout the introduction pages. The language is Irish vernacular so there's lots of good old Irish put-downs, classic descriptions and call-a-spade-a-shovel language. This richness and unmistakable lilt gives the reader a sense of place. Albeit, old Molly is almost living by her wits (which are varied and considerable) in the poorer areas of London. Her conversations with the local people, whether it's the inn-keeper or the local bobby on the beat are absolutely wonderful. She is one fine actress. I What could not keep the smile from my face when reading these conversational gems. For example, Molly is trying to have a polite conversation with the inn-keeper Mr Ballantine when they are rudely interrupted 'Men barrel in and out with their swearing and gruffness ... Why can they never sit easy, must they always emit noises, and must the noises be deafening vowelsmatter more than love?' Brilliant. The sheer beauty in all of this is that Molly, in her own private thoughts, in her own head, is giving off the most foul language of the lot of them. These conversations are also bitter-sweet. O'Connor's descriptions - especially of people are superlative. He doesn't try too hard (which is a gift in itself) but gets his message over to the reader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0436205718</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna KavennaKay Chronister|title=The Birth of LoveDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=The Birth 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 Love has four interwoven storylines about characters in different timeswater or a nuclear holocaust, past, present and futurethis 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. The common theme It is birtha shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057124517X</amazonuk>1803364998
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{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Tishani DoshiEric LaRocca|title=The Pleasure SeekersTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Essentially this Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a love story between two people - Babo from Madras way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and Sian from small-town Walesprocess them. You could argue Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that two more disparate cultures would be hard to imagineis a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Factor in Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that the novel opens . It is a collection of short stories more interested in the headyhorrors of illness, free love days of the 1960s grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and a very entertaining story starts are harder to unfolddefeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747590923</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yasmina KhadraMadelaine Lucas|title=What the Day Owes the NightThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Nine year old Algerian Muslim Younes is devastated when his father's farm is destroyed and his family have to move to the slum of Jenane Jato. However'Love, while the rest of his family struggleI'd read, this turns out was supposed to be something of a blessing in disguise for Younes,who is rescued by his wealthy uncle, a pharmacist. Renamed Jonas, he moves to live with his uncle light and aunt in the vibrant European district of Rio Salado. Thereweightless feeling, he meets new friends Jean-Christophe, Simon, and Fabrice. But what seems to be an unbreakable friendship is tested to its limits by the return to the area of the beautiful Emilie, and the boysbut I had always longed for gravity'' problems increase as Algeria fights for its independence from France. The book is narrated by Jonas at a much older age, lookingback at his life, although the epilogue brings us to the present day as he visits a grave.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019933</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samantha HuntMichael Grothaus|title=The SeasBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Seas'' follows the story of a nameless nineteen-year old girl who is lonely But fearing something and adrift in a cruel coastal town so far having it come to the north of the USA that the roads only run south. She misses her father, an absent alcoholic sailor, while her silence-loving mother, who grew up on an isolated island with deaf parents, worries deeply about herpass are two different things. Early on in the story we get the distinct impression that our narrator is not deemed And I'normal' by her peers, who call her all sorts m willing to bet most of unflattering things. With nothing to do in her small townwhat we fear will never happen, and no one or we can take steps to do change it with, she spends her time pining for a local alcoholic called Jude who is fifteen years her senior, and who refuses her amorous advances on the grounds that it would be wrong. As the story unfolds, Jude and the girl's relationship grows and changes, sometimes in unexpected ways.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013934</amazonuk>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben OkriJennifer Saint|title=Tales of FreedomAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Tales ''I was as worthy as any one of Freedom is a book of two halvesthem. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, with a short story entitled Comic Destiny taking up not just in the majority name of the bookgoddess. Comic Destiny is made up It was for the sake of a series of short pieces that follow on from each other and are probably best described as being closer to prose poetry than anything elsemy name, too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041597</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carsten JensenAmanthi Harris|title=We, the DrownedBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In 1848Padma, Laurids Madsen and other men 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 formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the smalltown one she thinks of Marstal go to war to fight the Germans, and an explosionflings him up to heaven, as far as anyone can tellhome. But Lauridsreturns, claiming his sea boots were too heavy for him to stay upthere – only How she came to be lost to Marstal anywayat the Villa, how it became her home, as he abandons his familyto sail and the high seas.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846550963</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matthew Hooton|title=Deloume Road|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A tiny, rural community with a handful of characters is at machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the heart of ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. And Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the thing that binds them all together is Deloume Road. Hooton gives over every chapter (and some are very short) to one musical score of his characters - Irenea film, Andy, the butcher. Each is very different from that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the otherVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087657</amazonuk>1784631930
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Trevor Byrne178563335X|title=Ghosts and Lightning|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Denny comes home to Dublin from Wales after his mum dies suddenly, and hangs around drinking and taking drugs with his sister, her girlfriend and some of their mates, while he wonders what to do with himself. There are some practical matters to sort out too, such as the nasty older brother who owns their house and wants his siblings out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673309</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Helen Dunmore|title=The BetrayalHilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Andrei is When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a perceptive and deeply conscientious doctortrainee vicar, sitting in on a young rheumatologist PCC meeting and paediatrician working in a Leningrad hospital just after wondering why they're held when you need to pick the terrible siegechildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, during the last days of Stalin’s dictatorshipwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. He is as quick to notice symptoms Thelma's daughter-in his colleagues as in his young patients-law won't let her see her grandson. When he is approached by Russov Holthorpe, a fellow physicianon the Norfolk coast, he registers his confrere’s pervading smell of fear. This is all part of the pathology of the times; life as it is lived under a tyrannical dictatorship. A dictatorship determined to pursue a purge – a vendetta directed against doctorslovely place, particularly Jewish doctors. The sweating Russov manages but Rachel is struggling to inveigle Andrei Aleksayev into treating develop a very sick child, Gorya, real bond with the son of Volkhov, who is a tyrannical parish - and high ranking secret police officer. Therapeutic failure, she's in all probabilityawe of the vicar, could result in vengeanceGail, arrest but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and devastating effects Christopher hoped that a walk on Andrei’s loving wife Anna and her young adolescent brother, Kolyathe beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490593</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mari Strachan1398515388|title=The Earth Hums in B FlatBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Choosing a child as First of all, it was the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence and imagination. To succeed is to convince earthquake, deep in the reader of events at two levels – ocean floor, which created the child's world within tsunami and this, in turn, caused the adult world surrounding hernuclear meltdown. The very best novels about childhood, like say Harper Lee's classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', also reflect a wider cultural truthresult was complete and utter devastation. In 'The Earth Hums in B Flat'deaths were uncountable, a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their family secretsowners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. If that sounds He wasn't a bit tacky, fear not, because dog person but the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and sharp cornersTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Sington0989715337|title=The Einstein Girl|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The two central characters are (and we've come across it many times before) a psychiatrist (in this case Kirsch) and his patient (known as the Einstein Girl) and hence the novel's title. The case of this girl is intriguing, not least because both doctor and patient had accidentally met prior to her admission to hospital. Kirsch appears immediately smitten - which may be a problem. He's already spoken for. In a nutshell, Papa on the Einstein Girl has lost her memory. Kirsch finds more and more of his professional time given over to her recovery, back to mental well-being. It becomes a long and complicated journey, for both of them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535793</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=David Mitchell|title=The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de ZoetMarco North|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='The belly craves food, the tongue craves water, the heart craves love, and the mind craves stories.' This is the book to satisfy that last craving. It is rich in stories from the graphic opening chapter to the poignant closing lines. Everyone has a tale to tell and even minor characters are fleshed out with histories that amuse, horrify or enthral. Their stories made me think about how sometimes what at the time seems to be an insignificant choice can define the course of a life. Here the characters’ choices unleash a cascade of consequences. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340921560</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Ye can't take the slither out ovva snake.'' So says Gianni, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The master, a merchant, divides his time between Italy and Peru, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't Some frogs had gotten into the serpent - his son Minguillo iswell. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent in Arequipa, Minguillo was born - a serpent in his family's midst. His own mother couldn't bear to nurse him and his father went into denial, making more and more frequent trips to a South American home free of sociopathic progeny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lorrie MooreDaisy Hildyard|title=A Gate At The StairsEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Bass-playing, 20 year-old Tassie Keltjin is studying an eclectic range The summary of subjects (Geology, British Literature, Sufism, Soundtracks this book doesn't come close to War Movies and Wine Tasting) in post 9/11 USA when she lands a job as a child minder for chef, Sarah Bink who explaining what is adopting an African-American baby. A Gate at done with the Stairs is at times a very funny and at others a sad reflection of growing up in modern Americapremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057119530X</amazonuk>1913097811}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Eleanor CattonSally Oliver |title=The RehearsalWeight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you are Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the type of person who wants their novels to start at first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the beginning, build character and plot before coming to expression in a satisfying way I'they all lived happily ever after' ending, then avoid this book at all costsm not familiar with. You will hate it I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. But From the little I cannot remember when have read (in translation, I last enjoyed don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a first time novel as much as this one. It is ambitious, daring and complex, and yet it works beautifullytendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847081398</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Things weren't going too badly for Patrick Oxtoby. HeElektra's intelligent and did well at school. Then his Gran died. He started getting pains by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in his shoulder and things rapidly went downhill from there. He drops out the heavily male dominated world of university to become a mechanicAncient Greece. By the time we meet him as a 23-year-oldCassandra, Clytemnestra, he's become a loner who cannot communicate his feelings and who cannot seem to fit himself into society. Now his fiancee has left him (and you can see her point) and he finds himself Elektra are all bit players in a seaside boarding house in an unnamed English town, hoping to start a new lifethe story of the Trojan War. Then, one night he commits an act of violence (you can see it coming) Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and his life goes from bad to awfulthe most extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184767383X</amazonuk>1472273915
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Buchan8409290103|title=Sick Heart River|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This was a surprise for me. It’s rare for a book to come to my attention from the reviewing gods that’s a rerelease of a 1930s novel, and one that surfaced a couple of years ago now. But when it strikes me as startlingly Conradian, updated for the times, and perfectly able to stand alongside one of literature’s greats, then it’s just a sign those reviewing gods are on the ball.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697030X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewIf Only|author=Jim Crace|title=All That FollowsMatthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Leonard Lessing is a sofa socialist. He avoids corporate brands both in food and in clothes. He abides Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by all his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the right-young man got on boycotts. He signs petitions. He does free gigs at benefit concerts. He gives donations - you know board the kind of thing. Once, eighteen long years ago in Texas in 2006, he came very close boat and thereafter Patrick was to some real direct actionsend him a monthly allowance. But he bottled it. And now, Patrick sent the frozenmoney regularly and a correspondence -shouldered jazzman-on-sabbatical finds his less-thanof sorts -glorious radical past catching sprang up with him right there in his living room, on between the TVtwo although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. Maxie Lermon It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he of Austin 2006 and no stranger didn't care to violent agitprop, is have him in the UK, just up the road from Leonard, and this country where he's taken might be a family hostage as a protest against danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the upcoming Reconciliation Summityoung man on his way. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330445642</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ed HillyerAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Clay DreamingRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Hillyer has taken several historical facts [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and seamlessly blended read in a big dollop of fiction to create a complex and riveting storymy house. The title is suitably enigmaticAnd so was this one, as is King Cole (or Brippoki). He and his fellow cricketers (who also have been given rather unkind nicknames) have sailed from the bottom of the world, to the bustling metropolis of London. Talk about extremes. And although they I could have all been diligently 'schooled' in all things Englishspelled that more accurately – this one was, neverthelessand is, they are the talk of the townblack and white and red. The novel Yes, he has barely started an artistic collaborator on this piece, and already I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the mind bogglesinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251501</amazonuk>1913547183
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wendy Law-YoneB098FFFBH9|title=The Road to WantingSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We first meet Na Ga in her hotel room in Wanting, on the Chinese side of the border with Na Ga's native Burma (or Myanmar for the more geographically pedantic, although Burma is used throughout this book). She is attempting to commit suicide, but Fourteen-year-old Rachel is interrupted by news from the hotel receptionist who tells her that her guide across the border, Mr Jiang, has just committed suicide himself. You might by now have the impression that this is not a cheery kind of book, and you'd be right up to a point, although it's certainly not without its light touches. In fact itschool's often quite beautiful, which makes the exposure of the seedier side so much more shocking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184086</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Roddy Doyle|title=The Dead Republic|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Henry left in 1922, after the Irish Civil War. It is now 1951. After his long exile, nothing is as he expected. He revisits an old home to find no trace that a house ever stood there. The animal rights project that has brought him back is not as he expected. The Quiet Man will be a hugely successful film for John Ford, but the life portrayed in it is not Henry Smart's life, leader and the portrait of Irish politics she and everyday life in the film is not one he recognises. In his late 40s, he feels he is an old man already, alone with his memories of the wife and family he lost.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Kelman|title=If it is Your Life|rating=3|genre=Short Stories|summary=''If This Is Your Life'' is not so much a collection of short stories as a collection of pieces of creative writing. Kelman doesn't really do 'stories'. In nineteen pieces of writing of varying length from just her friend are producing a single page competition entry to more lengthy pieces, such as highlight the story that gives its title to this collection, Kelman writes (mostly) about people on the edge of society. He addresses issues such as class, politics, gender, age and ill health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241142423</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yoko Ogawa|title=The Housekeeper and way in which human beings exploit the Professor |rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I never really got on with maths at schoolanimal world. Or sport. So She gets a book that seems to great deal with both baseball and mathematics ought to fly to the bottom of my 'to read' pile. Howeversupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, this slim little Japanese novel slipped into my hands and into my heart as soon as I saw it. The premise is very simple - a young housekeeper is assigned to a job working for an elderlylecturer at Imperial College, brain damaged professor of mathematics. He has only eighty minutes of short-term memoryLondon, so he doesn't remember mother Kate and her from one day to the nexttwin, but his memory pre-1975 remains intact and somehow he continues to function, living through his obsession with numbersNick. Each morning he greets her at Kate runs the door asking for her birth date and her telephone number. He finds puzzles and equations family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in everythingPutney, including shoe sizes and baseball, and the housekeeper becomes fascinated as she and her son also begin to see the beauty and the poetry in numberswhich is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521342</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Glen DuncanYancey Williams|title=A Day and a Night and a DayCrosshairs of the Devil
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Augustus Rose was brought up Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in New Yorkyears and, but not in a des res, in an altogether grittier part of the city. ' ... despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his childhood in East Harlemdaughter, darkness framing the blistered stoopfinds himself living - or imprisoned, the blinding asphalt, the smell of garbage cans and urine.' Hefrom Eddie's had an unfortunate start point of view - in life. Mother, white, father (unknown) black so that makes room 315 of the young Augustus an in-betweenGarden of Eden nursing home, with only a not-suretrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, a neitherfor palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-onein-colour-nor-the-other. Todaytrade of writing though, in the 21st centuryso here, no one would raise an eyebrowfor his readers, bat an eyelid. But this novel is set in the 1960s where racial tensions abound. Yes, even in cosmopolitan cities such as New Yorkare his wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847394175</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eleanor Thom0008421714|title=The Tin-KinMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Dawn is a single mother who has been avoiding a lot The problem began just after the publication of things for a long timeGeorge March's most successful novel to date. When Everyone but Mrs March (we know her aunt, who raised Dawn as a daughter, dies, Dawn finds first name only on the key last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to a cupboard which she was forbidden the local patisserie to look into buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as a child. Inside she finds clues to her family historywas wrapping the bread, links to ''but isn't this the first time he's based a Traveller Communitycharacter on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, unearthing a journey that sees her finding the principal character had 'her rootsmannerisms''. We also witness her struggle to renew her complicated relationship with her family and her efforts to escape Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the everwhore of Nantes -present memory of her abusive husband''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715639013</amazonuk>''
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