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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary fictionFiction|summary=Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=B0CVFXPGP8__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB0C47LV1PC|title=Mo Said She Was QuirkyFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mo may have said that Helen was quirky - neurotic might have been Can you make a more accurate assessment of his partner though. Although not a first ''Yo birthing person narrative'' joke? And if you could, James Kelman's latest is another dramatic monologuethe question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, although would it land? The catch is that the first time he has placed a female as his main characteranswer for both could well be.. Helen is a single mother, working nights as a croupier in a London casino. Mo is her Asian boyfriend. In fairness to Helen, she has a lot to worry about - a damaged upbringing that has seen her older brother leave home without trace, a failed marriage, and a life of constant struggleno. As usual with Kelman, his approach ''Fragility'' is tenderset as the city of Portland, yet gritty and often gently amusing. He's always sympathetic to his main characters. HoweverOregon, if you are new cautiously begins to Kelman, be warned that he is a writer that is heavy on a distinctive style more than plot per se.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144566</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonMosby Woods|title=The Book Lover's TaleA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failed, and so he had to join his wife The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in interior design, where he can use his love of books the West is quite sure how to arrange - at a cost - mend this or even if mending it is the contentsbest course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, design and most importantly the colours, of upper class people's home libraries a push for themclimate action there. He'll concede A feeling that it's nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a good way to get into man with precognition. Imagine the houses, and beds, strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of rich womencircumstances. That man would be valuable, such as his latest flameright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, Claudiathat this man loses this ability. But why is this, his confession, talking of murderWhat would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Banville0571379559|title=Ancient LightThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The narrator in John Banville's 'The House of Broken Bricks'Ancient Light'is the story of four people. Tess Hembry' is Alex Cleaves roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, a stage actor she lives in the curtain call house on the riverbank, built of his careerbroken bricks. For reasons that become clearer towards Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the end passage of the booktime, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, he is recalling struggles to grow his first relationshipvegetables, when as a teenager to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in 1950s Irelandsufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, he had a passionate affair with the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother of 's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his best friendfather. However People don't believe that they're related, his past much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is also blighted by recollections of out with his own daughtermother that she's suicide ten years previouslyhis nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920614</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David RainClaire North|title=The Heat House of the SunOdysseus
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=David Rain is far too young to be writing this exquisitely. That's all I'm going to say.What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersKay Chronister|title=The Vintage and the GleaningDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=SmithyWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a retired sheep shearerrobotic takeover, now works on a vineyard in the countryside of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire and too ill from the after effects of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to the physically arduous world devoid of shearing, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and daughter-in-law. Meanwhile rumours abound about the deeds of local thug, Brett Clayton and, whether true water or nota nuclear holocaust, he's definitely someone this genre is a way for humans to be avoidedcathartically experience their most existential fears. However, when Brett's wife Charlotte leaves him and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without 'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a second thoughtnew work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him It is a shocking novel that still manages to remember his own past and dreamsfind hope. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Timeri N MurariEric LaRocca|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=We all knowHorror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or think we knowa ghost, how oppressive life was for Afghansit usually something tangible and, particularly Afghan women, under by the end of the Taliban regimestory, but when you read this novel, boy do you get beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a sense collection of how tough it really wasshort stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alix OhlinMadelaine Lucas|title=InsideThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Grace''Love, a therapistI'd read, stumbles upon was supposed to be a young man in the woods who has attempted to commit suicide, light and her vocational interests are immediately engaged. The novel takes us through their complex relationshipweightless feeling, both its surface routines and day to day moments but also Grace's eventually successful search I had always longed for the reasons behind Tuggravity's desperation. Ohlin interlaces with this the story of Mitch, Grace's ex-husband, and of Annie, one of her clients, chronicling both their relationship with Grace, but also their network of families and friends, acquaintances and colleagues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah QuigleyJennifer Saint|title=The ConductorAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Composer Dmitri Shostakovich can block anything out whilst he's writing music: his wife Nina's voice, his children arguing, even the side effects I was as worthy as any one of living in Stalinist Leningradthem. HoweverI would get on board that ship, life is about to become more than an annoying distraction from music as Germany declares war on Russia and gradually initiates what history will come to know as the Siege of LeningradI vowed. Shostakovich then realisesI would take my place, not just as gradually, that his music may serve a purpose to sustain his compatriots in the absence name of sufficient food and hope. His Seventh Symphony becomes a protest against oppression, but he needs an orchestra to play it and the top musicians have been evacuated to save the country's cultural heritagegoddess. He therefore turns to Karl Eliasberg, It was for the aspiring but third rate conductor sake of a cobbled together orchestra. Music can create miracles but, for Eliasberg and his musiciansmy name, being able to play it will be the biggest miracle of alltoo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190880002X</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam ThompsonAmanthi Harris|title=Communion TownBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Communion Town – one city but it may as well be many as each person's perception Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of it her home country. This is coloured by their experiences within ita place she spent her formative years. Each chapter introduces us to It is not a different storyplace she was born into, a different viewpoint and therefore, practically a different citybut the one she thinks of as home. Starting with How she came to be at the ominousVilla, creepy story of Nicolashow it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through stories encapsulating such themes as recaptured friendship, murder her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and an enigmatic take on much like the life musical score of a private investigatorfilm, we start to piece together that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the nature of Communion Town..Villa. or do we?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007454767</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Austin Ratner178563335X|title=The Jump Artist|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Austin Ratner's debut novel, ''The Jump Artist'', first published in the US in 2009, is a fictionalised account of the extraordinary life of celebrated photographer, Philippe Halsman. Born a Latvian Jew, as a young man in 1928 he was walking in the Austrian mountains when he saw his father fall to his death. This would be traumatic for anyone, but the issues were compounded when he was accused of murder by the Austrian courts in what was probably anti-semitic and certainly xenophobic in explanation. Philippe's second trial, the first failing potentially because his mother had engaged a Jewish lawyer, details the fundamental lack of evidence and shoddy police work behind the accusation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Martin Amis|title=Lionel AsboHilary Taylor|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nastyWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, self-centred central characters. Usually sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at 're held when you need to pick the polar opposite in terms of classchildren up. He's violent Her husband, Christopher, uncouth collects six-year-old Hannah and ignoranther elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. He Thelma's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bullsdaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. His 'manner' Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a tower block real bond with his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character parish - and she's in awe of the book. Desvicar, Gail, in contrast is far but then she's been doing the job for more sympathetic - intelligent than thirty years. Rachel and kind, Christopher hoped that is if you overlook a walk on the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's motherbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. Hey, no one's perfect And then Hannah went missing. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben Fountain1398515388|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk''First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, Billy which created the tsunami and what is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from this, in turn, caused the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistsnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The US armydeaths were uncountable, keen to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next week. The majority of many pets were separated from their owners came far down the book takes place on the last day list of this tour when Billy is in his homepriorities but -state of Texas, where six months after the Bush link makes it even more protsunami -war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American of PR events, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadiumKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Accompanying the troop is He wasn't a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised dog person but the soldiers convenience store owner's comment that he can sell their story would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simpleopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L R Fredericks0989715337|title=Farundell|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=American Paul Asher is damaged by memories and dreams originating from World War I, or at least he thinks that's where they're from. Once the war is over and, as he's estranged from his father in the US, Paul decides to remain in the UK to find work. Work comes to him as he's asked to assist Lord Percy Damory at Farundell, the Damory ancestral home. Paul's job is straightforward: Sir Percy needs someone to whom he can dictate memoirs of a well-travelled life among distant tribes. However Paul's life at Farundell will be anything but straightforward thanks to the Damorys' apparent eccentricities, an ancestor from the 18th century who refuses to be labelled as a ghost and, of course, there's Sylvie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854328X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=L R Fredericks|title=Fate|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the 18th century and 11 year old Francis Damory is spoken to by great great grandfather, Tobias. Nothing odd except that Tobias is dead and speaks via a portrait in Farundell, the family's Oxfordshire home. Hence begins the obsession that will take the adult Sir Francis across the world and through a lifetime of adventures to track Tobias down. The longer Francis looks, the more he realises that Great Great Grandfather isn't dead and that, therefore, Francis wants whatever he's Papa on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854331X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)|title=Every Day, Every Hour|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friends. In normal situations one might add ''and a whole lot more'' to that sentence, but Dora and Luka are in Kindergarten, which makes their intense relationship hard to define. As they grow into adults, however, it becomes obvious that there is something between them and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight this it is there and is not going to fade away. Dora’s parents move her across the continent, careers develop and flourish, out of nowhere they are enveloped by family lives, but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back to one another.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Alissa Walser and Jamie Bulloch (translator)|title=MesmerizedMarco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A BBC film crew is sent to India to make a documentary about an Indian prison with a difference. There are no walls, the prisoners hold down jobs and their families live with them as a condition of acceptance. In fact, to all intents and purposes, it seems like an ordinary village which is all the more unusual when you consider that they all share the same crime category; all the prisoners have been convicted of murder. The programme makers (20-something British-born, Indian director Ray, ruthless producer Serena and ex-convict-turned-presenter, Nathan) are expecting an eventful shoot and, in return, ''Some frogs had gotten into the inhabitants are expecting a film unit exhibiting the standards for which the BBC has become world famous. Both parties will be sorely disappointedwell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917087</amazonuk>}}''
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There's a fair chance that if you pick up a South American novel, it's going to score quite highly on the 'seriously odd' scale. Martín Kohan's School for Patriots, translated by Nick Caistor, The summary of this book doesn't disappoint in that regard. The main character, María Teresa, is an innocent, shy teaching assistant at a Buenos Aires school that is run on military academy style discipline. The running of the school is itself something of a surprise but that's not come close to explaining what makes this strange. What ramps up the 'odd' factor here is that she spends vast amounts of this short novel hiding in the boys' loo, ostensibly to catch young boys smoking despite there being no evidence that any student has contravened this rule in this location. One might say she has nothing to go on. Then again, best not in done with the circumstancespremise. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687438</amazonuk>1913097811}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Alonso Cueto Sally Oliver |title=The Weight 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 Frank Wynne (translator)pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=The Blue HourThis World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Adrian OrmacheEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, middle class Peruvian lawyer, has a beautiful wife, two daughters of the sort to make any parent proud and a comfortable lifestyledelight. His parents divorced when he was small so, as he lived I will agree with his mother, he has fragmented memories of the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a gruff, distant dad. Despite his fatherdelight's aloof, dictatorial manner, Adrian has always comforted himself with is perhaps using the fact he played expression in a useful role as a land-bound naval officer, fighting Senderista terrorists for the good of Peruway I'm not familiar with. After I have to confess my ignorance of the death of his mother everything changesSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Adrian finds documents that lead him away from his beliefsFrom the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards a truth that will shatter more than his father's imagethe fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434019410</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Once wealthy, middle class Australian suburbanite Marie King never thought she'd be starting a new life at 59 but here she is, divorced and having to sell Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the marital homeheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. UnfortunatelyCassandra, attached to the marital home is the marital garden into which Marie didn't only give life but also pour her own life. HoweverClytemnestra, Marie tries to be positive and decides that if she's going to be a new person, she may as well go Elektra are all bit players in the story of the whole way. This means tattoos (much to her offsprings' horror) and an unlikely friendship with tattooist RhysTrojan War. With Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that comes often the realisation that silent women have the privileged suburb of Mossman isn't all there is to Sydney. There's much more to most compelling stories and the city, and indeed herself, than she first thoughtmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857894129</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jude Morgan8409290103|title=The Secret Life of William Shakespeare|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Books about Shakespeare vary hugely both in terms of approach and quality. Some focus on historical fact, while others play rather more loosely with the romance of his life. Fortunately for readers, Jude Morgan's books are rather more reliably excellent. What's more, he has a track record of fiction that concerns great writers, having previously tackled the Brontës (''The Taste of Sorrow'') and the romantic poets (''Passion''). So my expectations were already quite high coming into his ''The Secret Life of William Shakespeare'' - expectations that he has again surpassed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755358228</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewIf Only|author=David Vann|title=DirtMatthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We're back in the midTwenty-nineteenone-eighties in a suburb of Sacramento and Galen lives with year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his mother accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the family walnut farm. The farm's not what it boat and thereafter Patrick was, largely having been left to its own devices since the death of Galen's abusive grandfather some years beforesend him a monthly allowance. Galen's ''father'' is something Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of an unknown quantity sorts - his mother won't even discuss who he was or tell Galen anything sprang up between the two although we hear more about him, but then she's able what Lowry has to shut her mind to most things which she finds unpleasantsay than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn'Hert care for his son, it was that he didn'' mother has been moved from the farm t care to have him in this country where he might be a nursing home - she's still quite active but her memory is goingdanger to his wife and other children. Suzie-Q's sister, Helen is determined The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get her hands the young man on the family money for the benefit of her seventeen-year-old daughter, Jenniferhis way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021962</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck Palahniuk|title=Invisible Monsters Remix|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary='Don't expect this to be the kind of story that goes: and then, and thenAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and then.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk books, upon his first, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British success, and never got round to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marie N'Diaye and John Fletcher Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Three Strong Women|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As it says on the tin, this powerful novel revolves around three women, connected by their strength and two countries and diverse cultures (France and Africa) but also other, more subtle factors. (More of that later.) First there's lawyer, Norah, returning to Africa at the behest of her estranged father. There has never been love lost between them, mainly because her father prefers to ignore his female offspring; therefore his reason for the summons Red is a mystery, until... The second story is that of African teacher, Fanta, forced by an event beyond her control to leave Africa and settle in France with her husband Rudy. Then the final section belongs to Khady, widowed after three years of marriage and sent to France by her Cinderella-esque mother-in-law. As Khady's status as a childless widow is financially unattractive, it has been deemed that she would be of more use sending money back from Europe... once she has entered France as an illegal immigrant.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050567</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marcello Fois|title=Memory of the AbyssMy Heart
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are on Sardinia, over a hundred years ago. It is a land of legend, where storytellers can see a different nature to the moon each night [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and convey that read in their earthly storiesmy house. It's a world of wonderAnd so was this one, where sheep can fall from the skies for although I could have spelled that more than accurately – this one reason. It's a poor landwas, where lads are expected to be responsible shepherds by the time they are ten. As a result people look after each other - exceptand is, while returning from a Christening Samuele black and white and his father are refused basic hospitalityred. Later when the boy runs away one night the land falls away beneath him - yet Yes, he finds a girl to ground him to has an artistic collaborator on this earth. Which is most relevant when he goes to warpiece, and particularly when he comes back and finds himself a wronged man, and in need I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of vengeance..some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>1913547183
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Thuy and Sheila Fischman (translator)B098FFFBH9|title=RuSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Everyone of Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a certain age will remember competition entry to highlight the American withdrawal from Vietnam way in 1975which human beings exploit the animal world. This was the answer to years She gets a great deal of student protests support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and the prayers of many US parents who saw sons like theirs drafted to war only to return in body bags. As far as the west was concernedher twin, the suffering was overNick. However, for Kate runs the Vietnamese peoplefamily business, the suffering continued as the Khmer Rouge and then the invading Cambodians killeda toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, tortured and destroyed people who were just trying to survive. which is where we'll meet Rachel'Ru'' is written by and about one such persons main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685486</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Belinda SeawardYancey Williams|title=The Beautiful TruthCrosshairs of the Devil
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There are two parallel story lines Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in Belinda Seawardyears and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's ''The Beautiful Truth'': one set point of view - in room 315 of the present day and one Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in wartime Poland. Both involve love stories and personal struggles-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, and there are repeating themes such as horses and the stars that effectively provide links between the two in this clearly well-researched and engrossing narrativehis wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0719521114</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Noble0008421714|title=Tears of a PhoenixMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This is an incredibly gentle (and gently funny) love story set in The problem began just after the winter publication of 2008 when the Irish economy was booming and the US were about George March's most successful novel to elect their first black presidentdate. Hugh Everyone but Mrs March (a deliciously grumpy surgeonwe know her first name only on the last page) and his currently unemployed architect daughter Addie lived happily in an Irish seaside townseemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Ok, he'd broken both his wrists tripping over Addie's dog and Addie found it hard not Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to cry sometimesbuy olive bread but on that particular morning, but they were alright. Then one dayPatricia asked, out of as she was wrapping the bluebread, they receive a voicemail message from Bruno, a distant American relative who's just popped over 'but isn't this the ocean to say first time he'Hi!s based a character on you?' Remembering the last US relative who came to visit (it didn't go well) She mentioned that Johanna, Addie and Hugh decide to ignore the phoneprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''... and Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the front door... and fact that Johanna is the occupant whore of the bench seat across the roadNantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch... He's bound to go home eventually. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847445462</amazonuk>'
}}