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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah LevyMatthew Tree|title=Swimming HomeWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=JoeTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a poet drunk and Isabel, chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his war-correspondent wife artistic passions all failed miserably and their teenage daughter Nina rent a luxurious villa in the South who had endless crises of France and invite their friends Laura and Mitchell to join themself confidence. On their first day there Nina finds what appears So Tim applied himself to be a naked body floating in the swimming poolhis studies, but it's Kitty Finch. She pleads a mix-up over booking dates cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and when told that all the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers her the use of the spare bedroom at the villa. There's no obvious reason for why she does this, set himself high but what does become clear is that Kitty suffers from depression - and she's stopped taking her medicationachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276029</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi AldermanMosby Woods|title=The Liars' GospelA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In ''The LiarsWest isn' Gospel'', Naomi Alderman gives t the perspective of four people on dominant force it once was. Nobody in the recent death of a Jewish man named Yehoshuah, who West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is more commonly known these days by the anglicized name best course of Jesusaction. These perspectives include Miryam (Mary)Governments are flailing. A war here, the teacher's mother, Iehuda of Qeriot (Judas Iscariot)a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a one time follower of the man, Caiaphas, with precognition. Imagine the High Priest of the great Temple strategic advantage in Jerusalem and finally Bar-Avo, Barabbas, this asset; a rebel man who is determined to bring down the occupying Roman presencecan tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. What makes this such a remarkable book is That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the sheer visceral nature of the story tellingmost valuable asset in history. Each story is vividly toldImagine then, and Alderman evokes the time and place to such a level that you half expect this man loses this ability. What would governments do to have developed a sun tan while reading the book.get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091990X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pat Barker0571379559|title=Toby's RoomThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Elinor Brooke and her brother Toby had always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is acceptablethe story of four people. The trick thenTess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, as Toby saidbut instead, was to get back to how their relationship was before. Toby concentrated she lives in the house on calling her 'sis', whilst Elinor was never quite certain how they could turn the clock back to a time when they were more innocent. But looking backriverbank, the summer built of 1912 would seem idyllic: in 1917 Toby was reported 'Missingbroken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, Believed Killedit'. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was a fellow student of hers at s stood the Slade School passage of Art and who was in the fox hole when Toby met his fate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144574</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeanette Winterson|title=The Daylight Gate|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=1610s Lancashiretime, storms and Alice Nutter is the best landowner you could wish forfloods. SingleHer husband, rich and connectedRichard, she takes no sides in the religious schisms James I has inheritedstruggles to grow his vegetables, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress complete the poor, putting them up delivery rounds - and feeding them when no-one else willto bring in sufficient money. But those poor are seen as sinful by others They have twin boys - amoral, dirty in mind, body Sonny and spiritMax, and in league with the devilrainbow twins. And people are beginning to question AliceSonny's colouring reflects his mother's attitudes, choice of company - and ageless beautyJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. This, thenPeople don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is the based-on-truth story of how Alice Nutter got to be one of the accused in the Pendle Witch trialsout with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099561859</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tupelo HassmanClaire North|title=GirlchildHouse of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Rory Dawn Hendrix (RD for short) lives with her mother in the ironically named Calle de las Flores or Street of Flowers; a pretty name masking a less than idyllic setting. For Calle is a trailer park for those living a life sentence of poverty, the inhabitants being as upwardly mobile as their static, seedy homes. RD has half brothers but they live with their father, leaving RD to live alone with her mother and nearby grandmother, a father being a luxury that Rory Dawn has learnt to live without. Rory Dawn is also a Girl Scout and has a handbook to prove it but she's in a troop of one, alone with the ideals of an organisation that she only glimpses through disadvantage and in the same way that she glimpses the materialistic world beyond her means. However, her mother wants 'What could matter more for her than the teen pregnancies that seem to have become their family heirloom and there is hope as RD is highly intelligent; but can this be enoughlove?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178087104X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anita Desai|title=The Artist of Disappearance|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist of Disappearance'' is a collection of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set in modern day India, all involve some looking back in time and all three involve some consideration of the creative art - who it is for, what happens to it once it leaves the artist's control and who 'owns' it. Most of all, each one is beautifully written, with strong characters and evocative descriptions of personal loss. In terms of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in the story just as much as if you had read a novel of more conventional length.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonKay Chronister|title=The Book Lover's TaleDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=General Dystopian Fiction|summary=Matt will admit With a world that his writing career failedis becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, and so he had to join his wife in interior designpost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, where he can use his love a world devoid of books to arrange - at water or a cost - the contentsnuclear holocaust, design and this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most importantly the colours, of upper class peopleexistential fears. ''s home libraries for them. HeDesert Creatures'll concede that it's by Kay Chronister is a good way to get into new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the houses, and beds, of rich women, such as his latest flame, Claudiafears that exist for humanity today. But why It is this, his confession, talking of murder?a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=John BanvilleEric LaRocca|title=Ancient LightThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=The narrator in John BanvilleHorror 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 's ''Ancient LightBig Bad'' , whether that is Alex Cleavea home invader, a stage actor in the curtain call of his career. For reasons that become clearer towards monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the bookstory, he beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is recalling his first relationship, when as a teenager collection of short stories more interested in 1950s Ireland, he had a passionate affair with the mother horrors of his best friendillness, grief and humiliation. However, his past is also blighted by recollections of his own daughterHorrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''s suicide ten years previously.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920614</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David RainMadelaine Lucas|title=The Heat of the SunThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=David Rain is far too young ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be writing this exquisitely. Thata light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity's all I'm going to say.
}}
{{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.''
''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersJennifer Saint|title=The Vintage and the GleaningAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Smithy''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, a retired sheep shearerI vowed. I would take my place, now works on a vineyard not just in the countryside of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire and too ill from the after effects name of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to the physically arduous world of shearing, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and daughter-in-lawgoddess. Meanwhile rumours abound about It was for the deeds sake of local thugmy name, Brett Clayton and, whether true or not, he's definitely someone to be avoidedtoo. However, when BrettAtalanta's wife Charlotte leaves him and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without a second thought. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him to remember his own past and dreams. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michel HouellebecqAmanthi Harris|title=The Map and the TerritoryBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jed MartinPadma, initially a photographer and later painteryoung Sri Lankan, has a singular take returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the world and his craftsouthern coast of her home country. This novel takes him from obscurity as is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a reclusive student to fame as place she was born into, but the doyenne one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the contemporary art scene Villa, how it became her home, and in this journey we see exposed both the underlying values but in many ways machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the essential emptiness of the art world. He is 'taken up', feted and courted by critics and patrons, by those who know nothing but monetary value, and Houellebecq doesnscore''t let any opportunity for a sharp gibe at galleries, art critics this gentle and agents go pastyet subtly violent novel. The key to Jed Padma's fame is ironically his complete anonymity, present fails to escape her past and Houellebecq’s creation of much like the catarrh dribbling agent Marylin who manages Jed’s ‘outing’ is one musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the classics of modern satireVilla. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554577</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jose Saramago178563335X|title=Cain|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Death is only the beginning, or so some say, and the first death of one human at the hands of another - Cain's slaying of Abel with what always seemed an unlikely murder weapon - is the start of this excoriating drive through what Cain felt when set against the god that both snubbed his sacrifices and allowed, despite alleged omnipotence, the murder in the first place. Riding a donkey, this Cain takes up life as personal guard and lover to Lilith, but also leaves the Land of Nod for diverse Old Testament locations, where he sees the stories of the golden calf, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah and more at first hand. All they ever do is make him realise the gulf between what god is supposed to benevolently embody, and how he acts.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552248</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Sarah Quigley|title=The Conductor|rating=5|genre=Historical 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 of living in Stalinist Leningrad. However, 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 Leningrad. Shostakovich then realises, just as gradually, that his music may serve a purpose to sustain his compatriots in the absence 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 heritage. He therefore turns to Karl Eliasberg, the aspiring but third rate conductor of a cobbled together orchestra. Music can create miracles but, for Eliasberg and his musicians, being able to play it will be the biggest miracle of all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190880002X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Umberto Eco|title=The Prague Cemetery|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=If the popular press is to be believed, then those of us who write book reviews do so to show off our own (non-existent) talents as writers whilst trying to condemn the abilities of far greater worth. Well, not quite. I would not pretend to have a tiny iota-fragment of the talent that Umberto Eco has. Nor would I seek to decry his latest opus. On the other hand, I am an ordinary reader – one moreover that enjoyed The Name of the Rose immensely – and I really struggled with ''The Prague Cemetery''. I didn't struggle to get through it. It is actually quite an easy read, if you just read the surface of it. I did struggle to see the point of it. It may well just be me. I put my hands up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555972</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Thompson|title=Communion TownHilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Communion Town – one city but it may as well be many as each personWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's perception of it is coloured by their experiences within ita trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Each chapter introduces us to a different storyHer husband, Christopher, a different viewpoint collects six-year-old Hannah and thereforeher elder brother, Jamie, practically whilst Rachel holds a different citysobbing parishioner. Starting with the ominousThelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, creepy story of Nicolas, through stories encapsulating such themes as recaptured friendship, murder and an enigmatic take on the life of Norfolk coast, is a private investigatorlovely place, we start but Rachel is struggling to piece together develop a real bond with the nature parish - and she's in awe of Communion Townthe vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing. or do we?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007454767</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Austin Ratner1398515388|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 Boy and shoddy police work behind the accusation.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Martin Amis|title=Lionel Asbo|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nasty, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. He's violent, uncouth and ignorant. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block with his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character in the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent Seishu Hase and kind, that is if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkAlison 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>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin KohanDaisy Hildyard|title=School for PatriotsEmergency
|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
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fannie FlaggJennifer Saint|title=I Still Dream About YouElektra|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=At the age of 60, Maggie Fortenbury's glory days seem to have passed her Elektra' by. An ex-Miss Alabama, she headed for Jennifer Saint tells the fame she dreamt story of three women who live in 'the Big Apple' and ended, instead, making disastrous life choices that took her along a different route. However she had made one good decision: to work for the diminutive Hazel Whisenkott, midget and founder heavily male dominated world of Red Mountain RealtyAncient Greece. NowCassandra, as Hazel is deadClytemnestra, and despite her friendship with her colleagues (obese, optimistic Brenda and moaning Ethel), suicide seems Elektra are all bit players in the story of the next logical stepTrojan War. It has to be done correctly as Maggie comes from an era when you wouldn't want to let anyone down or any commitment unfulfilled. Therefore picking her final day becomes increasingly difficult when other things get in Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the way, including a troupe of Whirling Dervishesmost extreme furies. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555484</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fiona McGregor8409290103|title=Indelible InkIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Once wealthyTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, middle class Australian suburbanite Marie King never thought she'd be starting a new life at 59 but here she iscotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, divorced to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and having thereafter Patrick was to sell the marital homesend him a monthly allowance. Unfortunately, attached to Patrick sent the marital home is money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the marital garden into which Marie two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't only give life but also pour her own life. Howevercare for his son, Marie tries to be positive and decides it was that if shehe didn's going t care to have him in this country where he might be a new person, she may as well go the whole way. This means tattoos (much danger to her offsprings' horror) his wife and an unlikely friendship with tattooist Rhys. With that comes the realisation that the privileged suburb of Mossman isn't all there is to Sydneyother children. There's much more The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the city, and indeed herself, than she first thoughtyoung man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857894129</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jude MorganAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Secret Life of William ShakespeareRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Books about Shakespeare vary hugely both [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in terms of approach and qualitymy house. Some focus on historical factAnd so was this one, while others play rather although I could have spelled that more loosely with the romance of his life. Fortunately for readersaccurately – this one was, and is, Jude Morgan's books are rather more reliably excellentblack and white and red. What's moreYes, he has a track record of fiction that concerns great writersan artistic collaborator on this piece, having previously tackled the Brontës (and I think it''The Taste of Sorrow'') and s possible to say not one page lacks the romantic poets (''Passion''). So my expectations were already quite high coming into his ''The Secret Life influence of William Shakespeare'' - expectations that he has again surpassedsome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755358228</amazonuk>1913547183
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David VannB098FFFBH9|title=DirtSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We're back in the midFourteen-nineteenyear-eighties in a suburb of Sacramento and Galen lives with his mother on the family walnut farm. The farmold Rachel is her school's not what it was, largely having been left animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to its own devices since highlight the way in which human beings exploit the death of Galen's abusive grandfather some years beforeanimal world. Galen's ''She gets a great deal of support from her family: father'' is something of an unknown quantity - his Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother won't even discuss who he was or tell Galen anything about himKate and her twin, but then she's able to shut her mind to most things which she finds unpleasantNick. ''Her'' mother has been moved from Kate runs the farm to family business, a nursing home - shetoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we's still quite active but her memory is going. Suzie-Qll meet Rachel's sister, Helen is determined to get her hands on the family money for the benefit main (if unsuspected) source of her seventeen-year-old daughter, Jenniferinformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021962</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukYancey Williams|title=Invisible Monsters RemixCrosshairs of the Devil
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary='Don't expect this to be the kind of story that goes: Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and then, despite his strenuous objections and thenthanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, and then.from Eddie' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple s point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Palahniuk booksEden nursing home, upon his firstwith only a trusty nursing aide, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British successJenkins, and never got round to reading themfor palatable company. And then the book reviewing gods conspired Nothing is going to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tellkeep Eddie from his stock-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tellin-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through trade of writing though, so here, for his past works. But then he revised Invisible Monstersreaders, are his wanderings through his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it after alllife's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marie N'Diaye and John Fletcher (translator)0008421714|title=Three Strong WomenMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=As it says on The problem began just after the tin, this powerful publication of George March's most successful novel revolves around three women, connected by their strength and two countries and diverse cultures to date. Everyone but Mrs March (France and Africawe know her first name only on the last page) but also other, more subtle factorsseemed to either be reading it or had already done so. (More of Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that later.) First there's lawyerparticular morning, NorahPatricia asked, returning to Africa at as she was wrapping the behest of her estranged father. There has never been love lost between thembread, mainly because her father prefers to ignore his female offspring; therefore his reason for ''but isn't this the summons is first time he's based a mystery, until... character on you?'' The second story is She mentioned that of African teacherJohanna, Fanta, forced by an event beyond the principal character had 'her control to leave Africa and settle in France with her husband Rudymannerisms''. Then Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the final section belongs to Khady, widowed after three years fact that Johanna is the whore of marriage and sent to France by her CinderellaNantes -esque mother-in-law. As Khady's status as 'a childless widow is financially unattractiveweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, it has been deemed that she would be of more use sending money back from Europeunloveable wretch... once she has entered France as an illegal immigrant.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050567</amazonuk>''
}}
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