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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Gerald WeaverOnyi Nwabineli|title=The First First Gentleman|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Anyone picking up ''The First First Gentleman'' might be forgiven for snorting with laughter and making a sarcastic comment about how timely and potentially satirical it sounds. In a way they’d be right – but probably for different reasons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993291759</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Liam Brown|title=Wild LifeAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|summary=Adam Britman goes from a man with it all Anuri spent her childhood on display to homeless in the sniff world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of a lineAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. While looking for somewhere Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to sleep Adam comes across an alternative community in take down the local parkcontent about her. They've come together Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and created structure (including an unofficial allotment) out receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of the disorder thatOphelia's normally equated with living on the streetsonline empire. It seems perfect so Adam joins themCan she save her sister, but perfection can sometimes be an illusion. As for walking away… that's not going to be easy.and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079700</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sabine Durrant1529153298|title= Lie with MeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary= Paul It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is lots of thingsPrime Minister. (A writerwoman? I mean, honestly... A famous name (or at least he was a few years ago) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. A bit of a snob Women have been disappearing. A cheapskate Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. A ladies Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South' man. And a liar. Oh boy When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is he a liarfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. He fibs For Miv, he exaggeratesthe move would mean leaving her best friend, he omitsSharon, he tells porkiesand she'll do anything to prevent that. Not She's not worried about the really big stuff, nothing dangers or that will hurt her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, just a few mistruths but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to see him throughAthens when she was thirteen. It Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for keeping up appearancesher elder sister, reallyJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473608333</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy JonesAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Trouble with Henry and ZoePerfect Passion Company|rating=34.5

|summary= Stop for The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a moment more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look down at your bellyafter the business, in the centre you should have something that looks as Ness is planning to take a little bit like trip to Canada to get away for a buttonwhile. It may be Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an innieEdinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or an outiein match-making, but just consider it for Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a few momentsterrifically bad day. Do you feel better? He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. NopeOh, you shouldnand someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it't do as all s possible that navel-gazing does whoever or whatever was inside is make you over think things. the thing that has trashed his house! HoweverThe thing is, without Benny is the concept very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a million romantic books would never be written as without nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the human compulsion delivery to destroy things around themhis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, how who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can any tension arise?figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471142469</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Carol ShieldsKatherine Howe|title= The Republic of LoveA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= The Republic of Love Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a mesh-like novelfamily who run an inn, peopled with and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a huge cast hanging of characters interwoven some pirates in familialthe town, friendly, neighbourly she decides to go and romantic relationshipswatch. Winnipeg Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, the city Hannah finds herself embroiled in which virtually all the action in Shielda young boy's novel takes place, ties them togetherdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. The story follows two single She hides away, thirty-something charactersso that they don't find and kill her too, Fay and Tomthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, who live opposite each other dressing as a boy and have a complicated array of mutual acquaintances but donjoining the notorious Ned Low't know each other. Shields alternates between their two points of view s pirate ship as they are slowly drawn togethera cabin boy. This is a domestic novel She soon finds herself in the best sense; thick of things when there is a focus mutiny on the beauty board, and mundanity of ordinary people's unremarkable lives in an unexceptional city, from Fay's satisfaction there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the pop sound and toasted crumb smell of her twin slice toaster, to Tom's ungainly Saturday morning jogsocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9462380899</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Penny Parkes1471180158|title= Out of PracticeMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=In a lastJamie Matson works in an upper-ditch attempt to save her failing marriageclass grocery store, GP Holly Graham relocates to for a man who's a control freak with all the charming village subtlety of Larkford with her family to work at a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the local practiceautistic spectrum. She finds life as a village doctor very different Sometimes Jamie needs to her previous role in take time off at short notice - she's a busy city hospital, and falls frequent flier in love with the close-knit community local A&E and its quirky residents. But just as Larkford is beginning sometimes Bo's not fit enough to feel like home, Holly is hit by a bombshell that threatens go to destroy everything she has worked so hard school. Missed shifts or the need to achieve. Can she rise be away on time to the challenge pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and fight for what she loves? Maybe she will discover something about herself put in the processwrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471153045</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven RowleyB0CKD1L5JL|title=Lily and the OctopusRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=Meet Ted FlaskPetr is an orphan. A middle-agedRescued by the strange, gay Los Angelinoreclusive Bear, he has is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the one love forests of his lifeWashington's Olympic Peninsula. While the fall-out of relationships After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with men sends him to therapyonly a pirate radio transmitter, he can rely Petr goes on Lilya journey through the forest, broadcasting the Dachshundstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. They've been together through thick and thin}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, ever since the little pup – the runt, no less – seemed to pick Ted outEllen Lark loses her hearing. Ted's sister's unusual marriage was almost marred by Lily being under the surgeon's knifeSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, at great expense – but on the whole they have everything about her life sortedchanges. He tries to writeLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, but Friday night Ellen is board games, Saturday night sent to a school where she is movie nighttaught to lip read, and Sunday night is pizza nightbut physically restrained from signing. OhFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and yes, Lily talks to Ted, either in ''FULLY! CAPITALISED! EVER! EXCLAMATORY! BARKS!'' or in regular speechusing a system called Visible Speech. OhAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and yesideas, Lily has an octopus on her headand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471154343</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Julie CohenAyura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=FallingThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=Here is the story of three women, from three generations within the same family. There is Jo, a forty year old single mother whose It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first husband died, and whose second husband ran off with their nannytrip to Greece. She is left caring for was alone: her older teenage daughtermother, LydiaGreek by birth, had left the family home and her two little onesrefused to return, Oscar but Mary and Iris, whilst harbouring Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a secret that she feels she cannot share with anyonepity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her daughter Lydia is trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the second female character, first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and as well as the usual teenage angst she is also dealing with grief, still, over her fatherfamily's deathmaid, Dina, anger with but was wary - and frightened - of her mother for her second disastrous marriagegrandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and her own very difficult secret that she is unable expected his family to talk uphold his values but saw no reason to anyone aboutaccommodate them. Finally thereHis prejudices included Helena's Honor who is Jored hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's mother in lawScottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, the mother Head of Jo's first husbandSecurity, at a top secret biological research facility, Stephenis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Honor Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a fallsense that something very, breaks her hipvery bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, and he realises that there is forced to move in with Jo for a time as she has no one else who something different about him; he can help her''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. She too Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is hiding isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a secret from Witching Forest. And the world, villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and as you read the story you begin to wonder if any its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of these characters actually know who the others areforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if any needed. The fear of them will ever start telling being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the truthreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784160636</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenn AshworthB0BYF82CXT|title=FellSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54

|summary=Now her parents have died, Annette returns to sell her old childhood home but there's work to do on the decrepit building first. As she wanders around 'Bill and tries to make some order Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of the overgrown shamblesboredom and disappointment, she's watched by the ghost of her motherwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, Netty; a spirit with regretssuccessful and very much in love – move in next door. Netty reminisces about Annette's childhood and the turning point Despite their lives reached when different outlooks on life, the mysterious healer Timothy Richardson came couples befriend each other and life appears to stayimprove for both pairs. It was a time that promised so much but one But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for which Netty now needs to make amends, even if she is beyond the gravetragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473630606</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jill CimentShalini Boland|title= Act of GodThe Silent Bride|rating= 4.53|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Act of God'' is Alice and Seth are a story about two ageing twins who find a worrying mushroom growing match made in their cupboardheaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a landlady searching for wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the spotlight inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and a Russian immigrant whose greatest fear the wedding is insignificanceplanned and set. What When the insurance company describes much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as an act of God brings she surveys the congregation – their already overlappedfriends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Brooklyn lives in Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to sharper focusbecome his wife. What do you do when disaster threatens? Is it survival of the fittest or should we love thy neighbour? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272119</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fredrik Backman1787636003|title=Britt-Marie Was HereThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary= Brett-Marie has never met a kitchen It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she doesnand Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't want exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to cleantake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. In fact, permanently armed with bicarbonate It was quite a while before he made any sort of soda physical approach to her and window cleaner, by that time she's always ready to clean anythingwas obsessed by him. Her husband Kent is an entrepreneurAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, you know, with excellent taste looking after his interests on the island and expensive clothes. Yet here she is, in Borg, a rundown small town, particular in search of her first job for 40 years. Life takes some odd turns sometimesthe bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473617200</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rodrigo Hasbun and Sophie Hughes (translator)Amanda Craig|title=AffectionsThree Graces

|summary=If you thought your teenaged years were a struggle to work out Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the world, and yourself, consider that state-of Heidi Ertl-the-nation novel. Or either of her sisters – this book serves as a sort There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of tribute to these three real-life women, and the lives that came out atmosphere of their very disjointed youth, forced to be rarefied from the norm by their family uprooting. Father Hans was one of Leni Riefenstahl's key cameramen, day and a Nazi military photographercapture it, before taking the whole family into post-war exile in Bolivia. Their mother would have followed him to the ends crafting an image of the earth – country as it stands in part one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would their daughters, be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the older two genre of which start the book by joining him on an expedition to discover a lost Incan citycontemporary social fiction at this point. Heidi finds young, instant love on the trek – but sees the dark side of She has such emotions, too. Older sister Monika, who might well be manic depressive, finds something else, while a gift for weaving the baby ongoing issues of the family stays at home with a maudlin mother. So much here could be day into the hook on which to hang lives of her characters in a full novelway that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but if anything it's the reaction of them all to this unusual formative journey that inspires this bookinstead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272135</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jemma Wayne152915118X|title= Chains of SandPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Chains of Sand ''Pineapple Street'' is a great read about family, faith, survival, and love. It follows the story of two young menthree women: Udi a veteran of the Israeli army who longs for a new future in LondonSasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and Daniel, a London banker unsatisfied with his life George are sisters and yearning for something more. The story focuses on their desires Sasha is married to change their lives brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by moving to different worlds and how this impacts their relationships with friends and familybirth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. As The problem's exacerbated when the story unfoldsclan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the two protagonists' histories are slowly uncovered Pineapple Street property. Tilda and they both Chip have renovated and downsized to overcome another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the difficulties furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in their new lives in order to achieve their dreams. Meanwhile Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the fate of star-crossed love between a Jewish girl reality. Darley and an Arabic man Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in Jerusalem a decade earlier intertwines with Daniel's life, complicating all 'their'' family home. They use it so often that he thinks has become clearthey abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079727</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marie-Sabine RogerEmily Critchley|title= Soft in the HeadOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 4|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= This novel will make you smile. It's a feel-good story84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, unusual in its premise and original. Germaine but now she is facing a 45 year old man who move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is illiteratestarting to lose her memory. He has a group of drinking friends who frequently make him However, Edie is tormented by the butt memory of their jokesher childhood friend, Lucy, a mother who calls him went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'half-witseeing'Lucy in the high street, amongst other thingsjust as she was the last time she saw her, and a girlfriend whom he appears afraid she starts to find pockets of committing memories coming back toher. Germain spends many afternoons in And yet as she remembers the parkpast, counting pigeons she is forgetting more and writing his name among the dead of the war memorialmore in her day to day life. It is here that he meets Margueritte, a tiny 85 year old woman who tells him Will she also counts uncover the pigeons.truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271589</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Gregory MaguireMadelaine Lucas|title= After AliceThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=When Alice fell down ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the rabbit holeyear-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, she found Wonderland as rife the narrator relives the affair with inconsistent rule and abrasive egos as a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the world she left behindsummer after. But how did Victorian Oxford react to AliceSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's departure? When Alicedeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's friend AdaLeary was all-consuming, mentioned briefly apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'Alice in Wonderlandan older man'. Her parents worried that Richard' sets out s influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to visit Alice, she arrives Oxford and having a minute too lateglittering career. Tumbling down In the rabbit hole herselfevent, she embarks they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on an odyssey to find Alice become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and bring her safely Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from this surreal world below the worldMargo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472230469</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Isabel Allende1914585402|title= The Japanese LoverDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= The Japanese Lover is an unassuming novel. The beginning leads the reader to anticipate an enjoyable light read, a good holiday I reviewed David F Ross's book perhaps – [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a very well plotted story with an interesting cast couple of characters years back and settingsremember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Irena, It was a Moldovan girl with elfin looks and a passion for fantasy novelsgripping, starts working in bohemian care home Lark House in San Francisco. She meets the stately and somewhat aloof Alma Belascoemotionally wounding read, whose story starts to unravel, beginning with her being brought over from Poland (just as Jews became increasingly vulnerable to the Nazis) to her wealthy aunt and uncle in Cliff House, San Francisco, as a little girl. Allende almost makes us think rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that this opening tone, entertaining but fairly shallow, will continue for the rest of the novelI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471152197</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Midge RaymondLucy Ashe|title= My Last ContinentClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Only at The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the end of the worldoutside but not, we learn, among on the glaciers and icebergs of Antarcticainside. And not on stage, do Deb and Keller feel at homeeither. For Because there's a lot that builds a few blissful weeks each year they study the habits of penguinsdancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, finding solace in their work attention to detail – and in each other. Yet Antarcticasome things, like their romancethat ''je ne sais quoi'', is imperilled by the world to that don't come from the northclassroom. A new season has begunstage presence, a charm, and the two play tour guide to the passengers on the expedition ship that ferries them to their research destinationa ''joie de vivre''. But when Keller fails to appear, Deb has to consider new feelings of love, lossThe difference between a hard-worker, and a voyage deep into both the Antarctic, and the human heartstar. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1501124706</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leah FlemingHeather Fawcett|title=The Last PearlEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life''I always thinks work, without the grit there would be no pearlvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. Sorrows have a way Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of strengthening Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the heartvillage matriarch, never forget thatshe is not sure what she has done, child.'' Greta Costello lives in in poverty with her mother nor how to redeem herself and siblings and must work as a skivvy to put bread her final investigations for her book back on the tableright track. She manages to find some joy in her work though Enter Wendell Bambleby, especially in her 'Sabbath' job working for a kindly old widowed Jew. The two become friends dashingly handsome and he offers to take her on as his apprenticeinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, stringing pearls. Could this highly-skilled job be her key to a better life? At the same time, many miles away in Scotland, Jem Baillie all charm and his father can't contain their delight when they discover a magnificent, flawless freshwater pearl at the end of a long day of fishingmuch to Emily's frustration. They call But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the pearl 'Queenie' and from that pivotal moment, the fates of Greta, Jem and Queenie will be inextricably linked.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471140970</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Matthew Stephen1398515388|title= BaturiThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= It's Nigeria and First of all, it's was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the 80s. Matthew is a VSOtsunami and this, in turn, on a placement at a college teaching electronicscaused the nuclear meltdown. Or trying to at any rate The result was complete and utter devastation. When language skills are limited The deaths were uncountable, and resources are scarce, you have to make the most loss of what you've got, even if livelihoods was widespread. The fact that means teaching many pets were separated from their owners came far down the odd class on American culture rather than rewiring. If I tell you that list of priorities but - six months after the ''Prime Directive'' applies tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a lot when youconvenience store. He wasn're t a VSO, youdog person but the convenience store owner'll appreciate the difficulties Matthew has when s comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his students want to stray further into car door and Tamon the modern world and learn about how things work in Britain, concepts of inventions such as ATMs that are decades off reaching Nigeria (Those days may still be some way off. I actually had a hand written bank card a few years ago while a VSO dog jumped in a country not too far away). |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00OISR3AK</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carys BrayChristopher Bowden|title=The Museum of YouMr Magenta|rating=54

|summary= It Christopher Bowden's latest novel is summera patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, school is carried out, the days are long, the bumblebees are big and blousy and the allotment where Clover helps by her dad with the vegetables needs weeding nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and watering. She likes the allotment; it helps her think. This summer, Clover is going to unravel the mystery a little bit of her mother, Becky Brookfield and work out what makes her father so sad. All the time. It's hard indulgence to be a kid with young nephew had had a dead mother, but Clover thinks much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it's even harder seems to him an obligation to be dad with a dead wifefind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959608</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Simon Van BooyJennifer Mason|title= Father's DayPartitions of Unity|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary=When devastating news shatters the life of six year old HarveyHere at Bookbag Towers, she finds herself in the care of a veteran social worker, Wandawe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and alone unintentional detective in the world save for one relative [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she has never met - investigated and unravelled a disabled ex-con, haunted by a violent past he canseries of disappearances. In 't escape. Moving between past and present, Father's Day weaves together the story Partitions of HarveyUnity''s childhood on Long Island, and she sets her life as mind to solving a young woman in Parismurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780749694</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela LambertWill Carver|title=Kiss and KinThe Daves Next Door

|summary=It's six months since the death of Harriet Capel's husband George. Looking back she's concluded that she was fond of, but probably not ''in love'', with him. They had two sons and it's the elder of these, Roderick who's married to Jennifer. They have three children, but there's been a rather silly feud between the Capels and Jennifer's family, the Gaunts, which dates back to the couple's wedding, when Clarissa Gaunt, Jennifer's mother said something unpleasant Five strangers come together in the church which dropped into one of those silences which always occur when you say something which you really shouldn't. Honours (or should it be ''dishonours''?) were even when George Capel later said something crass and vulgar about the bride's mother and was overheard.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1861514301</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Liz Fenwick|title= Under a Cornish Sky|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Under a Cornish Sky'' is the story of two very different women who are forced to work together to complete a common goal. Their personalities couldn't be more different, so expect fireworks along the way! Shy Demi is as timid moment as a mouse and although she is a skilled architect, she is never able suicide bomber prepares to succeed in her career because others take credit for her work. In relationships, she is easily manipulated into doing things she doesn't always feel comfortable with; detonate his vest on a fact that is not lost on her sleazy current boyfriend, MattLondon tube line. Lady-of-the-Manor VictoriaAs their fates overlap, on the other hand, simply oozes self confidence. Although she story is told in her sixtiesbackwards order, she has the body of a much younger woman and has no trouble getting men leading up to do exactly what she wants. Despite a long list of younger lovers providing a pleasurable distraction, her one true love is the family home of Boscawen, a glorious estate set in the picturesque Cornish countryside, not far from the seafateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409148289</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alison UmmingerJennifer Mason|title= My Favourite Manson Girl|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Fifteen year old Anna has had an excruciating year, topped off with new stepparents and a new school. So she ''borrows'' her family's credit card, and runs away to LA to crash with her sister. But Hollywood isn't the escape she needs, and it soon dawns on herPreposterous: she's trapped in a town full of lost souls and wannabes, with no friends, no cash and no return ticket. When her sister's obsessive ex offers her a job researching the murderous Manson girls for his next indie film, she accepts – albeit reluctantly. This is not quite the summer Anna had in mind; but the more she learns about the girls and her fate, the more she comes to understand her family – and herself. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472150848</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Louise Candlish|title=The Swimming PoolAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=''The Swimming Pool'' is the story of A struggling poetry zine, a woman mom- Natalie and- whose eyes are dazzled by pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a glamorous couple 400-meter hurdler who live nearby. Natalie and husband Ed have just missed the 2004 Olympics, a 13-year-old daughter, Molly, and are the kind of parents youwomen'd steer clear of at the school gates s track coach with a yen for fear of offending their politically correct sensibilities. Molly has bullwhips, a phobia of water. Rather than keep her away from rivers and pools, they subject her to billionaire with a childhood state-of therapy. They keep up with changes to Molly's phone code so they can check up on her messages. They don't believe in private education and they eat nutritionally supplemented pizzas. Louise Candlish pokes delicious fun at this couple, particularly at dull-asthe-ditchwater Ed whose moral rectitude stifles poor Natalieart S&M dungeon, desperate to break out of her mould. Enter Lara Channing. Lara is a champion synchronised swimmer and former starlet. Her beauty, wealth and warmth have man serving a magnetic attraction for Natalie who proves powerless to resist Lara's charmslife sentence in Alabama, although she is less sure of Lara's an enigmatic husbandsignature, Miles. The novel charts Natalie's journey as she is enticed away from Ed and into Lara'K(s web, and there is an increasing sense of unease as events unfold. Add to this heady mix a few additional ingredientsx), on a heatwavecheap oil painting, an outdoor pool and erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a gaggle sample of teenagers, the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you have a recipe for disastercan see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405927321</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kit de WaalB0B2N7MVYM|title=My Name is LeonThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey

|summary=Everything that is precious to Leon gets taken awayIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. His Action Man toysJust to put what happens in context, his home, his mum, and his brotherthe Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world seems utterly unfairhas barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, and so he sneaks 20p here, and 50p there, out it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of peoplehis mind. He's purses, whilst building up a rucksack full been convicted of all murder. With the things hecurrent state of medical knowledge, it's going hard to need when he finds think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his baby brother, and reunites his family. Through all his planning he still manages to find enjoyment first few days in small thingsHMP Queen's Bench, like a Curly Wurly, or riding his bike, or planting seeds with his relatively new friends on the allotments, but how will he cope when he finally faces the truth of his new life without his familyprison.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241207088</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Rufi Thorpe|title= Dear Fang, With Love|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= After seventeen year-old Vera He's mental breakdownjust getting used to his roommate, her father Lucas takes her on a trip Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the tiny Lithuanian town of Vilnius to recover and reconnect with their family historyMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472152158</amazonuk>