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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|author=P Robert SmithOnyi Nwabineli|title=Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy EndingsAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri'Sunday Daffodil s childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. 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 take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and Other Happy Endings'' secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the sort new focus of book you finish with the feeling that youOphelia've just read something with a million different meaningss online empire. Don't be surprised if you feel like you should start the whole thing again but with your brain more fully engaged Can she save her sister, and perhaps that's herself and her relationship with her father at the whole point.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535238</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Isabel Ashdown1529153298|title=GlasshopperThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Thirteen-year-old Jake It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is just like any other boy on the cusp of puberty: new music and Saturday jobs are at the top of his agendaPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, while girls are the strange exotic creatures that must be looked at but honestly...) She's not touched (particularly his pretty Classics teacher)what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. But behind closed doors Well, Jake struggles they've been murdered, but to cope with his motherhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's ongoing battle with depression and alcoholismoverheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. His father moved out When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a few weeks agofrightening, foreign place, best avoided. So has his older brother For Miv, Matthew. That leaves Jake as the man of the house: the one who must remember to get him and little brothermove would mean leaving her best friend, AndySharon, up in time for school in the morning; the one making toast for dinner; and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the one keeping a watchful eye over his mother dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to make sure she doesn't get herself into any serious troubleanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954930975</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Colquhoun1035906708|title=Beyond ReasonDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Beyond Reason'' is a deceptively complex novel - a black comedy about the conflicts within religion. The main focus We tend to think of the plotMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, Edward BunyanNew York, is a radical within the Church of England who is trying in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to take religion make it more manageable in a new (and rather amusing) direction the States. When she was back in order to Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the public interested in it again. Bunyan claims to have Nazi occupation by a direct link with God as well as spiritual powers, such as being able to levitate mother who mercilessly exploited her and read mindsmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, which leave his colleague and old college friend, Reverend Ralph 'Marmy' Marmaduke, unsure about both his friendship with Bunyan and his own religious beliefsJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529348</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Buckley Alexander McCall Smith|title=ContactThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dominic Pattison's life began The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to veer off course badly on all the online apps in providing a Tuesday in Maymore personal, tailored service. It's Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a fairly banal Tuesdaywhile. The kind Katie is coming out of Tuesday that Dominic probably experiences quite frequentlya break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. He feels And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the need Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to tell us about it. In detailcharm. AndKatie has no experience in running a business, sadlyor in match-making, not but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a particularly engaging style.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956003869</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Wayne J HarrisDean Koontz|title=Sins of the AngelThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary=Dr Gideon MatthewsBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, a shouty hellfire and damnation preacherhis house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has just delivered a sermon all about the evils of women being allowed into the church hierarchy andreally weird, on disturbing coffin-sized object to his way home afterwards, he and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is murdered. the thing that has trashed his house! The following day however he wakes up in hospital orthing is, actually, an angel called Gabriel finds himself inside Dr Matthews' body, able Benny is the very last person to recall Dr Matthews' memories and thoughts and feelings but acting now as himselfdeserve all this bad luck. Gabriel goes He is a little bit wild, finding himself overwhelmed by nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new feelings and desires he experiences in this bodyfriend, sinning lefta bad weather friend called Spike, right and centre and causing scandal at his every movewho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. He Spike is also wondering for what purpose going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he has been brought into this body , Benny, and finds that he is dreaming about Harper (a demon, someone waitress slash Private Investigator who is persuading an unknown monk to commit murders in Godfinds herself roped into Benny's name and wild adventure) can figure out who seems to be getting closer and closer to Dr Matthews in order to kill him too..exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1438994699</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen M IrwinKatherine Howe|title=The DarkeningA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book has the 'S' word written all over itHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. NoWhen she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, not sex - supernaturalshe decides to go and watch. SoEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, itHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's got all things a bit spooky, not-quite-right, strange coincidences. They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit that when I read death at the blurb on the back cover with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groan. Not really my cup hands of teatwo vicious pirates. But IShe hides away, so that they don'm open-minded t find and Ikill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low'll read anything onces pirate ship as a cabin boy. I'm glad I did. Irwin She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is Australian. For some reason I haven't read too many books by Australian authorsa mutiny on board, so I was keen to get readingand from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751543969</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Kaplow1471180158|title=Me and Orson WellesMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Samuels sees everything Jamie Matson works in terms of an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a performance, through control freak with all the rose-tinted lens subtlety of the theatrical celebrities he listens to on the radioa half brick. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway stage through a chance encounter with Orson Welles Jamie's son, Bo, it seems as if all 'has his dreams may be about to come trueproblems'. He goes from being 's asthmatic and the more you read, the guy more you'll suspect that all he's on the girls see as autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a friend, one of frequent flier in the bookish kids at local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school, . Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the glamour of mingling with stars of the stagewrong. We follow Richard's struggle It was going to balance this newly discovered wonderland and his school life, not come to mention his disapproving mothera head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540193</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KisteB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Man on the MoorRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the summer of 1913 relations with Germany were deteriorating steadilystrange, but there didn't seem to be any connection with the international situation when a London clerkreclusive Bear, George Stephenshe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, was found dead in a country lane on the edge forests of Dartmoor. The moor had been his passion and heWashington'd always been keen to escape London and return to Devons Olympic Peninsula. It was an odd death but After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in all probability it would have been put down as an accident if George's mother had not announced that George was the son of the Kaiser. Despite her fondness for gin the story she told was oddly compelling human company, and when it was linked up armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm George's death seemed less strange, wild and less like an accidentrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances DaySarah Marsh|title=Dead Cat With FirelighterA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're in the world After a bout of modern artscarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. A couple who met at art college are on the verge Suddenly plunged into a world of breaking upsilence, as everything about her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptual, pompous bits of (almost literally) rubbish and nothinglife changes. We're also Living in a time when the world use of the wannabe stars and starletssign language was seen as something only savages do, trying Ellen is sent to make the jump a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre to Hollywoodsigning. And From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the background in both instances, are guru-type Svengalis, pulling strings, and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - deaf and using a lot more - to get their charges to famesystem called Visible Speech. And At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a bit complicated tangle of contract killing and murder on the sideespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Chamberlain1472263936|title=The Bay at MidnightFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts properly when It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a letter is discoveredpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. It will have devastating consequences for several families Her trip to the family apartment in up- and life will never market Kolonaki would be the same againfirst of several annual visits. ApparentlyShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, the wrong person Dina, but was convicted for a murderwary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Moreover, He was proud of his close connections to the writer of this letter appears Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to know who did commit this crimeaccommodate them. Unfortunately, the writer dies before able to make contact with the policeHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hazel McHaffie Dean Koontz|title=Right to DieAfter Death|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just onceMichael Mace, Head of Security, but for Naomiat a top secret biological research facility, Adam's death is just the beginningamong 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Coming across his personal Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, private diary of his time from diagnosis to subsequent demisehe has a sense that something very, she is forced very bad has happened to relive him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the awful months during which shrouded bodies of his body began to betray him dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his will to live was replaced with a will to diesenses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''..on his own terms Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Morag JossB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Night FollowingGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the discovery that her husband has been having an affair, a middlevillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lane, killing Ruth Mitchell, an elderly cyclistlike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The woman doesn't wait for black wood of the police to arrive; she goes home forest provides heat and parks her car in the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognition. When her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes it's been done to punish him warmth, roofs on homes, and he packs his bagseven gallows, if needed. After a few days the woman goes to the home The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the dead woman; she doesn't go to village and that is the doorreason Volushka, but from a hidden spot nearby she can see the widowerdrunken, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping well. Wracked with guiltself-indulgent, the woman makes lazy lout of a decision: the only way she can atone for her actions man is to step into the shoes of the dead womantolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley JacksonB0BYF82CXT|title=The Haunting of Hill HouseSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There was a time before Stephen King. There was time before ''The Shining''. There was Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a time depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when 'horror' was not rooted in bloodTerry and Fiona – glamorous, guts successful and gorevery much in love – move in next door. I owe a slight apology to Mr KingDespite their different outlooks on life, because along with the gutsier side of the genrecouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, I will own that he is a master at suspenseand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian BarnesShalini Boland|title=Staring at the SunThe Silent Bride|rating=43|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle LeslieAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, hyacinths funny; total and golf teesutter husband-material. It's perhaps best forgotten She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, but Jean doesn't forgetconfident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. Uncle Leslie figures large in her life - mostly on When the golf course much- until anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the War comes aisle by her father, beaming with pride and he runs away excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to America. Heface his approaching bride, Alice's replaced by Tommy Prosser, a grounded pilot world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who once saw the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy man at the altar is replaced by Michael, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less who is waiting for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroombecome his wife. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Russell Celyn Jones1787636003|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change WalesIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Life is different in many ways Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty- there's a newfour-butyear-old social order built on feudalism Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and horsepower is the main means of transportby that time she was obsessed by him. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one another, towns still have sink estates Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, rich boys still have too much time looking after his interests on their hands the island and precious little meaning in their livesparticular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen SheersAmanda Craig|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Three Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry JohnsFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if heThere's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an ounceimage of the country as it stands in one particular moment. Just donTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman s practically synonymous with a share the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there gift for a customary break, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-weaving the ongoing issues of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancer. He manages to tread both on day into the toes lives of his local colleague and some Greek rivals. And when a rival her characters in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up. It's a big stone way that hides himfeels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revengeinstead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Rice152915118X|title=Angel TimePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toby O'Dare 'Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is an extremely efficient hit man with married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a passion for musicStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, history asks Cord and playing his beloved luteSasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. He Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won's also something t need any of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years agothe furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. One day while on Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemptiont the reality. Toby agrees Darley and Georgiana start to become call Sasha 'the Angelgold digger'. She's human instrument and help save lives rather than take themliving in ''their'' family home. He is sent on an assignment They use it so often that they abbreviate it to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century England'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E SmelcerEmily Critchley|title=The Great DeathOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, they brought but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunityhis family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. At However, Edie is tormented by the beginning memory of the twentieth centuryher childhood friend, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measlesLucy, smallpoxwho went missing over 60 years ago, and influenza. No community the worry that there was a secret she was sparedkeeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. In most cases, half of a village After 'seeing's population died within a week. In some casesLucy in the high street, there were no survivors. It just as she was the end last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of an ancient way of lifememories coming back to her. Natives still refer to the dreadful period And yet as she remembers the Great Deathpast, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendMadelaine Lucas|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living''Love, quite literallyI'd read, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believe, be a light and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' showweightless feeling, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year but I had always longed for the Moles, and theregravity's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave Eggers0008506337|title=The Wild ThingsGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet MaxThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults, or dislikes his Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's motheras 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's new boyfriend, or gets influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a bit feisty when he feels glittering career. In the need for revengeevent, I am certainly understating they eloped and Richard took her away from the factsIsle of Wight. He is Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a bit well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of a rascal to say the leastWight. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Nickels 1914585402|title=Another Kind of LovingDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mike Hennessy was a journalist whose speciality was the war-torn parts of the world and October 1992 found him in Sarajevo visiting a childrenI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's home to get Only One Danny Garvey]] a story. The orphanage was on the right side couple of town – away from the main barrage – but years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it had few other advantageswas. There It was no heat a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and little food or water, but rereading my review of it my main takeaway was here that he found Jasminka, part Serb, part Bosniak and eleven or twelve years old. In a phone call to his wife Mike suggested that perhaps Jasminka could come and stay with them for a whileI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=rashbreLucy Ashe|title=The Triangle|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Brian's trip to the art gallery was a treat, courtesy of a private ticket from a friend and the white room was much better than the last gallery he'd visited. It was, though, to be his last such visit as he was silently knifed by a professional hit man. His friends were stunned, not just at his death, but at the way in which it had come about. What could Brian have been doing to attract ''that'' sort of attention? Jake had given him the ticket Clara and it dawned on him that he had been the target rather than Brian. Some recent events clicked into place…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425171893</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laura Solomon|title=An Imitation of LifeOlivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are introduced to sisters, twins no less. Identical on the baby girloutside but not, Celia with a detailedwe learn, blow-by-blow account of her dreadful physical condition, from her unusual eyes, her even more unusual teeth, her lumpy body and on the ever-growing hump inside. And not on her shoulder. Forget the Elephant Manstage, here we have elephant babyeither. Everything is stacked against herBecause there's a lot that builds a dancer. She is abandoned by her motherSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', her father is unknown. And as if all that wasndon't enough to make you weepcome from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, she is unceremoniously dumped on a doorstep - to die. But she doesn't'joie de vivre''. She lives. And what an extraThe difference between a hard-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out for herworker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tamsin Reeves Heather Fawcett|title=A Place Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of SafetyFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There are lots of reasons Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to take in a lodger for your spare roomwrite her life's work, but for Martha one of the best is to get one up on her recently departed scoundrel very first encyclopaedia of an ex-husbandfaeries. And it's not like her financial situation Whilst she is looking too rosy since he left her for another woman – a woman who brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is also pregnant not so good with his childpeople. The fact that her lodger So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is a Henot sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and that he's a Foreigner (and from Afghanistan, no less) is just the icing put her final investigations for her book back on the cakeright track. Colin's going to be furious Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Martha candelight, much to Emily't waits frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849231370</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1398515388|title=The Comfort of Saturdays Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (Isabel Dalhousie 5translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As always with Alexander McCall SmithFirst of all, it was the earthquake, this fifth book deep in the Sunday Philosophy series benefits from being read ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in sequence with turn, caused the previous titlesnuclear meltdown. One of the beautiful aspects of his writing is that his characters develop slowlyThe result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, gently, over the series so although you could probably dive in here and get a fair idea of his style you really should start at the beginning to thoroughly enjoy the pleasure loss of an AMS readlivelihoods was widespread. In this episode Isabel is busy taking care The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of her son, Charlie, looking priorities but - six months after her niece Cat's delicatessen, editing the review and struggling with her own personal fears over her relationship with Jamietsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. And she wouldnHe wasn't be Isabel if she didn't, somehow, get entangled in someone elsea dog person but the convenience store owner's problems, someone else's life, comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and here she finds herself trapped into investigating Tamon the case of a doctor whose career has been ruineddog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120552</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt HiltonChristopher Bowden|title=Dead Men's DustMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Joe Hunter helps people. ThatChristopher Bowden's what he does. Helatest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's been around the block life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to say that he has learned a trick or two along the way might be something of an understatement. No-one really knows young nephew had had a much about Joe Hunter more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and certainly his past is not something that many would be brave enough it seems to him an obligation to poke around infind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340978236</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Imogen Parker Jennifer Mason|title=This Little WorldPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I haven't read the Here at Bookbag Towers, we first two books met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in the trilogy but that didn't spoil my enjoyment [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''This Little WorldPartitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder. They all stand alone as individual novels in their own right. Those readers who have already enjoyed the first two books will know most of the characters and will be keen to find out - what happens next.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552151548</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith Donohue Will Carver|title=Angels of DestructionThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In an opening chapter reminiscent of Cathy's ghostly appearance at the window in [[Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte|Wuthering Heights]], widowed Margaret Quinn opens her front door Five strangers come together in the middle of a wintry night to a half-frozen, waif-like child, Norah, who appears to have arrived out of nowhere. Lonely and withdrawn in the wake of her daughter Erica's disappearance many years earlier, Margaret takes in apparently-orphaned Norah, passing her off as her granddaughter. But Norah is no ordinary child…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086138</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Walter Moers |title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Naseem Rakha |title=The Crying Tree|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Irene Stanley had lived in Illinois all her life, on a farm which had been in her family for generations and where the boundary of the property was the Mississippi river. She had friends, family and her church in the area and it came as a shock when Nate came home one day and said that he was considering taking a job moment as a Deputy Sheriff in Oregon (that's pronounced ''Organ'' – only tourists say ''Or-ee-gon''). It wasn't long before they and their children, Shep and Bliss, made the long overland journey to their new home. Shep was a quiet boy, a talented musician but against his mother's expectations he settled into his new life well. Irene wasn't totally convinced, but accepted that life wasn't too bad for the family. That all changed when she was called home from work suicide bomber prepares to find that Shep had been murdered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230740847</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Johan Minto |title=The Virtuous Saint|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Dr Marcus Hoag has been searching for the lost Regula Monachorum of St Benedict for the last thirty five years and the fruits of detonate his research are recorded in a notebook which he carries with him. He's been searching for clues in stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals and the discovery of two previously unknown windows at his old university, St Peter's in New York, sets him vest on a journey to EnglandLondon tube line.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855756</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Claire Connor and G P Taylor |title=Rosie: Note to Self|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In the first of a five book deal Claire Connor, writing in partnership with GP TaylorAs their fates overlap, brings us a modern romance based loosely on the story of Ruth from the Bible. This is total chick-lit, and from the first few pages I thought it was just going to be a very light, funny romance story. However, the story quickly takes a depressing turn and the rest of the book is as much an exploration of grief as it is a romance novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1850788332</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Audrey Niffenegger |title=Her Fearful Symmetry|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=When Elspeth Noblin dies of Leukemia, she leaves behind a strange bequest that will have dramatic and tragic consequences. She leaves her London flat and all the trappings of her life to the 'mirror' twins of her own twin sister who currently live outside Chicago. This is news to the twins who didn't even know that they had an aunt. The only condition of her legacy is that the twins, Julia and Valentina, have to live told in the flat, which is adjacent to Highgate Cemetery, for a year before they can sell it. It is clear from the outset that Elspeth has secrets about her relationship with her twin sister Ediebackwards order, which she is keen leading up to keep hidden from the twins, but when it turns out that Elspeth hasn't quite left the apartment after her death, things get a whole lot messier for everyonefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224085611</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G Cottam |title=Dark Echo|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In Rouen in September 1917, a French detachment are guarding the Cathedral. Guarding it and using it as a barracks and still doing their best to treat it as a house of God. After all, you cannot make a fortress out of a place designed to be welcoming. One night the fog descends, thick and eerie, and reminiscent of the gas attacks in the trenches.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340953896</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Taylor Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Irish Country VillageElizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Barry Laverty is working for the older''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and somewhat irascible Dr Fingal O'Reilly-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, in a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the fictional Ulster village of Ballybucklebo. They2004 Olympics, their housekeeper Mrs Kinkaida women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, and the residents a billionaire with a state-of -the village were introduced -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in the book [[An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor|An Irish Country Doctor]]Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, which I haven't readx), so it took me on a few chapters to get into this novelcheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863224024</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Agnes Owens B0B2N7MVYM|title=The Complete NovellasCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jake Moore was It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Flying Squad but a bullet put paid to his career and ten years later heCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's running minds. The world has barely had a game-fishing business on the Kenyan coastchance to breathe out. Times are hard and thereBut for Joe Marr, it's every chance not the missile crisis that 's at the business will fold unless he and front of his partner, Harry, can find the money to pay their billsmind. He's been convicted of murder. Some strange things are happening in With the game fishing business too – one current state of their number medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has died spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a mysterious explosion on relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his boat roommate, Mervyn, and the body learning to be wary of a man who shouldn't have been aboard has been washed up on the shoreMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749928840</amazonuk>
}}
