Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Danielle TrussoniOnyi Nwabineli|title=AngelologyAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Nephilim have lived among Anuri spent her childhood on display to the human race since before the days of the Great Flood. Horrific creaturesworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, the hybrid children where she posted every step of humans Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and angels, their strengthbasically, beauty monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and cruelty are unmatchedto get her life back, and they have infiltrated human society completelysuing her step-mother to take down the content about her. For centuries Anuri is battling alcoholism, a secret societyfailing to start her PhD, students in a branch of theology known as 'Angelology', have studied the ways of the heavens undergoing therapy and the Nephilim, secretly abusing people online and waged a secret war against receiving money from them – a war that has spanned every continentfor doing so. But the Nephilim grow weak Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, their blood contaminated by who is the blood new focus of their human ancestorsOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155580</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanne Harris1529153298|title=BlueeyedboyThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=BB - or It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'blueyedboys not what's worrying Miv' in his online persona - is a middle-aged man who lives with his mother in the Yorkshire town of Malbrys family, though. He has a dead-end job in a hospital although his mother would Women have it that he's of some importancebeen disappearing. BB has a way of escaping his rather boring life; he writes murderous fantasies on his website in company with other misfitsWell, they've been murdered, some of whom he knows in real lifebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. It might be fiction on Miv's upset because she'badguysrocks overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South' but he and Albertine share . When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a troubled history frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and BBshe'll do anything to prevent that. She's manipulation of friends and enemies causes his past not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to unravelanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385609507</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ned Beauman1035906708|title=Boxer, BeetleDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=According We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to the blurb for BoxerGreek parents in Manhattan, BeetleNew York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'This isa novel for people with breeding… It is clever. It is distinctive. Itis entertaining. We hope you are too.Callas' I like about half of to make it, more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly sodoes that mean I'm on she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the way to being those things?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340998393</amazonuk>Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Craig SilveyAlexander McCall Smith|title=Jasper JonesThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title and central character of this book, Jasper Jones Perfect Passion Company is a no-userdating agency in Edinburgh, a trouble-maker run by Ness and has, for some reason operating as an alternative to all the online apps in his hour of needproviding a more personal, sought help from an unlikely sourcetailored service. Charlie BucktinNess 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 while. Charlie Katie is coming out of a rather bookishbreak up with a bad boyfriend, quiet, unassuming teenagerand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And although both boys live in so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the town of CorriganIsabel Dalhousie novels, until now, they haven't spoken a word but with some new characters who quickly begin to each othercharm. They live Katie has no experience in different worlds. Until nowrunning a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, that is.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537540</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Thomas MullenDean Koontz|title=The Many Deaths of the Firefly BrothersBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The country Benny is in deep recessionhaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. The economy Oh, and someone has collapsed. The banks are hated delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and thereit's 'possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the next round of politiciansthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, assuring us they were not afflicted by Benny is the same lack of vision as their predecessors'very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Does this sound at all familiar? But just when you think you have strayed into So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the non-fiction aisledelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, it all becomes clearwho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. This Spike is 1930s America - full going to take care of gangstersBenny, speakeasiesand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, tommy gunsif he, fedorasBenny, beautiful heiresses, bumbling cops and the newly formed FBI, daring bank robberies and kidnaps. Yes, the gang is all here, but 'The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers' is Harper (a lot more than your average gangster book and itwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a hugely fun storywild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007340826</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithKatherine Howe|title=The Dog Who Came In From The Cold (Corduroy Mansions)A True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=AhHannah Masury is living in Boston, bliss! To sit down once more having been sent to live with a family who run an Alexander McCall Smith story inn, and wish only for someone thoughtful being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to come be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and serve me tea watch. Enthralled and biscuits whilst I read! We are backhorrified in equal measure, once again, with Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the residents hands of Corduroy Mansions to earwig on their conversationstwo vicious pirates. She hides away, their private thoughts so that they don't find andkill her too, of courseand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, to catch up with what every onedressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's favourite dog, Freddie de la Hay, has been getting up topirate ship as a cabin boy. Written once again She soon finds herself in serial format for The Daily Telegraph each short chapter the thick of things when there is a gemmutiny on board, and all the characters from there we met previously are caught up in Corduroy Mansions are back again to entertain usher rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971616</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mari Strachan1471180158|title=The Earth Hums in B Flat|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Choosing a child as the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence and imagination. To succeed is to convince the reader of events at two levels – the child's world within the adult world surrounding her. The very best novels about childhood, like say Harper Lee's classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', also reflect a wider cultural truth. In 'The Earth Hums in B Flat', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with their family secrets. If that sounds a bit tacky, fear not, because the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet and sharp corners.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaybe Tomorrow|author=Brady Udall|title=The Lonely PolygamistPenny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Golden Richards bursts onto Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the printed pagesubtlety of a half brick. He is the central character and letJamie's be honestson, without him there would be no wivesBo, no children, no complicated domestic life - make that, domestic lives'has his problems'. Immediately I pictured Golden in my mindHe's eyeasthmatic and the more you read, as a Homer Simpson type - but with lots the more children. Heyou'll suspect that he's a bumbling, blustering, bear of a manon the autistic spectrum. ItSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's as if hea frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's just 'turned not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up' for from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the conception of his children, just idly ambled along when they were bornwrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224078062</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen SlavinB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Stopping PlaceRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=How often do you pick up a book with no idea at all where it Petr is likely to lead? How often does such a book still have you wondering a hundred pages in? Not bemusedan orphan. Rescued by the strange, not lostreclusive Bear, absolutely sure that it he is going to lead somewherebrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, but still with no clue as to exactly wherein the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. How often do you get to the end of After Bear dies and a book brief sojourn in human company, and thinkarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, simplyPetr goes on a journey through the forest, "Wow!"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391869</amazonuk>broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi AldermanSarah Marsh|title=The LessonsA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=James has been used to being very clever at schoolAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, and it is everything about her life changes. Living in a shock for him time when he goes to Oxford University to find there are lots the use of people who are more able than he sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is. He sent to a school where she is already struggling when he falls and seriously hurts his kneetaught to lip read, and he is also very lonelybut physically restrained from signing. Then he meets Jess From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who invites him to has been teaching the deaf and using a party at Mark’s housesystem called Visible Speech. Mark soon invites Jess At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, James and other friends to move Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in to his run down mansiona complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670916293</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christy LefteriB0BC3YTCMR|title=A Watermelon, a Fish and a BibleGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It ''This story is 20 July 1974 in the small coastal town of Kyrenia, Cyprus. The radio continues to report that the Turkish forces did not manage to invade, and that they were thrown back into the sea, even as the Greek Cypriot population realises that they have been invaded. The story of this novel is set over just eight days, and is told from the alternating viewpoints of three charactersfor everyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161275</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Heidi W Durrow|title=Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Girl Who Fell From the Sky|rating=3Incident happened.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in 1980s America She was a very bright student, ''The Girl Who Fell From The Sky'' is a story built around a tragic event bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in a young girl’s childhoodcase it's contagious. The opening scene introduces you to Rachel, an elusive young girl, It's not easy being a black, not girl whose skin is 84% white . She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but ''light skinned-ed'' as 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 is packed off gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to live with his house and he raped her grandma after a devastating family event. Immediately In shock, Durrow highlights race and identity as the primary themes, and we follow blue-eyed Rachel as she struggles between two worlds – the white world of even allowed him to give her Danish mother, and the other black world of her African-American G.I. fathera lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851687459</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Chamberlain1472263936|title=Before the Storm|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We're first introduced to Laurel's son, Andy. He's a teenager with some sort of mental disorder. He's the pivotal character of the story and he's also the undisputed star. I recently read ''Henry's Sisters'' by Cathy Lamb and decided that every family should have a Henry. Now I'll enlarge on that by saying that every family should have a Henry - or an Andy. Both of these teenagers are 99% innocent and adorable - it's that other 1% that is worrying. Andy's descriptions of people, places and situations are truly unique. He has a language all of his own. So immediately, as a reader, I was drawn right into the world of Andy and therefore right into the heart of the story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303381</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Figurine|author=Ninni Holmqvist|title=The UnitVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dorrit inhabits a world where society is split into two campsIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Not male or female She was alone: her mother, or young or oldGreek by birth, but those who are Necessary had left the family home and an asset refused to their communities versus those who are Dispensable return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a drain on civilizationpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. It’s not a birth right, nor a class firmly established from childhood, and everyone gets Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the chance to make a good go first of itseveral annual visits. But, if you’re a childless woman of 50, or a childless man of 60, She grew to love her grandmother and not working in a ‘needed’ industry your time is upthe family's maid, and you are quietlyDina, but was wary - and without any fussfrightened - of her grandfather, transported retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to a Second Reserve Bank Unit for Biological Material (‘the Unit’) where you will spend the rest of your days. Here you will participate in any number of psychological Junta and physiological experiments, donate cells for research and give up your body parts one by one as Needed people require expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them, until the day of your final donation when you ultimately . His prejudices included Helena's red hair and rather ironically become a valuable member of society by losing your lifegreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851687440</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue RulliereDean Koontz|title=Cinema BlueAfter Death|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Frankie Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a twenty nine year old woman living virus is released in Paris and working a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a supermarket while she tries to put her life back together after a split from her husband. The splitmakeshift mortuary, and what led up to itcovered in plastic, was clearly distressing, and exactly what happened is revealed through he has a series of flashbacks to the time when Frankie was Francescasense that something very, whose life was controlled by her husband, JP. The news that JP very bad has had an accident throws Frankie into confusion, because it seems that he turned happened to drink after she left him – and only him – as he sits up and she blames herselflooks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. In the meantime As he recovers his senses, Frankie he realises that there is entering into a relationship with the enigmatic Antoine, who appears to be doing something rather strange in the flat below hersdifferent about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore. Will Frankie be able to retain her new identity? Will the relationship with Antoine go anywhere, or is he just as bad for her as JP was?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190452947X</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bobbie DarbyshireB0BVDC2VWH|title=Love, Revenge and Buttered SconesThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Three people are travelling on The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a train heading to InvernessWitching Forest. Their destination is And the town's library where villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the book group meets forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on the last Friday of each monthhomes, and even gallows, if needed. They each have their own reasons for going but none The fear of them realise being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the weekend reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is going to have far reaching consequences for them alltolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905207379</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christine Dwyer HickeyB0BYF82CXT|title=Last Train From LiguriaSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The heroine ''Bill and Amanda are living in this novel is Bella. She's a rather unassuming young woman who has had semi-detached house, stuck in a rather unassuming childhood - save for the fact that she was motherless at an early age depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and her relationship with the father is a little strainedvery much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, to say the least. Bella needs couples befriend each other and life appears to breatheimprove for both pairs. So she leaves the drizzle of England But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for the blue skies and heat of Italytragedy. Her father has propelled her into ''gentle'' employment there. She's tentative about the whole thing but warms to it by degrees.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843549883</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=David Eagleman|title=Sum: Tales from the Afterlives|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=For some reason I find myself unable to start this review. So I'll mention this book starts with the end, and see where we go from there. Of course, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafter, in the hereafter. It's not so much 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' as 'Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BuchanShalini Boland|title=Sick Heart RiverThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This was Alice and Seth are a surprise match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for me; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. It’s rare for She is all he could possibly want in a book to come to my attention from wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the reviewing gods that’s a rerelease of a 1930s novel, wedding is planned and one that surfaced a couple of years ago nowset. But when it strikes me as startlingly ConradianWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, updated for Alice is walked down the timesaisle by her father, beaming with pride and perfectly able excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to stand alongside one of literature’s greatscelebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, then it’s just a sign those reviewing gods are on Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the ballaltar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184697030X</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Sartof1787636003|title=River of Judgement|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Finn Jackson is an oilman, an engineer and he's developed a new way of extracting oil which doesn't ravage the countryside in the way of traditional methods. He's set up a company to take advantage of this along with his friend Aaron Philips, who's the money man. He's short of an operations manager – and has been for a while – after the tragic death The Girls of Shufang Su in a site accident. She was a geologist but had apparently flouted safety regulations and you know that there are going to be repercussions from her death.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956415202</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSummer|author=Robert Dickinson|title=The Noise of StrangersKatie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a dystopian Brighton where It was the Council summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the Amex company are the only major employersisland. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, and council departments have very different purposes so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to those they have take an interest in our own country today - notably the sinister Parks - four couples share dinner parties and discuss as little as possibleher, due she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to the problems they have trusting each otherher and by that time she was obsessed by him. When a Councillor is killed in a car crash Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and one of in particular in the couples witness it, it triggers a by-election which leads to political manouevring which they're bar where all caught up inthe girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095625151X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Assaf GavronAmanda Craig|title=Croc-AttackThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eitan Enoch is known as Croc to his friendsFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's a good reason but it's something so utterly compelling about to become rather more famous than Croc would like. It's begins on any writer who can catch hold of the morning that he takes his regular bus to work – atmosphere of the Little Number 5 – day and a fellow passenger worries about capture it, crafting an image of the dark-skinned man with a suit bag whocountry as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's sitting practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the front. Just before Croc gets off at his stop he asks why people are so paranoid ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and wonders whether it's impossible lived-in, never making them ciphers for dark-skinned guys social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with suit bags to get on buses any moreissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007327463</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Heather Gudenkauf152915118X|title=The Weight of SilencePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On a hot August morning in ''Pineapple Street'' is the small town story of Willow Creekthree women: Sasha, Iowa, Calli Clark Darley and Georgiana. Darley and Petra Gregory George are reported missingsisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They are both seven years old're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, live in asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the same Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a streetor so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and are Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the very best of friendsreality. Calli has suffered from selective mutism from Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the age of four when she witnessed a traumatic event gold digger'. She's living in her ''their'' family home. As a result Petra has become Calli’s voice, speaking for her and is even able They use it so often that they abbreviate it to tell others what Calli is thinking'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303691</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katherine Hall PageEmily Critchley|title=The Body in the BasementOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The central character with 84 year old Edie has lived in the unforgettable name of Pix same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is one of those 'apple pie' moms. The facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family , as Edie is starting to lose her lifememory. Every summerHowever, most members de-camp to Edie is tormented by the coastmemory of her childhood friend, Lucy, to get away from it allwho went missing over 60 years ago, recharge and the batteriesworry 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. But this particular yearAfter 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, Pix notesjust as she was the last time she saw her, is going she starts to be a ''summer find pockets of womenmemories coming back to her.'' Pix is a middle-aged, middle-of-And yet as she remembers the-roadpast, ordinary person she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life... until Will she makes some gruesome discoveries.uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090390</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''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 year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening 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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aifric Campbell0008506337|title=The Loss AdjustorGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=CaroThe 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. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's job is to mother as 'adjustan older man' people. Her parents worried that Richard's losses. Working for a large insurance company, influence would take her away from what they felt she deals day could achieve - going to day with people grieving for their lost or stolen belongingsOxford and having a glittering career. Digital cameras with priceless honeymoon photos In the event, laptops with work files they eloped and engagement ringsRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. It's Caro's responsibility Margo did go to assess the case Oxford and decide went on whether to financially reimburse or notbecome a well-respected journalist. But Caro knows well that sometimes it's not about the money The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Her job requires emotional sensitivity Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the sort Isle of manner that invites people to open up Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to you. Her years of experience have made her an expert leave him in dealing with everyone elsecharge''s loss. But not her own.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687306</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Bill Sheehy|title=The Argentine Kidnapping|rating=3Then Richard left them.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Son Cardonsky is the type of guy that would make even the biggest of cowards want to take on the playground bully on their behalf. Which, funnily enough, is how Bernie Gould acquires Son Cardonsky as his 'best-friend-forever'; at least, that is, Son considers Bernie to be his best friend in the world, even if Bernie can't quite see it the same way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089945</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Abbott1914585402|title=The Upright Piano PlayerDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The central character, one Mr Henry Cage (heI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'd approve s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of the courteous form of address) is white, middle-aged years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and middle-classaffecting it was. He appears to have It was a perfectgripping, enviable life. Reaping the substantial rewards of a successful businessemotionally wounding read, he's acquired along the way a lovely London home, a wife and a family. All boxes ticked, you'd thinkrereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694842</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna DaviesLucy Ashe|title=FreshersClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Going to Uni The year is meant to be one of 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the best times of your lifeinside.And not on stage, either.Because there's a lot that builds a dancer.Some things that first taste of freedom from your familycan be taught or learnt – discipline, learning independenceattention to detail – and some things, meeting new friends and discovering who you arethat ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. OhA stage presence, a charm, and a little studying of course! This book charts the first 'fresher' year of three students, Lois, Cerys and Hywel who are studying at Aberystwyth University during 1991/1992joie de vivre''. I was interested because I did my first degree just The difference between a couple of years after thishard-worker, and also I studied a post grad at Aberystwyth. Turns out this wasn't exactly a nice happy trip down memory lane however..star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784140</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=D J TaylorHeather Fawcett|title=Ask AliceEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The central character AliceEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has had a humble start in travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life but ' ... s work, the silence very first encyclopaedia of the Kansas flat ..faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and the distant murmur of the freight trains ' speaking to faeries, she is not for herso good with people. She dreams of So when she finds herself far, far North in the bright lights small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the big cities and although village matriarch, she is naive and unworldlynot sure what she has done, fancies nor how to redeem herself as an actress. Painful and difficult decisions are made as she reaches put her final investigations for her goalbook back on the right track. Her talent Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and resourcefulness see her through; give her a modest roof above her head in this precarious professiondelight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531984</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rhys Thomas1398515388|title=The Suicide ClubBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Craig BartlettFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but -Taylorsix months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's third attempt at killing himself is nearly successful – except when he announces in class comment that he's taken a whole bottle of pills, new boy Frederick Spaulding-Carter steps in and saves would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his life. Freddy attains instant celebrity as a hero, car door and our narrator Richard Harper is as impressed as anyone elseTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552774979</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard FlanaganChristopher Bowden|title=WantingMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Read the blurb on the back Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of Flanagana seemingly ordinary woman's ''Wantinglife,'' carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and you'll think it's the usual post colonial tale a little bit of Britain as enemy number one, ''wanting'' indulgence to impose its rule on everyone else. In a way it is such young nephew had had a tale, but what makes it much more interesting is the story of a little girl caught up in the wider historical eventslife than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848870779</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patricia DunckerJennifer Mason|title=The Strange Case Partitions of the Composer and His JudgeUnity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's rural FranceHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and 2000 is barely begununintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when hunters come across she investigated and unravelled a spread series of human corpses in the mountainsdisappearances. Several familiesIn ''Partitions of Unity'', all in the same cult, seem she sets her mind to have killed themselves on their path to wherever. If so, this is solving a problem, for the last time it happened, in Switzerland a few years previous, nobody could work out why – and who was there to dispose of some of the evidencemurder. This isn't a problem for the policeman involved, as he fell desperately in love with the investigative judge in collaborating on the initial case. Combining again, they see a link with everybody involved in both cases, a famous conductor /composer.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408807041</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie NickelsWill Carver|title=Long ShadowsThe Daves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first met Minkie and Mike Five strangers come together in [[Another Kind of Loving by Sylvie Nickels|Another Kind of Loving]] when Mike, one moment as a reporter in war-torn Sarajevo rescued Jasminka from an orphanage and brought her back suicide bomber prepares to leafy Oxfordshiredetonate his vest on a London tube line. He and his wife, SaraAs their fates overlap, fostered the girlstory is told in backwards order, who was known as Minkie because few people could pronounce her real name. They gave her love, security and the opportunity leading up to turn into a beautiful, confident young woman, but whose heart was torn between the family who had done so much for her and her native Sarajevofateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0951867024</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paolo GiordanoJennifer Mason|title=The Solitude of Prime NumbersPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''The Solitude of Prime Numbers'' follows the lives of Alice and Mattia from childhood to middle age. Alice is a wilful anorexic, scarred by a childhood skiing accident and an overbearing father. Mattia is an reclusive self-harmer trying to live with the guilt of having been responsible for his disabled twin sister's death. Their paths cross at a school friend's party during a painful adolescence and their lives are destined to intertwine throughout the coming years, despite the chronic awkwardness of their courtship.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775983</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kathryn Stockett
|title=The Help
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jackson''A struggling poetry zine, Mississippi: 1960. The talk at the bridge club a mom-and -pop mobile diner in the tennis club is of what Jackie Kennedy is wearing. They're white womenNorthern California redwoods, of course and they're free to play because a coloured woman will be looking after 400-meter hurdler who just missed the children2004 Olympics, doing the shopping and cleaning the house. Theya women're trusted to bring s track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the children up-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, but they're not trusted to be honest about the silveran erotic art dealer in Georgia.. Aibileen is raising her seventeenth white child but something hardened in her heart when her son died whilst the white bosses looked the other way. They took his body to the coloureds' hospital and rolled it off the back of the truck and left.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141039280</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview|author=Lauren Oliver|title=Before I Fall|rating=5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Samantha 'Sam' Kingston This is, in many ways, your typical American high schooler whose concerns are pretty predictable: boys, friends, fashion, weird parents, annoying little sisters. Today it's Cupid Day, just a chance to show off just how ''In'' you are at school, as measured by sample of the number cast of roses characters and settings in Preposterous. As you're sentcan see, but Sam's not too worried about that. She knows she's part some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of a group who, by most definitions, would be called popular, and though sometimes inside she might feel on the inside a little this mystery story goes like an imposter, on the outside, well, she's the definition of ''in''this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980893</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
 {{newreview|author=Olga Grushin|title=The Concert Ticket|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''The Concert Ticket'' follows the lives of a family in Soviet Russia who have grown desperately distant from one another. Sergei, the father, is a frustrated musician who longs to play the pre-revolutionary masterpieces of composers like Igor Selinsky but is forced to play the kind of patriotic ditties he despises. His schoolteacher wife, Anna, longs for his love, but is never quite able to get his attention with her shy gestures. Their shiftless son, Alexander, has quietly given up going to school and spends his days hanging around the park, consorting with undesirables. Also living in their house is Anna's silent, elderly mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918482</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julie Cohen|title=Nina Jones and the Temple of Gloom|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=A sign of a good book, for me, often relates to how easily I can put it down. And then how much I want to pick it back up again. Nina Jones was a particular challenge for me as after reading it for an hour whilst my toddler napped I kept my thumb in the page whilst getting her out of bed, snuck her downstairs still saving my page, put on Cbeebies, and then sat next to her on the sofa to carry on reading for at least another hour, if not a little bit more than that. I then kept it in the kitchen so I could sneak a few more pages in between stirring the spaghetti. And then once my daughter was in bed I went on to absently ignore my poor, tired, over-worked husband (who got bored and went for a bath) so that I could read on to the end of the story. I found myself mentally yelling at a fictional character (I hope it was mentally and I wasn't actually shouting out loud...we have very thin walls), I swooned over the hero, sniggered often and I even cried a little bit too. So, a book that induces such family neglect and an emotional roller coaster of emotions is definitely a good read!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755341414</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth SpellerB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Return of Captain John Emmett|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Laurence Bartram has survived the war, but his life has changed dramatically. It will never be the same again. It's almost as if he doesn't recognize himself. Domestic life is now non-existent and he has no-one to please but himself. He is unsettled and edgy. War has obviously left its mark. He retreats graciously and wonders what he'll do with the rest Calculations of his life. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086070</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRational Men|author=Nick Hornby|title=Juliet, NakedDaniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A clever, comic delight, pitch-perfect, astutely observed, particularly insightful, must-readIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Crumbs. Whatever else Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is there to say about Nick Hornbystill very fresh in people's latest book that isn't already plastered on this newly-published paperback edition? minds. I can only report that ''Juliet,'' ''Naked'' bowled me over with yet another Hornby strike.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141020644</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dan Rhodes|title=Little Hands Clapping|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The first character world has barely had a chance to mention in this book is a mothbreathe out. ItBut for Joe Marr, it's a human moth, drawn to not the flame missile crisis that is a museum 's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of suicide - a supposedly cautionary, life-affirming, memento mori, somewhere in Germanymurder. Its curator is an old hand at lonelyWith the current state of medical knowledge, unloved museums, fresh from an art gallery in an airport - it didn't take off - who notices s hard to think otherwise than that the noise of the latest suicide to happen prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in the museumHMP Queen's Bench, and goes right back to sleepa relatively new prison. A spider crawls into He's just getting used to his mouth roommate, Mervyn, and gets eatenlearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847675298</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Robin Cook|title=Intervention|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Although Robin Cook has written many books, ''Intervention'' is the first one that I have read - I'm a Robin Cook 'virgin.' This is a big book in many respects. It's a classic, glossy 'coffee table' edition; it's a big, satisfying read and it's a multi-layered book in that it covers many current-day topics which have their roots in history. In fact, this book is so multi-dimensional that, you could argue, there are several books within this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743633</amazonuk>}}Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Navigation menu