Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John HartOnyi Nwabineli|title=Iron HouseAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hart is already a best-selling author so he has a lot Anuri spent her childhood on display to live up the world, thanks to with his latest book. At over 400 pages ither step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's a bigchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, meaty read. The story opens with Michaelbasically, now an adultmonetary gain. In his primeNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, with suing her step-mother to take down the woman he loves and content about to become a father: her. life Anuri is looking very rosy indeed. He thinks that he's left his shady past behind him forever. He's wrong. Hart gives his readers a little background info on Michaelbattling alcoholism, the central characterfailing to start her PhD, just enough to whet our appetites. It worked undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for me and I was eager to keep turning the pagesdoing so. At Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the start new focus of the book thereOphelia's a definite sense of something catastrophic about to happen online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and that it involves Michael in some way.her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848541791</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Thornton1529153298|title=Death of an Unsigned Band|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Russell knows that his band is going nowhere, and the prospect of a life consisting only of a grim day job and some depressing creative exercises is getting him down. But when Josh turns up with a potential way out, it's not quite the way Russell, or any The List of the other band members, would have envisaged.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531879</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=Haley Tanner|title=Vaclav and LenaJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Vaclav and Lena are both children of Russian immigrants, growing up in Brooklyn. Vaclav dreams of becoming a fantastic magician, with his friend Lena as his assistant, and as children they practise their routine together, making lists of the things they'll need, the costumes they will wear and the tricks they will perform. Vaclav is confident and happy, but Lena is quiet, withdrawn and struggles with speaking English. Yet Vaclav believes, always, that they are destined to be together. Even when Lena disappears one day and is gone from his life for many years still he hopes that, somehow, he will find her again.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020443</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jon Blake
|title=69ers: A Novel About the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival of Music
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1969It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, as Thunderclap Newman proclaimed in their one and only musical claim to famehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, there was something in the airthough. Women have been disappearing. The alternative generation were talking about the recent Woodstock Festival in AmericaWell, they've been murdered, and eagerly looking forward but to what promised have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to be move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a similar gatheringfrightening, albeit on a smaller scaleforeign place, best avoided. For Miv, at the Isle of Wight at move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the end of August, where Bob Dylan was headliningdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908105658</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wesley Stace1035906708|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary="Nothing in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of this subtle tale of English music in the making, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]"  "His handling of dry comic dialogue and cynical affectation is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse… an intelligent, fun and thoughtful piece of fiction [Independent on Sunday]"  Just two of the previous reviews that adorn the back cover of 'Charles Jessold…'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546574</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Rebecca Makkai|title=The BorrowerDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read the front cover blurb We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and didn't quite get it 'She borrowed a childonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. He stole Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her.father changed it to ' I donCallas't mind 'not getting to make it' more manageable in the slightest as it just makes me want to read the book even moreStates. So I When she was keen to back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get stuck into this debut novelappropriate 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 her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021008</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Isabel AshdownAlexander McCall Smith|title=Hurry Up And WaitThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ashdown won the Observer Best Debut Novels of the Year with her book [[Glasshopper The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Isabel Ashdown|Glasshopper]], Ness and operating as an excerpt of which is given at alternative to all the back of this bookonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. I decided Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to read it first and I must say that I immediately warmed take a trip to Canada to Ashown's style of writingget away for a while. She seems to have Katie is coming out of a knack for down-to-earth language especially break up with teenagers a bad boyfriend, and young peopleso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. SoAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, I was really looking forward thanks to this book 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but I was also conscious of the fact that it had a lot to live up with some new characters who quickly begin tocharm. Will she be able Katie has no experience in running 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, to deliver?lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251552</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gabrielle DonnellyDean Koontz|title=The Little Women LettersBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=I read the back cover blurb with delight and couldn't help but applaud Donnelly for her ingenuityBenny is having a terrifically bad day. I loved the book ''Little Women'' when I read it many years ago He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and television adaptations keep it fresh for new generationshis house gets trashed. SoOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, before I'd even turned disturbing coffin-sized object to chapter onehis home, I and it's possible that whoever or whatever was loving inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bookbad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. But will So fortunately for Benny it live up turns out that the delivery to my lofty expectations?his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, 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 figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718156587</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caitlin DaviesKatherine Howe|title=The Ghost of Lily PainterA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Annie Sweet buys Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a home with her familywho run an inn, she feels inexplicably bonded and being made to it work there from first sighta young age. As life brings unwelcome changes for her When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to uncover go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the history hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her house too, and then to provide escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a distraction mutiny on board, and to understand from there we are caught up in her feelings about her homerip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091937035</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Chamberlain1471180158|title=The Midwife's ConfessionMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I feel that IJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who've barely finished s a Chamberlain review when up pops another control freak with all the subtlety of her books - such seems to be proliferationa half brick. The story opens with the build-up to the death of middle-aged midwifeJamie's son, Bo, Noelle'has his problems'. Her friends, all a little younger than herself He's asthmatic and with families of their ownthe more you read, are busy getting the more you'll suspect that he's on with their daily livesthe autistic spectrum. But someone Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - suddenly - remembers they havenshe's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo't heard s not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from Noelle for some daysschool are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It's unusual as this group of chatty friends are forever phoning, texting or popping round was going to come to each other's housesa head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304663</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bella PollenB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Summer of the BearRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Letty FlemingPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, recently widowedreclusive Bear, he is driving her three children hundreds brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of miles north to Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a new brief sojourn in human company, and hopefully happy life armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a remote Scottish island. We get a peek at journey through the personalities of the children straight away: Alba is opinionated and strong-willedforest, for example. Still young she's managed to acquire a list as long as her arm of her 'hates' in broadcasting the world - fishstrange, English teachers and doors which are ajar all feature wild and I didn't care as I couldn't help liking her. At least she knows her own mindrarely heard voices he encounters. What will she be like when she's grown up, for heaven's sake?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519069</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Celine IbeSarah Marsh|title=Shadow A Sign of a Thief|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Obinna's childhood had been gloriously happy, living in the Nigerian village with Mama. But when he was fifteen years old Mama told him that she was not his mother, but his grandmother and that his mother and father were dead. Stunned and almost disbelieving he went to bed only to be woken by a loud noise in the night. It came from Mama's room but when Obinna went to her she was dead on the floor. The boy could have lived with neighbours who would have been only too glad to have him, but he set off as soon as he could to his only living relative, his Uncle Raffia.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907629149</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dawn French|title=A Tiny Bit MarvellousHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over the years I have become something After a bout of scarlet fever as a Dawn French fanchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. She has consistently entertained and quite frankly made my sides split with laughter Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as an actorsomething only savages do, comedianEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and most recently as using a writer with her wonderful autobiography [[Dear Fatty by Dawn French|Dear Fatty]]system called Visible Speech. So when I saw her first novel ‘A Tiny Bit Marvellous’ waiting for me At the same time, Bell is working on The Bookbag shelves I thought here’s another treat from this remarkable entertainerother inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046341</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=The Storm at the DoorGood Girls Die|author=Stefan Merrill BlockAyura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author, Stefan Merrill Block, is writing about members of his own family in ''The Storm at the Door''. The This story opens at the end, if you get my driftis not for everyone. We see the elderly grandmother Katherine in a bit of a spot, wondering whether to open and then read a bunch of papers. These papers (these red-hot papers) are the words and thoughts of her husband Frederick from his time in a mental institution. If she opens them, then it will be opening a veritable can of worms. Does she or doesn't she?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571269591</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview|title=A Conspiracy Of Friends|author=Alexander McCall Smith|rating=4Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=So She was a very bright student, here we are again back with our friends a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in Corduroy Mansions in this, their third bookcase it's contagious. I found ''A Conspiracy Of Friends'It' s not easy being a little slow to start with, and I worried that perhaps I black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had tired of the characters, a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but a few chapters later the pace picked up never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and once again I Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was thoroughly entertained by the quirky charactersjust an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, interesting thoughts and ideasshe even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971829</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=In The Sea There Are CrocodilesFigurine|author=Fabio GedaVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''In The Sea There Are Crocoiles'' is based on a true story about a young boy left by his mother It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to fend for himselfGreece. As if that wasn't difficult enoughShe was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, hebut Mary and Hamish (Helena's stranded in Pakistan while parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the rest of his family are apartment in warup-ravaged Afghanistanmarket Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. It She grew to love her grandmother and the family's a collaboration between Afghan Enaiatollah maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his Italian translator, Fabio - this book is already a big hit with Italian readers (it says so on close connections to the back cover blurb)Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Enaiatollah eventually claimed political asylum in Italy His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560085</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very 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, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=Forgetting ZoeThe Grave Listeners|author=Ray RobinsonWilliam Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Forgetting Zoe'' opens with Thurman, one of the two main characters. We see that his home life The village is dreadful - with a violent and cruel father isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a mother who is weakWitching Forest. And as an only child (to rather elderly parents) Thurman hears his father's violence directed at his motherthe villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. Their home is out The black wood of the way forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and in an isolated spoteven gallows, so really the three of them form a very unhappy threesome indeedif needed. The reader fear of being buried alive is left an existential superstition in no doubt as to the nature of village and that is the father with lines such asreason Volushka, ''As a form drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of punishment Father would press one of his hands down on top of Thurman's head so forcefully that Thurman's legs would buckle... that blood would trickle down his forehead..a man is tolerated.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009953763X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=The Poison TreeSemi-Detached|author=Erin KellyDeborah Stone|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Karen is ending her university years ''Bill and has her future mapped out. But then she meets BibaAmanda are living in a semi-detached house, who opens doors to stuck in a world she's never seen beforedepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and to the type of intense friendship that she's never experienced eithervery much in love – move in next door. As Karen embarks Despite their different outlooks on this friendshiplife, she collects all kinds of new experiences along the waycouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. At the start of that summerBut all is not what it seems, she could never have predicted just how indelible the mark left by the friendship would turn out to beand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444701053</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare JacobShalini Boland|title=Ophelia in PiecesThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barrister Ophelia Dormandy had been working hard – well, overworking – for the last six months Alice and on the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday she decided that she would go home early and cook Seth are a decent meal for her husband and herselfmatch made in heaven. She even decided that He is everything she would wear the red dress which Patrick liked. But when she got home Patrick and their sonhas been searching for; handsome, accomplished, Alexclever, were eating ice creamsfunny; total and utter husband-material. He didn't seem She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the least interested in dinner wedding is planned and then admitted that he was having an affairset. Ophelia threw him out When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and then began the long haul of trying when Seth turns to be a decent single parent in a job where face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the hours were long and man at the money uncertainaltar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595147</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott Hall1787636003|title=The Children's CrusadeGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We back-track several years to get It was the low-down summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and history arrived on Felixthe island. ItRachel wasn's interestingt exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, very interestingshe was flattered rather than wary. He's like some It was quite a while before he made any sort of American 007 but not all of his plans have been successful. Some have back-fired and he has the scars physical approach to prove it. In fact although in his prime years, Felix could be healthier her and is forced to take regular medication. And throughout the story Hall tells us why by that istime she was obsessed by him. Chapter TwoAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, which sees Felix looking after his interests on the island and in particular in Nevada opens with the no-nonsense line ''I came to Las Vegas to kill a man.'' But who? And why? We get bar where all the answers all in Hall's good timegirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848540752</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=J Robert LennonAmanda Craig|title=CastleThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the late winter state-of 2006 Erich Loesch returns to Gerrysburg, NY (Pop 2310 and falling) and buys six hundred or -the-nation novel. There's something so acres utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of undeveloped land on the edge atmosphere of the countyday and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment.  Loesch grew up in Gerrysburg, but heTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's been away practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a long time. The place hasn't changed much except through longgift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, slow decline. There are vacant lots where he remembers homes, businesses, amenities. There are one or two never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people who remember him, or remember his family. They remember what happened to the family, or heard about what happened to him afterwardsgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1555975593</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Genn152915118X|title=The CurePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We get the background on Eugene early on in ''Pineapple Street'' is the story; of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a troubled childhood with an alcoholic father who was often not at homeStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. Instead he was working on a building site in London The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and drinking away much of his wagesSasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. His wife Tilda and Chip have renovated and children didn't appear downsized to benefit much - either financially another property, a street or emotionallyso away, which they own. Eugene still bears plenty They won't need any of invisible scars the furniture from that time Pineapple Street, so Sasha and now grown upCord can move straight in. Nominally, would like to carve out his own path and thinks they had a fresh start would be a good ideachoice but that wasn't the reality. Although it's not altogether a fresh Darley and Georgiana start as he chooses to work on call Sasha 'the same construction site as his father and even lives gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the same lodgings in the East EndGD'. Is this his own unique way of exorcising some ghosts?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901583X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cathy GlassEmily Critchley|title=Run, Mummy, RunOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Aisha 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a young, beautiful move as her son wants to move to another house and successful woman who has worked hard bring Edie to get where she live with his family, as Edie isstarting to lose her memory. But there However, Edie is one thing tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing in her life: over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a mansecret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. Still living with After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her parents at the age of thirty and inexperienced when it comes to men, Aisha wonders if she will ever starts to find a husbandpockets of memories coming back to her. But then And yet as she spots an ad in remembers the paper past, she is forgetting more and plucking up all more in her courage and determination, she decides day to replyday life. This could be Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her only chance at love move, and she doesn't want to waste it.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007299281</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=Blake Morrison0008506337|title=The Last WeekendGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens 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 the sunny month of June when the invitation is given, via telephone, from Ollie love. Richard was twenty-one and Daisy to Ian and Emilydescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Or Em as sheHer parents worried that Richard's called throughout influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - there's going to Oxford and having a lovely explanation glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of why Ian insists on shortening his wife's nameWight. And even with this generous Margo did go to Oxford and seemingly innocent phone call, all hell seems went on to break loose as Ian decides to debecome a well-cipher the callrespected journalist. Did they mean this? The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Did they really mean that? Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. And lots of undercurrents and negative feelings start Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to bubble upleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954234X</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Hogg1914585402|title=The Hummingbird and the BearDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sam Taylor seems to have a charmed life – a City job that brings him wealth and prestige, a wonderful fiancée and a lovely London home. But all this canI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There't compensate for a childhood that contained great sorrow; he is haunted s Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a sense couple of years back and remember being somehow incompleteabsolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. When It was a chance encounter at a wedding brings a new woman into this lifegripping, emotionally wounding read, he begins to hope and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that he has found everything he really needsI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901647X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa JewellLucy Ashe|title=The Making of UsClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lydia, Robyn The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Dean Olivia are three completely different people with only one thing in commonsisters, twins no less. According to an online donor registry, they were all fathered by Identical on the same sperm donor. Some have known of their heritage for a whileoutside but not, others are just finding outwe learn, but none of them knew on the other two existedinside. Until nowAnd not on stage, either. At the same time, their donor fatherBecause there's life is slipping awaya lot that builds a dancer. His last wish is Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to know of the impact his detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'noble' act may have had, that don't come from the legacy it is leaving on the worldclassroom. And in this information age it's not that hard to trace your rootsA stage presence, unlessa charm, that is, youa ''joie de vivre're searching for people who don't want to be found. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846055741</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthHeather Fawcett|title=Cold Light|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Cold Light'' is the story of three teenage girls who become involved in a predatory adult world. As the story opens we're looking back on what happened from a decade later and we know that one of the girls, Chloë, died in a Valentine's Day suicide pact. The town council has finally decided on a memorial to Chloë – itEmily Wilde's to be a summerhouse at the side Encyclopaedia of the pond where she drowned, although it's difficult to understand quite why anyone would want to sit there. The ground-breaking ceremony is being televised when it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But Lola, our narrator, knows that they've found a body. She also knows who it is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444721445</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kristina McMorris|title=Letters From HomeFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Liz Stephens accompanies a couple Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of friends to a GI social occasionfaeries. She's content Whilst she is brilliant at research and already 'spoken for' speaking to faeries, she is not so she wouldn't normally be here where essentially most good with people are foot-loose and fancy-free. But So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she's promised has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her good friend Betty to come alongbook back on the right track. As the evening progresses with lots of singing Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and dancinginsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, things become both interesting all charm and just a little dangerousdelight, much to Emily's frustration. But for whomwhy is he here? Who are we talking about hereWhat does he want? Liz bumps into one of the many GIs present. His name's Morgan. An instant spark And what exactly is there - or so someone believes. But they both end the evening going on a less-than-satisfactory note. Liz returns to her life with her soon-to-be-fiance and Morgan goes off to war.the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847562418</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Hely1398515388|title=How I Became a Famous NovelistThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became a Famous Novelist'First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this clearly isn't intended to be , 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 - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a subtle book. So I can hardly complain when dog outside a cynical look at the writing industry swings raw punches in every directionconvenience store. It just isn He wasn't my sort of humour, a dog person but equally, if you rave about the convenience store owner'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have dones comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BressChristopher Bowden|title=The Dysfunctional FamilyMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Societies are constantly changing and sociology students are presented with theories to help them to comprehend whatChristopher Bowden's happening. Here we have latest novel is a different approach: patient untangling of a family seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has been paid died. The aunt who always provided a small amount safe harbour and a little bit of money indulgence to write diaries which they would keep secret from other members of the family and which would be available for publication. This book is the result and we follow Phil and Sue Brown and their two sons, Jack and Theo though a traumatic period which lasts for just over two months. The entries in the diaries are made daily young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and we read what has happened it seems to him an obligation to each member of the 'dysfunctional family'find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B0048ELN32</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna QuindlenJennifer Mason|title=Every Last OnePartitions of Unity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mary Beth Latham is contemplating her averageHere at Bookbag Towers, ordinary life where every day is more of less the same. Would things be better if life were more excitingwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, varieddominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], newsworthy? Is that when she investigated and unravelled a legitimate thing to hope for? They say to be careful what you wish forseries of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', and Mary Beth never comes right out and says this is what she wants, but there are hints sets her mind to this effectsolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537966</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John LawtonWill Carver|title=A Lily of the FieldThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens Five strangers come together in the early 1930s in Vienna where we meet one of the main characters; ten year old Meret. She's gifted musically and in particular in playing the cello. Even at this tender age, people are talking about her starry future on the world stage. She is the apple of her father's eye and soon she's being given extra musical tuition by moment as a kind but much older man. He's old enough suicide bomber prepares to be her grandfather but nevertheless they strike up detonate his vest on a rather unusual friendship with music being the common denominatorLondon tube line. But some of As their conversations are serious and quite grown-up for a young girl, not yet into puberty. The tutorfates overlap, Viktor Rosen is Jewish and has already suffered at the hands of the Germans. Meret progresses at such a pace that before you know it, she's performing in public. Her life appears to be wonderful and full of future promise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611856019</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kim Newman|title=Anno Dracula|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=The story begins is told in London. It is 1888 and Queen Victoria is on the throne. She has recently remarriedbackwards order, taking as her husband the infamous vampire Count Dracula. Dracula's influence is all around London as more and more of its citizens turn willingly leading up to vampirism, whilst others resist its temptations. A distinct sense of social and political unrest is in the air as factions speak out against the race of vampires, somehow spurred on by the serial killer at large. Known at first as the Silver Knife, but later as Jack the Ripper, this killer targets young vampire women in Whitechapel, prostitutes who have recently turned to vampirism, known as new-bornsfateful moment. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857680838</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander BaronJennifer Mason|title=There's No HomePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's the year 1943 and Sicily has been invaded (along track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with other parts a state-of Europe). The menfolk have gone -the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(will they return?s, x) and the women, children and old people left behind are on a sorry sight. Impoverishedcheap oil painting, ragged and with barely enough food to eat. A British company of soldiers rolls into town an erotic art dealer in Georgia... '' This is just a sample of the cast of characters and everything changessettings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The men are foot-sore, exhausted and dirty. They are also glassy-eyed with the horrors basic premise of warthis mystery story goes like this. And as if that were not enough, the Sicilian sun beats down on them mercilessly. But there's some good news - they're here to rest and recuperate for a while.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956308600</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Raj KumarB0B2N7MVYM|title=SharafThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With its subtitle "Forbidden love in It's the kingdom 10th of faith and honour"December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, I expected something entirely different from the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it'Sharafs not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He' to what it delivereds been convicted of murder. For With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the second time prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in as many weeks I had misjudged HMP Queen's Bench, a book byrelatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, if not its cover exactlyMervyn, certainly by its setting and its blurblearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905802331</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Mark Watson|title=Eleven|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book's title has been well thought out. Xavier Ireland, the main character has the number ''Eleven'' if you take his initials as Roman numbers (XI) and there are eleven individuals who are involved in this chain reaction of events. When I read the blurb Move on the back cover, what caught my eye above all else was the line 'whether the choices we don't make affect us just as powerfully as those we do.' And of course, when we take no action about something in our lives, it's a form of action in effect.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184983136X</amazonuk>}}to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Navigation menu