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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Menna Van PraagOnyi Nwabineli|title=The House At The End Of Hope StreetAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Alba Ashby is a wallflower 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 a girl; studious, bookish Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and excruciatingly shy, so when tragedy wields its ponderous boltbasically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is less able than most slowly trying to adjust regain her confidence and to get her life as she now knows it. In one of back, suing her midnight walks around historical Cambridge, she finds herself at step-mother to take down the door to Number 11 Hope Streetcontent about her. It Anuri is house that she has never before seen; quirky and turreted with a wild garden battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and grandly Victorian in hue secretly abusing people online and Alba is enchanted by itreceiving money from them for doing so. So Most importantly, she does something that she would never normally dois desperately worried about her little sister, in a million yearswho is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. She knocks on Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the door.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749018623</amazonuk>0861546873
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Gruen1529153298|title=At The Water's EdgeList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An indiscretion at a party causes Ellis HydeIt's parents to disown him1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, coming, as it does, hot on the heels of his father not understanding why Ellis has been turned down for war servicehonestly... ) To prove heShe's not a cowardwhat's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, Ellisthey've been murdered, his new wife Maddie and best friend Hank leave the US for Scotlandbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. HeMiv's determined they will succeed where Ellisupset because she' s overheard that her father failed years before: they will find wants to move the Loch Ness monsterfamily 'Down South'. Maddie isnWhen you't as convinced but then re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she also thinks she knows Ellis'll do anything to prevent that. She and the locals at 's not worried about the inn where theydangers or that her Mum're stranded by the global conflict will discover a lot more about him, and indeed themselvess stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473604702</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Leipciger1035906708|title=The Mountain Can WaitDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Berry is a quiet man - one who lives for and We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in natureManhattan, New York, spending a half of his year running a small team in remote, isolated forestsDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The other half he spends tending Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to his family - a small group whom he brought up almost single handedly, following 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the departure of his wifeStates. A good, determined man, we learn of Tom's life running forestry teams When she was back in remote wilderness, before an accident forces Tom to leave his routine and seek out his son Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and both become troubled by the events made no secret of the accidenther preference for her elder sister, as well as ghosts of the past that may cause more pain than either man had anticipatedJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472223896</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth RenzettiAlexander McCall Smith|title=Based on a True StoryThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Augusta PriceThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, middle-agedrun by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, washed up, substance-addicted actress tailored service. Ness has just left rehab for asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the innumerable time. Her only friend in the world business, as Ness is her equally washed-up former mentor. Augusta has recently received planning to take a sudden upsurge of interest and income when her tell all memoir became trip to Canada to get away for a baffling best-sellerwhile. Frances Bleeker Katie is an American journalist who came to London coming out of a break up with high hopesa bad boyfriend, that were quickly dashed by and so jumps at the reality of the British magazine marketchance to come home to Edinburgh. The two meet when Frances is sent And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to interview Augusta about her book where Frances realises there’s far more an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the story of Augusta’s life than she’s cared Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to put charm. Katie has no experience in words. Needless to sayrunning a business, young, optimistic Frances and selfor in match-obsessedmaking, drunk Augusta don’t exactly hit it off at once. But when Frances loses but Ness has full confidence in her job abilities, and Augusta needs a ghost writer for there's always her new bookvery helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, the two offer each other a lifeline ... or enough rope to hang themselves. As Frances will learn by delving into her pastWilliam, people close to Augusta don’t come away unscathed. lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782395539</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Xavier LeretDean Koontz|title=The Romeo and Juliet KillersBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=This Benny is having a book that suggests love across the tracks – all the while making the reader ask 'just how chuffing wide are those tracks supposed to be?!' terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Franky is Oh, and someone has delivered a hard-done-by schoolboyreally weird, whose ultradisturbing coffin-Catholic parents are stifling him in all aspects of lifesized object to his home, so much so and it's likely possible that when he gets into trouble by witnessing some porn on a friend's mobile phone at school it whoever or whatever was really inside is the hardware thing that he was gawping at in amazementhas trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Hardware He is nothing a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to Daizeehis house is a new friend, the underage street hookera bad weather friend called Spike, who knows what hard stuffs she likes 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 what she doesnwill certainly take care of Benny'ts enemies, if he, Benny, and what her punters – and her mother, back when Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they had a connection – enjoyed, or needed, en route to it. Their unlikely connection is the subject of this gritty novellaare.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910213187</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pascal Garnier and Melanie Florence (translator)Katherine Howe|title=BoxesA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Brice. He's an illustratorHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who had picked run an ideal house inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the country with his journalist wifetown, only for her she decides to disappear assumed dead on assignment abroadgo and watch. Therefore heEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's having to make the move himself, which he does – but without her death at the other end he finds it hard to kick his new life into gearhands of two vicious pirates. YesShe hides away, a cat adopts himso that they don't find and kill her too, and he gets then to know escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the names of some new people, but thatnotorious Ned Low's itpirate ship as a cabin boy. What's more, one She soon finds herself in the thick of those people things when there is Blanchea mutiny on board, attired most suitably and from there we are caught up in all-white, who herself is missing someone – someone her rip roaring tale of whom Brice is life on the spitting image…ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477044</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Maher1471180158|title=Last Night on EarthMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Baby Bonnie is born Jamie Matson works in London in 1996 to Jay and Shauna but her traumatic birth an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the aftermath causes more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the previously happy couple local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to separatego to school. Jay looks back searching for how he got Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to this point pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and Shauna looks for answers put in psychotherapy with a less than orthodox Danish analystthe wrong. Meanwhile both share Bonnie and worry about where they go from hereIt was going to come to a head. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408705079</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tina SeskisB0CKD1L5JL|title=When We Were FriendsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Six friends meet at Bristol University; six very different people Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from six very different backgroundsbustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Six lives intertwined After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in an assortment of ways… break-upshuman company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, marriagesPetr goes on a journey through the forest, careersbroadcasting the strange, motherhood wild and bereavement; until one night six become fiverarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405917954</amazonuk >
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael LaubSarah Marsh|title=Diary A Sign of the FallHer Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Diary After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the Fall use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a story about regretschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, guilt she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and resentmentusing a system called Visible Speech. It's told from At the point of view of an unnamed narratorsame time, who reflects Bell is working on not just his own life but also the lives other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of his father and grandfatherespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099581795</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James WilsonB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Summer of Broken StoriesGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=England 1950: Soon-to-be-10, Mark Davenant ''This story is a typical lad with a typical ladnot for everyone.''s life Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. He loves adding to his model train layoutShe was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, he plays with his mates and walking best friend Barney the dogsuffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on one such walk seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he comes across Aubrey, did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an elderly writer living in the forestextension. They build a friendship based on shared stories She went to his house and imaginingshe raped her. Not all in the village are accepting though andIn shock, when they try she even allowed him to drive Aubrey out, Mark feels himself torn between old loyalties and newgive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883571</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1472263936|title= The Novel Habits of HappinessFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There are some authors who I pick up with a contented sigh, knowing It was in 1968 that I am in safe handsHelena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Alexander McCall Smith is currently my favouriteShe was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and thank goodness he is so prolific with his writing refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that my reading habit is fed on it would be a regular basis! pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. This is Her trip to the tenth novel family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the Sunday Philosophy Club series, and we settle down once more first of several annual visits. She grew to a visit to Isabel Dalhousie in love her beloved Edinburgh. Isabel is wonderinggrandmother and the family's maid, perhaps belatedlyDina, if she is sometimes rather judgmental but was wary - and frightened - of peopleher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. In particular, she’s having an awful lot He was proud of qualms about her niece, Cat’s, latest romancehis close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Will Isabel find herself forced to intervene, or can she sit back His prejudices included Helena's red hair and let nature take its course?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408706636</amazonuk>green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nina George 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 Simon Pare (translator)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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Little Paris BookshopGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Monsieur Perdu has a barge on the Seine, The village is isolated and in that barge he has his bookshoppoor. Actually, rather than being a normal sort of bookshop it is more of a chemistIt's, since he is something of surrounded by a literary apothecary, prescribing books to his customers that he senses will soothe their souls, Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and relieve whatever troubles are ailing themits blossom provides herbal medicines. He only has to speak to them a littleThe black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, sometimes only has to see themroofs on homes, and he instinctively knows which book will help themeven gallows, if needed. Despite his skillsThe fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, howevera drunken, he seems unable to diagnose and resolve his own emotional issues and he isself-indulgent, as the translation lazy lout of his French surname tells us, Mr Losta man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349140359</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marcus DalrympleB0BYF82CXT|title=Flesh and Blood: True FictionSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Brit John Colson is ''Bill and Amanda are living in Mexico teachinga semi-detached house, having been invited out there by his godfather stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and local school owner Carlos Manuel Fermindisappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. John soon settles inDespite their different outlooks on life, soon forming a love of the countrycouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But then it all changes… Visiting a public toilet at the wrong moment means that John hears a murder being committed beyond his cubicle door. He goes to the police as he would in the UK but this is Mexico; from that moment on John Colson is a marked man. Meanwhile elsewhere in Mexico tourists not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are being attracted by more than hot sunshine and tacosfated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1502821087</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Emily Boyce (translator) and Jane Aitken (translator)Shalini Boland|title=The Red NotebookSilent Bride|rating=53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet LaureAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. She's a widow in her 40s, who He is entering her Parisian apartment building one night when everything she's muggedhas been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and her handbag stolenutter husband-material. Meet LaurentShe is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, a middle-aged booksellersuccessful, who happens upon confident… and so the handbag inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the following morning in wedding is planned and set. When the streetmuch-anticipated day arrives, just before Alice is walked down the binmen take it awayaisle by her father, never beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to be seen again. More or less snubbed celebrate this joyful day and when trying to hand it Seth turns to the police as lost propertyface his approaching bride, he decides to take it upon himself to reunite the bag with its rightful owner. He Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea their names are so intimately linked, and despite a lot of things being in who the bag (including man at the titular notebook) there altar is no cash, no phone and no ID documentation at allwho is waiting for her to become his wife. What's more – and what looks like making the idea even more fruitless – he has no idea that Laure has fallen into a coma as a result of the mugging…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908313862</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stefan Mohamed1787636003|title=Bitter SixteenThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Stanly Bird is about to turn sixteen - a solitary teen in a small Welsh town, he has few friendsIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Unless you count his talking dog Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, Daryl... A splitting headache on the eve of his birthday soon develops into incredible powersperhaps, and Stanly swiftly finds himself defending his neighbourhoodnaive, falling so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in loveher, and gaining his first real friendsshe was flattered rather than wary. When jealous rivals, It was quite a mysterious figure while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and a horrific evil come into play though, Stanly finds himself cast away from homeby that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and struggling to save everything he has come to hold dearin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630136</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fiona NeillAmanda Craig|title=The Good GirlThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Romy is a sixth former Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who is unremarkable. A good student from a professional familycan catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, her aspiration is to become a doctor, and it’s crafting an achievable, rather than lofty goal. Or image of the country as it wasstands in one particular moment. Because a video has surfaced and it shows Romy doing something To say that Amanda Craig is hardly going to help her medical school application. Or her future career. Or her future life, full stop. For Ailsa, the head teacher, skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she has 's practically synonymous with the double whammy genre of trying to keep contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the school out ongoing issues of the headlines and protect her child who is now at day into the centre lives of the controversy. And it’s clearly all the neighbours’ faulther characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718181271</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christina Nichol152915118X|title=Waiting for the ElectricityPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Slims Achmed Makashvili ''Pineapple Street'' is determined the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to leave his native Georgiatheir brother Cord. ItThey's re Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a country buffeted and often invaded Stockton by its neighbours birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and plagued with lack of amenitiesSasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. On hearing that Hilary Clinton is running Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a competitionstreet or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the prize for which is furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a trip to choice but that wasn't the States reality. Darley and knowing all he has Georgiana start to do is overstay his visa for a better life, Slimscall Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' letters to Hilary beginfamily home. Eventually he gets They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the US but… Well, be careful what you wish forGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649876</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stuart PrebbleEmily Critchley|title=The Insect FarmOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is 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 memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, 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?
|isbn=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
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008506337
|title=The Garnett Girls
|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was predisposed to enjoy this book before I'd even opened the coverall-consuming, apparently on both sides. It set me Margo was just sixteen when they fell in mind of [[The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams]] love. Richard was twenty- another tale of a challenged person who finds refuge in an obsession with insects. But where [[The Behaviour of Moths one and described by Poppy Adams|The Behaviour of Moths]] focuses on two warring sisters, Margo's mother as 'The Insect Farman older man'. Her parents worried that Richard' has two brothers as s influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the central characters: Roger, who has special needsevent, they eloped and his devoted younger brother JonathanRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Both boys develop an obsession, Roger with his insect farm Margo did go to Oxford and Jonathan with went on to become a womanwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, HarrietImogen and Sasha. When obsession eventually leads to Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the violence of destruction, other behaviours come into play: feelings of guilt quickly switch to family home on the fear Isle of capture and Wight. Even then the sly acts of a man keen doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to lay the blame elsewhereleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883547</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caroline Vermalle and Anna Aitken (translator)1914585402|title=George's Grand TourDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=George loves the Tour de France so when his over protective daughter goes way for an extended holiday the time is right to do it himself. Being 83 there will have to be some concessions, using a car rather than a bike for a start and heI reviewed David F Ross'll take his neighbour Charles (a stripling at 76) with him. Hes book [[There'll also take his mobile phone since his landline has been diverted to it so no one knows hes Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's goneOnly One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. YesIt was a gripping, good luck with emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that George!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313730</amazonuk>I might not have lavished enough praise on it.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caitlin MoranLucy Ashe|title=How to Build a GirlClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1990 - WolverhamptonThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Johanna Morrigan is 14Identical on the outside but not, intelligentwe learn, funny and from a loving familyon the inside. UnfortunatelyAnd not on stage, said family consists of either. Because there's a lot that builds a depressed motherdancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, a mostly drunk fatherattention to detail – and some things, an older brother with issues of his ownthat ''je ne sais quoi'', and three younger brothers to worry aboutthat don't come from the classroom. Well readA stage presence, witty and hugely intelligent, Johanna longs for escapea charm, building a new version of herself and gaining employment as ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a writer, frequently travelling to the drinkhard-worker, sex and drug filled bars and bedsits of Londona star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091949017</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret Henderson SmithHeather Fawcett|title=The Turn Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of the TideFaeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harriet Glover Emily Wilde is well an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and truly over Mark after he left she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her standing at life's work, the altarvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. She's pregnant with Sir Joris Sanderson's child Whilst she is brilliant at research and he's keen to make the relationship permanent, but ghosts from ''his'' past return speaking to haunt himfaeries, unfortunately at a rather important dinner partyshe is not so good with people. The mystery So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of 'Amber' really Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to be solved redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the web of lies which surround her dismantledright track. Harriet is still being led astray by Tricia Harrington (or so HarrietEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's mother would have you believefrustration...) and she can't really make up her mind about 'Mr Sanderson', particularly when the man from MI6 But why is around. he here? What does he want? She's got a lot to cope And what exactly is going on with and that's before we even get on to the subject of the Prime Minister's daughter's wedding, which ''must'' remain secret.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845496485</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ivan Repila and Sophie Hughes (translator)1398515388|title=The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horseand the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=If you pick up a copy First of this book you realise how small all, it is. You'll knowwas the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, of coursewhich created the tsunami and this, that pockets hardly exist that are normally big enough to hold what we used to call a pocket bookin turn, but here is the exception to prove caused the rule. It's weenuclear meltdown. The story is on a hundred pagesresult was complete and utter devastation. The concision is partly down to it starting after the beginningdeaths were uncountable, for we first meet Big and Small, two brothers, once they're stuck down a large well in the middle loss of a forestlivelihoods was widespread. Tasked with a family errand, they're trapped at The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the bottom list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a natural Erlenmeyer flask, and even dog outside a desperate move cannot get either outconvenience store. This is He wasn't a dog person but the story of convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the next three months dog jumped in their existence, as they brave hunger, delirium, loss of language, and the brute and unstinting human selfishness needed for existence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271015</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James HannahChristopher Bowden|title=The A-Z of You and MeMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lying in Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a hospital bedseemingly ordinary woman's life, refusing visits from friends, Ivo is alonecarried out by her nephew after she has died. Only his carer, Sheila, provides company - The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and she asks him a little bit of indulgence to think of a different part of his body for each letter of the alphabet, young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and then it seems to tell a tale about each onehim an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857522647</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ann-Marie MacDonaldJennifer Mason|title=Adult OnsetPartitions of Unity|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At midlifeHere at Bookbag Towers, Mary Rose MacKinnon has settled down with her partnerwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, Hilarydominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and is raising two young childrenunravelled a series of disappearances. Opting to fulfill the role In ''Partitions of stay at home mumUnity'', she has placed sets her career as an author on holdmind to solving a murder. What follows is a bid to reconcile this new identity with her former idea of self. Success, however, depends on Mary Rose facing up to the confusions of her past.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473610133</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SweeneyWill Carver|title=The MinnowDaves Next Door|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Diana Sweeney's ''The Minnow'' is an Australian book aimed at Young Adults that features death, grief, abuse, fear and loneliness. Teenage pregnancy lies at its heart while bereavement, and trying to come to terms with loss, bubbles just under the surface, constantly. But don't be misled. This novel isn't some earnest pedagogical attempt to convey teenage angst and elicit grave pity or understanding from the reader. What rescues it from mawkishness is the beautiful voice of the narrator, Tom (or Holly, if you prefer her real name). Tom doesn't fall prey to self-pity. She simply describes her world as she sees it, matter-of-fact. And the fact that her view is rather unusual (she talks to fish, dead people and her unborn child - and they talk back) doesn't really matter. Nothing can detract from the sheer lyricism of her voice. As a reader, you just have to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>192218201X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Hermione Eyre|title=Viper Wine|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Venetia Stanley lives in Seventeeth century London. A celebrated beauty, she has had poems written in honour of her, and portraits painted by one of the leading artists of the time. Married to a handsome, kind and adventurous man, Venetia is kept in a life of luxury, and, at first glance - has everything she could ever have dreamed of. Except Venetia is not happy. A woman who has made her name and fortune because of her beauty, she is convinced that her allure is quickly slipping through her fingers. Signing a pact with an apothecary for his famed restorative 'Viper Wine', Venetia is set on a dangerous path.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581663</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Liam Brown|title=Real Monsters|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lorna was 12 when she was sent home from school, watched the unfurling events of 9/11 on her TV and recognised her father's office block aflame and falling. Her fight for mental survival started at that Five strangers come together in one moment and the use of alcohol as a suicide bomber prepares to quell the memories came soon after but then she meets Danny – her life saver. Shortly after this they marry and Danny joins the armydetonate his vest on a London tube line. He's sent to fight the monstersAs their fates overlap, the fundamentalist organisations, which destroyed Lorna's childhood. However when what's left of his unit becomes lost story is told in the desert without food, water or equipmentbackwards order, leading up to the focus changes from military victory to personal survival and those monsters are still out there…fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910394564</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chigozie ObiomaJennifer Mason|title=The FishermenPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book is essentially ''A struggling poetry zine, a cautionary family tale of four brothers mom-and -pop mobile diner in the way they react to Northern California redwoods, a prophecy about them by 400-meter hurdler who just missed the local madman. It is also2004 Olympics, in a sensewomen's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a comingbillionaire with a state-of-age story where Benthe-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), the young narratoron a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is plunged into premature adulthood under just a sample of the most brutal cast of circumstancescharacters and settings in Preposterous. And it is about brotherly love. None As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of these descriptions, however, convey the fact that this book is written by an exciting new voice in African literary fictionmystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0957548850</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan KempB0B2N7MVYM|title=GhostingThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Grace Wellbeck is 64 - living on a canal boat in London with her second husband, she lives a relatively settled life It's the 10th of routineDecember 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr.A chance encounter with a man Just to put what happens in context, the street changes everything though - a man who Cuban missile crisis is the spitting image of her first, deceased husbandstill very fresh in people's minds. Is he The world has barely had a ghost? Is Grace going mad?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251560</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Nicci Cloke|title=Lay Me Down|rating=4chance to breathe out.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It But for Joe Marr, it's New Yearnot the missile crisis that's Eve and at the nightclub is pulsating with soundfront of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. The revellers heave and swell With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in oceanic waves and Jack is preparing to call it HMP Queen's Bench, a night, when he is presented with Elsarelatively new prison. She is small; delicate and pretty and alluringly confident - a heady combination for a man like Jack - and though he wants, with every fibre of He's just getting used to his beingroommate, to walk awayMervyn, and learning to go home and forget her, he doesn'tbe wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593653</amazonuk>
}}
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