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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eva RiceOnyi Nwabineli|title=Love Notes for FreddieAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5

|summary=Marnie is an innocentAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, mathematical genius schoolgirl whowhere she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, unfortunatelybasically, gets expelled from her fancy boarding schoolmonetary gain. Julie Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her teacherconfidence and to get her life back, formerly a dancer, rigorously private suing her step-mother to take down the content about her past. Freddie Anuri is the boy that both of battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them fall in love withfor doing so. Revealed through the eyes of two of the three main charactersMost importantly, this she is a slow-movingdesperately worried about her little sister, but rather beautifully told, love story. It has who is the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art new focus of Keeping Secrets'Ophelia' s online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and it cleverly winds its way through Marnie's story in her relationship with her father at the 1960's as well as Julie's past in pre-WW2 New York.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782064486</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kat Gordon1529153298|title= Artificial Anatomy The List of ParksSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=One morning in 2002It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, twenty-one year old Tallulah Park is woken in her depressing bedsit by the phonecall announcing her fatherhonestly...) She's not what's heart attack. From this bleak beginning springs Kat Gordonworrying Miv's gripping debut novel of a dysfunctional upper middle class family with a history of papering over the cracks and ignoring the uncomfortable and unfitting, though. Tallulah has Women have been doing her fair share of powering on and pretending things dondisappearing. Well, they't existve been murdered, but it seems like this might turn out to be the time have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to stop running away. With move the reluctant help of two aunts, an old family friend and her own imperfect recollections'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, and with Down South is a vivid imagining of frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her late grandmother as the voice of consciencebest friend, Sharon, Tallulah sets out and she'll do anything to answer some long-standing questions prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her family and her own pastMum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079867</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dido Butterworth and Tim Flannery1035906708|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Meet Archie Meek. He's about We tend to leave the Venus Islandsthink of Maria Callas as Greek, where he's lived for the last five yearsbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, and return to SydneyNew York, where he'll take his office in the museum December 1923 and fill only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it with all the cultural artefacts heto 's found and wildlife heCallas's plucked or pickled. That's not to ignore make it more manageable in the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his bodyStates. But what's this? When he gets she was back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts in Athens - supposedly so that caused him to go there in she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the first place, Nazi occupation by a hugemother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanishedJackie. Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate HewittAlexander McCall Smith|title= Rainy Day Sisters|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Amateur artist Lucy Bagshaw isn't exactly living the American dream; she lives in Boston with her overbearing mother and works as a barista in a coffee shop, but things are about to get a lot worse. Her mother, a famous and controversial artist, writes an scathing editorial, publicly insulting Lucy's artwork just before her first exhibition. The editorial quickly goes viral and a humiliated Lucy flees the country, unsure of where her life is heading. She runs away where nobody can find her; a sleepy Cumbrian village by the sea, where her estranged half-sister runs a boarding house. Lucy quickly questions the wisdom of her decision when she receives a frosty welcome from her sister in a village that seems permanently cold, wet and rainy. Should Lucy try and make a new life for herself here, or should she return to Boston and face her demons?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0451475585</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Sarah Winman|title=A Year of Marvellous WaysPerfect Passion Company

|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the landscape with her binocularsonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a feeling something will happen and soonwhile. Elsewhere American Francis Drake (he's heard all Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the jokes!) has chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from the war Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and looks up the girl he left behind Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with results that are beyond his nightmares some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but will feature Ness has full confidence in them. Marvellous' her abilities, and Drakesthere' lives will cross s always her very helpful (and then – Marvellous is right – something will happen.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Bourne Dean Koontz|title=Two LivesThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=One late afternoon in January 2012Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, Emma Elliot and Loretta Davidsonhis house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's lives collide – along with their cars. Both are running late and driving too fast along possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this Surrey roadbad luck. Emma He is unharmed and flees the scenea nice person. A really nice person. Little does she know So fortunately for Benny it turns out that this incident will have long-term consequences further down the line. For Lorettadelivery to his house is a new friend, the effects are more immediate. A social worker in her fortiesa bad weather friend called Spike, she who has taken been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a career break good person. Spike is going to raise her take care of Benny, and Martinwill certainly take care of Benny's beloved son Ethanenemies, if he, born after an arduous IVF cycle just over four years ago. Ethan is in critical condition after the car accident and dies during surgery. In her griefBenny, Loretta turns to Scotch and Valium and drifts away from her husband and their familiesHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Val HennessyKatherine Howe|title=Not Far From DreamlandA True Account

|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage Hannah Masury is living in life which I call upper middle Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barrier. What Ronald ''has'' got When she hears there is to be a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'hanging of some pirates in the shack')town, a dog who is going bald (in patches) she decides to go and money that's in very short supplywatch. On the plus side he has friendsEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, mostly platonic and usually Hannah finds herself embroiled in much a young boy's death at the same boat as Ronaldhands of two vicious pirates. But are they downhearted? WellShe hides away, so that they are occasionallydon't find and kill her too, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out then to make escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the most of what theynotorious Ned Low've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble saless pirate ship as a cabin boy. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is She soon finds herself in the story thick of things when there is a year (2012) mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relativesocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo McMillan1471180158|title=Motherland: A NovelMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|summary=Jess is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a teenage Communist which isnman who't s a surprise since she comes from control freak with all the subtlety of a Communist familyhalf brick. Her late father was a card carrying member and Jess spends her weekends selling Jamie's son, Bo, 'The Morning Star'has his problems' with her equally enthused mother Eleanor. ItHe's not only a thankless taskasthmatic and the more you read, itthe more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's not a very welcome sight for some citizens frequent flier in their native Tamworth of the 1970s. However Eleanor local A&E and Jesssometimes Bo' lives are about s not fit enough to change, thanks go to an all-expenses paid trip school. Missed shifts or the need to the GDR – Communist East Germany; a place be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the same side of the Berlin Wall as Jess' and Eleanor's heartswrong. However, they both learn that even It was going to come to a political heaven has its lessons and, indeed, its downsidehead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473611997</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Eve ChaseB0CKD1L5JL|title= Black Rabbit Hall|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=At Black Rabbit Hall, time goes “syrupy slow.” None of the clocks work properly, but an hour at Black Rabbit is said to last twice as long as a London one, and you don't get a quarter of the things done. Every holiday, the Alton family swap the hustle and bustle of London life for this secluded Cornish retreat, a place that is theirs and theirs alone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718182979</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author=Michelle Miller|title=The UnderwritingJeffrey Dunn

|summary= Todd Kent Petr is youngan orphan. Rescued by the strange, richreclusive Bear, stupidly handsomehe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, and well on his way to in the top forests of Wall StreetWashington's Olympic Peninsula. When After Bear dies and a new dating app called “Hook” decides to go public, Todd is handpicked by Hook’s eccentric founder to lead the project team. Taking brainy analyst Neha, spoilt party-boy Beaubrief sojourn in human company, and old flame Tara Taylor armed with him – the team find themselves thrust into the hectic circumstances of only a $14 Billion deal. As Silicon Valley and Wall Street clashpirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the death of a young girl will find forest, broadcasting the team at odds with each other – strange, wild and spinning wildly out of controlrarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182974</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alena GraedonSarah Marsh|title= The Word ExchangeA Sign of Her Own|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Welcome to the world of the ''Meme''; the next-generation mobile device. Imagine technology so sophisticated that it could anticipate your needs as soon as they come into your mind. Need to get home? Your Meme will hail a cab. Feeling unwell? The Meme has an app for that. Negative thoughts? The Meme will intercede on your behalf to call family and friends or even 911, if needed. Yes, the Meme is a truly indispensable aid that has revolutionised the way that humans communicate. Critics say that it's destroying human language and verbal interaction, but don't worry: the Meme has an app for that too. If you are lost for words, the ''Word Exchange'' will supply you with the word you require. For a small fee of course...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780225628</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Cornelius Medvei|title=The Making of Mr Bolsover|rating=4

|summary=Meet Andrew LynchAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. He's Suddenly plunged into a graduate civil servantworld of silence, then he isn'teverything about her life changes. He's marriedLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, then he isn't. He's Ellen is sent to a librarianschool where she is taught to lip read, then he isn’tbut physically restrained from signing. He startsFrom here, of all things, to live in a handmade camp she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the Sussex countryside, deaf and gets using a job writing nature notes for a local magazine – until it's clear he's shooting, killing and eating too many of his subjects for his audience's tastessystem called Visible Speech. He turns his efforts to writing politicised letters to At the local newspapersame time, where his nephew Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a jobbing hack, which inspires further, more campaigning activitiescomplicated tangle of espionage. Yes, it seems that Andrew Lynch's path to the top is foretold – but his fate is most definitely anything but natural…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548690</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Jean LesterB0BC3YTCMR|title=Lillian on LifeGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Lillian ''This story is in not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her late fiftiesfifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, single and childless but you shouldn't suffered from vitiligo - for a moment - allow yourself people were afraid to think that she has a rather sad lifehug her in case it's contagious. SheIt's lived through periods of tremendous change in post-war Munich, Paris, London and she's now come to rest, smart and independent, in New Yorknot easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. Born in She had a time when the expectations of her parents crush on seventeen- and of society year- were fairly standard as to what a woman should do with old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her life, she seems always to have had a sense that . Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would disappoint both if tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was to be true to herselfjust an extension. She's hot blooded went to his house and sexually uninhibited and certainly ahead of her time in he raped her views. When we first meet her In shock, she's waking up next even allowed him to give her married lover and taking stock of her lifea lift home. Amongst other things.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549520</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crompton1472263936|title=BunderlinThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=As a child Martin It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had been fascinated left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and entranced by his neighbour Mrs BundyHamish (Helena's household menagerieparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her son Peter trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was there too but on the periphery; Martin wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was just there proud of his close connections to visit the animalsJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. In adulthood their paths cross again but this time Peter Bunderlin (as heHis prejudices included Helena's now known) isn't so easy to avoid – red hair and Martingreen eyes - inherited from her father's tried! Perhaps if Martin could understand what the heck Peter is up to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784078549</amazonuk>Scottish ancestors.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eve MakisDean Koontz|title=The Spice Box LettersAfter Death|rating=4.53

|summary=Katerina's Armenian grandmother Mariam dies leaving her and her mother 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 journal makeshift mortuary, covered in Armenian plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and a spice box full looks around at the shrouded bodies of mysterious lettershis dead friends and former colleagues. TheyAs he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel're special to them both because they're the legacy of a much loved relative but totally indecipherable to the monolingually English paireverything. However a holiday abroad to get over a recent break up brings a random encounter for Katerina''Everything''. When Katerina meets Ara she also meets the key to her grandmotherMichael isn't ''Michael''s secret pastanymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910124087</amazonuk>1662500467}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert CromptonB0BVDC2VWH|title=Leaving GileadThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=Tom Sparrow finally does what heThe village is isolated and poor. It's always dreamt of: buying surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the former Ridley house near his old childhood homevillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. As Tom explores he finds his new house isn't The black wood of the only link with his pastforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. There's something The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the outhouse village and that takes him back to is the days of young love and Susanreason Volushka, the Ridley's daughter. She had been raised in her parents' prohibitive faith as a Gilead Jehovah's Witness which didn't seem drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a problem to them but they were young and experience wasn't on their side…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784077623</amazonuk>man is tolerated.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Emma CraigieB0BYF82CXT|title= What Was Never Said Semi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary= This story is narrated by Zahra''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a teenage girl who spends her early years depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in her home country of Somalia before her family love – move to the UK to escape civil warin next door. InevitablyDespite their different outlooks on life, some traditions travel with them and in the novel Zahra recounts her efforts to protect herself couples befriend each other and her younger sister, Samsam, against FGM, a practice that claimed the life of her older sister in Somalia several years previouslyappears to improve for both pairs. Zahra intersperses her account with flashbacks to Somalia and the civil war that drove them awayBut all is not what it seems, thus giving a clear picture of the trials that she and her family have facedtheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178072179X</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David FinkleShalini Boland|title= The Man With The OvercoatSilent Bride|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Why would anyone - he was soon to ask himself innumerable times - take Alice and Seth are a coat from a complete stranger only because it had match made in heaven. He is everything she has been offered?'' searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. Skip Gerber steps off the elevator after She is all he could possibly want in a long day at workwife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the foyer of his office building inevitable proposal is busy eagerly accepted by Alice and buzzy the wedding is planned and he does not notice set. When the man holding much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the overcoat until aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the man hands it congregation – their friends assembled to Skip telling him celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice''take very good care of it''. Skip unthinkingly grasps s world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the coat and before he has man at the chance to realise what he altar is doing - and that he , who is now holding an overcoat of unknown providence - the man disappears out of the exit door waiting for her to the buildingbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992618525</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fredrik Backman1787636003|title=My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and ApologisesThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn''Every 7t exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old needs a superheroAlistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. That's just how it is…'' It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and for Elsa it's her Granby that time she was obsessed by him. When Gran diesAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, Elsa is surprised looking after his interests on the island and devastatedin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4. Granny can't be old 5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the- Elsa has only known her for 7 years! Elsa still has to carry out Grannation novel. There's last wish though; there are letters to be delivered and with each delivery Elsa learns something more so utterly compelling about Gran any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the person behind Gran country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the superherogenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Will it enforce She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her hero status or destroy it?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>1444775839</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil Smith152915118X|title=BooPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=Oliver Dalrymple ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is deadmarried to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. He realised this The problem's exacerbated when the moment he woke up in clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the rebirthing bedPineapple Street property. His friends Tilda and tormentors had always called him Boo because of his ghostly pale complexion Chip have renovated and now he's finally earned the nickname fullydownsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. What he hasnThey won't realised is need any of the way in which he died; he thinks he died of holey heart problems furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in front of his locker while reciting the periodic table. The location is correct Nominally, they had a choice but, meeting Johnny (an equally dead former classmate) reveals, he was actually murderedthat wasn't the reality. WhatDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's worse, living in ''their murderer has been spotted there in 13 year olds' heaven' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023493</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Minette WaltersEmily Critchley|title= CellarOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= To my mind84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, ''The Dark Room'' but now she is the most perfect psychological thriller ever written (and I've read lots in this genre). In facing a move as her later works, Minette Walters seemed son wants to move to veer away from this particular path another house and bring Edie to glory live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her novels became steadily darker childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and with increasingly dislikeable characters. So it the worry that there was a secret she was quite refreshing to discover keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that ''The Cellar'' was written from reveals the point truth of view of a rather likeable protagonistwhat happened all that time ago. Muna is an African child living After 'seeing' Lucy inthe high street, shall we say, somewhat unusual and very cruel conditions: just as she was stolen and now lives in captivity. Her voice is compelling and from the first page I found myself wanting last time she saw her , she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to make good her escape from . And yet as she remembers the dreadful - past, she is forgetting more and sadly all too believable - circumstances more in which her day to day life. Will she finds herself. Souncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, naturallyand before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''Love, I admired her cunning 'd read, was supposed to be a light and resourcefulnessweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, knowing a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that these attributes would serve once defined her well. ButOverlaid with later wisdom, of course, this is Minette Walters and nothing is as simple as it first appearsthe 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. As Set against the story unfolded I found myself questioning who exactly were backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the victims and who24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, if anyonedepicting its all-consuming nature, was innocenthow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099594641</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Naomi Novik0008506337|title=UprootedThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=Many years agoThe 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 a village deep in Eastern Europe, the locals live a life of relative peace and happiness love. Richard was twenty- knowing to always avoid the wood that borders their land, one and safe in the knowledge that they are guarded described by a powerful wizard - the DragonMargo's mother as 'an older man'. Aware Her parents worried that he is the one thing keeping them safe Richard's influence would take her away from the dangers of the wood, the villagers take part in a ritual called 'The Choosing' every ten years what they felt she could achieve - when a young girl is sent going to serve the wizard for Oxford and having a decadeglittering career.Agnieszka is of age for In the choosingevent, but nobody fears that she will be picked - they eloped and Richard took her best friend Kasia is pretty away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and gracefulwent on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and sure to catch the eye of the immortal DragonSasha. However Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, Agnieszka is not aware of the talents she holds that may attract family home on the wizard - talents that the safety Isle of Wight. Even then the entire kingdom may come doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to depend on for their survival.leave him in charge''. Then Richard left them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447294130</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Lamplugh1914585402|title=Secrets of the PomegranateDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5

|summary=Home in Bristol, Alice gets the news from her sisterI reviewed David F Ross's partner, Paco. Her sister, Deborah Hardy, was on board one of the trains bombed at Madridbook [[There's Atocha station on 11 March. No one can yet confirm whether she is alive or dead. Deb had moved to Granada nearly 20 years ago, after her divorce from MarkOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's father, Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was starting to make a name for herself as a scholar of women in Andalusia's history. Alice and her nine-year-old son Timmy fly to Spain to find that Deb is alivegripping, but in a coma in hospital. Over the weeks she keeps vigil for Debemotionally wounding read, Alice lives in her sister's home in Granada and reads her diaries, which proves to be a way rereading my review of feeling closer to her and learning more about her than she ever knewit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it. Meanwhile, Mark and Paco keep their distance, working through their complicated grief in their own ways.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781323690</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Menna Van PraagLucy Ashe|title=The House At The End Of Hope StreetClara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary= Alba Ashby The year is a wallflower of a girl; studious, bookish 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and excruciatingly shy, so when tragedy wields its ponderous boltOlivia are sisters, she is twins no less able than most to adjust to life as she now knows it. In one of her midnight walks around historical CambridgeIdentical on the outside but not, she finds herself at we learn, on the door to Number 11 Hope Streetinside. And not on stage, either. It is house Because there's a lot that she has never before seen; quirky and turreted with builds a wild garden dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and grandly Victorian in hue and Alba is enchanted by itsome things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. So she does something that she would never normally doA stage presence, a charm, in a million years''joie de vivre''. She knocks on the doorThe difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749018623</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara GruenHeather Fawcett|title=At The WaterEmily Wilde's EdgeEncyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54

|summary=An indiscretion at a party causes Ellis HydeEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's parents work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to disown himfaeries, comingshe is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, as it doesfar North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, hot on having somehow offended the heels of his father village matriarch, she is not understanding why Ellis sure what she has been turned down done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for war serviceher book back on the right track. To prove he's not a cowardEnter Wendell Bambleby, Ellisher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, his new wife Maddie all charm and best friend Hank leave the US for Scotland. Hedelight, much to Emily's determined they will succeed where Ellis' father failed years before: they will find the Loch Ness monsterfrustration. Maddie isn't as convinced but then she also thinks she knows Ellis. But why is he here? What does he want? She and the locals at the inn where they're stranded by And what exactly is going on with the global conflict will discover a lot more about him, and indeed themselves.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473604702</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Leipciger1398515388|title=The Mountain Can WaitBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Tom Berry is a quiet man - one who lives for First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and in naturethis, spending a half of his year running a small team in remoteturn, isolated forestscaused the nuclear meltdown. The other half he spends tending to his family - a small group whom he brought up almost single handedlyresult was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, following and the departure loss of his wifelivelihoods was widespread. A good, determined man, we learn The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of Tompriorities but - six 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 life running forestry teams in remote wilderness, before an accident forces Tom comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to leave open his routine and seek out his son - car door and both become troubled by Tamon the events of the accident, as well as ghosts of the past that may cause more pain than either man had anticipateddog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472223896</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth RenzettiChristopher Bowden|title=Based on a True StoryMr Magenta

|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Augusta Price, middle-aged, washed up, substance-addicted actress has just left rehab for the innumerable time. Her only friend in the world Christopher Bowden's latest novel is her equally washed-up former mentor. Augusta has recently received a sudden upsurge patient untangling of interest and income when her tell all memoir became a baffling best-seller. Frances Bleeker is an American journalist who came to London with high hopesseemingly ordinary woman's life, that were quickly dashed carried out by the reality of the British magazine markether nephew after she has died. The two meet when Frances is sent aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to interview Augusta about her book where Frances realises there’s far a young nephew had had a much more to the story of Augusta’s interesting life than she’s cared to put in words. Needless to say, young, optimistic Frances that nephew Stephen had ever realised and self-obsessed, drunk Augusta don’t exactly hit it off at once. But when Frances loses her job and Augusta needs a ghost writer for her new book, the two offer each other a lifeline ... or enough rope seems to hang themselves. As Frances will learn by delving into her past, people close him an obligation to Augusta don’t come away unscathedfind it all out. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782395539</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Xavier LeretJennifer Mason|title=The Romeo and Juliet KillersPartitions of Unity|rating=34

|summary=This is Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a book that suggests love across the tracks – all the while making the reader ask series of disappearances. In 'just how chuffing wide are those tracks supposed to be?!' Franky is a hard-done-by schoolboy, whose ultra-Catholic parents are stifling him in all aspects Partitions of life, so much so itUnity's likely that when he gets into trouble by witnessing some porn on a friend's mobile phone at school it was really the hardware that he was gawping at in amazement. Hardware is nothing to Daizee, the underage street hooker, who knows what hard stuffs she likes and what she doesn't, and what sets her punters – and her mother, back when they had mind to solving a connection – enjoyed, or needed, en route to itmurder.. Their unlikely connection is the subject of this gritty novella.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910213187</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pascal Garnier and Melanie Florence (translator)Will Carver|title=BoxesThe Daves Next Door

|summary=Meet Brice. He's an illustrator, who had picked an ideal house Five strangers come together in the country with one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his journalist wife, only for her to disappear assumed dead vest on assignment abroada London tube line. Therefore he's having to make the move himselfAs their fates overlap, which he does – but without her at the other end he finds it hard to kick his new life into gear. Yes, a cat adopts himstory is told in backwards order, and he gets leading up to know the names of some new people, but that's itfateful moment. What's more, one of those people is Blanche, attired most suitably in all-white, who herself is missing someone – someone of whom Brice is the spitting image…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477044</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin MaherJennifer Mason|title=Last Night on EarthPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5

|summary=Baby Bonnie is born ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in London in 1996 to Jay and Shauna but her traumatic birth and the aftermath causes Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the previously happy couple to separate. Jay looks back searching 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for how he got to this point and Shauna looks for answers bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in psychotherapy with Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a less than orthodox Danish analystcheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia. Meanwhile both share Bonnie ..'' This is just a sample of the cast of characters and worry about where they go from heresettings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this... |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408705079</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tina SeskisB0B2N7MVYM|title=When We Were FriendsThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey

|summary= Six friends It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet at Bristol University; six Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very different fresh in people from six very different backgrounds's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. Six lives intertwined 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 an assortment of ways… break-upsHMP Queen's Bench, marriagesa relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, careersMervyn, motherhood and bereavement; until one night six become fivelearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405917954</amazonuk >