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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kerry HudsonOnyi Nwabineli|title= ThirstAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= London – SummerAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Alena, a young siberian immigrant Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is caught stealing shoes. Daveslowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the man who catches content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, is a security guard – surviving on a minimal income and with little drive failing to better his quietstart her PhD, repetitive lifeundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. As Alena and Dave grow closer Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, Dave finds his life turned upside downwho is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. But will Alena ever let down Can she save her guardsister, and reveal perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the truth about her pastsame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099589893</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lesley Pearse1529153298|title= Without a TraceThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=CassieIt's arrival was bound to cause a stir in the sleepy Somerset village of Sawbridge1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) She had flaming red hair's not what's worrying Miv's family, a voluptuous figure accentuated by very tight clothingthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, towering heelsthey've been murdered, heavy make-up and no wedding ringbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. But the thing Miv's upset because she's overheard that really shocked her father wants to move the locals was the fact that she had family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a little mixed-race girl in towfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Petal For Miv, as she was called, soon melted the hearts of the residentsmove would mean leaving her best friend, but no such courtesy was extended to CassieSharon, who was dubbed and she'll do anything to prevent that red-headed whore. She' by some. Her only friend was s not worried about the kind shopkeeper Molly Heywood, who would often visit Cassie and Petal at their isolated stone cottage on the outskirts of the villagedangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024196153X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eva Rice1035906708|title=Love Notes for FreddieDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=Marnie is an innocentWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, mathematical genius schoolgirl whobut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, unfortunately, gets expelled from her fancy boarding school. Julie is her teacher, formerly a dancerNew York, rigorously private about her past. Freddie is the boy that both of them fall in love withDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Revealed through the eyes of two of the three main characters, this is a slow-moving, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but rather beautifully told, love story. It has the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art of Keeping Secretsher father changed it to 'Callas' and to make it cleverly winds its way through Marnie's story more manageable in the 1960's as well as Julie's past States. When she was back in preAthens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -WW2 New Yorkshe 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>1782064486</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kat GordonAlexander McCall Smith|title= Artificial Anatomy of ParksThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=One morning The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in 2002Edinburgh, twenty-one year old Tallulah Park is woken run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her depressing bedsit by younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the phonecall announcing her father's heart attackbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. From this bleak beginning springs Kat Gordon's gripping debut novel Katie is coming out of a dysfunctional upper middle class family break up with a history of papering over the cracks bad boyfriend, and ignoring so jumps at the uncomfortable and unfitting. Tallulah has been doing her fair share of powering on and pretending things don't exist, but it seems like this might turn out chance to be the time come home to stop running awayEdinburgh. With the reluctant help of two aunts And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an old family friend Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and her own imperfect recollectionsthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, and but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a vivid imagining of her late grandmother as the voice of consciencebusiness, Tallulah sets out to answer some longor in match-standing questions about making, but Ness has full confidence in her family abilities, and there's always her own past.very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079867</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dido Butterworth and Tim FlanneryDean Koontz|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionParanormal|summary=Meet Archie MeekBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He's about to leave the Venus Islandsloses his job, where he's lived for the last five yearsloses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and return someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to Sydneyhis home, where he'll take his office in the museum and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked possible that whoever or pickled. That's not to ignore whatever was inside is the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with thing that has trashed his filled-out framehouse! The thing is, nearly Benny is the very last person to deserve all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his bodythis bad luck. He is a nice person. But what's this? A really nice person. When he gets back, he finds one of So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him delivery to go there in the first placehis house is a new friend, a hugebad weather friend called Spike, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artworkwho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. And some Spike is going to take care of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. Is the weird society Benny, and will certainly take care of the museum heBenny's returning toenemies, perchanceif he, even weirderBenny, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society heHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's waving farewell to?wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate HewittKatherine Howe|title= Rainy Day SistersA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Amateur artist Lucy Bagshaw isn't exactly Hannah Masury is living the American dream; she lives in Boston , having been sent to live with her overbearing mother a family who run an inn, and works as being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a barista hanging of some pirates in a coffee shopthe town, but things are about she decides to get a lot worsego and watch. Her mother Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a famous and controversial artist, writes an scathing editorial, publicly insulting Lucyyoung boy's artwork just before her first exhibition. The editorial quickly goes viral and a humiliated Lucy flees death at the country, unsure hands of where her life is headingtwo vicious pirates. She runs hides away where nobody can , so that they don't find and kill her; too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a sleepy Cumbrian village by boy and joining the sea, where her estranged half-sister runs notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a boarding housecabin boy. Lucy quickly questions She soon finds herself in the wisdom thick of her decision things when she receives there is a frosty welcome mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her sister in a village that seems permanently cold, wet and rainyrip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Should Lucy try and make a new life for herself here, or should she return to Boston and face her demons?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0451475585</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Winman1471180158|title=A Year of Marvellous WaysMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the landscape with her binocularssubtlety of a half brick. She Jamie's son, Bo, 'has a feeling something will happen and soonhis problems'. Elsewhere American Francis Drake (He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's heard all on the jokes!) has come home from autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the war local A&E and looks sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up the girl he left behind with results that from school are beyond his nightmares but will feature occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in themthe wrong. Marvellous' and Drakes' lives will cross and then – Marvellous is right – something will happenIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Bourne Marsh|title=Two LivesA Sign of Her Own

|summary=One late afternoon in January 2012After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Emma Elliot and Loretta Davidson's lives collide – along with their carsEllen Lark loses her hearing. Both are running late and driving too fast along this Surrey road. Emma is unharmed and flees the scene. Little does she know that this incident will have long-term consequences further down the line. For Loretta Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, the effects are more immediateeverything about her life changes. A social worker Living in her fortiesa time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she has taken a career break is taught to raise her and Martin's beloved son Ethanlip read, born after an arduous IVF cycle just over four years agobut physically restrained from signing. Ethan is From here, she ends up in critical condition after another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the car accident deaf and dies during surgeryusing a system called Visible Speech. In her grief At the same time, Loretta turns to Scotch Bell is working on other inventions and Valium ideas, and drifts away from her husband and their familiesEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Val HennessyB0BC3YTCMR|title=Not Far From DreamlandGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified 'This story is not for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barriereveryone. What Ronald ''has'' got is  Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a roof that leaks (therebit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's good reason why his home is called contagious. It'the shack'), s not easy being a dog who black girl whose skin is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supply84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. On the plus side Then he has friends, mostly platonic did: Lavender was very good at math and usually in much the same boat as RonaldReggie asked if she would tutor him. But are they downhearted? She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. Well, they are occasionally, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out She went to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops his house and jumble saleshe raped her. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story of In shock, she even allowed him to give her a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relativeslift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo McMillan1472263936|title=Motherland: A NovelThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5

|summary=Jess is a teenage Communist which isn't a surprise since she comes from a Communist familyIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Her late father She was a card carrying member and Jess spends alone: her weekends selling ''The Morning Star'' with her equally enthused mother Eleanor. It, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's not only a thankless task, parents) felt that it's not would be a very welcome sight for some citizens pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in their native Tamworth up-market Kolonaki would be the first of the 1970sseveral annual visits. However Eleanor She grew to love her grandmother and Jessthe family' lives are about to changes maid, Dina, thanks to an allbut was wary - and frightened -expenses paid trip of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the GDR – Communist East Germany; a place on the same side of the Berlin Wall as JessJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena' s red hair and Eleanorgreen eyes - inherited from her father's hearts. However, they both learn that even a political heaven has its lessons and, indeed, its downsideScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473611997</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Eve ChaseDean Koontz|title= Black Rabbit HallAfter Death|rating= 53|genre= General Fiction|summary=At Black Rabbit HallMichael Mace, time goes “syrupy slow.” None Head of the clocks work properlySecurity, but an hour at Black Rabbit a top secret biological research facility, is said to last twice as long as among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a London onemakeshift mortuary, and you don't get covered in plastic, he has a quarter of the things done. Every holidaysense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the Alton family swap the hustle shrouded bodies of his dead friends and bustle of London life for this secluded Cornish retreatformer colleagues. As he recovers his senses, a place he realises that there is theirs and theirs alonesomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718182979</amazonuk>1662500467}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle MillerB0BVDC2VWH|title=The UnderwritingGrave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary= Todd Kent The village is young, rich, stupidly handsome, isolated and well on his way to the top of Wall Streetpoor. When It's surrounded by a new dating app called “Hook” decides to go public, Todd is handpicked Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by Hook’s eccentric founder to lead farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the project team. Taking brainy analyst Nehaforest provides heat and warmth, spoilt party-boy Beauroofs on homes, and old flame Tara Taylor with him – even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the team find themselves thrust into village and that is the hectic circumstances of reason Volushka, a $14 Billion deal. As Silicon Valley and Wall Street clashdrunken, self-indulgent, the death lazy lout of a young girl will find the team at odds with each other – and spinning wildly out of controlman is tolerated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182974</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alena GraedonB0BYF82CXT|title= The Word Exchange|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Welcome to the world of the ''Meme''; the nextSemi-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>}}{{newreviewDetached|author=Cornelius Medvei|title=The Making of Mr BolsoverDeborah Stone

|summary=Meet Andrew Lynch. He's 'Bill and Amanda are living in a graduate civil servantsemi-detached house, then he isn't. He's married, then he isn't. He's stuck in a librariandepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, then he isn’t. He startswhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, of all things, to live successful and very much in a handmade camp love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the Sussex countryside, couples befriend each other and gets a job writing nature notes life appears to improve for a local magazine – until both pairs. But all is not what it's clear he's shootingseems, killing and eating too many of his subjects their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for his audiencetragedy.'s tastes. He turns his efforts to writing politicised letters to the local newspaper, where his nephew is a jobbing hack, which inspires further, more campaigning activities. Yes, it seems that Andrew Lynch's path to the top is foretold – but his fate is most definitely anything but natural…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548690</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison Jean LesterShalini Boland|title=Lillian on LifeThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53

|summary=Lillian Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is in her late fiftieseverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, single funny; total and childless but you shouldn't - for a moment utter husband- allow yourself to think that she has a rather sad lifematerial. She's lived through periods of tremendous change is all he could possibly want in post-war Municha wife; beautiful, Parissuccessful, London confident… and she's now come to rest, smart so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and independent, in New Yorkset. Born in a time when When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the expectations of aisle by her parents - father, beaming with pride and of society - were fairly standard excitement as to what a woman should do with her life, she seems always surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to have had a sense that she would disappoint both if she was celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to be true to herself. Sheface his approaching bride, Alice's hot blooded and sexually uninhibited and certainly ahead of her time in her views. When we first meet world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her she's waking up next to her married lover and taking stock of her life. Amongst other thingsbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549520</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crompton1787636003|title=BunderlinThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=As a child Martin had been fascinated It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and entranced by his neighbour Mrs Bundy's household menageriearrived on the island. Her son Peter was there too Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but on the periphery; Martin she was just there , perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to visit the animalstake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. In adulthood their paths cross again but this time Peter Bunderlin (as It was quite a while before he's now known) isn't so easy made any sort of physical approach to avoid – her and Martin's tried! by that time she was obsessed by him. Perhaps if Martin could understand what Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the heck Peter is up to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784078549</amazonuk>bar where all the girls either worked or partied.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eve MakisAmanda Craig|title=The Spice Box LettersThree Graces

|summary=KaterinaFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's Armenian grandmother Mariam dies leaving her something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and her mother a journal capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in Armenian and a spice box full of mysterious lettersone particular moment. TheyTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she're special to them both because they're s practically synonymous with the legacy genre of a much loved relative but totally indecipherable to the monolingually English paircontemporary social fiction at this point. However a holiday abroad to get over a recent break up brings She has such a random encounter gift for Katerina. When Katerina meets Ara she also meets weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the key to lives of her grandmother's secret pastcharacters 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>1910124087</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crompton152915118X|title=Leaving GileadPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=Tom Sparrow finally does what he's always dreamt 'Pineapple Street'' is the story ofthree women: buying the former Ridley house near his old childhood homeSasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. As Tom explores he finds his new house They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the only link with his pasttribe. ThereThe problem's something in exacerbated when the outhouse that takes him back clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the days Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of young love the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and SusanCord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the Ridleyreality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger's daughter. She had been raised 's living in her parents' prohibitive faith as a Gilead Jehovah's Witness which didntheir''t seem a problem family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to them but they were young and experience wasn't on their side…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784077623</amazonuk>the GD'.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma CraigieEmily Critchley|title= What Was Never Said One Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= This story 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is narrated by Zahra, facing a teenage girl who spends move as her early years in her home country of Somalia before her family son wants to move to the UK another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to escape civil warlose her memory. Inevitably However, some traditions travel with them and in Edie is tormented by the novel Zahra recounts memory of her efforts to protect herself and her younger sisterchildhood friend, SamsamLucy, against FGMwho went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a practice secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that claimed reveals the life truth of her older sister what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in Somalia several years previously. Zahra intersperses the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her account with flashbacks , she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to Somalia and her. And yet as she remembers the civil war that drove them awaypast, thus giving a clear picture of the trials that she is forgetting more and more in her family have facedday to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178072179X</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David FinkleMadelaine Lucas|title= The Man With The OvercoatThirst for Salt|rating= 3.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary=''Why would anyone - he Love, I'd read, was soon supposed to ask himself innumerable times - take be a coat from a complete stranger only because it light and weightless feeling, but I had been offered?always longed for gravity'' Skip Gerber steps off  Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the elevator after a year-long day at work; relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the foyer of his office building is busy and buzzy and he does not notice narrator relives the affair with a man holding twenty years her senior from its inception – the overcoat until summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the man hands it to Skip telling him to backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''take very good care of itThirst for Salt''. Skip unthinkingly grasps details the coat 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 before he has the chance to realise what he is doing - familial relationships and that he is now holding an overcoat of unknown providence - the man disappears out of the exit door to the buildinghow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992618525</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fredrik Backman0008506337|title=My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and ApologisesThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O''Every 7Leary was all-year-old needs a superheroconsuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. ThatRichard was twenty-one and described by Margo's just how it is…mother as 'an older man' and for Elsa it. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her Granaway from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. When Gran diesIn the event, Elsa is surprised they eloped and devastatedRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Granny can't be old Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well- Elsa has only known her for 7 years! respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Elsa still has to carry out Gran's last wish though; there are letters to be delivered Life was lived in London and with each delivery Elsa learns something more about Gran holidays were spent at Sandcove, the person behind Gran family home on the superheroIsle of Wight. Will it enforce her hero status or destroy it?Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444775839</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil Smith1914585402|title=BooDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5

|summary=Oliver Dalrymple is dead. He realised this the moment he woke up in the rebirthing bed. His friends and tormentors had always called him Boo because of his ghostly pale complexion and now heI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's finally earned the nickname fully. What he hasnOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There't realised is the way in which he died; he thinks he died s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of holey heart problems in front of his locker while reciting the periodic tableyears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. The location is correct butIt was a gripping, meeting Johnny (an equally dead former classmate) revealsemotionally wounding read, he and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was actually murderedthat I might not have lavished enough praise on it. What's worse, their murderer has been spotted there in 13 year olds' heaven.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023493</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Minette WaltersLucy Ashe|title= CellarClara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary= To my mind, ''The Dark Roomyear is 1933. The place? Sadler'' is s Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the most perfect psychological thriller ever written (and Iinside. And not on stage, either. Because there've read lots in this genre)s a lot that builds a dancer. In her later worksSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, Minette Walters seemed to veer away from this particular path attention to glory as her novels became steadily darker detail – and with increasingly dislikeable characters. So it was quite refreshing to discover some things, that ''The Cellarje ne sais quoi'' was written , that don't come from the point of view of a rather likeable protagonistclassroom. Muna is an African child living inA stage presence, shall we saya charm, somewhat unusual and very cruel conditions: she was stolen and now lives in captivitya ''joie de vivre''. Her voice is compelling and from the first page I found myself wanting her to make good her escape from the dreadful - and sadly all too believable The difference between a hard- circumstances in which she finds herself. Soworker, naturally, I admired her cunning and resourcefulness, knowing that these attributes would serve her well. But, of course, this is Minette Walters and nothing is as simple as it first appears. As the story unfolded I found myself questioning who exactly were the victims and who, if anyone, was innocenta star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099594641</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi NovikHeather Fawcett|title=Uprooted|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Many years ago, in a village deep in Eastern Europe, the locals live a life of relative peace and happiness - knowing to always avoid the wood that borders their land, and safe in the knowledge that they are guarded by a powerful wizard - the Dragon. Aware that he is the one thing keeping them safe from the dangers of the wood, the villagers take part in a ritual called Emily Wilde'The Choosing' every ten years - when a young girl is sent to serve the wizard for a decade.Agnieszka is of age for the choosing, but nobody fears that she will be picked - her best friend Kasia is pretty and graceful, and sure to catch the eye of the immortal Dragon. However, Agnieszka is not aware of the talents she holds that may attract the wizard - talents that the safety of the entire kingdom may come to depend on for their survival...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447294130</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Barbara Lamplugh|title=Secrets s Encyclopaedia of the PomegranateFaeries

|summary=Home in BristolEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, Alice gets the news from her sister's partnerand she has travelled extensively, Paco. Her sisterand researched meticulously, Deborah Hardy, was on board one of the trains bombed at Madrid'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 write her divorce from Marklife's fatherwork, and was starting to make a name for herself as a scholar the very first encyclopaedia of women in Andalusia's historyfaeries. Alice Whilst she is brilliant at research and her nine-year-old son Timmy fly speaking to Spain to find that Deb faeries, she is alivenot so good with people. So when she finds herself far, but far North in a coma in hospital. Over the weeks small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she keeps vigil for Debhas done, Alice lives in nor how to redeem herself and put her sister's home in Granada and reads final investigations for her diariesbook back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, which proves to be a way of feeling closer to her dashingly handsome and learning more about her than she ever knew. Meanwhileinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, Mark all charm and Paco keep their distancedelight, working through their complicated grief in their own waysmuch to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781323690</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Menna Van Praag1398515388|title=The House At The End Of Hope StreetBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary= Alba Ashby is a wallflower First of a girl; studiousall, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, bookish which created the tsunami and excruciatingly shythis, so when tragedy wields its ponderous boltin turn, she is less able than most to adjust to life as she now knows itcaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. In one of her midnight walks around historical CambridgeThe deaths were uncountable, she finds herself at and the door to Number 11 Hope Streetloss of livelihoods was widespread. It is house The fact that she has never before seen; quirky and turreted with many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a wild garden and grandly Victorian in hue and Alba is enchanted by itconvenience store. So she does something He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that she he would never normally do, call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in a million years. She knocks on the door.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749018623</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara GruenChristopher Bowden|title=At The Water's EdgeMr Magenta|rating=54

|summary=An indiscretion at a party causes Ellis HydeChristopher Bowden's parents to disown him, coming, as it does, hot on the heels latest novel is a patient untangling of his father not understanding why Ellis has been turned down for war service. To prove hea seemingly ordinary woman's not a cowardlife, Ellis, his new wife Maddie and best friend Hank leave the US for Scotland. He's determined they will succeed where Ellis' father failed years before: they will find the Loch Ness monster. Maddie isn't as convinced but then carried out by her nephew after she also thinks she knows Ellishas died. She The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and the locals at the inn where they're stranded by the global conflict will discover a lot little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more about interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him, and indeed themselvesan obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473604702</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah LeipcigerJennifer Mason|title=The Mountain Can WaitPartitions of Unity|rating=4.5

|summary=Tom Berry is a quiet man - one who lives for Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in nature[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], spending when she investigated and unravelled a half series of his year running a small team in remote, isolated forestsdisappearances. The other half he spends tending to his family - a small group whom he brought up almost single handedly, following the departure In ''Partitions of his wife. A good, determined man, we learn of TomUnity''s life running forestry teams in remote wilderness, before an accident forces Tom she sets her mind to leave his routine and seek out his son - and both become troubled by the events of the accident, as well as ghosts of the past that may cause more pain than either man had anticipatedsolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472223896</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth RenzettiWill Carver|title=Based The Daves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a True StoryLondon tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=This is 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?!' Franky is A struggling poetry zine, a hardmom-doneand-by schoolboypop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, whose ultraa 400-Catholic parents are stifling him in all aspects of lifemeter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, so much so ita women's likely that when he gets into trouble by witnessing some porn on track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a friend's mobile phone at school it was really state-of-the hardware that he was gawping at -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in amazement. Hardware is nothing to DaizeeAlabama, the underage street hookeran enigmatic signature, who knows what hard stuffs she likes and what she doesn'tK(s, and what her punters – and her motherx), back when they had on a connection – enjoyedcheap oil painting, or needed, en route to itan erotic art dealer in Georgia... Their unlikely connection '' This is just a sample of the subject cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this gritty novellamystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910213187</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pascal Garnier and Melanie Florence (translator)B0B2N7MVYM|title=BoxesThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45

|summary=Meet BriceIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. HeJust to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's an illustrator, who minds. The world has barely had picked an ideal house in the country with his journalist wife, only for her a chance to disappear assumed dead on assignment abroadbreathe out. Therefore heBut for Joe Marr, it's having to make not the move himself, which he does – but without her missile crisis that's at the other end he finds it hard to kick front of his new life into gearmind. He's been convicted of murder. YesWith the current state of medical knowledge, a cat adopts him, and he gets it's hard to know think otherwise than that the names of some new people, prosecution would never have been brought but thatJoe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's itBench, a relatively new prison. WhatHe's more, one of those people is Blanchejust getting used to his roommate, attired most suitably in all-whiteMervyn, who herself is missing someone – someone and learning to be wary of whom Brice is the spitting image…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477044</amazonuk>McArthur brothers.