Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[image:ZIFFIT.png|center|link=https://www.ziffit.com/24-hours?utm_source=TheBookBag&utm_medium=Banner&utm_campaign=Promo&MCUnIdTheBookBag=Banner]]
<hr/>
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sebastian FaulksOnyi Nwabineli|title= Where my Heart Used Allow Me to BeatIntroduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= In Anuri spent her childhood on display to the early 1980’sworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on a small island off the South of Francesocial media, a Doctor named Robert Hendricks confronts his life – memories where she posted every step of warsAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, work, lovesbasically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and losses. As his history she is explored slowly trying to regain her confidence and questioned by his hostto get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Hendricks recalls days in Scottish universitiesAnuri is battling alcoholism, Italian trenchesfailing to start her PhD, mental asylums undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and windswept beachesreceiving money from them for doing so. Links to Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the past are uncoverednew focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and the raw wounds they expose take Hendricks on a search for sanity perhaps herself and raises the question – is life comprised of events themselves, or her relationship with her father at the way in which an individual chooses to remember themsame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091936837</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1529153298|title=The Revolving Door List of LifeSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I am always happy to sit back down with old friendsmean, to catch up on what has been happening on Scotland Streethonestly... ) As in the last episode [[BertieShe's not what's worrying Miv's Guide to Life and Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith]] there is plenty of Bertie throughout the whole storyfamily, though. Bertie is my favourite character by far, so this was very pleasing to me! Women have been disappearing. Our other favourites are there tooWell, howeverthey've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so therefrightening. Miv's upset because she's something overheard that her father wants to please everyonemove the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, from Bruce beingbest avoided. For Miv, wellthe move would mean leaving her best friend, BruceSharon, and dear Angus reciting a poem at she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the enddangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973287</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rachel Elliott1035906708|title= Whispers Through A Megaphone|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Miriam doesn’t speak. Well, that’s not strictly true. She does speak, but nothing above a whisper which makes it hard to have a conversation with her. Particularly as she hasn’t left her house in three years. But today is the day. She’s going to open that door and walk outside. She really is. Ralph has finally twigged (and with no small amount of surprise) that his wife Sadie doesn’t actually love him. And now he’s not sure if she ever really did. Having spent so much time regurgitating his every moment onto Social Media, Ralph hasn’t really had a chance to think about it. But now he has, it is so shockingly awful that he has decided to run away. And of all the places he could run away to, he has chosen the same woods that Miriam has picked to be the first place she will visit out-of-doors. And Sadie? Well, she’s had enough of reading Tweets and living vicariously through the posts of others. Sadie is going to have an adventure of her own. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992918227</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDiva|author=Gregoire Delacourt|title=The First Thing You SeeDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arthur Dreyfuss is a fairly run We tend to think of the mill young man. He likes big breastsMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, carsNew York, Juplier beer in December 1923 and big breastsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. He’s also rather keen on big breastsHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. A goodWhen she was back in Athens -looking boy, even if he does say supposedly so himself ''…like Ryan Gosling, only better looking'' we will take him at his word, although one would had thought a better looking Ryan Gosling would have had his fill of Zepplin chested females so as to dilute his desire that she could get appropriate training for them. In any event, I suspect his longings stem from her voice - she was raised under the fact that Nazi occupation by a young mechanic living a quiet mother who mercilessly exploited her and uneventful life in a tiny village in rural France is unlikely to have a multitude made no secret of such femmes crossing his path in search of their daily baguette. That saidher preference for her elder sister, when Arthur one day opens his front door to find a rather distressed but undeniably luscious Scarlett Johansson on his doorstep, he does not question his luck. He invites her in. As you doJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871021</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John PiperAlexander McCall Smith|title=Claude's JourneyThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One routineThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, normally uneventful journey changes Claude's life forevertailored service. 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 while. It begins with Katie is coming out of a chance encounter break up with a malevolent hen party bad boyfriend, and carries on with so jumps at the betrayal of those he thought he could trust sending him into a spiral of captivity chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and fetishist slaverythe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00EJQSLLG</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Beth MillerDean Koontz|title= The Good NeighbourBad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary= Minette Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has not had trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the best experience of neighboursvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. It's hard when you have So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new born. They're not known friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being quiet as a mouse at all times good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and occasionallywill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, wellif he, occasionally they scream through the night. So sheBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's glad when the nasty couple move and wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are replaced by Cath and her two kids. A fellow mother! An ally! Surely she will be more understanding?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091956331</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Fausto BrizziKatherine Howe|title= One Hundred Days of HappinessA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Sometimes ''Serendipity'' coerces ''Fate'' into making sure you read Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a particular bookyoung age. I picked ''One Hundred Days…'' off the shelf on the back When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the blurb from an author of town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a book I havenyoung boy't actually read. I confused s death at the title hands of their book with one I adoredtwo vicious pirates. Make of She hides away, so that what you willthey don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, Idressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low'm going to call it s pirate ship as a happy accident, because this cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a book many mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of us really need to readlife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447269012</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S E Craythorne1471180158|title=How You See MeMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=DanielJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's father is ill after a stroke and so Daniel needs to go home to Norfolk to nurse himcontrol freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. While there he continues to write letters to his beloved girlfriend AliceJamie's son, Bo, 'has his sister Mab problems'. He's asthmatic and his boss to keep them up to datethe more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. The problems in DanielSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's life are a lot closer to home than those hefrequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's left behind in his normal life thoughnot fit enough to go to school. Gradually Missed shifts or the reasons why Daniel left Norfolk return need to be away on time to him, increasing pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in intensity until it's much, much too latethe wrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908434562</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Massey B0CKD1L5JL|title=The Last Four Days Of Paddy BuckleyRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Paddy Buckley Petr is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagheran 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 long-established—some say the best—funeral home brief sojourn in Dublin. One night driving home after an unexpected encounter human company, and armed with only a clientpirate radio transmitter, Paddy hits Petr goes on a pedestrian crossing journey through the street. He pulls over and gets out of his carforest, intending to do broadcasting the right thing. As he bends over to help the manstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he recognizes him. It's Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin. And he's dead. Shocked and scared, Paddy jumps back in his car and drives away before anyone notices what's happenedencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594634858</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James LovegroveSarah Marsh|title=Sherlock Holmes - The Thinking EngineA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In this hyper-connected After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a worldof silence, it is not difficult to conceive of machines that can answer perplexing questions everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the blink use of an eyesign language was seen as something only savages do, communicate over Ellen is sent to a vast network or even seemingly outsmart humansschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Of course From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the year 1895, such a machine would be viewed with deep suspicion deaf and curiosity; hailed as using a miracle, or condemned as the work of dark supernatural forcessystem called Visible Speech. James Lovegrove put this idea to At the test in his latest Sherlock Holmes adventuresame time, ''The Thinking Engine''Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, which pits man against machine and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the ultimate battle a complicated tangle of witsespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1783295031</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=C B CalicoB0BC3YTCMR|title=Dandelion AngelGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In her Author's Note, debut novelist C.B'This story is not for everyone. Calico reveals that ''Dandelion Angel''  Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was inspired by a nonvery bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo -fiction work, people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It'Understanding the Borderline Mother'' by Christine Ann Lawsons not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. The four mother/daughter relationships in this Germany She had a crush on seventeen-year-set novel – all marked to some extent by dysfunction, physical old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and/or verbal abuse, and borderline personality disorder – are based on Lawson's metaphorical classificationsReggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: the hermit, the queen, the waif, this was just an extension. She went to his house and the witchhe raped her. Looping back through her four storylines in three complete cycles In shock, Calico shows how mental illness is rooted in childhood experiences and can go on she even allowed him to affect give her a whole familylift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0112SC9CA</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett1472263936|title=The Silent HistoryFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=Well, they kept this quiet – for reasons It was in 1968 that will become obviousHelena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. A couple of years ago people in America were giving She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth to problematic kids. They (, had left the children) were soon found family home and refused to be unnaturally quiet – perhaps crying with hunger or painreturn, but never even trying to 'ooga-woogaMary and Hamish (Helena' their way into their s parents' hearts. They were later found to ) felt that it would be completely unable to speak, they could not read and indeed they could not understand anything said to them, a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or shown them, as an instructionunderstanding her Greek heritage. They were physically unable Her trip to parse anything as language, and were the family apartment in a silent world up-market Kolonaki would be the first of their ownseveral annual visits. But right about now they She grew to love her grandmother and we are combining worlds – schools are being set upthe family's maid, and funds are being made availableDina, but was wary - and people are coming down on the endless divide as to whether they are just problematicfrightened - of her grandfather, disabled – or even the blessedretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. In a couple He was proud of years, however, his close connections to the problems the virus that is causing these people to be born with will be shown to be a major problem – Junta and that is before the kids themselves change. For they will be able expected his family to switch their mental abilities much like a blind man can hear more than the average, and will be able uphold his values but saw no reason to comprehend body and facial language much more coherently than anyone elseaccommodate them. Throughout this timeline, however, people will be working hard to try His prejudices included Helena's red hair and study the problem, and put it right – if indeed green eyes - inherited from her father'right' is the correct word…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009959286X</amazonuk>s Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Crown and Jamie Searle Romanelli (translator)Dean Koontz|title=SiriusAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Levi. He's Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a humble little dog living with virus is released in a loving familybio-hazard accident. They've spent so much time with him Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has learnt some tricks a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him not and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the usual ones, shrouded bodies of begging, or playing his dead, but walking on two legs, somersaulting on to friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his two other pawssenses, 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 Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and giving the Hitler salutepoor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. If this was 2015 in And the UK he would be shoevillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-in for Britain's Got Talent (although like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the Hitler salute might lose him a few votesforest provides heat and warmth, to be honest) but this is 1930s Berlinroofs on homes, and things are starting to get horrendously tough and nasty for Jewish families like hiseven gallows, if needed. Querying the statute laws that demand a formalisation The fear of Jewish names his owners rename Levi after Sirius, the Great Dog being buried alive is an existential superstition in the night skies. But nobody can foresee what happens when Jews are pushed harder village and harder from their neighbourhoodsthat is the reason Volushka, and nobody can see what a Great Dog star Sirius can becomedrunken, self-indulgent, in the most unlikely lazy lout of milieux – Hollywood…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784081981</amazonuk>a man is tolerated.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Meike ZiervogelB0BYF82CXT|title=KautharSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Meet Lydia. She's 'Bill and Amanda are living in a normal British girlsemi-detached house, interested stuck in following both her fathera depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Nadia Comaneci, into the world of gymnastics but not brave enough to pull off the larger set piecesFiona – glamorous, successful and with not very much more to interrupt her days than wondering why boys always have to talk about in love – move in next door. Despite their willies. Now meet Kauthardifferent outlooks on life, a white British convert to Islam, devoted follower of the precepts of her religion, ardent wife couples befriend each other and stalwartly self-fulfilling, no-nonsense and satisfiedlife appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what is this – why is she talking of being alone in a desertit seems, and why is she directly addressing her god regarding how she ''can't perform any movementtheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Because it is torn apart''? Has something gone wrong?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630292</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia HeaberlinShalini Boland|title=Black Eyed SusansThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I knew little about this book before I started it - other than the intriguing title Alice and the scant information that it is a psychological mystery about Seth are a girl who survives abduction by a serial killermatch made in heaven. For those who He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, like meclever, can't resist suspense (funny; total and it seems that many people do fall into this categoryutter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, according to confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the bestseller lists at least), this wedding is enticement enough. And I was not disappointed: this story offers psychological uncertainty planned and suspense from start to finishset. The narrative alternates between present When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the past, each section lasting just a couple of pages. I found congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this structure tricky at firstjoyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, although each chapter does offer a helpful timeline and the chapters are short enough that itAlice's easy to reorient yourself. Once I got used to world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the choppy style I found that it did work, and it worked really well, reflecting man at the constant flashbacks and mental turmoil experienced by Tessaaltar is, the protagonistwho is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718181336</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tessa McWatt1787636003|title= Higher Ed The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 2.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Robin works at a universityIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Olivia is one of his students. Francine works behind the scenes Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in adminher, she was flattered rather than wary. Katrin is It was quite a waitress in a local caféwhile before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and Ed has a role in a rather unique bit of local government. This bizarre cast of characters are particular in the stars of ''Higher Ed'', a story which eventually combines bar where all of their livesthe girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925228045</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Mary KubicaAmanda Craig|title= Pretty BabyThree Graces|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= On her morning commute to work, Heidi sees Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something that shakes her. A young girl, barely older than her own pre-teen daughter, huddling in so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the rain on atmosphere of the platformday and capture it, clutching a tiny babycrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. ItTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a distressing situation and it stays on her mind gift for weaving the rest ongoing issues of the day. So much so into the lives of her characters in a way that when she sees the girl againfeels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, she feels obligated to helpgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848453965</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Piper152915118X|title=La Crème de la CremPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Gala night at Frere Jacques restaurant where ''Pineapple Street'' is the local political story of three women: Sasha, Darley and good gather for a banquetGeorgiana. Everyone Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is looking forward married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a good night and thatStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's what exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'll have, just not quite in d like to move into the way they envisagedPineapple Street property. Indeed it will be a night Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to remember for another property, a long time to comestreet or so away, for all the wrong reasons courtesy which they own. They won't need any of the little something furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in the dessert. Meanwhile young people are going missing on Nominally, they had a scale choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the town of Tresside has never experienced before but Tresside doesngold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 't know the half of it… yet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00G4A2RQ0</amazonuk>GD'.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Katie EversonEmily Critchley|title= DropOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 4|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= Katie Everson’s debut novel84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, ‘Drop,’ but now she is facing a tale of grief move as her son wants to move to another house and healingbring Edie to live with his family, whirlwind romance and brutal honestyas Edie is starting to lose her memory. We follow However, Edie is tormented by the story memory of Carla - straight-A-studenther childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, rule-abiding daughter and somewhat uninteresting friend - who is determined to change her predictable lifethe 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. When After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her absentee mother is offered a job in London, Carla transfers she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet another school and this time as she remembers the past, she is desperate forgetting more and more in her day to not be overlookedday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406356271</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= John NivenMadelaine Lucas|title= The Sunshine Cruise CompanyThirst for Salt|rating= 4.5|genre= HumourLiterary Fiction|summary= Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset town. Friends since school''Love, I'd read, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has was supposed to be a lovely house light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a lengthy marriage to accountant Barryretrospective view, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's homeyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeonOverlaid with later wisdom, it transpires that he has been leading the narrator relives the affair with a hidden life for man twenty years, and his expensive fetishes lead 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 bank moving to take Susan24-year-old narrator's home. Struck by both desperation and a sense of injusticedeepening relationship with her older lover, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bankdepicting its all-consuming nature, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money how it changed her perspective on both romantic and a terminally ill grandson, familial relationships and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of the nursing home longing for adventurehow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paula McGrath0008506337|title= GenerationThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=How can we know the effect The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that our choices may have on Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the next generation? Even a seemingly minor decision has event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the potential Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to create ripples become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and waves of unforeseen repercussions Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the futurefamily home on the Isle of Wight. This fascinating theme is explored in “Generation”, an intelligently-written début novel that approaches Even then the subject doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from multiple perspectives over an eighty-year periodMargo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147361483X</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kerry Hudson1914585402|title= ThirstDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= London – SummerI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Alena, It was a young siberian immigrant is caught stealing shoes. Davegripping, the man who catches heremotionally wounding read, is a security guard – surviving and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on a minimal income and with little drive to better his quiet, repetitive life. As Alena and Dave grow closer, Dave finds his life turned upside downit. But will Alena ever let down her guard, and reveal the truth about her past?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099589893</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Lesley PearseLucy Ashe|title= Without a TraceClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=CassieThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's arrival was bound to cause a stir in the sleepy Somerset village of SawbridgeWells. She had flaming red hairBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, a voluptuous figure accentuated by very tight clothing, towering heels, heavy make-up and twins no wedding ringless. But Identical on the thing that really shocked outside but not, we learn, on the locals was the fact inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that she had builds a little mixed-race girl in towdancer. PetalSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, as she was calledattention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', soon melted that don't come from the hearts of the residentsclassroom. A stage presence, but no such courtesy was extended to Cassiea charm, who was dubbed a ''joie de vivre'that red-headed whore' by some. Her only friend was the kind shopkeeper Molly HeywoodThe difference between a hard-worker, who would often visit Cassie and Petal at their isolated stone cottage on the outskirts of the villagea star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024196153X</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eva RiceHeather Fawcett|title=Love Notes for FreddieEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Marnie Emily Wilde is an innocentexpert academic scholar on faerie lore, mathematical genius schoolgirl whoand she has travelled extensively, unfortunatelyand researched meticulously, gets expelled from to write her fancy boarding schoollife's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Julie Whilst she is her teacherbrilliant at research and speaking to faeries, formerly a dancer, rigorously private about her past. Freddie she is the boy that both of them fall in love not so good withpeople. Revealed through So when she finds herself far, far North in the eyes of two small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the three main charactersvillage matriarch, this she is a slow-movingnot sure what she has done, but rather beautifully told, love storynor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. It has the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets'' Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and it cleverly winds its way through Marniedelight, much to Emily's story in frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the 1960's as well as Julie's past in pre-WW2 New York.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782064486</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kat Gordon1398515388|title= Artificial Anatomy of ParksThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=One morning in 2002First of all, it was the earthquake, twenty-one year old Tallulah Park is woken deep in her depressing bedsit by the phonecall announcing her father's heart attack. From this bleak beginning springs Kat Gordon's gripping debut novel of a dysfunctional upper middle class family with a history of papering over ocean floor, which created the cracks tsunami and ignoring this, in turn, caused the uncomfortable nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and unfittingutter devastation. Tallulah has been doing her fair share of powering on The deaths were uncountable, and pretending things don't exist, but it seems like this might turn out to be the time to stop running awayloss of livelihoods was widespread. With The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the reluctant help list of two aunts, an old family friend and her own imperfect recollections, and with priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a vivid imagining of her late grandmother as dog person but the voice of conscience, Tallulah sets out convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to answer some long-standing questions about her family open his car door and her own pastTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079867</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dido Butterworth and Tim FlanneryChristopher Bowden|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishMr Magenta|rating=34|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Meet Archie Meek. HeChristopher Bowden's about to leave the Venus Islands, where helatest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's lived for the last five yearslife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and return a little bit of indulgence to Sydney, where he'll take his office in the museum a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickled. That's not seems to ignore 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 body. But what's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him an obligation to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artworkfind it all out. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate HewittJennifer Mason|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 Partitions of Marvellous WaysUnity|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across the landscape with her binoculars. She has 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 feeling something will happen and soonseries of disappearances. Elsewhere American Francis Drake (heIn ''s heard all the jokes!) has come home from the war and looks up the girl he left behind with results that are beyond his nightmares but will feature in them. MarvellousPartitions of Unity' and Drakes' lives will cross and then – Marvellous is right – something will happen, she sets her mind to solving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Bourne Will Carver|title=Two LivesThe Daves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One late afternoon Five strangers come together in January 2012, Emma Elliot and Loretta Davidson's lives collide – along with their cars. 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 one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. For LorettaAs their fates overlap, the effects are more immediate. A social worker story is told in her fortiesbackwards order, she has taken a career break leading up to raise her and Martin's beloved son Ethan, 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 grief, Loretta turns to Scotch and Valium and drifts away from her husband and their familiesfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Val HennessyJennifer Mason|title=Not Far From DreamlandPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barrier. What Ronald ''has'' got is A struggling poetry zine, a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'mom-and-pop mobile diner in the shack')Northern California redwoods, a dog 400-meter hurdler who is going bald (in patches) and money thatjust missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's in very short supply. On track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the plus side he has friends-art S&M dungeon, mostly platonic and usually a man serving a life sentence in much the same boat as Ronald. But are they downhearted? WellAlabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, they are occasionallyx), but mostly they're generously optimistic and out to make the most of what they've goton a cheap oil painting, usually bought from charity shops and jumble salesan erotic art dealer in Georgia... ''Not Far From Dreamland''  This is just a sample of the story cast of a year (2012) characters and settings in the life Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relativesthis mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo McMillanB0B2N7MVYM|title=Motherland: A NovelThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jess It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is a teenage Communist which isnstill very fresh in people't a surprise since she comes from a Communist familys minds. Her late father was The world has barely had a card carrying member and Jess spends her weekends selling ''The Morning Star'' with her equally enthused mother Eleanorchance to breathe out. ItBut for Joe Marr, it's not only a thankless task, itthe missile crisis that's not a very welcome sight for some citizens in their native Tamworth at the front of the 1970shis mind. However Eleanor and JessHe' lives are about to changes been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, thanks to an all-expenses paid trip it's hard to think otherwise than that the GDR – Communist East Germany; a place on the same side of the Berlin Wall as Jess' and Eleanorprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's heartsBench, a relatively new prison. HoweverHe's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, they both learn that even a political heaven has its lessons and, indeed, its downsidelearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473611997</amazonuk>
}}
 
Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Navigation menu