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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven AmsterdamOnyi Nwabineli|title=What the Family NeededAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Steven AmsterdamAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's first novel [[Things We Didnincreasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam|Things We Didn't See Coming]] won several awards including The Guardian First Boom Award. His second books childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, 'What the Family Needed'basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is similar in that it too contains a large dose of her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the strange, yet it doesn't quite work as wellcontent about her. The book Anuri is centred around the families of two sistersbattling alcoholism, with each member having their own chapter told at different stages of their lives. In each one the various family members are facing problems of some sort or other and each mysteriously achieves some sort of super-power that they 'need' failing to partly overcome thesestart her PhD, although not always with the desired resultsundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. From early on Most importantly, the reader suspects that Alekshe is desperately worried about her little sister, elder sister Natalie's younger son who appears as an imaginative kid when we first meet him, is at the heart new focus of the weirdness Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and sure enough he has the final chapter in her relationship with her father at the book. Just don't expect everything to be explained.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846555809</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrey Kurkov1529153298|title=The Milkman in the NightList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If youIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they're going to go sleepwalkingve been murdered, there are better places but to do have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so than in Kiev in frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the grip of its usual snowyfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, cold and bleak winter - even if there Down South is a lovely blonde at the end of your journeyfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Semyon is living this realityFor Miv, unaware of the strange consequencesmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, just as others around him are unaware of the strange consequences of their actions - such as the airport security men who purloin some impounded drugs and test them on the catshe'll do anything to prevent that. We also have a young single mother selling herself - just She's not in worried about the dangers or that way her Mum's stopped talking - commuting into a capital where some are rich enough to try and stave of ageing, and to cheat death in various ways..anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548860</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Rich1035906708|title=What in God's NameDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In ''What in God's Name'', Simon Rich imagines Heaven Inc We tend to think of Maria Callas as a corporate entityGreek, with all the dysfunctional trappings of many a large company. At the head of the operationbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, as you might expectNew York, is God, although he seems to have lost his interest in planet Earth December 1923 and certainly in the operation of heavenonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. In fact, he'd rather be watching the religious channels on satellite television or opening a restaurant. Although he would like Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to see rock group 'Callas'Lynyrd'' ''Skynyrd'' re-form before he's done with the planet. In fact the only two who really care about what goes on down here are a workaholic angel named Craig who works in the Miracles Department and the recently promoted Eliza who has been labouring away, somewhat fruitlessly to make it seems, more manageable in the Prayers DepartmentStates. When Eliza finds she was back in Athens - supposedly so that her work on preparing prayers she could get appropriate training for God has been for nothing, her anger threatens voice - she was raised under the end Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the worldher preference for her elder sister, unless Craig and Eliza can help a couple of hopeless humans find love with each otherJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688485</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon CanterAlexander McCall Smith|title=WorthThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=RichardThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an Ad manalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and Sarahlook after the business, as Ness is planning to take a city lawyer meet, trip to Canada to get marriedaway for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and decide so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to leave London behind for an idyllic country life insteadEdinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. He’ll do some drawing 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, maybe look into illustrating. She’ll do voluntary work. They will start to Enjoy Life lend a bit more. They will become Better People. They will be the envy of all their friends still toiling away in the big smoke.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546825</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melanie GideonDean Koontz|title=Wife 22The Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=Alice and William Buckle have been married for quite Benny is having a few years and have two teenage children and a dogterrifically bad day. With their busy lives He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, they end up having little time for each other and rarely get the opportunity to talk about the things that matterhis house gets trashed. In order to do something about her feelings of discontent Oh, Alice googles 'happy marriage?' and although there seem to be no magic secrets for success, someone has delivered a little later she is invited to take part in an online survey about modern marriage. She is given the labelreally weird, Wife 22, and is assigned disturbing coffin-sized object to her caseworker, Researcher 101, who sends her questions periodicallyhis home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is also available through email to answer any queries. Alice soon enjoys being able to pour her heart out through the questions thing that she has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to answer but also finds that she deserve all this bad luck. He is becoming more than a little attracted to her faceless caseworkernice person. A really nice person. They start chatting through facebook and Alice finds So fortunately for Benny it quite exciting turns out that the delivery to mildly flirt with her his house is a new friend. However, the more she does soa bad weather friend called Spike, the more disgruntled she becomes with her own husband. There comes a point though where Alice who has been sent to decide whether help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take things further care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if she doeshe, what will become of her marriage?Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007481772</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonKatherine Howe|title=The Book Lover's TaleA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failedHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and so he had being made to join his wife in interior design, where he can use his love of books work there from a young age. When she hears there is to arrange - at be a cost - hanging of some pirates in the contentstown, design she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and most importantly the colourshorrified in equal measure, of upper class peopleHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's home libraries for themdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. He'll concede She hides away, so that itthey don's a good way t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to get into the housessea, dressing as a boy and beds, of rich women, such joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as his latest flame, Claudiaa cabin boy. But why She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is thisa mutiny on board, his confession, talking and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of murder?life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Heather Gudenkauf1471180158|title=One Breath AwayMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mrs Oliver has spent her life Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the classroomsubtlety of a half brick. Educating Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. Guiding He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Nurturing Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. But on Missed shifts or the last day of term all she really wants is need to get be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the afternoon bell without any dramawrong. A gunman walking in It was going to come to her classroom really does not fit in with her plansa head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848451326</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timeri N MurariB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=We all knowPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, or think we knowreclusive Bear, how oppressive life was for Afghanshe 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, particularly Afghan womenand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, under Petr goes on a journey through the Taliban regimeforest, but when you read this novelbroadcasting the strange, boy do you get a sense of how tough it really waswild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kerry HudsonSarah Marsh|title=Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My MaA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Janie Ryan is born After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a definitely underprivileged familyworld of silence, everything about her life changes. Despite Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a mother who tries school where she is taught to make the right decisionslip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, growing she ends up becomes in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a fight for survival (both figuratively system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and literally) as Janie encounters social servicesideas, tough schools, domestic violence and an array Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of 'uncles', all promising a better future that seems as tangible as the holy grailespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186399</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Drew Thomas1472263936|title=CurtainsThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Danny is a performer on London’s cabaret circuitIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, but his hard work isn’t doing much for his status. When he meets VeronicaGreek by birth, who promises had left the family home and refused to make him a starreturn, he never guesses but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that this might it would be too good a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be truethe first of several annual visits. Rapidly falling in She grew to love with her – or so he thinks – soon grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his life revolves around doing her biddingvalues but saw no reason to accommodate them. But Veronica is a more complex individual than Danny could ever have imagined His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - and inherited from her forcefulness will lead them both down an unimaginable pathfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957187807</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna KavennaDean Koontz|title=Come to the EdgeAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you are fortunate enough to own 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 rural second home hideaway makeshift mortuary, covered in the UKplastic, he has a sense that something very, this beautifully written book will probably give you nightmares. For very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the rest shrouded bodies of ushis dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, ithe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s a great read. The target for Joanna Kavenna Michael isn't ''Michael''s satire is the unused property, owned by the wealthy, depriving the local population of anywhere to live in the places they have grown upanymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780872135</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon DenmanB0BVDC2VWH|title=ConnectedThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Doug, a maths The village is isolated and computing undergraduate at Essex University, has just pulled the most amazing girlpoor. So heIt's not really that interested in surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the file villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of fractals research best friend Kal has just sent him. But while Doug the forest provides heat and Cindy are busily getting it warmth, roofs onhomes, something has gone horribly wrong for Kal and Doug emerges from afternoon delight to the horrific discovery that his friend has committed suicideeven gallows, if needed. Miles away The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the countryside, Peter is attending his brother's funeral. Martin was a musician but not a tortured artist village and it seems inconceivable that he too would take his own life. But is the tripreason Volushka, for Petera drunken, is more than a family obligation self- it's the chance indulgent, lazy lout of a break from a stale marriage and an opportunity to indulge in some guilty proximity to his newly-bereaved sister-in-lawman is tolerated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0089YQPI0</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane FeaverB0BYF82CXT|title=An Inventory of HeavenSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mavis Gaunt was evacuated to Shipleigh in Devon during World War II and went to live with her aunt. It wasn't just an escape from the dangers of London - it was a welcome relief from her parents' loveless marriage Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in her mind it became a heavenly retreat. In her twenties depressing rut of boredom and with her mother dead there was nothing to keep her in London so she headed back to Shipleigh. She struck up an unlikely friendship with Frances Upcottdisappointment, one of three children of a reclusive farmer when Terry andFiona – glamorous, almost against her willsuccessful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, found herself drawn into the couples befriend each other and life of the farmappears to improve for both pairs. It gave her a sense of belonging but But all is not what it ended in seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330006</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin AmisShalini Boland|title=Lionel AsboThe Silent Bride|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nasty, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. He's violent, uncouth and ignorant. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block with his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character in the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent and kind, that is if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk''Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, Billy funny; total and what utter husband-material. She is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from the war all he could possibly want in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalists. The US armywife; beautiful, successful, keen to gain PR from confident… and so the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next weekwedding is planned and set. The majority of When the book takes place on the last much-anticipated day of this tour when Billy arrives, Alice is in his home-state of Texas, where walked down the Bush link makes it even more pro-waraisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the boys are invited congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to attend that most American of PR eventsface his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the Thanksgiving football game man at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. Accompanying the troop altar is a veteran Hollywood producer , who has promised the soldiers that he can sell their story is waiting for her to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simplebecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shams Uddin1787636003|title=The Year from JahannamGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Wright family begin a blog in January 2011. They all want to celebrate a new start after It was the turmoil of recent years. Father Richard had been a casualty of the financial crisis, working for Lehman Brothers at the time of its collapse, summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and the ensuing chaos had affected the entire family one way or another. But Richard retrained, secured a new job Caroline went backpacking around Greece and has recently earned a huge bonus. At last the family are back arrived on track and enjoying the fruits of hard labourisland. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957175205</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jan Wallentin|title=Strindberg Rachel wasn's Star|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Just as he is preparing for t exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an appearance on a television showinterest in her, a stranger approaches Don Titelman and asks for his helpshe was flattered rather than wary. This man, Erik Hall, has recently discovered It was quite a mysterious body at the bottom while before he made any sort of a flooded mine shaftphysical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Whilst perfectly preservedAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, medical checks confirm looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the man had been dead for nearly a hundred years. The deceased apparently committed suicide whilst holding on to a metal ankh with some strange writings on itgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)Amanda Craig|title=Every Day, Every HourThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friendsFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. In normal situations one might add 'There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and a whole lot more'' to that sentencecapture it, but Dora and Luka are crafting an image of the country as it stands in Kindergarten, which makes their intense relationship hard to defineone particular moment. As they grow into adults, however, it becomes obvious To say that there Amanda Craig is something between them and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this it is there and is not going to fade awaypoint. Dora’s parents move her across She has such a gift for weaving the continent, careers develop and flourish, out ongoing issues of nowhere they are enveloped by family the day into the livesof her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back to one anotherinstead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gerry Wells152915118X|title=Kicking the Hornets' NestPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hilary, a single mother ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of two troublesome boys meets Davidthree women: Sasha, an elderly writer with problems of his ownDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, through Facebook. It’s an odd beginning – they have only Sasha isn't a mutual friend, Stockton by birth so one adds she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the otherclan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and then Sasha if they start chatting quite spontaneously – but sets 'd like to move into the scene well for their atypical relationshipPineapple Street property. Hilary’s in New Zealand Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, David’s in Londonwhich they own. They are many decades apart won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in age . Nominally, they had a choice but are clearly both quite lonely that wasn't the reality. Darley and looking for someone to talk Georgiana start tocall Sasha 'the gold digger'. So, with the vague anonymity of social networking on She's living in ''their side, '' family home. They use it so often that they reach out abbreviate it to one another'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881993296</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lionel ShriverEmily Critchley|title=The New RepublicOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=34|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Lionel Shriver adds a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal 84 year old Edie has lived in The New Republic and immediately has it fighting the same small town for independencealmost her whole life, taking but now she is facing a wry look at terrorism move as well her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the ethics memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the international press corpstruth of what happened all that time ago. After a series of international terrorism acts'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the Os Soldados Ousados De Barbalast time she saw her, or she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the SOB for shortpast, have gone quiet at she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a trace. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barringtontruth about Lucy's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killersdisappearance before her move, as it were. and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne SwardMadelaine Lucas|title=BreathlessThirst for Salt|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There are those who say that''Love, on an individual levelI'd read, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate it. Ohwas supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, if only it were so easy. but I had always longed for gravity''Breathless'' is one of those that I neither love nor hate, and yet am not totally uninspired by either. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Lee0008506337|title=JoyThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Very stylishThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, observant 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 Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and oh so spikyhaving a glittering career. In the event, this is an incredible they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, often uncomfortable novel that you just canthe family home on the Isle of Wight. 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''t put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020427</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Nickels1914585402|title=The Other Side of SilenceDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Pippa Eastman went to Australia to get away from her domineering father, the historian Joseph Eastman I 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 there that she met Jude, the son of two Ten Pound Poms. Their relationship It was gooda gripping, but not exactly committed on either side. It was about having fun. Familial ties were surprisingly strong though and when Joseph Eastman developed Alzheimer's Disease Pippa returned to the UK to care for him. Slightly to her surpriseemotionally wounding read, Jude followed her - determined to track down the alcoholic father who had left him and his mother in Australia. It's only after her father's death that Pippa finds herself in search rereading my review of her father's life - and trying to establish it my main takeaway was that he wasn't a murdererI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781762686</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William NicholsonLucy Ashe|title=The Golden Hour|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Maggie is nervous about committing to a live-in relationship, terrified by the idea that there must be something better out there. Dean is terrified of losing the love of his life Clara and old Mrs Dickinson is just, well, terrified. Henry is frustrated by rabbits in his garden, Alan is frustrated by work, and Liz is frustrated by old Mrs Dickinson, who is her mother...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163936</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel Glattauer|title=Love VirtuallyOlivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Emmi sends The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and email to cancel a magazine subscriptionOlivia are sisters, she has twins no idea what a slight typo in less. Identical on the email address will lead to – a life-changingoutside but not, potentially marriage-wreckingwe learn, all-consuming online love affair with on the man whom she emails in errorinside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. What starts as an insignificantSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, casual message quickly becomes something much more important attention to both her detail – and Leo as two people who have never met start to share their secrets and wishessome things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', dreams and fears with each otherthat don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, not just because they can buta charm, it seemsa ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, because they have toand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050958</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan ClarkHeather Fawcett|title=Rory's Boys|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=Rory Blaine, grandson of Lady Sybil Blaine is gay, free, single and loving it, as he tells himself a dozen times a day. He may be middle aged but he's still got it. HeEmily Wilde's a partner in a successful advertising firm and so, so over having been thrown out Encyclopaedia of home when he was a teenager; yes, over it – totally and completely. When he hears his grandmother is dying, he decides it's time to remind her (and her considerable wealth) of his existence. The tardy but intensive attention seems to pay off when he's left the ancestral pile. But the stately home wasn't left to him quite in the way that he thought. There are so many strings attached it resembles a marionette: if he wants to keep it he must transform it into the first retirement home for elderly gay gentlemen and he also seems to have acquired his first resident, whether he's wanted or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906413886</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Allan Hendry|title=End GameFaeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A decade ago arms dealer Peter Rossi Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and Bill Rawlingsresearched meticulously, theologianto write her life's work, were in rough terrain two thousand feet above the Dead Seavery first encyclopaedia of faeries. Rawlings was looking for something, but what, or where? It still wasn't entirely clear to Rossi when it was necessary for them to make a dramatic escape from a group of men - Whilst she is brilliant at research and the resulting carnage would be the stuff of nightmares for Rossi for many years speaking to comefaeries, she is not so good with people. A decade later and at So when she finds herself far, far North in the other side small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the world Bradley O'Connorvillage matriarch, billionaire computer scientistshe is not sure what she has done, was forced nor how to land his vintage plane redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on a mountain the right track in heavy snow . Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and in the cold insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and lonely night which followed found his plane surrounded by a group of men eerily similar - had he but known it - delight, much to those Rossi and Rawlings had encounteredEmily'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>1848972431</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza Graham1398515388|title=The History RoomBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with a key scene from Meredith’s childhood and then springs forward to First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the present day tsunami and the incident this, in turn, caused the history roomnuclear meltdown. The prank sets the tone for the whole novel – sinister in many subtle ways result was complete and having several layers of meaningutter devastation. The cast assemble around the fall out from the prank deaths were uncountable, and each character is beautifully drawn. Hugh, Meredith’s husband, is suffering the results of horrors he experienced in Helmand. Meredith’s immediate family are also traumatised by the death loss of her motherlivelihoods was widespread. In this highly charged atmosphere, it’s hard to know whether they are taking the prank too seriously or if it does indeed imply worrying occurrences within the school. Add in The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the presence list of strangers in priorities but - six months after the form of new pupils and new staff, and before long even the most longtsunami -held relationships begin to suffer as Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a result of all dog person but the suspicions convenience store owner's comment that are brought out by he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the prankdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509276</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukChristopher Bowden|title=Invisible Monsters RemixMr Magenta|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christopher Bowden'Don't expect this to be the kind s latest novel is a patient untangling of story that goes: and then, and then, and then.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk books, upon his first, seemingly ordinary woman''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British successs life, and never got round to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy carried out by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it her nephew after allshe has died.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marcello Fois|title=Memory of the Abyss|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are on Sardinia, over The aunt who always provided a hundred years ago. It is safe harbour and a land little bit of legend, where storytellers can see indulgence to a different nature to the moon each night and convey that in their earthly stories. It's young nephew had had a world of wonder, where sheep can fall from the skies for much more interesting life than one reason. It's a poor land, where lads are expected to be responsible shepherds by the time they are ten. As a result people look after each other - except, while returning from a Christening Samuele that nephew Stephen had ever realised and his father are refused basic hospitality. Later when the boy runs away one night the land falls away beneath him - yet he finds a girl it seems to ground him an obligation to this earth. Which is most relevant when he goes to war, and particularly when he comes back and finds himself a wronged man, and in need of vengeance..find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francis BennettJennifer Mason|title=The Crabber StoriesPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=John White was known to everyone as Crabber - a nickname which he once earned and which then stuck - Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and he grew up on the shores of Long Island unintentional detective in the nineteen-fifties. It was a close-knit community [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a time when children had more freedom than they are likely to be allowed nowseries of disappearances. We watch as Crabber grows from being a boy still suffering from the death In ''Partitions of his elder brother when we first met him through to a time when heUnity''s old enough , she sets her mind to go on solving a hunting trip on the mainland with a local familymurder.. He tells his own stories, as truthfully as he can and with the sort of insight which children have before life injects its cynicism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Belinda SeawardWill Carver|title=The Beautiful Truth|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are two parallel story lines in Belinda Seaward's ''The Beautiful Truth'': one set in the present day and one in wartime Poland. Both involve love stories and personal struggles, and there are repeating themes such as horses and the stars that effectively provide links between the two in this clearly well-researched and engrossing narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719521114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=EL James|title=Fifty Shades FreedDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When the [[Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James|first]] book Five strangers come together in one moment as a trilogy is outstandingly awesome, and the [[Fifty Shades Darker by EL James|second]] is pretty darn excellent, suicide bomber prepares to read the final instalment is detonate his vest on a no-brainer reallyLondon tube line. AndAs their fates overlap, I suspect that the story is why this book is selling so well, because while it’s a mildly interesting readingtold in backwards order, in my mind it didn’t come close leading up to the first two offerings in terms of intriguing characters, a suspense filled plot or general ''kinky-fuckery''fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099579944</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maggie ShipsteadJennifer Mason|title=Seating ArrangementsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Weddings are always ''A struggling poetry zine, a potential source for intrigue mom-and drama. In Maggie Shipstead's debut novel-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, ''Seating Arrangements''a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, therea women's plenty track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of that going on. Set -the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in a New England island called WaskekeAlabama, an enigmatic signature, Winn Van Meter'K(s eldest daughter, Daphnex), on a cheap oil painting, who is already heavily pregnant is about to marry Greyson Duffan erotic art dealer in Georgia... The problems start when Daphne's retinue ' This is just a sample of bridesmaids, who include her sister, Livia, who has had her heart broken by her first love to the son cast of Winn's social arch rivalcharacters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, and the flirtatious Agatha mix with Greyson's brotherssome keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this.. Add in the fact that Winn has always had a yearning for Agatha and things get decidedly messy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>000742521X</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony ParsonsB0B2N7MVYM|title=Catching the SunThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Finn 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 still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had been a builderchance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, but bankruptcy intervened and taxi driving provided some sort it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of living for him, his wife, Tess and twins Rory and Keevamind. And so it might have continued but for two burglars in his homeHe's been convicted of murder. Tom With the current state of medical knowledge, it'confronted' them - and nearly went s hard to jail, but his conviction mean think otherwise than that taxi driving was no longer an option. Then a chance encounter the prosecution would never have been brought him the offer of another driving job - but this one was Joe Marr has spent his first few days in Phuket in Thailand - and included accommodationHMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. ThereHe's a saying that if something seems too good just getting used to be true then it probably ishis roommate, Mervyn, but when you're as close and learning to be wary of the bottom as Tom Finn there comes a time when you've got to take a chance and hope that this is your lucky dayMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007327811</amazonuk>
}}
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