Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Antonia Honeywell
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=The Ship
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
 
|summary=Sixteen year old Lalla has spent her life in London – mostly inside her family home. Because this is not the London of today, or any other day. When Lalla was seven, the apocalypse arrived; banks crashed, flood defences failed, power failed – and the world could only focus on survival. Now the Nazareth Act is in force and without your identity card, you don’t exist – literally, as you will be shot if you don't produce it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871498</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nigel Packer
 
|title=The Restoration of Otto Laird
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Restoration of Otto Laird'' is an interesting concept for a story. It pitches an ageing architect against an ageing building that was built early in Otto's career. When Otto makes the trip from Switzerland to London to try and save Marlowe house from demolition, he takes an unwilling journey down his own past.  
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in 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 content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so.  Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751553077</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Walthew
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|isbn=1529153298
|title=The Complex Chemistry of Loss
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|title=The List of Suspicious Things
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|author=Jennie Godfrey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Deep in rural France James Kerr was admitted to a psychiatric clinicHis mental problems were deep and intractableSuperficially he seemed never to have got over the sudden death of his mother and sister when he was a child and after their death his relationship with his father had deteriorated because his father refused to speak of their lossThere were additional factors too: Kerr had spent some time in Afghanistan in a secret capacityIn fact much of his life since he went to university had involved putting up a front, but doing something else in the background.
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|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister.  (A woman?  I mean, honestly...)  She's not what's worrying Miv's family, thoughWomen have been disappearingWell, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening.  Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoidedFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that.  She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00OLMHCW2</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Brooke Davis
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|isbn=1035906708
|title=Lost and Found
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|title=Diva
|rating=5
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|author=Daisy Goodwin
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Millie Bird keeps a notebook. She writes in it all of the Dead Things that she sees. Her Very First Dead Thing was her dog Rambo. Then there were other things a spider, a Bird… but then there was number 28. The twenty-eighth dead thing than Millie Bird noticed was her Dad.
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|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958903</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jonathan Lethem
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|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Dissident Gardens
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|title=The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rose Zimmer, a feisty American communist radical, takes on many good and great causes. These include everything from feminism and racism to the changing course of Stalinism in the American C.P. but most of all; her biggest causes are the people around her. The effects upon them are diverse and devastating. She often propels them to success but at the same time they feel battered and must escape according to their own needs. Her affections are real but invasive. Rose keeps a shrine to Abraham Lincoln. Rose’s self-assertion within the perimeters of the German-designed 20th Century New York suburb of Queens, a multi-cultural suburb and a planned housing development similar to Hampstead Garden City provide the setting for Jonathan Lethem’s Tour de Force.
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|summary=The 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, tailored 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. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the 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 the 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563428</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1846976596
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Dean Koontz
|author=Virginia Burges
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|title=The Virtuoso
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Paranormal
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=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 trashed his house!  The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck.  He is a nice person.  A really nice person.  So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new 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 a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
|summary=The title character of ''The Virtuoso'' is Isabelle Bryant, a professional violinist who has earned the affectionate nickname of 'Beethoven's Babe'. She was the youngest-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition and gave her first solo performance, of Beethoven's violin concerto, at Royal Albert Hall. 'Her violin represented another limb to her, it was that precious. It felt so natural, like an extension of her body.' It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the violin is Isabelle's life.
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|isbn=1662500491
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00R07U0B0</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Katherine Howe
|author=Anne Tyler
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|title=A True Account
|title=A Spool of Blue Thread
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Every family has its tales which are told and retold and in the Whitshank family it was the story of how Abby and Red had fallen in love one ''beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon'' in July 1959It would usually be told on the porch of the Baltimore house which Red's father had built, but on this final time of its telling the circumstances are differentAbby and Red are aging - even the glorious house is beginning to show its age - and decisions have to be made about how to look after themAll the family are there, even Denny, who can generally be relied on to do only what pleases him.
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|summary=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 young ageWhen she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch.  Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious piratesShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boyShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701189517</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861547438
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1471180158
|author=Miranda Sherry
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|title=Maybe Tomorrow
|title=Black Dog Summer
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|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Yesterday, Sally was living in a rambling farmstead with her teenage daughter Gigi. Now Sally is dead, murdered, and Gigi is alone in the world.
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|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'.  He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum.  Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school.  Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong.  It was going to come to a head.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781859574</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL
|author=Niyati Keni
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|title=Radio Free Olympia
|title=Esperanza Street
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|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Joseph's parents send him to work for Auntie Mary and her B&B business on Esperanza Street. Over the years there life for Joseph goes on the way it has for countless other youngsters from this Filipino town of PuertoHis mother may have died too young and Joseph only sees his father one day a week (and has to suffer church for part of that!) but there's a rhythm to the market outside and foreign visitors within Auntie Mary's walls that's familiar and comforting.  It's a rhythm that's been there for generations but things change, sometimes with catastrophic results.
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|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 PeninsulaAfter 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276487</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sarah Marsh
|author=Nigel McClea
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|title=A Sign of Her Own
|title=A Word Glittering with Spikes
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're going to follow the fortunes of two couples (or are they 'would-be couples' or 'might-have-been couples'?) as they navigate the treacherous waters of loveDavid Castledine's first meeting with Jenny could hardly have been less auspicious: he hit her.  He didn't ''actually'' mean to hit her but he threw a stick for his aunt's dog to chase and it caught her on the headHead wounds bleed profusely and this one was no exception, so David had to take her back to his aunt's apartment to clean her up.  I suppose there have been worse meetings, but it's difficult to think of one!
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|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearingSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changesLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signingFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible SpeechAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993025501</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035401614
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
 +
|title=Good Girls Die
 +
|author=Ayura Ayira
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
  
{{newreview
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Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happenedShe was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagiousIt's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white.  She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her.  Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him.  She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extensionShe went to his house and he raped her.  In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.
|author=Patrick Modiano, Sempe (illustrator) and William Rodarmor (translator)
 
|title=Catherine Certitude
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=What little I know of Patrick Modiano was gained from the number of 'no, we've never heard of him, either' articles and summaries that came our way when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the end of 2014They suggested his oeuvre was mature, slightly thriller-based but not exclusively so, and asked lots of accumulative questions regarding identity with regard to the Vichy government during WWIIIdentity is a lot more fixed in this musing little piece, for the adult voice-over looks back over a wide remove, and says there will always be a little bit of her living the events and situations of the bookThose situations are of a young dance-school attendee, and her loving and much-loved father, living a cosy life in Paris – even if the girl never once really works out what it is her father does for a living…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783443022</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=R D Shanks
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|isbn=1472263936
|title=A Reverie of Brothers
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|title=The Figurine
|rating=3.5
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|author=Victoria Hislop
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The castle of Delzean's walls have always protected Emperor Eli, his sons, sister, niece and nephew from the ravages and poverty of the people in the city beyondHowever the days may be numbered as a burgeoning revolution has infiltrated its walls thanks to the rebel movement known as The EyesTheir plan necessitates the unwitting involvement of the spoilt, egotistical aforementioned niece, Princess AvaUnfortunately there will be collateral damage with tragic effects.
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|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece.  She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be 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 the first of several annual visitsShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis PapagiannisHe was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate themHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1505631394</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Dean Koontz
|author=Nick Harkaway
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|title=After Death
|title=Tigerman
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|rating=3
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident.  Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues.  As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything.  ''Everything''.  Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.
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|isbn=1662500467
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH
 +
|title=The Grave Listeners
 +
|author=William Frank
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Battle-weary and suffering from PTSD, 40-year-old Sergeant Lester Ferris is posted to the island of Mancreu to mark time till his retirement. With no family of his own, Lester takes a local lad under his wing; an adolescent who lives his own life through comic books and superheroes in the hope that he can be adopted.  Despite Mancreu beginning to churn with more than its customary black marketeering, Lester realises that he has a job on his hands, not only to take care of an island that sees him as a government puppet but also convince someone that he is the stuff of heroism and to convince himself while he's at it.
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|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099591758</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Karen Thompson Walker
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|isbn=B0BYF82CXT
|title=The Age of Miracles
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|title=Semi-Detached
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=
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|summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
''The Age of Miracles'' was one of those much-talked about books that I never got the time to read on its first go around. I'm not sure how I managed that, but I did. Anyway, it got debut author Thompson Walker a seven figure deal after a bidding war and it has dystopian themes, so it is right up my alley and not the sort of thing I'd usually miss. And so, I was happy that Simon & Schuster decided to reissue it for a YA market and even happier that they decided to send me a copy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471124851</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Shalini Boland
|author=Gary Kurylo
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|title=The Silent Bride
|title=The Seventh Simian
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|rating=3
|rating=3.5
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|genre=General Fiction
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|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven.  He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set.  When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.
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|isbn=1662507089
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1787636003
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|title=The Girls of Summer
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|author=Katie Bishop
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edith has lived alone for many years and she has become irascible and rather anti-social. She avoids even going into the nearby village to do her shopping and the only human being she sees with any regularity is the local shopkeeper who makes grocery deliveries to her and makes an art form of palming off the strange old lady with overpriced, underweight goods. If it weren't for her cat, Edith would have no companionship at all.
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|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island.  Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary.  It was quite a while 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 in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00Q4SETM2</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Amanda Craig
|author=Jane Lythell
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|title=Three Graces
|title=After the Storm
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
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|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Thrillers
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|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.
|summary=Rob and Anna are nearing the Honduras leg of their South American travels.  Here they meet Kimberley and Owen, an American couple who charter out their own boat for sailing trips around the local islands. Rob persuades Anna it will be a fun way to end their holiday but Anna isn't so sure.  There's something about Owen and Kimberley that makes her hesitant about being shut away on a boat at sea with them. Perhaps it's the way that he never sleeps or the mystery as to why there are no knives in the cutlery drawer.  Rob thinks Anna's just overly imaginative, but time will tell.
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|isbn= 140871468X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855323</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=152915118X
|author=Stewart Foster
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|title=Pineapple Street
|title=We Used to Be Kings
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|author=Jenny Jackson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom and Jack are 18 today. Not that they have much cause for celebration - stuck in a home for troubled children, they are constantly examined and questioned by doctors, when all they want is to be left alone to live life together.
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|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana.  Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe.  The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the 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 the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in.  Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality.  Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'.  She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584190</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Emily Critchley
 +
|title=One Puzzling Afternoon
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|rating=4
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory.  However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago.  After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her.  And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life.  Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?
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|isbn=1804181250
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Madelaine Lucas
 +
|title=Thirst for Salt
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
 +
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
  
{{newreview
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Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.
|author=Victoria Aveyard
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|isbn=0861546490
|title=Red Queen
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Mare is a Red - a race kept in lives of poverty and servitude by the Silvers, a race with wealth and mutant powers that allow them to live lives of luxury. Learning to survive amongst the slum like conditions that the Reds inhabit, Mare is swiftly thrown into the world of the Silvers - one that proves to be more dangerous than she had ever imagined, with treachery, plots and deadly games lurking round every corner.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409155846</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=0008506337
 +
|title=The Garnett Girls
 +
|author=Georgina Moore
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=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 Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career.  In the event,  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, the 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''.
  
{{newreview
+
Then Richard left them.
|author=Margaret Wild
 
|title=The Vanishing Moment
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=This book appealed to me on various grounds. It is teen fiction (and, joy of joys, devoid of werewolves and dystopia), it is by an Australian author (under-represented on UK shelves), and it involves parallel universes (tantalising philosophical what-ifs). I was intrigued to see if the author could live up to my expectations.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1743315902</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jack Sheffield
+
|isbn=1914585402
|title=Silent Night
+
|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead
|rating=3.5
+
|author=David F Ross
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read a couple of Jack Sheffield’s books about five years ago, and enjoyed them very much. They were written in a similar style to those popularised by, for instance, James Herriot or [[:Category:Gervase Phinn|Gervase Phinn]], told mostly in the first person, describing the author’s first couple of years as Headmaster at a small village primary school in Yorkshire. The village of Ragley is fictional, as are most of the characters, but the incidents and situations encountered are based on the author’s experience.
+
|summary=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. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552167045</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
 
+
|author=Lucy Ashe
{{newreview
+
|title=Clara and Olivia
|author=Robert Schneider
+
|rating=4.5
|title=Brother of Sleep
+
|genre=General Fiction
|rating=3.5
+
|summary=The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.
|genre=Literary Fiction
+
|isbn=0861544080
|summary=''Brother of Sleep'' tells the story of Elias Johannes Alder, a child born into a god forsaken village high in the Austrian Vorarlberg.   He came into the world as a silent child, while his mother was screaming and the midwife wasn't really paying attention.  It took a couple of loud intonations of the Te Deum from the neglectful nurse before he finally uttered a sound.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649205</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Heather Fawcett
|author=Joanne Graham
+
|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|title=To The Edge of Shadows
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sarah awakes from a coma to find her world destroyed, a long lost aunt her only remaining family, and life as she knows it irrevocably changed forever. Moving to a new town and a new school, making new friends is the least of her challenges as she struggles to regain her physical and mental health following the accident.
+
|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries.  Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people.  So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track.  Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910162841</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356519120
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1398515388
|author=Leanne Hall
+
|title=The Boy and the Dog
|title=This is Shyness
+
|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This is Shyness'' is an unusual and brilliant story about Wolfboy and Wildgirl, two strangers who meet in a pub in the town of Shyness. The teenagers are drawn together, each adopting a different identity so for the night they can be anyone but themselves.
+
|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown.  The result was complete and utter devastation.  The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that 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 convenience store.  He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1921656522</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Antonin Varenne and Frank Wynne (translator)
+
|author=Christopher Bowden
|title=Loser's Corner
+
|title=Mr Magenta
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Thrillers
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Georges Crozat.  He's a policeman in Paris, who boxes on the side.  After a bout that leads to an almost embarrassing victory, he is made two offers – one from a clearly corrupt man behind the scenes in the sport, who seems to offer a few thrown fights for Georges, then some kind of status as assistant – training, guiding, profiteering; the other comes from a man known always as ''the Pakistani'' (or an unkind abbreviation of that), who has a friend of a friend who wants someone to do an enemy a mischief with their fists.  Georges doesn't take too long to choose the latter.  In alternating chapters, however, we're in the 1950s, and a rookie to the forces, Pascal Verini, is being shipped out to Algeria to work on the civil war causing the republic to break away and become independent from France.  Like Georges, he finds his situation one which also causes what may be misguided violence, even if he has a very different attitude to it.
+
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052276</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jennifer Mason
|author=J Robert Lennon
+
|title=Partitions of Unity
|title=See You In Paradise
+
|rating=4
|rating=3
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Short Stories
+
|summary= 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 series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder...
|summary=Lennon writes with a relaxed, easy style and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks of life, without being in any way stereotypical. Many of the people in these stories are dealing with normal frustrations, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not to make them individuals that you're obviously supposed to root for (the only exception is the industrialist in the eponymous tale, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat). There are some very clever characterisations – in ''Weber’s Head'', for example, the narrator is a flawed individual whose opinions of his housemate are gradually revealed to be unreliable and unfair. For me, the most unsettling story is ''No Life'', because it portrays a decent couple at the mercy of people more powerful and influential than them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work here, just ordinary characters at the mercy of social power.
+
|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Will Carver
|author=Daisy Waugh
+
|title=The Daves Next Door
|title=Honeyville
+
|rating=4
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London 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
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story is told by Dora Whitworth, a call girl in one of the most exclusive brothels in Trinidad, Colorado. At the time, the town was the only place in the West where prostitution was legal and it was infamous for its red-light district. Dora’s voice rings true and her life is convincingly described. The sumptuous brothel in Plum Street, with its smells of perfume and disinfectant, is as claustrophobic as a prison and Phoebe, the madam, particularly chilling.
+
|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007431775</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...
|author=Tammy Cohen
+
|isbn=B09STS96HS
|title=Dying for Christmas
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=The book starts off promisingly enough with an introduction by Jessica, the narrator, who informs us that she is imprisoned by a stranger who is handsome and charming and extremely sadistic. Jessica then recounts the events leading up to and during her incarceration, which takes place over the Christmas period. Her jailer, Dominic, has prepared twelve presents for her, for the Twelve Days of Christmas, and each present-opening episode builds up a sense of dread while providing a deepening understanding of the sinister and bitter mind at work. Genuinely creepy stuff.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784160172</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul Sussman
+
|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM
|title=The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix
+
|title=The Calculations of Rational Men
 +
|author=Daniel Godfrey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On the eve of the year 2000, Raphael Ignatius Phoenix decides that he has had enough. Having lived for a century, he takes his own life on the roof of his castle, swallowing a small white pill he has kept on his person for almost 90 years. In the days before, he had written his story all over the walls of the castle - a story that takes in an Edwardian childhood, Hollywood in the 1920's, the Second World War, life as a butler in a stately home, life in a rock band in the 60's, time spent in a nursing home, and finally life in the castle - amongst other, enchanting tales.
+
|summary=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 a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind.  He's been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison.  He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552779679</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Revision as of 10:04, 22 March 2024

0861546873.jpg

Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in 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 content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

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Review of

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

5star.jpg General Fiction

It'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've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. Full Review

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Review of

Diva by Daisy Goodwin

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Full Review

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Review of

The Perfect Passion Company by Alexander McCall Smith

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

The 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, tailored 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. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the 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 the 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… Full Review

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Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

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 trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new 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 a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review

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Review of

A True Account by Katherine Howe

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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 young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Full Review

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Review of

Maybe Tomorrow by Penny Parkes

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head. Full Review

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Review of

Radio Free Olympia by Jeffrey Dunn

4star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

3.5star.jpg General Fiction

After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Full Review

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Review of

Good Girls Die by Ayura Ayira

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

This story is not for everyone.

Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. Full Review

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Review of

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop

5star.jpg General Fiction

It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be 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 the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her 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 values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. Full Review

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Review of

After Death by Dean Koontz

3star.jpg General Fiction

Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can feel everything. Everything. Michael isn't Michael anymore. Full Review

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Review of

The Grave Listeners by William Frank

4star.jpg General Fiction

The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. Full Review

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Review of

Semi-Detached by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Full Review

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Review of

The Silent Bride by Shalini Boland

3star.jpg General Fiction

Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife. Full Review

1787636003.jpg

Review of

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop

5star.jpg General Fiction

It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while 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 in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. Full Review

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Review of

Three Graces by Amanda Craig

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves. Full Review

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Review of

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Pineapple Street is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the 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 the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in their family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'. Full Review

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Review of

One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley

4star.jpg Crime

84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever? Full Review

0861546490.jpg

Review of

Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity

Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town Thirst for Salt details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. Full Review

0008506337.jpg

Review of

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

5star.jpg General Fiction

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 Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, 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, the 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.

Then Richard left them. Full Review

1914585402.jpg

Review of

Dashboard Elvis is Dead by David F Ross

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

I reviewed David F Ross's book There's Only One Danny Garvey a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it. Full Review

0861544080.jpg

Review of

Clara and Olivia by Lucy Ashe

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that je ne sais quoi, that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a joie de vivre. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. Full Review

0356519120.jpg

Review of

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

4star.jpg General Fiction

Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much 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? Full Review

1398515388.jpg

Review of

The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that 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 convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in. Full Review

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Review of

Mr Magenta by Christopher Bowden

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Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. Full Review

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Review of

Partitions of Unity by Jennifer Mason

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Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in Preposterous, when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In Partitions of Unity, she sets her mind to solving a murder... Full Review

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Review of

The Daves Next Door by Will Carver

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Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment. Full Review

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Review of

Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason

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A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...

This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this... Full Review

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Review of

The Calculations of Rational Men by Daniel Godfrey

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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 a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers. Full Review

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