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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=How I Became a DrifterJenny Lecoat|authortitle=Christmas PhilipBeyond Summerland|reviewerrating=Jill Murphy4

|summary=Fictionalised autobiography told in a stream-Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of-consciousness stylethe occupation. An unconventional voice speaking of During the universal search war, Jean's father was arrested for love listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and acceptanceher mother waiting for years for news of him.|rating=3 As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him.5 But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>152463588X</amazonuk> 1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jane CorryOnyi Nwabineli|title= My Husband's WifeAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Autumn 2000. Newly married lawyer Lily and Anuri spent her artist husband Ed have a small apartment in London. Fresh from childhood on display to the honeymoonworld, theythanks to her step-mother Ophelia're still settling 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 their new rolesget her life back, and their neighbour Francesca and suing her 9 year old daughter Carla help step-mother to take down the pressure off a 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 bitsister, 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241256488</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Peter Ho Davies1529153298|title= The FortunesList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Clashes of cultures or cultural enrichmentIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Xenophobia or embracing diversity?Today I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's hot topics focus much on cultures meeting and notions of foreignnessfamily, especially in the context of migrationthough. Women have been disappearing. As such Well, Peter Ho Davies could not they've been murdered, but to have chosen a more current and thought-provoking theme for 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'The FortunesDown South'. When you': through four different storiesre from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the novel documents some of the history of Chinese people in America over more than century. From railroad workersmove would mean leaving her best friend, laundry ownersSharon, and prostitutes she'll do anything to film stars and adoptive parents, prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum'The Fortunes'' tells tales of searching for identity on both national and personal levelss stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340980230</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paul Read1035906708|title= The Art TeacherDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= Thrillers General Fiction|summary=Patrick Owen managed seven years at Highfields Secondary School without punching a pupil in the face. A mediocre teacherWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, stuck but she was born to Greek parents in a struggling school ruled by violent pupilsManhattan, Patrick goes home every night to an empty flatNew York, in December 1923 and an existence filled with reminders of his life as a faded rock staronly 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 one pupil over steps she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the mark, Nazi occupation by a brief mistake plunges Patrick into a world mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of dangerher preference for her elder sister, violence, and the glare of the mediaJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079573</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage

|title=The Bertie Project: A 44 Scotland Street NovelPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=Catching up with old friends The Perfect Passion Company is a pleasuredating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and it's good operating as an alternative to be back on Scotland Streetall 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, finding out what everyone as Ness is getting up planning to take a trip to Canada toget away for a while. Irene Katie is back, coming out of coursea break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from her travels Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the middle-eastIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Bruce Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has fallen full confidence in loveher abilities, Matthew and Elspeth have triplet troublesthere's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, and somebody has an extremely unfortunate accident…to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973597</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rowan Hisayo BuchananDean Koontz|title= Harmless Like YouThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary= This 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 debut novel from Rowan Hisayo Buchananthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, but you would never know itBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. It So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is an accomplished, unusuala new friend, poetically written story about a young Japanese girl, Yuki Oyamabad weather friend called Spike, who has lived most of her life in New Yorkbeen sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. As suchSpike is going to take care of Benny, she feels an outsider: the American girls at school ignore her and she finds the rituals will certainly take care of her parentsBenny' home suffocating. Her father has hopes of her studying medicines enemies, if he, Benny, but the only thing Yuki enjoys is artand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473638321</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma Claire SweeneyKatherine Howe|title=Owl Song at DawnA True Account|rating=4.5

|summary=Maeve Maloney runs the Sea View Lodge guest house that her parents ran before herHannah 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. The house has harboured many memories for Maeve over When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the past 80-years-plustown, most of which shedecides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's managed to keep death at baythe hands of two vicious pirates. HoweverShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her suppression is endangered when Vincent comes too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to call. Far from being an ordinary guestsea, Vincent is dressing as a link to that past Maeve thought sheboy and joining the notorious Ned Low'd outrun but now has to relives pirate ship as a cabin boy. Add that to trying to teach Steph and Len to fib effectively 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 becomes very difficult indeedon the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079670</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karin Slaughter1471180158|title=The Kept WomanMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5

|summary=Special Agent Will Trent is back. Collected by his partnerJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, Faith, to attend for a man who's a control freak with all the scene subtlety of a rather brutal murderhalf brick. Jamie's son, Trent queries why the GBI Bo, 'has been called in to what would usually be a standard homicide investigation for Atlanta PDhis problems'. Arriving at He's asthmatic and the scenemore you read, their boss, Deputy Director Amanda Wagner is somewhat characteristically pacing and barking orders; the victim is none other than exmore you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -cop and all round bad egg, Dale Harding. There is she's a lot of blood, presumably due to frequent flier in the door-knob local A&E and spindle sticking out of Hardingsometimes Bo's necknot 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>1780893574</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eowyn IveyB0CKD1L5JL|title=To the Bright Edge of the WorldRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=If you're going to go pioneering across unexplored landsPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, at least be prepared to accept what you seek – namelyreclusive Bear, what you've never seen before. That lesson seems quite obvioushe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, but back in the time forests of 1885 Allen Forrester is a little too naïve to heed itWashington's Olympic Peninsula. A career soldierAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, he is tasked and armed with scouring the potential of the Wolverine River that threads south to the shores of Alaskaonly a pirate radio transmitter, even though the Russians (who of course used to own the Territory) have had all manner of lethal encounters with those already living there, and even though Petr goes on a major stretch of journey through the river has to be traversed in winter when entirely frozen overforest, as broadcasting the cliffs either side are too impenetrable. Allen leaves a much youngerstrange, new bride behind – wild and right from the get-go his journals force him to pen words about strange happenings, strange rarely heard voices he encounters and things of legend coming to life. Like I say, what he's never seen before…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472208609</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Gerald WeaverSarah Marsh|title=The First First GentlemanA Sign of Her Own|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Anyone picking 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 ''The First First Gentleman'' might be forgiven for snorting with laughter in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and making using a sarcastic comment about how timely system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and potentially satirical it sounds. In Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a way they’d be right – but probably for different reasonscomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993291759</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Liam BrownB0BC3YTCMR|title=Wild LifeGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Adam Britman goes from a man with it all to homeless in the sniff ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of a lineher fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. While looking for somewhere She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to sleep Adam comes across an alternative community hug her in the local parkcase it's contagious. They've come together and created structure (including an unofficial allotment) out of the disorder thatIt's normally equated with living not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on the streetsseventeen-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. It seems perfect so Adam joins them, but perfection can sometimes be She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an illusionextension. As for walking away… that's not going She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to be easygive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079700</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sabine Durrant1472263936|title= Lie with MeThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary= Paul is lots of thingsIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. A writer. A famous name 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 at least he was a few years ago)understanding her Greek heritage. A bit Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of a snobseveral annual visits. A cheapskate. A ladies She grew to love her grandmother and the family' man. And a liar. Oh boys maid, is he a liar. He fibsDina, he exaggeratesbut was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, he omits, he tells porkiesretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Not about He was proud of his close connections to the really big stuff, nothing that will hurt anyone, just a few mistruths Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to see him throughaccommodate them. It His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's for keeping up appearances, reallyScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473608333</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy JonesDean Koontz|title=The Trouble with Henry and ZoeAfter Death|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.5 As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4

|summary= Stop for The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a moment 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 look down at your bellyeven gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the centre you should have something village and that looks a little bit like is the reason Volushka, a button. It may be an inniedrunken, or an outieself-indulgent, but just consider it for lazy lout of a few moments. Do you feel better? Nope, you shouldn't do as all that navel-gazing does man is make you over think thingstolerated. However, without the concept a million romantic books would never be written as without the human compulsion to destroy things around them, how can any tension arise?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471142469</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Carol ShieldsB0BYF82CXT|title= The Republic of LoveSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= The Republic of Love is ''Bill and Amanda are living in a meshsemi-like noveldetached house, peopled with stuck in a huge cast depressing rut of characters interwoven in familialboredom and disappointment, friendlywhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, neighbourly successful and romantic relationships. Winnipeg, the city very much in which virtually all the action love – move in Shield's novel takes place, ties them togethernext door. The story follows two singleDespite their different outlooks on life, thirty-something characters, Fay and Tom, who live opposite the couples befriend each other and have a complicated array of mutual acquaintances but don't know each otherlife appears to improve for both pairs. Shields alternates between But all is not what it seems, and their two points of view as they increasingly interconnected relationships are slowly drawn togetherfated for tragedy. This is a domestic novel in the best sense; there is a focus on the beauty and mundanity of ordinary people's unremarkable lives in an unexceptional city, from Fay's satisfaction in the pop sound and toasted crumb smell of her twin slice toaster, to Tom's ungainly Saturday morning jogs. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380899</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Penny ParkesShalini Boland|title= Out of PracticeThe Silent Bride|rating= 43|genre= General Fiction|summary=In Alice and Seth are a lastmatch made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-ditch attempt to save her failing marriage, GP Holly Graham relocates to the charming village of Larkford with her family to work at the local practicematerial. She finds life as a village doctor very different to her previous role is all he could possibly want in a busy city hospitalwife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and falls in love with the close-knit community wedding is planned and its quirky residentsset. But just as Larkford is beginning to feel like home When the much-anticipated day arrives, Holly Alice is hit walked down the aisle by a bombshell that threatens 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 destroy everything face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has worked so hard to achieve. Can she rise to absolutely no idea who the man at the challenge and fight altar is, who is waiting for what she loves? Maybe she will discover something about herself in the processher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471153045</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steven Rowley1787636003|title=Lily and the OctopusThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45

|summary=Meet Ted Flask. A middle-aged, gay Los Angelino, he has It was the one love of his life. While the fall-out of relationships with men sends him to therapy, he can rely summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on Lily, the Dachshundisland. TheyRachel wasn've been together through thick and thint exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, ever since the little pup – the runtnaive, no less – seemed so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to pick Ted outtake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. Ted's sister's unusual marriage It was almost marred by Lily being under the surgeon's knife, at great expense – but on the whole they have life sorted. He tries quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to write, but Friday night is board games, Saturday night is movie night, her and Sunday night is pizza nightby that time she was obsessed by him. OhAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and yes, Lily talks to Ted, in particular in the bar where all the girls either in ''FULLY! CAPITALISED! EVER! EXCLAMATORY! BARKS!'' worked or in regular speech. Oh, and yes, Lily has an octopus on her headpartied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471154343</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julie CohenAmanda Craig|title=FallingThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary=Here is Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the story state-of three women, from three generations within -the same family-nation novel. There is Jo's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, a forty year old single mother whose first husband died, and whose second husband ran off with their nannycrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. She is left caring for her older teenage daughter, Lydia, and her two little ones, Oscar and Iris, whilst harbouring a secret To say that she feels she cannot share with anyone. Her daughter Lydia Amanda Craig is the second female character, and as well as the usual teenage angst skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she is also dealing with grief, still, over her father's death, anger practically synonymous with her mother for her second disastrous marriage, and her own very difficult secret that she is unable to talk to anyone about. Finally there's Honor who is Jo's mother in law, the mother genre of Jo's first husband, Stephencontemporary social fiction at this point. Honor She has such a fall, breaks her hip, and is forced to move in with Jo gift for a time as she has no one else who can help her. She too is hiding a secret from weaving the ongoing issues of the world, and as you read day into the story you begin to wonder if any lives of these her characters actually know who the others arein a way that feels natural and lived-in, and if any of never making them will ever start telling the truthciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784160636</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenn Ashworth152915118X|title=FellPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=Now her parents have died''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Annette returns Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to sell her old childhood home but theretheir 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 work exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to do on move into the decrepit building firstPineapple Street property. As she wanders around Tilda and Chip have renovated and tries downsized to make some order another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the overgrown shamblesfurniture from Pineapple Street, sheso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn's watched by t the ghost of her mother, Netty; a spirit with regretsreality. Netty reminisces about AnnetteDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's childhood and the turning point living in ''their lives reached when the mysterious healer Timothy Richardson came to stay'' family home. It was a time They use it so often that promised so much but one for which Netty now needs they abbreviate it to make amends, even if she is beyond 'the graveGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473630606</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jill CimentEmily Critchley|title= Act of GodOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionCrime|summary=''Act of God'' 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a story about two ageing twins 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 find a worrying mushroom growing in their cupboardwent missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a landlady searching secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the spotlight and a Russian immigrant whose greatest fear is insignificancetruth of what happened all that time ago. What After 'seeing' Lucy in the insurance company describes high street, just as an act she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of God brings their already overlappedmemories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, Brooklyn lives she is forgetting more and more in her day to sharper focusday life. What do you do when disaster threatens? Is it survival of Will she uncover the fittest or should we love thy neighbourtruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272119</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fredrik BackmanMadelaine Lucas|title=BrittThirst 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'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-Marie Was Herelong 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.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary= BrettThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-Marie has never met a kitchen 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 doesn't want could achieve - going to cleanOxford and having a glittering career. In factthe event, permanently armed with bicarbonate they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of soda Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and window cleaner, she's always ready went on to clean anythingbecome a well-respected journalist. Her husband Kent is an entrepreneur, you knowThe couple had three children: Rachel, with excellent taste Imogen and expensive clothesSasha. Yet here she is, Life was lived in Borg, a rundown small townLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, in search the family home on the Isle of her first job for 40 yearsWight. Life takes some odd turns sometimes Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473617200</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodrigo Hasbun and Sophie Hughes (translator)1914585402|title=AffectionsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross

|summary=If you thought your teenaged years were a struggle to work out the world, and yourself, consider that of Heidi Ertl. Or either of her sisters – this I reviewed David F Ross's book serves as [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a sort couple of tribute to these three real-life women, years back and the lives that came out of their very disjointed youth, forced to be rarefied from the norm remember being absolutely floored by their family uprootinghow powerful and affecting it was. Father Hans It was one of Leni Riefenstahl's key cameramen, and a Nazi military photographer, before taking the whole family into post-war exile in Bolivia. Their mother would have followed him to the ends of the earth – as in part would their daughtersgripping, the older two of which start the book by joining him on an expedition to discover a lost Incan city. Heidi finds youngemotionally wounding read, instant love on the trek – but sees the dark side and rereading my review of such emotions, too. Older sister Monika, who it my main takeaway was that I might well be manic depressive, finds something else, while the baby of the family stays at home with a maudlin mother. So much here could be the hook not have lavished enough praise on which to hang a full novel, but if anything it's the reaction of them all to this unusual formative journey that inspires this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272135</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jemma WayneLucy Ashe|title= Chains of SandClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Chains of Sand The year is a great read about family1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, faithtwins no less. Identical on the outside but not, survivalwe learn, and loveon the inside. And not on stage, either. It follows the story of two young men: Udi Because there's a veteran of the Israeli army who longs for lot that builds a new future in Londondancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and Danielsome things, a London banker unsatisfied with his life and yearning for something more. The story focuses on their desires to change their lives by moving to different worlds and how this impacts their relationships with friends and family. As the story unfoldsthat ''je ne sais quoi'', the two protagoniststhat don' histories are slowly uncovered and they both have to overcome t come from the difficulties in their new lives in order to achieve their dreamsclassroom. MeanwhileA stage presence, a charm, the fate of star-crossed love a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a Jewish girl hard-worker, and an Arabic man in Jerusalem a decade earlier intertwines with Daniel's life, complicating all that he thinks has become clearstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079727</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marie-Sabine RogerHeather Fawcett|title= Soft in the HeadEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= This novel will make you smile. ItEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's a feel-good storywork, unusual in its premise and originalthe very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Germaine Whilst she is a 45 year old man who brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is illiteratenot so good with people. He has a group of drinking friends who frequently make him So when she finds herself far, far North in the butt small village of their jokesHrafvsnik, a mother who calls him a 'half-wit'having somehow offended the village matriarch, amongst other thingsshe is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and a girlfriend whom he appears afraid of committing toput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Germain spends many afternoons in the parkEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, counting pigeons all charm and writing his name among the dead of the war memorialdelight, much to Emily's frustration. It But why is he here that ? What does he meets Margueritte, a tiny 85 year old woman who tells him she also counts want? And what exactly is going on with the pigeons.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271589</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Gregory Maguire1398515388|title= After AliceThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=When Alice fell down First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the rabbit holeocean floor, she found Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rule which created the tsunami and abrasive egos as this, in turn, caused the world she left behindnuclear meltdown. But how did Victorian Oxford react to Alice's departure? When Alice's friend Ada The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, mentioned briefly in 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''Alice in Wonderland'' sets out to visit Alice, she arrives t a minute too late. Tumbling down dog person but the rabbit hole herself, she embarks on an odyssey convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to find Alice open his car door and bring her safely home from this surreal world below Tamon the worlddog jumped in. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472230469</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Isabel AllendeChristopher Bowden|title= The Japanese LoverMr Magenta|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= The Japanese Lover Christopher Bowden's latest novel is an unassuming novela patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The beginning leads the reader to anticipate an enjoyable light read, aunt who always provided a good holiday book perhaps – safe harbour and a very well plotted story with an interesting cast little bit of characters and settings. Irena, indulgence to a Moldovan girl with elfin looks and young nephew had had a passion for fantasy novels, starts working in bohemian care home Lark House in San Francisco. She meets the stately much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and somewhat aloof Alma Belasco, whose story starts it seems to unravel, beginning with her being brought over from Poland (just as Jews became increasingly vulnerable to the Nazis) him an obligation to her wealthy aunt and uncle in Cliff House, San Francisco, as a little girl. Allende almost makes us think that this opening tone, entertaining but fairly shallow, will continue for the rest of the novelfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471152197</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Midge RaymondJennifer Mason|title= My Last ContinentPartitions of Unity|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Only Here at the end of the worldBookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, among the glaciers dominatrix and icebergs of Antarcticaunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], do Deb when she investigated and Keller feel at home. For unravelled a few blissful weeks each year they study the habits series of penguins, finding solace in their work and in each otherdisappearances. Yet Antarctica, like their romanceIn ''Partitions of Unity'', is imperilled by the world she sets her mind to the northsolving a murder. A new season has begun, and the two play tour guide to the passengers on the expedition ship that ferries them to their research destination. But when Keller fails to appear, Deb has to consider new feelings of love, loss, and a voyage deep into both the Antarctic, and the human heart. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1501124706</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leah FlemingWill Carver|title=The Last PearlDaves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a 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

|summary=''I always thinkA struggling poetry zine, without a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the grit there would be no pearl. Sorrows have 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 way state-of strengthening -the heart-art S&M dungeon, never forget thata man serving a life sentence in Alabama, childan enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''

Greta Costello lives in in poverty with her mother and siblings and must work as This is just a skivvy to put bread on sample of the table. She manages to find some joy in her work though, especially cast of characters and settings in her 'Sabbath' job working for a kindly old widowed JewPreposterous. The two become friends and he offers to take her on as his apprentice, stringing pearls. Could this highly-skilled job be her key to a better life? At the same time, many miles away in Scotland, Jem Baillie and his father As you can't contain their delight when they discover a magnificentsee, flawless freshwater pearl at the end of a long day of fishing. They call the pearl 'Queenie' and from that pivotal moment, the fates of Greta, Jem and Queenie some keeping up will be inextricably linked.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471140970</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Matthew Stephen|title= Baturi|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= It's Nigeria and it's the 80s. Matthew is a VSO, on a placement at a college teaching electronics. Or trying to at any rate. When language skills are limited and resources are scarce, you have to make the most required! The basic premise of what you've got, even if that means teaching the odd class on American culture rather than rewiringthis mystery story goes like this. If I tell you that the ''Prime Directive'' applies a lot when you're a VSO, you'll appreciate the difficulties Matthew has when his students want to stray further into the modern world and learn about how things work in Britain, concepts of inventions such as ATMs that are decades off reaching Nigeria (Those days may still be some way off. I actually had a hand written bank card a few years ago while a VSO in a country not too far away). |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00OISR3AK</amazonuk>B09STS96HS