Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HornbyJenny Lecoat|title=Juliet, NakedBeyond Summerland|rating=54

|summary=A cleverJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, comic delightJean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, pitch-perfectleaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, astutely observedand the war is finally over, particularly insightful, must-readtheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Crumbs. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Whatever else is there to say Who was the informer who told the Nazis about Nick Hornby's latest book that isn't already plastered on this newly-published paperback editionthe radio? I can only report that ''Juliet,'' ''Naked'' bowled me over with yet another Hornby strike.And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141020644</amazonuk>1846976537

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dan RhodesOnyi Nwabineli|title=Little Hands ClappingAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|summary=The first character to mention in this book is a moth. It's a human moth, drawn Anuri spent her childhood on display to the flame that is a museum of suicide - a supposedly cautionary, life-affirming, memento mori, somewhere in Germany. Its curator is an old hand at lonelyworld, unloved museums, fresh from an art gallery in an airport - it didn't take off - who notices the noise of the latest suicide thanks to happen in the museum, and goes right back to sleep. A spider crawls into his mouth and gets eaten.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847675298</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robin Cook|title=Intervention|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Although Robin Cook has written many books, ''Intervention'' is the first one that I have read her step- I'm a Robin Cook 'virgin.' This is a big book in many respects. Itmother Ophelia's a classicincreasingly popular presence on social media, glossy 'coffee table' edition; itwhere she posted every step of Anuri's a big, satisfying read childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and it's a multi-layered book in that it covers many current-day topics which have their roots in history. In fact, this book is so multi-dimensional that, you could arguebasically, there are several books within this bookmonetary gain.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743633</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karan Mahajan|title=Family Planning|rating=2|genre=General Fiction|summary=Mr Rakesh Ahuja Now Anuri is Delhi's Mister of Urban Development in her twenties and so far, has managed to do well in his career. However, his family life she is beginning slowly trying to take over - he already has thirteen children regain her confidence and a fourteenth is on the way. The eldest, Arjun, now a teenager was born to Mr Ahuja's first wife, but up til now, Arjun is unaware of this fact. Sangita Ahuja, the long-suffering wifeget her life back, is aware that suing her relationship with Arjun may never be the same again. Meanwhile, Arjun is only interested in one thing step- how to attract the attention of the gorgeous girl on his school bus. What will happen to the family when Mr Ahuja finally tells the truth?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523299</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jed Mercurio|title=American Adulterer|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I've often wondered how history would have viewed Jack Kennedy if he'd died a natural death rather than by an assassin's bullet. As an extension of that I've also thought that he might not have lived that much longer had nature been allowed mother to take its course. He's one of down the most-written-content about Presidents of all time and finding a new angle – even a fictional one – is not easy, but Jed Mercurio has looked at Kennedy's adult life through the prism of his sexual peccadilloes and his health.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099515873</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Pears|title=Landed|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I have hesitated to write this review because, truthfully, I am not ''entirely'' sure that I know what happened at the endher. I read it all. I actually read the end several times. And then I skipped back to the middleAnuri is battling alcoholism, just failing to check something, before trying the end again. I have decided to just believe in what I ''think'' happenedstart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and since I don't want to spoil it receiving money from them for other readers then I don't have to make a complete fool of myself writing down what it is I think! And actually, that mysteriousness is part of the charm of the storydoing so. So, slight confusion aside, I still gave this book four starsMost importantly, and this she is why...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020079</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laila Lalami |title=Secret Son|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Secret Son'' is the story of Youssef El-Mekkidesperately worried about her little sister, the slum-dwelling teenage son of single mother Rachida. Youssef has always been told that his father who is dead, so when he finds out his mother has lied to conceal the fact that he was born out new focus of wedlock, he plunges headlong into an identity crisis. He tracks down his real father, a wealthy businessman called Nabil Amrani who is surprisingly enthusiastic about his illegitimate sonOphelia's arrivalonline empire. Nabil has recently fallen out Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with his daughter and he seizes this opportunity to mould Youssef into her father at the obedient son he has always wanted.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918296</amazonuk>0861546873

 {{newreview|author=Samuel Bonner|title=Playground|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jonah grew up in London but his mother, getting increasingly worried about social disintegration and increasing crime, has moved them up to Nottingham. Jonah is a bright lad and halfway through a media course, but he's finding it difficult to fit in. He's also finding the new racial mix a problem - there's palpable tension between black and brown-skinned people on campus, and he often feels alienated and a bit like a fish out of water. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902835190</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joan Brady|title=Venom|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=David Marion isn't used to finding hitmen standing at his front door, though you wouldn't be able to tell that such a thing might be true, given the speed and competency with which Marion dispatches said hitman and then disappears, seemingly, off the face of the Earth.  Dr. Helen Freyl is a physicist working for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. She is also, up until his disappearance, David Marion's sometime lover and is grief-stricken to the point of distraction by his sudden absence from her life, as she believes him to be dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0743267907</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo Brand1529153298|title=The More You Ignore Me|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Alice is growing up in a cottage in Herefordshire with her gentle, hippy father and her mother, Gina, who spends her days standing around like a chain-smoking zombie because she is kept on medication and has been for years. Gina's first psychotic episode occured after Alice's birth. Then there was the episode Alice remembers, the day her mother climbed onto the roof, naked, holding Smelly the hamster, and refused to come down. From that day, the old Gina, boisterous and unconventional as she was, fell silent under the numbing impact of constant medication. Jo Brand tells the story of how Alice coped with the loneliness and worry List of growing up with an ill mother. Most importantly, as I'm sure the teenage Alice would see it, we are shown the birth and life of her obsession with Morrissey of The Smiths. In his music she finds escapism and comfort and in him she finds a figure to adore. Her friends can't understand her fixation and her mother understands fixation a little too well (the local weatherman having been the object of one of her fervent obsessions). Morrissey sings with such sensitivity and angst that surely, Alice thinks, if she could just meet him and tell him her story he could help her and she could help him...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755322320</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=Chris Mullin|title=A Very British CoupJennie Godfrey

|summary=No one had anticipated that Labour would win the election, not least because the party leader was Harry Perkins, a former steel workerIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. His manifesto included promises to remove all American bases from British soil(A woman? I mean, public control of finance and the dismantling of media empireshonestly... ) There were a few other things too – but theyShe's not what's worrying Miv'll do for starterss family, though. The establishment – to a man – was appalledWomen have been disappearing. Press baronsWell, media stars, bishops and civil service mandarins knew that, for the good of the country (not themselvesthey've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared'doesn'of courset sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she') something had s overheard that her father wants to be done and move the family 'Down South'obviously'. When you' re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the end move would justify whatever means they had mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to take to achieve their aimsprevent that. Harry Perkins had She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to be removed from officeanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687403</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel Heath1035906708|title=The Finest Type Of English WomanhoodDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|summary=It was just after the end We tend to think of the Second World War and seventeen year old Laura Trelling Maria Callas as Greek, but she was at a loose end born to Greek parents in her Sussex village. She didn't really fit Manhattan, New York, in with the other young people December 1923 and her eccentric parents were becoming more and more isolated, only moved to the extent that Laura Athens when she was embarrassed by their carelessness of her welfarethirteen. A chance encounter with Paul Lovell Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to change everything and before long 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was on back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her way to voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a South Africa not yet burdened with apartheidmother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532743</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bobbie DarbyshireAlexander McCall Smith|title=Truth GamesThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=The central theme Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in this book is sex - Edinburgh, run by Ness and lots of itoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. We're introduced 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 group of mainly twentysomethings and thirtysomethingswhile. Men Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and womenso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Most of them are attractive And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and hold down glamorous jobs and careersthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. All Katie has no experience in rude healthrunning a business, with wonderful social lives or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and trendy homes. They all appearrather handsome) neighbour, on the surfaceWilliam, to be lend a bunch of shiny, happy people. What on earth could be missing?hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905614721</amazonuk>1846976596

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony QuinnDean Koontz|title=The Rescue ManBad Weather Friend

|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=This love affair tale with 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 city of Liverpool thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is mostly told through the eyes of architect Tom Bainesvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. With So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the Second World War loomingdelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, Baines who has been sent to help him since Benny is desperately working on clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a book good person. Spike is going to capture the memory take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of buildings that are at riskBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and appears Harper (a man more in love with the past and solid, cold structures than mankindwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531933</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul MurrayKatherine Howe|title=Skippy DiesA True Account|rating=34.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Life in Seabrook College is a mess. Some of the staff are young enough to remember their own school days there, but many are certainly too old for that. A lot of the boys are victims of ragging and bullying for being too chunky, or too smart - but some are so chunky and smart there's a certain kudos to them. The female of the species is a thing only spied from their own school next door, and only met by selling them ritalin as a weight-control pill, or meeting them at the very rare combined school disco.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241141826</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sapphire|title=Precious|rating=4

|summary=Precious Jones Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a sixteen year old black girl family who run an inn, and being made to work there from Harlem – well a young age. When she's never actually been out hears there is to be a hanging of Harlem – some pirates in the town, she decides to go and when we meet her she's pregnant by her own father for the second timewatch. Her first child was Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a girl and she was born with Downyoung boy's Syndromedeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. With unconscious irony Precious calls her ''Little Mongo'She hides away, so that they don' t find and leaves kill her too, and then to live with her grandmother. When her second pregnancy becomes obvious escape them completely sheruns away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's expelled from school and joins an alternative education programmepirate ship as a cabin boy. Precious really wants to learn and She soon finds herself in the book 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 story of her journey from illiteracy to maturityocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548720</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ru Freeman1471180158|title=A Disobedient GirlMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5

|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who''A Disobedient Girl'' follows two women struggling to retain s a control of their lives in freak with all the face subtlety of servitudea half brick. Latha is a servant girl to the affluent Vithanage family Jamie's son, whose daughterBo, Thara, is Latha'has his problems'. He's age. As children, the girls are asthmatic and the best of friendsmore you read, but they are destined to be separated by class, which is made painfully obvious when boys come into the picture. Meanwhile, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another manmore you'll suspect that he's love childon the autistic spectrum. Biso Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's husband murdered her lover a frequent flier in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair the local A&E and she realises that she must escape his house if she and her children are sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to liveschool. Latha too seeks escape, but she finds it 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 arms of Thara's boyfriend and this sets off wrong. It was going to come to a chain of events that will echo far into her futurehead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Panos KarnezisB0CKD1L5JL|title=The ConventRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=Our Lady of Mercy Petr is a small convent on an orphan. Rescued by the Spanish sierra made 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 handful of devoted nuns who live their lives simplybrief sojourn in human company, carrying out their daily duties like clockwork. However things change when and armed with only a suitcase containing pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a newborn baby is left mysteriously outside journey through the convent doors. The Mother Superiorforest, Sister Maria Ines, believes the baby to be a miracle and plans to keep him in broadcasting the conventstrange, but the other sisters do not agree. During the events that follow the true characters of the nuns inside the convent are revealed wild and the peace that the sisters enjoy is stripped away to show the tension that has been bubbling away under the surfacerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079344</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Glenn CooperSarah Marsh|title=Book A Sign of Souls|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Area 51 is not what you think it is. No - all that UFO kerfuffle is a smokescreen for the powers that be to hide even better the most unusual manuscript known to (a handful of) mankind - the most unearthly, singular, and unsettling book, in thousands and thousands of volumes. All except one, which is about to come under the hammer in a London auction house. Our hero Will Piper must go very reluctantly on the trail of it and its secrets, a trail which will force him and others to become entangled with shadowy agents, who in turn know the very day of all their enemy's deaths.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099534479</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P Robert Smith|title=Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy EndingsHer Own

|summary=''Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings'' is 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 sort use of book you finish with 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 feeling that you've just read something with deaf and using a million different meaningssystem called Visible Speech. Don't be surprised if you feel like you should start At the whole thing again but with your brain more fully engagedsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and perhaps that's the whole pointEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535238</amazonuk>1035401614

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Isabel AshdownB0BC3YTCMR|title=GlasshopperGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5

|summary=Thirteen-year-old Jake ''This story is just like any other boy on the cusp of puberty: new music and Saturday jobs are at the top of his agenda, while girls are the strange exotic creatures that must be looked at but not touched (particularly his pretty Classics teacher)for everyone. But behind closed doors, Jake struggles to cope with his mother's ongoing battle with depression and alcoholism. His father moved out a few weeks ago. So has his older brother, Matthew. That leaves Jake as the man of the house: the one who must remember to get him and little brother, Andy, up in time for school in the morning; the one making toast for dinner; and the one keeping a watchful eye over his mother to make sure she doesn't get herself into any serious trouble.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954930975</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Keith Colquhoun|title=Beyond Reason|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Beyond Reason'' is Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a deceptively complex novel - very bright student, a black comedy about the conflicts within religion. The main focus of the plotbit too nerdy if truth be told, Edward Bunyan, is a radical within the Church of England who is trying to take religion in a new (and rather amusing) direction in order suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to get the public interested hug her in case it again's contagious. Bunyan claims to have It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a direct link with God as well as spiritual powers, such as being able 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 levitate and read minds, which leave his colleague house and old college friendhe raped her. In shock, Reverend Ralph 'Marmy' Marmaduke, unsure about both his friendship with Bunyan and his own religious beliefsshe even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529348</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Buckley 1472263936|title=ContactThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=2.5

|summary=Dominic PattisonIt 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 life began parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to veer off course badly on a Tuesday the family apartment in Mayup-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. ItShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's a fairly banal Tuesday. The kind maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of Tuesday that Dominic probably experiences quite frequentlyher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He feels was proud of his close connections to the need Junta and expected his family to tell us about it.  In detailuphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them.  And, sadly, not in a particularly engaging styleHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003869</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Wayne J HarrisDean Koontz|title=Sins of the AngelAfter Death|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Dr Gideon Matthews, a shouty hellfire and damnation preacher, has just delivered a sermon all about the evils of women being allowed into the church hierarchy and, on his way home afterwards, he is murdered. The following day however he wakes up in hospital or, actually, an angel called Gabriel finds himself inside Dr Matthews' body, able to recall Dr Matthews' memories and thoughts and feelings but acting now as himself. Gabriel goes a little bit wild, finding himself overwhelmed by the new feelings and desires he experiences in this body, sinning left, right and centre and causing scandal at his every move. He is also wondering for what purpose he has been brought into this body and finds that he is dreaming about a demon, someone who is persuading an unknown monk to commit murders in God's name and who seems to be getting closer and closer to Dr Matthews in order to kill him too...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1438994699</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen M Irwin|title=The Darkening|rating=4

|summary=This book has the 'S' word written all over it. NoMichael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, not sex is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio- supernaturalhazard accident. So, it's got all things Finding himself in a bit spookymakeshift mortuary, not-quite-rightcovered in plastic, strange coincidences. They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit he has a sense that when I read something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the blurb on the back cover with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groan. Not really my cup shrouded bodies of teahis dead friends and former colleagues. But IAs he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'm open-minded and I'll read anything onceeverything. I'm glad I did. Irwin is Australian'Everything''. For some reason I havenMichael isn't read too many books by Australian authors, so I was keen to get reading''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751543969</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert KaplowB0BVDC2VWH|title=Me and Orson WellesThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=Richard Samuels sees everything in terms of The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a performance, through Witching Forest. And the rosevillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-tinted lens like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the theatrical celebrities he listens to forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on the radio. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway stage through a chance encounter with Orson Welleshomes, and even gallows, it seems as if all his dreams may be about to come trueneeded. He goes from The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the guy village and that all is the girls see as reason Volushka, a frienddrunken, one of the bookish kids at schoolself-indulgent, to the glamour lazy lout of mingling with stars of the stage. We follow Richard's struggle to balance this newly discovered wonderland and his school life, not to mention his disapproving mothera man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540193</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Van der KisteB0BYF82CXT|title=The Man on the MoorSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=In the summer of 1913 relations with Germany were deteriorating steadily, but there didn't seem to be any connection with the international situation when 'Bill and Amanda are living in a London clerk, George Stephenssemi-detached house, was found dead stuck in a country lane on the edge depressing rut of Dartmoor. The moor had been his passion boredom and disappointment, when Terry and he'd always been keen to escape London Fiona – glamorous, successful and return to Devon. It was an odd death but very much in love – move in all probability it would have been put down as an accident if George's mother had not announced that George was the son of the Kaisernext door. Despite her fondness for gin their different outlooks on life, the story she told was oddly compelling couples befriend each other and when life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it was linked up with the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm George's death seemed less seems, and less like an accidenttheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>''

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances DayShalini Boland|title=Dead Cat With FirelighterThe Silent Bride

|summary=We're Alice and Seth are a match made in the world of modern artheaven. A couple who met at art college are on the verge of breaking upHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, as her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptualclever, pompous bits of (almost literally) rubbish funny; total and nothingutter husband-material. We're also She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the world of inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wannabe stars wedding is planned and starlets, trying to make the jump from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre to Hollywoodset. And in When the background in both instances, are gurumuch-type Svengalisanticipated day arrives, pulling stringsAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and aiming to do excitement as much as is morally justifiable - and a lot more - to get she surveys the congregation – their charges friends assembled to fame. And a bit of contract killing celebrate this joyful day and murder on when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the sideman at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>1662507089

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Billy Hopkins1787636003|title=Tommy's WorldThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45

|summary=Tommy Hopkins It was born in October 1886 in Collyhurst, one of the poorer, inner-city suburbs of Manchestersummer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. His father had quite a good job and there Rachel wasn't a lot of money to spare exactly innocent but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughter. He she was , perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an only child but thought that he interest in her, she was spoilt in terms of affection flattered rather than in the form of worldly goodswary. All that It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to change when his father died of spinal meningitis her and he and his mother had to move into cheaper lodgingsby that time she was obsessed by him. Even that tenuous security wasn't to last Alistair worked for long – Henry Taylor, looking after his mother died of a heart attack interests on the island and in particular in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldthe bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane ChamberlainAmanda Craig|title=The Bay at MidnightThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary=The story starts properly when a letter is discovered. It will have devastating consequences for several families Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of- and life will never be the same again-nation novel. ApparentlyThere'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 wrong person was convicted for a murdercountry as it stands in one particular moment. Moreover, To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the writer genre of contemporary social fiction at this letter appears to know who did commit this crimepoint. UnfortunatelyShe 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, the writer dies before able to make contact never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with the policeissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>140871468X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hazel McHaffie 152915118X|title=Right to DiePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5

|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just once''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, but for NaomiDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, Adamonly Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's death is just exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the beginningPineapple Street property. Coming across his personal Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, private diary which they own. They won't need any of his time the furniture from diagnosis to subsequent demisePineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, she is forced to relive they had a choice but that wasn't the awful months during which his body began to betray him reality. Darley and his will Georgiana start to live was replaced with a will to diecall Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home.They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.on his own terms.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Morag JossEmily Critchley|title=The Night FollowingOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Distracted by 84 year old Edie has lived in the discovery that same small town for almost her husband has been having an affairwhole life, but now she is facing a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lanemove as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, killing Ruth Mitchell, an elderly cyclist. The woman doesn't wait for the police as Edie is starting to arrive; she goes home and parks lose her car in memory. However, Edie is tormented by the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognition. When memory of her arrogant husband sees childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the damage he believes it's been done to punish him and he packs his bags. After worry that there was a few days secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the woman goes to thing that reveals the home truth of the dead woman; she doesnwhat happened all that time ago. After 'seeing't go to Lucy in the doorhigh street, but from a hidden spot nearby just as she can see was the widowerlast time she saw her, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping wellshe starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Wracked with guilt And yet as she remembers the past, the woman makes a decision: the only way she can atone for is forgetting more and more in her actions is day to step into day life. Will she uncover the shoes of the dead woman.truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>1804181250

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.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson0008506337|title=The Haunting of Hill HouseGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45

|summary=There The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was a time before Stephen Kingjust sixteen when they fell in love. There Richard was time before twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'The Shiningan 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. There was 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 time when 'horror' was not rooted in bloodwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, guts Imogen and goreSasha. I owe a slight apology to Mr KingLife was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, because along with the gutsier side family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the genre, I will own that he is a master at suspensedoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Julian Barnes|title=Staring at the Sun|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle Leslie, hyacinths and golf teesThen Richard left them. It's perhaps best forgotten, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large in her life - mostly on the golf course - until the War comes and he runs away to America. He's replaced by Tommy Prosser, a grounded pilot who once saw the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michael, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroom. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Russell Celyn Jones1914585402|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways - thereI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a new-but-old social order built on feudalism couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and horsepower is the main means of transportaffecting it was. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one anotherIt was a gripping, towns still have sink estatesemotionally wounding read, rich boys still and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have too much time lavished enough praise on their hands and precious little meaning in their livesit. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen SheersLucy Ashe|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Clara and Olivia

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the old taleoutside but not, Branwen is the sister of Bendigeidfran - we learn, on the giant King of Britaininside. She marries the King of IrelandAnd not on stage, who doesneither. Because there't treat her wells a lot that builds a dancer. She manages Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling detail – and war and killings ensuesome things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. In this new taleA stage presence, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers whocharm, in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheepa ''joie de vivre''. She meets an old man who tells her The difference between a story involving the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower of London, propaganda work during World War IIhard-worker, and an equally doomed love affaira star. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>0861544080

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=J R StephensonHeather Fawcett|title=Crooked JusticeEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=2.54

|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's Emily Wilde is an ounce. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub expert academic scholar on Cyprusfaerie lore, he goes there for a customary breakand she has travelled extensively, and finds his sort-researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancerfaeries. He manages Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivalsfaeries, she is not so good with people. And So when a rival she finds herself far, far North in London chases him up for thousands the small village of pounds owed he decides Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to pack up redeem herself and shut upput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. ItEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's a big stone that hides him, but frustration. But why is he here? What does he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>0356519120

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Rice1398515388|title=Angel TimeThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=24.5

|summary=Toby O'Dare is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for musicFirst 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, history and playing his beloved lutethe loss of livelihoods was widespread. He's also something 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 lost soul having turned his back on God many years agodog outside a convenience store. One day while on a He wasn'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him t a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become dog person but the Angelconvenience store owner's human instrument comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder Tamon the dog jumped in 13th Century England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E SmelcerChristopher Bowden|title=The Great DeathMr Magenta

|summary=Christopher Bowden'As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from s latest novel is a pandemic of measles, smallpox, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half patient untangling of a villageseemingly ordinary woman's population life, carried out by her nephew after she has died within . The aunt who always provided a week. In some cases, there were no survivors. It was the end 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 ancient way of life. Natives still refer obligation to the dreadful period as the Great Deathfind it all out.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendJennifer Mason|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsPartitions of Unity|rating=54

|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and livingHere at Bookbag Towers, quite literally, in a pigstywe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents dominatrix and working unintentional detective in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces is not as bad as when she would like to believe, investigated and desperately attempting to talk his mother out unravelled a series of her quest to appear on the vile disappearances. In ''Jeremy KylePartitions of Unity'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits she sets her mind to the toilet is really the last thing he needssolving a murder. And yet, the worst is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxWill Carver|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaThe Daves Next Door|rating=3.54

|summary=Set Five strangers come together in India, familiar territory for Theroux, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of one moment as a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a chance letter from an American ex-patLondon tube line. As their fates overlap, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story of a mystery of a dead body is told in a hotel leads him backwards order, leading up to release his creativity in very unexpected ways. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger's Tantric charmsfateful moment. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersJennifer Mason|title=The Wild ThingsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the wrong end of Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the stick about adults2004 Olympics, or dislikes his mothera women's new boyfriendtrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, or gets a bit feisty when he feels billionaire with a state-of-the need for revenge-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, I am certainly understating the factsan erotic art dealer in Georgia... He '' This is just a bit sample of a rascal to say the leastcast of characters and settings in Preposterous. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animalsAs you can see, and ends some keeping up installed as their kingwill be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreview|author=Harlan Coben|title=Tell No One|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I've been meaning Move on to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's work, because if the reviews are to be believed and you are a fan of the 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thriller, the man is quite simply not capable of turning out a duff novel. But you know how it is, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books to be read and reviewed, I just somehow hadn't managed to give him my full attention. Until now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]