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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Lecoat|title=Beyond Summerland|rating=4|genre=General fictionFiction|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. 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. 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?|isbn=1846976537__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan HillOnyi Nwabineli|title=A Kind ManAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet EveAnuri 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 her husband, the title characterbasically, Tommymonetary gain. She's at a bit of a sticky wicket Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her lifeback, for however much they want a babysuing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her sister PhD, undergoing therapy and his feckless husband churn out son after son after son, secretly abusing people online and go no lengths at all to love receiving money from themfor doing so. So when Eve and Tommy do at last have a childMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, itwho is the new focus of Ophelia's a tragedy for it to die when only three years oldonline empire. But in this plotCan she save her sister, which you'll thank me for not going into further, there will be a lot more swings and roundabouts, of torment perhaps herself and ecstasy, doldrums and delights, hell and heaven, to come.her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555441</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Niven1529153298|title=The Second ComingList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=God has come back from a holiday It's 1979 and has some catching up to doMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. What’s been happening on Earth for the last couple of hundred years(A woman? The realisation hits him hardI mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. it makes him sick in fact Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. So what’s Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the answer? family 'Down South'. To quote the religious clichéWhen you're from Yorkshire, Jesus Down South isa frightening, foreign place, best avoided. After a board meeting with For Miv, the senior saintsmove would mean leaving her best friend, God decides Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that his son must be torn away from jamming with Hendrix to go back to . She's not worried about the streets of the world dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to remind the sinners of the wayanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=R J Palacio1035906708|title=WonderDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=August Pullman was born with a rare genetic defect that has caused extreme facial disfiguration. He has undergone 27 surgeries since he We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and has always been vulnerable only moved to illnessAthens when she was thirteen. In order Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to deal with his medical needs and 'Callas' to shield him from make it more manageable in the staring and cruelty of the world, Auggie has been homeStates. When she was back in Athens -schooled by his parents for his entire life. But Auggie is stronger now and all of supposedly so that is about to change. Auggie is about to enter school she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the first time – Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and he’s petrified. ‘Wonder’ is the story made no secret of Auggie’s first year at Beecher Prep and his first journey alone into the outside world. But can he confront the challenges that wait her preference for him there and convince his classmatesher elder sister, new friends, family and himself that, underneath his unusual appearance, he is just the same as everybody else?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370332288</amazonuk>Jackie.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kaui Hart HemmingsAlexander McCall Smith|title=The DescendantsPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On the face of it Matt King The Perfect Passion Company is very lucky. He's descended from one of Hawaii's largest landowners a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and is a wealthy man operating as well as being an attorney. He's married alternative to all the flightyonline apps in providing a more personal, flirtatious Joanie tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and has two daughters, teenager Alexlook after the business, as Ness is planning to take a model who might just have trip to Canada to get away for a bit while. Katie is coming out of a drug problem break up with a bad boyfriend, and ten year old Scottieso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. She's feistyAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, clever thanks to 44 Scotland Street and - for me - stole the bookIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Have you ever noticed that when luck changes it doesn't do it Katie has no experience in baby steps? It does it running a business, or in ''lumps''. Joanie is involved match-making, but Ness has full confidence in a powerboat accident her abilities, and sinks into an irreversible coma as a result of a head injury. But there's more piling up. Matt discovers that Joanie has been having an affair. Does the man who's been - er - enjoying his wife have the right always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to say his goodbyes too?lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570246</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WomersleyDean Koontz|title=BereftThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=Quinn Walker, Benny is having a young Australian man fresh from fighting on the European front in World War Oneterrifically bad day. He loses his job, returns to the very town he was drummed out of ten years beforeloses his fiancee, after being accused of raping and killing his own younger sisterhouse gets trashed. Two things have beaten him 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 small settlement - onething that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the global flu pandemic; two very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a telegram saying he died bravely in action earlier in nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the wardelivery 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. And the less you know Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of what Benny's enemies, if he meets and does back in Flint the better, the more to keep this fresh Benny, and brilliant bookHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's many intrigues as secret as wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they were for meare.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857386549</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen SchulmanKatherine Howe|title=This Beautiful LifeA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard and Liz are new Hannah Masury is living in town which is always Boston, having been sent to live with a bummerfamily who run an inn, except this town is Manhattan so really nothing else could ever compare. They’ve only moved and being made to work there from upstate New York but it seems a world away nowyoung age. Liz has given up her post at the university When she hears there is to concentrate on kids Coco and Jake and is finding juggling their social lives be a full time job hanging of some pirates in itself but is just about making a space for herself among the other mothers at the school gates. Things are going ok. And thentown, one day, their nice, comfortable world starts she decides to crumblego and watch. Jake receives an explicit email from a classmate Enthralled and horrified in disbeliefequal measure, forwards it straight on to Hannah finds herself embroiled in a friendyoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. Except rather than coming back to him with advice on what the heck to do next She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, the friend chooses and then to send it on escape them completely she runs away to another friendsea, who does the same. Round dressing as a boy and round it goes, round joining the school, round the city, round the online worldnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Everyone knows where it came from and She soon Jake’s academic futurefinds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, his father’s career and his whole family’s social standing from there we are hanging caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the balanceocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857896237</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Courtney Sullivan1471180158|title=MaineMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Kellehers' beachJamie Matson works in an upper-front holiday home in Maine was built on class grocery store, for a plot of land won in man who's a bar-room bet at control freak with all the end subtlety of World War IIa half brick. ItJamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's not in asthmatic and the same league as more you read, the Kennedy compound more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at Hyannis Port but there are short notice - she's a couple of substantial properties on frequent flier in the plot local A&E and theresometimes Bo's still room not fit enough to sparego to school. It's a place of indulgence, secrets Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and the sort of burning cruelty which you only get put in families who care for each other - some of the timewrong. ''Maine'' is essentially the story of It was going to come to a summer at the property - but the seeds of what happens were, of course, planted long agohead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789496X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chad HarbachB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Art of FieldingRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Art of Fielding'' Petr is basically a US-style campus novel featuring baseball. There are similarities in style between this and many of John Irving's works, with baseball substituting for Irving's wrestling focusan orphan. This, to Rescued by the UK-readerstrange, raises the first potential barrier as we arereclusive Bear, as a rulehe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, largely ignorant of the US fixation with in the intricacies forests of baseballWashington's Olympic Peninsula. Certainly you don't need an After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in depth knowledge to appreciate this story - it is really a story of friendshiphuman company, ambition and the sporting dreams of youth - but despite armed with only a loose understanding of the sport I felt that I would have benefitted from more knowledge particularly towards the end when there is a climactic baseball match. You kind of get the pointpirate radio transmitter, but I certainly felt that I was missing out Petr goes on a little of journey through the tensionforest, in much the same way I'd expect a US reader to be perplexed if broadcasting the story had been based on saystrange, cricket. It's a minor flaw though wild and it would be a shame if potential readers dismissed it for this reasonrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007374445</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eowyn IveySarah Marsh|title=The Snow ChildA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The heart After a bout of Alaskan nativescarlet fever as a child, Eowyn Ivey's debut novel is Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a re-telling world of the Russian fairy tale ''Snegurochka'' or ''The Snow Child''silence, everything about her life changes. Set here Living in Alaska in the 1920s, Jack and Mabel have moved from the East coast to start a new life, apart from anything to help Mabel get over time when the grief use of having lost her sign language was seen as something only child in childbirth. Life in Alaska savages do, Ellen is tough and Jack struggles sent to farm his new homestead. Then in the first snowfall of the season, a playful snowball fight leads school where she is taught to the couple building a snowmanlip read, or more accurately a snowgirlbut physically restrained from signing. The next morning the snowgirl From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has vanished along with been teaching the mittens and scarf that adorned her deaf and Jack sees using a ghostly figuresystem called Visible Speech. At the same time, possibly a young girlBell is working on other inventions and ideas, running and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the woodsa complicated tangle of espionage. Can they have created a snow child? Is this their longed for daughter?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755380525</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=C J SansomB0BC3YTCMR|title=Winter in MadridGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Despite being injured at Dunkirk Harry Brett was still willing to do his bit for his country. The deafness from the bomb which killed the man standing next to him on the beach - and the resulting panic attacks had begun to recede and he was willing, if not keen, to go to Spain to do some work for the ''sneaky beakies''. He wasn't a spy by nature or inclination but he was one of the few people who might be able to make contact with - and report back on - Sandy Forsyth who'd been at his public school. There's another old Rookwoodian who's left some history in Madrid. Bernie Piper went to Spain to fight for the International Brigades in the Civil War and was thought to have been killed at Jarama but his body had never been found. The school This story is not the only link thoughfor everyone. Barbara Clare was Bernie's girlfriend - she was a Red Cross nurse - and now she was living with Sandy Forsyth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330411985</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce Robinson1472263936|title=The Rum Diary - A ScreenplayFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto a failing newspaper It was in San Juan1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Puerto RicaGreek by birth, as had left the only candidate for the jobfamily 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 a semiup-comatose state induced by too many miniatures from market Kolonaki would be the hotel minibar, stumbles into a conspiracy first of epic proportions, via classic bar room brawls several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and nightclub mayhem. On the way he (almost) writes horoscopes and bowling championship storiesfamily's maid, meets the fantastically erotic girlfriend of the evil businessmanDina, but was wary - and teams up with a protofrightened -Nazi out of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSDher grandfather, and a photographer side kickretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. There is no question that this is Hunter S Thompson territory, especially when all the above is combined with a witty, slow-talking hero who in spite He was proud of his alcoholic haze sees clearly through close connections to the exploitation of a third world country by its massive first world near neighbourJunta 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. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555697</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Louisa YoungDean Koontz|title=My Dear I Wanted to Tell YouAfter Death|rating=4.53|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=It takes 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 while for sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the full power shrouded bodies of Louisa Younghis dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''s remarkable feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''My Dear I Wanted To Tell YouMichael'' to become apparent, but when it does, it can hardly fail to move youanymore. Set just before |isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and during World War One, itpoor. It's surrounded by a story of love Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and human spirit against the oddsits blossom provides herbal medicines. The impact black wood of the book is in what happens to the charactersforest provides heat and warmth, so I don't want to give too much awayroofs on homes, but it's worth pointing out that it's not for the overly squeamish reader particularly in some of the descriptions of surgical proceduresand even gallows, which have clearly been meticulously researched by Youngif needed. The title itself it taken from the opening words fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the standard letters village and that is the wounded were given to send to loved ones back homereason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. The wounded were required to fill in the blanks.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007361432</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janette JenkinsB0BYF82CXT|title=Little BonesSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=While this might sound like the afterlife of a brilliant and unlikely cabaret mimic, it's not. It's a rich, evocative Bill and engaging novel set Amanda are living in the last years of Victoria's reigna semi-detached house, stuck in the depths a depressing rut of her darkest London. Fate - boredom and being abandoned bydisappointment, in turnwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, her mother successful and older sister - leaves Jane Stretch living with and working for a doctor and his lumpenvery much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, housebound wife. Jane is alternatively called an 'unfortunate' the couples befriend each other and a 'cripple' for her disabilities and distorted frame, but she has enough bookish intelligence life appears to pass herself off as an assistant to the doctor, who only ever does one operation - abortions, improve for music hall artistesboth pairs. The plot But all is evidently gearing up to reveal how dangerous such a criminal business might benot what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for the both of themtragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118194X</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christie WatsonShalini Boland|title=Tiny Sunbirds Far AwayThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Tiny Sunbirds Far Away'' starts Alice and Seth are a match made in Lagos but soon moves to the ruralheaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, oil producing Niger Delta. This allows Christie Watson's young narratoraccomplished, 12 year old Blessingclever, to view the traditional ways afreshfunny; total and utter husband-material. It's She is all he could possibly want in a clever device wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and young Blessing so the inevitable proposal is shocked eagerly accepted by Alice and the rural conditions after a relatively luxurious life in Lagos with a good school wedding is planned and a modern apartmentset. But when her mother discovers When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father on top of another woman, beaming with pride and excitement as she takes Blessing surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and her older brotherwhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the asthmatic Ezikielman at the altar is, back who is waiting for her to her family homebecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849163758</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Lake1787636003|title=In DarknessThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Shorty is lying in It was the rubble of summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the great Haitian earthquake of 2010island. If he Rachel wasn's not rescued soont exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, he will die. Shorty is from Site Soleynaive, the sprawling slum of Portso when thirty-four-auyear-Princeold Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. After the murder It was quite a while before he made any sort of his father physical approach to her and abduction of by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his twin sister, Shorty has allowed himself to fall further interests on the island and further into in particular in the bar where all the slum's gang culturegirls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4. But Route 9 isn't all about drug5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-dealing and gunof-running the- itnation novel. There's also something so utterly compelling about feeding any writer who can catch hold of the poor atmosphere of the day and educating capture it, crafting an image of the childrencountry as it stands in one particular moment. And Shorty 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 great deal to teach his readersgift 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, as he recounts his life while waiting to diegrappling with issues far larger than themselves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408824183</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Lelic152915118X|title=The Child WhoPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Simon Lelic's third book, ''The Child WhoPineapple Street''is the story of three women: Sasha, takes him back Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to the format that worked so successfully with his first noveltheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn'Rupturet readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they', avoiding d like to move into the near-future angle he tookPineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, less successfully I felta street or so away, with his second bookwhich they own. Lelic They won's themes are always inspired by real events that have been t need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in the news. Here Nominally, he tackles they had a choice but that wasn't the murder of an 11 year old child by Daniel, a 12 year oldreality. The creative inspiration is surely the James Bulger case Darley and he acknowledges Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the creative debt to Blake Morrisongold digger'. She's living in ''As Iftheir'' on family home. They use it so often that very subjectthey abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330522744</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather PeaceEmily Critchley|title=All To Play ForOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Back 84 year old Edie has lived in August 1985 at the time 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 Edinburgh Festival worry that there was a group of people met in what could have been difficult circumstances. They were arrested secret she was keeping for causing a disturbance despite Lucy that somehow might be the fact thing that they weren't really involved in reveals the fracas and it was truth of what happened all a misunderstandingthat time ago. Little did they know that After 'seeing' Lucy in the following decade they would all be involved - one way and another - in producing drama for high street, just as she was the BBC as it went through one last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of the toughest periods in its historymemories coming back to her. The tale is told - mainly - by Rhiannon, but we hear And yet as she remembers the stories of Nickypast, Maggie, Jill, Jonathan she is forgetting more and Chrismore in her day to day life. Names will changeWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, but they'll all wander the circular corridors of power in Langford Place.and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248130</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|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''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Barry0008506337|title=City of BohaneThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Bohane is a thoroughly lawless townThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, set apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in what would appear to be some kind of parallel universelove. We are told it is set in 2053, but it Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's a town without any technology or modern luxuriesmother as 'an older man'. It Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a violent place fuelled by alcoholglittering career. In the event, drugs they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and lust with went on to become a patois style language that takes a little work to get intowell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Novels with this kind Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest Wight. Even then the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book and doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: 'City of Bohane'she would never be able to leave him in charge' is nominated for this year's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly good Then Richard left them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090577</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kerry Young1914585402|title=PaoDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In her Costa Prize short-listed first novel, Kerry Young brings together a huge number of elements that make up a good story. Set in Jamaica, the time period covers 1938 to almost present day, it is the political backdrop of independence and control over JamaicaI reviewed David F Ross's assets that informs much of the story. But while the politics of Jamaica resound throughout the book, it[[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's also Only One Danny Garvey]] a very personal story about the life couple of the eponymous Yang Paoyears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Issues of race, classIt was a gripping, loveemotionally wounding read, family, ambition and business philosophy - Pao's guiding light is Sun Tzu's ''The Art rereading my review of War'' - are skilfully woven into the mix to make this a great book to curl up with it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on a cold winter's nightit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140881207X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gavin James BowerLucy Ashe|title=Made in BritainClara and Olivia|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The settings of the intertwined tales of Russellyear is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the working class swot trapped by his conditionsoutside but not, Charliewe learn, on the heroic inside. And not on stage, either. Because there'lad' who gets caught in the drugs scene and Hayley the naïve wannabee with s a lot that builds a single parent father are the school rooms and backstreetsdancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, flats, pubs attention to detail – and clubs of Every Townsome things, the vision of twenty-first century deprivation that Bower conjures. Or rather fails to conjure''je ne sais quoi'', for the device of making the 16 year olds tell the story that don't come from their own first person narrative deprives the reader of classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a genuine sense of the physical reality in which this story unfolds''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704372290</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura WilkinsonHeather Fawcett|title=BloodminingEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although Wilkinson Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has placed travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her story 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 near futuresmall 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 most part, you wouldn't necessarily be aware of that factright track. PersonallyEnter Wendell Bambleby, I was delighted as Iher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily'm not a fan of futuristic fictions frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907335145</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kerry Jamieson1398515388|title=The Forgotten LiesBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the mid-thirtiesFirst of all, it was the golden age of Hollywoodearthquake, three aspiring starlets shared a studio house on Lantana Drive as they waited to hear if they were going to have a career deep in the movies – or not. Charlotte (soon to be Carlie for acting purposes)ocean floor, Verbena, known to her friends (and ''only'' her friends) as Bee which created the tsunami and Ivy were desperate for the role of a lifetimethis, which would put their name in lightsturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. There The result was an added appealcomplete and utter devastation. Whoever won would star opposite Liam Malone – good lookingThe deaths were uncountable, charismatic and ''very'' married with 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 childrenmonths after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. It He wasn't just a case of being able dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to act. Their lives would be under intense scrutinyopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141026049</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Conny BraamChristopher Bowden|title=The Cocaine SalesmanMr Magenta|rating=4.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Picture Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a world patient untangling of hellish exclusiona seemingly ordinary woman's life, nightmarish noise carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and images, a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and horrid violence. Picture one person trying it seems to live through the sleepless nights, the isolation among his peers, the permanent sense of dreadful threat. Picture him needing drugs. His best friend might even be called Charlie. But don't picture an inner city slum, 2012, but a man on the front in World War Oneobligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel ConnorJennifer Mason|title=SisterwivesPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I Here at Bookbag Towers, we first read the title (I hadn't yet read the back cover blurb) I glibly thought that it was about two sisters met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and their marriages. Wrong. This debut novel unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Connor is about two very different women (one is no more than Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a girl really) who just happen to series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'marry' the same man. I use the word marry very loosely indeed, she sets her mind to solving a murder. Their community, their rules, their descriptions etc can be rather quirky. Marriages are normally called 'sealings'.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0946745587</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Daves 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
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|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...''
}}