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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukJenny Lecoat|title=Invisible Monsters RemixBeyond Summerland|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Don't expect this to be Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the kind end of story that goes: and then, and then, and then.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk books, upon his first, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British success, and never got round to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past worksoccupation. But then he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marcello Fois|title=Memory of During the Abyss|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are on Sardinia, over a hundred years ago. It is a land of legendwar, where storytellers can see a different nature to the moon each night and convey that in their earthly stories. ItJean's a world of wonder, where sheep can fall from the skies father was arrested for more than one reason. It's a poor land, where lads are expected listening to be responsible shepherds by the time they are ten. As a result people look after each other - except, while returning from a Christening Samuele banned radio and his father are refused basic hospitality. Later when the boy runs soldiers took him away one night the land falls away beneath , leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him - yet he finds a girl to ground him to this earth. Which is most relevant when he goes to warAs the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and particularly when he comes back and finds himself a wronged manthe war is finally over, and in need their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of vengeancehim...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Francis Bennett|title=The Crabber Stories|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=John White was known to everyone But will the truth come as Crabber - a nickname which he once earned and which then stuck - and he grew up on relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the shores of Long Island in the nineteen-fifties. war? It Who was a close-knit community and a time when children had more freedom than they are likely to be allowed now. We watch as Crabber grows from being a boy still suffering from the death of his elder brother when we first met him through to a time when he's old enough to go on a hunting trip on informer who told the Nazis about the mainland with a local family. radio? He tells his own stories, as truthfully as he can and with And what other secrets have been kept throughout the sort of insight which children have before life injects its cynicism.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Belinda SeawardOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Beautiful TruthAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Anuri spent her childhood on display to the [[Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James|first]] book world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in a trilogy her twenties and she is outstandingly awesomeslowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, and suing her step-mother to take down the [[Fifty Shades Darker by EL James|second]] content about her. Anuri is pretty darn excellentbattling alcoholism, failing to read the final instalment is a no-brainer reallystart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. And Most importantly, I suspect that she is why this book desperately worried about her little sister, who is selling so well, because while it’s a mildly interesting reading, in my mind it didn’t come close to the first two offerings in terms new focus of intriguing characters, a suspense filled plot or general ''kinky-fuckery'Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099579944</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maggie Shipstead1529153298|title=Seating ArrangementsThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Weddings are always a potential source for intrigue It's 1979 and dramaMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly.. In Maggie Shipstead.) She's debut novelnot what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared'Seating Arrangementsdoesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv', theres upset because she's plenty of overheard that going onher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Set in When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a New England island called Waskekefrightening, Winn Van Meter's eldest daughter, Daphneforeign place, who is already heavily pregnant is about to marry Greyson Duffbest avoided. The problems start when Daphne's retinue of bridesmaids For Miv, who include the move would mean leaving her sisterbest friend, LiviaSharon, who has had her heart broken by her first love and she'll do anything to the son of Winnprevent that. She's social arch rival, and not worried about the flirtatious Agatha mix with Greysondangers or that her Mum's brothers. Add in the fact that Winn has always had a yearning for Agatha and things get decidedly messystopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000742521X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Parsons1035906708|title=Catching the SunDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Finn had been a builderWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but bankruptcy intervened and taxi driving provided some sort of living for himshe was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, his wifeNew York, Tess in December 1923 and twins Rory and Keevaonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. And so Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it might have continued but for two burglars in his home. Tom to 'confrontedCallas' them - and nearly went to jail, but his conviction mean that taxi driving was no longer an optionmake it more manageable in the States. Then a chance encounter brought him the offer of another driving job - but this one When she was back in Phuket in Thailand Athens - and included accommodation. There's a saying supposedly so that if something seems too good to be true then it probably is, but when you're as close to she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the bottom as Tom Finn there comes a time when you've got to take Nazi occupation by a chance mother who mercilessly exploited her and hope that this is your lucky daymade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007327811</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Camilla MacphersonAlexander McCall Smith|title=Pictures at an ExhibitionThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A story designed around the display of individual paintings at the National Gallery during World War Two held immediate appeal for me. AlasThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, Claire run by Ness and Rob, operating as an alternative to all the central characters online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the novelbusiness, did notas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Claire’s extreme irrationality Katie is jarring even within the context coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the ordeal she has enduredchance to come home to Edinburgh. Rob seems inconsiderate And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, clearly due bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the barrage of irrationality he is having Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to live with on charm. Katie has no experience in running a daily basis. But while that is understandablebusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, I did worry that I might be reading to lend a novel that contained no likeable characters. hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099560445</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=EL JamesDean Koontz|title=Fifty Shades DarkerThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Not Benny is having a lot of time has passed since the [[Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James|first instalment]] of Ana’s adventures with the man she calls Fifty Shadesterrifically bad day. Perhaps unusually for a follow up it’s not months or years later He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, in fact just a few days have gone byand his house gets trashed. Lots of things have changed Oh, though. Successful businessman Christian is still our tortured hero and Anasomeone has delivered a really weird, now in her first proper jobdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, remains our befuddled heroine but they’re not Christian-and-Ana any more having parted ways at it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the end of book onevery last person to deserve all this bad luck. At the same time, He is a lot has stayed the samenice person. A really nice person. They’re not having quite as much dirty sex as they were but So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the tensions are still there. He’s still incapable of letting her get on with things without interfering (you’ve got delivery to love his house is a new friend, a guy bad weather friend called Spike, who buys the company you work at, just has been sent to keep an eye on things)help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. And he still has, let’s say, particular preferences when it comes Spike is going to his bedroom antics. Sotake care of Benny, it seemsand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, does Ana. With what were increasingly becoming her regular nocturnal activities now off limitsif he, she’s started craving them. Craving things she didn’t know were possible a month or so ago. Craving things she’s aware nice girls wouldn’t…unless it’s all one big unspoken secret in the sisterhood. Craving things that, let’s be honestBenny, and Harper (a massive number of readers probably quite fancy themselves after the literary foreplay that was book 1waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099579928</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roland VernonKatherine Howe|title=The Good Wife's CastleA True Account|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=We start with a father's suicide, a child watching as he steps of the chair in the milking room with the noose around his neck4. A father who died for shame.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775533</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Toni Morrison|title=Home|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toni Morrison's ''Home'' Hannah Masury is simply living in Boston, having been sent to live with a beautifully crafted novella. Set in post Korean war Americafamily who run an inn, it features some familiar Morrison characteristicsand being made to work there from a young age. Veteran Frank When she hears there is suffering from what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorderto be a hanging of some pirates in the town, but is released from service with no treatment as so many were, especially if they were black no doubtshe decides to go and watch. But at least he has survived unlike his two friends whom he grew up with. Frank is troubled Enthralled and has his flawshorrified in equal measure, but also has dignity. He Hannah finds himself returning to herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the Georgia homehands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, Lotusso that they don't find and kill her too, he longed and then to escape from them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a child, another typical Morrison settlement with nothing going for it apart from cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the goodness and dignity thick of the people who live things when there. What draws him back is the news that his younger sistera mutiny on board, Cee, is suffering and from the aftermath there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of some medical experimentation. It sounds grim stuff, but while life is hard, it's not a traumatically difficult readon the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186070</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Angela S Choi1471180158|title=Hello Kitty Must DieMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all started with the subtlety of a missing hymenhalf brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. If He's asthmatic and the more you think that’s an odd way to start a reviewread, bear in mind that’s exactly how this book startsthe more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Very first line in fact. Fiona Wu is Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a 28 year old lawyer living frequent flier in San Francisco. Successful, self assured but still living at home thanks the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to her Chinese roots and her over protective parentsschool. She’d rather hang out with her pet parakeet than nice Asian boys, but since her parents are desperate Missed shifts or the need to get her married off be away on time to one of pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the latter, she doesn’t always get her own waywrong. An appointment at a doctor’s office with a view It was going to sorting out the aforementioned missing hymen leads come to a chance reunion with a criminally-minded old school friend (last seen setting another pupil on fire), and then the fun really beginshead. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570491</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Madeleine TobertB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Sea On Our SkinRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Amalie Matete woke Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up alone on far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the first day forests of her life as a married woman…her battered body…the bruises on her thighsWashington's Olympic Peninsula. Amalie had scarcely been prepared for this. Only sixteenAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, she'd spent all of her time in the village and was marrying armed with only a strangerpirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a man who had seen her only once. But she was lucky. With no father to give her away, she was lucky to be being married at alljourney through the forest, her mother tried to tell her. On her wedding day Amalie had been frightened by broadcasting the storm. It was a bad omen she said. Just a stormstrange, her mother saidwild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444734113</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=EL JamesSarah Marsh|title=Fifty Shades Of GreyA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When college student Ana steps in at the last minute to cover an interview After a bout of scarlet fever as a local tycoon for the uni paperchild, she never imagines how what is supposed to be Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a one off meeting will change world of silence, everything about her life completely over changes. Living in a time when the months use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to come. She has no plans or expectations a school where she is taught to see him againlip read, but Christian Grey knows what he wants and takes great pains to get it, so with Ana now next on his list of target acquisitionsphysically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has very little hope of escaping unscathedbeen teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Swiftly realising that he At the same time, Bell is not your average wealthy bachelor, Ana falls head first into a foreign and confusing new world she has no clue how to navigate. With pressure working on to sign on the dotted line or leave other inventions and never return, Ana has to decide how far she’s willing to go to follow her heartideas, and when she should listen to the screaming voices Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in her head insteada complicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099579936</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John IrvingB0BC3YTCMR|title=In One PersonGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''In One PersonThis story is not for everyone.'' is Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a sensitive story of sexual identityvery bright student, narrated by a bisexual writer who is now in his later yearsbit too nerdy if truth be told, recalling not only his own coming to terms with his sexuality and attraction suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to men, women and transgenders while at school hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a New England school, crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but also never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his later years house and the devastating impact of the AIDS virus in 1980s Americahe raped her. At times the content is quite graphic In shock, but John Irving captures the outsider's feelings beautifully in this tale of secrecy in she even allowed him to give her a confusing world of identitylift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520962</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wiley Cash1472263936|title=A Land More Kind Than HomeThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a small town It was in western North Carolina there was a storefront church with newspapers across the windows so 1968 that no one could see inHelena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Adelaide Lyle remembered to days when it She was a storealone: her mother, Greek by birth, as well as had left the days when she used family home and refused to attend the church regularlyreturn, but after a woman died in a Mary and Hamish (Helena'healing' ritual which involved s parents) felt that it would be a snake and pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her body was left Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her garden she decided that she couldn't attend grandmother and nor could she allow the townfamily's children maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to run the riskJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. For a while this separation worked reasonably well until a series of incidents, many quite small in themselves, provoked a tragedyHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520806</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew NicollDean Koontz|title=If YouAfter 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. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael're Reading This, I'm Already Deadanymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story at the heart of Andrew Nicoll's ''If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead'' village is bizarre but not entirely of Nicollisolated and poor. It's own creationsurrounded by a Witching Forest. It is narrated And the villagers subsist largely by Germanfarming Uphegia plants - its bread-born Otto Wittelike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, who is rapidly recording a strange time in his life while Allied bombs are falling in World War Two Germanyroofs on homes, although the events that he relates go back to 1913 when Otto was an acrobat working in a travelling circus currently in Budaand even gallows, or perhaps Pest - he's not quite sureif needed. In addition to his acrobatic skills, he The fear of being buried alive is also blessed with an impressive set of whiskers which make him the dead ringer for the newly appointed Turkish King of Albania. If only he can get there before the claimant to existential superstition in the crown, perhaps he can steal the country village and complete an unlikely rise in status. In that is the company of his pal, Maxreason Volushka, a strongmandrunken, a blind mindself-reader and his beautiful daughterindulgent, an exotic dancer and lazy lout of a purloined camel, what could possibly go wrong?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857384937</amazonuk>man is tolerated.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Asko SahlbergB0BYF82CXT|title=The BrothersSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're 'Bill and Amanda are living in the family home of Erika semi-detached house, stuck in Finlanda depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, in 1809. It's large enough to have been the most impressive farmstead when his mother was taken there as a young bride, Terry and she still lives there, with an elderly retainerFiona – glamorous, Erik, Erik's untrusting wife successful and some other servantsvery much in love – move in next door. One night the brother of the family, Henrik, returnsDespite their different outlooks on life, and all the bad blood gets spilled. Not just about a neighbour's horse couples befriend each other and hotheaded plans life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it, not just over a marriageseems, and not even about the fact that when Sweden and Russia fought over Finland and the territory changed hands, the brothers were on opposing sidestheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095628406X</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer EganShalini Boland|title=The Invisible CircusSilent Bride|rating=3.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Set Alice and Seth are a match made in 1978heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, 18funny; total and utter husband-year old Phoebe material. She is living with her mother all he could possibly want in San Francisco. Her father died some years agoa wife; beautiful, before her elder sistersuccessful, Faith, a charismatic idealist confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and true child of the 1960s left for Europe where she died in 1970wedding is planned and set. Faith was always When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father's favourite, While Phoebebeaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's older brother, Barryworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is now a computer millionaire, on leaving high school Phoebe decides on a whim to follow waiting for her sister's path to Europe in the hope of finding what happened in Italy and to finally understand her beloved sister's actionsbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780331223</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten Tranter1787636003|title=A Common LossThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There were five friends - DylanIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, Brianperhaps, Tallisnaive, Cameron and Elliot so when thirty- but then Dylan was killed in a road accident and the remaining four had -year-old Alistair Wright started to come to terms with how the dynamics of the group had changed. Dylan had always been the fixertake an interest in her, the solver and the mediatorshe was flattered rather than wary. He'd been the one the other four had gone It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to when they had problems because he'd always come up with something her and it by that time she was usually an ingenious solutionobsessed by him. It wasn't until Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after Dylan's death that his interests on the four friends realised that Dylan knew their dirtiest secrets - island and that someone else had access to in particular in the bar where all the informationgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BroderickAmanda Craig|title=The Bankruptcy DiariesThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 2000, Paul Livingson graduated from university Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and got his first proper grown up job. By 2007 he had filed for bankruptcy. With no failed businessescapture it, unfortunate property depreciation or poor stock market investments crafting an image of the country as it stands in between you might one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a loss to see how he ended up there, until you read his diary gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of those years her characters in a way that feels natural and it all becomes crystal clearlived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956511937</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francis Gilbert152915118X|title=The Last Day of TermPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 'Pineapple Street'' is the last day story of term at the Gilda Ball Academythree women: Sasha, Darley and English teacher Martin canGeorgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't wait for readily accepted into the holiday to starttribe. Shaken by The problem's exacerbated when the death of his friend Jack in a riot at the schoolclan matriarch, Tilda, heasks Cord and Sasha if they's failed d like to notice his marriage falling move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to pieces and his relationship with his son deterioratinganother property, a street or so away, which they own. Just when he thinks things can They won't get need any worseof the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, an anonymous pupil accuses him of inappropriate sexual conductthey had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021511</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Evonne WarehamEmily Critchley|title=Never Coming HomeOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kaz Elmore 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost come to terms with her daughter's death. She died while on holiday in America with whole life, but now she is facing a move as her father (Kaz's ex husband) son wants to move to another house and her ashes have been scattered on the river. As tragic bring Edie to live with his family, as it Edie is, Kaz has no alternative but starting to accept that lose her daughter is never coming backmemory. However, one day she receives a visit from a man called DevlinEdie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who witnessed went missing over 60 years ago, and the accident and worry that there was holding Jamie when a secret she died. His sole intention is to provide some comfort was keeping for Kaz by telling her Lucy that somehow might be the thing that her daughter was not alone but when he spots photographs reveals the truth of Jamie, he realises what happened all that she is not the child who died in his armstime ago.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931704</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrea Eames|title=The Cry of the Go-Away Bird|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= After 'The Cry of the Go-Away Birdseeing' is Lucy in the debut novel from Andrea Eames. It revolves around Elisehigh street, a white Zimbabwean girl living through just as she was the last time she saw her teens on the eve , she starts to find pockets of the Mugabe-sponsored farm invasions at the beginning of this century. The author herself grew up in Zimbabwe before moving memories coming back to New Zealand with her family at . And yet as she remembers the age of seventeen and there past, she is a strong sense of memoir forgetting more and personal experience more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the noveltruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, which has both positive and negative effects on the narrative.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553733</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithMadelaine Lucas|title=The Saturday Big Tent Wedding PartyThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Alexander McCall Smith makes it look so easy''Love, churning out book after delightful book that continue I'd read, was supposed to delight and amuse his loyal readers. His writing seems effortless, be a light and in this story, once againweightless feeling, the characters remain the wonderful friends we have but I had always known and expected them to be, as if they really are alive and living these stories somewhere and AMS is simply transcribing them longed for our pleasure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349123136</amazonuk>}}gravity''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Nicholls0008506337|title=One DayThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I knew within the first ten pages that I was going to The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O''One Day''Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. It is the only book that has kept me up at night, distracted me throughout the day and woken me up early Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the morninglove. I couldn Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo't put it down, and didns mother as 'an older man't want to either. I have always found it difficult to settle on a favourite type of story, or even a specific genre that I like, but this novel made me realise Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what I want in they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a book is realismglittering career. As Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley enjoyed their late night conversation in In the opening moments of the bookevent, Nicholls pulled me into his world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340896981</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Green|title=The Fault in Our Stars|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Having been diagnosed at age 12 with stage 4 thyroid cancer, Hazel was prepared to die. Then at age 14, a miracle treatment shrunk the tumours in they eloped and Richard took her lungs...for away from the time beingIsle of Wight. Hazel could live for years, or she could die at any time, but her days are spent tethered Margo did go to an oxygen tank Oxford and under constant surveillance and treatment went on to keep the cancer at bay. Hazel is now 16. With her life in become a constant holding pattern, Hazel meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support groupwell-respected journalist. Augustus is gorgeous The couple had three children: Rachel, sharp-witted, in remission Imogen and completely attracted to HazelSasha. As their relationship blossoms Life was lived in London and growsholidays were spent at Sandcove, Hazel finds she has to re-examine her attitude about life and death, illness and wellness and love. Their brief journey together leaves a lasting legacy behind that will change everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0525478817</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ken MacLeod|title=Intrusion|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Pregnant Hope doesn't want to take the Fix, a genetic cure-all pill that corrects family home on the DNA Isle of an unborn child and protects it Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from all sorts of diseases. HopeMargo's husband Hugh doesnmind: ''t really understand her objections she would never be able to the Fix - leave him in fact, Hope never really articulates them at all - but supports her right to choosecharge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499390</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Tyler1914585402|title=The Beginner's GoodbyeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=AaronI reviewed David F Ross's wife, Dorothy, was killed in an accident. An oak tree fell on their home, demolishing the sun porch where Dorothy happened to be at the time. He worried that if he had done things differently (book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a matter couple of some biscuits years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and a television set) Dorothy might not have been where she affecting it was and might still be alive and for a while he camped out in the wrecked house until further damage forced him to move in with his sister. It was then that he realised that Dorothy wasn't really dead - wella gripping, not dead as we understand it - as she materialised in odd placesemotionally wounding read, wearing the clothes she used to wear and eventually staying with Aaron for longer periods rereading my review of timeit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it. And gradually they began to bicker, just like a long-married couple...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701187190</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth HaynesLucy Ashe|title=Revenge of the TideClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maud Perifanis wasnThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler't unduly worried when her husband didn't return home one evening as he often stayed in his office when he was working s Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the news that he had been killed in a car accidentoutside but not, we learn, well out of Athens on the Saronic Gulfinside. And not on stage, was either. Because there's a shock lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to everyone in the house on Paradise Street where the extended family lived. Nikitas had been brought up by his aunt Alexandra detail – and her husband and she now lived in one apartmentsome things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', Orestes (his son that don't come from his second marriage) in the studio and heclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, Maud and their daughter Tig lived in a third apartment. There was someone missing though. Antigone was Alexandra's sister - and Nikitas' mother - but shejoie de vivre'd left Greece for Russia when he was three and he hadn't seen her since. She was over eighty when she heard the news The difference between a hard-worker, and she came back for the funerala star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595694</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francois LelordHeather Fawcett|title=Hector Finds Time (HectorEmily Wilde's Journeys)Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=MeetEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, if you havento write her life't alreadys work, Hector the psychiatristvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. He's like a champagne cork, Whilst she is brilliant at research and when something prays on his mind a lot POP he's off on a global trip speaking to set things rightfaeries, she is not so good with people. AndSo when she finds herself far, like a champagne cork let off far North in a posh place, he'll likely crash through a chandelier the small village of scintillatingHrafvsnik, interesting little pointshaving somehow offended the village matriarch, scattering them leftshe is not sure what she has done, right nor how to redeem herself and centre, and creating a pretty, if random, pattern put her final investigations for her book back on the book pageright track. This time it isEnter Wendell Bambleby, erher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, time. From patients worried they've none leftall charm and delight, much to those who want to grow up faster, and those putting anti-ageing cream on crowsEmily'-feets frustration. What But why is the best approach to spending, passing and perhaps not worrying about, timehe here?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906040893</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 13|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Those of you who are frequent visitors to The Bookbag will know that I am a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith's writing. I am supremely happy that What does he continues to write so regularly and reliably, providing me want? And what exactly is going on with much looked forward to reading matter several times through the year. This time it's the turn of Mma Ramotswe to slip back into my mind as we read of her detecting adventures in this, the thirteenth book in the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408702606</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Deborah Moggach|title=The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=When Ravi and his cousin Sonny decide to open the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in Bangalore as a retirement home, they don't know whether they will get any takers. However, by advertising it as a newly restored palatial hotel that will provide a life of leisure, good weather and mango gin, they soon get a great deal of interest and are welcoming their new residents. Evelyn, Madge, Dorothy, Norman and all of the others who decide to move to the hotel have their own reasons for leaving Britain but they are all excited by the new opportunity and the lease of new life that it could provide.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099572028</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anuradha Roy1398515388|title=The Folded EarthBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set in a remote hill top town First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the Himalayas where ocean floor, which created the earth has folded to create the majestic scenerytsunami and this, a young womanin turn, Mayacaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, recently widowed arrives to be closer to and the scene loss of her husband's climbing accidentlivelihoods was widespread. There, she encounters a rich variety of characters who seem to leap The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the page, foremost of which two at opposite ends both of society and life's journey tsunami - Charu, Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a young peasant girl whose emerging relationship with dog outside a young cook is touching and sweet, and Mayaconvenience store. He wasn's eccentric landlord, t a relict of dog person but the Raj who may or may not be in possession of some intriguing personal letters convenience store owner's comment that pertain he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to India's history open his car door and Tamon the departing Britishdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857388312</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick AlexanderChristopher Bowden|title=The Case of the Missing BoyfriendMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that CC had it all. At thirty nine she was near the top Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of the advertising business, owned her own flat in north London and had a group of close, party-going friends. Thatseemingly ordinary woman's what you saw from the outsidelife, looking incarried out by her nephew after she has died. What CC saw was The aunt who always provided a life that lacked that one essential which she seemed unable to acquire. She was desperate to find the man of her dreams safe harbour and preferably one who would whisk her off to a farm house in Devon where she'd live ''The'' ''Good'' ''Life''. In the meantime she was stuck with the memories little bit of too many heartbreaks, indulgence to a mother whose current lifestyle brought young nephew had had a very unfortunate word much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to mind and being on the periphery of her friends' dramas - and as they were him an obligation to find it all gay she didn't have a lot of chance of meeting that elusive manout.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085789630X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BauerJennifer Mason|title=Rocks in the BellyPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Jon Bauer's Here at Bookbag Towers, we first novelmet Elizabeth Cromwell, ''Rocks dominatrix and unintentional detective in the Belly''[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], is an emotional journey. The narrator is a man in his late 20s who has returned from Canada to visit his mother who has cancer of the brain. The narrator himself is emotionally damaged from the relationship that he had with his mother from childhood when she investigated and her husband fostered children and, interspersed with the narrative, is the voice unravelled a series of narrator at eight years old and in particular telling the experience disappearances. In ''Partitions of one foster boyUnity'', Robert, who we know from early on in the book suffered she sets her mind to solving a significant tragedy while in their caremurder.. What that event was will be revealed in due course, but it is clear that the young boy suffered hugely from jealousy of his mother's love for these foster children.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688450</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aifric CampbellWill Carver|title=On The FloorDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Geri Molloy, the central character Five strangers come together in Aifric Campbell's ''On The Floor'', may be earning one moment as a six figure salary working at suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London investment bank just prior to the outbreak of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, but she's seriously messed uptube line. Drinking heavilyAs their fates overlap, sleeping lightly and mourning the end of a relationshipstory is told in backwards order, she may be a mathematical genius with a direct line leading up to a mysterious Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager with whom she trades, but her life is increasingly being controlled by other peoplethe fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688086</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ada WilsonJennifer Mason|title=Red Army Faction BluesPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Max is 8 years old. He likes Lego ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and Star Wars and playing -pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with toy soldiers. He can tell you 102 words that rhyme a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with tree. He scarfs down grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken and ricea 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. He does not like physical contact. He lives with his mum and dad who argue about what is best for him and why he’s not normal like other boys and girls.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751547875</amazonuk>}}''
}}