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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert DickinsonJenny Lecoat|title=The SchismBeyond Summerland|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Patrick Farrell works for a company that reclaims credit cards from those in debtJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. He doesn't particularly enjoy During the workwar, but it gives Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him plenty away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of opportunity to visit his schizophrenic brotherhim. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, Mikeand the war is finally over, which he does regularlytheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Mike used to be But will the truth come as a fairly decent boxerrelief, but now his only fight is against or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the paranoid delusion that there are people watching him all radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the time.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434228</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Syrie JamesOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Missing Manuscript of Jane AustenAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri'A newly discovereds childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, incredibly rarebasically, handwritten manuscript of a previously unknown Jane Austen Novel monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to appear at auction in Londonregain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. The neatly written but heavily corrected pages are Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for a full length work entitled 'The Stanhopesdoing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire.' Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0425253368</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Alexander1529153298|title=The French HouseList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=CC was trapped in a job she no longer felt able to do in a city which wasnIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv't really hers family, though. Women have been disappearing. Her boyfriendWell, Victorthey've been murdered, had moved but to France to live in a farmhouse hehave 'disappeared'd inherited and whilst giving everything up and moving out there to join him wasndoesn't the most rational decision sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she'd ever taken it 's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'didDown South'' feel like a step in the right direction. Only - there were When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a couple of problemsfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. The south of France in January can be bitterly coldFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, particularly when youSharon, and she're a good way up a mountainll do anything to prevent that. And itShe's going to feel even worse when not worried about the property youdangers or that her Mum're going s stopped talking - to lacks some of the most basic facilities - amongst them most of a roofanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857896350</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lesley Gray1035906708|title=The King's JockeyDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In June 1913 Emily Wilding Davison ran out in front We tend to think of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby: Maria Callas as Greek, but she died of her injuries. Her actions are often quoted was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in history books December 1923 and whether you think her only moved to be a suffragette martyr or a deluded woman, few are ignorant of her or what Athens when she didwas thirteen. But how many people remember the jockey who Her original surname was up on that fateful day? Few will know his name, or that what happened at the Derby would haunt him for years Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to come as he believed himself responsible for killing Emily Davison. 'Callas'The King's Jockey'' is to make it more manageable in the story of Herbert 'Bertie' Jones, of States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the life which brought him to the Derby Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of what happened in the years afterwardsher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907947612</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jami AttenbergAlexander McCall Smith|title=The MiddlesteinsPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edie Middlestein almost has The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the American dream within her grasponline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She trained as a lawyer, Ness has a husband, a daughter who followed asked her professional footsteps younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a son married trip to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving childrenCanada to get away for a while. There are just two flies in Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1chance to come home to Edinburgh. Edie is And so morbidly obese that she has begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to undergo surgery; 44 Scotland Street and 2. this is the moment her husband chooses Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to leave hercharm. Apart from that…Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jodi PicoultDean Koontz|title=The StorytellerBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Sage Singer Benny is scarred both mentally and physically and has never really got over her mother's deathhaving a terrifically bad day. She works as a baker as the night work allows her to hide away from people He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and sleep in daylight hours, but she does develop one friendship which probably only happens because it seems non-threateninghis house gets trashed. Josef WeberOh, pillar of the local communityand someone has delivered a really weird, attends the same grief counselling group as Sage disturbing coffin- sized object to his home, and heit's in possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his ninetieshouse! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. But when Sage relaxes into He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the relationship Josef tells her about himself and asks her delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him to diesince Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Sage Spike is shocked at the request going to take care of Benny, and then repelled as Josef tells her more will certainly take care of his storyBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444766635</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paula LichtarowiczKatherine Howe|title=The First Book of Calamity LeekA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I know I'm going Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to face live with a dilemma in reviewing this bookfamily who run an inn, because, really, the best way and being made to approach it is to come at it knowing nothing at allwork there from a young age. And it's very hard When she hears there is to write about it without giving be a hanging of some important things away! Let's start with pirates in the basicstown, in that this is a story told by Calamity Leek, a child living together with her 'sisters', taken care of by 'aunty' she decides to go and occasionally visited by 'mother'watch. Calamity is Enthralled and horrified in charge of a book called the Appendixequal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in which everything a young boy's death at the girls could possibly need to know about their lives is writtenhands of two vicious pirates. They live closeted in their own small farmyard areaShe hides away, protected from the outside world by 'the wallso that they don't find and kill her too, their enemies being the 'injuns' and 'demonmales'. I knowthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, thatdressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a lot cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of words things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in quotes. Let me explain..her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091944228</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Storr1471180158|title=The Hunger and the Howling of Killian LoneMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Killian Lone grows up Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a home lacking in love and securityhalf brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. For these He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he relies 's on his elderly aunt Dorothy, an accomplished cookthe autistic spectrum. Indeed his visits Sometimes Jamie needs to Dorothy revolve around food as he absorbs all take time off at short notice - she can teach him, slowly inheriting her passion 's a frequent flier in the local A&E and skill along with her knowledgesometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. This attachment Missed shifts or the need to food then becomes his career choice, leading be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the unfortunate discovery of a family secret that has remained hidden for a very long timewrong. Why 'unfortunate'? There's It was going to come to a reason for its concealment… a very, very good reasonhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720807</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom WinterB0CKD1L5JL|title=Lost and FoundRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carol has lived in a state of unhappiness for many yearsPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, married to a man she doesn't love (and probably never has) and with a daughter whom she doesn't understand (and probably never will). But Sophie he is just about independent now brought up far from bustling cities and Carol is determined that she's going to tell Bob that busy human society, in the marriage is over - that sheforests of Washington's leaving - but something always gets in the wayOlympic Peninsula. As her frustration grows she writes letters - to the world at large - After Bear dies and posts them. It doesn't ''change'' anythinga brief sojourn in human company, but she does feel better. She even puts and armed with only a smiley face pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the envelopeforest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472101596</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beth GutcheonSarah Marsh|title=GossipA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Loviah FrenchAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding schoolEllen Lark loses her hearing. Lovie owns Suddenly plunged into a top-class dress shop world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in Manhattan - a time when the place where women use of a certain class go when they want sign language was seen as something for only savages do, Ellen is sent to a special occasion and school where she is taught to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetlylip read, but physically restrained from signing. Dinah is a columnist From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who chronicles has been teaching the lives of New York's rich deaf and famous, whilst Avis is using a prominent figure in the art worldsystem called Visible Speech. Lovie At the same time, Bell is our narrator working on other inventions and she's also the glue which holds the three women together. They're both devoted to her ideas, and she to them, but Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a small, imagined slight, many decades earlier, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Aviscomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857899821</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernardine BishopB0BC3YTCMR|title=Unexpected Lessons in LoveGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cecilia Banks ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and Helen Gatehouse met by chance suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in a doctorcase it's waiting room and a friendship developed because they were both cancer survivors, albeit with a colostomycontagious. It was 's not easy being a case of opposites attracting: Cecilia was quiet, reserved, married for the second time and the mother of Ian whom she idolisedblack girl whose skin is 84% white. Helen She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never married, loud in the nicest sense of the word and an authorthought he would notice her. They gave each other mutual support Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and an outlet for their preoccupationsReggie asked if she would tutor him. People with whom you can discuss the, er, intricacies of your stoma are few and far between! The relationship wasn't entirely uncriticalShe readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: Helen this was less than impressed when Ian dumped (sorry - there's really no other word for it) a baby on just an extension. She went to his motherhouse and he raped her. Cephas was the result of a fling he'd had with the child's mother and In shock, she'd disappeared. He - even allowed him to give her a war correspondent - was on his way abroadlift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854782X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Prowse1472263936|title=What have I done?The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Kate Gavier married Mark Brooker, she It was full of optimism for their marriage and their futurein 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. However She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, from had left the first day of their marriagefamily home and refused to return, her dreams were shattered as she realised but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that Mark was nothing more than it would be a cruel bullypity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. He even insisted on calling her Kathryn rather than Kate which is how she prefers Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be knownthe first of several annual visits. There followed sixteen years of torment and torture as Mark strove She grew to control his wife and punish love her for any wrongdoings – of which there were many. To the outside world though, it looked as though Mark grandmother and Kathryn had the perfect loving marriagefamily's maid, mainly due to Kathryn’s resolve to spare her childrenDina, Dominic but was wary - and Lydiafrightened - of her grandfather, from knowing retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and witnessing their father’s crueltyexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. One day though, she snapped His prejudices included Helena's red hair and, for the first time in green eyes - inherited from her life, fought back. Hours later, Mark was dead and Kathryn was locked up in a police cell being questioned about what happenedfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781853789</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joyce Carol OatesDean Koontz|title=Daddy LoveAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A short while agoMichael Mace, I read [[The Corn Maiden 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 Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates]] only him – as he sits up and was moved by looks around at the sheer emotional impact shrouded bodies of the stories it containedhis dead friends and former colleagues. This was especially true of the title storyAs he recovers his senses, which looked at the impact on a family torn by the disappearance of their daughterhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. The synopsis of ''Daddy LoveEverything''. Michael isn't '' suggested a similar impact, given the nature of the story and what IMichael'd recently discovered about the power of Oates' writinganymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781850658</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J E RyderB0BVDC2VWH|title=Blood PoolThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Samantha Shelley was surprised to become the owner of a boatyard when her husband died in The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a cliff fallWitching Forest. She had worked in And the East Devon boatyard villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - run it in fact its bread- for quite some time but it's the men of the Shelley 'blood pool' who have always inherited the land for the past two hundred yearslike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. She was aware The black wood of ill-feeling against her in the villageforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, but her priority was to keep the business running as smoothly as possible for herself and for the staff she employedeven gallows, if needed. There was some support The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village - an old friend, known to one and all as 'that is the Prof' reason Volushka, a drunken, self- had always been there for her and willing to listen to her outpourings or just to chatter as she drank coffee. Then he disappeared in violent circumstancesindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00AR0XFX2</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia GregsonB0BYF82CXT|title=Jasmine NightsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The temptingly titled Jasmine Nights starts promisingly. Saba''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a talented singer whose gift to the war is entertaining the troopsdepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, comes from an unhappy family backgroundwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and one that has little patience for very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the opportunities couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for women brought about by warboth pairs. DomBut all is not what it seems, a fighter pilot who has sustained injuries, is feeling displaced - the war has changed his world foreverand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409103048</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toni JordanShalini Boland|title=Nine DaysThe Silent Bride|rating=53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christopher 'Kip' Westaway lives Alice and Seth are a match made in a suburb of Melbourneheaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, Australia with mother Jeanclever, sister Connie funny; total and his twin, Francisutter husband-material. Kip's mother considers him She is all he could possibly want in a layabout who doesn't deserve the special privileges of his educationally elite brother wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so he works at the big house next door for inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the Hustings, caring for their horseswedding is planned and set. One When the much-anticipated day Mr Husting presents Kip arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with a shilling; pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their little secret. As its 1939friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, thatAlice's a fair amount of money so Kip hides it awayworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, not realising how special that coin will who is waiting for her to become as the decades passhis wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444763555</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Butler1787636003|title=Ten Things I've Learnt About LoveThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alice returns home to spend time with her dying fatherIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. SheRachel wasn's been travelling in Mongoliat exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, finding temporary escape from the issues that had haunted her life so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in London but now, on her return, events bring the pain she thought was behind her into sharp focusflattered rather than wary. Meanwhile Daniel is an elderly vagrant who calls the streets It was quite a while before he made any sort of London homephysical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. He seeks Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his lost child, leaving a trail of random items across interests on the city island and in particular in the bar where all the hope of reunion like someone occupying a verse of ''Eleanor Rigby''. Disparate lives, seeking love and acceptance in a world that seems to exclude itgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447222490</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gavin ExtenceAmanda Craig|title=The Universe Versus Alex WoodsThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= While reFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-entering the UK with some human ashes and a stash of marijuana, Alex Woods is stopped by customs and referred to -the police-nation novel. It all started 6 years before when, as an 11 year old living in EnglandThere's West Country, his escape from bullies necessitates breaking into a shed; something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the shed atmosphere of a man with a gun pointing at Alex. The man is American Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson the day andcapture it, whatever his school teachers may crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say to the contrary, that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this is the moment when Alexwould be embarrassingly inadequate: she's education really begins; practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this and point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the moment when he was hit on day into the head by lives of her characters in a passing meteor of courseway that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444765884</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carolyn Mathews152915118X|title=Transforming PandoraPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Pandora Armstrong in ''Pineapple Street'' is the spring story of 2003 three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so sheisn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's grieving for her husbandexacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, Mikeasks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, who had died just a few weeks beforestreet or so away, which they own. It hadnThey won't been his first heart attack need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and he Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had reduced his workload a choice but this attack was fatalthat wasn't the reality. He was only in his fifties Darley and Pandora feels that heGeorgiana start to call Sasha 'd been snatched away from her as theythe gold digger'd only been married for a few years. When a friend suggests that she goes with her to an Evening of Clairvoyance she runs out of excuses to refuse and although she She's not exactly living in ''convincedtheir'' by what she hears there's a lingering doubtfamily home. A spirit voice mentioned her children and Pandora was adamant They use it so often that she didn't have any children - they abbreviate itto 's actually quite a sore point - but that wasnthe GD't true of Mike.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780997450</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chloe HooperEmily Critchley|title=The EngagementOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Chloe Hooper's gothic84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, psychological thriller concerns an affair between but now she is facing a thirty-something English girl, Liese, working in Australia at move as her uncle's real estate business son wants to move to another house and a blandly handsome Australian farmerbring Edie to live with his family, Alexander. Set over one weekend as Liese Edie is heading starting to Alexander's remote family farm for lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the first time for a weekend memory of passion, this is a classic 'girl trapped in spooky house and situation' story with a darkher childhood friend, sexual twist. LieseLucy, who trained as an interior architectwent missing over 60 years ago, met Alexander while showing him around exclusive Melbourne properties and, has somehow managed to get herself into the worry that there was a situation whereby Alexander pays her secret she was keeping for her attentions, believing Lucy that somehow might be the thing that she is some kind reveals the truth of prostitutewhat happened all that time ago. He After 'seeing's even paying her handsomely for her Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time at the weekend. With debts of she saw her own, Liese willingly encourages this perception with little idea she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the problems past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to which this fantasy will leadday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096346</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=Sophie Divry0008506337|title=The Library of Unrequited LoveGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Prepare yourself to try a book the likes of which youThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'd never particularly expectLeary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and prepare yourself to find it becoming a favourite – one described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that has a snappy story, yet is a monologue, one that concerns Richard's influence would take her away from what we all love – books, they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and lovehaving a glittering career. In the event, yet one that also intrigues they eloped and tempts us with other, very diverse subjectsRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. One morning our narrator turns up Margo did go to start work early at her geography station in a very large but provincial library, Oxford and finds went on to become a lockedwell-in regularrespected journalist. Over the next hour The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and twenty or so (for I read it out loud) she talks to him, barely allowing him a word Sasha. Life was lived in edgeways, London and what we get is one bigholidays were spent at Sandcove, fat lump of a paragraph the family home on the Isle of her worldWight. Told you Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to be prepared for the unusual…leave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051415</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Owen Martell1914585402|title=IntermissionDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There is a line in Alan Bennett's play Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'The History Boys' that I loves Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It talks about 'subjunctive history'was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, imagining things and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have happened. In ''Intermission'', his first book in English as opposed to Welsh, Owen Martell borrows this idea, taking an event a surmising what may have happened afterwardslavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022047</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samantha HarveyLucy Ashe|title=All is SongClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Some books The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are hard worksisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. I have no problem with Because there's a lot that if I feel there’s builds a reason to persevere; if I dancer. Some things that can sense that the book is going be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to deliver a story detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the hard work is necessary to enjoy it fullyclassroom. A stage presence, then I will happily plod alonga charm, rea ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-reading sections if necessaryworker, to get the full benefit of the noveland a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099566060</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthHeather Fawcett|title=The Friday GospelsEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=There are five in the Leeke family. Martin Emily Wilde is the father an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and he works in the mail sorting office. Thereresearched meticulously, to write her life's not a lot of ''pleasure'' in Martin's lifework, but if you were making a list you'd put Bovril at the top very first encyclopaedia of itfaeries. She's a labrador Whilst she is brilliant at research and Martin's obsessed speaking to faeries, she is not so good with her trainingpeople. WellSo when she finds herself far, he's partly obsessed with far North in the training and small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the training village matriarch, she is partly an excuse not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for his other obsessionher book back on the right track. Nina owns two labradors Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and Martin sees them (he insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Ninadelight, that is - not he and the labs) as having a future together. It would be easy much to be critical, but MartinEmily's wife is in a wheelchairfrustration. Pauline's been unwell since the birth of their youngest child. But why is he here? She's not quite doubly incontinent, but accidents are frequent and embarrassing. What does he want? She's also got a penchant for spending And what exactly is going on home improvements - despite with the fact that there ''really'' isn't the money for them.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444707728</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wm Paul Young1398515388|title=Cross RoadsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Spirituality and ReligionGeneral Fiction|summary=WmFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Paul Young's debut novel '' The Shack'' result was a revelation in many wayscomplete and utter devastation. Whilst many disagreed with his theologyThe deaths were uncountable, it and the loss of livelihoods was refreshing to see such an overtly faith based book on the bestseller listswidespread. Personally, I found it The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a very moving story and whilst I thought it helpful on some points, it tended to skim over othersconvenience store. Now we get He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to see if Young can repeat open his success with his new novel, ''Cross Roads''car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444745972</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francesca SegalChristopher Bowden|title=The InnocentsMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Francesca SegalChristopher Bowden's debut latest novel, ''The Innocents'' is set in upper class, Jewish, North London. Adam is about to marry his childhood sweetheart, Rachel, and is working as a lawyer in her fatherpatient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's business. Into this romantic idyl though comes Ellielife, Rachel's wayward cousin who carried out by her nephew after she has been forced to flee the US following an appearance in an 'art house' movie of dubious repute and, it turns out, further scandaldied. Ellie is everything that Rachel is not; The aunt who always provided a model, worldly, sexy safe harbour and tempting. As Adam gets drawn into wanting a little bit of indulgence to 'rescue' her a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and look after her, his whole future with Rachel is thrown into doubt and the story becomes a will they, won't they get together narrativeit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186992</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kimberley FreemanJennifer Mason|title=Wildflower HillPartitions of Unity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='tis the season to be…thoroughly depressed if you're anything like me – can't bear the coldHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, the greydominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], the forced jollitywhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. Whatever book I pick up at this time In ''Partitions of year needs to be a highly effective escapist tonic, otherwise thereUnity's a good chance I won't even finish it. So I'd like , she sets her mind to thank Kimberley Freeman for the most all-encompassing, escapist and enjoyable novel I can remember reading in winter; something tells me I'll revisit this one solving a few timesmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780877080</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harriet LaneWill Carver|title=Alys, AlwaysThe Daves Next Door|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harriet Lane's debut novel, ''Alys, Always'' garnered a raft of favourable coverage from the professional reviewers when it was first published Five strangers come together in hardback. Concerning, as it does, a young woman who works one moment as a sub-editor in suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a publishing company and a Booker winning novelistLondon tube line. As their fates overlap, there is always the chance that this was due to the reviewers merely recognizing the world that story is portrayed. This view is unfounded though - it is a superbly drawntold in backwards order, frequently very funny, and often psychologically chilling story of ambition and class differences. It thoroughly deserves all leading up to the praise that has been heaped upon itfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780220014</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca HarringtonJennifer Mason|title=PenelopePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Penelope is ''A struggling poetry zine, a socially awkward Harvard studentmom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, chronicling her first year at a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the famed institution. She has 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a thing yen for Hercule Poirot bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(don’t we all?s, x), is allergic to catson a cheap oil painting, and quite worryingly believes that ''Dirty Dancing: Havana Nightsan erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is one just a sample of the best films cast of all times. She is determined to make friends but finds the options quite limited. Her roommates are either too studious (Emma) or too dubious (Lan) characters and the boys downstairs are peculiar creatures, to say the leastsettings in Preposterous. The dashingAs you can see, mysterious foreigner Gustav is worth a second glance, but never seems to some keeping up will be where she wants him to be, when she wants him to be there, which is annoyingrequired! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844089266</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
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