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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A M HomesJenny Lecoat|title=May We Be ForgivenBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean''May We Be Forgiven'' is not an easy book s father was arrested for listening to summarise. The book is narrated by Harolda banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, a fairly pedestrian academic teacher leaving Jean and aspiring writer her mother waiting for years for news of history and particularly him. As the Nixon era. We don't have to wait long for British finally free the catalyst that changes his life fundamentally over Channel islands from the course of a year. His high flyingNazis, younger brotherand the war is finally over, George, is involved in a car accident shortly after Thanksgiving and an adulterous encounter their hopes rise that they will change the lives finally learn what became of Harold and George foreverhim. AM Homes offers But will the truth come as a biting satire of relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the American Dream, taking swipes at materialism, families that are more nuclear fallout than nuclear, Internet sex sites and Nazis about the dependence on drugs and psychiatrists to keep people on radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the straight and narrow.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847083234</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert GoolrickOnyi Nwabineli|title=Heading Out Allow Me to WonderfulIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Charlie Beale returned from Anuri spent her childhood on display to the war in Europe 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 1948 found him in Brownsburg, Virginiabasically, monetary gain. He'd been driving around looking for somewhere Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to settle regain her confidence and all he had with him were two suitcases. One contained an excellent set of butchers' knives to get her life back, suing her step- and mother to take down the other was full of moneycontent about her. Brownsburg seemed like a fine place Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to stay start her PhD, undergoing therapy and before long he had a job with Will Haislett secretly abusing people online and the Haislett family became ''his'' familyreceiving money from them for doing so. HeMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia'd never hankered after children but their five-year-old son, Sam found a place in his hearts online empire. Life might have been good if it had continued in this veinCan she save her sister, but Charlie Beale met Sylvan Glass.sand perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091953677</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mohsin Hamid1035906708|title=How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising AsiaDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Inside Mohsin Hamid's ''How We tend to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia'' is a bitter-sweet love story disguised think of Maria Callas as a self help book. It's a well structured concept and works nicely. Each chapter is presented in the format of those common to the self help genreGreek, with advice like 'Move but she was born to the City'Greek parents in Manhattan, 'Get an Education' etc.New York, although the chapter entitled 'Be Prepared in December 1923 and only moved to Use Violence' is a notable omission from most business tomes and self help booksAthens when she was thirteen. After some general chatty comments in the self help book style, the attention turns Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to two people who are named only 'the boy' and Callas'the pretty girl', charting their rise and fall from rural poverty in an unnamed Asian country (although to make it certainly feels like Pakistan) to business success and wealth more manageable in the cityStates. The two are not When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a couple, but their lives cross at frequent times mother who mercilessly exploited her and he, in particularmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, remains infatuated with his childhood acquaintanceJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144663</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edward Kelsey MooreAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-EatPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In PlainviewThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, Indiana there are three women who have been friends since their teensrun by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Forty years Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after they first met they're still known the business, as the SupremesNess is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the name given chance to come home to them by Big Earl at his All-You-Can-Eat dinerEdinburgh. The diner's now run by his sonAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, Little Earlbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, but you'll find the Supremes at thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the table in the window every SundayIsabel Dalhousie novels, after church, along but with their familiessome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Odette tells us her own storyKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, from the time she was born but Ness has full confidence in a sycamore treeher abilities, which made and there's always her the fearless soul she very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny ishaving a terrifically bad day. But now sheHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's up against something which even she might not be able possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to face downdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Clarice was always So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the well-brought-up young lady as well as being delivery to his house is a new friend, a musician of some considerable meritbad weather friend called Spike, but her husband who has been sent to help him since Benny is causing her problemsclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Even serial philanderers would be in awe Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of what Richmond gets up toBenny'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>1444758020</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eleanor HendersonKatherine Howe|title=Ten Thousand SaintsA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eleanor Henderson's debut novel ''Ten Thousand Saints'' Hannah Masury is set living in late 1980s Vermont andBoston, more memorablyhaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, New Yorkand being made to work there from a young age. Opening in 1987 we discover When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the second sentence that one of the two boys hiding under the stands town, she decides to the Vermont school football field on match day will die that nightgo and watch. It Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's a powerful openingdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. From then on She hides away, the book deals first with Teddyso that they don's death t find and kill her too, and then with the life he has left behind in the form of his friend Judeto escape them completely she runs away to sea, Jude's sort of step sister Eliza dressing as a boy and Teddy's older brother Johnny. Itjoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a world of broken homes and the trinity of sex and drugs and rock and roll, or more specifically punkcabin boy. Henderson is particularly good at evoking the underground scene She soon finds herself in New York at the time before the unlikely combination thick of AIDS things when there is a mutiny on board, and mayoral intervention combined to clean from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the cityocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780872194</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Dickinson1471180158|title=The SchismMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Patrick Farrell Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a company that reclaims credit cards from those in debtman who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He doesn't particularly enjoy s asthmatic and the workmore you read, but it gives him plenty of opportunity to visit his schizophrenic brother, Mike, which the more you'll suspect that he does regularly's on the autistic spectrum. Mike used Sometimes Jamie needs to be take time off at short notice - she's a fairly decent boxer, but now his only fight is against frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the paranoid delusion that there need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are people watching him all occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the timewrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908434228</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Syrie JamesB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Missing Manuscript of Jane AustenRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='A newly discoveredPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, incredibly rarehe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, handwritten manuscript in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a previously unknown Jane Austen Novel is to appear at auction brief sojourn in London. The neatly written but heavily corrected pages are for human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a full length work entitled 'The Stanhopes'journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0425253368</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick AlexanderSarah Marsh|title=The French HouseA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=CC was trapped in After a job she no longer felt able to do in bout of scarlet fever as a city which wasn't really child, Ellen Lark loses herhearing. Her boyfriendSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, Victoreverything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, had moved to France Ellen is sent to live in a farmhouse he'd inherited and whilst giving everything up and moving out there school where she is taught to join him wasn't the most rational decision lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she'd ever taken it ''did'' feel like a step ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the right direction. Only - there were deaf and using a couple of problemssystem called Visible Speech. The south of France in January can be bitterly coldAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, particularly when you're a good way and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a mountain. And it's going to feel even worse when the property you're going to lacks some complicated tangle of the most basic facilities - amongst them most of a roofespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857896350</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jami Attenberg1472263936|title=The MiddlesteinsFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edie Middlestein almost has the American dream within It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her graspfirst trip to Greece. She trained as a lawyerwas alone: her mother, Greek by birth, has a husbandhad left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a daughter who followed pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her professional footsteps and a son married Greek heritage. Her trip to an ambitious wife who provided him with two highthe family apartment in up-achieving childrenmarket Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. There are just two flies in the ointment preventing She grew to love her grandmother and the dreamfamily's arrival: 1maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Edie is so morbidly obese that she has He was proud of his close connections to undergo surgery; the Junta and 2. this is the moment her husband chooses expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to leave heraccommodate them. Apart His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from that…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>her father's Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After 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'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jodi PicoultB0BVDC2VWH|title=The StorytellerGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sage Singer The village is scarred both mentally isolated and physically and has never really got over her motherpoor. It's deathsurrounded by a Witching Forest. She works as a baker as And the night work allows her to hide away from people villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and sleep in daylight hours, but she does develop one friendship which probably only happens because it seems non-threateningits blossom provides herbal medicines. Josef Weber, pillar The black wood of the local communityforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, attends the same grief counselling group as Sage - and he's even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in his nineties. But when Sage relaxes into the relationship Josef tells her about himself village and asks her to help him to die. Sage that is shocked at the request and then repelled as Josef tells her more reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of his storya man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444766635</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paula LichtarowiczB0BYF82CXT|title=The First Book of Calamity LeekSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I know I'm going to face 'Bill and Amanda are living in a dilemma in reviewing this book, because, really, the best way to approach it is to come at it knowing nothing at all. And it's very hard to write about it without giving some important things away! Let's start with the basicssemi-detached house, stuck in that this is a story told by Calamity Leekdepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, a child living together with her 'sisters'when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, taken care of by 'aunty' successful and occasionally visited by 'mother'. Calamity is very much in charge of a book called the Appendix, love – move in which everything the girls could possibly need to know about their lives is writtennext door. They live closeted in Despite their own small farmyard areadifferent outlooks on life, protected from the outside world by 'the wall'couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their enemies being the 'injuns' and 'demonmalesincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'. I know, that's a lot of words in quotes. Let me explain...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091944228</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Will StorrShalini Boland|title=The Hunger and the Howling of Killian LoneSilent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Killian Lone grows up in Alice and Seth are a home lacking match made in love and securityheaven. For these he relies on his elderly aunt DorothyHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, an accomplished cook, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. Indeed his visits to Dorothy revolve around food as She is all he absorbs all she can teach himcould possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, slowly inheriting her passion confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and skill along with her knowledgeset. This attachment When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to food then becomes face his career choiceapproaching bride, leading to the unfortunate discovery of a family secret that has remained hidden for a very long time. Why 'unfortunate'? ThereAlice's a reason world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for its concealment… a very, very good reasonher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780720807</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Winter1787636003|title=Lost and FoundThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carol has lived in a state of unhappiness for many years, married to a man It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she doesn't love (and probably never has) Caroline went backpacking around Greece and with a daughter whom she doesnarrived on the island. Rachel wasn't understand (and probably never will). But Sophie is just about independent now and Carol is determined that exactly innocent but she's going to tell Bob that the marriage is over was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four- that she's leaving year- but something always gets old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in the way. As her frustration grows , she writes letters - to the world at large - and posts themwas flattered rather than wary. It doesn't ''change'' anything, but was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she does feel betterwas obsessed by him. She even puts a smiley face Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the envelopeisland and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472101596</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beth GutcheonAmanda Craig|title=GossipThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Loviah French, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding school. Lovie owns a topFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-class dress shop in Manhattan of- the place where women of a certain class go when they want -nation novel. There's something for a special occasion and to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetly. Dinah is a columnist so utterly compelling about any writer who chronicles can catch hold of the lives atmosphere of New York's rich the day and famouscapture it, whilst Avis is a prominent figure crafting an image of the country as it stands in the art worldone particular moment. Lovie To say that Amanda Craig is our narrator and skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's also practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the glue which holds ongoing issues of the day into the three women together. They're both devoted to lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and she to lived-in, never making them, ciphers for social commentary but a small, imagined slight, many decades earlierinstead fully realised people, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Avisgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857899821</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernardine Bishop152915118X|title=Unexpected Lessons in LovePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cecilia Banks and Helen Gatehouse met by chance in a doctor's waiting room and a friendship developed because they were both cancer survivors, albeit with a colostomy. It was a case 'Pineapple Street'' is the story of opposites attractingthree women: Cecilia was quietSasha, reserved, married for the second time Darley and the mother of Ian whom she idolisedGeorgiana. Helen had never Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is marriedto their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, loud in only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the nicest sense of tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the word clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and an authorSasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. They gave each other mutual support Tilda and Chip have renovated and an outlet for their preoccupationsdownsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. People with whom you can discuss They won't need any of thefurniture from Pineapple Street, er, intricacies of your stoma are few so Sasha and far between! Cord can move straight in. The relationship Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't entirely uncritical: Helen was less than impressed when Ian dumped (sorry - there's really no other word for it) a baby on his motherthe reality. Cephas was Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the result of a fling hegold digger'd had with the child. She's mother and sheliving in ''their''d disappearedfamily home. He - a war correspondent - was on his way abroadThey use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854782X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda ProwseEmily Critchley|title=What have I done?One Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=When Kate Gavier married Mark Brooker84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she was full of optimism for their marriage is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and their futurebring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, from Edie is tormented by the first day memory of their marriageher childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, her dreams were shattered as she realised and the worry that Mark there was nothing more than a cruel bully. He even insisted on calling her Kathryn rather than Kate which is how secret she prefers to was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be known. There followed sixteen years the thing that reveals the truth of torment and torture as Mark strove to control his wife and punish her for any wrongdoings – of which there were manywhat happened all that time ago. To After 'seeing' Lucy in the outside world thoughhigh street, it looked just as though Mark and Kathryn had she was the perfect loving marriagelast time she saw her, mainly due she starts to Kathryn’s resolve find pockets of memories coming back to spare her children, Dominic and Lydia, from knowing of and witnessing their father’s cruelty. One day though And yet as she remembers the past, she snapped is forgetting more and, for the first time more in her day to day life, fought back. Hours later Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, Mark was dead and Kathryn was locked up in a police cell being questioned about what happened.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781853789</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''
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joyce Carol Oates0008506337|title=Daddy LoveThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A short while agoThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, I read [[The Corn Maiden apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and Other Nightmares described by Joyce Carol Oates]] Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and was moved by having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the sheer emotional impact Isle of the stories it containedWight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. This Life was especially true of the title storylived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, which looked at the impact family home on a family torn by the disappearance Isle of their daughterWight. The synopsis of Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo'Daddy Loves mind: '' suggested a similar impact, given the nature of the story and what Ishe would never be able to leave him in charge'd recently discovered about the power of Oates' writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781850658</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Gregson1914585402|title=Jasmine NightsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The temptingly titled Jasmine Nights starts promisinglyI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Saba, It was a talented singer whose gift to the war is entertaining the troopsgripping, comes from an unhappy family backgroundemotionally wounding read, and one rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that has little patience for the opportunities for women brought about by war. Dom, a fighter pilot who has sustained injuries, is feeling displaced - the war has changed his world foreverI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409103048</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Toni JordanLucy Ashe|title=Nine DaysClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christopher The year is 1933. The place? Sadler'Kip' Westaway lives in a suburb of Melbournes Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, Australia with mother Jeanwe learn, sister Connie and his twinon the inside. And not on stage, Franciseither. KipBecause there's mother considers him a layabout who doesnlot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't deserve come from the special privileges of his educationally elite brother and so he works at the big house next door for the Hustingsclassroom. A stage presence, caring for their horses. One day Mr Husting presents Kip with a shilling; their little secret. As its 1939charm, thata ''joie de vivre''s . The difference between a fair amount of money so Kip hides it awayhard-worker, not realising how special that coin will become as the decades passand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444763555</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah ButlerHeather Fawcett|title=Ten Things IEmily Wilde've Learnt About Loves Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alice returns home Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to spend time with write her dying father. Shelife's been travelling in Mongoliawork, finding temporary escape from the issues that had haunted her life in London but nowvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, on her return, events bring the pain she thought was behind her into sharp focusis not so good with people. Meanwhile Daniel is an elderly vagrant who calls So when she finds herself far, far North in the streets small village of London home. He seeks his lost childHrafvsnik, leaving a trail of random items across having somehow offended the city in 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 hope of reunion like someone occupying a verse of ''Eleanor Rigby''right track. Disparate livesEnter Wendell Bambleby, seeking love her dashingly handsome and acceptance in a world that seems insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to exclude itEmily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447222490</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gavin Extence1398515388|title=The Universe Versus Alex WoodsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= While re-entering First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the UK with some human ashes nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and a stash of marijuanautter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, Alex Woods is stopped by customs and referred to the policeloss of livelihoods was widespread. It all started 6 years before when, as an 11 year old living in England's West Country, his escape The fact that many pets were separated from bullies necessitates breaking into a shed; their owners came far down the shed list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a man with dog outside a gun pointing at Alexconvenience store. The man is American Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson and, whatever his school teachers may say to the contrary, this is He wasn't a dog person but the moment when Alexconvenience store owner's education really begins; this comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the moment when he was hit on the head by a passing meteor of coursedog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444765884</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carolyn MathewsChristopher Bowden|title=Transforming PandoraMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Pandora Armstrong in the spring Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of 2003 shea seemingly ordinary woman's grieving for life, carried out by her husband, Mike, nephew after she has died. The aunt who had died just always provided a few weeks before. It hadn't been his first heart attack safe harbour and he a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had reduced his workload but this attack was fatal. He was only in his fifties and Pandora feels that he'd been snatched away from her as they'd only been married for a few years. When a friend suggests much more interesting life than that she goes with her nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an Evening of Clairvoyance she runs out of excuses obligation to refuse and although she's not exactly ''convinced'' by what she hears there's a lingering doubt. A spirit voice mentioned her children and Pandora was adamant that she didn't have any children - find it's actually quite a sore point - but that wasn't true of Mikeall out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780997450</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chloe HooperJennifer Mason|title=The EngagementPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Chloe Hooper's gothicHere at Bookbag Towers, psychological thriller concerns an affair between a thirty-something English girlwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, Liesedominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], working in Australia at her uncle's real estate business when she investigated and unravelled a blandly handsome Australian farmer, Alexanderseries of disappearances. Set over one weekend as Liese is heading to AlexanderIn ''s remote family farm for the first time for a weekend Partitions of passion, this is a classic Unity'girl trapped in spooky house and situation' story with a dark, sexual twist. Liese, who trained as an interior architect, met Alexander while showing him around exclusive Melbourne properties and, has somehow managed she sets her mind to get herself into solving a situation whereby Alexander pays her for her attentions, believing that she is some kind of prostitutemurder. He's even paying her handsomely for her time at the weekend. With debts of her own, Liese willingly encourages this perception with little idea of the problems to which this fantasy will lead.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096346</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack SheffieldWill Carver|title=School's Out!The Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= The beginning of September 1983 starts a new academic year for the village primary school of Ragley-on-the-Forest. Headmaster Jack Sheffield starts the autumn term with a skip Five strangers come together in his step one moment as he and wife Sally enjoy their new baby, John William despite the broken nights. What else will the year bring? The advent of a new teacher and a tragedy that strikes sorrow in the heart of the village reduces Jack's skip suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a bit but there are always moments to lift the mood; for instance, whatever it was that little Madonna Fazackerly did in her cat's earLondon tube line. It's all there in the school's daily log; perhaps not the one that the inspectors seeAs their fates overlap, you understand, all is explained in living detail here in Jack's memoir of life as a teacher and villager.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552167037</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sophie Divry|title=The Library of Unrequited Love|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Prepare yourself to try a book the likes of which you'd never particularly expect, and prepare yourself to find it becoming a favourite – one that has a snappy story, yet is a monologuetold in backwards order, one that concerns what we all love – books, and love, yet one that also intrigues and tempts us with other, very diverse subjects. One morning our narrator turns leading up to start work early at her geography station in a very large but provincial library, and finds a locked-in regular. Over the next hour and twenty or so (for I read it out loud) she talks to him, barely allowing him a word in edgeways, and what we get is one big, fat lump of a paragraph of her worldfateful moment. Told you to be prepared for the unusual…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051415</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen MartellJennifer Mason|title=IntermissionPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is ''A struggling poetry zine, a line mom-and-pop mobile diner in Alan Bennettthe Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's play 'The History Boys' that I love. It talks about 'subjunctive history'track coach with a yen for bullwhips, imagining things that might have happened. In ''Intermission''a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, his first book a man serving a life sentence in English as opposed to WelshAlabama, Owen Martell borrows this ideaan enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, taking an event a surmising what may have happened afterwardserotic art dealer in Georgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022047</amazonuk>}}''
}}