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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreview|author=Gill Hornby|title=The Hive|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=There's an old joke that, for parents, there are only two good days in the school holidays - the first and the last, but in St Ambrose the ''real'' work begins when the children go back to school at the start of the new school year. There's a new head at the school (and he'll have to be knocked into shape) but the real power is Beatrice - 'Bea' to those whom she elects to call friends for the time being - who rules the parents, decides who is in or out and what status they should have in the community. And how does she do it? Well, she's the queen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408704358</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jasper GibsonJenny Lecoat|title=A Bright Moon For FoolsBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jasper Gibson’s debut novel, A Bright Moon For Fools, tells Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the story end of Harry Christmas the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and his drunken escapades in Caracas soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and the small villages her mother waiting for years for news of Venezuelahim. Harry Christmas is nowhere near as jolly as his name suggests As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, in fact Harry is drunken conman. He has pushed his luck too far and the war is forced to fly to Venezuela to evade William Sladefinally over, the irate son of a woman Harry fleeced out their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of £27,000him. Harry’s life is defined by booze and where to get But will the next drink; he is having truth come as a major breakdown. Slade is no better off and is also having his own mental crisis: unfortunately for Harryrelief, Slade’s breakdown is of a much more psychotic nature.or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0957468105</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa ScottolineOnyi Nwabineli|title=Come Home|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=You divorce a partner, not a child, so although Jill and William’s split meant she was no longer legal step mum Allow Me to his daughter Abby, in some ways she never stopped seeing her as a daughter. Now, years after they last met up, Abby shows up on Jill’s doorstep with some devastating news about Jill’s ex-husband. News that will unsettle both their lives, and the lives of Jill’s new fiancé Sam, and of her own biological daughter. While Abby wants to pull her into untangling a mystery, Sam is reluctant to encourage this investigation, and the family reunion it will bring, leaving Jill torn between her new family and her old one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091944937</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Antoine Laurain|title=The President's HatIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The milliners' advertising used Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to say her step-mother Ophelia'to get aheads increasingly popular presence on social media, get a hat'. They would very much approve where she posted every step of this book. Daniel Mercier is a Mr Average - or perhaps a Monsieur Mediocre. HeAnuri's a lowly accountant until one evening he finds himself dining next to French Presidentchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, François Mitterrandbasically, who leaves the restaurant without his hatmonetary gain. When Daniel decides Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to keep itget her life back, his life starts suing her step-mother to change and he feels somehow more confidenttake down the content about her. In other strands of the story Anuri is battling alcoholism, Fanny Marquant is having an affair with an older man who clearly has no intention of leaving his wife while celebrated perfumer Pierre Aslan has lost his ability failing to detect smells start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and to create perfumesreceiving money from them for doing so. Bernard Lavallière Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, meanwhile who is struggling to live up to the right wing standards new focus of his wifeOphelia's friends and starts to read the more left wing papersonline empire. At some point Can she save her sister, all will come into contact and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the President's hat and it will have an impact on all of them.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908313471</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ma Jian1529153298|title=The Dark RoadList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One of my many lovable traitsIt'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, according to my belovedthey've been murdered, is my ability but to absolutely insist I havenhave 'disappeared' doesn't read 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 book before (when he catches me reading it again)frightening, foreign place, best avoided. This has For Miv, the huge benefit of my getting move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to discover it all over again – and prevent that. She's not worried about the massive downside dangers or that I will never get her Mum's stopped talking - to the end of my reading list, which must exist in some kind of Möbius loopanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701187530</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Sarkissian1035906708|title=Dear LucyDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dear Lucy. Dear, sweet Lucy. Lucy lives on a farm with Mister and MissusWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but the only person who is truly kind she was born to her is SamanthaGreek parents in Manhattan, who lives there with them. Lucy finds it difficultNew York, sometimes. She doesn’t always have the words in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she needswas thirteen. She tries very hard to be good Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but sometimes her helping is father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more of a hindrancemanageable in the States. But When she knows more was back in Athens - supposedly so that people think. She knows that although Mum Mum sent she could get appropriate training for her to live on voice - she was raised under the farm, she will come back Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her one day. That is why Lucy must never leave the farmelder sister, otherwise Mum Mum won’t know where to find herJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444767585</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian KimberlingAlexander McCall Smith|title=SnapperThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There's little doubt that Brian Kimberling's debut novelThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, ''Snapper'' is run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a slightly unusual bookmore personal, tailored service. The publishers describe it Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of age a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new storyfrom Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and it is after the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a fashionbusiness, or in match-making, but itNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there's more in the vein of an adult looking back on always her 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 is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his young adult self than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at thingshouse gets trashed. The narrator Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, Nathandisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, shares many of and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the traits of thing that has trashed his creator. Like Kimberlinghouse! The thing is, he Benny is brought up in Indiana and the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is involved in research of songbirds in that state; effectively a paid bird watchernice person. A really nice person. The title of So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the book though comes not delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from any type nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of birdBenny, but from the snapping turtle that lives in the state. Itand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a broadly affectionate and wry look at the people of Indiana, known as 'Hoosierswaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0307908054</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melvyn BraggKatherine Howe|title=Grace and MaryA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Grace Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and Mary being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a tender and moving account spanning three generations hanging of some pirates in the same familytown, she decides to go and watch. In Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the first chapterhands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, we are introduced to ninety-two year old Mary so that they don't find and kill her doting sontoo, John. Mary is in a nursing home and has dementiathen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, hovering in dressing as a limbo-world, precariously balanced between the present boy and joining the pastnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. John delights when he catches She soon finds herself in the occasional glimpse thick of the ''real'' Marythings when there is a mutiny on board, and they find a meeting place, of sorts from there we are caught up in their shared world her rip roaring tale of memories and songslife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444762346</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Clarke1471180158|title=The Sea SistersMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Kate is as sensibleJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, focused and down to earth as her sister Mia is reckless and unsettled, so it’s no surprise that it’s Mia for a man who leaves London behind to go traveling's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. With dreams of seeing the USA Jamie's son, Bo, Australia 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and beyondthe more you read, Mia sets the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off excitedly with her best friend Finn, but this once in at short notice - she's a lifetime trip tragically becomes just that as some months later Mia is found dead frequent flier in Bali, an apparent suicide plunge. With her life thrown into turmoil and unable to get past the things they said, local A&E and didn’t say, sometimes Bo's not fit enough to each other when Mia was alive, Kate makes a rather Mia-like decision go to leave it all behind tooschool. Armed with Mia’s travel journey, she sets off Missed shifts or the need to retrace her sister’s steps, stop by stop, be away on time to try pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and work out what Mia put in the wrong. It was going through, and what ultimately lead to her deathcome to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007481349</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian ClaryB0CKD1L5JL|title=Briefs EncounteredRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Choosing this book Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from Julian Clary was irresistiblebustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. NormallyAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, I try not to review books where I’m already familiar and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. But I didn’t feel that seeing him live several times or watching him regularly on TV countedSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as I hadn’t something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read either , but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of his two previous novelsespionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0091938856</amazonuk>''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 suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Suzanne Bugler1472263936|title=The Safest PlaceFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jane and David Berry have always lived and worked It was in London1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. However She was alone: her mother, since their children have come alongGreek by birth, had left the house has felt too cramped family home and Jane has often dreamed of moving away. When their son Sam fails refused to get a place at his chosen secondary schoolreturn, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that is it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the catalyst she needs first of several annual visits. She grew to start making love her dream a realitygrandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. The only problem is that the rest He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family are not quite as enthusiastic about moving as she would have hoped. David will have to commute every day uphold his values but saw no reason to London accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and the children are anxious about starting green eyes - inherited from 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 new schooltop secret biological research facility, particularly Sam is among 55 people who finds it difficult to make friendsdie when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Even Jane starts to wonder if it was Finding himself in a good ideamakeshift mortuary, isolated covered in plastic, he has a house miles from anywheresense that something very, finding it difficult very bad has happened to get to know him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the local communityshrouded 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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>0330544969</amazonuk>The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maria SempleB0BYF82CXT|title=Where'd You Go, BernadetteSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Much like the missing question mark in the title it would seem, Bernadette has disappeared. Maria Semple's ''Where'd You GoBill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, Bernadette'' works as both stuck in a physical depressing rut of boredom and emotional question. Bernadette Fox is the wife of Elgie Branchdisappointment, a star at Microsoft in Seattlewhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and mother of 15 year old, Beevery much in love – move in next door. The narrative begins with Bee wondering where her mother had goneDespite their different outlooks on life, but then quickly moves the couples befriend each other and life appears to an epistolary format told in e-mailsimprove for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, notes and messages between the major players, including some rather obnoxious mothers at Beetheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''s school, one of whom also works at Microsoft with Elgie. We }}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are taken back a few weeks to when Bernadette was around and a seemingly somewhat angry mother prior to her mysterious disappearancematch made in heaven. One of the delights about the book He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, which along with being very funny on issues like helicopter parenting, corporate life ; total andutter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, er, Canadianssuccessful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is that it emerges that Bernadette eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is more than a wife planned and mother but has a past career of set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her own father, beaming with pride and excitement as a talented architect which she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has sacrificed absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for one reason or another. Thus, in many ways she disappeared long before her physical disappearanceto become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316204269</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Currie1787636003|title=The Ottoman MotelGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Simon Sawyer is 11 years oldIt 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, perhaps, naive, forced on a roadso when thirty-four-year-trip with his parents old Alistair Wright started to visit his grandmothertake an interest in her, Irisshe was flattered rather than wary. Iris is living in some backwater town hemmed in on three sides It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by corn fields, and on the fourth that time she was obsessed by the seahim. The town is called Reception in a heavy-handed attempt at irony Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, as we learn looking after his interests on the town actually has no reception for mobile phones island and is pretty much isolated from in particular in the rest of bar where all the world but for a few dirt tracks leading outgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908737190</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susie SteinerAmanda Craig|title=HomecomingThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ann and Joe Hartle are approaching their sixties and hoping to slow down a littleFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. Their sheep farming life is starting to take its toll and it’s an enticing thought that they may be able to pass There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the farm on to their son Max. The only problem is that atmosphere of the farm is hardly making any profit day and Max is not capture it, crafting an image of the most capable person country as it stands in the worldone particular moment. Added to To say that, Max’s wife Primrose Amanda Craig is expecting a baby and that is not without its difficulties. The Hartle’s other son, Bartholomew, is far away in London trying to run his own business and also scared about committing to his girlfriend, Rubyskilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. The family She has started to fall apart over such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the years but when things go badly wrong on day into the farm including lives of her characters in a barn fire and a virus way that spreads through the sheep feels natural and newborn lambslived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, there is the opportunity to pull together and start anewgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. Is this something that the family can do or will they fall apart even more?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571297196</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Val Harris152915118X|title=The Song the Waves Sing Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Some time has passed since we [[Sea Creatures by Val Harris|last saw]] ''Pineapple Street'' is the Moon familystory of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Charlie Moon has been released from prisonDarley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. His sister Olivia is in New York but Jenna is still in CornwallThey're Stocktons, where only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so sheisn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's turned exacerbated when the family home clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into a B&Bthe Pineapple Street property. Their father Brendan is a reformed character Tilda and Chip have renovated and he's moved downsized to Looeanother property, where he's a partner in an art gallerystreet or so away, which they own. But everyoneThey won's life has its ups and downs: Olivia is made redundant t need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and the only logical Cord can move is back to straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the UKreality. Then Brendan overhears a conversation Darley and realises Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that his business partner is deep in an art fraudthey abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955599784</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=O H RobssonEmily Critchley|title=The SparkOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Kristoffer lives 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house on the edge of a lake in Western Norway and bring Edie to live with his dog and occasional company from his friend Matsfamily, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. By profession he’s a photographer However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and enough business comes his way to keep him the way he wishes to live. He’s relaxed - too much so at times when you’re relying on him (always worry that there was a mistake) to secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be punctualthe thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. There has been After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the occasional girlfriend - some of them pretty stunning - but none last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of them ever came up to Eva whom he met when they were both in their teens and working in the local hotel memories coming back to earn some moneyher. His grandfather has a summer cabin up in And yet as she remembers the mountains past, she is forgetting more and Kristoffer’s happy to go up more in her day to spend time with him and take him his suppliesday life. You might think that’s pretty idyllic - Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and it is.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00BJOS364</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=Megan Shepherd0008506337|title=The Madman's DaughterGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Teenager Juliet Moreau has had a hard life since her father The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was vilified twenty-one and described by Victorian societyMargo's mother as 'an older man'. Thinking him long dead, Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she scrapes could achieve - going to Oxford and having a living as best she can – but a chance discovery at a macabre glittering career. In the event leads , they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to her Oxford and went on to learn that he is alive become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and her life is cast into chaosholidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007500203</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A M Homes1914585402|title=May We Be ForgivenDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'May We Be Forgivens Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'' is not an easy book to summarise. The book is narrated by Harold, s Only One Danny Garvey]] a fairly pedestrian academic teacher couple of years back and aspiring writer of history remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and particularly the Nixon eraaffecting it was. We don't have to wait long for the catalyst that changes his life fundamentally over the course of It was a year. His high flyinggripping, younger brotheremotionally wounding read, George, is involved in a car accident shortly after Thanksgiving and an adulterous encounter will change the lives rereading my review of Harold and George forever. AM Homes offers a biting satire of the American Dream, taking swipes at materialism, families it my main takeaway was that are more nuclear fallout than nuclear, Internet sex sites and the dependence on drugs and psychiatrists to keep people I might not have lavished enough praise on the straight and narrowit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847083234</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert GoolrickLucy Ashe|title=Heading Out to WonderfulClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Charlie Beale returned from The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the war in Europe and 1948 found him in Brownsburginside. And not on stage, Virginiaeither. HeBecause there'd been driving around looking for somewhere s a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to settle detail – and all he had with him were two suitcases. One contained an excellent set of butcherssome things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don' knives - and t come from the other was full of moneyclassroom. Brownsburg seemed like A stage presence, a fine place to stay and before long he had charm, a job with Will Haislett and the Haislett family became ''hisjoie de vivre'' family. He'd never hankered after children but their five-yearThe difference between a hard-old sonworker, Sam found and a place in his heartstar.|isbn=0861544080}}{{Frontpage|author=Heather Fawcett|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Life might have been Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good if it had continued with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in this veinthe small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, but Charlie Beale met Sylvan Glassshe is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily'sfrustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091953677</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mohsin Hamid1398515388|title=How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising AsiaThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Inside Mohsin Hamid's ''How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia'' is a bitter-sweet love story disguised as a self help book. It's a well structured concept and works nicely. Each chapter is presented in the format First of those common to all, it was the self help genreearthquake, with advice like 'Move to deep in the City'ocean floor, 'Get an Education' etc., although which created the chapter entitled 'Be Prepared to Use Violence' is a notable omission from most business tomes tsunami and self help books. After some general chatty comments this, in the self help book styleturn, caused the attention turns to two people who are named only 'the boy' nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and 'the pretty girl'utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, charting their rise and fall the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from rural poverty in an unnamed Asian country (although it certainly feels like Pakistan) to business success and wealth in their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the citytsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. The two are not He wasn't a couple, dog person but their lives cross at frequent times the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and he, Tamon the dog jumped in particular, remains infatuated with his childhood acquaintance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144663</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edward Kelsey MooreChristopher Bowden|title=The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-EatMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Plainview, Indiana there are three women who have been friends since their teens. Forty years after they first met theyChristopher Bowden're still known as the Supremes, the name given to them by Big Earl at his All-You-Can-Eat diner. The diners latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's now run life, carried out by his son, Little Earl, but you'll find the Supremes at the table in the window every Sunday, her nephew after church, along with their familiesshe has died. Odette tells us her own story, from the time she was born in The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a sycamore tree, which made her the fearless soul she is. But now she's up against something which even she might not be able little bit of indulgence to face down. Clarice was always the well-brought-up a young lady as well as being nephew had had a musician of some considerable merit, but her husband is causing her problems. Even serial philanderers would be in awe of what Richmond gets up much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation tofind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444758020</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eleanor HendersonJennifer Mason|title=Ten Thousand SaintsPartitions of Unity|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eleanor Henderson's debut novel ''Ten Thousand Saints'' is set in late 1980s Vermont andHere at Bookbag Towers, more memorablywe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, New York. Opening dominatrix and unintentional detective in 1987 we discover in the second sentence that one [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of the two boys hiding under the stands to the Vermont school football field on match day will die that nightdisappearances. It's a powerful opening. From then on, the book deals first with TeddyIn 's death and then with the life he has left behind in the form of his friend Jude, Jude's sort Partitions of step sister Eliza and TeddyUnity's older brother Johnny. It's , she sets her mind to solving a world of broken homes and the trinity of sex and drugs and rock and roll, or more specifically punkmurder.. Henderson is particularly good at evoking the underground scene in New York at the time before the unlikely combination of AIDS and mayoral intervention combined to clean up the city.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780872194</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
}}
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