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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fayette FoxJenny Lecoat|title=The Deception ArtistBeyond Summerland|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This story is all about the characters. Plot-wise, it is set in 1980s suburban America. There Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are no explosions or even fairy tale adventures in this book. It’s just celebrating the simple adventure end of life when you’re a child and learning new things every daythe occupation. Ivy accounts her day-to-day life with an extreme attention to During the strangest detailswar, just like Jean's father was arrested for listening to a child. As well as explaining what she has learnt in school, she describes her daydreamsbanned radio and soldiers took him away one night, her friends leaving Jean and her familymother waiting for years for news of him. When her dad loses his job As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, her parents start arguing and she the war is worried finally over, their hopes rise that they might have to get will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a divorce like sad Sara in her class. relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And not only that, they might what other secrets have to return their new TV. been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434244</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan EvisonOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Revised Fundamentals of CaregivingAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Ben hasnAnuri 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't worked s childhood for a while sponsorships and influencer deals and so, deciding on a career changebasically, trains to become a caregivermonetary gain. His first client Now Anuri is Trevin her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, a 20 year old Duchene Muscular Dystrophy sufferer who hasn't suing her step-mother to take down the sunniest of dispositionscontent about her. In fact Trev Anuri is angrybattling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, self-centred undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and goes through caregivers like a knife through milkreceiving money from them for doing so. HoweverMost importantly, Benshe is desperately worried about her little sister, needing a jobwho is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, holds on tight and tries to encourage Trev to live a little. Eventually Trev complies perhaps herself and dictates a way forward: a road trip. A road trip her relationship with a housebound, ill, angry person is not what Ben had in mind her father at all. Meanwhile it gradually becomes clear to us that Trev isn't the only one who has to learn to live a little differently.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781851751</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenny Mayhew1529153298|title=A Wolf in HindelheimThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=GermanyIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, the 1920shonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Whatever that old proverb is about an ending of something merely being a beginning of something else in disguiseWell, they've been murdered, this novel is an evocation of itbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. In the rural habitation of the title a Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father and son pair of policemen is called wants to a remote house by news that a newborn baby is missingmove the family 'Down South'. In the house When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is an awkward combination of families – elderly matriarcha frightening, her son and daughter and both their spouses – two couples living on top of each otherforeign place, with a disabled boy and maid in the mix toobest avoided. We soon are given an explanation for For Miv, the child being dead – a terrible instance of clumsinessmove would mean leaving her best friend, but like I saySharon, this is only the beginning – of several things, including the older policemanand she'll do anything to prevent that. She's infatuation with not worried about the grieving motherdangers or that her Mum's sisterstopped talking -in-law…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091944384</amazonuk>to anyone.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessica Soffer1035906708|title=Tomorrow There Will be ApricotsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lorca is We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in her early teens December 1923 and struggling only moved to get attention from her motherAthens when she was thirteen. SheHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's resorted to self-harming and even her obvious abilities make it more manageable in the kitchen don't seem to be enough to merit some of her chef mother's timeStates. Her last chance to make an impact before When she's sent away to boarding school seems to be to find a way to make Masgouf was back in Athens - an Iraqi fish dish - which her mother has described as her favourite meal. Along with supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her only friend voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a young man mother who goes by the name mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of Blot - they discover that some Iraqi Jewish cooking classes are being offered by a chefher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943973</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick TroutAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Patron Saint of Lost DogsPerfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Cyrus Mills only intended to return to Vermont for long enough The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to sell all the veterinary practice which his father had left himonline apps in providing a more personal, collect tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the money and get back business, as Ness is planning to South Carolina where he was trying take a trip to sort out the little matter of having his licence Canada to practice suspendedget away for a while. He had never got on Katie is coming out of a break up with his father who had - somehow - managed NOT to tell his son that his mother had died until after her funeral. The first snag he encountered was quite a big one: his father had been equally forgetful about dealing with his financial affairs bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Bedside Manor practice was dying on its feetchance to come home to Edinburgh. Cyrus didn’t have the money And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to prop it up 44 Scotland Street and it looked as though he would have to hand everything over to the Bank and walk away Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with nothingsome new characters who quickly begin to charm. The second problem was an aging Golden Retriever by the name of Frieda Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and an owner who’s there's always her very keen helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to see her put to sleep.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1401310885</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clive LawtonDean Koontz|title=Flowers From FukushimaThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary= In 2011, Japan was hit by Benny is having a 9terrifically bad day.0 magnitude earthquake He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. That Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the subsequent tsunami caused level 7 meltdowns at thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the Fukushima nuclear power plantvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. ''Flowers from Fukushima'' riffs on this in He is a post-apocalyptic story of a Japan devastated by even more and even bigger natural disastersnice person. A really nice person. It follows two main characters as they pick their way through So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the devastationdelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, each trying who has been sent to make sense help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of this new Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and very different worldHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00CDLAK0E</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lynsey RoseKatherine Howe|title=First Aid Kit GirlA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Steph hates her jobHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. She hates her colleagues When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. She likes the work first aid kit Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a lotyoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She’s trundling along She hides away, doing not very muchso that they don't find and kill her too, finding her release where and then to escape them completely she can. To me it seems like she loves runs away to hate her lifesea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Takes great pleasure She soon finds herself in despising itthe thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in facther rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956235123</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gill Hornby1471180158|title=The HiveMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ThereJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's an old joke thatson, for parentsBo, there are only two good days in the school holidays - the first 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the lastmore you read, but in St Ambrose the more you'll suspect that he'real'' work begins when s on the children go back autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to school take time off at the start of the new school year. Thereshort notice - she's a new head at frequent flier in the school (local A&E and hesometimes Bo'll have s not fit enough to go to be knocked into shape) but school. Missed shifts or the real power is Beatrice - 'Bea' need to those whom she elects be away on time to call friends for the time being - who rules the parents, decides who is in or out pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and what status they should have put in the communitywrong. And how does she do it? Well, she's the queenIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408704358</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jasper GibsonB0CKD1L5JL|title=A Bright Moon For FoolsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jasper Gibson’s debut novelPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, A Bright Moon For Foolsreclusive Bear, tells the story of Harry Christmas he is brought up far from bustling cities and his drunken escapades busy human society, in Caracas and the small villages forests of VenezuelaWashington's Olympic Peninsula. Harry Christmas is nowhere near as jolly as his name suggests After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, in fact Harry is drunken conman. He has pushed his luck too far and is forced to fly to Venezuela to evade William Sladearmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the irate son of a woman Harry fleeced out of £27strange,000. Harry’s life is defined by booze wild and where to get the next drink; rarely heard voices he is having a major breakdown. Slade is no better off and is also having his own mental crisis: unfortunately for Harry, Slade’s breakdown is of a much more psychotic natureencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957468105</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa ScottolineSarah Marsh|title=Come HomeA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You divorce After a partner, not bout of scarlet fever as a child, so although Jill and William’s split meant she was no longer legal step mum to his daughter Abby, in some ways she never stopped seeing Ellen Lark loses her as hearing. Suddenly plunged into a daughter. Now, years after they last met upworld of silence, Abby shows up on Jill’s doorstep with some devastating news everything about Jill’s ex-husbandher life changes. News that will unsettle both their lives, and Living in a time when the lives use of Jill’s new fiancé Samsign language was seen as something only savages do, and of her own biological daughter. While Abby wants Ellen is sent to pull her into untangling a mystery, Sam school where she is reluctant taught to encourage this investigationlip read, 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 family reunion it will bringsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, leaving Jill torn between her new family and her old oneEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091944937</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antoine LaurainB0BC3YTCMR|title=The President's HatGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The milliners' advertising used to say 'to get ahead, get a hatThis story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. They would She was a very much approve of this book. Daniel Mercier is bright student, a Mr Average bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - or perhaps a Monsieur Mediocrepeople were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. He It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a lowly accountant until one evening crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he finds himself dining next to French President, François Mitterrand, who leaves the restaurant without his hatwould notice her. When Daniel decides to keep it, his life starts to change Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and he feels somehow more confidentReggie asked if she would tutor him. In other strands of the story, Fanny Marquant is having She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an affair with an older man who clearly has no intention of leaving his wife while celebrated perfumer Pierre Aslan has lost his ability to detect smells and to create perfumesextension. Bernard Lavallière, meanwhile is struggling She went to live up to the right wing standards of his wife's friends house and starts to read the more left wing papershe raped her. At some point In shock, all will come into contact with the President's hat and it will have an impact on all of themshe even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313471</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ma Jian1472263936|title=The Dark RoadFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One of my many lovable traitsIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, according had left the family home and refused to my belovedreturn, is my ability to absolutely insist I havenbut Mary and Hamish (Helena't read s parents) felt that it would be a book before (when he catches me reading it again)pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. This has Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the huge benefit first of my getting several annual visits. She grew to discover it all over again – love her grandmother and the massive downside that I will never get family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the end Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of my reading listSecurity, which must exist 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 some kind 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 Möbius loophis 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701187530</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=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=Julie SarkissianB0BYF82CXT|title=Dear LucySemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door.5Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dear LucyAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. Dear He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, sweet Lucyfunny; total and utter husband-material. Lucy lives on She is all he could possibly want in a farm with Mister wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and Missus, but so the only person who inevitable proposal is truly kind to her eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is Samantha, who lives there with themplanned and set. Lucy finds it difficult When the much-anticipated day arrives, sometimes. She doesn’t always have Alice is walked down the words aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she needs. She tries very hard surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to be good but sometimes her helping is more of a hindrance. But face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she knows more that people think. She knows that although Mum Mum sent her to live on has absolutely no idea who the man at the farmaltar is, she will come back who is waiting for her one day. That is why Lucy must never leave the farm, otherwise Mum Mum won’t know where to find herbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444767585</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian Kimberling1787636003|title=SnapperThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There's little doubt It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that Brian Kimberlingshe and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn's debut novelt exactly innocent but she was, ''Snapper'' is a slightly unusual book. The publishers describe it as a coming of age storyperhaps, and it is after a fashionnaive, but it's more so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in the vein of an adult looking back on his young adult self her, she was flattered rather than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at thingswary. The narrator, Nathan, shares many It was quite a while before he made any sort of the traits of his creator. Like Kimberling, he is brought up in Indiana physical approach to her and is involved in research of songbirds in by that state; effectively a paid bird watchertime she was obsessed by him. The title of the book though comes not from any type of bird Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, but from looking after his interests on the snapping turtle that lives island and in particular in the state. It's a broadly affectionate and wry look at bar where all the people of Indiana, known as 'Hoosiers'girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0307908054</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melvyn BraggAmanda Craig|title=Grace and MaryThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Grace and Mary is a tender and moving account spanning three generations Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the same familystate-of-the-nation novel. In There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the first chapter, we are introduced to ninety-two year old Mary atmosphere of the day and her doting soncapture it, Johncrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. Mary To say that Amanda Craig is in a nursing home and skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has dementia, hovering in such a limbo-world, precariously balanced between gift for weaving the present and ongoing issues of the past. John delights when he catches day into the occasional glimpse lives of the ''real'' Maryher characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, and they find a meeting placenever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, of sorts in their shared world of memories and songsgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444762346</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Clarke152915118X|title=The Sea SistersPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Kate ''Pineapple Street'' is as sensiblethe story of three women: Sasha, focused Darley and down Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to earth as her sister Mia is reckless and unsettledtheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so it’s no surprise that it’s Mia who leaves London behind to go travelingshe isn't readily accepted into the tribe. With dreams of seeing The problem's exacerbated when the USA, Australia and beyondclan matriarch, Mia sets off excitedly with her best friend Finn, but this once in a lifetime trip tragically becomes just that as some months later Mia is found dead in BaliTilda, an apparent suicide plunge. With her life thrown into turmoil asks Cord and unable Sasha if they'd like to get past move into the things they said, Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and didn’t say, downsized to each other when Mia was aliveanother property, Kate makes a rather Mia-like decision to leave it all behind toostreet or so away, which they own. Armed with Mia’s travel journey They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, she sets off to retrace her sister’s steps, stop by stop, to try so Sasha and work out what Mia was going throughCord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and what ultimately lead Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to her death'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007481349</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian ClaryEmily Critchley|title=Briefs EncounteredOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Choosing this book from Julian Clary was irresistible. Normally84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, I try not but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to review books where I’m already familiar live with authorhis family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. But I didn’t feel However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing him live several times or watching him regularly on TV counted' Lucy in the high street, just as I hadn’t read either she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of his two previous novelsmemories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091938856</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=Suzanne Bugler0008506337|title=The Safest PlaceGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jane The love affair between Margo Garnett and David Berry have always lived and worked poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in Londonlove. However, since their children have come along, the house has felt too cramped Richard was twenty-one and Jane has often dreamed of moving awaydescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. When their son Sam fails to get a place at his chosen secondary school, Her parents worried that is the catalyst Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she needs could achieve - going to start making her dream Oxford and having a realityglittering career. The only problem is that In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the rest Isle of the family are not quite as enthusiastic about moving as she would have hopedWight. David will have Margo did go to commute every day Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the children are anxious about starting a new school, particularly Sam who finds it difficult to make friendsfamily home on the Isle of Wight. Even Jane starts then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to wonder if it was a good idea, isolated leave him in a house miles from anywhere, finding it difficult to get to know the local communitycharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330544969</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Maria SempleDavid F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I 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. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lucy Ashe|title=WhereClara and Olivia|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=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 inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi''d You Go, Bernadettethat don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|isbn=0861544080}}{{Frontpage|author=Heather Fawcett|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Much like the missing question mark in the title it would seemEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, Bernadette and she has disappeared. Maria Sempletravelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's ''Where'd You Gowork, Bernadette'' works as both a physical and emotional questionthe very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Bernadette Fox Whilst she is the wife of Elgie Branch, a star brilliant at Microsoft in Seattle, research and mother of 15 year oldspeaking to faeries, Beeshe is not so good with people. The narrative begins with Bee wondering where her mother had gone So when she finds herself far, but then quickly moves to an epistolary format told far North in e-mailsthe small village of Hrafvsnik, notes and messages between having somehow offended the major playersvillage matriarch, including some rather obnoxious mothers at Bee's schoolshe is not sure what she has done, one of whom also works at Microsoft with Elgie. We are taken back a few weeks nor how to when Bernadette was around redeem herself and a seemingly somewhat angry mother prior to put her final investigations for her mysterious disappearance. One of the delights about the book, which along with being very funny back on issues like helicopter parentingthe right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, corporate life her dashingly handsome andinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, er, Canadiansall charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is that it emerges that Bernadette he here? What does he want? And what exactly is more than a wife and mother but has a past career of her own as a talented architect which she has sacrificed for one reason or another. Thus, in many ways she disappeared long before her physical disappearance.going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316204269</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Currie1398515388|title=The Ottoman MotelBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Simon Sawyer is 11 years oldFirst of all, forced on a road-trip with his parents to visit his grandmotherit was the earthquake, Iris. Iris is living deep in some backwater town hemmed the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in on three sides by corn fieldsturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and on the fourth by the seautter devastation. The town is called Reception in a heavy-handed attempt at ironydeaths were uncountable, as we learn and the town actually has no reception for mobile phones and is pretty much isolated loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the rest list of priorities but - six months after the world tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but for a few dirt tracks leading outthe convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908737190</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susie SteinerChristopher Bowden|title=HomecomingMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ann and Joe Hartle are approaching their sixties and hoping to slow down Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a little. Their sheep farming seemingly ordinary woman's life is starting to take its toll and it’s an enticing thought that they may be able to pass the farm on to their son Max, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The only problem is that the farm is hardly making any profit aunt who always provided a safe harbour and Max is not the most capable person in the world. Added to that, Max’s wife Primrose 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, Ruby. The family has started little bit of indulgence to fall apart over the years but when things go badly wrong on the farm including a barn fire and young nephew had had a virus much more interesting life than that spreads through the sheep nephew Stephen had ever realised and newborn lambs, there is the opportunity it seems to him an obligation to pull together and start anewfind it all out. Is this something that the family can do or will they fall apart even more?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571297196</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Val HarrisJennifer Mason|title=The Song the Waves Sing Partitions of Unity|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Some time has passed since Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Sea Creatures Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Val HarrisJennifer Mason|last sawPreposterous]] the Moon family. Charlie Moon has been released from prison. His sister Olivia is in New York but Jenna is still in Cornwall, where when she's turned the family home into investigated and unravelled a B&Bseries of disappearances. Their father Brendan is a reformed character and heIn ''Partitions of Unity''s moved , she sets her mind to Looe, where he's solving a partner in an art gallerymurder. But everyone's life has its ups and downs: Olivia is made redundant and the only logical move is back to the UK. Then Brendan overhears a conversation and realises that his business partner is deep in an art fraud.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955599784</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}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=O H RobssonJennifer Mason|title=The SparkPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Kristoffer lives ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a house on 400-meter hurdler who just missed the edge of 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a lake in Western Norway billionaire with his dog and occasional company from his friend Mats. By profession he’s a photographer and enough business comes his way to keep him state-of-the way he wishes to live. He’s relaxed - too much so at times when you’re relying art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on him (always a mistake) to be punctualcheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... There has been '' This is just a sample of the occasional girlfriend - some of them pretty stunning - but none cast of them ever came up to Eva whom he met when they were both in their teens characters and working settings in the local hotel to earn Preposterous. As you can see, some moneykeeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this. His grandfather has a summer cabin up in the mountains and Kristoffer’s happy to go up to spend time with him and take him his supplies. You might think that’s pretty idyllic - and it is.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00BJOS364</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
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