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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenny Lecoat|title=A Love Like BloodBeyond 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's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a 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 what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=1846976537}}{{Frontpage|author=Marcus SedgwickOnyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although Anuri spent her childhood on display to the No. 1 Ladiesworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia' Detective Agency belongs to Mma Ramotswes increasingly popular presence on social media, I often feel that Grace Makutsi really shares equally in these stories where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, in this particular episodebasically, she has reached a truly lovely high point monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her life. We saw twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her arrive confidence and to work for Mma Ramotsweget her life back, initially standing upon the laurels of suing her unheardstep-of 97% in mother to take down the content about her secretarial exams, and throughout the series she has developed, both as a character and as a person. She grew Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her role from secretary to associate detective (with great determination at times!)PhD, she bought new shoes undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and sometimes conversed with receiving money from themfor doing so. Most importantly, and then we rejoiced with her when she married Phuti and began to build a home with him. This time around Mma Makutsi is pregnantdesperately worried about her little sister, but who is the question on everyonenew focus of Ophelia's mind is will online empire. Can she ever speak to Mma Ramotswe about save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the baby before it arrivessame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349139288</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lesley Glaister1529153298|title=Little EgyptThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Twins Isis It's 1979 and Osiris are now in their 90sMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, living together in Little Egyptthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, the English manor house where they were born and brought up've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Their names are a clue Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to their parentsmove the family 'Down South' near fetish for everything Egyptian. In fact this near fetish leads their parents to Egypt itselfWhen you're from Yorkshire, in search of Down South is a big discovery back in the 1920sfrightening, foreign place, demonstrating more enthusiasm than savvybest avoided. Having left For Miv, the twins in the care of the housekeepermove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, they never returnand she'll do anything to prevent that. Isis and Osiris are now bound to She's not worried about the house, tied not by love dangers or memories but dark secrets that wonher Mum't let gos stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190777372X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=The Blazing WorldDiva|author=Siri HustvedtDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary='All intellectual We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and artistic endeavours…fare better in the mind of the crowd only moved to Athens when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it can locate a cock and a pair of balls.to 'Callas' Thus we are introduced to make it more manageable in the unforgettable Harriet Burden – largerStates. When she was back in Athens -than-life, six-footsupposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -tall amazon artist – and to some of she was raised under the novel's essential elements: musing on what makes intellectual products successful in Nazi occupation by a postmodern marketplace, feminist resentment of the overvaluing mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of male achievement, and an unapologeticher preference for her elder sister, playful boldness with languageJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444779648</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The EnchantedAlexander McCall Smith|authortitle=Rene DenfeldThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Death RowThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. 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 a break up with a prison somewhere in bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the rural USchance to come home to Edinburgh. It's And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an old prison tooEdinburgh we already love, where thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the modern sensors and security will never be seenIsabel Dalhousie novels, and where those waiting years for their finalbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, final appeals – or for the closing act in their life – remain undergroundmatch-making, but Ness has full confidence in dank cells that have no mod-consher abilities, and can easily flood when the rains raise the water table too high. Itthere's where a man called York is seeing out his days, and whereas a female investigator is trying always her hardest to get evidence that might see his sentence quashed or changed, he is saying it should be carried out forthwith. While she tries to piece together what got him there very helpful (and what made him take that terminal decisionrather handsome) neighbour, shadows of her own dark background are forced to move into sight. All this is told us by the omniscient narration of another man on Death RowWilliam, thanks to two heinous crimes…lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297870491</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Dead Wife's HandbookDean Koontz|authortitle=Hannah BeckermanThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Rachel wasnBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He 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't ready s 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 drop dead at thirty-fivedeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. It's So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been a year sent to help him since - Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a year she's spent trapped in some sort good person. Spike is going to take care of netherworld that allows her briefBenny, tantalising glimpses and will certainly take care of the lives of those sheBenny's left behind. Thereenemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's no apparent rhyme or reason to the glimpses, and Rachel wishes wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they were more often and lasted longerare.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718178149</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fadia FaqirKatherine Howe|title=Willow Trees Don't WeepA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Najwa has Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been raised by her mother sent to live with a family who run an inn, and grandmother with only stories being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of how awful her father wassome pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. He canEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy't answer for himself as he left s death at the farm when Najwa was three years oldhands of two vicious pirates. After her motherShe hides away, so that they don's death Najwa is encouraged by her grandmother to t find him as and kill her grandmother is too frail , and then to protect her escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a single woman with neither husband nor male guardian is considered loose and worthless in Ammancabin boy. And so She soon finds herself in the journey beginsthick of things when there is a mutiny on board, taking Najwa to Pakistan and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the centre of Taliban training, to Afghanistan and eventually to a Europe which deigns itself more civilised but seems more alienocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178206950X</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Constantine1471180158|title=And Then Came PauletteMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ferdinand was Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a widower and he lived control freak with his all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, daughter-in-law Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and their two children on the family farm. Wellmore you read, the more you'll suspect that he did until 's on the family moved awayautistic spectrum. Apparently Ferdinand was occasionally prone Sometimes Jamie needs to swear take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and obviously children can never be allowed sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to hear such wordsschool. That left him Missed shifts or the need to be away on his own except for the children’s kitten time to which their mother was allergic pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in a farmhouse which demanded a familythe wrong. He It was lonely and he began... well, let’s call it making mischief. Assault is such an ugly word, isn’t it? Then he met Marceline - or rather he encountered her dog and in returning it discovered the old woman is going to come to a room filled with gas and leaking rain water through the roofhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085705242X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Saira ShahB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Mouseproof KitchenRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Anna (a chef) Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and her partner Tobias (a composer) have it all: a great relationshipbusy human society, dreams in the forests of moving to France so that Anna can open a well-respected restaurant and, to top it all off, they're expecting a beautiful baby. When Freya is born she is indeed beautiful; sheWashington's also profoundly disabledOlympic Peninsula. HoweverAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, Anna and Tobias decide to follow their dream anywayarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, not worrying about anything until Petr goes on a journey through the moment they have to. Once they've bought their ramshackle home in forest, broadcasting the Languedoc they realise that the moments they have to worry about come more quickly strange, wild and frequently than they'd realised and their support system is eccentric to say the leastrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575140</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Charm OffensiveSarah Marsh|authortitle=William ThackerA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When JoeAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a retired politician time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is named in sent to a tabloid slur he school where she is faced with mending his reputationtaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Can he regenerate his life? William Thacker From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has chosen been teaching the deaf and using a heady combination for his first novel; politics and PRsystem called Visible Speech. A book like this has immediate appeal At the same time, Bell is working on the basis of being so contemporary other inventions and almost painfully pertinent to our timesideas, so I was really looking forward to reading itand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909878537</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=The Lemon GroveGood Girls Die|author=Helen WalshAyura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Lemon Grove'' This story is not the book I expected it to be. No better no worse, just not what I expected. Set in Mallorca, it is the tale of a summer in the sunshine, but though they’ve holidayed at this villa for years, this summer is a bit different for Jenn and Gregeveryone. There are lots of things in this book that are a bit quirky, and the holiday set up is just one of them: the couple are joined by Greg’s daughter (Jen’s step-daughter) and her boyfriend. It’s not wildly unconventional in the real world, but for one reason or another it’s the sort of chaotic set up many authors wouldn’t bother to create. And yet as you read this book you wonder why, because it adds a dynamic that is definitely different, and in a good way. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472212088</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Atheist's PrayerFigurine|author=Amy R BiddleVictoria Hislop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I don’t shy away from a book with a little edge, It was in fact [[1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone:Category:Chuck Palahniuk|Chuck Palahniuk]] is one of my favourite authors her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and his books can Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be so sharp you can shave with thema pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. On Her trip to the surface ''The Atheist’s Prayer'' family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would seem to be courting controversy; why else have such a provocative title? the first of several annual visits. ButShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, is it really that shocking? retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. NopeHe was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. This is a story about how people deal with the modern world His prejudices included Helena's red hair and what happens when dangerous ideals infect a vulnerable groupgreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780995822</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Forever GirlDean Koontz|authortitle=Alexander McCall SmithAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have loved Alexander McCall Smith's books since I first picked one upMichael Mace, and so I have been waiting for the release Head of thisSecurity, at a standalone noveltop secret biological research facility, ever since I first heard about itis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. It pains meFinding himself in a makeshift mortuary, thereforecovered in plastic, he has a sense that I'm unable something very, very bad has happened to shout 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 how marvellous it is to you all or how you should rush out to buy it immediately because actually, I found it disappointinghim; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0307908259</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=Terms and ConditionsThe Grave Listeners|author=Robert GlancyWilliam Frank|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a slow bowl with a wicked curl! Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The hero, Franklyn wakes up in hospital; he discovers that he has had a car accident, but he can’t remember anything. Aliceblack wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, Franklyn’s wiferoofs on homes, and Oscareven gallows, his brother, are full if needed. The fear of loving concern being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and his work colleagues are solicitousthat is the reason Volushka, but Franklyn soon senses a lack drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of authenticity in his family members and starts to sniff round to discover whya man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408852209</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=Gretel and the DarkSemi-Detached|author=Eliza GranvilleDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Josef Breuer has never had ''Bill and Amanda are living in a case such as this. For a doctor in finsemi-de-siecle Viennadetached house, spurned by his ex-colleague Sigmund, and with some dark happenings stuck in his marriage a depressing rut of boredom and his past, he gets as a patient a youngdisappointment, damaged girl, found naked when Terry and battered outside an asylum. She claims she has never come from there, howeverFiona – glamorous, successful and that she is of no father or mother besides a purposevery much in love – move in next door. She says she is a machine, an automaton, a beautiful kind of golemDespite their different outlooks on life, with the task of going couples befriend each other and life appears to Linz and killing a monsterimprove for both pairs. She has an unusual number design at her wrist. This story alternates with that of another young girlBut all is not what it seems, a very impetuous and belligerent child, now that her favourite nanny-come-nurse-come-cook-come-storyteller has been drummed out, and living alone with her father, again a doctor, outside a zootheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. But a zoo that doesn't strictly hold animals, nor allows for their conservation…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241146453</amazonuk>'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna QuindlenShalini Boland|title=Still Life With BreadcrumbsThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was going to say that Rebecca Winter ''is'' Alice and Seth are a well-known photographer, but that's not quite how Rebecca sees itmatch made in heaven. She had major success with ''Still Life With Breadcrumbs'' He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and became a household name utter husband- almost a feminist icon - but the success has faded into the pastmaterial. People who think about it guess that she's well-offShe is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, if not wealthy but confident… and so the truth inevitable proposal is differenteagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When we meet Rebecca she's woken in the middle of much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the night aisle by what sounds very like a gunshot - but she's not in her New York apartment. She's a couple of hours drive away in a rented cottage. It's the financesfather, you see. If beaming with pride and excitement as she lets her New York property surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and rents somewhere cheaper the difference allows her when Seth turns to pay her motherface his approaching bride, Alice's nursing home feesworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, a contribution to who is waiting for her father's rent, some assistance to her son - and all the other obligations we accumulate as we get olderbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091954118</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=It Felt Like A KissThe Girls of Summer|author=Sarra ManningKatie Bishop|rating=4.5|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Ellie Cohen lives with two of her best friends, works in an exclusive gallery, and sees her loving Jewish grandparents every first Friday of It was the month. Her single mother, Ari, has always been the epitome of cool summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and is Ellie’s best friend Caroline went backpacking around Greece and confidantearrived on the island. The only thing they don’t talk about is Billy Kay Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, Ellie’s biological father. That doesn’t stop him being one of the nation’s favouritesperhaps, recently knightednaive, and talked about by pretty much everyone else. But Billy is a nonso when thirty-four-year-issue for Ellie. She doesn’t need himold Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she has Chester, was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her mum’s best friend, who has always been enough of a dad if and by that time she neededwas obsessed by him. Her only real trouble is her penchant Alistair worked for lame ducksHenry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or fixer-upperspartied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552163279</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=CairoAmanda Craig|authortitle=Chris WomersleyThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Button has had enough Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of small-town Australian life, and wants to grasp the nettle at the earliest opportunity and escape for more exotic places as soon as he-nation novel. There's free something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of school the day and he and a friend can afford capture it, crafting an image of the country as itstands in one particular moment. Until To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the friend kills that pipe-dreamgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Plan B She has such a gift for Tom soon becomes weaving the life ongoing issues of a university student in Melbourne, with the chance to live day into the lives of her characters in the apartment his aunt left behind when she died – at least it's a way that feels natural and lived-in an exotically named development building, called Cairo. But Plan C soon forms never making them ciphers for Tomsocial commentary but instead fully realised people, when he falls in awkwardly grappling with some bohemian neighbours – who still, despite being ten years older, have plans of their own for making their own way to a better life – just not the way Tom ever suspected…issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848663919</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Royle152915118X|title=First NovelPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Paul Kinder lectures in first novels at a Manchester university ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters andSasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, coincidentally, heonly Sasha isn's also published t a novelStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. YesThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, just Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the onePineapple Street property. When not working he enjoys various pursuitsTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, including sex in car parks when offered the opportunity (i.e. not very often at all)a street or so away, which they own. (If They won't need any of the car park is on a flight pathfurniture from Pineapple Street, all the betterso Sasha and Cord can move straight in.) He personally doesnNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't see it as a problem, although not all his life has been problem freethe reality. No, indeed Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it hasnto 't!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096982</amazonuk>the GD'.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=RespectEmily Critchley|authortitle=Mandasue HellerOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Growing up is difficult 84 year old Edie has lived in the best of circumstancessame small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. The council estate where Chantelle has grown up in isn't decaying - it However, Edie is dead tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and rotten. It has become the worry that there was a holding place secret she was keeping for those who are condemned to a life Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of crime, at least when they aren't serving what happened all that timeago. It is After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the type last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of place that saps ambition and hope from its unlucky inhabitantsmemories coming back to her. But Chantelle And yet as she remembers the past, she is determined forgetting more and more in her day to break outday life. She has avoided all Will she uncover the pitfalls waiting for children in truth about Lucy's disappearance before her situationmove, avoiding drugs, alcohol, crime and dead end relationships. before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444769472</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|isbn=0008506337|title=Buddhaland BrooklynThe Garnett Girls|author=Richard C MoraisGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Seido Oda has lived The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all of his life -consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the shadow of the Head Temple of the Clearwater Sect of Mahayana Buddhismlove. His family home Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an inn which catered to the pilgrims who flocked older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to the temple, Oxford and his mother having a devout member of the sectglittering career. He seemed marked for In the priesthood from an early ageevent, they eloped and at age 11 was handed over to Richard took her away from the guardianship Isle of the priests Wight. Margo did go to begin his apprenticeship. Seido's young life is blighted by tragedy, Oxford and went on to become a promise he could not keepwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and although a devout follower of the Buddha, he seemed unable to achieve true peace, even in the beautiful tranquil surroundings of Mount NagataSasha. He Life was unable to relate to other humans lived in London and sought solace in poetryholidays were spent at Sandcove, art, 'the prayers' of the river and family home on the beauty Isle of his rural homeWight. At age 42, he has spent almost all of his life in or near Even then the temple, and expects to spend the remainder of it there when a very unwelcome appointment to America is offered doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave himin charge''. Seido accepts with a heavy heart, but only on the agreement that it must be temporary Then Richard left them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883105</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=The Night GuestDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Fiona McFarlaneDavid F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Widow, Ruth, lives alone in the isolated seaside house in New South Wales that was once their family holiday house. Her two adult sons now work abroad leaving her just her cats for company. Oh, 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 possibly a tiger who prowls the house at night. When Frida turns up unannounced claiming to have been sent remember being absolutely floored by the government to care for her things get more how powerful and more mysteriousaffecting it was. As Ruth reminisces It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and then meets up again with her former heartthrob from her youth in Fiji, rereading my review of it becomes clear my main takeaway was that something isn't right, although with whom is a different matterI might not have lavished enough praise on it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444776673</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin MaherLucy Ashe|title=The FieldsClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jim Finnegan The year is embarking on his teens in 1980s Dublin but that1933. The place? Sadler's not all he's embarking onWells. A lad from an average Catholic family in many ways, he has five Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, a mother who believes twins no less. Identical on the supreme threat is a telling off from outside but not, we learn, on the parish priest and his father is understandably tired all the timeinside. And not on stage, either. Between school and the cacophony of his motherBecause there's coffee mornings Jim learns a lot but nothing as useful as what happens when you become very friendly with that builds a pair of pillows dancer. Some things that can be taught or what learnt – discipline, attention to do with the girls he detail – and his mates ogle some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from afarthe classroom. Then suddenly A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a lot of things change almost simultaneously hard-worker, and life doesn't seem so average any morea star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349138672</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The BoatHeather Fawcett|authortitle=Clara SalamanEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This Emily Wilde is a book that starts at the endan expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, which saddened me a little. Sometimes it’s hard to get lost in write her life's work, the mystery very first encyclopaedia of a story when you know how it endsfaeries. But a mystery this story Whilst she is. Johnny brilliant at research and Clem are Brits abroadspeaking to faeries, traveling through Europeshe is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, sticking to far North in the coast where small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the boats are. Johnny’s into all things nautical and as boat peoplevillage matriarch, we understood this. The title she is the first thing that caught my eye on this booknot sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and the reason I picked it up. And it’s no lie: the vast majority of this put her final investigations for her book is set not just back on boats generally, but on one specific boatthe right track. ''The Boat''. It belongs to another expat couple Enter Wendell Bambleby, Frank her dashingly handsome and Annieinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, whose life is a series of ports all charm and harboursdelight, and they come much to Johnny and Clem’s aid when they need it mostEmily'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>1781855846</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=Mother, MotherThe Boy and the Dog|author=Koren ZailckasSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There’s a hideous advert on TV at First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the moment loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that tells mums they’re doing greatmany pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. And wouldn’t they like to buy some formula for their little ones, while they’re at it? It’s such He wasn't a sweeping statement dog person but the theory must be convenience store owner's comment that mothers try he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to do their best for the kids, whatever open his car door and Tamon the circumstances and whatever their resourcesdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007547382</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela JacksonChristopher Bowden|title=The Emergence of Judy TaylorMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=JudyChristopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life had been the stuff which many others might envy: she'd grown up with friends about , carried out by her whom nephew after she'd known since primary school has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and married the first man who asked her - but he did seem a little bit of indulgence to be doing rather well. Then one day she discovered a lump. A hard lump. In her right breast. Nerve-racking test followed nerve-racking test, but eventually she was told young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that everything was absolutely normal. Husband Oli wanted nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to celebrate. So did her friends. The problem was Judy. Missing the bus home after her hospital appointment she sat in a cafe and thought. She realised that ''normal'' was not what she wanted. She wanted something morefind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472101650</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Partitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder...
|isbn=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...''
This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...
|isbn=B09STS96HS
}}
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