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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom RachmanJenny Lecoat|title=The Rise Beyond 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 Fall soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of Great Powers 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=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tooly (Matilda) Zylberberg, runs a small independent book shop in CaergenogAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, close enough thanks to Hay her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on Wye to attract literary festival overflowsocial media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. She loves Now Anuri is in her twenties and understands literature which she is more than can be said slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her understanding of her parents. In fact Tooly doesn't even know who Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her parents arePhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. She had a weird childhood being taken from one city or country to another by Paul but Most importantly, she never got to ask why or even is desperately worried about her little sister, who he was. The sum is the new focus of her knowledge was that he worked in IT and seemed to take care of her… or rather she took care of himOphelia's online empire. So one day Can she leaves save her able assistant Fogg to keep the shop going sister, and perhaps herself and retraces her life, hopefully finding relationship with her father at the answers to the questions she never got around to asking.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444752340</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Glencross1529153298|title=BarbariansThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 2008 1979 and things are on the up for the Howe familyMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Sherard Howe(A woman? I mean, patriarchhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, art lover and lefty-wing publisher is relishing the power that comes from being well-connectedthough. Wife Daphne is about to publish her second bookWomen have been disappearing. Her firstWell, a feminist tome from the 1960sthey've been murdered, is still remembered; something but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that she wonher father wants to move the family 'Down South't be grateful for. Their son Henry When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is about to get a well-paid tutoring job and Afuafrightening, foreign place, their informally adopted black African daughter has political ambitionsbest avoided. However not everyone dreams of lofty heights. Henry For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and Afuashe's poet friend Buzzy just wants ll do anything to bed Afua's bloke Marcelprevent that. TheyShe'd all best enjoy their plans and achievements while they can: s not worried about the nationdangers or that her Mum's on the cusp of change and so, it seems, are their fortunesstopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444788523</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Teach HerDiva|author=Mark KottingDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is a very strange book. Jim January would not typically warrant his own bookWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, one but she was born to Greek parents in which he is the starManhattan, New York, if not the hero. He’s a bit too bland in December 1923 and boring for thatonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. He is a barber Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. And When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that is all he is. He has unfulfilled dreams of traveling she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the world. And his wife’s about to leave him. Throw in Nazi occupation by a disgruntled soldier mother who mercilessly exploited her and a troubled former pupil and you have a lot made no secret of anger and regret bubbling around together. And, when those things combineher preference for her elder sister, it’s only a matter of time before things end in handcuffs and imprisonmentJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190987857X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Khaled HosseiniAlexander McCall Smith|title=And the Mountains EchoedThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Idris The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Timur may be brothers growing up together but that doesn't mean that they will grow up operating as an alternative to be all the sameonline 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. Nabi Katie is the servant coming out of a wealthy man but carries the secret of break up with a deed he regrets bad boyfriend, and a love that can't be acknowledgedso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Then there are 10 year old Abdullah And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and his little sister Pari; inseparable till something separates themthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, causing a rift that will haunt them both in but with some way for the rest of their livesnew characters who quickly begin to charm. They're all very different peopleKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, born of a nation of great natural beautybut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, natural wealth and the cradle of civilisation. Itthere's also always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a nation of great pain and turmoil. These people are Afghans and this is their story.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408842459</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The HeadmasterBad 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 house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's Wifepossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. 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 sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Thomas Christopher GreeneKatherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arthur Winthrop leads a prestigious Vermont boarding school (sufficiently posh for him Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to be live with a headmasterfamily who run an inn, not and being made to work there from a principal)young age. Like his father before him, and his father’s father before that, it When she hears there is what was always expected to be a hanging of him. The right thing to do. What is not some pirates in the right thing to dotown, however, is she decides to be caught wanderinggo and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, naked, through Central Park Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the middle hands of wintertwo vicious pirates. Under questioning from the police She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, Arthur is keen and then to escape them completely she runs away to talk. Not about this episodesea, perhaps, but about other things on his mind. Like his interaction with dressing as a young student that has crossed boy and joining the boundaries of an acceptable student-teacher relationshipnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. It’s as if She soon finds herself in the flood gates have been opened thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and there’s no way to shut them now before everything has come gushing outfrom there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782391711</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicole Mary Kelby1471180158|title=The Pink SuitMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In November 1963 the world was shocked by the assassination of President John F Kennedy, but the picture which brought home to us the horror of what had happened was not of JFK but of his wife Jamie Matson works in the iconic pink suitan upper-class grocery store, soaked with her husbandfor a man who's blooda control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'Let them see what they have donehas his problems', she said. IHe's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you've always assumed ll suspect that he's on the suit was new for the occasion autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - but it had she's a back story too frequent flier in the local A&E and itsometimes Bo's told not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in ''The Pink Suit'', the wrong. It was going to come to a work of historical fiction based on factshead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844089738</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony MarraB0CKD1L5JL|title=A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Chechnya 2004: Akhmed stands watching while Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the Russian 'Ministry' break into his friend Dokaa's housestrange, reclusive Bear, drag Dokaa away he is brought up far from bustling cities and set light to busy human society, in the remaining house. Shocked, Akhmed dashes over to rescue Dokaaforests of Washington's treasure: his 8 year old daughter HavaaOlympic Peninsula. Realising he has to take her to safetyAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Akhmed moves Petr goes on a journey through the child to the local hospital (or rather forest, broadcasting the shell that used to accommodate it). There, alongside a less-than-skeleton staff with no equipmentstrange, Akhmed tries to do what he can for both his new charge wild and his countrymen knowing that rarely heard voices he will not be the only person affected by his decision to careencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575574</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=GlowSarah Marsh|authortitle=Ned BeaumanA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ned Beauman has made quite After a name for himself in just bout of scarlet fever as a few short yearschild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. In 2013 Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when ''Granta'' lauded him the use of sign language was seen as one of their Best Young British Novelistssomething only savages do, he had already published two novelsEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, [[Boxerbut physically restrained from signing. From here, Beetle by Ned Beauman|Boxer, Beetle]] (shortlisted for she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the Guardian First Book Award deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the Desmond Elliott Prize) same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in 2010 and [[The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beaumana complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|The Teleportation Accident]] (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize) in 2012rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1444765515</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|isbn=1472263936|title=Bhalla StrandThe Figurine|author=Sarah MaineVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1910It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: A renowned artist brings his young bride her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to his childhood home of Bhalla Housereturn, an imposing estate on but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a remote Hebridean islandpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. The grand residence was built at Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the expense first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the local communityfamily's maid, many Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of whom were evicted her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the 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 their homes and crofts her father's Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in order plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to create this rich man’s playground. Tensions run deep him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the division between rich shrouded bodies of his dead friends and poor seems impossible to bridgeformer 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=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=<amazonuk>1908754427</amazonuk>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|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=The Girl Who Was Saturday NightSemi-Detached|author=Heather O’NeillDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The time: the 1995; the place: Quebec. The Tremblay family have espoused the cause of Quebeçois separation from English''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-speaking Canada for many years. Etienne Tremblay has been detached house, stuck in a prominent, political folk singer throughout the childhood depressing rut of Nouschka, his daughterboredom and disappointment, when Terry and her identical twin brotherFiona – glamorous, Nicolas. The young children themselves appeared on stage frequently successful and have been brought up very much in the public eyelove – move in next door. Their father is almost always absent from Despite their different outlooks on life as he feeds his selfishness on public adoration. Their mother only existed , the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for them as a name in a hit song about a one night standboth pairs. They were cared for by LoulouBut all is not what it seems, a loving grandfather lacking any influence over and their behaviourincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163324</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=J Paul HendersonShalini Boland|title=Last Bus to CoffeevilleThe Silent Bride|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Eugene Chaney III promised Nancy one thing; Alice and Seth are a promise he hoped he'd never have to delivermatch made in heaven. HoweverHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the midst of their elderly years Nancy confirms that inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the time has comewedding is planned and set. So Eugene gathers together an unlikely fellowship When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and a bus that used to belong excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to Paul McCartney celebrate this joyful day and plans a journey when Seth turns to Coffeevilleface his approaching bride, making it as much of a holiday as possible. Just one thing though: before they set outAlice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, they must spring Nancy and that may not be as easy as it sounds… even if it ''did'' sound easywho is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843443341</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The QuickeningGirls of Summer|author=Julie MyersonKatie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and Dan are on holiday in the Caribbean, but soon after they arrive arrived on the island of Antigua odd and disturbing things start to happen. Items seemingly move by themselves. Things break. People appear out of nowhere. And then, the attacks start. Rachel is petrified. Newly pregnant wasn't exactly innocent but she is worrying for her baby’s safety as well as was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her own, and she has was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a nagging feeling in while before he made any sort of physical approach to her stomach and by that the one person time she should be able to trust is the one she simply cannot. Dan is acting strangely and though she begs was obsessed by him to let them go home early, he plays down her fears. Why won’t he believe what she’s saying Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and take her seriously?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099580241</amazonuk>in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WinterAmanda Craig|title=Arms Wide OpenThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meredith loves her husband Alistair (Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the father state-of her teenage twins Jemima and Luke)-the-nation novel. This is a bit There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of a problem though as Alistair now has Charlotte, a new the day and younger model. With his new coupling in mindcapture it, Alistair decides to take crafting an image of the twins on holiday so they and Charlotte can bondcountry as it stands in one particular moment. Surprisingly Meredith agrees wholeheartedly; To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's sure that a week practically synonymous with the twins would break any fledgling relationship up. Meanwhile Meredith's own twin brother, Jack, is 'taking a break from work' which is fine but you'd think he could genre of contemporary social fiction at least take a turn visiting his dementia-bound mother… or at least Meredith would think that and regularly doesthis point. Jack isn't as responsible as she is, in fact he isn't as She has such a lot gift for weaving the ongoing issues of things as she is but Meredith knows it will all turn out ok in the end, and, after day into the incident with the dead bird lives of her characters in the bleach, she may just be right.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472101685</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Dark Horse|author=Rumer Godden|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Dark Invader was a wellway that feels natural and lived-bred racehorse and had the looks to go with it but he was disappointing in his first season in England and his owner had better uses , never making them ciphers for the money his sale could bring. He was shipped out to India, which might sound rather extreme, social commentary but was not uncommon in the nineteen thirties and there were some benefits. The main one was that he was going to a good owner who cared for his welfare and a trainer who instead fully realised that he would get most out of his horses if they were contented. His new ownerpeople, Mr Leventine, even arranged for his lad to travel out to India grappling with him and this was probably Dark Invader's greatest piece of luck. Ted Mullins not only loved the horse - he understood himissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844088529</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=The One I WasPineapple Street|author=Eliza GrahamJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In 1939, before ''Pineapple Street'' is the outbreak story of the Second World Warthree women: Sasha, a boy arrived at Harwich docksDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. He was They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Kindertransport refugee fleeing Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the anti-Semitism in Nazi Germanytribe. Benjamin Goldman would change his name to Benny Gault The problem's exacerbated when his idea that the war wouldnclan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't happen need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and he could go home to Germany came to nothingCord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but in that wasn't the meantime he was adopted by Lord reality. Darley and Lady DornerGeorgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. Six boys were to live at She's living in ''their country '' family home - Fairfleet - and be educated by a private tutor. On They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the face of it BennyGD's luck could not have worked out better, but he was hiding a secret. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910229016</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Who is Tom Ditto?Emily Critchley|authortitle=Danny WallaceOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Danny Wallace is 84 year old Edie has lived in the foremost exponent of ‘Bet Based Non-Fiction’ that I know. This same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is when facing a bloke says something daft in the pub move as her son wants to move to another house and follows through; Wallace has started bring Edie to live with his own cultfamily, his own nation and said Yes as Edie is starting to absolutely everythinglose her memory. However, some things are fine as a quirky adventure in Edie is tormented by the real worldmemory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, but following people around London and copying their every move? That sounds the worry that there was a little like stalking to me and should perhaps secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be best explored the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the world high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of fictionmemories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. In a world like Danny Wallace’s new novel ‘Who Is Tom DittoWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091919037</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=Look Who's BackThe Garnett Girls|author=Timur VermesGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=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 twenty-one and described by Margo'Hitler Youth Ronaldo! Which way to the street?s mother as 'an older man' With these words a very misguided Nazi Fuhrer asks for his first directions in the Berlin of 2011. Mistakenly believing the lad Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to be a party junior member with his own name on his football shirt, he also thinks for Oxford and having a while it is still 1945glittering career. He's soon informed of In the truthevent, but still makes some unfortunate conclusions – that they eloped and Richard took her away from the street kiosks selling Turkish language newspapers are a sign Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a Sovietwell-beating alliance between the two countries, that people eat granola bars because the war still leads to a bread shortagerespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and that people making an ironic speech bubble with their fingers Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the air is all that is left family home on the Isle of the Hitler saluteWight. But yes, after a long hiatus neither he nor our author is particularly concerned with explaining, Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: 'that man'she would never be able to leave him in charge' is back – and if he has his way he's going to be just as popular this time round…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052926</amazonuk>}}.
{{newreview|title=Something Like Happy|author=John Burnside|rating=4Then Richard left them.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=How do you pick a name for a short story collection? It seems to me the ''...and other stories'' add-on is like picking a favourite child, a promotion of one portion of the content above the rest. [[:Category:John Burnside|John Burnside]] has got a title story here, but such is the mood of the book that he seems to have nailed the matter, and picked the most apposite name. ''Something Like Happy'' could in a way be the title for practically every piece here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575590</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Brief Loves That Live ForeverDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Andrei MakineDavid F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is inspired to think 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 through his life on the girls and women he has been in love with, partly because of a time spent with an associate – a time marked remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a seemingly most unremarkable encounter with a further woman – whom he deemed had never been loved. The associategripping, you seeemotionally wounding read, had spent half his adult life in Soviet camps for political instruction – our narrator himself was an orphan in the 1960s' Soviet Union. This snappy volume takes us through episodes in several lives at different points during and since the second half of communist rule – and finally explains the import rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that unremarkable encounter…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780870493</amazonuk>I might not have lavished enough praise on it.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Single BreathLucy Ashe|authortitle=Lucy ClarkeClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eva The year is blissfully content with life1933. She has a fulfilling career in her job as a midwife The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and a happy marriage to Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the man of her dreams who clearly adores her. Her contented existence is thrown into complete turmoil whenoutside but not, early one morningwe learn, her beloved husband Jackson is swept out to sea whilst fishing on the Dorset coastinside. And not on stage, either. It seems Because there's a lot that in one fell swoopbuilds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, all of her hopes attention to detail – and dreams have been washed away into some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the coldclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, white waterand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007481365</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca HuntHeather Fawcett|title=EverlandEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There have been two expeditions 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 Antarctic island very first encyclopaedia of Everland a century apartfaeries. The ill-fated 1913 trip of DinnersWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, Napps and Millet-Bass she is primitive by today's standardsnot so good with people. The 2012 expedition So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is better equippednot sure what she has done, better prepared nor how to redeem herself and arrives at a better time of year so all bodes well put her final investigations for Decker, Brix and Jess. But despite her book back on the differences both expeditions have things in commonright track. Both groups carry secretsEnter Wendell Bambleby, some become obvious but others ''remain behind waiting her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to become discovered'Emily'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>1905490658</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=Kinder Than SolitudeThe Boy and the Dog|author=Yiyun LiSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Yiyun Li's ''Kinder Than Solitude'' opens with a death but First of all, it was the story goes back much further than that. When orphaned Ruyu arrives earthquake, deep in Beijing to stay with a distant relation to go to schoolthe ocean floor, she finds herself sharing a bedroom with which created the rebellious Shaoai tsunami and going to school with this, in turn, caused the serious Moran nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and her friend Boyangutter devastation. Ruyu is not an easy character and her arrival seems to disrupt everyone's lives even though Moran The deaths were uncountable, and Boyang look after her. However an 'accident' changes everything. All four of them live with the consequences loss of what happened either physically or mentally. Moran and Ruyu both leave China and settle in the US, while Boyang and Shaoai stay in Chinalivelihoods was widespread. The book switches between fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the events list of priorities but - six months after the past tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the presentdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007329822</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Collected Works of A J FikryChristopher Bowden|authortitle=Gabrielle ZevinMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A J Fikry Christopher Bowden's latest novel is not having a good time. Hepatient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's lost his wife to a car crashlife, and he's not making that much moneycarried out by her nephew after she has died. The book store he runs, stuck out on aunt who always provided a limb on safe harbour and a quiet island community, is too remote little bit of indulgence to turn a profit year-round, and he has just dismissed the latest publisher's rep to turn up at his door, partly because her previous counterpart, an inconsequential part of A J's young nephew had had a much more interesting life when all is said and done, than that nephew Stephen had died ever realised and he didn't know about it. But his bad time is about seems to get a lot worse, as the one thing he owns worth the most – a rare book, more valuable than his house, his business, anything – is about him an obligation to vanishfind it all out. Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704617</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Love Like BloodJennifer Mason|authortitle=Marcus SedgwickPartitions of Unity|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=One day towards the end of World War Two, Charles Jackson is dragged to a museum of antiquities just outside a newly liberated Paris by his commanding officer during their downtime. While the other looks Here at the unusual ancient artefactsBookbag Towers, Jackson finds something much more horrific – a man in a wartime bunker in the grounds, squatting over a female figure, blood on his lips that could only have come from her neckline. Years later, Jackson returns to Paris for reasons to do with his medical careerwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and finds the same man unintentional detective in the company of someone who, were he only aware of the fact[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], is to become the first when she investigated and possibly only love unravelled a series of his lifedisappearances. But thatIn 's not the only time the paths 'Partitions of Jackson and the mysterious male are destined Unity'', she sets her mind to cross – the prologue was set in the late 1960s…solving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144475193X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Will Carver|title=The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon: The No 1 Ladies' Detective AgencyDaves 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=Alexander McCall SmithJennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency belongs to Mma Ramotswe'A struggling poetry zine, I often feel that Grace Makutsi really shares equally a mom-and-pop mobile diner in these stories andthe Northern California redwoods, in this particular episodea 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, she has reached a truly lovely high point in her life. We saw her arrive to work women's track coach with a yen for Mma Ramotswebullwhips, initially standing upon the laurels a billionaire with a state-of her unheard-of 97% in her secretarial exams, and throughout the series she has developed-art S&M dungeon, both as a character and as man serving a person. She grew her role from secretary to associate detective life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(with great determination at times!s, x), she bought new shoes and sometimes conversed with themon a cheap oil painting, and then we rejoiced with her when she married Phuti and began to build a home with himan erotic art dealer in Georgia... This time around Mma Makutsi is pregnant, but the question on everyone's mind is will she ever speak to Mma Ramotswe about the baby before it arrives?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349139288</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview|author=Lesley Glaister|title=Little Egypt|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Twins Isis This is just a sample of the cast of characters and Osiris are now settings in their 90sPreposterous. As you can see, living together in Little Egypt, the English manor house where they were born and brought some keeping up. Their names are a clue to their parents' near fetish for everything Egyptian. In fact will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this near fetish leads their parents to Egypt itself, in search of a big discovery back in the 1920s, demonstrating more enthusiasm than savvy. Having left the twins in the care of the housekeeper, they never return. Isis and Osiris are now bound to the house, tied not by love or memories but dark secrets that won't let go.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190777372X</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreview|title=The Blazing World|author=Siri Hustvedt|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='All intellectual and artistic endeavours…fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof it can locate a cock and a pair of balls.' Thus we are introduced Move on to the unforgettable Harriet Burden – larger-than-life, six-foot-tall amazon artist – and to some of the novel's essential elements: musing on what makes intellectual products successful in a postmodern marketplace, feminist resentment of the overvaluing of male achievement, and an unapologetic, playful boldness with language.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444779648</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]