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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stefan MohamedJenny Lecoat|title=Bitter SixteenBeyond Summerland|rating=54|genre=General Fiction|summary=Stanly Bird is about to turn sixteen - a solitary teen in a small Welsh town, he has few friends. Unless you count his talking dog, Daryl... A splitting headache Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the eve end of his birthday soon develops into incredible powersthe occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and Stanly swiftly finds himself defending his neighbourhood, falling in lovesoldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and gaining his first real friendsher mother waiting for years for news of him. When jealous rivals As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, a mysterious figure 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 horrific evil come into play thoughrelief, Stanly finds himself cast away from home, and struggling to save everything he has come to hold dear.or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784630136</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fiona NeillOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Good GirlAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|summary= Romy is a sixth former who is unremarkable. A good student from a professional familyAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her aspiration is to become a doctorstep-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and it’s an achievable, rather than lofty goalbasically, monetary gain. Or it was. Because a video has surfaced Now Anuri is in her twenties and it shows Romy doing something that she is hardly going slowly trying to regain her confidence and to help get her life back, suing her medical school application. Or step-mother to take down the content about her future career. Or Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her future lifePhD, full stopundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. For Ailsa Most importantly, the head teachershe is desperately worried about her little sister, she has who is the double whammy new focus of trying to keep Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the school out same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of the headlines Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and protect Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her child who father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is now at a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the centre of the controversymove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. And it’s clearly all She's not worried about the neighbours’ faultdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718181271</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christina Nichol1035906708|title=Waiting for the ElectricityDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|summary=Slims Achmed Makashvili is determined We tend to leave his native Georgiathink of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. ItHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's a country buffeted and often invaded by its neighbours and plagued with lack of amenitiesto make it more manageable in the States. On hearing When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that Hilary Clinton is running a competition, she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the prize for which is Nazi occupation by a trip to the States mother who mercilessly exploited her and knowing all he has to do is overstay his visa made no secret of her preference for a better lifeher elder sister, Slims' letters to Hilary begin. Eventually he gets to the US but… Well, be careful what you wish forJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649876</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stuart PrebbleAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Insect FarmPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=I was predisposed to enjoy this book before I'd even opened the cover. It set me in mind of [[The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams]] - another tale of Perfect Passion Company is a challenged person who finds refuge dating agency in an obsession with insects. But where [[The Behaviour of Moths Edinburgh, run by Poppy Adams|The Behaviour of Moths]] focuses on two warring sisters, ''The Insect Farm'' has two brothers Ness and operating as an alternative to all the central characters: Rogeronline apps in providing a more personal, who tailored service. Ness has special needsasked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, and his devoted younger brother Jonathanas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Both boys develop an obsession, Roger with his insect farm and Jonathan Katie is coming out of a break up with a womanbad boyfriend, Harrietand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. When obsession eventually leads And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the violence of destructionIsabel Dalhousie novels, other behaviours come into play: feelings of guilt but with some new characters who quickly switch begin to the fear of capture charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and the sly acts of rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a man keen to lay the blame elsewhere.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883547</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline Vermalle and Anna Aitken (translator)Dean Koontz|title=George's Grand TourThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=George loves the Tour de France so when Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his over protective daughter goes way for an extended holiday the time is right to do it himselfhouse gets trashed. Being 83 there will have Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to be some concessionshis home, using a car rather than a bike for a start and heit'll take s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his neighbour Charles (house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a stripling at 76) with himnice person. A really nice person. He'll also take So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his mobile phone since his landline house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been diverted sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to it so no one knows 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 gonewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Yes, good luck with that George!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908313730</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caitlin MoranKatherine Howe|title=How to Build a GirlA True Account

|summary=1990 - Wolverhampton. Johanna Morrigan Hannah Masury is 14living in Boston, intelligenthaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, funny and being made to work there from a loving familyyoung age. Unfortunately When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, said family consists of a depressed mothershe decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a mostly drunk father, an older brother with issues young boy's death at the hands of his owntwo vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and three younger brothers to worry about. Well readkill her too, witty and hugely intelligent, Johanna longs for then to escapethem completely she runs away to sea, building dressing as a new version of herself boy and gaining employment joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a writer, frequently travelling to cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the drinkthick of things when there is a mutiny on board, sex and drug filled bars and bedsits from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of Londonlife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091949017</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Henderson Smith1471180158|title=The Turn of the TideMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5

|summary=Harriet Glover is well and truly over Mark after he left her standing at Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the altarsubtlety of a half brick. SheJamie's pregnant with Sir Joris Sanderson's child and he's keen to make the relationship permanentson, Bo, but ghosts from ''has hisproblems'' past return to haunt him, unfortunately at a rather important dinner party. The mystery of He'Amber' really has to be solved s asthmatic and the web of lies which surround her dismantled. Harriet is still being led astray by Tricia Harrington (or so Harriet's mother would have more you believe...) and she can't really make up her mind about 'Mr Sanderson'read, particularly when the man from MI6 is around. Shemore you's got a lot to cope with and ll suspect thathe's before we even get on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to the subject of the Prime Ministertake time off at short notice - she's daughter's wedding, which ''must'' remain secret.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845496485</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ivan Repila a frequent flier in the local A&E and Sophie Hughes (translator)|title=The Boy Who Stole Attilasometimes Bo's Horse|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you pick up a copy of this book you realise how small it is. You'll know, of course, that pockets hardly exist that are normally big not fit enough to hold what we used go to call a pocket book, but here is school. Missed shifts or the exception need to prove the rule. It's wee. The story is be away on a hundred pages. The concision is partly down time to it starting after the beginning, for we first meet Big pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and Small, two brothers, once they're stuck down a large well put in the middle of a forestwrong. Tasked with a family errand, they're trapped at the bottom of a natural Erlenmeyer flask, and even It was going to come to a desperate move cannot get either out. This is the story of the next three months in their existence, as they brave hunger, delirium, loss of language, and the brute and unstinting human selfishness needed for existencehead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271015</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James HannahB0CKD1L5JL|title=The A-Z of You and MeRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=Lying in a hospital bedPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, refusing visits he is brought up far from friendsbustling cities and busy human society, Ivo is alonein the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Only his carer After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, Sheilaand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, provides company - and she asks him to think of Petr goes on a different part of his body for each letter of journey through the forest, broadcasting the alphabetstrange, wild and then to tell a tale about each onerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857522647</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ann-Marie MacDonaldSarah Marsh|title=Adult OnsetA Sign of Her Own

|summary=At midlifeAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Mary Rose MacKinnon has settled down with Ellen Lark loses her partnerhearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, Hilary, and is raising two young childreneverything about her life changes. Opting to fulfill Living in a time when the role use of stay at home mumsign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she has placed her career as an author on hold. What follows is a bid taught to reconcile this new identity with her former idea of selflip read, but physically restrained from signing. Success From here, howevershe ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, depends Bell is working on Mary Rose facing other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up to the confusions in a complicated tangle of her pastespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473610133</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana SweeneyB0BC3YTCMR|title=The MinnowGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Diana Sweeney's 'This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Minnow'' is an Australian book aimed at Young Adults that features deathIncident happened. She was a very bright student, grief, abusea bit too nerdy if truth be told, fear and loneliness. Teenage pregnancy lies at its heart while bereavement, and trying suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to come to terms with loss, bubbles just under the surface, constantly. But donhug her in case it't be misleds contagious. This novel isn It't some earnest pedagogical attempt to convey teenage angst and elicit grave pity or understanding from the readers not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. What rescues it from mawkishness is the beautiful voice of the narrator, Tom (or Holly, if you prefer She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her real name). Tom doesn't fall prey to self-pity Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She simply describes her world as readily agreed: tutoring was something she sees it, matter-of-factgladly did at church: this was just an extension. And the fact that her view is rather unusual (she talks She went to fish, dead people his house and he raped her unborn child - and they talk back) doesn't really matter. Nothing can detract from the sheer lyricism of In shock, she even allowed him to give her voice. As a reader, you just have to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ridelift home. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>192218201X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hermione Eyre1472263936|title=Viper WineThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Venetia Stanley lives It was in Seventeeth century London1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. A celebrated beauty She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, she has had poems written in honour of herleft the family home and refused to return, but Mary and portraits painted by one of Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the leading artists first of the timeseveral annual visits. Married She grew to a handsome, kind love her grandmother and adventurous manthe family's maid, Venetia is kept in a life of luxuryDina, but was wary - and, at first glance frightened - has everything she could ever have dreamed of. Except Venetia is not happy. A woman who has made her name and fortune because of her beautygrandfather, she is convinced that her allure is quickly slipping through her fingersretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Signing a pact with an apothecary for He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his famed restorative values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena'Viper Wines red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father', Venetia is set on a dangerous paths Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581663</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Liam BrownDean Koontz|title=Real MonstersAfter Death|rating=53|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4

|summary=Lorna was 12 when she was sent home from school, watched the unfurling events of 9/11 on her TV The village is isolated and recognised her fatherpoor. It's office block aflame surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and fallingits blossom provides herbal medicines. Her fight for mental survival started at that moment and the use The black wood of alcohol to quell the memories came soon after but then she meets Danny – her life saver. Shortly after this they marry forest provides heat and Danny joins the army. He's sent to fight the monsterswarmth, roofs on homes, the fundamentalist organisationsand even gallows, which destroyed Lorna's childhoodif needed. However when what's left The fear of his unit becomes lost being buried alive is an existential superstition in the desert without foodvillage and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, water or equipmentself-indulgent, the focus changes from military victory to personal survival and those monsters are still out there…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910394564</amazonuk>lazy lout of a man is tolerated.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chigozie ObiomaB0BYF82CXT|title=The FishermenSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=This book is essentially a cautionary family tale of four brothers ''Bill and the way they react to Amanda are living in a prophecy about them by the local madman. It is alsosemi-detached house, stuck in a sense, a coming-depressing rut of-age story where Benboredom and disappointment, the young narratorwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, is plunged into premature adulthood under the most brutal of circumstances. And it is about brotherly successful and very much in love– move in next door. None of these descriptionsDespite their different outlooks on life, however, convey the fact that this book couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is written by an exciting new voice in African literary fictionnot what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957548850</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan KempShalini Boland|title=GhostingThe Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He 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 inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=Grace Wellbeck is 64 It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year- living on a canal boat old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in London with her second husband, she lives was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a relatively settled life while before he made any sort of routinephysical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him.A chance encounter with a man Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the street changes everything though - a man who is bar where all the spitting image of her first, deceased husbandgirls either worked or partied. Is he a ghost? Is Grace going mad?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251560</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicci ClokeAmanda Craig|title=Lay Me DownThree Graces

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=ItFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's New Year's Eve and something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the nightclub is pulsating with sound. The revellers heave day and swell in oceanic waves and Jack is preparing to call capture it a night, when he crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is presented skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with Elsathe genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She is small; delicate and pretty and alluringly confident - has such a heady combination gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a man like Jack way that feels natural and lived- and though he wantsin, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with every fibre of his being, to walk away, to go home and forget her, he doesn'tissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593653</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonia Honeywell152915118X|title=The ShipPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=Dystopian General Fiction|summary=Sixteen year old Lalla has spent her life in London – mostly inside her family home. Because this ''Pineapple Street'' is not the London story of todaythree women: Sasha, or any other dayDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. When Lalla was seven They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the apocalypse arrived; banks crashedtribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, flood defences failedTilda, power failed – asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the world could only focus on survivalPineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. Now They won't need any of the Nazareth Act is furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in force and without your identity card. Nominally, you don’t exist – literally, as you will be shot if you donthey had a choice but that wasn't produce the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use itso often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871498</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel PackerEmily Critchley|title=The Restoration of Otto LairdOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=''The Restoration of Otto Laird'' 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is an interesting concept for facing a storymove 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. It pitches an ageing architect against an ageing building 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 built early keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in Otto's career. When Otto makes the trip from Switzerland high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to London find pockets of memories coming back to try her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and save Marlowe house from demolitionmore in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, he takes an unwilling journey down his own past. and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751553077</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian WalthewMadelaine Lucas|title=The Complex Chemistry of LossThirst for Salt

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Deep in rural France James Kerr ''Love, I'd read, was admitted supposed to be a psychiatric clinic. His mental problems were deep light and intractableweightless 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. Superficially he seemed never to have got over Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the sudden death of his mother and sister when he was affair with a child and man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after their death his relationship with his father had deteriorated because his father refused finishing university – to speak of their lossits sorrowful end the summer after. There were additional factors too: Kerr had spent some time in Afghanistan in a secret capacity. In fact much Set against the backdrop of his life since he went to university had involved putting up a frontan 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, but doing something else in the backgroundhow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00OLMHCW2</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brooke Davis0008506337|title=Lost and FoundThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=Millie Bird keeps a notebookThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. She writes Margo was just sixteen when they fell in it all of the Dead Things love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she seescould achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. Her Very First Dead Thing was In the event, they eloped and Richard took her dog Ramboaway from the Isle of Wight. Then there were other things Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a spiderwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, a Bird… but then there Imogen and Sasha. Life was number 28lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. The twenty-eighth dead thing than Millie Bird noticed was her Dad Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958903</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Lethem1914585402|title=Dissident Gardens|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Rose Zimmer, a feisty American communist radical, takes on many good and great causes. These include everything from feminism and racism to the changing course of Stalinism in the American C.P. but most of all; her biggest causes are the people around her. The effects upon them are diverse and devastating. She often propels them to success but at the same time they feel battered and must escape according to their own needs. Her affections are real but invasive. Rose keeps a shrine to Abraham Lincoln. Rose’s self-assertion within the perimeters of the German-designed 20th Century New York suburb of Queens, a multi-cultural suburb and a planned housing development similar to Hampstead Garden City provide the setting for Jonathan Lethem’s Tour de Force.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563428</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Virginia Burges|title=The VirtuosoDavid F Ross|rating=34.5

|summary=The title character of I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'The Virtuosos Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'' is Isabelle Bryant, s Only One Danny Garvey]] a professional violinist who has earned the affectionate nickname couple of 'Beethoven's Babe'. She was the youngest-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and gave her first solo performance, of Beethoven's violin concerto, at Royal Albert Hall. 'Her violin represented another limb to her, affecting it was that precious. It felt so naturalwas a gripping, like an extension emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of her body.' It would hardly be an exaggeration to say it my main takeaway was that the violin is Isabelle's lifeI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00R07U0B0</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne TylerLucy Ashe|title=A Spool of Blue ThreadClara and Olivia

|summary=Every family has its tales which The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are told and retold and in sisters, twins no less. Identical on the Whitshank family it was outside but not, we learn, on the story of how Abby 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 Red had fallen in love one some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don'beautifult come from the classroom. A stage presence, breezya charm, yellow-and-green afternoona ''joie de vivre' in July 1959. It would usually be told on the porch of the Baltimore house which Red's father had built, but on this final time of its telling the circumstances are different. Abby and Red are aging - even the glorious house is beginning to show its age The difference between a hard- worker, and decisions have to be made about how to look after them. All the family are there, even Denny, who can generally be relied on to do only what pleases hima star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701189517</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miranda SherryHeather Fawcett|title=Black Dog SummerEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54

|summary=YesterdayEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, Sally was living she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in a rambling farmstead with the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her teenage daughter Gigibook back on the right track. Now Sally is dead Enter Wendell Bambleby, murderedher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Gigi delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is alone in going on with the world.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781859574</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Niyati Keni1398515388|title=Esperanza StreetThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=Joseph's parents send him to work for Auntie Mary and her B&B business on Esperanza Street. Over First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the years there life for Joseph goes on ocean floor, which created the way it has for countless other youngsters from tsunami and this Filipino town of Puerto, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. His mother may have died too young The result was complete and Joseph only sees his father one day a week (utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and has to suffer church for part the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that!) many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but there's - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a rhythm to the market dog outside and foreign visitors within Auntie Mary's walls that's familiar and comfortinga convenience store. ItHe wasn's t a rhythm thatdog person but the convenience store owner's been there for generations but things change, sometimes with catastrophic resultscomment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276487</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel McCleaChristopher Bowden|title=A Word Glittering with SpikesMr Magenta|rating=3.54

|summary=WeChristopher Bowden're going to follow the fortunes s latest novel is a patient untangling of two couples (or are they 'would-be couples' or 'might-have-been couples'?) as they navigate the treacherous waters of love. David Castledinea seemingly ordinary woman's first meeting with Jenny could hardly have been less auspicious: he hit life, carried out by hernephew after she has died. He didn't ''actually'' mean The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to hit her but he threw a stick for his aunt's dog to chase young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it caught her on the head. Head wounds bleed profusely and this one was no exception, so David had to take her back seems to his aunt's apartment him an obligation to clean her upfind it all out. I suppose there have been worse meetings, but it's difficult to think of one!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993025501</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick Modiano, Sempe (illustrator) and William Rodarmor (translator)Jennifer Mason|title=Catherine CertitudePartitions of Unity

|summary=The castle of Delzean's walls have always protected Emperor EliHere at Bookbag Towers, his sonswe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, sisterdominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], niece when she investigated and nephew from the ravages and poverty unravelled a series of the people in the city beyonddisappearances. However the days may be numbered as In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a burgeoning revolution has infiltrated its walls thanks to the rebel movement known as The Eyesmurder. Their plan necessitates the unwitting involvement of the spoilt, egotistical aforementioned niece, Princess Ava. Unfortunately there will be collateral damage with tragic effects.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1505631394</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HarkawayWill Carver|title=TigermanThe Daves Next Door

|summary=Battle-weary and suffering from PTSD, 40-year-old Sergeant Lester Ferris is posted Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to the island of Mancreu to mark time till detonate his retirementvest on a London tube line. With no family of his ownAs their fates overlap, Lester takes a local lad under his wing; an adolescent who lives his own life through comic books and superheroes the story is told in the hope that he can be adopted. Despite Mancreu beginning to churn with more than its customary black marketeeringbackwards order, Lester realises that he has a job on his hands, not only leading up to take care of an island that sees him as a government puppet but also convince someone that he is the stuff of heroism and to convince himself while he's at itfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099591758</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen Thompson WalkerJennifer Mason|title=The Age of MiraclesPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|genre=Dystopian General Fiction|summary=''The Age of MiraclesA 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'' was one s track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of those much-talked about books that I never got the time to read -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on its first go arounda cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... I'm not sure how I managed that, but I did. Anyway, it got debut author Thompson Walker ' This is just a seven figure deal after a bidding war sample of the cast of characters and it has dystopian themessettings in Preposterous. As you can see, so it is right some keeping up my alley and not the sort will be required! The basic premise of thing I'd usually missthis mystery story goes like this.. And so, I was happy that Simon & Schuster decided to reissue it for a YA market and even happier that they decided to send me a copy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471124851</amazonuk>B09STS96HS