Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->[[Category:Authors|Schou, Nils]]{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukJenny Lecoat|title=Beautiful YouBeyond Summerland

|summary=Meet Penny HarriganJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. And letDuring the war, Jean's hope your introduction father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her is more gentle than that we have on mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the first page of this bookNazis, where she and the war is being raped in front of a full court house, who – male to the bone – sit back and say nothingfinally over, if not whip out their camera phonehopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Once people take her out on But will the truth come as a gurney and recognise herrelief, we can start from or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the beginning, where she is a lowly underling at a law firm, having failed too many exams to progress satisfactorily. war? The company is where Who was the world's richest man is in legal negotiations having left informer who told the world's best and most beautiful actress, and lo and behold he just happens to pick Penny to replace her with, even if she doesn't think of herself as Nazis about the most beautiful girl around. radio? But And what exactly is it she is wanted for, and can her apolitical style of feminism and aspirations be metother secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958767X</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melissa HillOnyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The Hotel on Mulberry BayList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45

|summary=Penny It's 1979 and Elle Harte are sistersMargaret 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 they couldnto have 'disappeared' doesn't be more differentsound quite so frightening. The two had an idyllic childhood, brought up in Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family hotel in the scenic Irish coastal town of Mulberry Bay'Down South'. Ambitious Elle always had the urge to spread her wings and fly When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, whereas her dreamy younger sister was content to stay at home and help her parents out in the hotelbest avoided. As time passed For Miv, the sisters no longer had the close bond they once sharedmove would mean leaving her best friend, especially with Elle living in LondonSharon, enjoying her successful and demanding role as an architectshe'll do anything to prevent that. A family tragedy brings She's not worried about the sisters together once more; however, and family loyalties are tested as never beforedangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471127710</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Searancke1035906708|title=Prunes for BreakfastDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=Edward Searancke We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was called up born to serve his country Greek parents in 1940, not long after the outbreak of the Second World War and we hear his story from initial call-upManhattan, through the years of preparation for the invasion of FranceNew York, to his eventual release as a Prisoner of War in December 1923 and return home only moved to attempt to pick up the pieces of everyday lifeAthens when she was thirteen. ItHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's a delightful mixture of the mundane (the difficulties of getting dry clothing, problems with his feet) and the dramatic (being surrounded and captured in an orchard Callas' to make it more manageable in Northern France and his life as a prisoner of war) and much of the story is told through the genuine letters from Searancke to his wife which were handed to his son after his father's deathStates. John Searancke tells us When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the story Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of his father's warher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784625051</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage

|title=Chance Developments: Unexpected Love StoriesThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=SometimesThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, if I'm run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a cafe by myselfmore personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, I like as Ness is planning to take a trip to watch the people around me and imagine stories about their livesCanada to get away for a while. Just Katie is coming out of a single sentencebreak up with a bad boyfriend, overheard, can lead and so jumps at the chance to come home to wonderous tales of mystery and intrigue whilst I sip my cappuccino! Edinburgh. So I was delighted And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to sit down an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to read 44 Scotland Street and the latest offering from AMSIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, not only because he wrote itor in match-making, but because Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he wrote it after looking at 5 different black and white photographsloses his fiancee, and then imagining the stories behind themhis house gets trashed. Who are all these peopleOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and what are their stories? it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! Each story The thing is unique, and yet they Benny is the very last person to deserve all have one abiding linkthis 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.love 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973295</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Helle Helle and Martin Aitken (translator)Katherine Howe|title=This Should be Written in the Present TenseA True Account|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary= This Hannah Masury is the first novel of Helle Helle'sliving in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an award winning Danish authorinn, and being made to be translated into Englishwork there from a young age. It When she hears there is easy to see from this novel why be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she is gaining accolades in her Danish homelanddecides to go and watch. The rhythmicEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, natural flow Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of the narrative is mesmerising and appears to lull you through the booktwo vicious pirates. It has some lovelyShe hides away, spare sentences of description: so that they don''There were run-down cottages with open doors t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and news on joining the radionotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Gulls flocked around an early harvester She soon finds herself in the late sun''. But mostly, it thick of things when there is written in a modernistmutiny on board, almost stream and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of consciousness style, which I found refreshinglife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587475</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Homer Hickam1471180158|title=Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife and Her AlligatorMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Elsie and Homer Hickam were West Virginians and knew how to make their tales as Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie'tall as the hills that surrounded them on all sidess son, Bo, 'has his problems'. There is a Hickam family legend that has been told He's asthmatic and retold so many times over the years that more you read, the lines between myth and reality have become well and truly blurred. more you'll suspect that he'Carrying Albert Home'' is s on the story of a man and his wife, a sweet pet alligator and a very lucky rooster who decide autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a road trip to Florida frequent flier in 1935; the year of the Great Depressionlocal A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. What follows next is all completely true, well, except for Missed shifts or the parts that need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are made upoccasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000815421X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lina Wolff and Frank Perry (translator)B0CKD1L5JL|title= Bret Easton Ellis and the Other DogsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= UpstairsPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, a flat where mother reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and daughter struggle from pay cheque to pay cheque; downstairsbusy human society, in the love nest forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a dying writer brief sojourn in human company, and her last of many conquests. Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is armed with only a multilayered testimonial to the writerpirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the eccentric Alba Cambó, gathered by Araceliforest, broadcasting the teenager upstairs. Through Araceli's bird's-eye view, anecdotes unfold as told by lovers, business acquaintances (often both – for with Alba Cambó you can never know)strange, wild and the short stories of Cambó herselfrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276649</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteSarah Marsh|title=Always ThereA Sign of Her Own

|summary=When Dave left Plymouth to go to college in Uxbridge he met LisaAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. They sort of palled around together for Suddenly plunged into a little while with no thought world of anything moresilence, well, not on Dave's part at leasteverything about her life changes. The he met Jo and for Living in a long time they were really good friends and it would be when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a couple of years before they were anything moreschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Lisa didn't see it that way though: From here, she reckoned that if Jo hadn't come along she and Dave would have stuck together ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and made using a go of itsystem called Visible Speech. Dave At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Jo's couple Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of years at college were marked, if not marred, by Lisa's regular outburstsespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1517761239</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pamela HartB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Soldier's WifeGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5

|summary=''...none of it was real, until the last moment when his hand, the tips of his fingers, left the tips of hers and he was goneThis 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'Turned into 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 another soldieran extension.'' She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.}}

Ruby and Jimmy are newly-weds full of big dreams and plans for the future, but all of {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that will have Helena McCloud made her first trip to waitGreece. It is 1915 She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and the world is in the grip Great Warrefused to return, sweeping Jimmy away to fight battles in far-off Gallipoli. Ruby feels like shebut Mary and Hamish (Helena's in limbo; no longer an innocent child but not quite parents) felt that it would be a fully-fledged married ladypity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Not wanting Her trip to return home, she decides to stay the family apartment in Sydney, to keep herself occupied as she waits out the war, longing for up-market Kolonaki would be the return first of her beloved husbandseveral annual visits. She rents a room from a local landlady grew to love her grandmother and finds a job as a bookkeeper at a Timber Merchant. Although she initially takes the job to keep herself occupied family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and earn a little moneyfrightened - of her grandfather, she soon falls into a comfortable routine retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and starts expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to enjoy accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her new-found independence and responsibilityfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349410186</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice ThompsonDean 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 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 Book CollectorGrave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=Meet VioletThe village is isolated and poor. Swept off her feet It's surrounded by a disarming encounter with a landed gentleman 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 bookshop owner at a coffee shopwarmth, she immediately falls in love with himroofs on homes, and is quickly marriedeven gallows, and almost as quickly with childif needed. When the boy The fear of being buried alive is born, however, fairly understandable doubts creep in. Is her husband hiding anything behind his assuredness – especially when she wakes an existential superstition in the middle of the night alone? What ghost village and that is left by the fact he lost his first wife and baby in childbirth? What should she understand from her own opinions about her new lifereason Volushka, a drunken, her new life's lifeself-indulgent, and the idea lazy lout of a nanny looking after it? Just what man is going on in her new country pile?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630438</amazonuk>tolerated.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie DuffyB0BYF82CXT|title=Bright StarsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=3.54

|summary= I fell into this novel from the first short chapter, set ''Bill and Amanda are living in 1983a semi-detached house, at Lancaster University – perhaps because I grew up stuck in the 1980's. The central character a depressing rut of boredom and first person narrator, Cameron Spark, comes across as vulnerabledisappointment, shy when Terry and unassumingFiona – glamorous, successful and at firstvery much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, likeable. As the novel progressed, however, I did find him less plausible couples befriend each other and a bit wet and annoyinglife appears to improve for both pairs. He falls in mad love with Bex right at the beginning of the book, who But all is a much more interesting character, being a feisty, feministnot what it seems, fox-hunting activist and saboteur. Cameron is clearly besotted and therefore biased in his affection their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for Bex, and you can sense that this is going to get him into deep trouble from the starttragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079840</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack WilsonShalini Boland|title=In FidelityThe Silent Bride

|summary=Dick Alice and Christine Blodgett were only 22 when they got married Seth are a match made in 1955heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. As the novel opens She is all he could possibly want in 1974a wife; beautiful, successful, it's clear their relationship confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is now precariousplanned and set. A brief allegorical prologue When the much-anticipated day arrives, echoing HeraclitusAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, warns that a crisis will change beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the course of the marriage irrevocably: 'one congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day there was a storm…and the stream never returned and when Seth turns to the [channel] it had known before.' The title of Chapter 1face his approaching bride, Alice'A Premonition of Danger's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, reinforces that sense of foreboding. Driving on dark, icy roads, Dick and Christine fret about who is waiting for her health: a dental procedure revealed a serious problem with her gums for which she will soon need a biopsyto become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784623830</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jolien Janzing1787636003|title=Charlotte Bronte's Secret Love|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This is the second novel by Jolien Janzing, a Dutch author who lives in Belgium. Originally published in Dutch as ''The Master'' in 2013, it is already being made into a film. The flawlessly translated story zeroes in on two momentous years in Charlotte Brontë's life, 1842–3, when she was a pupil and then a teacher at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels. I read this in tandem with Claire Harman's new biography Girls of Charlotte Brontë; it was particularly fascinating to see that the two books open with the same climactic episode: lovesick Charlotte making a confession at a Catholic church, even though she was an Anglican parson's daughter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380597</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSummer|author=Jojo Moyes|title=After YouKatie Bishop|rating=45

|summary=After writing It was the massively popular ''Me Before You'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-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, all of Jojo Moyes' readers were clamouring for moreshe was flattered rather than wary. Having been on the edge It was quite a while before he made any sort of our armchairs during the story, we all wanted to know what happened physical approach to Lou next. Would she be okay? Would she live her life with passion? Where would and by that time she go next? was obsessed by him. So the arrival of this story is a special treatAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, as it continues looking after his interests on the tale of Lou, although perhaps not island and in particular in the way we had imagined…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718179617</amazonuk>bar where all the girls either worked or partied.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Mike BullenAmanda Craig|title= TrustThree Graces|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Greg and Amanda are happy. Unmarried, but together thirteen years and with two young daughters, they are very much in love. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motions, and they're staying together for the sake of their troubled teenage son. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, and turns an unhappy couple into love's young dream. As secrets and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trust|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Menna Van Praag|title=The Dress Shop Of Dreams|rating=5

|summary= Cambridge is a city Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of winding streets and cobbled alleyways the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in such a street you will find A Stich In Time, a tiny dress shop filled to bursting with dresses that will take your breath awayone particular moment. Etta Sparks spends her days crafting gowns from jewel-coloured velvets and beaded silks To say that are unlike any dresses you have seen before; once you try one of EttaAmanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's creations on - and practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a few stitches from gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her expert characters in a way that feels natural and rather magical needle lived- these incrediblein, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, amazing garments have the power to reach within your soul and extract your deepest desire and hidden-away dreamsgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749018720</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Rendell152915118X|title=Dark CornersPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=Carl Martin was in ''Pineapple Street'' is the fortunate position story of having just had his first novel published three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and inheriting his late fatherSasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's house exacerbated when the clan 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 need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in Maida Vale. His father Nominally, they had accumulated a collection of homeopathic remedies which really should have been thrown out, choice but Carl had other things on his mind that wasn't the reality. Darley and never got round Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate itto 'the GD'. There was his girlfriend Nicola}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, work but now she is facing a move as her son wants to start on his second novel move to another house and he wanted bring Edie to let the top floor of live with his housefamily, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. Authors are not that well offHowever, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, you see and he needed some ready money coming inthe worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. In addition After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to being a bit remiss about the contents find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the medicine cabinet he should have been a bit past, she is forgetting more and more careful in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about who he took on as a tenant.Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959241</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia Franck and Anthea Bell (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=WestThirst for Salt|rating=3.5

|summary=Put yourself in the shoes of ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a young mother to two childrenlight and weightless feeling, who declares her intention to leave the Communist East Germany but I had always longed for West Berlingravity'' Told from a retrospective view, and thus loses a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her scientist job. What would you expect on Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the other side affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – shops full of attainable products, pleasant neighbourhoods, nice neighbours, an active and busy new life, where things might feel alien but at least you speak the same language? Well, for Nelly Senff, this is hardly summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the casesummer after. Once past Set against the depressing Eastern exit procedures she is confronted with more desultory interrogations from those backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'welcoming' her to details the West, beyond which she and 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her children (their fatherolder lover, whom she never marrieddepicting its all-consuming nature, is long assumed dead by the authorities, if nobody else) are practically left in a shared accommodation in a transit camp. The shops are full of what is still unobtainable, the children hate their new school – how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and people still look down on them as being foreign, even if they have only moved across a cityhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554321</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Beverley Hansford0008506337|title=The Golden AnkletGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5

|summary=Jane Carroll is becoming more The love affair between Margo Garnett and more successful as a young journalist poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on a woman's magazineboth sides. Yet, although her future looks secure, Jane would like to discover more about her pastMargo was just sixteen when they fell in love. As Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an orphan she was raised in a childrenolder man'. Her parents worried that Richard's home with no information regarding the identity of influence would take her parents apart away from what was on her birth certificatethey felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. Therefore armed with this certificate In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the help Isle of her new boyfriend BobWight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, not to mention genealogist dabbling neighbour GeraldImogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the search beginsfamily home on the Isle of Wight. However nothing is as straightforward, or indeed as safe, as Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she thought it would never beable to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784624675</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jane L GibsonLucy Ashe|title=A Different ReflectionClara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary=Eternal optimist Kat has always believed in fairytales The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and happy endings Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but cannot, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there't help but wonder where her own life went wrongs a lot that builds a dancer. Stuck in a dead-end relationship with dull workaholic JohnSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, itthat ''je ne sais quoi''s hardly the happy-ever-after , that shedon'd always hoped fort come from the classroom. Things are about to changeA stage presence, howevera charm, when Kat discovers a mysterious house that has been cursed by an enchantment; ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a handsome Regency beau is trapped within the mirrors hard-worker, and only a declaration of true love can break the spell and release him..star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784622508</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sandy HogarthHeather Fawcett|title=The Glass GirlEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54

|summary=Sandy Hogarth's debut novel opens in 1975 with fifteen-year-old Ruth Bishop attending a party with her older sisterEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, Alexis. 'They called me VLand she has travelled extensively, Virgin Lipsand researched meticulously, because Ito write her life'd never kissed a boys work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Sex wasn't mentioned Whilst she is brilliant at home.' That all changes when Alexis tells Ruth research and speaking to go outside – someone faeries, she is waiting for hernot so good with people. It's one So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Alexis's friendsHrafvsnik, a notorious bad boyhaving somehow offended the village matriarch, and he assaults Ruth right there, up against the house. Could Alexis really have intended for this to happen? Ruth soon learns she is pregnant and arranges not sure what she has done, nor how to move to Australia redeem herself and live with put her final investigations for her friend Lucy's aunt in Melbourne until book back on the birthright track. She gives Enter Wendell Bambleby, her beloved daughter Clare up for adoptiondashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, but never stops thinking about her. No one but Lucy knows there ever was a babymuch to 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>1785071548</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Boyne1398515388|title=The Boy at and the Top of the MountainDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Pierrot. As a very young child First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in 1930s Paris he is going to have a very awkward journey through his young life. His father is a violent drunkthe ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, reacting badly to what he saw in WWIturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and although married to a French woman, is still staunchly Germanutter devastation. That woman, Emilie, is going to dieThe deaths were uncountable, and leave Pierrot an orphan, which will leave him in a home where he is bulliedthe loss of livelihoods was widespread. But The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the reaches list of Europe and from priorities but - six months after the black corners of his family comes an aunt, Beatrix, who will give him a home, of tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a kind, at dog outside a most unusual mountaintop buildingconvenience store. ItHe wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's not her home – she just works there comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and had to ask special permission from someone specialTamon the dog jumped in. The place? The Berghof.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857534521</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma BurstallChristopher Bowden|title=Tremarnock: The Lives, Loves and Secrets of a Cornish VillageMr Magenta

|summary=Welcome to Tremarnock; an idyllic Cornish fishing village with pastel-painted cottages and colourful fishing boats bobbing in the harbour. This picture-postcard setting Christopher Bowden's latest novel is home to single-mum Liz and a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her disabled daughter, Rosienephew after she has died. Liz works hard to make ends meet The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and relies on the kindness a little bit of neighbours for childcare. Thankfully, the community are happy indulgence to rally round and provide friendship, support, a listening ear and young nephew had had a cup of tea for hard-working Liz. Soon she will need to rely on them much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever, as her life takes realised and it seems to him an unexpected turn that threatens obligation to destroy her happinessfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781857881</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Leigh BardugoJennifer Mason|title= Six Partitions of CrowsUnity|rating= 54|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=In The BarrelHere at Bookbag Towers, anything is possible for the right pricewe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and no one knows this better than criminal mastermindunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Kaz Brekkerwhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. When Kaz is offered a chance at a perilous mission that could turn his poverty-stricken life upside downIn ''Partitions of Unity'', he is determined she sets her mind to see the task fulfilled - but he won't be able to do it alonesolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1627792120</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dan RhodesWill Carver|title=When the Professor Got Stuck in the SnowThe Daves Next Door|rating=4.5

|summary= Two people are Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a train on London tube line. As their way tofates overlap, of all things, a WI meeting where the ladies of All Bottoms will be lectured on the non-existence of God. One of the two people story is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappie, and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''. The other is Smee, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretary'. Smee will come to the fore when the weather sets told in and the train journey has to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destinationbackwards order, Upper Bottom. Instead the pair fetch leading up at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, and to the only option for accommodation is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool non-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wifefateful moment. This clash of titanic opinions, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for a particularly English kind of farcical comedy, but one with the legs to go as far as any other Good Books have reached in the past…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910709018</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania ChandlerJennifer Mason|title=Please Don't Leave Me HerePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|genre=fictionGeneral Fiction|summary= If you like unreliable narrators then this is ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the book for you. In BrigitteNorthern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the protagonist of Please Don2004 Olympics, a women't Leave Me Heres track coach with a yen for bullwhips, Tania Chandler has created an unforgettable troubled character whose fractured mental a billionaire with a state leads to erratic thought processes-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, vivid and none too pleasant dreams and an inabilityenigmatic signature, K(s, or unwillingnessx), to recover her memory on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of her former life. None the cast of which is helped by her drink problem characters andsettings in Preposterous. As you can see, as the some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story progresses, an addiction to prescription medicationgoes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925228258</amazonuk>B09STS96HS