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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Haraldur Erlendsson and Keith HagenbachJenny Lecoat|title= The Man Who Drew Triangles: Magician, mystic or out of his mind?Beyond Summerland|rating= 3.54|genre= General Fiction|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean'Magicians father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, mystic, or out leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of his mind?' Consider him. As the British finally free the following: 27-year-old Olaf, disembarks a flight Channel islands from his homeland, Iceland, seats himself on a broken terminal at Heathrow airportthe Nazis, and begins to meditatethe war is finally over, to reach his guidestheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Attracting But will the attention of Irish airport securitytruth come as a relief, he is eventually sectioned and escorted to a psychiatric unit.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>1785351478</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lina Wolff and Frank Perry (translator)Onyi Nwabineli|title= Bret Easton Ellis and the Other DogsAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= UpstairsAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, a flat where mother 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 daughter struggle from pay cheque to pay cheque; downstairsget her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the love nest of a dying writer and content about her last of many conquests. Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs Anuri is a multilayered testimonial battling alcoholism, failing to the writerstart her PhD, the eccentric Alba Cambóundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, gathered by Aracelishe is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the teenager upstairs. Through Aracelinew focus of Ophelia's bird's-eye viewonline empire. Can she save her sister, anecdotes unfold as told by lovers, business acquaintances (often both – for and perhaps herself and her relationship with Alba Cambó you can never know), and her father at the short stories of Cambó herself.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276649</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Danielle McLaughlinJennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and 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 father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Dinosaurs on Other PlanetsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre=Short Stories General Fiction|summary=Seeing We tend to think of Maria Callas as this book is clearly a talented author hitting Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the ground running, I will dispense with any major preambleStates. We start with When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a tale mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a daughter affected dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the emotions of online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her parents as they separate – younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the influence business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a certain school-teacher – break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. 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 motherIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's point of viewalways 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 loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. An ancient input shows how alienOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the modern day domesticity how regularthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the isolation of very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a woman can feel, as events are peppered by minor acts of destructionnice person. A really nice person. But men can be alienated too – especially one, a reluctant guest at a party So fortunately for children hosted by someone he once had an affair with – he feels Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new form of this influence in the light of another one he friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has had been sent to try and abandonhelp 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'All About Alice' – thats enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's what the wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title character wants =A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to say but has nobody live with a family who run an inn, and being made to speak it work there from a young age. When she hears there is tobe a hanging of some pirates in the town, but is it her – mid-40s she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and singlehorrified in equal measure, living with her father – Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that is most removed from they don't find and kill her dreams or her old friend too, and now child factorythen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, Marian? And we complete dressing as a lap of boy and joining the calendar with notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the wintry tale thick of things when there is a man unable to tell his work superiors mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the problems he faces at home – a new home, recently built like so many one sees while driving round Irelandocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473613701</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gary D Schmidt1471180158|title=Orbiting JupiterMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Twelve yearJamie Matson works in an upper-old Jack is informed that class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his parents will be fostering another boy – fourteen year-old Joseph. But Joseph isnproblems't like most fourteen year-olds. He's troubled: asthmatic and the more you read, the rumour is more you'll suspect that he spent 's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in juvenile incarceration for trying the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to kill his teacherpick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. And there's something else about Joseph, too: he has It was going to come to a daughterhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783443944</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tasha KavanaghB0CKD1L5JL|title=Things We Have In CommonRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=Yasmin Petr is fifteen and seriously overweight - her capacity for consuming food will amaze and sickenan orphan. She's bullied at school Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and even her own mother finds her just a little bit weird: letbusy human society, in the forests of Washington's not go into what her stepfather thinks about herOlympic Peninsula. Her father died After Bear dies and a while agobrief sojourn in human company, but Yasmin has never really come to terms and armed with his death and still has the feeling that everything would be OK if only Terry was still around. There's a girl in Yasmin's class called Alice and Yasmin is so in awe of her that she stalks her. One daypirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, in broadcasting the school playgroundstrange, she spots a man watching Alice as carefully as she does wild and becomes obsessed by the idea that the man is going to abduct Alicerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782115943</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate AtkinsonSarah Marsh|title=A God in RuinsSign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Teddy Todd never really expected to survive the warAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. As Suddenly plunged into a bomber pilot it wasn't something which you could rely on and he certainly knew the statisticsworld of silence, everything about her life changes. But - against all Living in a time when the oddsuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, he came through itbut physically restrained from signing. From here, albeit with some time spent as she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a prisoner of warsystem called Visible Speech. On balance he had a good war, but At the same time will see him married to Nancy, father to Viola Bell is working on other inventions and grandfather to Sunny ideas, and Bertie - and left with the feeling that it's more difficult to have Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a good peace than a good warcomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552776645</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessica TreadwayB0BC3YTCMR|title=If She Did ItGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Hanna and Joe had two daughters''This story is not for everyone. Iris, the elder, had done well at school and gone on to be a medical student, but Dawn had always struggled. Hanna worried that it '' Lavender Daniels was something to do with the birth three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when Dawn might have been starved of oxygen for a brief momentThe Incident happened. She was never a very brightstudent, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, bullied at school and suffered from amblyopia or lazy eyevitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. Dawn called it 'lacy eyeIt's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. In her late teens she She had a boyfriend crush on seventeen- tall, goodyear-looking Rud and old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was obviously besotted with him very good at math and brought Reggie asked if she would tutor him home for Thanksgiving, but the pair left the next morning under a cloud with Joe accusing Rud of having stolen from the house whilst everyone else . She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was outjust an extension. That night Hanna She went to his house and Joe were attacked in their beds; he raped her. Joe died from his injuries and Hanna was left severely scarred and with no memory of the events of that nightIn shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751555266</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Ransom1472263936|title=Beneath The LakeFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=3.5

|summary=The Mercer family are on the holiday of a lifetime at the somewhat remote Blundstone Lake It was in Nebraska1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. It is all She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the things a camping holiday should be; tranquillity family home and beautiful scenery in spades refused to return, but Mary and lots of good old-fashioned family funHamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. When another Her trip to the family arrive, apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the Mercers try not first of several annual visits. She grew to feel disappointed that their solitude has been encroached upon love her grandmother and do their best to keep out of the other family's waymaid, Dina, but when was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the newcomers' Junta and expected his family disharmony becomes violent and murderous, The Mercers have to uphold his values but saw no option but reason to become rather more acquainted with accommodate them than they had bargained for. And so their lives are forever alteredHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751555223</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan CoeDean Koontz|title=Number 11After Death|rating=43

|summary=There's Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a great deal of significance virus is released in the title of ''Number 11''a bio-hazard accident. It's the common abbreviation for the home of the Chancellor of the ExchequerFinding 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 well as a bus route he sits up and looks around at the outskirts shrouded bodies of Birmingham which provides a useful haven for those who his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can't afford to put the heating on at home'feel'' everything. It's also Jonathan Coe's eleventh novel. On a level more personal to the characters in the book itEverything''s also the number of floors below ground which are being added to a house in Chelsea owned by an obscenely-rich family. Even more obscene is the fact that the owner of the house doesnMichael isn't know what she wants that floor for - everything that could possibly be added (swimming pool with palm trees, wine cellar, bank vault, staff quarters...) is on the other floors or in the house itself. But Mrs Gunn wants it because she can have it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923796</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Nils Schou|title= Salinger's Letters|rating= 3|genre= General Fiction|summary=Dentist-turned-author Dan Moller is struggling, both financially and mentally, when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a pair of Americans. They offer to sweep away Moller's financial worries in exchange for his correspondence with J. D. Salinger, the elusive author of The Catcher in the Rye. What follows is, for Dan Moller, a journey to America to meet Salinger, and, for the reader, a journey through these letters into Moller's relationship with his depression, the lives of the eccentrics in his writersMichael' collective, and into Western intelligentsia ranging from Kiergegaard's writings to a psychedelic apparition of pop icons featuring Andy Warhol and Woody Allenanymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910124656</amazonuk>1662500467

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck PalahniukB0BVDC2VWH|title=Beautiful YouThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=Meet Penny HarriganThe village is isolated and poor. And letIt's hope your introduction to her is more gentle than that we have on surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the first page villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of this book, where she is being raped in front of a full court house, who – male to the bone – sit back forest provides heat and say nothingwarmth, if not whip out their camera phone. Once people take her out roofs on a gurney homes, and recognise hereven gallows, we can start from the beginning, where she is a lowly underling at a law firm, having failed too many exams to progress satisfactorilyif needed. The company fear of being buried alive is where an existential superstition in the world's richest man village and that is in legal negotiations having left the world's best and most beautiful actressreason Volushka, a drunken, and lo and behold he just happens to pick Penny to replace her withself-indulgent, even if she doesn't think lazy lout of herself as the most beautiful girl arounda man is tolerated. But what exactly is it she is wanted for, and can her apolitical style of feminism and aspirations be met?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009958767X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melissa HillB0BYF82CXT|title=The Hotel on Mulberry BaySemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=Penny ''Bill and Elle Harte Amanda are sistersliving in a semi-detached house, but they couldn't be more different. The two had an idyllic childhood, brought up stuck in the family hotel in the scenic Irish coastal town a depressing rut of Mulberry Bay. Ambitious Elle always had the urge to spread her wings boredom and disappointment, when Terry and flyFiona – glamorous, whereas her dreamy younger sister was content to stay at home successful and help her parents out very much in love – move in the hotelnext door. As time passedDespite their different outlooks on life, the sisters no longer had the close bond they once shared, especially with Elle living in London, enjoying her successful couples befriend each other and demanding role as an architectlife appears to improve for both pairs. A family tragedy brings the sisters together once more; howeverBut all is not what it seems, and family loyalties their increasingly interconnected relationships are tested as never beforefated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471127710</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John SearanckeShalini Boland|title=Prunes for BreakfastThe Silent Bride|rating=43

|summary=Edward Searancke was called up to serve his country Alice and Seth are a match made in 1940heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, not long after the outbreak of the Second World War funny; total and we hear his story from initial callutter husband-upmaterial. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, through successful, confident… and so the years of preparation for inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the invasion of France, to his eventual release as a Prisoner of War wedding is planned and return home to attempt to pick up the pieces of everyday lifeset. It's a delightful mixture of When the mundane (much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the difficulties of getting dry clothingaisle by her father, problems beaming with his feet) and the dramatic (being surrounded and captured in an orchard in Northern France pride and his life excitement as a prisoner of war) and much of the story is told through she surveys the genuine letters from Searancke congregation – their friends assembled to his wife which were handed celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his son after his fatherapproaching bride, Alice's death. John Searancke tells us world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the story of altar is, who is waiting for her to become his father's warwife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784625051</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1787636003|title=Chance Developments: Unexpected Love StoriesThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=Sometimes, if I'm in a cafe by myself, I like to watch It was the people summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around me Greece and imagine stories about their livesarrived on the island. Just a single sentenceRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, overheardnaive, can lead so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to wonderous tales take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of mystery physical approach to her and intrigue whilst I sip my cappuccino! by that time she was obsessed by him. So I was delighted to sit down to read Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= 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 the latest offering from AMS, not only because he wrote day and capture it, but because he wrote crafting an image of the country as it after looking stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at 5 different black this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and white photographslived-in, and then imagining the stories behind never making them. Who are all these ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and what are their stories? Each story is unique, and yet they all have one abiding link...lovegrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973295</amazonuk>140871468X

{{Frontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha 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 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. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Helle Helle and Martin Aitken (translator)Emily Critchley|title=This Should One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be Written the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the Present Tensetruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt

|summary= This is the first novel of Helle Helle's'Love, an award winning Danish authorI'd read, was supposed to be translated into English. It is easy to see a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from this novel why she is gaining accolades in a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her Danish homeland. The rhythmicOverlaid with later wisdom, natural flow of the narrative is mesmerising and appears narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to lull you through its sorrowful end the booksummer after. It has some lovely, spare sentences Set against the backdrop of description: an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''There were rundetails the 24-year-down cottages old narrator's deepening relationship with open doors her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and news on the radio. Gulls flocked around an early harvester in the late sun''. But mostly, familial relationships and how it is written in a modernist, almost stream of consciousness style, which I found refreshingaltered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587475</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Homer Hickam0008506337|title=Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife and Her AlligatorGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|genre= General Fiction|summary=Elsie The love affair between Margo Garnett and Homer Hickam were West Virginians 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 knew how to make their tales as described by Margo''tall s mother as the hills that surrounded them on all sides'an older man'. There is a Hickam family legend Her parents worried that has been told Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and retold so many times over having a glittering career. In the years that event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the lines between myth Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and reality have went on to become a well -respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and truly blurredholidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo'Carrying Albert Homes mind: '' is the story of a man and his wife, a sweet pet alligator and a very lucky rooster who decide she would never be able to take a road trip to Florida leave him in 1935; the year of the Great Depressioncharge''. What follows next is all completely true, well, except for the parts that are made up Then Richard left them...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000815421X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lina Wolff and Frank Perry (translator)1914585402|title= Bret Easton Ellis and the Other DogsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Upstairs, I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a flat where mother couple of years back and daughter struggle from pay cheque to pay cheque; downstairs, the love nest of a dying writer remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and her last of many conquestsaffecting it was. Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs is It was a multilayered testimonial to the writer, the eccentric Alba Cambó, gathered by Araceli, the teenager upstairs. Through Araceli's bird's-eye view, anecdotes unfold as told by loversgripping, business acquaintances (often both – for with Alba Cambó you can never know)emotionally wounding read, and the short stories rereading my review of Cambó herselfit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276649</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteLucy Ashe|title=Always ThereClara and Olivia|rating=34.5

|summary=When Dave left Plymouth to go to college in Uxbridge he met LisaThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. They sort of palled around together for a little while with Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no thought of anything moreless. Identical on the outside but not, wellwe learn, on the inside. And not on Davestage, either. Because there's part at least. The he met Jo and for a long time they were really good friends and it would be lot that builds a couple of years before they were anything moredancer. Lisa didnSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''t see it that way though: she reckoned je ne sais quoi'', that if Jo hadndon't come along she and Dave would have stuck together and made a go of itfrom the classroom. Dave and Jo's couple of years at college were markedA stage presence, if not marreda charm, by Lisaa 's regular outbursts'joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1517761239</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela HartHeather Fawcett|title=The SoldierEmily Wilde's WifeEncyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=''...none of it was realEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, until the last moment when his handand she has travelled extensively, the tips of his fingersand researched meticulously, left the tips of hers and he was gone.to write her life'' ''Turned into just another soldier.'' Ruby and Jimmy are newly-weds full of big dreams and plans for s work, the future, but all very first encyclopaedia of that will have to waitfaeries. It Whilst she is 1915 brilliant at research and the world speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the grip Great Warsmall village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, sweeping Jimmy away to fight battles in far-off Gallipoli. Ruby feels like she's in limbo; no longer an innocent child but is not quite a fully-fledged married lady. Not wanting to return home, sure what she decides to stay in Sydneyhas done, nor how to keep redeem herself occupied as she waits out and put her final investigations for her book back on the warright track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, longing for the return of her beloved husband. She rents a room from a local landlady dashingly handsome and finds a job as a bookkeeper at a Timber Merchant. Although she initially takes the job to keep herself occupied insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and earn a little moneydelight, she soon falls into a comfortable routine and starts much to enjoy her new-found independence and responsibilityEmily'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>0349410186</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice Thompson1398515388|title=The Book CollectorBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=Meet Violet. Swept off her feet by a disarming encounter with a landed gentleman and bookshop owner at a coffee shopFirst of all, it was the earthquake, she immediately falls deep in love with himthe ocean floor, which created the tsunami and is quickly marriedthis, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and almost as quickly with childutter devastation. When The deaths were uncountable, and the boy is born, however, fairly understandable doubts creep inloss of livelihoods was widespread. Is her husband hiding anything behind his assuredness – especially when she wakes in The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the middle list of priorities but - six months after the night alone? tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. What ghost is left by He wasn't a dog person but the fact convenience store owner's comment that he lost would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his first wife and baby in childbirth? What should she understand from her own opinions about her new life, her new life's life, car door and Tamon the idea of a nanny looking after it? Just what is going on dog jumped in her new country pile?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630438</amazonuk>.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie DuffyChristopher Bowden|title=Bright StarsMr Magenta|rating=3.54

|summary= I fell into this Christopher Bowden's latest novel from the first short chapter, set in 1983, at Lancaster University – perhaps because I grew up in the 1980is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman'slife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The central character and first person narrator, Cameron Spark, comes across as vulnerable, shy and unassuming, and at first, likeable. As the novel progressed, however, I did find him less plausible aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit wet and annoying. He falls in mad love with Bex right at the beginning of the book, who is indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting character, being a feisty, feminist, fox-hunting activist and saboteur. Cameron is clearly besotted life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and therefore biased in his affection for Bex, and you can sense that this is going it seems to get him into deep trouble from the startan obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079840</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack WilsonJennifer Mason|title=In FidelityPartitions of Unity|rating=34

|summary=Dick Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and Christine Blodgett were only 22 when they got married unintentional detective in 1955. As the novel opens in 1974[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], it's clear their relationship is now precarious. A brief allegorical prologue, echoing Heraclitus, warns that when she investigated and unravelled a crisis will change the course series of the marriage irrevocably: disappearances. In 'one day there was a storm…and the stream never returned to the [channel] it had known before.' The title Partitions of Chapter 1, Unity'A Premonition of Danger', reinforces that sense of foreboding. Driving on dark, icy roads, Dick and Christine fret about she sets her health: mind to solving a dental procedure revealed a serious problem with her gums for which she will soon need a biopsymurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784623830</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jolien JanzingWill Carver|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 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>}}{{newreview|author=Jojo Moyes|title=After YouDaves Next Door

|summary=After writing the massively popular ''Me Before You'', all of Jojo Moyes' readers were clamouring for moreFive strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. Having been on the edge of our armchairs during the storyAs their fates overlap, we all wanted to know what happened to Lou next. Would she be okay? Would she live her life with passion? Where would she go next? So the arrival of this story is a special treat, as it continues the tale of Lou, although perhaps not in the way we had imagined…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718179617</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mike Bullen|title= Trust|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 told in love. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motionsbackwards order, and they're staying together for leading up to the sake of their troubled teenage sonfateful moment. 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|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Menna Van PraagJennifer Mason|title=The Dress Shop Of DreamsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=54

|summary= Cambridge is ''A struggling poetry zine, a city of winding streets and cobbled alleyways mom-and -pop mobile diner in such the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a street you will find A Stich In Timeyen for bullwhips, a tiny dress shop filled to bursting billionaire with dresses that will take your breath away. Etta Sparks spends her days crafting gowns from jewela state-coloured velvets and beaded silks that are unlike any dresses you have seen before; once you try one of Etta'-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s creations , x), on - and with a few stitches from her expert and rather magical needle - these incrediblecheap oil painting, amazing garments have an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of the power to reach within your soul cast of characters and extract your deepest desire and hidden-away dreamssettings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749018720</amazonuk>B09STS96HS