|summary=Celebrated scientist (at least in his own mind) Franz Anton Mesmer is called upon to cure the blindness of 18 year old piano virtuoso and courtier's daughter Marie Theresia Paradis. Despite the unease of her parents, Mesmer installs Marie into his 'magnetic hospital' where, alongside his other patients, she settles in to a regime of treatment, including free access to Mesmer's beloved piano. Mesmer is the Paradis' last resort and so they're happy to pay for success but they come to realise that the final cost may not be entirely financial and he realises that the result may not be beneficial to all parties.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051008</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nikita Lalwani
|title=The Village
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A BBC film crew is sent to India to make a documentary about an Indian prison with a difference. There are no walls, the prisoners hold down jobs and their families live with them as a condition of acceptance. In fact, to all intents and purposes, it seems like an ordinary village which is all the more unusual when you consider that they all share the same crime category; all the prisoners have been convicted of murder. The programme makers (20-something British-born, Indian director Ray, ruthless producer Serena and ex-convict-turned-presenter, Nathan) are expecting an eventful shoot and, in return, the inhabitants are expecting a film unit exhibiting the standards for which the BBC has become world famous. Both parties will be sorely disappointed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917087</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lionel Shriver
|title=The New Republic
|rating=3
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=
Lionel Shriver adds a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal in The New Republic and immediately has it fighting for independence, taking a wry look at terrorism as well as the ethics of the international press corps. After a series of international terrorism acts, the Os Soldados Ousados De Barba, or the SOB for short, have gone quiet at the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a trace. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barrington's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killers, as it were.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anne Sward
|title=Breathless
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There are those who say that, on an individual level, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate it. Oh, if only it were so easy.
''Breathless'' is one of those that I neither love nor hate, and yet am not totally uninspired by either.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hilary Mantel
|title=Bring up the Bodies
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Thomas Cromwell is now very far from his humble beginnings. He is Henry VIII's chief minister. Katherine of Aragorn is no longer Queen. The Princess Mary has been disinherited. Anne Boleyn wears the crown and has produced a daughter, Elizabeth. But there is no sign of a son and Henry is beginning to regret his secession from Rome. We pick up from Wolf Hall during the royal progress of 1535 and from there, we chart the destruction of the new Queen.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007315090</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Martin Kohan
|title=School for Patriots
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=There's a fair chance that if you pick up a South American novel, it's going to score quite highly on the 'seriously odd' scale. Martín Kohan's School for Patriots, translated by Nick Caistor, doesn't disappoint in that regard. The main character, María Teresa, is an innocent, shy teaching assistant at a Buenos Aires school that is run on military academy style discipline. The running of the school is itself something of a surprise but that's not what makes this strange. What ramps up the 'odd' factor here is that she spends vast amounts of this short novel hiding in the boys' loo, ostensibly to catch young boys smoking despite there being no evidence that any student has contravened this rule in this location. One might say she has nothing to go on. Then again, best not in the circumstances.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687438</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alonso Cueto and Frank Wynne (translator)
|title=The Blue Hour
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Adrian Ormache, middle class Peruvian lawyer, has a beautiful wife, two daughters of the sort to make any parent proud and a comfortable lifestyle. His parents divorced when he was small so, as he lived with his mother, he has fragmented memories of a gruff, distant dad. Despite his father's aloof, dictatorial manner, Adrian has always comforted himself with the fact he played a useful role as a land-bound naval officer, fighting Senderista terrorists for the good of Peru. After the death of his mother everything changes. Adrian finds documents that lead him away from his beliefs, towards a truth that will shatter more than his father's image.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019410</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fannie Flagg
|title=I Still Dream About You
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=
At the age of 60, Maggie Fortenbury's glory days seem to have passed her by. An ex-Miss Alabama, she headed for the fame she dreamt of in 'the Big Apple' and ended, instead, making disastrous life choices that took her along a different route. However she had made one good decision: to work for the diminutive Hazel Whisenkott, midget and founder of Red Mountain Realty. Now, as Hazel is dead, and despite her friendship with her colleagues (obese, optimistic Brenda and moaning Ethel), suicide seems the next logical step. It has to be done correctly as Maggie comes from an era when you wouldn't want to let anyone down or any commitment unfulfilled. Therefore picking her final day becomes increasingly difficult when other things get in the way, including a troupe of Whirling Dervishes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555484</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fiona McGregor
|title=Indelible Ink
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Once wealthy, middle class Australian suburbanite Marie King never thought she'd be starting a new life at 59 but here she is, divorced and having to sell the marital home. Unfortunately, attached to the marital home is the marital garden into which Marie didn't only give life but also pour her own life. However, Marie tries to be positive and decides that if she's going to be a new person, she may as well go the whole way. This means tattoos (much to her offsprings' horror) and an unlikely friendship with tattooist Rhys. With that comes the realisation that the privileged suburb of Mossman isn't all there is to Sydney. There's much more to the city, and indeed herself, than she first thought.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857894129</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jude Morgan
|title=The Secret Life of William Shakespeare
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Books about Shakespeare vary hugely both in terms of approach and quality. Some focus on historical fact, while others play rather more loosely with the romance of his life. Fortunately for readers, Jude Morgan's books are rather more reliably excellent. What's more, he has a track record of fiction that concerns great writers, having previously tackled the Brontës (''The Taste of Sorrow'') and the romantic poets (''Passion''). So my expectations were already quite high coming into his ''The Secret Life of William Shakespeare'' - expectations that he has again surpassed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755358228</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Vann
|title=Dirt
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We're back in the mid-nineteen-eighties in a suburb of Sacramento and Galen lives with his mother on the family walnut farm. The farm's not what it was, largely having been left to its own devices since the death of Galen's abusive grandfather some years before. Galen's ''father'' is something of an unknown quantity - his mother won't even discuss who he was or tell Galen anything about him, but then she's able to shut her mind to most things which she finds unpleasant. ''Her'' mother has been moved from the farm to a nursing home - she's still quite active but her memory is going. Suzie-Q's sister, Helen is determined to get her hands on the family money for the benefit of her seventeen-year-old daughter, Jennifer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021962</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chuck Palahniuk
|title=Invisible Monsters Remix
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Don't expect this to be the kind of story that goes: and then, and then, and then.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk books, upon his first, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British success, and never got round to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it after all.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marie N'Diaye and John Fletcher (translator)
|title=Three Strong Women
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=As it says on the tin, this powerful novel revolves around three women, connected by their strength and two countries and diverse cultures (France and Africa) but also other, more subtle factors. (More of that later.) First there's lawyer, Norah, returning to Africa at the behest of her estranged father. There has never been love lost between them, mainly because her father prefers to ignore his female offspring; therefore his reason for the summons is a mystery, until... The second story is that of African teacher, Fanta, forced by an event beyond her control to leave Africa and settle in France with her husband Rudy. Then the final section belongs to Khady, widowed after three years of marriage and sent to France by her Cinderella-esque mother-in-law. As Khady's status as a childless widow is financially unattractive, it has been deemed that she would be of more use sending money back from Europe... once she has entered France as an illegal immigrant.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050567</amazonuk>
}}