Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dido Butterworth and Tim Flannery
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|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD
|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish
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|title=Nowhere Man
|rating=3
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|author=Deborah Stone
|genre=Historical Fiction
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|rating=4
|summary=Meet Archie Meek. He's about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived for the last five years, and return to Sydney, where he'll take his office in the museum and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickled. That's not to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his body. But what's this?  When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished.  Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?
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|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>
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|summary=In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kate Hewitt
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|isbn=1739526910
|title= Rainy Day Sisters
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|title=Where I've Not Been Lost
|rating= 5
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|author=Glen Sibley
|genre= General Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Amateur artist Lucy Bagshaw isn't exactly living the American dream; she lives in Boston with her overbearing mother and works as a barista in a coffee shop, but things are about to get a lot worse. Her mother, a famous and controversial artist, writes an scathing editorial, publicly insulting Lucy's artwork just before her first exhibition. The editorial quickly goes viral and a humiliated Lucy flees the country, unsure of where her life is heading. She runs away where nobody can find her; a sleepy Cumbrian village by the sea, where her estranged half-sister runs a boarding house. Lucy quickly questions the wisdom of her decision when she receives a frosty welcome from her sister in a village that seems permanently cold, wet and rainy. Should Lucy try and make a new life for herself here, or should she return to Boston and face her demons?
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|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0451475585</amazonuk>
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|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Winman
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|author=Jenny Lecoat
|title=A Year of Marvellous Ways
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|title=Beyond Summerland
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|rating=4
 +
|genre=General Fiction
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|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation.  During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him.  As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him.  But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war?  Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio?  And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?
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|isbn=1846976537
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Onyi Nwabineli
 +
|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across the landscape with her binocularsShe has a feeling something will happen and soonElsewhere American Francis Drake (he's heard all the jokes!) has come home from the war and looks up the girl he left behind with results that are beyond his nightmares but will feature in them.  Marvellous' and Drakes' lives will cross and then – Marvellous is right – something will happen.
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|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 gainNow 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 herAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soMost 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Bourne
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|isbn=1529153298
|title=Two Lives
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|title=The List of Suspicious Things
|rating=3.5
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|author=Jennie Godfrey
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One late afternoon in January 2012, Emma Elliot and Loretta Davidson's lives collide – along with their cars. Both are running late and driving too fast along this Surrey road. Emma is unharmed and flees the scene. Little does she know that this incident will have long-term consequences further down the line. For Loretta, the effects are more immediate. A social worker in her forties, she has taken a career break to raise her and Martin's beloved son Ethan, born after an arduous IVF cycle just over four years ago. Ethan is in critical condition after the car accident and dies during surgery. In her grief, Loretta turns to Scotch and Valium and drifts away from her husband and their families.
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Val Hennessy
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|isbn=1035906708
|title=Not Far From Dreamland
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|title=Diva
 +
|author=Daisy Goodwin
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barrier.  What Ronald ''has'' got is a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'the shack'), a dog who is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supply.  On the plus side he has friends, mostly platonic and usually in much the same boat as RonaldBut are they downhearted?  Well, they are occasionally, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble sales''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story of a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relatives.
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|summary=We tend to think 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 thirteenHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the StatesWhen 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jo McMillan
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|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Motherland: A Novel
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|title=The Perfect Passion Company
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jess is a teenage Communist which isn't a surprise since she comes from a Communist familyHer late father was a card carrying member and Jess spends her weekends selling ''The Morning Star'' with her equally enthused mother Eleanor.  It's not only a thankless task, it's not a very welcome sight for some citizens in their native Tamworth of the 1970sHowever Eleanor and Jess' lives are about to change, thanks to an all-expenses paid trip to the GDR – Communist East Germany; a place on the same side of the Berlin Wall as Jess' and Eleanor's hearts.  However, they both learn that even a political heaven has its lessons and, indeed, its downside.
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|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service.  Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a whileKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to EdinburghAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel 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 always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473611997</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1846976596
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Eve Chase
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|author=Dean Koontz
|title= Black Rabbit Hall
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|rating= 5
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|rating=4.5
|genre= General Fiction
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|genre=Paranormal
|summary=At Black Rabbit Hall, time goes “syrupy slow.” None of the clocks work properly, but an hour at Black Rabbit is said to last twice as long as a London one, and you don't get a quarter of the things done. Every holiday, the Alton family swap the hustle and bustle of London life for this secluded Cornish retreat, a place that is theirs and theirs alone.
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|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house!  The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck.  He is a nice person.  A really nice person.  So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person.  Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718182979</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662500491
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michelle Miller
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|author=Katherine Howe
|title=The Underwriting
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|title=A True Account
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Todd Kent is young, rich, stupidly handsome, and well on his way to the top of Wall Street. When a new dating app called “Hook” decides to go public, Todd is handpicked by Hook’s eccentric founder to lead the project team.  
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|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch.  Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.
Taking brainy analyst Neha, spoilt party-boy Beau, and old flame Tara Taylor with him – the team find themselves thrust into the hectic circumstances of a $14 Billion deal. As Silicon Valley and Wall Street clash, the death of a young girl will find the team at odds with each other – and spinning wildly out of control.  
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|isbn=0861547438
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182974</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Alena Graedon
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|isbn=1471180158
|title= The Word Exchange
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|title=Maybe Tomorrow
|rating= 3.5
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|author=Penny Parkes
|genre= General Fiction
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|rating=4.5
|summary=Welcome to the world of the ''Meme''; the next-generation mobile device. Imagine technology so sophisticated that it could anticipate your needs as soon as they come into your mind. Need to get home? Your Meme will hail a cab. Feeling unwell? The Meme has an app for that. Negative thoughts? The Meme will intercede on your behalf to call family and friends or even 911, if needed. Yes, the Meme is a truly indispensable aid that has revolutionised the way that humans communicate. Critics say that it's destroying human language and verbal interaction, but don't worry: the Meme has an app for that too. If you are lost for words, the ''Word Exchange'' will supply you with the word you require. For a small fee of course...
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|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780225628</amazonuk>
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|summary=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's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum.  Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in 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 pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head.
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Cornelius Medvei
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL
|title=The Making of Mr Bolsover
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|title=Radio Free Olympia
 +
|author=Jeffrey Dunn
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Andrew Lynch. He's a graduate civil servant, then he isn't.  He's married, then he isn't.  He's a librarian, then he isn’tHe starts, of all things, to live in a handmade camp in the Sussex countryside, and gets a job writing nature notes for a local magazine – until it's clear he's shooting, killing and eating too many of his subjects for his audience's tastes.  He turns his efforts to writing politicised letters to the local newspaper, where his nephew is a jobbing hack, which inspires further, more campaigning activities. Yes, it seems that Andrew Lynch's path to the top is foretold – but his fate is most definitely anything but natural…
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|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic PeninsulaAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548690</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alison Jean Lester
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|author=Sarah Marsh
|title=Lillian on Life
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|title=A Sign of Her Own
|rating=4.5
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lillian is in her late fifties, single and childless but you shouldn't - for a moment - allow yourself to think that she has a rather sad lifeShe's lived through periods of tremendous change in post-war Munich, Paris, London and she's now come to rest, smart and independent, in New YorkBorn in a time when the expectations of her parents - and of society - were fairly standard as to what a woman should do with her life, she seems always to have had a sense that she would disappoint both if she was to be true to herselfShe's hot blooded and sexually uninhibited and certainly ahead of her time in her viewsWhen we first meet her she's waking up next to her married lover and taking stock of her life. Amongst other things.
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|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearingSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changesLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signingFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible SpeechAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549520</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035401614
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robert Crompton
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|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Bunderlin
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|title=Good Girls Die
 +
|author=Ayura Ayira
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As a child Martin had been fascinated and entranced by his neighbour Mrs Bundy's household menagerieHer son Peter was there too but on the periphery; Martin was just there to visit the animalsIn adulthood their paths cross again but this time Peter Bunderlin (as he's now known) isn't so easy to avoid – and Martin's tried! Perhaps if Martin could understand what the heck Peter is up to?
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|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784078549</amazonuk>
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Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened.  She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious.  It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white.  She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her.  Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor himShe readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extensionShe went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.
 
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{{newreview
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|author=Eve Makis
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Spice Box Letters
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|isbn=1472263936
|rating=4.5
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|title=The Figurine
 +
|author=Victoria Hislop
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Katerina's Armenian grandmother Mariam dies leaving her and her mother a journal in Armenian and a spice box full of mysterious lettersThey're special to them both because they're the legacy of a much loved relative but totally indecipherable to the monolingually English pairHowever a holiday abroad to get over a recent break up brings a random encounter for KaterinaWhen Katerina meets Ara she also meets the key to her grandmother's secret past.
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|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece.  She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritageHer trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits.  She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis PapagiannisHe was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate themHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910124087</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robert Crompton
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|author=Dean Koontz
|title=Leaving Gilead
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|title=After Death
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=General Fiction
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|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.
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|isbn=1662500467
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH
 +
|title=The Grave Listeners
 +
|author=William Frank
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Sparrow finally does what he's always dreamt of: buying the former Ridley house near his old childhood home. As Tom explores he finds his new house isn't the only link with his past. There's something in the outhouse that takes him back to the days of young love and Susan, the Ridley's daughter.  She had been raised in her parents' prohibitive faith as a Gilead Jehovah's Witness which didn't seem a problem to them but they were young and experience wasn't on their side…
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|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784077623</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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|author= Emma Craigie
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{{Frontpage
|title= What Was Never Said
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|isbn=B0BYF82CXT
 +
|title=Semi-Detached
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= This story is narrated by Zahra, a teenage girl who spends her early years in her home country of Somalia before her family move to the UK to escape civil war. Inevitably, some traditions travel with them and in the novel Zahra recounts her efforts to protect herself and her younger sister, Samsam, against FGM, a practice that claimed the life of her older sister in Somalia several years previously. Zahra intersperses her account with flashbacks to Somalia and the civil war that drove them away, thus giving a clear picture of the trials that she and her family have faced.
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|summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178072179X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= David Finkle
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|author=Shalini Boland
|title= The Man With The Overcoat
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|title=The Silent Bride
|rating= 3.5
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|rating=3
|genre= General Fiction
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Why would anyone - he was soon to ask himself innumerable times - take a coat from a complete stranger only because it had been offered?'' Skip Gerber steps off the elevator after a long day at work; the foyer of his office building is busy and buzzy and he does not notice the man holding the overcoat until the man hands it to Skip telling him to ''take very good care of it''.  Skip unthinkingly grasps the coat and before he has the chance to realise what he is doing - and that he is now holding an overcoat of unknown providence - the man disappears out of the exit door to the building.
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992618525</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662507089
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fredrik Backman
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|isbn=1787636003
|title=My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises
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|title=The Girls of Summer
 +
|author=Katie Bishop
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Every 7-year-old needs a superheroThat's just how it is…'' and for Elsa it's her Gran.  When Gran dies, Elsa is surprised and devastatedGranny can't be old - Elsa has only known her for 7 years!  Elsa still has to carry out Gran's last wish though; there are letters to be delivered and with each delivery Elsa learns something more about Gran the person behind Gran the superhero. Will it enforce her hero status or destroy it?
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|summary=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-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than waryIt was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by himAlistair 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444775839</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Neil Smith
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|author=Amanda Craig
|title=Boo
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|title=Three Graces
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Oliver Dalrymple is dead.  He realised this the moment he woke up in the rebirthing bed. His friends and tormentors had always called him Boo because of his ghostly pale complexion and now he's finally earned the nickname fully.  What he hasn't realised is the way in which he died; he thinks he died of holey heart problems in front of his locker while reciting the periodic table. The location is correct but, meeting Johnny (an equally dead former classmate) reveals, he was actually murdered.  What's worse, their murderer has been spotted there in 13 year olds' heaven.
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|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 day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it 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 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 lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023493</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 140871468X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Minette Walters
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|isbn=152915118X
|title= Cellar
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|title=Pineapple Street
|rating=4
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|author=Jenny Jackson
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= To my mind, ''The Dark Room'' is the most perfect psychological thriller ever written (and I've read lots in this genre). In her later works, Minette Walters seemed to veer away from this particular path to glory as her novels became steadily darker and with increasingly dislikeable characters. So it was quite refreshing to discover that ''The Cellar'' was written from the point of view of a rather likeable protagonist. Muna is an African child living in, shall we say, somewhat unusual and very cruel conditions: she was stolen and now lives in captivity. Her voice is compelling and from the first page I found myself wanting her to make good her escape from the dreadful - and sadly all too believable - circumstances in which she finds herself. So, naturally, I admired her cunning and resourcefulness, knowing that these attributes would serve her well. But, of course, this is Minette Walters and nothing is as simple as it first appears. As the story unfolded I found myself questioning who exactly were the victims and who, if anyone, was innocent.
+
|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'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099594641</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Naomi Novik
+
|author=Emily Critchley
|title=Uprooted
+
|title=One Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Many years ago, in a village deep in Eastern Europe, the locals live a life of relative peace and happiness - knowing to always avoid the wood that borders their land, and safe in the knowledge that they are guarded by a powerful wizard - the Dragon. Aware that he is the one thing keeping them safe from the dangers of the wood, the villagers take part in a ritual called 'The Choosing' every ten years - when a young girl is sent to serve the wizard for a decade.
 
Agnieszka is of age for the choosing, but nobody fears that she will be picked - her best friend Kasia is pretty and graceful, and sure to catch the eye of the immortal Dragon. However, Agnieszka is not aware of the talents she holds that may attract the wizard - talents that the safety of the entire kingdom may come to depend on for their survival...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447294130</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Barbara Lamplugh
 
|title=Secrets of the Pomegranate
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Crime
|summary=Home in Bristol, Alice gets the news from her sister's partner, Paco. Her sister, Deborah Hardy, was on board one of the trains bombed at Madrid's Atocha station on 11 March. No one can yet confirm whether she is alive or dead. Deb had moved to Granada nearly 20 years ago, after her divorce from Mark's father, and was starting to make a name for herself as a scholar of women in Andalusia's history. Alice and her nine-year-old son Timmy fly to Spain to find that Deb is alive, but in a coma in hospital. Over the weeks she keeps vigil for Deb, Alice lives in her sister's home in Granada and reads her diaries, which proves to be a way of feeling closer to her and learning more about her than she ever knew. Meanwhile, Mark and Paco keep their distance, working through their complicated grief in their own ways.
+
|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 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 truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781323690</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1804181250
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Menna Van Praag
+
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=The House At The End Of Hope Street
+
|title=Thirst for Salt
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Alba Ashby is a wallflower of a girl; studious, bookish and excruciatingly shy, so when tragedy wields its ponderous bolt, she is less able than most to adjust to life as she now knows it. In one of her midnight walks around historical Cambridge, she finds herself at the door to Number 11 Hope Street.  It is house that she has never before seen; quirky and turreted with a wild garden and grandly Victorian in hue and Alba is enchanted by it.  So she does something that she would never normally do, in a million years.  She knocks on the door.
+
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749018623</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.
 +
|isbn=0861546490
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Sara Gruen
+
|isbn=0008506337
|title=At The Water's Edge
+
|title=The Garnett Girls
 +
|author=Georgina Moore
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An indiscretion at a party causes Ellis Hyde's parents to disown him, coming, as it does, hot on the heels of his father not understanding why Ellis has been turned down for war serviceTo prove he's not a coward, Ellis, his new wife Maddie and best friend Hank leave the US for ScotlandHe's determined they will succeed where Ellis' father failed years before: they will find the Loch Ness monsterMaddie isn't as convinced but then she also thinks she knows EllisShe and the locals at the inn where they're stranded by the global conflict will discover a lot more about him, and indeed themselves.
+
|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides.  Margo was just sixteen when they fell in loveRichard 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 could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career.  In the event,  they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of WightMargo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist.  The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and SashaLife was lived in London and holidays 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's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473604702</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Then Richard left them.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
 
|author=Sarah Leipciger
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Mountain Can Wait
+
|isbn=1914585402
 +
|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead
 +
|author=David F Ross
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Berry is a quiet man - one who lives for and in nature, spending a half of his year running a small team in remote, isolated forests. The other half he spends tending to his family - a small group whom he brought up almost single handedly, following the departure of his wife.  A good, determined man, we learn of Tom's life running forestry teams in remote wilderness, before an accident forces Tom to leave his routine and seek out his son - and both become troubled by the events of the accident, as well as ghosts of the past that may cause more pain than either man had anticipated.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472223896</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Elizabeth Renzetti
+
|author=Lucy Ashe
|title=Based on a True Story
+
|title=Clara and Olivia
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=Augusta Price, middle-aged, washed up, substance-addicted actress has just left rehab for the innumerable time. Her only friend in the world is her equally washed-up former mentor. Augusta has recently received a sudden upsurge of interest and income when her tell all memoir became a baffling best-seller. Frances Bleeker is an American journalist who came to London with high hopes, that were quickly dashed by the reality of the British magazine market. The two meet when Frances is sent to interview Augusta about her book where Frances realises there’s far more to the story of Augusta’s life than she’s cared to put in words. Needless to say, young, optimistic Frances and self-obsessed, drunk Augusta don’t exactly hit it off at once. But when Frances loses her job and Augusta needs a ghost writer for her new book, the two offer each other a lifeline ... or enough rope to hang themselves. As Frances will learn by delving into her past, people close to Augusta don’t come away unscathed.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782395539</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Xavier Leret
 
|title=The Romeo and Juliet Killers
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is a book that suggests love across the tracks – all the while making the reader ask 'just how chuffing wide are those tracks supposed to be?!'  Franky is a hard-done-by schoolboy, whose ultra-Catholic parents are stifling him in all aspects of life, so much so it's likely that when he gets into trouble by witnessing some porn on a friend's mobile phone at school it was really the hardware that he was gawping at in amazement.  Hardware is nothing to Daizee, the underage street hooker, who knows what hard stuffs she likes and what she doesn't, and what her punters – and her mother, back when they had a connection – enjoyed, or needed, en route to it.  Their unlikely connection is the subject of this gritty novella.
+
|summary=The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the 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 some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910213187</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0861544080
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Pascal Garnier and Melanie Florence (translator)
+
|author=Heather Fawcett
|title=Boxes
+
|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Brice.  He's an illustrator, who had picked an ideal house in the country with his journalist wife, only for her to disappear assumed dead on assignment abroadTherefore he's having to make the move himself, which he does – but without her at the other end he finds it hard to kick his new life into gearYes, a cat adopts him, and he gets to know the names of some new people, but that's it.  What's more, one of those people is Blanche, attired most suitably in all-white, who herself is missing someone – someone of whom Brice is the spitting image…
+
|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries.  Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with peopleSo when she finds herself far, far North in 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 book back on the right trackEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477044</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356519120
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Kevin Maher
+
|isbn=1398515388
|title=Last Night on Earth
+
|title=The Boy and the Dog
 +
|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Baby Bonnie is born in London in 1996 to Jay and Shauna but her traumatic birth and the aftermath causes the previously happy couple to separateJay looks back searching for how he got to this point and Shauna looks for answers in psychotherapy with a less than orthodox Danish analyst. Meanwhile both share Bonnie and worry about where they go from here. 
+
|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown.  The result was complete and utter devastation.  The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread.  The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience storeHe wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408705079</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
 
|author=Tina Seskis
+
{{Frontpage
|title=When We Were Friends
+
|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=5
+
|title=Mr Magenta
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Six friends meet at Bristol University; six very different people from six very different backgrounds. Six lives intertwined in an assortment of ways… break-ups, marriages, careers, motherhood and bereavement; until one night six become five.
+
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405917954</amazonuk >
+
|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Michael Laub
+
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Diary of the Fall
+
|title=Partitions of Unity
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Diary of the Fall is a story about regret, guilt and resentment. It's told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, who reflects on not just his own life but also the lives of his father and grandfather.
+
|summary= Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581795</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=James Wilson
+
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Summer of Broken Stories
+
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=England 1950: Soon-to-be-10, Mark Davenant is a typical lad with a typical lad's life.  He loves adding to his model train layout, he plays with his mates and walking best friend Barney the dog. It's on one such walk he comes across Aubrey, an elderly writer living in the forest.  They build a friendship based on shared stories and imaginings.  Not all in the village are accepting though and, when they try to drive Aubrey out, Mark feels himself torn between old loyalties and new.
+
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883571</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
+
}}  
 +
 
 +
Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 10:43, 30 September 2024

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Review of

Nowhere Man by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life. It's horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. Full Review

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Review of

Where I've Not Been Lost by Glen Sibley

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities. Full Review

1846976537.jpg

Review of

Beyond Summerland by Jenny Lecoat

4star.jpg General Fiction

Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation? Full Review

0861546873.jpg

Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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? Full Review

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Review of

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

5star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

Diva by Daisy Goodwin

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

We tend to think 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. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Full Review

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Review of

The Perfect Passion Company by Alexander McCall Smith

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a 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 Isabel 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 always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand… Full Review

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Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review

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Review of

A True Account by Katherine Howe

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Full Review

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Review of

Maybe Tomorrow by Penny Parkes

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in 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 pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head. Full Review

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Review of

Radio Free Olympia by Jeffrey Dunn

4star.jpg General Fiction

Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. Full Review

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Review of

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

3.5star.jpg General Fiction

After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she 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, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Full Review

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Review of

Good Girls Die by Ayura Ayira

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

This story is not for everyone.

Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. Full Review

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Review of

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop

5star.jpg General Fiction

It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and 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 first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. Full Review

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Review of

After Death by Dean Koontz

3star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

B0BVDC2VWH.jpg

Review of

The Grave Listeners by William Frank

4star.jpg General Fiction

The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. Full Review

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Review of

Semi-Detached by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Full Review

1662507089.jpg

Review of

The Silent Bride by Shalini Boland

3star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop

5star.jpg General Fiction

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-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. 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. Full Review

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Review of

Three Graces by Amanda Craig

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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 day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it 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 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 lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves. Full Review

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Review of

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

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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'. Full Review

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Review of

One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley

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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 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 truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever? Full Review

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Review of

Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity

Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town Thirst for Salt details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. Full Review

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Review of

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

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The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays 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's mind: she would never be able to leave him in charge.

Then Richard left them. Full Review

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Review of

Dashboard Elvis is Dead by David F Ross

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

I reviewed David F Ross's book 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. Full Review

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Review of

Clara and Olivia by Lucy Ashe

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The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the 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 some things, that je ne sais quoi, that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a joie de vivre. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. Full Review

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Review of

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in 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 book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much 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? Full Review

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Review of

The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in. Full Review

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Review of

Mr Magenta by Christopher Bowden

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Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. Full Review

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Review of

Partitions of Unity by Jennifer Mason

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Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in Preposterous, when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In Partitions of Unity, she sets her mind to solving a murder... Full Review

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Review of

The Daves Next Door by Will Carver

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Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment. Full Review

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