==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Antoinette Van Huegten
|title=Saving Max
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The one-page Prologue sees us at the scene of the crime. Two teenagers and a lot of blood - one of whom will not survive. Seems like an open-and-shut case - but is it? We then go back in time to a medical consulting room in downtown New York. Hot-shot lawyer and time-pressed, single mum Danielle is trying to understand her severely disabled son. Even allowing for the normal teenage angst and racing hormones, things are not good at home. She knows it. Max knows it. And the medical profession at large, know it. Something needs to be done before things get out of hand.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304086</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kim Edwards
|summary=In Poland in the early 1990s, a violin sings. The maestro who owns it produces such a music from it, people are forced to take note. They'd be even more amazed if she could bring herself to state exactly how the instrument came to be. For this was the work of Daniel, suffering in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stumbles, chances, half-lies, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour and engage in his real-world career. But is there a price to pay in doing something you love, just for a man you can only hate?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849016437</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bethan Darwin
|title=Two Times Twenty
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You can tell from the beginning of this novel that you're in Wales. The young Anna (as we travel back in time) is meeting what will be long-term friends, Bob and Jane. We find Anna rather proudly introducing her two young sons and Bob butting in with 'Duw, good-sized boys for their age ... Make good rugby players one day.' But the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touch.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190678423X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adrian Dawson
|title=CODEX
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I read the resume on the back cover I immediately thought that it was going to be one of those high-octane, action every second paragraph, type of thrillers. All action and perhaps very little substance. I was happily proved wrong. And very early on in the novel, as well, which was good.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956577008</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Peter Durantine
|title=The Chocolate Assassin
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the final days of the Second World War as the allied guns came ever closer a young German was sent on a secret mission to America. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyone, including the U-boat captain who took him across the Atlantic, about the nature of his mission. Fifty five years later the U-boat captain, Eric Hoest, long settled in the States, was murdered at his beach home. Samuel Grey, police detective and part-time student was called in to investigate the murder. The local police chief thought that the most likely murderer was the neighbour who had reported the crime, but Grey suspected that the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoest's background.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1451579527</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sheila O'Flanagan
|title=A Season to Remember
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet the Lodge owners, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms, the unthinkable has happened. Empty rooms. They're not used to empty rooms, at any time of the year. Normally the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jack Everett and David Coles
|title=Last Mission: the last hours of the Third Reich
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet a couple of characters living in the United States. A husband and wife and a relation of theirs called Paul. On the surface, they appear to be enjoying happy, normal lives. But all is not what is seems. We soon find out that the husband, Carl has some secrets. Pretty big ones. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - in his home, for example. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked about, or rather whispered about, with a handful of trusted 'acquaintances' over a beer or two.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mary E Martin
|title=The Drawing Lesson: The First in the Trilogy of Remembrance
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander Wainwright is the UK's premier artist. He's just won the Turner with ''The Hay Wagon'' – a painting with a luminous, moonlit landscape. He should be at the peak of his powers, but he's about to lose his muse and, more worryingly, there seems to be something wrong with his sight and the year to come is going to be traumatic. The story of it is told by his friend, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, who has pieced together what he knows, what he's heard – and used a little artistic licence to fill in the gaps. It's a most unusual story which will take you deep into the world of artists and writers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450229360</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cathleen Schine
|title=The Three Weissmanns of Westport
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with Joseph Weissmann, or Josie as he is known, deciding at the age of 78 that he no longer wants to be married to Betty after 48 years together. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences, but the truth is he has fallen head over heels in love. Betty is devastated, her life in tatters, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Irving
|title=Last Night in Twisted River
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in a log-cutters' encampment. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind of comfort - a decent job, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting it. But a pair of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to flee. They leave behind a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safety-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generations, will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted River.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tony Bayliss
|title=Past Continuous
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide of the author's son.'
Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computers. He's a bit of a whiz-kid. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit of a loner as well. He stands out at school for all the wrong reasons but he's coping with it - just. And early on in the book we meet Sophie. She's a big part of this book. She's around Matthew's age. She is bright and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Hayes
|title=Someone Else's Son
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>
}}