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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Jeremy Cooper|title=Discord|rating= 3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) __NOTOC__<!The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-- Remove -->nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jhumpa LahiriPolly Barton|title=The LowlandWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Subhash and Udayan Mitra are brothers growing up in an India growing into its post-independence status. Subhash goes along with UdayanPolly Barton's ideas but it's Udayan who's the radical, fighting against the injustices of debut novel is an elitism intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that remains once the British have left Indiauses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. Eventually they go their separate waysThe narrator, one studying abroad newly relocated from London to avoid conflict and Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the other becoming more deeply embroiledprocess of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for universality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. Life can't go on like From this forever and it doesn't but , the reverberations seem novel opens out into a wider, resonant question: towhat extent do we translate ourselves in order to be understood, affecting generation after generation as Subhash realises that the search for peace isn't always an external thing.accepted, or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408828111</amazonuk>1804272175
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Colum McCannMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=TransAtlanticThe Disappearing Act|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=In 1845 ex-slaveDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, black American Frederick Douglass visits Ireland for a lecture tour about freedom and emancipation only to discover heStepanova's not preaching message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the converted after alltown of F for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. In 1919 Alcock Detoured by erratic train schedules and Brown climb into nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a rickety aircraft traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, M eventually offers to fly step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the Atlantic and land in Limerickshow. In 1994 Senator George Mitchell also travels to Ireland watched by The train functions as a world that's about to see a miracle motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of negotiation. Meanwhile through it all Lily identity and her descendants are also therea retreat into fantasy, not only watching history but living it on both sides an impulse that lies at the very heart of the Atlanticnovel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408829371</amazonuk>1804272329
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=The LuminariesPale Pieces|author=Eleanor CattonG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Eleanor Catton's ''The Luminaries'' Our unnamed narrator is set in the New Zealand gold rush of the late 1860sabout to begin a train journey with his companion Django. ItWhere they's a story about greed, power, gold, dreams, opium, secrets, betrayal re going and identity, but most what the purpose of allthis journey is, itis uncertain. Django found the tickets ''s a celebration of on the art of story telling, both in terms of Cattonfloor somewhere''s book and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the stories her characters have past as the pair travel to tell. It's the kind of book that is perfect escapism station by coach and which wraps you up in its world. If you like big, chunky books that you can get lost in for hours, then this the train is one for youa steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847084311</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Four New Words for LoveMakenna Goodman|authortitle=Michael CannonHelen of Nowhere|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Christopher meets Gina on Waterloo Bridge. He is newly widowed, she is newly homeless; he's an elderly Londoner, she's a young Glaswegian. It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a defining event in both their lives, but hard-to-place feeling that only becomes clear in the future. Of pressing concern something in the present your life is the rather rude policeman looking to move Gina onnot quite right. The situation is nearing crisisprotagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. Sensing her desperationHowever, Christopher impulsively asks her to come home Goodman counteracts his discomfort with him, a proposal she tentatively accepts. Yet it force which is this one benevolent act that gives birth to an odd and platonic friendshipseductive, a relationship based on silences radical and lacunas, unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and one which Michael Cannonthe protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's fourth novelconsidering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''Four New Words for Lovean entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, looks to delicately unravelHelen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908754249</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eve HarrisOlga Tokarczuk|title=The Marrying House of Day, House of Chani KaufmanNight
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=After waiting till all her elder sisters' weddings were done and dusted 'What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in true ultra-orthodox Jewish style, it?'s now 19-year-old Chani's turn. She The title of this spellbinding work, ''s only met BaruchHouse of Day, her fiancéHouse of Night'', four times and he hasn't even seen her elbows but somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the match is made and small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day eventually arrivesto night, however quotidian, causing chaos. Baruch secretly studies forbidden gentile literature and Chani has an inquisitive streak often But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived as rebellious so God knows what the future holds. Perhaps they should take the Rabbi's marriage as an example? Or perhaps not…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908737433</amazonuk>1804271918
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MacLeodThea Lenarduzzi|title=UnexplodedThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It''How unctuous are the fats of another's 1940 and Britain lives life, how dizzying their sugars in fear of a Nazi invasion that could happen any dayour bloodstream''. In case this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the worst happensidentity of T, Evelynthe protagonist of this tale. Just as T's husband Geoffrey has buried story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a little something for her and their young son Philip wealthy family in the garden. He tells her the tin contains 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a bit of money and his favourite photo of themtower, captures T's imagination. As she digs it up from impulse rather than necessity, she discovers that thereAnnie's no photo but what there fate is instead makes Evelyn doubt that she knows the man she married, above all, an enticing story to T. The events that follow make Evelyn realise that indeed It is a story which she doesn't. Meanwhile the war continues consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and a German does invade their livesknowledge, but not and in the way that either service of them could envisagemyth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241142636</amazonuk>1804271799
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hannah KentJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Burial RitesVaim|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=Fridrik, Agnes and Sigridur are accused of murdering two men one Icelandic night in 1829 before setting fire to their home''All was strange''... Now Agnes awaits execution, imprisoned in This haunting phrase encapsulates the farm pervading sense of a lowly local family who, rumour has itotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, wouldn't be too great a loss if the prisoner becomes dangerous. Margrit Jonsdottir (the farmer's wife) doesn't fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel threatened more real for Jatgeir and sets the shockedEline, malnourished Agnes to work. Gradually Agnes reveals two of the events of that night to Margrit and Toti, a young priest. Her version seems to be a little different from what everyone else concluded, predictably… Or perhaps not so predictablyprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447233166</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=HarvestClaire-Louise Bennett|authortitle=Jim CraceBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=As harvest comes Everything inthis book, a village finds itself under threathowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Invaded by Even a series of unfamiliar visitorskiss, it will find itself utterly transformed over usually a short but apocalyptic seven days. We watch through the eyes symbol of Walter Thirsk as three vagabonds escaping the enclosure intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of their fields are blamed for love lost. When the trangressions of othersnarrator cries out internally, as the chartmaker Mr Quill enumerates the common land''come over here and kiss me, and as Master Kent's benevolent rule ' it is overtaken by less an invitation than a new owner, who comes with enforcers in the name desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of ''profitthis plea is Xavier, progress and enterprise'' her ex- or sheep farming as Walter quickly realisespartner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330445669</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Meg WolitzerHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The InterestingsLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Back First published in 1974 six teenagers met at summer camp and did all those things 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which you get to do when your parents are not around to stop you. They smoked pot, drank vodka wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and Tangs - and talked way into sentences from their proper position on the night about anything page and everything. Plays were put onpositions them elsewhere, animations were perfecteddisjointed, but most importantly friendships were made that would last for years - for some it would be a lifetimetruncated. Back in 1974, as Nixon left Like the White House under a particularly heavy cloud, 'The Interestings', as one lives of their number called themher characters, knew that they could achieve anything they set their minds to. For three summers they returned to Spirit-in-the-Woods and then they faced the real worldare often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701188278</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charlotte MendelsonJonathan Buckley|title=Almost EnglishOne Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In the late nineteen eighties sixteen year old Marina ''One Boat'' is a border at Combe schooldeeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, destined - as she drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and all about her know - for Cambridge fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the medical profession. After her first term she's wonders if she's made a mistake as it's definitely not like it was at Ealing Girls. There, evocative backdrop of a girl whose mother is emotionally fragile doesn't stand outsmall coastal Greek town, even if this work masterfully captures the mother gets magic of its setting and its power to sleep on provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the sofa in death of both her in-laws' flat because their son - parents. Prompted by her husband - upped and left mourning, her and their daughter. You would still fit in even if the family you're living with narrative voice is Hungarian meditative and hasn't entirely left deeply self-aware, inviting the ways of the old country behindreader into her labyrinthine cogitations. At Combe there's too much about Marina It is a book that she could be mocked not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for - or could get her a cruel nickname. Marina simply doesn't fit in, but the family have sacrificed everything so that she can go thereits propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144721997X</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=1Q84: The Complete TrilogyEowyn Ivey|authortitle=Haruki MurakamiBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The ''1Q84Black Woods Blue Sky'' trilogy istells the story of Birdie, without doubt, an impressive book. In many waysthe young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the trilogy almost has to be read in this way Alaskan lodge where she works as the three component books make little sense on their own. The first book in the series in particular is almost completely baffling if taken in isolation. It does, thougha bar waitress, demand a degree of dedication, setting which enables her bad habits and if the prospect her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a 1300 page novel ''wild card'', she feels stuck in which not a huge amount happens in terms of plot her day-to-day life, and in which there is a significant level of repetition leaves you cold, then this might not be yearns to cross the best entry point into Wolverine river and live on the wonderful world of Haruki Murakami. As often with Murakami though, it's possible North Fork to read this book at a number fulfil her desires of levels. On the surface it's a love story set in a slightly fantastical setting with a little bit of crime thrown insimple life surrounded by nature. At When she meets Arthur Nielson, a deeper levelstrange, he explores the thin lines between imagination taciturn and realitysolitary man, life and death and what you might call yin and yang. It's who says he has a novel where balance cabin over there, she feels called to go - and vacuums play a big partbring Emaleen with her. It seems counter-intuitive to call a book of Without realising it, this magnitude 'delicate', but thatcalling will transform hers and Emaleen's just how the story appearslives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099578077</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Kind of Eden Sally Rooney|authortitle=Amanda SmythIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Martin Rawlinson Sally Rooney has escaped from studied the cold dreary English weather to the exotic heat chessboard of life and exotic women is something of Trinidada grandmaster at putting it into words. He might have a wife Her dialogue is gripping and a daughter back homeso brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, but home is a long way away and here the central one for readers to unravel is the young fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and beautiful SafiyaPeter Koubek. She's Ivan, a journalist and could easily have just dismissed him as some sad old white guysocially awkward chess prodigy, but somehow she didn't. Somehow they talkedcontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, and walked, and she showed him the real Trinidad and he fell a successful lawyer living in love Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with hercancer, and with her homethe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688132</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander MaksikFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=A Marker to Measure DriftWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Jacqueline roams As always in Dostoyevsky, the beaches of the Greek islands offering massages for money to ward off starvationcharacter work is sublime. It helps but hunger One is always with her, lurking alongside the memory of never left wondering what a former life in Liberia character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and the mind's ear voice of her mothertemperaments with remarkable clarity. Jacqueline is at least alive and existing, but at what cost?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848548052</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=FamiliarJames Baldwin|authortitle=J Robert LennonGiovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Is there a greater change in ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the life of a middle-aged woman than the death of her teenage son? Elisa might have thought notnarrator David, having been forced to bury fifteen year old Silasan American man living in Paris, and try and move on as he navigates his torturous affair with her husband Derek and the year-older sonGiovanni, Sam. But an Italian bartender he meets in a greater change occurs on the way back from her annual, solo pilgrimage to his grave – something very weird happens to the universegay bar. She pops from one car While David is engaged to anotherHella, from under a cloudless sky to a slightly greyer one – and from her self as Elisa to a world where people call her Lisa, where she who is plumper, travelling in a different jobSpain, stiil married to Derek the real tension in the same home – novel arises not from his infidelity but still from the mother deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of two young men…his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846689473</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Sorrow of AngelsAlba de Cespedes |authortitle=Jon Kalman StefanssonForbidden Notebook|rating=3.54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Our decidedly unheroic main character has been at the café for three weeks now, so we are following on very closely This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from [[Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson|Heaven and Hell]]. After the tragedy and soul-searching of that first bookmoment our protagonist, he seems settled in the ridiculous family that has formed around him thereValeria Cossati, finding employment, enjoying the literature, yet being very intrigued by the female body. The man who is still young enough to be known only as ''the boy'' might have latched on to stability for oncepurchases her forbidden notebook, and replaced learns about herself in the family and best friend he had lost. But everything is restless in this environment, most intimate and once again he might just be tempted to go on a journey, with another male companion, despite the harshness of the surroundsrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051652</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Heaven and HellOttessa Moshfegh|authortitle=Jon Kalman StefanssonMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=IcelandAt best, this novel is a hundred years ago. From a place that scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the very definition cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of rural and remotean unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row to a profitable bank. It carries six men on the way outslim, attractive and five on the way back. The deceased newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the best friend – or perhaps only friend – of the main characterworld, who is still young enough to merely be known as ''boy''. When he returns but resolves not to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answer, and for whatlose sleep over it: in fact, after the tragedy he has witnessedher solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849164061</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The SonMatthew Tree|authortitle=Philipp MeyerWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Philipp Meyer's second novelTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, ''The Son,'' is an epic, multi-generational saga a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of Texas lifeself confidence. Tracing the McCullough family from the middle of the nineteenth century So Tim applied himself to the present day, Meyer joins those writing today's masterpieces of American 'dirty realism': Ron Rash, [[:Category:David Vann|David Vann]]his studies, Richard Ford cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and especially Cormac McCarthy. Like McCarthy's ''Blood Meridian,'' ''The Son'' is a gory Western that transcends a simplistic cowboys-versus-Indians dichotomy to draw broader conclusions about the universality of violence in a nihilistic worldset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857209426</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC
|title=Fragility
|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Donal RyanMosby Woods|title=The Spinning HeartA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The West isn'My father still lives back t the road past the weir dominant force it once was. Nobody in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day West is quite sure how to see mend this or even if mending it is he dead and every day he lets me downthe best course of action. Governments are flailing. He hasn't yet missed A war here, a day of letting me downpush for climate action there.' This A feeling that nobody is how we meet Bobby - Bobby Mahon, as we'll learn - and he's brutally honest about his feelings for his father, who has deliberately drunk away the farm he inherited from ''his'' fatherin actual charge. But Frank Mahon isn't Bobby's onlyImagine then, or even main, problemthere was a man with precognition. He's been earning big money as Pokey Burke's foreman but Imagine the financial crash has hit and Pokey has done strategic advantage in this asset; a runnerman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. An investment That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in a fake island off Dubai finished him and now he's disappearedhistory. On the estate of forty houses he was buildingImagine then, just two are occupied and the rutted roads are nothing more than a racetrack for the joyridersthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781620067</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasha Solomons0571379559|title=The Gallery House of Vanished HusbandsBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=On her thirtieth birthday Juliet Montague went out to buy a fridge for ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the princely sum story of twenty-one guineasfour people. SheTess Hembry'd saved hard for it - and her parents had given her s roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the final few pounds - but then Juliet did something impulsiveriverbank, built of broken bricks. Instead Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of buying a fridge she commissioned a portrait of herself time, storms and so began her involvement in floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the postdelivery rounds -war art sceneand to bring in sufficient money. Juliet wasn't They have twin boys - by any stretch of Sonny and Max, the imagination - an artist, but she had a startling ability to spot a rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'good'' pictures Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. It was simply something which she ''knewPeople don't believe that they're related, much as less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she had known for certain that her husband had left for good on the day he didn't return home as expecteds his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444736345</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title=IndiscretionDesert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Charles DubowEric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=35|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Charles Dubow's debut novel promises 'Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a modern day Great Gatsby. It too is set amongst the rich light and famous outside New Yorkweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, it too is narrated by a character seemingly on young woman unravels the outsideyear-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, Maddythe 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 childhood friend Walterdeepening 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007501307</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Saint
|title=Atalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''
Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154}}{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Russian StoriesAmanthi Harris|authortitle=Francesc SeresBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=This brilliant and varied collection of short stories is Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the product southern coast of a current academic interest in cross-cultural translationher home country. Francisco Guillen Serés This is a Catalan professor of Art History from Aragon. A Russophile, he has travelled widely to collect stories from those writing during the past hundred place she spent her formative years of Russian history. These have been translated into Catalan and then It is not a place she was born into English. These unusual and delightful stories, some twenty but the one she thinks of them written by five writers read fluently and engaginglyas home. They form an informative tapestry of Soviet and post-Soviet life, moving back in time with How she came to be at the olderVilla, earlier writers like Bergchenkohow it became her home, who died in and the siege of Stalingrad, at machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the end''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Ranging over mythic Padma's present fails to escape her past and symbolic tales to realistic portrayals much like the musical score of personal relationships; love trysts in St Petersburga film, ferocious bears in the deep heart of that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Taiga to the perils of becoming lost in continuous orbit in space. All aspects are impressively recountedVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085705158X</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=The ParrotsSea Defences|author=Filippo BolognaHilary Taylor|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When confronted with the topic of parrotswe first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, most people would describe them as tamed tropical birds that are taught sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to repeat simple phrasespick the children up. Her husband, having no particular intelligence to engender an originality of their own. Filippo Bologna has not in fact written a book about birdsChristopher, but about writers collects six- in fact, three writers. Just as the Neoyear-Pagans have a liking of the Triple Goddesses of The Maiden, The Mother old Hannah and The Croneher elder brother, our three writers are similarly split into The BeginnerJamie, The Writer, and The Masterwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. All three of these novelists are battling it out for The Prize Holthorpe, a prestigious award that would revitalise on the career of The MasterNorfolk coast, legitimize the efforts of The Beginner and assure The Writer is a lovely place in the annals of history. The setting of Rome , but Rachel is utilised struggling to provide both develop a stunning backdrop real bond with the parish - and one that is sympathetic to the mood of our characters. The stories of our three protagonists are interwoven in a delightfully clear fashion; Bolognashe's prose is delicate and descriptivein awe of the vicar, Gail, but not at then she's been doing the sacrifice of pacingjob for more than thirty years. The stage is set; Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the characters have learned their lines. There is just one problem..beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. out of the three writers, none of them deserves to win The Prize And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908968192</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=In The Dutch MountainsBoy and the Dog|author=Cees NooteboomSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=OftenFirst of all, when asked if what I’m reading is a good book I hesitate before answeringit was the earthquake, trying to decide what deep in the asker really means. Do they mean is it exciting? Funny? Full of interesting characters? Recentlyocean floor, someone asked me that which created the tsunami and when I hesitated they gave me this as a clarifier: “Are you better off for having read it?”. In this instance, yesin turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. I think I am The result was complete and utter devastation. However The deaths were uncountable, despite coming away and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from this book with their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a strong positive feeling about it, it’s also left me convenience store. He wasn't a little befuddleddog 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>1782067191</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0989715337|title=Every PromisePapa on the Moon|author=Andrea BajaniMarco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Italian writer, Andrea Bajani's ''Every Promise'' is narrated by Pietro. His partner, Sara, has left him due to their inability to have a baby, but soon she finds herself pregnant after a one night stand and reliant on Pietro's mother for advice. Meanwhile Pietro meets Olmo, an elderly man who lives in their old family apartment, who reminds Pietro of his own Grandfather, Mario, who, like Olmo, served in Mussolini's ill-fated Russian campaign. Olmo persuades Pietro to go to Russia to visit the scenes of some of the photographs he has to try to come to terms with Some frogs had gotten into the pastwell. It's a story about the past, the present and the future and the struggle for one man to make sense of this. It's packed with surpassingly detailed imagery and Bajani is at times breathtakingly unflinching in exposing the vulnerability of his narrator. However, it is very much a slow burn of a book and it's not always an easy book to read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051466</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Porter|title=In Between Days|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=After Chloe Harding is forced to leave her East Coast college, for reasons she refuses to explain to her recently divorced parents or older brother Richard, her family's lives start to unravel. Will the rest of them ever find out what caused her fall from grace, and can they solve their own problems?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089838</amazonuk>}}
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