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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antoine Laurain, Emily Boyce (translator) and Jane Aitken (translator)295967572X|title=The Red NotebookPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Laure. She's a widow in her 40s, who Our unnamed narrator is entering her Parisian apartment building one night when she's mugged, and her handbag stolen. Meet Laurent, about to begin a middle-aged bookseller, who happens upon the handbag the following morning in the street, just before the binmen take it away, never to be seen again. More or less snubbed when trying to hand it to the police as lost property, he decides to take it upon himself to reunite the bag train journey with its rightful ownerhis companion Django. He has no idea their names are so intimately linked, Where they're going and despite a lot what the purpose of things being in the bag (including the titular notebook) there this journey is no cash, no phone and no ID documentation at allis uncertain. WhatDjango found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere''s more – and what looks like making the idea even more fruitless – he has no idea that Laure has fallen into a coma as a result of the mugging…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313862</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Edward Parnell |title= The Listeners |rating= 4 |genre= Literary Fiction |summary=May 1940persuaded our narrator to accompany him. William Abrehart has Why not spoken since ? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the mysterious death of his father, choosing instead to spend his days in past as the woods that surround his home. A promise he made pair travel to his dying father means that he is responsible for the wellbeing of his two sisters, station by coach and their withdrawn mother. Over the course of train is a weekend, ghosts of the past cause buried secrets, lies and promises to come spilling out - culminating in a series of shocking eventssteam locomotive. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781331065</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nadia HashimiMakenna Goodman|title=The Pearl a That Broke Its ShellHelen of Nowhere

|summary=Kabul 2007: Rahima and her sisters are followed home from school one day by It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a boy disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his bikerelationship, embodies this feeling. He taunts them innocently enough as little boys doHowever, but Goodman counteracts his discomfort with no sibling brothera force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the girls are unchaperoned in this land that protagonist is ruled by indirect yet intimate. As the laws former owner of menthe countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. And The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as daughters in a household without sons''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in a country that is governed by fearan assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the consequences will weigh heavily for them allreader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0062244760</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Norah VincentOlga Tokarczuk|title=Adeline: A Novel House of Virginia WoolfDay, House of Night

|summary=Back ''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in 1999, when it?'' The Hourstitle of this spellbinding work, '' won the Pulitzer PrizeHouse of Day, Michael Cunningham set a precedent for depicting WoolfHouse of Night''s later life and suicide. Nicole Kidman won a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Woolf in , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the film version of small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the novel; she is best remembered for wearing a prosthetic nose. Fast forward 15 years. In 2014–2015 aloneshift from day to night, however quotidian, three major novels about Virginia Woolf have been publishedcausing chaos. That confluenceBut, especially the constant in a year that does not mark a significant anniversaryimage is the house, speaks to a continuing interest in Woolf's life and writingsstoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349005648</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivan Repila and Sophie Hughes (translator)Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Boy Who Stole Attila's HorseTower|rating=45

|summary=If you pick up a copy ''How unctuous are the fats of this book you realise another's life, how small it isdizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. You'll know In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of courseT, that pockets hardly exist that are normally big enough to hold what we used to call a pocket book, but here is the exception to prove the ruleprotagonist of this tale. ItJust as T's wee. The story is on being told, the story of a hundred pages. The concision second protagonist is partly down to it starting after the beginningunveiled: Annie, for we first meet Big and Small, two brothers, once they're stuck down a large well in the middle daughter of a forest. Tasked with a wealthy family errandin the 19th century, they're trapped at the bottom who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a natural Erlenmeyer flasktower, and even a desperate move cannot get either outcaptures T's imagination. This Annie's fate is the story of the next three months in their existence, as they brave hungerabove all, delirium, loss of language, and the brute and unstinting human selfishness needed for existencean enticing story to T.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271015</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jamie Kornegay|title=Soil|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Jay Mize It is a scientific man with a particular interest story which she consumes avariciously, both in soil and agriculture. He decides he is the one to pioneer a revolution in farming techniques quest for truth and uproots his wife knowledge, and son to set up an experimental farm on a plot in service of land in the country. Jay is also an obsessive man and his plans take overmyth, becoming his only focus fable and causing his family to leave him. Then flooding ruins his crops and he is left at the end of his tether; things only get worse when Jay finds a dead body on his land and his tenuous grip on his sanity is releasedfantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473607035</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen CampbellJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=RiseVaim

|summary=Justine is running for her life. She's had enough of being someone else's property, of being subjected to All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the kind pervading sense of love that has seen her tattooed and owned and beaten and rented out to others to earn her keep. So she's taken what isn't hers, but then was never actually his eitherotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and she's packed a bagEline, waited until he is drunk-enough asleep not to hear her say goodbye to two of the dog, and has leftprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408857928</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dorthe NorsClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Karate ChopBig Kiss, and Minna Needs Rehearsal SpaceBye-Bye |rating=34.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=The reviewer picks up the book.<br>The Everything in this book , however sweet or seemingly innocent, is called ''Minna Needs Rehearsal Space''steeped in anguish and distortion.<br>The book is entirely made out Even a kiss, usually a symbol of one-sentence paragraphs.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs are very seldom poeticintimacy and closeness, but normally are grammatically correct sentencesbecomes evidence of love lost.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs on When the whole have just one verbnarrator cries out internally, unless regarding that from reported or unreported speech.<br>The book concerns a middle-aged musician ''come over here and composer who does indeed need rehearsal space.<br>The book concerns kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a woman who suddenly gets more space than she wants when her boyfriend leaves desperate attempt to confirm heremotional numbness.<br>The boyfriend's departure causes a lot imagined recipient of people crowding around Minnathis plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, which causes a problem.<br>The problem might be resolved by a trip away from ghost she conjures to test her city flat.<br>The title of the book might be ironicdetachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271198</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chigozie ObiomaHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The FishermenLili is Crying|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=This book is essentially a cautionary family tale of four brothers and the way they react to a prophecy about them by the local madman. It is also, in a sense, a coming-of-age story where Ben, the young narrator, is plunged into premature adulthood under the most brutal of circumstances. And it is about brotherly love. None of these descriptions, however, convey the fact that this book is written by an exciting new voice in African literary fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957548850</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jennifer Clement|title=Prayers for the Stolen|rating=3.5

|summary=Ladydi Garcia Martínez lives First published in 1953 in rural ChilpancingoFrench, Mexico, with her mother, Rita, who works as this novel is a cleaning lady for a rich family. Like many timeless text which wrenches the hearts of the men in its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their town who left to find work, Ladydi's father crossed proper position on the river into Americapage and positions them elsewhere, where he is rumoured to have another family. As a resultdisjointed, this is very much a matriarchal communitytruncated. Rita describes Like the situation for Ladydi's teacher: 'You men don't get itlives of her characters, yet, do you? This is a land of women. Mexico belongs to womenthey are often left tragically incomplete.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587599</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David GrossmanJonathan Buckley|title=Falling Out of TimeOne Boat

|summary=Like the central characters in ''Falling Out of TimeOne Boat'', Israeli author David Grossman lost his son, is a soldier named Urideeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, during drawing the Middle East conflict. In this multifaceted examination reader into a contemplative realm of bereavementphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, it seems that everyone has lost a childTeresa. The genre-bending mixture Set against the evocative backdrop of poetry, absurdist dialoguea small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and an inverted fairy tale reflects its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the difficulty reason she has visited it after the death of ever capturing grief in languageboth her parents. Each story Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and each strategy deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is like a new way book that not only requires but inspires depth of approaching the unspeakablethought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099583720</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samantha EllisEowyn Ivey|title=How To Be A Heroine: Or, what I've learned from reading too muchBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5

|summary=''How to be a HeroineBlack Woods Blue Sky'' is tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a pleasant setting which enables her bad habits and addictive readher accidental neglect of Emaleen. Playwright Samantha Ellis looks back at her childhood Described as a voracious reader ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and remembers live on the characters that influenced North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a cabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. These are Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|isbn=1472279042}} {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as diverse as Sylvia Plathher characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers'Little Women'' and Scheherazadealready strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575566</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian WalthewFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Complex Chemistry of LossWhite Nights

|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=Deep As always in rural France James Kerr was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. His mental problems were deep and intractableDostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. Superficially he seemed One is never to have got over the sudden death of his mother and sister when he was left wondering what a child character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and after their death his relationship temperaments with his father had deteriorated because his father refused to speak of their loss. There were additional factors too: Kerr had spent some time in Afghanistan in a secret capacity. In fact much of his life since he went to university had involved putting up a front, but doing something else in the backgroundremarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00OLMHCW2</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael ChristieJames Baldwin|title=If I Fall, If I DieGiovanni's Room

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It probably tells you a lot about the atmosphere of this book that for the whole time I was reading it, I thought the title was ''If I Fall, I DieGiovanni''. That missing second ''Ifs Room'' is probably at follows the crux of the whole talenarrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>043402306X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Virginia Burges|title=The Virtuoso|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The title character of ''The Virtuoso'' While David is Isabelle Bryantengaged to Hella, a professional violinist who has earned the affectionate nickname of 'Beethoven's Babe'. She was is travelling in Spain, the youngest-ever winner of real tension in the BBC Young Musician of novel arises not from his infidelity but from the Year competition and gave her first solo performance, of Beethoven's violin concerto, at Royal Albert Hall. 'Her violin represented another limb to her, it was that preciousdeeper conflict within himself. It felt so natural, like an extension of her body.' It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the violin is IsabelleDavid's lifecrippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00R07U0B0</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam FouldsAlba de Cespedes |title=In The Wolf's MouthForbidden Notebook

|summary=In Sicily, bandits steal This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the sheep of a young shepherd. Distraughtmoment our protagonist, he seeks out his local Mafioso for help. Sixteen years laterValeria Cossati, two men are traveling to Sicily - one, a young English officerpurchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the other an American infantryman. They are all soon thrust into a war that is greater and more terrible than anything they could have dreamed, most intimate and they all must find different revealing ways to survive its terrors.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958686X</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eliza RobertsonOttessa Moshfegh|title=Wallflowers|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=Eliza Robertson won the Man Booker Scholarship and Curtis Brown Prize while completing her MA in Creative Writing at the University My Year of East Anglia. ''Wallflowers'' is already a bestseller in Robertson's native Canada. There is quite some variety across the seventeen stories. Broadly speaking, though, there are a few themes: moving on from loss, finding love in the midst of gentle madness, Rest and interactions with the natural world, often on the edge of Canada's British Columbia wilderness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408856794</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Edith Pearlman|title=Honeydew|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=American short story writer [[:Category:Edith Pearlman|Edith Pearlman]] brings us a compilation of stories that have only been seen separately in magazines over the years. This follows on from the huge success of ''Binocular Vision'' (in 2013), the short story collection that led to Ms Pearlman being presented with the National Critics' Circle Award. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444797018</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Robert Schneider|title=Brother of SleepRelaxation|rating=3.5

|summary=''Brother At best, this novel is a scathing critique of Sleep'' tells modern society and reveals the story fragility of Elias Johannes Alderhuman relationships; at worst, a child born into a god forsaken village high in it is the Austrian Vorarlbergcynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. He came into the world as This unlikely heroine, a silent childslim, while his mother was screaming attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the midwife wasn't really paying attention. It took a couple of loud intonations of the Te Deum from the neglectful nurse before he finally uttered a soundworld, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715649205</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edwidge DanticatMatthew Tree|title=Claire of the Sea LightWe'll Never Know

|summary=Claire Limye Lamne (Claire Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of the Sea Light) is born in the fishing village his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of Ville Rose, Haiti as her mother diesself confidence. Her father NoziasSo Tim applied himself to his studies, a poor fisherman, spends cultivated his life trying to make a better life for abilities rather than his baby to such an extent that he eventually encourages a local fabric seller to take Claire. This happens on the night of Claire's 7th birthday; the night that little Claire goes missing before the fabric seller can take herdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782068511</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca LeeB0C47LV1PC|title=Bobcat and Other Stories|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The first story in ''Bobcat'' is the title story, and this alone is worth the price of admission. Plaster it with prizes, put it in anthologies; it deserves every accolade it can get. However, the last story echoes the first, and the five tales in between are strangely repetitive, most with Midwestern North American narrators and 1980s university settings. Moreover, all seven are in the first-person; I would have appreciated more variety of perspective.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182311</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFragility|author=Mary Costello|title=Academy StreetMosby Woods|rating=4.5

|summary=It is 1944. Tess LohanCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''s mother has just died at age 40joke? And if you could, of tuberculosis. Seven-year-old Tess is one of six children in a rural Irish family. They live at Easterfield, a centuries-old manor house. A teacher later tells Tess the history of her home: built in 1678question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it was a famine hospital in land? The catch is that the 1840s; there are numerous corpses buried on the landanswer for both could well be.... He hints there may be many ghosts on the property, but the only one that haunts Tess is her dead motherno.  ''Fragility''Memories and traces of her mother must linger all over is set as the house – in rooms and halls and landings. The dent city of her feet on a rug. On a cupPortland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the mark of her hand.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782114181</amazonuk>restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rob DoyleMosby Woods|title=Here Are the Young MenA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=The West isn''Here are t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the Young Men'' surges forward, oozing edginess, from West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the very first sentencebest course of action. Governments are flailing. Is that A war here, a bad thing? Probably notpush for climate action there. It just means A feeling that readers may at times slip out of the storynobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, feel themselves taking there was a step back and admiring man with precognition. Imagine the spare coolness strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the novel before easing most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back into the narrative.?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408863731</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Edric0571379559|title=SanctuaryThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=35|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Everyone knows Charlotte''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, Emily but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and Annefloods. Not many know that this famous trio of literary sisters also had a brother Her husband, Richard, Patrick Branwell Brontëstruggles to grow his vegetables, born to complete the year after Charlotte delivery rounds - and a year before Emilyto bring in sufficient money. Like his sisters They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, he had literary ambitions: he wrote juvenile stories, poems and translations from the Greek; he also trained as a painter (you have most likely seen rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his famous painting of mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his sisters)father. Again like People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his sisters, however, he was destined to die youngmother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857522876</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Takashi HiraideClaire North|title=The Guest CatHouse of Odysseus|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What could matter more than love?'' The Guest Catfollow-up to the excellent '' had me 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 the coverTroy and then by divine intervention never returned home. The reflective green material makes As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the cat's eyes glow and glint eerily in throne of the lightWestern Isles. There is something ethereal and otherworldly about this novella Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is before I've even read on the brink of a single wordfragile peace. This simple story about a Japanese couple and One that shatters however with the cat that decides to adopt them has become an international best-seller return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and I was keen to find out whyhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447279409</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan HillKay Chronister|title=Black SheepDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=General Dystopian Fiction|summary=Mount of Zeal With a world that is a mining villagebecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, and no mistakepost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Three concentric semi-circular streets align across the side of Whether it is a hillrobotic takeover, like the rows a world devoid of seats in an amphitheatrewater or a nuclear holocaust, with little thought at all allowed this genre is a way for the life above the crest of the hill, and humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a lot new work of effort and dreams focused on the coal mine at the village's core. The Howker family (and how evocative post-apocalyptic fiction that name is, so akin to the noise of hawking coal dust from one's lungs), and Ted and Rose, the youngest aligns many of the clan, in particular, will face the destiny the environment they grow up in gives them – with only the merest glimmers of hope and the faintest of sparks to latch on to as regards a likeable futurefears that exist for humanity today. But if that It is a faint spark, then how safe is it so close shocking novel that still manages to the tinderbox of a coal mine?find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009953956X</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Sue PeeblesEric LaRocca|title=Snake RoadThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=No one listened when Peggy Kirkpatrick began talking about a baby called Eleanor - well, no one except her granddaughter AgathaHorror taps into something primeval within us. You see, Peggy It is elderly used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and she has dementiahow we as humans react and process them. No one has heard of Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'Eleanor'. Some days are better than others, but none are particularly good. Peggy's unpredictable and sometimes it whether that is - quite literally - a fight to wash her home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and she'll either go outside in her nightdress or wear multiple skirts indoors. The burden is carried most , by the end of the time by her daughterstory, Mary, but itbeatable. Eric LaRocca's Aggie who attends the dementia carers' group 'The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in her place the horrors of illness, grief and it was probably this humiliation. Horrors that provoked her into listening more carefully to what her Gran was saying linger and trying are harder to learn more about her history in the hope of keeping Peggy in the presentdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575841</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Favel ParrettMadelaine Lucas|title=When the Night ComesThirst for Salt

|summary=Little Isla has moved ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to Hobartbe a light and weightless feeling, Tasmania but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the Australian mainland with year-long relationship that once defined her mother and younger brother. Bo is Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a chef on man twenty years her senior from its inception – the Nella Dan, a Danish ship supplying summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the Antarctic expeditionssummer after. Their meeting is just one Set against the backdrop of lifean isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's little moments that carry a greater effect than anyone realises at 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}}{{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.'' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the timequestion of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether for the better development of technology is exciting or the worstfrightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848548540</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=By Night The Mountain BurnsJennifer Saint|authortitle=Juan Tomas Avila LaurelAtalanta

|summary=Sometimes a novel will startle because it tackles a topic totally unknown to us or tells us ''I was as worthy as any one of lives previously un-imaginedthem. This is I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the case with By Night name of the Mountain Burnsgoddess. However, what is most remarkable about Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s novel is how easy it is to slip into It was for the story sake of a child growing up on an isolated island in Equatorial Guineamy name, too. We are not reading about mysterious Atalanta'others' Princess. We’re reading about people like ourselvesWarrior. 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 live 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 different place which has its own constraints – namely poverty whirlwind of challenges and discovery and isolationthrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276401</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=AsunderAmanthi Harris|authortitle=Chloe AridjisBeautiful Place|rating=45

|summary=MariePadma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the narrator Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of Chloe Aridjis's second novel, ''Asunder'', her home country. This is a guard at the National Gallery in Londonplace she spent her formative years. It is not a simpleplace she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, subdued and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she leads in this first arrived there provide the ''tiny kingdomscore', but it suits her: 'I had always sought quiet in the world for this gentle and there were few movements quieter, I realised, than paint cracking over timeyet subtly violent novel. Padma' Most would find s present fails to escape her work tediouspast and much like the musical score of a film, but over her nine years that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the museum she has adjusted to the routine; 'unlike some of the new guards, I do not suffer from boredom or listlessnessVilla.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099572753</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neel Mukherjee178563335X|title=The Lives of OthersSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=4.5

|summary= When we first meet Rachel Bird she'''SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014'''Many generations of the Ghosh family live together s a trainee vicar, sitting in on a single house in 1960PCC meeting and wondering why they's Calcuttare held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, albeit whilst Rachel holds a very big single housesobbing parishioner. Life may be materially comfortable but not easyThelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. JealousyHolthorpe, in-fightingon the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, the struggle but Rachel is struggling to keep develop a real bond with the family business going (parish - andshe's in awe of the vicar, for the younger family membersGail, but then she's been doing the struggle to lead the life they'd like) causes job for more than the odd sleepless nightthirty years. Son Supratik has succeeded in choosing Rachel and Christopher hoped that a different path thoughwalk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. He's tired of the endless consumption and acquisition and leaves home to follow his Marxist beliefs, exchanging family living for discomfort and dangerAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186291</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=Problems with PeopleThe Boy and the Dog|author=David GutersonSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=''Problems with People'' is a meandering exploration First of all, it was the relationshipsearthquake, big deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and smallthis, 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 we form across many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a lifetimedog outside a convenience store. Ranging from He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that of parent and child he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to that between landlord open his car door and tenant, Guterson’s observation of Tamon the complexities and nuances involved dog jumped in how we navigate these personal links is extremely sharp and true to life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408859963</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0989715337|title=Clara's DaughterPapa on the Moon|author=Meike ZiervogelMarco North

|summary=''Clara’s DaughterSome frogs had gotten into the well.'' '', Walter stood waist-deep in the short space fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of 144 pagestheir eggs wove around him, paints sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the portrait strange noise of the relationships threatening buckets as he filled them.'' How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to destroy wistful and musing, turning on a family unitsixpence. The intensity is conveyed with sharp stabs from Ziervogel’s spare sentencesAnd author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773797</amazonuk>