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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ivan Vladislavic295967572X|title=101 DetectivesPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=101 Detectives had me baffledOur unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. The book comprises Where they're going and what the purpose of a collection of stories which explore multiple themes from this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the perspective of one personfloor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. The stories Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are as varied probably in the past as the characters presenting pair travel to the tale to you. This exquisitely written book leaves you asking many questions station by coach and pondering many ideasthe train is a steam locomotive. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276568</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jan-Philipp SendkerMakenna Goodman|title= Whispering ShadowsHelen of Nowhere|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Paul Leibovitz was It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a journalisthard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. That was beforeThe protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. Before he had However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a small childforce which is seductive, who did not survive as long as he should haveradical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. Before As the end former owner of the marriage that did not survive the loss of countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a childvolta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. Now Leibovitz himselfThe realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, merely survivesand describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. He Although she lives in a kind of self-imposed exile on Lammaan assisted living facility now, third largest of Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the Hong Kong islands, a place of greenery and solitudesense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973309</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jo WaltonOlga Tokarczuk|title= The Just CityHouse of Day, House of Night|rating= 3.5|genre= Dystopian Literary Fiction|summary=Urged on by her brother Apollo, goddess Pallas Athene founds ''What's the Just City good of Atlantis – a city based world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on Plato’s republic. Filling calmly living in it with an assortments ?'' The title of adults collected from throughout timethis spellbinding work, ''House of Day, as well as ten thousand ten year oldsHouse of Night'', (one somewhat reflects this notion of whom is a disguised Apollo). Whilst shifting realities - the city flourishessmall, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the arrival of Socrates may prove shift from day to be a fly night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the ointment…house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472150767</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David FinkleThea Lenarduzzi|title= The Man With The OvercoatTower|rating= 3.5|genre= General Literary 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?How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream'' Skip Gerber steps off . In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the elevator after a long day at work; identity of T, the foyer protagonist of his office building this tale. Just as T's story is busy and buzzy and he does not notice being told, the man holding story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the overcoat until daughter of a wealthy family in the man hands it to Skip telling him to ''take very good care 19th century, who died of ittuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. Skip unthinkingly grasps the coat It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and before he has the chance to realise what he is doing - knowledge, and that he is now holding an overcoat in service of unknown providence - the man disappears out of the exit door to the buildingmyth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992618525</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca DinersteinJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The Sunlit NightVaim

|summary=Frances comes from a 'desperately artistic family', her father a medical illustrator and her mother an interior designerAll was strange''.. Along with her younger sister Sarah, she grew up in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan: bunk beds for the girls and a fold-out sofa bed for the parents. The claustrophobic atmosphere has gotten to everyone and now, with Frances graduating from college, it looks like This haunting phrase encapsulates the family might fall apart. Her parents argue constantly and disapprove pervading sense of Sarah's fiancé (not ''just'' because he isn't Jewish). Frances has her own romantic crisis: after a pregnancy scare, Robert breaks up with her. A high-flyer with a future otherworldliness which permeates this story set in politicsVaim, he tells her that her art has no purpose; it isn't helping anyone. 'What does it matter if you do what you love, if what you love doesn't matter?' she asks her father. Still, she has no other prospects, so agrees to take up a painting apprenticeship fictional fishing village in the furthest reaches of Norway; 'All I had was a directionwhich paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, northtwo of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408863049</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire Fullerton-Louise Bennett|title=Dancing to an Irish ReelBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5

|summary=Hailey was on a sabbatical from her job Everything in the music business this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in Los Angeles anguish and taking the holiday distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of a lifetime to Irelandintimacy and closeness, when she walked into becomes evidence of love lost. When the Galway Music Centre narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and found kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a job which she simply couldn't turn downdesperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. She also found a home in a local villageThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a liking for the rural life and a man whom ghost she could love. Liam Hennessy was a talented accordion player: music was his life and whilst he was more attracted conjures to Hailey than he had ever been to another woman it wasn't entirely clear whether 'love' could ever be on the cards for himtest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0990304256</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jessie Greengrass |title=An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It |rating=3|genre=Short Stories|summary=The title story, which appears first, is exactly what it says on the tin: one hunter's story of travelling to remote islands to take part in massive culls of great auks, until they were simply gone. It's always hard to believe that species that once numbered in their millions, such as the passenger pigeon, could go extinct so quickly, but when you read about the brutal slaughter tactics here – swinging clubs Helene Bessette and boiling birds alive – you can see how a flightless bird was a sitting target. The narrator makes no real attempt to defend himself: the birds were there for the taking; that was that. Still, he regrets their extinction, because 'in any loss you can see a shadow of the way that you will be lost yourself.' Kate Briggs (Those interested in the great auk's extinction may also want to read the 2013 novel ''The Collector of Lost Things'' by Jeremy Page.translator)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473610850</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Patricia Park|title=Re JaneLili is Crying|rating=34.5

|summary= Growing up First published in Flushing1953 in French, New York –Jane Re has long been hoping to escape her whole life. A half-Korean, half-American Orphan, Jane struggles to find her place this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as a spirited Bessette wrenches words and intelligent young woman growing up in a strict and mirthless family, observing sentences from their proper position on the traditional Korean principle of “Nunchi” (a combination of good manners, obligation page and hierarchy). Desperate to escapepositions them elsewhere, Jane is thrilled when she becomes the au pair for a rich couple – two Brooklyn based professors of Englishdisjointed, who have adopted a young Chinese girl into their familytruncated. Jane soon falls for Like the man lives of the family, but their blossoming affair is soon curtailed by a family deathher characters, prompting Jane’s return to Koreathey are often left tragically incomplete. As she learns more about herself, her history and her culture, Jane must make huge decisions about her life, her future, and her man…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0525427406</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patricia DunckerJonathan Buckley|title=Sophie and the Sibyl: A Victorian RomanceOne Boat

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=''Sophie and the SibylOne Boat''is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, consciously modelled on John Fowles's ''The French Lieutenant's Woman'', is drawing the reader into a postmodern blending contemplative realm of history, fiction, philosophical musings and metafictional commentary. Brothers Max fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and Wolfgang Duncker really were George Eliot's German publishersprotagonist, but Teresa. Set against the accident evocative backdrop of their surname matching a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the author's makes them her clever stand-inmagic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. As Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the novel opens in 1872, the venerable English author is exploring Homburg and Berlin in reason she has visited it after the company death of both her 'husband' while ushering parents. Prompted by her latest novelmourning, ''Middlemarch''her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into German translationher labyrinthine cogitations. Max, It is a young cad fond book that not only requires but inspires depth of casinos and brothels, has two tasks: ensuring Eliot's loyalty to their publishing housethought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and securing Countess Sophie von Hahn's hand in marriageironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140886052X</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara BaumeEowyn Ivey|title=Spill Simmer Falter WitherBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5

|summary=Every Tuesday he goes into town''Black Woods Blue Sky'' 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 setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. This particular Tuesday he sees an advert for Described as a rescue dog that's been badly treated 'wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by its previous ownernature. Somewhere the ad strikes When she meets Arthur Nielson, a resonance strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he adopts the doghas a cabin over there, calling she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it Oneeye (yes, one word, just like that). Gradually over shared meals a friendship grows this calling will transform hers and develops over the seasons as the spill of spring turns to summerEmaleen's simmer, through the falter of autumn and on to withering winterlives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992817064</amazonuk>1472279042

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael LaubSally Rooney|title=Diary of the FallIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Diary Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of the Fall life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story about regret, guilt the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and resentmentPeter Koubek. ItIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's told from the point of view of an unnamed narratorpassing after a long battle with cancer, who reflects on not just his own life but also the lives of his father and grandfatherbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099581795</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Emily Boyce (translator) and Jane Aitken (translator)Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The Red NotebookWhite Nights

|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=Meet Laure. She's a widow As always in her 40sDostoyevsky, who the character work is entering her Parisian apartment building one night when she's mugged, and her handbag stolensublime. Meet Laurent, a middle-aged bookseller, who happens upon the handbag the following morning in the street, just before the binmen take it away, One is 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 with its rightful owner. He has no idea their names are so intimately linked, and despite a lot of things being in the bag (including the titular notebook) there is no cash, no phone and no ID documentation at all. What's more – and left wondering 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 1940. William Abrehart has not spoken since the mysterious death of his father, choosing instead to spend his days in the woods that surround his home. A promise he made to his dying father means that he character is responsible for the wellbeing of his two sisters, and thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their withdrawn mother. Over the course of a weekend, ghosts of the past cause buried secrets, lies innermost dispositions and promises to come spilling out - culminating in a series of shocking eventstemperaments with remarkable clarity. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781331065</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nadia HashimiJames Baldwin|title=The Pearl a That Broke Its ShellGiovanni's Room

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Kabul 2007: Rahima and her sisters are followed home from school one day by ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a boy on his bikegay bar. He taunts them innocently enough as little boys doWhile David is engaged to Hella, but with no sibling brotherwho is travelling in Spain, the girls are unchaperoned real tension in this land that the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is ruled by the laws David's crippling shame and denial of men. And as daughters in a household without sons, in a country his sexuality that is governed by fear, the consequences will weigh heavily for them allultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0062244760</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Norah VincentAlba de Cespedes |title=Adeline: A Novel of Virginia WoolfForbidden Notebook|rating=54

|summary=Back in 1999This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, when ''The Hours'' won the Pulitzer PrizeValeria Cossati, Michael Cunningham set a precedent for depicting Woolf's later life and suicide. Nicole Kidman won a Best Actress Oscar for purchases her role as Woolf in the film version of the novel; she is best remembered for wearing a prosthetic nose. Fast forward 15 years. In 2014–2015 aloneforbidden notebook, three major novels and learns about Virginia Woolf have been published. That confluence, especially herself in a year that does not mark a significant anniversary, speaks to a continuing interest in Woolf's life the most intimate and writingsrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349005648</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivan Repila and Sophie Hughes (translator)Ottessa Moshfegh|title=The Boy Who Stole Attila's HorseMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43

|summary=If you pick up At best, this novel is a copy scathing critique of this book you realise how small it is. You'll know, modern society and reveals the fragility of coursehuman relationships; at worst, that pockets hardly exist that are normally big enough to hold what we used to call a pocket book, but here it is the exception to prove the rule. It's wee. The story is on a hundred pages. The concision is partly down to it starting after the beginningcynical, for we first meet Big predictable and Small, two brothers, once they're stuck down a large well in the middle slightly trite tale of a forestan unlikeable protagonist. Tasked with a family errandThis unlikely heroine, they're trapped at the bottom of a natural Erlenmeyer flaskslim, attractive and even a desperate move cannot get either out. This newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the story of the next three months world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in their existencefact, as they brave hunger, delirium, loss of language, and the brute and unstinting human selfishness needed for existenceher solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271015</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jamie KornegayMatthew Tree|title=SoilWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=Crime|summary=Jay Mize is a scientific man with a particular interest in soil and agriculture. He decides he is the one to pioneer a revolution in farming techniques and uproots his wife and son to set up an experimental farm on a plot of land in the country. Jay is also an obsessive man and his plans take over, becoming his only focus 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 released.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473607035</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Karen Campbell|title=Rise|rating=4

|summary=Justine is running for her life. She's had enough of being someone else's propertyTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being subjected to the kind exceptional at any of love that has seen her tattooed his artistic passions all failed miserably and owned and beaten and rented out to others to earn her keepwho had endless crises of self confidence. So she's taken what isn't hersTim applied himself to his studies, but then was never actually cultivated his abilities rather than his either, daydreams and she's packed a bag, waited until he is drunk-enough asleep not to hear her say goodbye to the dog, and has leftset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408857928</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe NorsB0C47LV1PC|title=Karate Chop, and Minna Needs Rehearsal Space|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The reviewer picks up the book.<br>The book is called ''Minna Needs Rehearsal Space''.<br>The book is entirely made out of one-sentence paragraphs.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs are very seldom poetic, but normally are grammatically correct sentences.<br>The one-sentence paragraphs on the whole have just one verb, unless regarding that from reported or unreported speech.<br>The book concerns a middle-aged musician and composer who does indeed need rehearsal space.<br>The book concerns a woman who suddenly gets more space than she wants when her boyfriend leaves her.<br>The boyfriend's departure causes a lot of people crowding around Minna, which causes a problem.<br>The problem might be resolved by a trip away from her city flat.<br>The title of the book might be ironic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271198</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFragility|author=Chigozie Obioma|title=The FishermenMosby Woods

|summary=Ladydi Garcia Martínez lives in rural Chilpancingo, Mexico, with her mother, Rita, who works as Can you make a cleaning lady for a rich family. Like many of the men in their town who left to find work''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, Ladydi's father crossed is the river into America, where he question should you make it? Or is rumoured to have another family. As a resultthe question if you did, this would it land? The catch is very much a matriarchal community. Rita describes that the situation answer for Ladydiboth could well be.... no. 's teacher: 'You men donFragility't get it' is set as the city of Portland, yetOregon, do you? This is a land of women. Mexico belongs cautiously begins to women.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587599</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David GrossmanMosby Woods|title=Falling Out of TimeA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=Like The West isn't the central characters dominant force it once was. Nobody in ''Falling Out the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of Time''action. Governments are flailing. A war here, Israeli author David Grossman lost his sona push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a soldier named Uri, during man with precognition. Imagine the Middle East conflict. In strategic advantage in this multifaceted examination asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of bereavement, it seems that everyone has lost a childcircumstances. The genre-bending mixture of poetry, absurdist dialogueThat man would be valuable, and an inverted fairy tale reflects right? Perhaps the difficulty of ever capturing grief most valuable asset in languagehistory. Each story and each strategy is like a new way of approaching the unspeakableImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099583720</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samantha Ellis0571379559|title=How To Be A Heroine: Or, what I've learned from reading too muchThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45

|summary=''How to be a HeroineThe House of Broken Bricks'' is a pleasant and addictive readthe story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Playwright Samantha Ellis looks back at her childhood Insubstantial as a voracious reader it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and remembers floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the characters that influenced herdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. These are as diverse as Sylvia PlathThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'Little Womens Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they' re related, much less twins and Scheherazadethere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575566</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian WalthewClaire North|title=The Complex Chemistry House of LossOdysseus

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Deep in rural France James Kerr was admitted ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a psychiatric clinicfew months after where we left off. His mental problems were deep In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and intractablethen by divine intervention never returned home. Superficially he seemed never to have got over As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the sudden death throne of his mother the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and sister when he was a child and after their death his relationship with his father had deteriorated because his father refused physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to speak Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of their loss. There were additional factors too: Kerr had spent some time in Afghanistan in a secret capacityfragile peace. In fact much One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his life since he went to university had involved putting up a frontsister Elektra, but doing something else in the backgroundseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00OLMHCW2</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael ChristieKay Chronister|title=If I Fall, If I DieDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=It probably tells you With a lot about the atmosphere of this book world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for the whole time I was reading humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether itis a robotic takeover, I thought the title was ''If I Falla world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, I Die''this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. That missing second ''IfDesert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is probably at the crux a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the whole talefears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>043402306X</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Virginia BurgesEric LaRocca|title=The VirtuosoTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionHorror|summary=The title character of 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 ''The VirtuosoBig Bad'' , whether that is Isabelle Bryanta home invader, a professional violinist who has earned monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the affectionate nickname end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''BeethovenThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There's Babe'is not like that. She was the youngest-ever winner It is a collection of short stories more interested in the BBC Young Musician horrors of the Year competition illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and gave her first solo performance, of Beethovenare harder to defeat than any 's violin concerto, at Royal Albert Hall. 'Her violin represented another limb to her, it was that precious. It felt so natural, like an extension of her body.Big Bad' It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the violin is Isabelle's life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00R07U0B0</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam FouldsMadelaine Lucas|title=In The Wolf's MouthThirst for Salt|rating=45

|summary=In Sicily''Love, bandits steal the sheep of I'd read, was supposed to be a young shepherd. Distraughtlight and weightless feeling, he seeks out his local Mafioso but I had always longed for helpgravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Sixteen years Overlaid with laterwisdom, two men are traveling the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to Sicily its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24- oneyear-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, a young English officerdepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and 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, familial relationships and they all must find different ways to survive its terrorshow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958686X</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eliza RobertsonMichael Grothaus|title=WallflowersBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=Eliza Robertson won the Man Booker Scholarship ''But fearing something and Curtis Brown Prize while completing her MA in Creative Writing at the University having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of East Angliawhat we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it. ''Wallflowers ''Beautiful Shining People' is already a bestseller in Robertson's native Canadarevolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. There Of what is real and what 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 madnessartificial, and interactions with whether the natural world, often on the edge development of Canada's British Columbia wildernesstechnology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408856794</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edith PearlmanJennifer Saint|title=HoneydewAtalanta|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=American short story writer [[:Category:Edith Pearlman|Edith Pearlman]] brings us a compilation ''I was as worthy as any one of stories them. I would get on board that have only been seen separately ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in magazines over the yearsname of the goddess. This follows on from It was for the huge success sake of my name, too. Atalanta''Binocular Vision'' (in 2013) 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 short story collection that led opportunity comes – to Ms Pearlman being presented with join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the National Criticschance 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' Circle Awardfatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444797018</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert SchneiderAmanthi Harris|title=Brother of SleepBeautiful Place|rating=3.5

|summary=''Brother of Sleep'' tells Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the story southern coast of Elias Johannes Alder, her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a child place she was born into a god forsaken village high in , but the Austrian Vorarlbergone she thinks of as home. He How she came into to be at the world as a silent childVilla, how it became her home, while his mother was screaming and the midwife wasnmachinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the 't really paying attention'score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. It took Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a couple of loud intonations of film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Te Deum from the neglectful nurse before he finally uttered a soundVilla. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715649205</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edwidge Danticat178563335X|title=Claire of the Sea LightDefences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=4.5

|summary=Claire Limye Lamne (Claire of the Sea Light) is born When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the fishing village of Ville Rosechildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, Haiti as whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her mother diessee her grandson. Her father NoziasHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a poor fishermanlovely place, spends his life trying to make a better life for his baby but Rachel is struggling to such an extent that he eventually encourages develop a local fabric seller to take Claire. This happens on real bond with the night parish - and she's in awe of Clairethe vicar, Gail, but then she's 7th birthday; been doing the night job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that little Claire goes a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing before the fabric seller can take her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782068511</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Lee1398515388|title=Bobcat The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Other StoriesAlison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=The first story First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in ''Bobcat'' is the title storyocean floor, which created the tsunami and this alone is worth the price of admission. Plaster it with prizes, put it in anthologies; it deserves every accolade it can get. Howeverturn, caused the last story echoes the firstnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the five tales in between are strangely repetitive, most with Midwestern North American narrators and 1980s university settingsloss of livelihoods was widespread. Moreover, all seven are in The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the firsttsunami -Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person; I but the convenience store owner's comment that he would have appreciated more variety of perspectivecall Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182311</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary Costello0989715337|title=Academy StreetPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4.5

|summary=It is 1944''Some frogs had gotten into the well. Tess Lohan's mother has just died at age 40' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, of tuberculosisnaked except for his beaten leather hat. Seven-year-old Tess is one Long strands of six children in a rural Irish family. They live at Easterfieldtheir eggs wove around him, a centuries-old manor housesticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. A teacher later tells Tess the history Two of her home: built in 1678, it was a famine hospital in the 1840s; there are numerous corpses buried on dogs leaned over the land. He hints there may be many ghosts on opening and barked down at the property, but strange noise of the only one that haunts Tess is her dead motherbuckets as he filled them. 'Memories and traces ' How is that for an opening? The style of her mother must linger all over this novel in the house – in rooms form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and halls laconic to wistful and landings. The dent of her feet musing, turning on a rugsixpence. On a cupAnd author Marco North, who has the mark most wonderful turn of her handphrase, starts as he means to go on.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782114181</amazonuk>