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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Javier Marias|title=While the Women are Sleeping|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=The first thing the trivially minded will note is that this is not the complete edition of While the Women are Sleeping, for not all the stories in the original Spanish volume are here. You might think that's because some have been hived off for a future 'best of' compilation. But if this isn't the best of Javier Marias, then I don't know what is. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553929</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Heller|title=Catch 22|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At the heart of the very black comedy that is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarian, a World War II American bombardier, who wants to survive the war. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanity, and surely a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks to be grounded, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety. If he is sane, he can't be grounded. This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Thomas E Kennedy|title=Falling Sideways|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Kennedy, although a New Yorker, has lived in Copenhagen for over twenty years so he'll have a good feel for the European slant on the novel, I would think. It is one of four called the Copenhagen Quartet. The top brass, the movers and the shakers at the 'Tank' are introduced to the reader one by one and have a whole chapter devoted to their individual lives, both professional and private. So we get a very good idea indeed of their homes, their neighbourhoods, their families and perhaps more importantly, their thoughts on the Tank and of their colleagues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408812398</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hari Kunzru295967572X|title=Gods Without Men|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Quite literally at the heart of Hari Kunzru's latest novel stands not a person, but strange geographical feature in the California desert - three large rocks known as 'The Pinnacles'. If you've ever looked at a feature of the landscape and wonder what it has meant to those who have gone before, then you will find a similar stance here. Kunzru's episodic narrative takes in various points in time from 1775 to 2009 all of which centre around this rock structure which has had different meanings for different generations. There are echoes of the past in each new version, but no more than that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114311X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPale Pieces|author=Alice Hoffman|title=The DovekeepersG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We see Audun start Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his new school in Oslocompanion Django. The building, Where they're going and what the classroomspurpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the teachers, even tickets ''on the other pupils all seem floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to scare accompany him. He refuses Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to conform the station by coach and insists on wearing his sunglasses - indoors. It's not an affectation though, apparently he has some facial scarring around his eyesthe train is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553695</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The TorresIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-Thompsons seem to have it all. A beautiful home, two healthy boys and enough money -place feeling that something in your life is not to have to worry about practical mattersquite right. The cherry protagonist, a disgraced professor on the cake is their employment brink of their maid Aracelilosing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. She works like However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a trouper force which is seductive, radical and keeps the large house spick and spanunnerving: Helen. She is lucky enough to have her own private quarters (if small The connection between Helen and rather basic) in the back garden areaprotagonist is indirect yet intimate. She knows within herself that she should be gratefulAs the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, should really be jumping up and down with glee and thanking her lucky stars past tied to have this jobhis potential fresh start. She's managed to escape The realtor who shows the protagonist around the poverty and violence of Mexico after all. But as she goes house shares stories about her daily housekeeping duties she feels like some alien living on another plant. Planet America. Araceli is youngHelen, single and childless and at times she misses the hustle and bustle of describes her old life. And here Tobar gives as ''an excellent account of the affluent part of LA where the Torres-Thompsonentity that is pure consciousness, beyond form's live - ' ... Although she lives in this house on a hill high above an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the ocean, on a cul-de-sac absent of pedestrians or playing children, absent of traffic sense are not altogether innocuous...'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444726757</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair MacLeodOlga Tokarczuk|title=No Great MischiefHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=No Great Mischief is a novel which captures the essence of belonging and the need to be a part of one''What's history. This is the story good of a small part of Clann Calum Ruadh, the people of Red Calum, emigrants to Canada. It sweeps from contemporary Toronto to evoke Cape Breton world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in the fifties and back to the clearances of Scottish history. MacLeod tells the tale with the dignity and stature of an ancient myth, holding up to our gaze what it means to be a part of a race, a family and a place. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099283921</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Giraldi|title=Busy Monsters|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian. He's proved it to us, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat instead. But lo and behold, she?'s declared she's off to discover the real love of her life - the giant squid. Failing to stop this, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessive, then goes on a hunt of his own - for Bigfoot, all the while, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative of the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columns.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michela Murgia and Silvester Mazzarella (Translator)Thea Lenarduzzi|title=AccabadoraThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This beautiful, slim volume has won no less than six literary prizes. Murgia paints an early and evocative picture of the young central character, Maria as she makes mud tarts. But this innocent activity is about to come to an abrupt halt. Her birth mother struggles to feed and clothe all her children (Maria is the fourth child and is really a nuisance) so when an opportunity arises which 'solves 'How unctuous are the problem fats of Mariaanother' if you like, then she grabs it with both hands. Maria is quickly and rather unceremoniously adopted by an older woman who just happens to be a widow. She has no children of her own and seems to lead a rather lonely, insular s life. She is old enough to be a grandmother, let alone a mother. Will she be able to cope with a noisy youngster under her roof? You wonder why shehow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''d want to take in a raggedy child, or any child for that matter, in the first place. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050451</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Lord of MisruleVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=West Virginia, 1970''All was strange''... We're at a rundown race track, This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living otherworldliness which permeates this story set inVaim, with the occasional race to interrupt the boredom. Into things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing. His girlfriend is here too to help out, and naively eager fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for success Jatgeir and knowledgeEline, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all before. Also two of the protagonists caught in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run and wonits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan LeegantClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Wherever You GoBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Religion kicks off Everything in this book, even before the first pagehowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. The title is from Even a kiss, usually a passage from the Book symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of Ruthlove lost. The only female central characterWhen the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me, Yona '' it is travelling from her home in America less an invitation than a desperate attempt to visit confirm her sister and large family. She's not really looking forward to it. She's nervousemotional numbness. The two sisters live very different lives and haven't seen each other for imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a decade. Leegant tells us all about the massive rift in their relationshipghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393339890</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles FrazierHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=NightwoodsLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you have read Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain'First published in 1953 in French, or indeed seen the film, then you'll have this novel is a fair idea what to expect from his latest offering - 'Nightwoods'. As with 'Cold Mountain', timeless text which wrenches the landscape hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the Appalachians is the dominant characterpage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, this time set in the 1950struncated. He even manages to get his requisite bear into Like the story although thankfully it fares rather better than the unfortunate beast in his first book. The darklives of her characters, oppressing majesty and beauty of the mountains and woods pervades the whole storythey are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444731246</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Isaac ''One Boat'' is married a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to Rebekahprovoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of both her parents. They have sonsPrompted by her mourning, Esau her narrative voice is meditative and Jacobdeeply self-aware, naturallyinviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. There It is a half-brother Ishmael and a back-story book that not only requires but inspires depth of marital betrayal thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and the out-casting of sonsironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956881017</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A PortsmouthEowyn Ivey|title=The Beautiful Torment of a DreamBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This is ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a beautifully presented book with its enigmatic front cover life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and equally enigmatic titleher accidental neglect of Emaleen. After reading Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the blurb Wolverine river and live on the back cover I was left with 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 feeling of wishycabin over there, she feels called to go -washiness however, as regards the storylineand bring Emaleen with her. UnfortunatelyWithout realising it, the contents confirmed this for mecalling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956493602</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin WilsonSally Rooney|title=The Family FangIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang 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 her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they characters never thought quite say exactly what they'd ever be againfeel. But it has come Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to this - her film actress career unravel is on the rocks fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writershis older brother Peter, and he - well, hea successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's here because of passing after a jumbo spud gunlong battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - |isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in a whole career of performance art piecesDostoyevsky, designed to enact the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a point of life character is thinking or just cause havocfeeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip RothJames Baldwin|title=NemesisGiovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=1944''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, Newarkan American man living in Paris, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantoras he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a young Jewish mangay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for travelling in Spain, the real tension in the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what novel arises not from his eyesight prevents him infidelity but from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happeningdeeper conflict within himself. But there It is, David's crippling shame and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang denial of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WolfeAlba de Cespedes |title=A Man in FullForbidden Notebook|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I'll hold my hands up right now and say that no, I haven't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed [[The Bonfire This Italian work of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the Vanities]]. I've heard a lot about itmoment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, over the yearspurchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I ''have'' read it, mind you. So I'm really pleased to have the chance to read this much-awaited novel. At a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight with Wolfe's particular style of prose, It's a veritable feast for readersintimate and revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554771</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=J M CoetzeeOttessa Moshfegh|title=Scenes From Provincial LifeMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=4.53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='Scenes from Provincial Life' At best, this novel is a compilation scathing critique of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published in 1997, 'Youth' published in 2002 modern society and [[Summertime by J M Coetzee|Summertime]] published in 2009. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition and yet they were initially published separately. What strikes reveals the reader fragility of this compilation human relationships; at worst, it is the change in style cynical, predictable and focus slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the third book world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in the seriesfact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846554853</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Henning MankellMatthew Tree|title=DanielWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=A young Hans Bengler has decided Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to leave be different from his homeland father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of Sweden his artistic passions all failed miserably and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desertwho had endless crises of self confidence. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dullSo Tim applied himself to his studies, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with cultivated his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friends. It's also plain that he's desperate to leave abilities rather than his cold Sweden for warmer climesdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. But at what cost?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009948143X</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mohammed HanifB0C47LV1PC|title=Our Lady of Alice BhattiFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Alice Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is nervous. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospital. Even although her nursing skills are far from idealquestion if you did, she believes she's in with a shoutwould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to work. She's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082051</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barry UnsworthMosby Woods|title=The Quality of MercyA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='The Quality of MercyWest isn' picks up t the story of dominant force it once was. Nobody in the author's Booker Prize-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although West is quite sure how to mend this or even if you haven't read mending it is the first bookbest course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, you won't be greatly disadvantaged as the relevant story lines are explaineda push for climate action there. What you might miss out on A feeling that nobody is some of in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the feeling for strategic advantage in this asset; a few of the main characters, most notably the Irish fiddler, Sullivan man who, when this book picks up in spring 1767, has just escaped from prison where the remaining shipmates can tell you what will happen given any set of the slave ship, the 'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracycircumstances. Slavery and abolition thereof remains a central theme of this sequelThat man would be valuable, but right? Perhaps the book draws some poignant similarities with those most valuable asset in bondage due to povertyhistory. Imagine then, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durhamthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091937124</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Zadie Smith0571379559|title=White TeethThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Some books sneak up on you''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Others Tess Hembry's roots are thrown at you from every corner in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the media passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the extent that you almost make a conscious decision NOT delivery rounds - and to read thembring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, or at least, not yetthe rainbow twins. Let the furore die downSonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. If People don't believe that they're still around in a few yearsrelated, your subconscious whispers, maybe wemuch less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she'll go see what all the fuss was abouts his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241954576</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=Michael OndaatjeKay Chronister|title= Desert 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= Eric LaRocca|title=The CatTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|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 Table''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=For the first half or so of this book, which sees an 11 year old boy called Michael (or Mynah to his friends) leave his home of Ceylon to travel to school in England''Love, I wasn't really sure if it even had a plot. Focusing on his journey in the 1950's aboard the ship to Englandd read, although occasionally leaping forward to his later life where he gives us tantalising glimpses as to what happened to his fellow passengers after the voyage, this originally seems was supposed to be nothing more than a series of incredibly well-drawn character sketches. In fairness, I should say that ''nothing more'' is rather harsh in this case – the men, women light and children Ondaatje creates, from a supposedly cursed rich man seeking a cure, to a friendly thief, to Michael's beautiful cousin Emilyweightless feeling, are so beautifully conjured that but I could have lived without a plot perfectly happily. However, we eventually realise therehad always longed for gravity's a little more to this narrative, and that this skilful author has been foreshadowing the events at the novel's climax all along.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093614</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian BarryJennifer Saint|title=On Canaan's SideAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Each chapter of 'On Cannan's Side' represents a day after the death I was as worthy as any one of the narratorthem. I would get on board that ship, Lilly Bere's, grandsonI vowed. I would take my place, Bill. Initially the reader is bombarded by a stream of half thoughts but soon Lilly begins to outline her own life story from being the daughter of a police officer not just in Ireland at the end name of the First World War, her subsequent flight to the USA, to ultimately living in retirement as a domestic cook to a wealthy Americangoddess. It's a remarkable story, full was for the sake of tragic events, but for all its hardshipsmy name, Lilly is from a time when such things are to be endured rather than dwelt ontoo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571226531</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Madeline MillerAmanthi Harris|title=The Song of AchillesBeautiful Place|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Before I started the bookPadma, I looked out my copy of Homer's ''The Iliad'' and skim-read its one page introduction (yesa young Sri Lankan, yet another book in my 'must-read' pile but it's been has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on it for about ahem, ten the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years). Having said thatIt is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it is rather dry became her home, and scholarly which didnthe machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the 't really inspire me to get on with this book as I wasn't really looking for a score'heavy' read, especially on a nice summerfor this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's day. Onwards ..present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408816032</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tiziano Scarpa178563335X|title=Stabat MaterSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=35
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Translated by Shaun Whiteside from ScarpaWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's 2008 Italian originala trainee vicar, 'Stabat Mater' is set sitting in on a Venetian orphanage for girls run by nuns in what would have been around PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the 1700schildren up. The girls at the 'Ospedale' are trained as musicians Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and singers who play from her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a hidden gallery sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in -law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the adjoining church for the patrons of the Instituto della Pietà. HoweverNorfolk coast, this is a highly stylised little booklovely place, bordering on but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the almost poetic, narrated from the point of view of one parish - and she's in awe of the orphansvicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a young violinist named Cecilia who goes walk on to tell of the impact of the appointment of a new inbeach would do them some good -house composer, one Don Antonio, or Vivaldi as most of us know himit was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687691</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christien Gholson1398515388|title=A Fish Trapped Inside The Boy and the WindDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=The front cover is lovely with its blue and turquoise suggesting languid waters. The author First of 'The Jane Austen Book Club' (all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which I've read incidentally) 'fell created the tsunami and this, in love with this novelturn, caused the nuclear meltdown.' High praise indeedThe result was complete and utter devastation. I'm hoping to do The deaths were uncountable, and the sameloss of livelihoods was widespread. Everything about this book stinks (and I use The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the word explicitly). All list of priorities but - six months after the chapters have the word 'fish' somewhere or other and there's tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a quote right at the beginning which gives the book its quirky and unusual titleconvenience store. (As IHe wasn'm t a fishy Piscean does dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that bode well for a good or sympathetic review, I wonder)he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906998906</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick deWitt0989715337|title=The Sisters BrothersPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Invariably''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the Booker Prize longlist contains one book that is more on opening and barked down at the side strange noise of light reading than the more worthy and overtly literary fare that it is usually associated withbuckets as he filled them. 'The Sisters Brothers' How is the 2011 choice. Set in the US that for an opening? The style of this novel in 1851, it details the adventures form of two brothers, Eli interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and Charlie Sistersmusing, who are hired hands for turning on a mysterious boss known only as the Commodoresixpence. Narrated by EliAnd author Marco North, who has slightly more the most wonderful turn of a conscience than his older brotherphrase, the story starts with the Commodore ordering a hit, for reasons unknown, as he means to go on a certain Hermann Kermit Warm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847083188</amazonuk>
}}