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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= 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 his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingauthor=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->Literary FictionIa Pendilly lives |summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a caravan on man with precognition. Imagine the coast strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of Cornwall – a woman as raw as circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the landscape most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that surrounds herthis man loses this ability. Living with BranWhat would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, her abusive cousin and common law husbandbut instead, shelives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's never yet had her own babystood the passage of time, storms and floods. Discovering a waif washed up on shore Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, Ia rescues to complete the girl but is also rescued by the girl – given a new found strength to escape delivery rounds - and to embark on a new journeybring in sufficient money. The journey takes her deep into a troubled society They have twin boys - Sonny and through a damagedMax, hurting world – finding family and memories long hidden will break Iathe rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, remake her much less twins and perhaps give her the elusive sense of freedom there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's been seekinghis nanny.}}{{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}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post- Bonnefoy 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 Trees Grew Because I Bled There| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"5|genre= Horror[[image:1910477524.jpg|linksummary=http://wwwHorror 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.amazonEric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that.coIt is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation.uk/dp/1910477524/refHorrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=nosim?tagLiterary Fiction|summary=thebookbag-21]]''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''

''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.| styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating=5|genre=[[Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)]]==Literary Fiction|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''

[[image:4starPrincess. Warrior. Lover. Hero.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]

Miguel Bonnefoy's ''Black SugarAbandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis'name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a sensual epic chronicling three generations place 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, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the Otero family''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. The tale begins with Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the disappearance musical score of Captain Henry Morgana film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's treasure a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and then illustrates wondering why they're held when you need to pick the power this treasure children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds over peoplea sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Multiple people become obsessed Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with finding this fabled treasure that has become an urban legend the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the town in which job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the story is setbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing. [[Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Emily Boyce Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|Full Review]]genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, 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 many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}}

<!-- Ruby -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=0989715337| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Papa on the Moon|author=Marco North[[image:1455565180.jpg|linkrating=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1455565180/ref4|genre=nosim?tagLiterary Fiction|summary=thebookbag-21]]''Some frogs had gotten into the well.''

How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.}}{{Frontpage| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Daisy Hildyard|title=Emergency|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=[[The Zero and summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the One by Ryan Ruby]]==premise.|isbn=1913097811}}

[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]Frontpage ''The Zero and the One'' is an incredibly well written and well crafted book. We meet our narrator, Owen, on the plane to New York for the funeral of his best friend. He is still reeling after recent events, a suicide pact in which his friend died but he lived, and he is going through the motions of the funeral and consoling family whilst still trying to get to grips with his own feelings of grief and guilt. So far, so simple. But this is where the talent of Ryan Ruby steps in and slowly, so slowly, he reveals little tantalising clues that all is not what it seems, a throw-away comment here, a mis-step there, and it becomes clear that Owen is not a reliable narrator. [[The Zero and the One by Ryan Ruby|Full Review]] <!-- Miles -->|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Sally Oliver [[image:0553447580.jpg|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0553447580/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] The Weight of Loss | stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|4 ===[[Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Look closely at summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the cover death of Jonathan Miles's third novel and you'll see the central drama depicted: white wheelchair tracks snake up her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bottom and stop three-quarters bones of the way from the top, where they are replaced by footprints. On 23 August 2014, wheelchair-bound veteran Cameron Harris stands up and walks outside the Biz-E-Bee convenience store her spine which steadily increase in Biloxi, Mississippi. In the rest of the novel we find out how he got to this point size and what others – ranging from his doctor to representatives of the Roman Catholic Church – will make of his recoveryvolume. Was it a miracleHer GP, or an explainable medical diagnosing the odd phenomenon? [[Anatomy of as a Miracle by Jonathan Miles|Full Review]] <!-- Mcneil -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mcneil Fire.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785078992/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fire on the Mountain by Jean McNeil]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is an unusual bookphysical reaction to her grief, in style it feels like a novel by E M Forster; with a deep study recommends she go to stay at the minutiae of life and thoughtNede, yet the plot and content is thoroughly modernan experimental new treatment centre in Wales. The bulk of the story Yet something strange is told through the perspective of Nick, happening to Marianne and we see his point of view on life around him. The main characters of the book, however, are Pieter and Riaan, as it is these characters who fascinate Nick and are the focus of his contemplation and crisis. [[Fire on the Mountain by Jean McNeil|Full Review]] <!-- Morrall -->|-| style="widthother patients at Nede: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Morrall_Last.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/ISBN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Last a metamorphosis of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall]]=== [[image:4stara kind.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Down in hidden railway carriages, deep behind foliage and further down Long Meadow Road than most care to go, live the Greenwood Brothers. They havenAs Marianne't spoken s memories threaten to each other in yearsoverwhelm her, but one morning a letter arrives on their doorstep - a letter Nede offers her release from a sister long thought dead...As the brothers are forced to confront painful memories this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a past terrible price: that both tried to keep buried, the post-woman who delivered the letter struggles with secrets of her ownidentity itself... [[The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall|Full Review]] <!-- Rawi -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Rawi_Baghdad.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073226/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi]]==isbn=086154112X }} [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]Frontpage ''The Baghdad Clock'' is a tale of two friends growing up during the first and second Iraqi war. Shahad Al Rawi uses magic realism to illustrate the displacement felt by a young girl and her neighbourhood. The novel introduces us to the various characters surrounding the protagonist. They are full of life and yet never seem to add anything to the central narrative. Rawi, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi|Full Review]] <!-- Clements -->|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Natalia Garcia Freire[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472204271/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]This World Does Not Belong To Us| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|5===[[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Maybe you've heard about Scarcross Hall? Hidden summary= Early comments on the old coffin path that winds this debut novel from the village to the moor topEcuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the villagers only speak of it in hushed tones - of how itfirst – tremendous is no understatement – but 's a foreboding place filled with evil. Mercy Booth has lived there since birth, and shedelight's always loved is perhaps using the grand house and its isolation, but expression in a recurrence of strange events begins to unsettle herway I'm not familiar with. From objects disappearing through I have to a shadowy presence sensed in confess my ignorance of the house, mysteries come to light that can only be solved by Mercy unearthing longSpanish-buried secretslanguage literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. And will a dark stranger help Mercy protect everything she has come to love or tear it from her grasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]] <!-- Durrenmatt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Durrenmatt_Justice.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782273875?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1782273875]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods From the little I have read (translator)]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It's 1957in translation, and weI don're somewhere in Switzerland, and t read Spanish) there's just one case on everyone's lips – the simple fact that a politician has gone into the crowded room of one of those 'the place does seem to go' restaurants, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have known, and ferried be a British companion to the airport in his chauffeur-driven Rolls before handing himself in to face tendency towards the murder rap. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. He's certainly of much interest, not only to our narrator, a young lawyer called Spaet fantastical – even if he rarely gets to frequent such establishments with such people, he is eager to know more, especially once he is actually tasked by the man in hand to look into things a second timemystical realism. But what's this, where he opens his testimony about the affair with the conclusion, that he himself will need to turn killer to redress the balance? [[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)|Full Review]]isbn=0861541901}}<!-- Cercas -->{{Frontpage|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Jennifer Saint[[image:Cercas_Impostor.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857056506?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creativetitle=6738&creativeASIN=0857056506]]Elektra| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|4===[[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Enric Marco is without doubt an extraordinary man. A veteran of summary='Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the Spanish Civil War, honoured for his bravery on the battlefield. A political prisoner story of two fascist regimes. A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. A prominent figure three women who live in the clandestine resistance against Franco's tyrannyheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. A tireless warrior for social justice Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the defence story of human rightsthe Trojan War. A national hero. But Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco is this: that he is really none of these things. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets out to tell his story – compelling stories and the true story of Spain's most notorious liarextreme furies. [[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Badoe -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Badoe_Jigsaw.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786695480?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786695480]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe]]==isbn=1472273915}}[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]] Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on she's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante is to tell their story and her own. [[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe|Full Review]] <!-- Batalha -->Frontpage|-isbn=8409290103| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|If Only[[image:Batalha_Invisible.jpg|left|linkauthor=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178607298X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=178607298X]]Matthew Tree| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|rating===[[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] On the surface, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it all. A nice-enough, parent-pleasing husband with a steady banking job, two young children upon whom to dote, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever want, isn't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside her for something more, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projects, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenor. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house and her family. [[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Hodgkinson -->|-| stylesummary="width: 10%; verticalTwenty-align: top; textone-align: center;"|[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273824/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbagyear-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]]his father, [[cotton-broker AO Lowry:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]he asked his accountant, [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short worksMr Patrick, it's to ensure that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year of publication young man got on board the boat and some in the 1960sthereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys, but from Patrick sent the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes money regularly and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenlandcorrespondence -born author now living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of sorts - sprang up between the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species… [[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|Full Review]] <!-- Hesselholdt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hesselholdt_CompanionsPatrick.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910695335/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]  It wasn't that Lowry senior didn'Companions'' is written as a series of monologuest care for his son, where six middle-aged friends take it in turns to narrate scenes from their lives, charting the intimate details of their holidays, dinner parties, families, marriages, affairs and work lives in a style was that mixes honesty and openness with fantasy and evasion. The charm of the novel lies in the way the friendshe didn' voices bicker with one another among the pages, as we discover that there are always several sides t care to the same story. We learn most about the characters not through what they say about themselves but through what the others say about them. Along the way, there is heartbreak and grief, but have him in this is always offset by an abundance of humour and a writing style that never fails to country where he might be refreshingly light-hearted. [[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- BERGEN -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bergen_Stranger.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0715652419/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Stranger by David Bergen]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''Stranger'' tells the story of Íso, a young Guatemalan woman, and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him danger to return to the States, she is left pregnant his wife and lonelyother children. Her anguish becomes The alcohol problem was obvious even more profound when her daughter is abducted, and taken before Patrick managed to live with get the doctor and young man on his wifeway. What followed - tales of the journey Íso embarked upon in the hope of finding her baby - was an amazing story of the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her child. [[Stranger by David Bergen|Full Review]]}}<!-- Chonghaile -->{{Frontpage|-author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Red is My Heart[[image:Chonghaile_Rain.jpg|linkrating=http://www3.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785079018/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|Literary Fiction ===[[Rain Falls On Everyone by Clar Ni Chonghaile]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary FictionAntoine Laurain|Literary FictionAntoine Laurain]] It's a cliché that the Irish books have a picturesque turn of phrase, but clichés only exist because they're true. Roddy Doyle put it differently always been black and white and read in a recent interview with ''Writing'' magazine, when he said that ''With Irish, there's another language bubbling under the English''my house. However you express itAnd so was this one, although I could have spelled that art of expression is woven into every other line of Clár's prose. Pick a page at random and you'll find something like ''the sickness that had come to roost in her home like a cursed owl'' or ''like he more accurately – this one was God, Jesus and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or ''a low sobbingis, slow black and inevitable as rain on a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawares, or tear at your heart in their mundane sadness. Or sometimes bothwhite and red. [[Rain Falls On Everyone by Clar Ni Chonghaile|Full Review]] <!-- Mete -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mete_Sinful.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1524682527/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Sinful Words by Hesene Mete]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we meet himYes, Behram is a student at the school of theology. He loves God with a passion and he has a determination to live a life dedicated to God and to live by His rules. He rents a property from Lulu Khan and his wifean artistic collaborator on this piece, Lady Geshtina and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visit. ItI think it's a delightful place and the wealth of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtina's late father is buried in what amounts possible to a mausoleum, but it's say not all this which enchants Behram. The couple have twin children and Behram is taken, enthralled by one page lacks the daughter, Nagina. [[Sinful Words by Hesene Mete|Full Review]] <!-- Laurel -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Laurel_Gurugu.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.coinfluence of some striking visual ideas.uk/dp/1908276940/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|1913547183===[[The Gurugu Pledge by Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel, one of Equatorial Guinea's best-known dissident writers, is an author who deserves to be read the world over. With The Gurugu Pledge, he's captured an angry and incredibly urgent slice of the migrant experience – a snapshot of the dangers faced by those crossing the African continent in search of the barbed wire fences at Melilla- the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Morocco. [[The Gurugu Pledge by Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Matthew SmithB098FFFBH9|title= The WakingSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Isabel Sykes, 23, recounts the recent attempt she made to come to terms with the loss of Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her mother, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykes. Marianne died in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was ten. Inspired by the appearance of Imogen Taylor, an enchanting young woman who wants to write a PhD on her motherschool's work, Isabel plunges into the depths of her past animal rights project leader and an intense new friendship. After discovering that Imogen is not who she seems and her friend are producing a competition entry to be, Isabel must face highlight the darkest moments from her childhood way in order to protect her family from more tragedywhich human beings exploit the animal world. She receives unexpected help gets a great deal of support from beyond the graveher family: in the strangefather Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, glittering fragments of mother Kate and her mother's lasttwin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, unfinished worka toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'Midnightsongll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0995654158</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ali SmithYancey Williams|title= AutumnCrosshairs of the Devil|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The first part Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in Ali Smithyears and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's four part 'Seasonal' series, Autumn is point of view - in room 315 of the story Garden of Daniel Gluck and Elisabeth DemandEden nursing home, unexpected friends who used to be neighbours when Elisabeth was with only a little girltrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. In a series Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of memories and dreamswriting though, so here, for his readers, we discover their friendship from Daniel babysitting Elisabeth are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0008421714|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her visits with him now first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he is in 's based a home and drawing towards character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the end of his extremely long and fascinating lifeprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. Along Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the waywhore of Nantes - ''a weak, we get a wonderfully written insight into timeplain, detestable, pathetic, memoriesunloved, and the fleeting nature of life itselfunloveable wretch. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241973317</amazonuk>''