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<!-- Melissa Leet Laura Solomon -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1512235857.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1512235857/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Vera Magpie by Laura Solomon]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''I have murdered three husbands.'' As an opening line that must take some beating, but Vera's telling us the truth. The first two husbands, Gary and Harry were abusive, but Larry was a treasure, a keeper, and it's difficult to understand why Vera would have killed him, particularly when she was likely to get found out very quickly and now she's in prison with a mandatory life sentence. Her only friend is Shirley, a lesbian, but Vera's not one to let herself be a victim. She's not keen on having a sexual relationship with Shirley (she wouldn't risk the security of her life in prison for the sake of a fling), but she is keen on getting an education and she's studying for a degree in English Literature. [[Vera Magpie by Laura Solomon|Full Review]] <!-- Laura Solomon -->
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===[[Landslide Black Light by Melissa LeetLaura Solomon]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Jim is a university student and, as the saying goes, he hasn't got his troubles to seek. His father committed suicide when he was young and somehow he's never really managed to connect with his step-father. His younger brother would be kindly described as having learning difficulties: if you were being honest you'd just say that he was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for him. Jim's in love with a woman, but she finds him repulsive and you can understand why: the looks, the attitude, the (lack of) conversational ability and the clothing all leave a lot to be desired. Despite all that's he's not about to sit back and allow his life to drift: he's actually writing ''two'' novels and he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pub. [[Black Light by Laura Solomon|Full Review]]
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
The area where Jill and Susie lived wasn't highly populated so it was fortunate that they became such good friends, despite the fact that Susie was a year older than Jill. Susie lived with her mother, an alcoholic, and Jill lived with ''her'' mother, who dedicated herself to her garden. Jill's father was Jay Tutle, the photographer, but he spent much of his time working away - often for months on end. In reality there was little difference between the two families: Mrs Smith's alcoholism caused serious illness whilst Susie was still young. Joy and tragedy would visit Jill's home. ''Landslide'' is the story of how what happened determined the course of Jill's life and how great tragedy can breed resilience and hope. [[Landslide by Melissa Leet|Full Review]]
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===[[Aftershocks Redemptor Domus by A N WilsonGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In a country very much like New Zealand, but A young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on the same time most avowedly notscenic North Wales coast, two women will find lovesent far from his family in the Far East. Strong love too, for our narrator will say that her first attraction for her partner was As the only thing boy travels to make sense of all those exaggerated songs she'd heard, and books and poems she'd read, and plays she'd acted in – works of art that had until then seemed sheer hyperbole. It was entirely unrequited love for quite some time, but it does burgeon, or so we're promised from the offschool, because of something quite drastic – a major earthquake very much like family tragedy causes the one that hit Christchurch, but boy to arrive at the same time most avowedly notschool a vulnerable orphan, with an uncertain future. This book then is the combined exploration Plunged into a school full of danger and betrayal, the lovers boy is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, it comes to the story boy to attempt to clean up the pit of filth that the quakeschool has become. [[Aftershocks Redemptor Domus by A N WilsonGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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===[[Hell's Unveiling The Long Path To Wisdom by Laura SolomonJan-Philipp Sendker]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by On my travels around the opportunity to read the sequelworld, ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of I have a spoiler tendency to say end up in any bookshop that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal''is selling English-language books, but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong the next person, shewhat I's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel m really looking for is framed for a crime he didnthe 'local't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Then– the cookbook maybe, of course there are all the other children who are not only targetedmaps definitely, but - worst of above all - subverted to : the devil's evil endsfolk tales. HeIf I ever get to Burma, I won's out t need to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as with many foster childrenhunt, their self esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to HellI can read before I go. [[Hell's Unveiling The Long Path To Wisdom by Laura SolomonJan-Philipp Sendker|Full Review]]
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===[[Staying On Katalin Street by C M TaylorMagda Szabo]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
[[image:4starThis is a story about the past. A specific past, certainly, in the form of pre-war Budapest, but also a story about how that past can impact on the present and the future. In this book, the first of three Magda Szabó wrote on the same theme between 1969 and 1987 and now newly translated and reissued, we witness a heart-rending nostalgia for happier days, guilt about those who did not survive, and a dogged but doomed determination to cling to long-gone times, feelings and experiences which mark the here and now, staining and warping it into another, subtler misery.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionKatalin Street by Magda Szabo|General FictionFull Review]]
Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honest, Yorkshire's where he'd really like to be. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfect, but he's living in a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde and running a pub. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really like to sell it and return to the UK, what with the uncertainty of Brexit and everything, but there are a couple of problems. First off, his wife - Laney - refuses to go back to the UK. She'd have you believe that she's not well, but there's a backstory there that's not being talked about. Then there's the pub, which isn't doing well enough to sell. In fact Tony's cleaning the swimming pools of expats who have left Spain and returned home, in order to make a bit of money to try and make ends at least come in sight of each other, even if they never meet. [[Staying On by C M Taylor|Full Review]]
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===[[The Day of the Orphan by Dr Nat Tanoh]]===
===[[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionFor Sharing|General FictionFor Sharing]]
Saga is eighteen and, like many eighteen-year olds, his prime concerns are listening to what his mum calls ''hop-hip'', eating copious amounts of food, and learning about girls. Living in an affluent, liberal and protected suburb, he has a good life. However, the suburb is in Africa, where childhoods can be snatched in an instant. When his friends and family are dragged into the conflict raging around the dictatorship that Saga lives under, he is forced to become an unlikely revolutionary. Can chubby Saga really stand up to a murderous regime? And can he stay one step ahead of the soldiers desperate to stop him? [[The Day of the Orphan by Dr Nat Tanoh|Full Review]]
Something's gone horribly wrong. It's Christmas Eve and everything is very busy in Santa's grotto. The presents are all ready and waiting to be loaded onto the sleigh and the reindeer are itching to get going. But Santa? Santa is just not in the mood. He is tired of delivering the latest toys to children who only play with them for five minutes. He wishes people would remember what Christmas is really about - a time for families to come together for love and friendship and goodwill to one another. [[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston|Full Review]]<!-- Lock Mandeville -->
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===[[Murmuration Every Colour of You by Robert LockAmelia Mandeville]]===
[[image:3star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
Zoe believes in adding life to years as well as years to life. Her world, like her name, is bursting with life and colour. She is the sort of girl who would sing a rainbow is she could. Tristan (or ''MurmurationTree'' follows as she calls him) is the lives opposite. Fresh out of hospital following a host of characters from 1863 to the present day. From a risqué comic to prolonged stay in a fortune tellerpsychiatric unit, we see the birth of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamour. There is he sees a hint of mysticism to the tale, with the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting world as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the seaa grey place. [[Murmuration Every Colour of You by Robert LockAmelia Mandeville|Full Review]]
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===[[Smoking Kills A Spark of Light by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Jodi Picoult]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Meet Fabrice ValantineThe Center is the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi and is the source of great controversy when it comes to the Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice debate. He's a headhunterIt is at The Center where one man, George Goddard, and a successful one tootakes it upon himself to get revenge for the loss of his grandchild, in an office in Paristhe form of a mass-shooting. All around him however his world What arises is changing – yesa novel that details the lives of the remaining hostages, there is a new ban on smoking in all workplacesas well as other characters central to the story. Goaded by his non-smoking wife, even though they met over an ashtray, One of sortsthese characters is Hugh McElroy, he sees a hypnotist who had success with a mutual friend hostage negotiator called in stopping their nicotine habit. The session seems to have been successful, however he faces help deflate the prospect of having such a change to his own personalitysituation, who soon discovers that his imbued habits sister and lifestyledaughter, with fearWren, when he realises it will never again grant him any pleasure. He needs this pleasure when further changes happened to be at work come about – but it's what he replaces the habit with clinic that will surprise the mostday. [[Smoking Kills A Spark of Light by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Jodi Picoult|Full Review]] <!-- Vincent -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1471168239.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1471168239/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by M B Vincent]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
Dr Jess Castle, the self proclaimed failure of the prestigious Castle family has returned home to the sleepy, idyllic chocolate box town of Castle Kidbury. Rather than being delighted, her family are suspicious, especially her father, the judge. Luckily for Jess, she doesn't have to try too hard to dodge her family's suspicions as a series of gruesome local murders are taking place and that's all anyone is talking about. Jess accidentally finds herself in the thick of the investigation, and to her delight finds that she can actually be useful. But with the small population dwindling and the sense of danger moving ever closer to home, has Jess made a grave mistake getting involved? [[Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by M B Vincent|Full Review]]<!-- Bennett Stone -->
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===[[The Island by M A Bennett]]===
===[[What's Left Unsaid by Deborah Stone]]=== [[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
A contemporary take on the savage classic ''Lord of the Flies'': Sasha has a group of mismatched, modern-day teenagers must fight to survive lot on a deserted islandher plate. Link Husband Jeremy is a fish out of waterdistant and absent and the marriage needs work. Newly arrived from America, he Son Zac is finding entering a rebellious adolescent phase and it 's hard to settle know how to redirect him. Mother Annie, an alcoholic, is beginning the journey into the venerable dementia and prestigious Osney School. Who knew there could be so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind of school ranks its students by how fast they can run round the school quad - however ancient that quad may be? When Link runs the slowest time in years, he immediately becomes has never been an easy person at the butt best of every school joketimes. And some students are determined to make Thank heavens for her lovely dog, Sebastian, and his life more miserable than others..unconditional love. [[The Island What's Left Unsaid by M A BennettDeborah Stone|Full Review]]
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===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen]]===
===[[The Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis]]=== [[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''Edward is six weeks old and I’ve had no sleep. I had thirty stitches in my perineum, [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]the wounds still tug and itch. They had to do the stitches twice because the first lot became infected. The old-school midwife told me I wasn’t paying enough attention to personal hygiene. I must shower twice a day, or better still, take a salt bath. Do they really expect me to do that? Have they ever tried to shower when a baby is crying and you’re so tired you can barely stand and your partner is banging around downstairs because he’s late for work again?''
William Woolf is I think most women have felt like this shortly after having a letter detective, working baby. Many of them simply managed to put one foot in front of the Dead Letters Depot in East London. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses, tracking other until things calmed down mysterious people but some will have found it harder and reading endless letters of love, guilt, death, hope, and everyday life. developed post-natal depression[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Place Where Love Should Be by Helen CullenElizabeth Ellis|Full Review]]
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===[[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|FantasyThe Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden]]===
Marsha didn't have an easy ride in life the first time around. She'd been afflicted with [https[image://en4star.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressivajpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]], a rare disease which turned parts of her body to bone when they were damaged. Finally she was unable to stand her life any longer and went to Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia clinic. She'd thought that would be the end, but after cremation her body went straight to hell and she found herself face-to-face with the devil. And that was when she made the pact. In exchange for details about some of those who had been close to her - their strengths and weaknesses - she would be reborn on the same day to the same parents, but would live her life free of disease. [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon:Category:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral Fiction]]
Hugh Mullion goes away to Dorset for the weekend and, while waiting for his wife to arrive, finds a mysterious key down the back of an antique chair. The grubby and torn label to which is attached reads... [[The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden|Full Review]] <!-- Novik Hajaj -->
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===[[Spinning Silver The Water Thief by Naomi NovikClaire Hajaj]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:TeensLiterary Fiction|TeensLiterary Fiction]]
Miryem comes from a long line Nick is in the middle of moneylenders – but her Father isn't very good at it at all. Lending freely and rarely collecting, wedding preparations when he leaves the family on the edge of poverty, until Miryem must step decides to leave his fiancée behind in. Hardening her heart London and collecting what is owed from local villagers, she becomes take up a person post in some un-named west African country providing engineering support for the building of great interest when she borrows a pouch of silver pennies from her Grandfather and returns it full of gold, soon becoming entangled with an array of strange creatures, from the dark beings that haunt the wood through to a King whochildren's eager to exploit Miryem's talents – she soon becomes aware that her skills may be more trouble than they're worth… hospital. He has no idea what he is getting himself into. [[Spinning Silver The Water Thief by Naomi NovikClaire Hajaj|Full Review]]
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===[[Four Landslide by Andy JonesMelissa Leet]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]The area where Jill and Susie lived wasn't highly populated so it was fortunate that they became such good friends, despite the fact that Susie was a year older than Jill. Susie lived with her mother, an alcoholic, and Jill lived with ''her'' mother, who dedicated herself to her garden. Jill's father was Jay Tutle, the photographer, but he spent much of his time working away - often for months on end. In reality there was little difference between the two families: Mrs Smith's alcoholism caused serious illness whilst Susie was still young. Joy and tragedy would visit Jill's home. ''Landslide'' is the story of how what happened determined the course of Jill's life and how great tragedy can breed resilience and hope. [[Landslide by Melissa Leet|Full Review]]
<!-- Wilson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:41786496038.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786496038/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Aftershocks by A N Wilson]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Friends are niceIn a country very much like New Zealand, and couple friends are doubly nicebut at the same time most avowedly not, two women will find love. Strong love too, giving you like minded people for our narrator will say that her first attraction for her partner was the only thing to spend time with. A pair make sense of pairsall those exaggerated songs she'd heard, or a couple of couples. Married couple Sally and Al have known Mike for ages – Sally from universitybooks and poems she'd read, Al through work. His new girlfriend Faye completes their foursome and though plays she doesn't have their shared historyd acted in – works of art that had until then seemed sheer hyperbole. It was entirely unrequited love for quite some time, shebut it does burgeon, or so we's a lot re promised from the off, because of fun something quite drastic – a bit younger than major earthquake very much like the one that hit Christchurch, but at the rest same time most avowedly not. This book then is the combined exploration of them, an actress the lovers and so onthe story of the quake. [[Four Aftershocks by Andy JonesA N Wilson|Full Review]]
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===[[A Child Called Happiness Hell's Unveiling by Stephan CollishawLaura Solomon]]===
[[image:4star3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
Mazowe ValleyA little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, 2011 – Natalie hears ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a sharp cry spoiler to say that she thinks at first might be a birdMarsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but turns the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to be wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a baby'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong person, abandoned she's vulnerable where her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to the birds on the kopjereturn to live with Marsha. She is Then, of course there with her uncle and they take are all the childother children who are not only targeted, back but - worst of all - subverted to his farm initially the devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears and then to a local village where it weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self esteem is taken invery fragile. They do not report it This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to the policeHell. [[A Child Called Happiness Hell's Unveiling by Stephan CollishawLaura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions Staying On by Lydia SysonC M Taylor]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
On Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honest, Yorkshire's where he'd really like to be. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfect, but he's living in a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde and running a remote volcanic island off pub. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really like to sell it and return to the UK, what with the coast uncertainty of New ZealandBrexit and everything, but there are a family couple of settlers struggle problems. First off, his wife - Laney - refuses to go back to make such an unforgiving place the UK. She'd have you believe that she's not well, but there's a homebackstory there that's not being talked about. When a ship appearsThen there's the pub, they feel that their wishes which isn't doing well enough to sell. In fact Tony's cleaning the swimming pools of expats who have been granted left Spain and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when returned home, in order to make a vulnerable boy disappears. As both settlers bit of money to try and newcomers make ends at least come together in the search for the child, they uncover farsight of each other, far more than even if they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both the island and those who inhabit itnever meet. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions Staying On by Lydia SysonC M Taylor|Full Review]]
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===[[Underwater Breathing The Day of the Orphan by Cassandra ParkinDr Nat Tanoh]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
A tumbleSaga is eighteen and, like many eighteen-year olds, his prime concerns are listening to what his mum calls ''hop-down Edwardian house that will sooner rather than later tumble down the mud cliffs hip'', eating copious amounts of food, and away into the sea is where we meet Jacob and Ellalearning about girls. They share a bathroom Living in the turretan affluent, old liberal and cold and not really supposed to be used…but this is where they hide away from the shouts of their parents' argumentsprotected suburb, he has a good life. Here they play However, the Underwater Breathing gamesuburb is in Africa, submerging themselves where childhoods can be snatched in an instant. When his friends and family are dragged into the water holding their breath for as long as they can. For sixteen year old Jacob it's just a way of drowning out conflict raging around the arguments…but for Ella it is more than dictatorship that. She Saga lives under, he is terrified of the sea, of the fact that it will come and swallow their houseforced to become an unlikely revolutionary. She needs Can chubby Saga really stand up to know that she a murderous regime? And can survive under water. She has he stay one step ahead of the soldiers desperate to practice. stop him? [[Underwater Breathing The Day of the Orphan by Cassandra ParkinDr Nat Tanoh|Full Review]]
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===[[The Great Believers Murmuration by Rebecca MakkaiRobert Lock]]===
[[image:5star3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT General Fiction|LGBT General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
''The Great BelieversMurmuration'' follows the lives of a group host of friends whose lives are devastated by the AIDS crisis in Chicago during characters from 1863 to the late 1980’spresent day. Beginning in 1985, the reader follows Yale and his friends as they come From a risqué comic to terms with the increasingly virulent illness spreading throughout their communitya fortune teller, alongside their demonisation at we see the hands birth of a conservative AmericaBlackpool and its steadily fading glamour. Thirty years later Fiona, There is a devoted friend hint of mysticism to Yalethe tale, is searching for her estranged daughter on with the streets mesmerising dance of Parisstarlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, trying to rebuild a relationship beset drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by memories and old hurtthe sea. [[The Great Believers Murmuration by Rebecca MakkaiRobert Lock|Full Review]]
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===[[The Brighton Mermaid Smoking Kills by Dorothy KoomsonAntoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In 1993, two teenagers stumble across a horrific scene on the beach as theyMeet Fabrice Valantine. He're sneaking home after an un-authorised night out: s a body of headhunter, and a young womansuccessful one too, partially strippedin an office in Paris. All around him however his world is changing – yes, totally deceased. The find hits the girls there is a new ban on smoking in different waysall workplaces. Nell becomes obsessed with finding the identity Goaded by his non-smoking wife, even though they met over an ashtray, of the girl – sorts, he sees a hypnotist who she calls ''the Brighton Mermaid'' because of had success with a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happenedmutual friend in stopping their nicotine habit. Fast forward 25 years and Nell is still haunted by what happened that night. With few leads The session seems to go onhave been successful, however he faces the Police closed the case without cracking it, and so it remains one prospect of those unsolved mysteries that become part of local folklore, but Nell struggles having such a change to let sleeping dogshis own personality, or even sleeping mermaidshis imbued habits and lifestyle, lie. As for Jude, well no one knows if the discovery still haunts her because no one knows where she is. Shortly after that fateful night, she too disappearedwith fear, when he realises it will never to be seen or heard from againgrant him any pleasure. ThereHe needs this pleasure when further changes at work come about – but it's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seemswhat he replaces the habit with that will surprise the most. [[The Brighton Mermaid Smoking Kills by Dorothy KoomsonAntoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Short The Island by Lex CoultonM A Bennett]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionTeens|General FictionTeens]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Women's General Fiction|Women's General Fiction]]
Lex CoultonA contemporary take on the savage classic ''Lord of the Flies''s debut novel is : a story about mistakesgroup of mismatched, failures, and relationshipsmodern-day teenagers must fight to survive on a deserted island. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, Link is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen fish out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleagueof water. Newly arrived from America, and he is grappling with finding it hard to settle into the increasingly eccentric behaviour venerable and prestigious Osney School. Who knew there could be so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind of her mother. This relationship is complicated school ranks its students by how fast they can run round the fact school quad - however ancient that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five quad may be? When Link runs the slowest time in years old, he immediately becomes the butt of every school joke. And some students are determined to make his life more miserable than others... [[Falling Short The Island by Lex CoultonM A Bennett|Full Review]]
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Elisabeth HydeHelen Cullen]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for William Woolf is a letter detective, working in the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday nightDead Letters Depot in East London. He might be a retired lawyer, a state legislatorspends his days deciphering smudged addresses, elected congressman tracking down mysterious people and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrived. Ruth, a corporate lawyerreading endless letters of love, would find fault and want to talk about him going into a retirement home. Georgeguilt, a nurse, would argue and Lizziedeath, a professor of English Literaturehope, who lived locally and kept and visited him regularly, would be unpredictableeveryday life. Murray hoped that all would go smoothly, but that simply wasn't going to happen. [[Go Ask Fannie Farmer The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Elisabeth HydeHelen Cullen|Full Review]]
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