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<!-- Laura Solomon AMS -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1408711265.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408711265/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Long-time followers of The Bookbag will know I'm a die-hard fan of AMS. So you can imagine my excitement at reading a brand new book in a brand new series, described by the author himself as Scandi Blanc (as opposed to Scandi Noir)! Here we meet a new detective named Ulf Varg, who works in the Department for Sensitive Crimes, solving those crimes that perhaps fall outside the usual police parameters. This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is stabbed in the knee, the disappearance of an imaginary boyfriend, and a case of potential werewolves. They're the crimes that perhaps nobody else would bother to deal with, and I rather enjoyed them, especially the stabbing where you find that actually, you identify with the person who committed the crime, rather than the victim. [[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith|Full Review]] <!-- Kennedy -->
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===[[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon]]===
===[[The Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
Marsha didnThe final novel in Alan Kennedy't have an easy ride in life the first time arounds WW2 trilogy sees Captain Alex Vere taken off active duty and banished to Scotland, providing trade craft spy training. SheIt'd been afflicted with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva], s stifling and suffocating and feels as much like a rare disease which turned parts of her body prison to bone when they were damagedAlex as anything the Germans would provide. Finally she was unable to stand And where is Justine? Alex hasn't seen her life any longer and since he went to Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia clinic. She'd thought 'that would be '' disastrous meeting with John Cabot, instigator of the enddisinformation campaign, but after cremation her body went straight to hell and she found herself face-returned to-face with the devilfind her missing. And that was when she made the pactA failed mission is one thing but no Justine is quite another. In exchange for details about some Alex can't get Justine out of those who had been close to her - their strengths and weaknesses - his head. Has she would be reborn on left the same day to the same parents, but would live her life free of disease. service? Does she know too much? Is she even still alive? [[Marsha's Deal The Things That are Lost by Laura SolomonAlan Kennedy|Full Review]]
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===[[Spinning Silver A Danger to Herself and Others by Naomi NovikAlyssa Sheinmel]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:FantasyTeens|FantasyTeens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
Miryem comes from a long line of moneylenders – but her Father isn't very good at it at all'They needed someone to blame, and I was the only available scapegoat. Lending freely and rarely collecting, he leaves Their daughter was my best friend. Playing the scapegoat was the family on least I could do under the edge of poverty, until Miryem must step incircumstances. Hardening '' Seventeen year old Hannah Gold was born mature – or so her heart and collecting what is owed from local villagers, she becomes a person of great interest when she borrows a pouch of silver pennies from parents tell her Grandfather and returns it full of gold. She has dined in fancy restaurants, soon becoming entangled with an array explored the most sophisticated corners of strange creatures, from the dark beings that haunt the wood through to globe and lived a King who's eager to exploit Miryem's talents – she soon becomes aware that her skills may be more trouble than they're worth… life of luxury. [[Spinning Silver A Danger to Herself and Others by Naomi NovikAlyssa Sheinmel|Full Review]]
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===[[Four Louis and Louise by Andy JonesJulie Cohen]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Friends are niceWhat would you be like, and couple friends are doubly niceright now, giving if you like minded people to spend time with. A pair 'd been born a different gender? Would it simply be a matter of pairsgenetics, or a couple of couples. Married couple Sally and Al your life would still have known Mike for ages – Sally from universityunfolded in the same way? Or would the way you had been raised affect who you became in life? This latest novel by Julie Cohen looks at all of the above, Al through work. His new girlfriend Faye completes their foursome covering the stories of Louis and though she doesn't have their shared historyLouise, born on the same day, to the same parents, but in one storyline Lou is a boy, she's and in the other a lot of fun – girl. Does it really make a bit younger than difference, the rest of themgender box that is ticked when we arrive in this world? We all know that men and women are treated differently, but this story really highlights how things have been in the past, how they still are, an actress and so onprompts you to think about how they could be... [[Four Louis and Louise by Andy JonesJulie Cohen|Full Review]]
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===[[A Child Called Happiness M for Mammy by Stephan CollishawEleanor O'Reilly]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Mazowe ValleyThe Augustts are, like all families, 2011 – Natalie hears a sharp cry that she thinks at first might be a birdbit complicated. A loving irish family, their love binds them together – but turns out to be a babyall express that in very different ways. However, abandoned to the birds on when misfortune strikes the kopje. She is there with her uncle and family they take the child, back are forced to his farm initially and then work together in order to understand each other again, as with a local village where family as complicated as the Augustts it 's not always what is taken spoken that makes the most sense. Things are shaken up further when Granny Mae-Anne moves inand takes charge. They do not report it Full of stern words and common sense, she's a force of nature who must try her hardest to hold the policefamily together. [[A Child Called Happiness M for Mammy by Stephan CollishawEleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]]
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===[[Mr PeacockQueenie Malone's Possessions Paradise Hotel by Lydia SysonRuth Hogan]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical General Fiction|Historical General Fiction]], [[:Category:General FictionHumour|Humour]], [[:Category:Paranormal|General FictionParanormal]]
On a remote volcanic island off Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the coast remains of New Zealandher mother's life after her death. Whilst there, a family of settlers struggle she returns to make such an unforgiving place the Paradise hotel, a homehaven for eccentrics and misfits. When a ship appearsA place where people can be themselves, they feel and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that their wishes have been granted and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a vulnerable boy disappearschild, from this place of wonder. As both settlers and newcomers come together in With the search for the childhelp of Queenie Malone, they uncover farcaring, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the island tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and those who inhabit itdistant mother. [[Mr PeacockQueenie Malone's Possessions Paradise Hotel by Lydia SysonRuth Hogan|Full Review]]
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===[[Underwater Breathing by Cassandra Parkin]]===
===[[The Man Who Came to London by A S Cookson]]=== [[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''In 1948, the first set of Caribbean nationals arrived in Great Britain on a ship called "Empire Windrush". They struggled to find housing. They worked as labourers. They faced open discrimination, forcing them to quickly form their own community. Decades later, Freddy makes the same journey.'' ''Does he find a place to live? Does he face stereotypes? Has Britain moved forward?''
A tumble-down Edwardian house that will sooner rather than later tumble down Freddie arrives in London in the mud cliffs and away into early 2000s, answering the sea is where we meet Jacob and Ellacall for teachers. They share a bathroom in He thinks about his own Jamaican education, based on the turretBritish system, old and cold the way he was taught English nursery rhymes and not really supposed to be used…but this is where they hide away from about the shouts of their parents' argumentsRiver Thames. Here they play He thinks about the Underwater Breathing gamelove of cricket and football, submerging themselves in the water holding their breath for as long as they canshared by both countries. For sixteen year old Jacob it's just a way And he thinks of drowning out the arguments…but for Ella it is more than that. She is terrified generations of the sea, of the fact that it will come and swallow their housediaspora who came before him. She needs Freddy does well in his job in East London but he does have to know face down some stereotypical attitudes from his pupils - all Jamaicans smoke weed, don't they? Everybody knows that she can survive under water. She has to practice. ! [[Underwater Breathing The Man Who Came to London by Cassandra ParkinA S Cookson|Full Review]]
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===[[The Great Believers Liberation Square by Rebecca MakkaiGareth Rubin]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|LGBT General Fiction]]
''The Great Believers'' follows a group of friends whose lives are devastated by the AIDS crisis in Chicago during the late 1980’sIn an alternate 1952, Soviet Troops control British Streets. Beginning in 1985After D-Day goes horribly wrong, the reader follows Yale and his friends as they come Britain is first occupied by Nazi Germany – only to terms with be rescued by Russian soldiers from the increasingly virulent illness spreading throughout their communityEast, alongside their demonisation at and Americans from the hands of a conservative Americawest. Thirty years later FionaDividing the nation between them, London soon finds itself split in two, a devoted friend to Yale, wall running through it like a scar. When Jane Cawson's husband is searching arrested for her estranged daughter on the streets murder of Parishis former wife, trying Jane is determined to rebuild clear his name. In doing so, Jane follows a relationship beset by memories trail of corruption that leads her right to the highest levels of the state – and old hurt. soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of the murderous secret police… [[The Great Believers Liberation Square by Rebecca MakkaiGareth Rubin|Full Review]]
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===[[The Brighton Mermaid When You Read This by Dorothy KoomsonMary Adkins]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In 1993Smith Simonyi and Iris Massey worked together for four years, during which time Iris left her husband at the altar on their wedding day. Smith, meanwhile, relied on Iris, two teenagers stumble across a horrific scene but his attention was on the beach as theymaking enough money to cover his mother're sneaking s nursing home after an un-authorised night out: a body of a young womanfees in Wisconsin, partially stripped, totally deceased. The find hits running the girls branding agency in different waysNew York and losing money gambling when the pressures got too much for him. Nell becomes obsessed with finding the identity of He was devastated when Iris developed a terminal cancer and died at the girl – who she calls ''the Brighton Mermaid'' because age of a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happenedthirty three. Fast forward 25 years and Nell is still haunted by what happened He was surprised too when he discovered that night. With few leads to go on, Iris had been writing a blog in the Police closed the case without cracking it, last six months of her life and so it remains one her final request of those unsolved mysteries Smith is that become part of local folklore, but Nell struggles to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, lie. As for Jude, well no one knows if he gets the discovery still haunts her because no one knows where she is. Shortly after that fateful night, she too disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. There's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seemsblog published as a book. [[The Brighton Mermaid When You Read This by Dorothy KoomsonMary Adkins|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Short Vera Magpie by Lex CoultonLaura Solomon]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships'I have murdered three husbands. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague, and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old. [[Falling Short by Lex Coulton|Full Review]]'
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]] <!-- Elisabeth Hyde Laura Solomon -->
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer Black Light by Elisabeth HydeLaura Solomon]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
[[imageJim 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:4if you were being honest you'd just say that he was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for him.5star 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.jpg|link=Category Despite all that's he's not about to sit back and allow his life to drift:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] he's actually writing ''two'' novels and he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pub. [[:Category:General FictionBlack Light by Laura Solomon|General FictionFull Review]]
Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday night. He might be a retired lawyer, a state legislator, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrived. Ruth, a corporate lawyer, would find fault and want to talk about him going into a retirement home. George, a nurse, would argue and Lizzie, a professor of English Literature, who lived locally and kept and visited him regularly, would be unpredictable. Murray hoped that all would go smoothly, but that simply wasn't going to happen. [[Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde|Full Review]]
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===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Redemptor Domus by Ruth HoganGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Masha's son Gabriel died some years ago. She'd been a single parent with help A young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on the scenic North Wales coast, sent far from her friend, Edward, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out family in the immediate aftermath of Far East. As the boy travels to the drowningschool, but there's now a new love interest) Masha family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at the school a vulnerable orphan, with an uncertain future. Plunged into a school full of danger and betrayal, the boy is still strickenseen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal comes to the boy to Gabriel if she was attempt to be happy. An independent, rebellious woman clean up the pit of filth that the school has somehow been diminishedbecome. [[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Redemptor Domus by Ruth HoganGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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===[[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland Long Path To Wisdom by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)Jan-Philipp Sendker]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionShort Stories|General FictionShort Stories]], [[:Category:Literary General Fiction|Literary General Fiction]]
Jane Ashland is dying. That's a description of a very early scene here – but also, of courseOn my travels around the world, I have a platitude that can apply tendency to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going end up and down in levels of pleasure, energy – sobriety – in these pages, but we soon learn any bookshop that it recently found a very deeply dark down place. Here thenis selling English-language books, scattered through a timelineand while I buy as many second-bending narrativehand escapist tales as the next person, we have her days finding a Lincolnesque lover as a student in New Yorkwhat I'm really looking for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybe, glimpses of therapythe maps definitely, a drive but above all: the folk tales. If I ever get to find her ancestors that takes her from rural America Burma, I won't need to Norway – and a trip there with a new-found friend to watch the musk oxenhunt, of all thingsI can read before I go. And nowhere in sight is anything like a platitude… [[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland Long Path To Wisdom by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)Jan-Philipp Sendker|Full Review]]
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===[[Tale of a Tooth Katalin Street by Allie RogersMagda Szabo]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Danny lives in a small Sussex town with his mother, Natalie. Life This is poor, but they manage - until they're threatened by a benefits sanctionstory about the past. A Job Centre employee looks to be their salvation specific past, certainly, in the form of pre- war Budapest, but her also a story about how that past can impact on the family goes far beyond what they present and the future. In this book, the first expectof 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 resulting changes here and now, staining and warping it into another, subtler misery. [[Katalin Street by Magda Szabo|Full Review]]  <!-- Vanston -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911569740.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911569740/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For Sharing|For Sharing]]  Something's gone horribly wrong. It's Christmas Eve and everything is very busy in Santa's grotto. The presents are described all ready and waiting to be loaded onto the sleigh and the reader through reindeer are itching to get going. But Santa? Santa is just not in the naive yet perceptive and wholly original eyes mood. He is tired of fourdelivering the latest toys to children who only play with them for five minutes. He wishes people would remember what Christmas is really about -year-old Dannya time for families to come together for love and friendship and goodwill to one another. [[Tale of a Tooth Santa Goes on Strike by Allie RogersJem Vanston|Full Review]]<!-- Mandeville -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0751571695.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0751571695/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Every Colour of You by Amelia Mandeville]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General 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 ''Tree'' as she calls him) is the opposite. Fresh out of hospital following a prolonged stay in a psychiatric unit, he sees a world as a grey place. [[Every Colour of You by Amelia Mandeville|Full Review]] <!-- Trevelyan Picoult -->
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===[[Claudia A Spark of Light by Anthony TrevelyanJodi Picoult]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
When Claudia The Center is the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi and is called to the reception source of her Manchester Office block great controversy when it comes to meet a visitorthe Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice debate. It is at The Center where one man, George Goddard, she doesn't expect takes it upon himself to be her father figure – a man she hasn't seen get revenge for fifteen years. Samson Glaze – otherwise known as Wild Samsonthe loss of his grandchild, The Aztec and The Sun King, walked out in the form of Claudia's life and into a world mass-shooting. What arises is a novel that details the lives of success the remaining hostages, as a solar panel salesman – but now he's returned and he needs Claudia's helpwell as other characters central to the story. ReggieOne of these characters is Hugh McElroy, Samson's son, has joined a mysterious cult hostage negotiator called ''Tarantula''in to help deflate the situation, a group who prepare for the end of the world soon discovers that his sister and encourage humanity daughter, Wren, happened to embrace their impending doombe at the clinic that day. Claudia's journey takes her far from her home in Manchester to the end of the world – where encounters with hammer-wielding assassins make things very difficult indeed… [[Claudia A Spark of Light by Anthony TrevelyanJodi Picoult|Full Review]]
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===[[The Man I Think I Know Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by Mike GayleM B Vincent]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
James DeWitt and Danny Allen 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 both men in their early thirties whose lives havensuspicious, especially her father, the judge. Luckily for Jess, she doesn't taken them where they were supposed have to try too hard to gododge her family's suspicions as a series of gruesome local murders are taking place and that's all anyone is talking about. At an all time low time for both Jess accidentally finds herself in the thick of themthe investigation, and to her delight finds that she can actually be useful. But with the two men reconnect small population dwindling and slowly find they're exactly what the other needs. Togethersense of danger moving ever closer to home, they help each other put their lives back together. This is has Jess made a beautiful story about friendship and what it really means to help another person. grave mistake getting involved? [[The Man I Think I Know Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by Mike GayleM B Vincent|Full Review]] <!-- Butland Stone -->
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===[[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|WomenWhat's FictionLeft Unsaid by Deborah Stone]]===
Ailsa Rae has been sick her whole life, and just as she was edging closer to death she finally, finally got the call that she needed, that a heart was available for her to have a transplant[[image:4star. Previously she had felt so helpless that she had used her blog to make decisions for her, running polls amongst her readers to decide on her actions. But with her new heart, she has been given a new life. Can Ailsa manage to start to live on her own, and will her mother let her do that? jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland:Category:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral Fiction]]
Sasha has a lot on her plate. Husband Jeremy is distant and absent and the marriage needs work. Son Zac is entering a rebellious adolescent phase and it's hard to know how to redirect him. Mother Annie, an alcoholic, is beginning the journey into dementia and has never been an easy person at the best of times. Thank heavens for her lovely dog, Sebastian, and his unconditional love. [[What's Left Unsaid by Deborah Stone|Full Review]] <!-- Mohamed Ellis -->
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===[[Falling Leaves by Stefan Mohamed]]===
===[[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, 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, [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]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?''
When your best friend vanishes, how can you begin to move on? How can you live your life not knowing whether they're okay? And what would you do if they reappeared in your life? – all questions that Vanessa faces every day, even seven years I think most women have felt like this shortly after her best friend Mark vanished. When he reappears, she's shocked not only by his presence back in her life, but also by the fact that he hasn't aged having a day – for him, no time has passed since his disappearancebaby. Shocked, confused and emotionally reeling, Vanessa must return Many of them simply managed to her home town put one foot in order to help Mark find front of the answers he so desperately craves. But what's waiting for them is far more surprising than either of them could ever other until things calmed down but some will have dreamt… found it harder and developed post-natal depression[[Falling Leaves The Place Where Love Should Be by Stefan MohamedElizabeth Ellis|Full Review]]
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===[[Dyed Souls by Gary Santorella]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General FictionThe Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden]]===
The USA, early 1980s. Charlie (or Charles, if he's feeling belligerent, and he often is) is being taken back to his home by his drop-out, slutty mother. The home is called a Cottage, and while the book doesn't guide us to understand it perfectly, it seems to mean he has a private room in a large self-contained bungalow, on a gated compound with round-the-clock adult supervision. There's a paddock with horses for the kids to ride, their own school – and all the adults are armed with Thorazine to calm the kids down. Charlie, despite his obvious bookish intelligence, is struggling to get to grips with why and how he's ended up where he is, but it must have something to do with his single parent mother being violent, and the fact he is no longer allowed to stay with his grandfather. This book is a slightly woozy look at his thoughts, as he tries to build a relationship with a girl in a different Cottage, and work out his lot. He certainly has a lot on his plate for a thirteen-year-old[[image:4star. jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Dyed Souls by Gary Santorella: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]] <!-- Simsion Hajaj -->
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===[[Two Steps Forward The Water Thief by Graeme Simsion and Anne BuistClaire Hajaj]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
When I read Nick is in the blurb middle of wedding preparations when he decides to leave his fiancée behind in London and take up a post in some un-named west African country providing engineering support for this book, I found myself instantly interested in its premise the building of two people trying to start their lives again following serious life changesa children's hospital. The book did not disappointHe has no idea what he is getting himself into. [[Two Steps Forward The Water Thief by Graeme Simsion and Anne BuistClaire Hajaj|Full Review]]
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