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===[[Staying On The Department of Sensitive Crimes by C M TaylorAlexander McCall Smith]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Tony Metcalfe is 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 Yorkshireman through and through and being honestbrand new series, Yorkshire's where he'd really like described by the author himself as Scandi Blanc (as opposed to be. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfectScandi Noir)! Here we meet a new detective named Ulf Varg, but he's living who works in a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde and running a pubDepartment for Sensitive Crimes, solving those crimes that perhaps fall outside the usual police parameters. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really like to sell it and return to This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is stabbed in the UKknee, what with the uncertainty disappearance of Brexit an imaginary boyfriend, and everything, but there are a couple case of problemspotential werewolves. First off They're the crimes that perhaps nobody else would bother to deal with, and I rather enjoyed them, his wife - Laney - refuses to go back to especially the UK. She'd have stabbing where you believe find that she's not wellactually, but there's a backstory there that's not being talked about. Then there's you identify with the person who committed the pubcrime, which isn't doing well enough to sell. In fact Tony's cleaning rather than 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 meetvictim. [[Staying On The Department of Sensitive Crimes by C M TaylorAlexander McCall Smith|Full Review]]
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===[[The Day of the Orphan by Dr Nat Tanoh]]===
===[[The Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]  The final novel in Alan Kennedy's WW2 trilogy sees Captain Alex Vere taken off active duty and banished to Scotland, providing trade craft spy training. It's stifling and suffocating and feels as much like a prison to Alex as anything the Germans would provide. And where is Justine? Alex hasn't seen her since he went to ''that'' disastrous meeting with John Cabot, instigator of the disinformation campaign, and returned to find her missing. A failed mission is one thing but no Justine is quite another. Alex can't get Justine out of his head. Has she left the service? Does she know too much? Is she even still alive? [[The Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy|Full Review]] <!-- Schienmel -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0349003289.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1492667242/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
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 foodThey needed someone to blame, and learning about girlsI was the only available scapegoat. Living in an affluent, liberal and protected suburb, he has a good lifeTheir daughter was my best friend. However, Playing the scapegoat was the least I could do under the suburb is circumstances.'' Seventeen year old Hannah Gold was born mature – or so her parents tell her. She has dined in Africafancy restaurants, where childhoods can be snatched in an instant. When his friends and family are dragged into explored the conflict raging around most sophisticated corners of the dictatorship that Saga lives under, he is forced to become an unlikely revolutionary. Can chubby Saga really stand up to globe and lived a murderous regime? And can he stay one step ahead life of the soldiers desperate to stop him? luxury. [[The Day of the Orphan A Danger to Herself and Others by Dr Nat TanohAlyssa Sheinmel|Full Review]]
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===[[Murmuration Louis and Louise by Robert LockJulie Cohen]]===
[[image:3star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
What would you be like, right now, if you''Murmuration'' follows d been born a different gender? Would it simply be a matter of genetics, and your life would still have unfolded in the same way? Or would the lives way you had been raised affect who you became in life? This latest novel by Julie Cohen looks at all of a host the above, covering the stories of characters from 1863 to Louis and Louise, born on the present same day. From a risqué comic , to the same parents, but in one storyline Lou is a fortune tellerboy, we see and in the birth of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamourother a girl. There is Does it really make a hint of mysticism to difference, the talegender box that is ticked when we arrive in this world? We all know that men and women are treated differently, with but this story really highlights how things have been in the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives herepast, how they still are, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the seaand prompts you to think about how they could be... [[Murmuration Louis and Louise by Robert LockJulie Cohen|Full Review]]
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===[[Smoking Kills M for Mammy by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Eleanor O'Reilly]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Meet Fabrice Valantine. He's a headhunterThe Augustts are, like all families, and a successful one toobit complicated. A loving irish family, in an office in Paris. All around him however his world is changing their love binds them together – yes, there is a new ban on smoking but all express that in all workplacesvery different ways. Goaded by his non-smoking wifeHowever, even though when misfortune strikes the family they met over an ashtray, of sortsare forced to work together in order to understand each other again, he sees a hypnotist who had success as with a mutual friend family as complicated as the Augustts it's not always what is spoken that makes the most sense. Things are shaken up further when Granny Mae-Anne moves in stopping their nicotine habitand takes charge. The session seems to have been successful, however he faces the prospect Full of having such a change to his own personality, his imbued habits stern words and lifestylecommon sense, with fear, when he realises it will never again grant him any pleasure. He needs this pleasure when further changes at work come about – but itshe's what he replaces the habit with that will surprise a force of nature who must try her hardest to hold the mostfamily together. [[Smoking Kills M for Mammy by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Eleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]]
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===[[The Island Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by M A BennettRuth Hogan]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:TeensGeneral Fiction|TeensGeneral Fiction]], [[:Category:General FictionHumour|Humour]], [[:Category:Paranormal|General FictionParanormal]]
A contemporary take on Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the savage classic ''Lord remains of the Fliesher mother'': a group of mismatched, modern-day teenagers must fight to survive on a deserted islands life after her death. Link is a fish out of water. Newly arrived from AmericaWhilst there, he is finding it hard she returns to settle into the venerable Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and prestigious Osney Schoolmisfits. Who knew there could A place where people can be so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind themselves, and let go of school ranks its students by how fast they can run round the school quad - however ancient thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that quad may be? When Link runs the slowest time in yearsTilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, he immediately becomes from this place of wonder. With the butt help of every school joke. And some students are determined Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to make his life more miserable than others..pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. [[The Island Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by M A BennettRuth Hogan|Full Review]]
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===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary FictionThe Man Who Came to London by A S Cookson]]===
William Woolf is a letter detective, working in the Dead Letters Depot in East London[[image:4star. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses, tracking down mysterious people and reading endless letters of love, guilt, death, hope, and everyday life. jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen:Category:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral 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?'' Freddie arrives in London in the early 2000s, answering the call for teachers. He thinks about his own Jamaican education, based on the British system, and the way he was taught English nursery rhymes and about the River Thames. He thinks about the love of cricket and football, shared by both countries. And he thinks of the generations of the diaspora who came before him. Freddy does well in his job in East London but he does have to face down some stereotypical attitudes from his pupils - all Jamaicans smoke weed, don't they? Everybody knows that! [[The Man Who Came to London by A S Cookson|Full Review]] <!-- Rubin -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0718187091.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718187091/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Liberation Square by Gareth Rubin]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] In an alternate 1952, Soviet Troops control British Streets. After D-Day goes horribly wrong, Britain is first occupied by Nazi Germany – only to be rescued by Russian soldiers from the East, and Americans from the west. Dividing the nation between them, London soon finds itself split in two, a wall running through it like a scar. When Jane Cawson's husband is arrested for the murder of his former wife, Jane is determined to clear his name. In doing so, Jane follows a trail of corruption that leads her right to the highest levels of the state – and soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of the murderous secret police… [[Liberation Square by Gareth Rubin|Full Review]] <!-- Laura Solomon Mary Adkins -->
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===[[Marsha's Deal When You Read This by Laura SolomonMary Adkins]]===
[[image:4star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
Marsha didn't have an easy ride in life the first time around. She'd been afflicted with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva]Smith Simonyi and Iris Massey worked together for four years, a rare disease during which turned parts of time Iris left her body to bone when they were damagedhusband at the altar on their wedding day. Finally she Smith, meanwhile, relied on Iris, but his attention was unable on making enough money to stand her life any longer and went to Dignitascover his mother's nursing home fees in Wisconsin, running the Swiss euthanasia clinic. She'd thought that would be the end, but after cremation her body went straight to hell branding agency in New York and she found herself face-to-face with losing money gambling when the devilpressures got too much for him. And that He was devastated when she made Iris developed a terminal cancer and died at the pactage of thirty three. In exchange for details about some of those who He was surprised too when he discovered that Iris had been close to writing a blog in the last six months of her - their strengths life and weaknesses - she would be reborn on the same day to the same parents, but would live her life free final request of diseaseSmith is that he gets the blog published as a book. [[Marsha's Deal When You Read This by Laura SolomonMary Adkins|Full Review]]
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===[[Spinning Silver Vera Magpie by Naomi NovikLaura Solomon]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
[[image:5star''I have murdered three husbands.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]''
Miryem comes from a long As an opening line of moneylenders – that must take some beating, but her Father isnVera't very good at it at alls telling us the truth. Lending freely The first two husbands, Gary and rarely collectingHarry were abusive, but Larry was a treasure, he leaves the family on the edge of povertya keeper, until Miryem must step in. Hardening her heart and collecting what is owed from local villagersit's difficult to understand why Vera would have killed him, she becomes a person of great interest particularly when she borrows a pouch of silver pennies from her Grandfather was likely to get found out very quickly and returns it full of gold, soon becoming entangled now she's in prison with an array of strange creaturesa mandatory life sentence. Her only friend is Shirley, from the dark beings that haunt the wood through to a King wholesbian, but Vera's eager not one to exploit Miryemlet herself be a victim. She's talents – not keen on having a sexual relationship with Shirley (she soon becomes aware that wouldn't risk the security of her skills may be more trouble than theylife in prison for the sake of a fling), but she is keen on getting an education and she're worth… s studying for a degree in English Literature. [[Spinning Silver Vera Magpie by Naomi NovikLaura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[Four Black Light by Andy JonesLaura Solomon]]===
[[image:43.5star.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]]
Friends are nice, and couple friends are doubly nice, giving you like minded people to spend time with. A pair of pairs, or a couple of couples. Married couple Sally and Al have known Mike for ages – Sally from university, Al through work. His new girlfriend Faye completes their foursome and though she doesn't have their shared history, she's a lot of fun – a bit younger than the rest of them, an actress and so on. [[Four by Andy Jones|Full Review]]
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===[[A Child Called Happiness Redemptor Domus by Stephan CollishawGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Mazowe ValleyA young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on the scenic North Wales coast, sent far from his family in the Far East. As the boy travels to the school, 2011 – Natalie hears a sharp cry that she thinks family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at first might be the school a birdvulnerable orphan, but turns out to be with an uncertain future. Plunged into a babyschool full of danger and betrayal, abandoned to the birds on the kopjeboy is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. She is there with her uncle With them locked into their scheming and they take the childplotting, back it comes to his farm initially and then the boy to a local village where it is taken in. They do not report it attempt to clean up the policepit of filth that the school has become. [[A Child Called Happiness Redemptor Domus by Stephan CollishawGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions The Long Path To Wisdom by Lydia SysonJan-Philipp Sendker]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical FictionShort Stories|Historical FictionShort Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
On a remote volcanic island off my travels around the coast of New Zealandworld, I have a family of settlers struggle tendency to make such an unforgiving place a home. When a ship appearsend up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, they feel that their wishes have been granted and their community reinvigorated – but high hopes are swiftly dashed when a vulnerable boy disappears. As both settlers and newcomers come together in while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the search next person, what I'm really looking for is the child'local' – the cookbook maybe, they uncover farthe maps definitely, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both but above all: the island and those who inhabit itfolk tales. If I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, I can read before I go. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions The Long Path To Wisdom by Lydia SysonJan-Philipp Sendker|Full Review]]
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===[[Underwater Breathing Katalin Street by Cassandra ParkinMagda Szabo]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
This is a story about the past. A tumblespecific past, certainly, in the form of pre-down Edwardian house war Budapest, but also a story about how that will sooner rather than later tumble down past can impact on the mud cliffs present and away into the sea is where we meet Jacob and Ellafuture. They share a bathroom in the turretIn this book, old and cold and not really supposed to be used…but this is where they hide away from the shouts first of their parents' arguments. Here they play three Magda Szabó wrote on the Underwater Breathing gamesame theme between 1969 and 1987 and now newly translated and reissued, submerging themselves in the water holding their breath for as long as they can. For sixteen year old Jacob it's just we witness a way of drowning out the arguments…but heart-rending nostalgia for Ella it is more than that. She is terrified of the seahappier days, guilt about those who did not survive, of the fact that it will come and swallow their house. She needs a dogged but doomed determination to know that she can survive under water. She has cling to practicelong-gone times, feelings and experiences which mark the here and now, staining and warping it into another, subtler misery. [[Underwater Breathing Katalin Street by Cassandra ParkinMagda Szabo|Full Review]]
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===[[The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:LGBT Fiction|LGBT FictionSanta Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston]]===
''The Great Believers'' follows a group of friends whose lives are devastated by the AIDS crisis in Chicago during the late 1980’s. Beginning in 1985, the reader follows Yale and his friends as they come to terms with the increasingly virulent illness spreading throughout their community, alongside their demonisation at the hands of a conservative America. Thirty years later Fiona, a devoted friend to Yale, is searching for her estranged daughter on the streets of Paris, trying to rebuild a relationship beset by memories and old hurt[[image:4star. jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai:Category:For Sharing|Full ReviewFor Sharing]]
 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]]<!-- Koomson Mandeville -->
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===[[The Brighton Mermaid Every Colour of You by Dorothy KoomsonAmelia Mandeville]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In 1993, two teenagers stumble across a horrific scene on the beach Zoe believes in adding life to years as well as they're sneaking home after an un-authorised night out: a body of a young womanyears to life. Her world, partially strippedlike her name, totally deceasedis bursting with life and colour. The find hits the girls in different ways. Nell becomes obsessed with finding She is the identity sort of the girl – who would sing a rainbow is she calls could. Tristan (or ''the Brighton MermaidTree'' because of a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happened. Fast forward 25 years and Nell as she calls him) is still haunted by what happened that nightthe opposite. With few leads to go on, the Police closed the case without cracking it, and so it remains one Fresh out of those unsolved mysteries that become part of local folklorehospital following a prolonged stay in a psychiatric unit, but Nell struggles to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, 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 disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. There's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seemshe sees a world as a grey place. [[The Brighton Mermaid Every Colour of You by Dorothy KoomsonAmelia Mandeville|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Short A Spark of Light by Lex CoultonJodi Picoult]]===
[[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 The Center is a story about mistakes, failures, the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi and relationshipsis the source of great controversy when it comes to the Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice debate. It is at The main protagonistCenter where one man, Frances PilgrimGeorge Goddard, takes it upon himself to get revenge for the loss of his grandchild, is a sixth in the form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, of a work colleague, and mass-shooting. What arises is grappling with a novel that details the increasingly eccentric behaviour lives of her motherthe remaining hostages, as well as other characters central to the story. This relationship One of these characters is complicated by Hugh McElroy, a hostage negotiator called in to help deflate the fact situation, who soon discovers that Frances's father disappeared his sister and daughter, Wren, happened to be at sea when she was five years oldthe clinic that day. [[Falling Short A Spark of Light by Lex CoultonJodi Picoult|Full Review]]
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by Elisabeth HydeM 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]]<!-- Stone -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:41789014921.5starjpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789014921/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[What's Left Unsaid by Deborah Stone]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday nightSasha has a lot on her plate. He might be a retired lawyer, a state legislator, elected congressman Husband Jeremy is distant and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth absent and George arrivedthe marriage needs work. Ruth, Son Zac is entering a corporate lawyer, would find fault rebellious adolescent phase and want it's hard to talk about know how to redirect him going into a retirement home. GeorgeMother Annie, a nursean alcoholic, would argue is beginning the journey into dementia and Lizziehas never been an easy person at the best of times. Thank heavens for her lovely dog, a professor of English LiteratureSebastian, 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 happenhis unconditional love. [[Go Ask Fannie Farmer What's Left Unsaid by Elisabeth HydeDeborah Stone|Full Review]]
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===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan]]===
===[[The Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis]]=== [[image:4star.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, 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?''
Masha's son Gabriel died some years agoI think most women have felt like this shortly after having a baby. She'd been a single parent with help from her friend, Edward, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out Many of them simply managed to put one foot in the immediate aftermath front of the drowning, other until things calmed down but there's now a new love interest) Masha is still stricken, feeling that some will have found it would somehow be disloyal to Gabriel if she was to be happy. An independent, rebellious woman has somehow been diminished. harder and developed post-natal depression[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Place Where Love Should Be by Ruth HoganElizabeth Ellis|Full Review]]
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===[[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary FictionThe Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden]]===
Jane Ashland is dying[[image:4star. That's a description of a very early scene here – but also, of course, a platitude that can apply to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going up and down in levels of pleasure, energy – sobriety – in these pages, but we soon learn that it recently found a very deeply dark down place. Here then, scattered through a timeline-bending narrative, we have her days finding a Lincolnesque lover as a student in New York, glimpses of therapy, a drive to find her ancestors that takes her from rural America to Norway – and a trip there with a new-found friend to watch the musk oxen, of all things. And nowhere in sight is anything like a platitude… jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator):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]] <!-- Rogers Hajaj -->
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===[[Tale of a Tooth The Water Thief by Allie RogersClaire Hajaj]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Danny lives Nick is in the middle of wedding preparations when he decides to leave his fiancée behind in London and take up a small Sussex town with his mother, Natalie. Life is poor, but they manage post in some un- until theynamed west African country providing engineering support for the building of a children're threatened by a benefits sanctions hospital. A Job Centre employee looks to be their salvation - but her impact on the family goes far beyond He has no idea what they first expect, and the resulting changes are described to the reader through the naive yet perceptive and wholly original eyes of four-year-old Dannyhe is getting himself into. [[Tale of a Tooth The Water Thief by Allie RogersClaire Hajaj|Full Review]]
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