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===[[Hell's Unveiling The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Laura SolomonAlexander McCall Smith]]===
[[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 Long-time followers of The Bookbag will know I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''m a die-hard fan of AMS. It's probably not much of So you can imagine my excitement at reading a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil brand new book in ''Marsha's Deal''a brand new series, but described by the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha author himself as Scandi Blanc (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hellopposed to Scandi Noir). ! Although Here we meet a strong personnew detective named Ulf Varg, who works in the Department for Sensitive Crimes, she's vulnerable where her foster children are concernedsolving those crimes that perhaps fall outside the usual police parameters. Daniel This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Thenstabbed in the knee, the disappearance of course there are all the other children who are not only targetedan imaginary boyfriend, but - worst and a case of all - subverted to the devil's evil endspotential werewolves. HeThey's out re the crimes that perhaps nobody else would bother to prey on their fears and weaknesses and as deal with many foster children, their self esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operationand I rather enjoyed them, either - especially the devil has set up a training complex on earthstabbing where you find that actually, complete you identify with an elevator to Hellthe person who committed the crime, rather than the victim. [[Hell's Unveiling The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Laura SolomonAlexander McCall Smith|Full Review]]
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===[[Staying On by C M Taylor]]===
===[[The Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honest, YorkshireThe final novel in Alan Kennedy's where he'd really like WW2 trilogy sees Captain Alex Vere taken off active duty and banished to beScotland, providing trade craft spy training. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfect, but heIt's living in a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde stifling and suffocating and running a pub. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really feels as much 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 prison to Alex as anything the UKGermans would provide. SheAnd where is Justine? Alex hasn'd have you believe that shet seen her since he went to 's not well, but there's a backstory there that's not being talked about. Then there's disastrous meeting with John Cabot, instigator of the pubdisinformation campaign, which isn't doing well enough and returned to sellfind her missing. A failed mission is one thing but no Justine is quite another. In fact TonyAlex can's cleaning the swimming pools t get Justine out of expats who have his head. Has she 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, the service? Does she know too much? Is she even if they never meet. still alive? [[Staying On The Things That are Lost by C M TaylorAlan Kennedy|Full Review]]
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===[[The Day of the Orphan A Danger to Herself and Others by Dr Nat TanohAlyssa 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, their love binds them together – but all express that in an office very different ways. However, when misfortune strikes the family they are forced to work together in Paris. All around him however his world is changing – yesorder to understand each other again, there as with a family as complicated as the Augustts it's not always what is a new ban on smoking spoken that makes the most sense. Things are shaken up further when Granny Mae-Anne moves in all workplacesand takes charge. Goaded by his non-smoking wife, even though they met over an ashtray, Full of sortsstern words and common sense, he sees she's a hypnotist force of nature who had success with a mutual friend in stopping their nicotine habitmust try her hardest to hold the family together. [[M for Mammy by Eleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]] <!-- Hogan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473669065.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473669065/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan]]=== [[image:5star. The session seems jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]] Tilda returns to have been successfulBrighton, however he faces to tidy away the prospect remains of having such a change her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to his own personalitythe Paradise hotel, his imbued habits a haven for eccentrics and lifestylemisfits. A place where people can be themselves, with fearand let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, when he realises it will never again grant him any pleasurefrom this place of wonder. He needs this pleasure when further changes at work come about – but it's what he replaces With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the habit tricky and uncertain relationship she had with that will surprise the mosther sometimes cruel and distant mother. [[Smoking Kills Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Ruth Hogan|Full Review]]
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===[[The Island by M A Bennett]]===
===[[The Man Who Came to London by A S Cookson]]=== [[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 In 1948, the Flies'': a group first set of mismatched, modern-day teenagers must fight to survive Caribbean nationals arrived in Great Britain on a deserted islandship called "Empire Windrush". Link is a fish out of waterThey struggled to find housing. They worked as labourers. Newly arrived from AmericaThey faced open discrimination, he is finding it hard forcing them to settle into the venerable and prestigious Osney Schoolquickly form their own community. 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 yearsDecades later, he immediately becomes Freddy makes the butt of every school jokesame journey. And some students are determined to make his life more miserable than others... [[The Island by M A Bennett|Full Review]]''
''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]] <!-- Cullen Rubin -->
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===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Liberation Square by Helen CullenGareth Rubin]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|General Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary General Fiction|Literary General Fiction]]
William Woolf In an alternate 1952, Soviet Troops control British Streets. After D-Day goes horribly wrong, Britain is a letter detective, working in first occupied by Nazi Germany – only to be rescued by Russian soldiers from the Dead Letters Depot in East London. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses, tracking down mysterious people and reading endless letters of loveAmericans from the west. Dividing the nation between them, guiltLondon soon finds itself split in two, deatha wall running through it like a scar. When Jane Cawson's husband is arrested for the murder of his former wife, hopeJane 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 everyday life. soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of the murderous secret police… [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Liberation Square by Helen CullenGareth Rubin|Full Review]]
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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: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]]
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]]===
===[[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston]]=== [[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT FictionFor Sharing|LGBT FictionFor Sharing]]
''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. [[The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai|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]]<!-- 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 as she calls him) is the opposite. Fresh out of hospital following a prolonged stay in a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happenedpsychiatric unit, he sees a world as a grey place. [[Every Colour of You by Amelia Mandeville|Full Review]] <!-- Picoult -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1444788124.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co. Fast forward 25 years and Nell is still haunted uk/dp/1444788124/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Spark of Light by what happened that nightJodi Picoult]]=== [[image:4star. With few leads to go on, jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] The Center is the Police closed last remaining abortion clinic in the case without cracking state of Mississippi and is the source of great controversy when itcomes to the Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice debate. It is at The Center where one man, and so George Goddard, takes it remains one upon himself to get revenge for the loss of his grandchild, in the form of those unsolved mysteries a mass-shooting. What arises is a novel that become part details the lives of local folklorethe remaining hostages, but Nell struggles as well as other characters central to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, liethe story. As for JudeOne of these characters is Hugh McElroy, well no one knows if a hostage negotiator called in to help deflate the discovery still haunts her because no one knows where she is. Shortly after situation, who soon discovers that fateful nighthis sister and daughter, she too disappearedWren, never happened to be seen or heard from again. There's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seemsat the clinic that day. [[The Brighton Mermaid A Spark of Light by Dorothy KoomsonJodi 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]]<!-- Coulton Stone -->
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===[[Falling Short by Lex Coulton]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:WomenWhat's Fiction|Women's FictionLeft Unsaid by Deborah Stone]]===
Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. 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[[image:4star. jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Falling Short by Lex Coulton: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]] <!-- Elisabeth Hyde Ellis -->
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde]]===
===[[The Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis]]=== [[image:4.5star4star.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, 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?''
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, I think most women have felt like this shortly after having a state legislator, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrivedbaby. Ruth, a corporate lawyer, would find fault and want Many of them simply managed to talk about him going into a retirement home. George, a nurse, would argue and Lizzie, a professor put one foot in front of English Literature, who lived locally the other until things calmed down but some will have found it harder and kept and visited him regularly, would be unpredictable. Murray hoped that all would go smoothly, but that simply wasn't going to happen. developed post-natal depression[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer The Place Where Love Should Be by Elisabeth HydeElizabeth Ellis|Full Review]]
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===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan]]===
===[[The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden]]=== [[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 from her friendHugh Mullion goes away to Dorset for the weekend and, Edwardwhile waiting for his wife to arrive, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out in finds a mysterious key down the immediate aftermath back of the drowning, but there's now a new love interest) Masha an antique chair. The grubby and torn label to which is still stricken, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal to Gabriel if she was to be happyattached reads.. An independent, rebellious woman has somehow been diminished. [[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Amber Maze by Ruth HoganChristopher Bowden|Full Review]]
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===[[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland Water Thief by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)Claire Hajaj]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Jane Ashland Nick is dying. That's a description in the middle of a very early scene here – but also, of course, a platitude that can apply wedding preparations when he decides to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going leave his fiancée behind in London and take 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 post 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 newsome un-found friend to watch named west African country providing engineering support for the musk oxen, building of all thingsa children's hospital. And nowhere in sight He has no idea what he is anything like a platitude… getting himself into. [[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland Water Thief by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)Claire Hajaj|Full Review]]
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