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===[[Aftershocks The Department of Sensitive Crimes by A N WilsonAlexander McCall Smith]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary General Fiction|Literary 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 -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0993202349.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993202349/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[The Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In a country very 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 New Zealand, but at a prison to Alex as anything the same time most avowedly not, two women will find loveGermans would provide. Strong love too, for our narrator will say that And where is Justine? Alex hasn't seen her first attraction for her partner was the only thing since he went to make sense of all those exaggerated songs she'd heard, and books and poems she'd read, and plays she'd acted in – works of art that had until then seemed sheer hyperbole. It was entirely unrequited love for quite some time, but it does burgeon, or so we're promised from the off' disastrous meeting with John Cabot, because instigator of something quite drastic – a major earthquake very much like the disinformation campaign, and returned to find her missing. A failed mission is one that hit Christchurch, thing but at the same time most avowedly notno Justine is quite another. This book then is the combined exploration Alex can't get Justine out of his head. Has she left the lovers and the story of the quake. service? Does she know too much? Is she even still alive? [[Aftershocks The Things That are Lost by A N WilsonAlan Kennedy|Full Review]]
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===[[Hell's Unveiling A Danger to Herself and Others by Laura SolomonAlyssa Sheinmel]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short StoriesTeens|Short StoriesTeens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]
A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] They needed someone to blame, and I was delighted by the opportunity to read only available scapegoat. Their daughter was my best friend. Playing the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested scapegoat was the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but least I could do under the devil is not one to take defeat lying downcircumstances. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth and particularly on Marsha (who's thought of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell). Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where Seventeen year old Hannah Gold was born mature – or so her parents tell her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed for a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. ThenShe has dined in fancy restaurants, of course there are all explored the other children who are not only targeted, but - worst most sophisticated corners of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears globe and weaknesses and as with many foster children, their self esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up lived a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Helllife of luxury. [[Hell's Unveiling A Danger to Herself and Others by Laura SolomonAlyssa Sheinmel|Full Review]]
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===[[Staying On Louis and Louise by C M TaylorJulie Cohen]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honestWhat would you be like, right now, Yorkshire's where heif you'd really like to been born a different gender? Would it simply be. You suspect that Scarborough a matter of genetics, and your life would be perfect, but he's living still have unfolded in a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde and running a pub. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony same way? Or would really like to sell it and return to the UKway you had been raised affect who you became in life? This latest novel by Julie Cohen looks at all of the above, what with covering the uncertainty stories of Brexit Louis and everythingLouise, but there are a couple of problems. First offborn on the same day, his wife - Laney - refuses to go back to the UK. She'd have you believe that she's not wellsame parents, but there's in one storyline Lou is a backstory there that's not being talked about. Then there's the pubboy, which isn't doing well enough to sell. In fact Tony's cleaning the swimming pools of expats who have left Spain and returned home, in order to the other a girl. Does it really make a bit of money to try difference, the gender box that is ticked when we arrive in this world? We all know that men and make ends at least come women are treated differently, but this story really highlights how things have been in sight of each otherthe past, how they still are, even if and prompts you to think about how they never meetcould be... [[Staying On Louis and Louise by C M TaylorJulie Cohen|Full Review]]
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===[[The Day of the Orphan M for Mammy by Dr Nat TanohEleanor O'Reilly]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Saga is eighteen andThe Augustts are, like many eighteen-year oldsall families, his prime concerns are listening to what his mum calls ''hop-hip''a bit complicated. A loving irish family, eating copious amounts of food, and learning about girls. Living their love binds them together – but all express that in an affluent, liberal and protected suburb, he has a good lifevery different ways. However, when misfortune strikes the suburb is family they are forced to work together in Africaorder to understand each other again, where childhoods can be snatched in an instant. When his friends and as with a family are dragged into as complicated as the conflict raging around Augustts it's not always what is spoken that makes the dictatorship that Saga lives under, he is forced to become an unlikely revolutionarymost sense. Can chubby Saga really stand Things are shaken up to further when Granny Mae-Anne moves in and takes charge. Full of stern words and common sense, she's a murderous regime? And can he stay one step ahead force of nature who must try her hardest to hold the soldiers desperate to stop him? family together. [[The Day of the Orphan M for Mammy by Dr Nat TanohEleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]]
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===[[Murmuration Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Robert LockRuth Hogan]]===
[[image:3star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical FictionHumour|Humour]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Historical FictionParanormal]]
''Murmuration'' follows Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the lives remains of a host of characters from 1863 her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the present dayParadise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. From a risqué comic to a fortune tellerA place where people can be themselves, we see the birth and let go of Blackpool and its steadily fading glamourthoughts that torment them elsewhere. There is Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a hint child, from this place of mysticism to wonder. With the talehelp of Queenie Malone, with the mesmerising dance of starlings over the pier acting as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives herecaring, and gregarious, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by Tilda begins to pick apart the seatricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. [[Murmuration Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Robert LockRuth Hogan|Full Review]]
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 ===[[Smoking Kills The Man Who Came to London by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)A S Cookson]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Meet Fabrice Valantine. He's a headhunter'In 1948, and the first set of Caribbean nationals arrived in Great Britain on a successful one tooship called "Empire Windrush". They struggled to find housing. They worked as labourers. They faced open discrimination, in an office in Parisforcing them to quickly form their own community. All around him however his world is changing – yesDecades later, there is Freddy makes the same journey.'' ''Does he find a new ban on smoking place to live? Does he face stereotypes? Has Britain moved forward?'' Freddie arrives in London in all workplacesthe early 2000s, answering the call for teachers. Goaded by He thinks about his non-smoking wifeown Jamaican education, even though they met over an ashtray, of sortsbased on the British system, and the way he sees a hypnotist who had success with a mutual friend in stopping their nicotine habitwas taught English nursery rhymes and about the River Thames. The session seems to have been successful, however he faces He thinks about the prospect love of having such a change to his own personality, his imbued habits cricket and lifestylefootball, with fear, when shared by both countries. And he realises it will never again grant thinks of the generations of the diaspora who came before him any pleasure. He needs this pleasure when further changes at work come about – Freddy does well in his job in East London but ithe does have to face down some stereotypical attitudes from his pupils - all Jamaicans smoke weed, don's what he replaces the habit with t they? Everybody knows that will surprise the most. ! [[Smoking Kills The Man Who Came to London by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)A S Cookson|Full Review]]
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===[[The Island Liberation Square by M A BennettGareth Rubin]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:TeensThrillers|TeensThrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
A contemporary take on 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 savage classic ''Lord of west. Dividing the Flies'': nation between them, London soon finds itself split in two, a group of mismatched, modern-day teenagers must fight to survive on wall running through it like a deserted islandscar. Link When Jane Cawson's husband is a fish out arrested for the murder of water. Newly arrived from Americahis former wife, he Jane is finding it hard determined to settle into the venerable and prestigious Osney Schoolclear his name. Who knew there could be In doing so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind , Jane follows a trail of school ranks its students by how fast they can run round the school quad - however ancient corruption that quad may be? When Link runs leads her right to the slowest time in years, he immediately becomes highest levels of the butt state – and soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of every school joke. And some students are determined to make his life more miserable than others... the murderous secret police… [[The Island Liberation Square by M A BennettGareth Rubin|Full Review]]
<!-- Cullen Mary Adkins -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473673313.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473673313/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[When You Read This by Mary Adkins]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Smith 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, but his attention was on making enough money to cover his mother's nursing home fees in Wisconsin, running the branding agency in New York and losing money gambling when the pressures got too much for him. He was devastated when Iris developed a terminal cancer and died at the age of thirty three. He was surprised too when he discovered that Iris had been writing a blog in the last six months of her life and her final request of Smith is that he gets the blog published as a book. [[When You Read This by Mary Adkins|Full Review]] <!-- Laura Solomon -->
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===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Vera Magpie by Helen CullenLaura 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:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]''
William Woolf is a letter detectiveAs an opening line that must take some beating, working in but Vera's telling us the Dead Letters Depot in East Londontruth. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses The first two husbands, tracking down mysterious people Gary and reading endless letters of loveHarry were abusive, guiltbut Larry was a treasure, deatha keeper, hopeand it's difficult to understand why Vera would have killed him, particularly when she was likely to get found out very quickly and everyday now she's in prison with a mandatory lifesentence. 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. [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Vera Magpie by Helen CullenLaura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[Marsha's Deal Black Light by Laura 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:4starif you were being honest you'd just say that he was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for him.jpg|link=Category Jim's in love with a woman, but she finds him repulsive and you can understand why:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]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:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], he's actually writing ''two'' novels and he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pub. [[:Category:FantasyBlack Light by Laura Solomon|FantasyFull Review]]
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], a rare disease which turned parts of her body to bone when they were damaged. Finally she was unable to stand her life any longer and went to Dignitas, the Swiss euthanasia clinic. She'd thought that would be the end, but after cremation her body went straight to hell and she found herself face-to-face with the devil. And that was when she made the pact. In exchange for details about some of those who had been close to her - their strengths and weaknesses - she would be reborn on the same day to the same parents, but would live her life free of disease. [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[Spinning Silver Redemptor Domus by Naomi NovikGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
Miryem comes from a long line of moneylenders – but her Father isn't very good A young boy arrives at it at all. Lending freely and rarely collecting, he leaves the family an exclusive faith school on the edge of povertyscenic North Wales coast, until Miryem must step sent far from his family inthe Far East. Hardening her heart and collecting what is owed from local villagersAs the boy travels to the school, she becomes a person of great interest when she borrows family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at the school a pouch of silver pennies from her Grandfather and returns it full of goldvulnerable orphan, soon becoming entangled with an array uncertain future. Plunged into a school full of strange creaturesdanger and betrayal, from the dark beings that haunt boy is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, it comes to the wood through boy to a King who's eager attempt to exploit Miryem's talents – she soon becomes aware clean up the pit of filth that her skills may be more trouble than they're worth… the school has become. [[Spinning Silver Redemptor Domus by Naomi NovikGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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===[[Four The Long Path To Wisdom by Andy JonesJan-Philipp Sendker]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Friends are niceOn my travels around the world, and couple friends are doubly nice, giving you like minded people I have a tendency to spend time with. A pair of pairsend up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, or a couple of couples. Married couple Sally and Al have known Mike while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what I'm really looking for ages is the 'local' – Sally from universitythe cookbook maybe, Al through workthe maps definitely, but above all: the folk tales. His new girlfriend Faye completes their foursome and though she doesn If I ever get to Burma, I won't have their shared historyneed to hunt, she's a lot of fun – a bit younger than the rest of them, an actress and so onI can read before I go. [[Four The Long Path To Wisdom by Andy JonesJan-Philipp Sendker|Full Review]]
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===[[A Child Called Happiness Katalin Street by Stephan CollishawMagda Szabo]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
[[image:4starThis is a story about the past. A specific past, certainly, in the form of pre-war Budapest, but also a story about how that past can impact on the present and the future. In this book, the first of three Magda Szabó wrote on the same theme between 1969 and 1987 and now newly translated and reissued, we witness a heart-rending nostalgia for happier days, guilt about those who did not survive, and a dogged but doomed determination to cling to long-gone times, feelings and experiences which mark the here and now, staining and warping it into another, subtler misery.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionKatalin Street by Magda Szabo|General FictionFull Review]]
Mazowe Valley, 2011 – Natalie hears a sharp cry that she thinks at first might be a bird, but turns out to be a baby, abandoned to the birds on the kopje. She is there with her uncle and they take the child, back to his farm initially and then to a local village where it is taken in. They do not report it to the police. [[A Child Called Happiness by Stephan Collishaw|Full Review]]
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===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson]]===
===[[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General FictionFor Sharing|General FictionFor Sharing]]
On a remote volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand, a family of settlers struggle to make such an unforgiving place a home. When a ship appears, 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 the search for the child, they uncover far, far more than they were looking for – discovering dark secrets about both the island and those who inhabit it. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions by Lydia Syson|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]]<!-- Parkin Mandeville -->
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===[[Underwater Breathing Every Colour of You by Cassandra ParkinAmelia Mandeville]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
A tumble-down Edwardian house that will sooner rather than later tumble down the mud cliffs and away into the sea is where we meet Jacob and Ella. They share a bathroom Zoe believes in the turret, old and cold and not really supposed adding life to be used…but this is where they hide away from the shouts of their parents' arguments. Here they play the Underwater Breathing game, submerging themselves in the water holding their breath for years as long well as they canyears to life. For sixteen year old Jacob it's just a way of drowning out the arguments…but for Ella it Her world, like her name, is more than thatbursting with life and colour. She is terrified of the sea, sort of the fact that it will come and swallow their housegirl who would sing a rainbow is she could. She needs to know that Tristan (or ''Tree'' as she can survive under watercalls him) is the opposite. She has to practiceFresh out of hospital following a prolonged stay in a psychiatric unit, he sees a world as a grey place. [[Underwater Breathing Every Colour of You by Cassandra ParkinAmelia Mandeville|Full Review]]
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===[[The Great Believers A Spark of Light by Rebecca MakkaiJodi Picoult]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT General Fiction|LGBT General Fiction]]
''The Great Believers'' follows a group Center is the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of friends whose lives are devastated by Mississippi and is the AIDS crisis in Chicago during source of great controversy when it comes to the late 1980’sPro-Life versus Pro-Choice debate. Beginning in 1985It is at The Center where one man, George Goddard, takes it upon himself to get revenge for the reader follows Yale and loss of his friends as they come to terms with the increasingly virulent illness spreading throughout their communitygrandchild, alongside their demonisation at in the hands form of a conservative Americamass-shooting. What arises is a novel that details the lives of the remaining hostages, as well as other characters central to the story. Thirty years later FionaOne of these characters is Hugh McElroy, a devoted friend hostage negotiator called in to Yalehelp deflate the situation, is searching for her estranged who soon discovers that his sister and daughter on the streets of Paris, trying Wren, happened to rebuild a relationship beset by memories and old hurtbe at the clinic that day. [[The Great Believers A Spark of Light by Rebecca MakkaiJodi Picoult|Full Review]]
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===[[The Brighton Mermaid Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death by Dorothy KoomsonM B Vincent]]===
[[image:44star.5starjpg|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:1789014921.jpg|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]]
In 1993, two teenagers stumble across Sasha has a horrific scene lot on the beach as they're sneaking home after an un-authorised night out: a body of a young woman, partially stripped, totally deceasedher plate. The find hits Husband Jeremy is distant and absent and the girls in different waysmarriage needs work. Nell becomes obsessed with finding the identity of the girl – who she calls Son Zac is entering a rebellious adolescent phase and it''the Brighton Mermaid'' because of a distinguishing tattoo – whereas Jude just wants s hard to know how to forget it ever happenedredirect him. Fast forward 25 years and Nell Mother Annie, an alcoholic, is still haunted by what happened that night. With few leads to go on, beginning the Police closed journey into dementia and has never been an easy person at the case without cracking it, and so it remains one of those unsolved mysteries that become part best of local folklore, but Nell struggles to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, lietimes. As Thank heavens for Jude, well no one knows if the discovery still haunts her because no one knows where she is. Shortly after that fateful nightlovely dog, she too disappearedSebastian, never to be seen or heard from again. There's more to Brighton than Stag Dos and Gay Pride, it seemshis unconditional love. [[The Brighton Mermaid What's Left Unsaid by Dorothy KoomsonDeborah Stone|Full Review]]
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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:Women's Fiction|Women's FictionThe Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis]]===
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]]
''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?'' I think most women have felt like this shortly after having a baby. Many of them simply managed to put one foot in front of the other until things calmed down but some will have found it harder and developed post-natal depression[[The Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis|Full Review]] <!-- Elisabeth Hyde Bowden -->
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde]]===
===[[The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden]]=== [[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped Hugh Mullion goes away to Dorset for the best when he waited weekend and, while waiting for his three children wife to arrive one Friday night. He might be a retired lawyer, finds a state legislator, elected congressman and now mysterious key down the back of an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrivedantique chair. Ruth, a corporate lawyer, would find fault The grubby and want torn label to talk about him going into a retirement homewhich is attached reads. 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 The Amber Maze by Elisabeth HydeChristopher Bowden|Full Review]]
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===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Water Thief by Ruth HoganClaire Hajaj]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Masha's son Gabriel died some years ago. She'd been Nick is in the middle of wedding preparations when he decides to leave his fiancée behind in London and take up 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 post in some un-named west African country providing engineering support for the immediate aftermath building of the drowning, but therea children's now a new love interest) Masha is still stricken, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal to Gabriel if she was to be happyhospital. An independent, rebellious woman He has somehow been diminishedno idea what he is getting himself into. [[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Water Thief by Ruth HoganClaire Hajaj|Full Review]]
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