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===[[The Island American Royals by M A BennettKatharine McGee]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
A contemporary take on the savage classic ''Lord of the Flies'': Two and a group of mismatchedhalf centuries ago, modern-day teenagers must fight to survive on a deserted island. Link is a fish out of water. Newly arrived from America, he is finding it hard to settle into won the venerable Revolutionary War and prestigious Osney SchoolGeneral George Washington was offered the crown. Who knew there could be so many strange traditions to understand? And what kind Today, the House of school ranks its students by how fast they can run round Washington still sit on the school quad - however ancient that quad may be? When Link runs the slowest time thrown with Princess Beatrice next in years, he immediately becomes the butt of every school jokeline. And some students are determined Beatrice's whole life has been building up to make his life more miserable than others..her ruling the United States and the time for her reign is imminent. [[The Island American Royals by M A BennettKatharine McGee|Full Review]]
<!-- Cullen Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Coleman -->
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===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Girl at the Window by Helen CullenRowan Coleman]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary FictionParanormal|Literary FictionParanormal]]
William Woolf Trudy Heaton is going home, to a letter detective, working in house where her roots burrow back through the Dead Letters Depot in East Londoncenturies and to a mother she hasn't spoken to for sixteen years. He spends his days deciphering smudged addresses Home, her refuge, Ponden Hall, tracking down mysterious people where she can heal herself and reading endless letters try to come to terms with the traumatic loss of love, guilt, death, hope, her husband. She needs to build bridges with her mother and everyday lifeconvince her grieving son that his father is dead. Where better than the house full of light and shadow, that nurtured her throughout her childhood? [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Girl at the Window by Helen CullenRowan Coleman|Full Review]]
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[[image:19792174400008291845.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/19792174400008291845/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[We Are Not Okay by Natalia Gomes]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Set in a typical American town, ''We Are Not Okay'' tells the story of four teenage girls facing the difficulties brought on by high school and growing up as a girl in today's society. The novel is told from four different perspectives, those of Lucy, Ulana, Trina and Sophia, whose friendship statuses vary from BFFs to sworn enemies. The reader is presented with a glimpse into each of their lives, but more importantly their minds, and at times the thoughts of those characters could have been taken directly from my own. Gomes has created a heartbreakingly real and relevant novel that focuses on prominent topic areas which are becoming ingrained in our society, particularly in relation to the ''Me Too Movement''. ''We Are Not Okay'' reminds the reader of the importance of phrases like ''I'm With Her''. [[We Are Not Okay by Natalia Gomes|Full Review]]  <!-- Kate Tough -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:034914365X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/034914365X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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===[[Marsha's Deal Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Laura SolomonKate Tough]]===
[[image:4star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:FantasyWomen's Fiction|FantasyWomen's Fiction]]
Marsha didnLife has just hidden behind a corner and stuck a foot out as Rhona Beech came past. She and Mark had been together for nine years and it was beginning to feel ''settled''t have an easy ride in life the first time around. SheThen Mark announced that he'd been afflicted got a job in Canada and he was going whether Rhona wanted to come with [https://enhim or not.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva], a rare disease which turned parts The ''not'' bit of the sentence was the way it worked out and Rhona was left on her body to bone when they were damagedown. Finally Well, she was unable to stand wasn't completely on her life any longer own: she had friends and went to Dignitasfamily, but it's not the Swiss euthanasia clinic. She'd thought same as having that would be the endspecial someone in your life, 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 pactsomeone who makes you part of a couple. In exchange for details about some of those who So Rhona had been close to her start again, rejoining a world that bore little resemblance to the one she'd left nine years ago - their strengths and weaknesses - she would be reborn on there's a lot of difference between being in the same day to middle of your twenties and the same parents, but would live her life free middle of diseaseyour thirties. [[Marsha's Deal Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Laura SolomonKate Tough|Full Review]]
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===[[Spinning Silver Equator by Naomi NovikAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:FantasyHistorical Fiction|FantasyHistorical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Literary Fiction|General Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:TeensGeneral Fiction|TeensGeneral Fiction]]
Miryem comes from It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a long line of moneylenders – but her Father isn't very good at theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at all. Lending freely and rarely collecting, he leaves the family on the edge indignity of povertywhite man against Native 'Indian', until Miryem must step who spends days being physically sick while indulging in. Hardening her heart a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and collecting what is owed from local villagerswoman, she becomes a person of great interest when she borrows a pouch course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of silver pennies from her Grandfather an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and returns it full of the attendant problems with goldrushes, soon becoming entangled with an array pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of strange creaturesUtopia, from namely the dark beings that haunt Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the wood through ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a King wholong way away – and there's eager to exploit Miryem's talents – she soon becomes aware that her skills may be more trouble than they're worth… a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Spinning Silver Equator by Naomi NovikAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[Four Needlemouse by Andy JonesJane O'Connor]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Friends are niceWe first meet Sylvia Penton on her birthday and her boss, and couple friends are doubly nicethe Prof, giving you like minded people is taking her out to spend time withlunch. A pair This is her favourite day of pairsthe year, or a couple not because it's her birthday but because of couplesthe special time she gets to spend with the man she loves. Married couple Sally He's told her that he and his wife are going to divorce - Martha is apparently having an affair - and Al have known Mike for ages – Sally from university, Al through workSylvia is convinced that the Prof will then declare his love and they can be together. His new girlfriend Faye completes their foursome and though She hasn't fully constructed 'together' in her own mind - she doesnenvisages it as romantic, but her imagination hasn't have their shared history, yet progressed to the sexual part of the relationship. There's time though - she's a lot of fun – a bit younger than only been the rest of them, an actress and so onprof's PA for fifteen years. [[Four Needlemouse by Andy JonesJane O'Connor|Full Review]]
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===[[A Child Called Happiness Vintage 1954 by Stephan CollishawAntoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)]]===
[[image:4star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Mazowe ValleyVintage 1954 starts by thrusting several completely different characters upon us, 2011 – Natalie hears before deciding to run with them and formulate a sharp cry that she thinks at first might be plot. So we have an American biker, just landing in Paris but unfortunately not with the wife who shared his dream of visiting the city together. We have a birdgoth girl who everyone recognises from an American crime show, but turns out to be actually is a humble restorer of antiques. We have a babycocktail barman, abandoned to infatuated with the goth girl. We also have a man ruling the birds on roost over a whole suite of individual apartments fabricated from the kopjeHaussmann-era mansion his family once owned. She is there with her uncle Finally something conspires to get them together, and they take drinking from the childsame bottle of a rare 1954 red wine. Only, back to one of them has a bizarre incidence in his farm initially family history that also features the same plonk – where a grandfather imbibed, and then walked out the door one rainy morning, never to a local village where it is taken in. They do not report it to the policebe seen again. But of course nobody will be doing any disappearing now, though – will they? [[A Child Called Happiness Vintage 1954 by Stephan CollishawAntoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[Mr Peacock's Possessions The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Lydia SysonFelicity McLean]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Historical FictionThrillers|Historical FictionThrillers]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
On a remote volcanic island off When Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old, the Van Apfel sisters disappeared. In the coast long hot summer of New Zealand1992, a family in an isolated suburb of settlers struggle to make such an unforgiving place a homeAustralia surrounded by Bushland, the girls vanished during the school's Showstopper concert at the riverside amphitheatre. When a ship appears, Did they run away? Were 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 taken? While the search for the childsisters united the small community, they uncover farwere never found. Returning home years later, far more than they were looking for Tikka must make sense of that strange moment in time – discovering dark secrets about both of the island summer that shaped her, and those who inhabit itthe girls she never forgot. [[Mr Peacock's Possessions The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Lydia SysonFelicity McLean|Full Review]]
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===[[Underwater Breathing The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Cassandra ParkinAlexander McCall Smith]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
A tumbleLong-down Edwardian house that time followers of The Bookbag will sooner rather than later tumble down the mud cliffs and away into the sea is where we meet Jacob and Ellaknow I'm a die-hard fan of AMS. They share So you can imagine my excitement at reading a bathroom brand new book in a brand new series, described by the turret, old and cold and not really supposed author himself as Scandi Blanc (as opposed to be used…but this is where they hide away from the shouts of their parents' arguments. Scandi Noir)! Here they play the Underwater Breathing gamewe meet a new detective named Ulf Varg, submerging themselves who works in the water holding their breath Department for as long as they can. For sixteen year old Jacob it's just a way of drowning out Sensitive Crimes, solving those crimes that perhaps fall outside the arguments…but for Ella it is more than thatusual police parameters. She This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is terrified of stabbed in the seaknee, the disappearance of the fact that it will come an imaginary boyfriend, and swallow their housea case of potential werewolves. She needs They're the crimes that perhaps nobody else would bother to know deal with, and I rather enjoyed them, especially the stabbing where you find that she can survive under water. She has to practiceactually, you identify with the person who committed the crime, rather than the victim. [[Underwater Breathing The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Cassandra ParkinAlexander McCall Smith|Full Review]]
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===[[The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:LGBT Fiction|LGBT FictionThe Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy]]===
''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:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral 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]] <!-- Koomson Schienmel -->
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===[[The Brighton Mermaid A Danger to Herself and Others by Dorothy KoomsonAlyssa Sheinmel]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In 1993''They needed someone to blame, two teenagers stumble across a horrific scene on and I was the beach as they're sneaking home after an un-authorised night out: a body of a young woman, partially stripped, totally deceasedonly available scapegoat. The find hits the girls in different waysTheir daughter was my best friend. Nell becomes obsessed with finding Playing the identity of scapegoat was the girl – who she calls ''least I could do under the Brighton Mermaidcircumstances.'' because of a distinguishing tattoo Seventeen year old Hannah Gold was born mature – whereas Jude just wants to forget it ever happenedor so her parents tell her. Fast forward 25 years and Nell is still haunted by what happened that night. With few leads to go onShe has dined in fancy restaurants, explored the Police closed most sophisticated corners of the case without cracking it, globe and so it remains one of those unsolved mysteries that become part lived a life of local folklore, but Nell struggles to let sleeping dogs, or even sleeping mermaids, lieluxury. 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 [[A Danger to Brighton than Stag Dos Herself and Gay Pride, it seems. [[The Brighton Mermaid Others by Dorothy KoomsonAlyssa Sheinmel|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Short Louis and Louise by Lex CoultonJulie Cohen]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Lex CoultonWhat would you be like, right now, if you's debut novel is d been born a different gender? Would it simply be a story about mistakesmatter of genetics, failuresand your life would still have unfolded in the same way? Or would the way you had been raised affect who you became in life? This latest novel by Julie Cohen looks at all of the above, covering the stories of Louis and relationships. The main protagonistLouise, born on the same day, Frances Pilgrimto the same parents, but in one storyline Lou is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleagueboy, and is grappling with in the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her motherother a girl. This relationship is complicated by Does it really make a difference, the fact gender box that Frances's father disappeared at sea is ticked when she was five years oldwe arrive in this world? We all know that men and women are treated differently, but this story really highlights how things have been in the past, how they still are, and prompts you to think about how they could be... [[Falling Short Louis and Louise by Lex CoultonJulie Cohen|Full Review]]
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===[[Go Ask Fannie Farmer M for Mammy by Elisabeth HydeEleanor O'Reilly]]===
[[image:4.5star4star.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 night. He might be a retired lawyerThe Augustts are, like all families, a state legislatorbit complicated. A loving irish family, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer their love binds them together – but he knew all express that there could be trouble in very different ways. However, when Ruth and George arrived. Ruthmisfortune strikes the family they are forced to work together in order to understand each other again, as with a corporate lawyer, would find fault 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 and want to talk about him going into a retirement hometakes charge. George, a nurse, would argue Full of stern words and Lizziecommon sense, she's a professor force of English Literature, nature 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 must try her hardest to happenhold the family together. [[Go Ask Fannie Farmer M for Mammy by Elisabeth HydeEleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]]
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===[[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]]
MashaTilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's son Gabriel died some years agolife after her death. She'd been Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a single parent with help from haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her friendas a child, Edward, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out in from this place of wonder. With the immediate aftermath help of the drowningQueenie Malone, caring, but there's now a new love interest) Masha is still strickenand gregarious, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal Tilda begins to Gabriel if pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she was to be happy. An independent, rebellious woman has somehow been diminishedhad with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. [[The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan|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 Man Who Came to London by A S Cookson]]===
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]]
''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]] <!-- Rogers Rubin -->
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===[[Tale of a Tooth Liberation Square by Allie RogersGareth Rubin]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Danny lives in a small Sussex town with his motherIn an alternate 1952, NatalieSoviet Troops control British Streets. Life After D-Day goes horribly wrong, Britain is poor, but they manage - until they're threatened first occupied by a benefits sanction. A Job Centre employee looks Nazi Germany – only to be their salvation - but her impact on rescued by Russian soldiers from the family goes far beyond what they first expectEast, and Americans from the west. Dividing the resulting changes are described 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 reader through highest levels of the naive yet perceptive state – and wholly original eyes soon finds herself desperate to stay one step ahead of four-year-old Danny. the murderous secret police… [[Tale of a Tooth Liberation Square by Allie RogersGareth Rubin|Full Review]]
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===[[Claudia When You Read This by Anthony TrevelyanMary Adkins]]===
[[image:4star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
When Claudia is called to the reception of her Manchester Office block to meet a visitorSmith Simonyi and Iris Massey worked together for four years, she doesn't expect it to be during which time Iris left her father figure – a man she hasn't seen for fifteen yearshusband at the altar on their wedding day. Samson Glaze – otherwise known as Wild Samson Smith, meanwhile, The Aztec and The Sun Kingrelied on Iris, walked out of Claudiabut his attention was on making enough money to cover his mother's life nursing home fees in Wisconsin, running the branding agency in New York and into losing money gambling when the pressures got too much for him. He was devastated when Iris developed a world terminal cancer and died at the age of success as a solar panel salesman – but now he's returned and thirty three. He was surprised too when he needs Claudia's help. Reggie, Samson's son, has joined discovered that Iris had been writing a mysterious cult called ''Tarantula'', a group who prepare for blog in the end last six months of the world her life and encourage humanity to embrace their impending doom. Claudia's journey takes her far from her home in Manchester to the end final request of Smith is that he gets the world – where encounters with hammer-wielding assassins make things very difficult indeed… blog published as a book. [[Claudia When You Read This by Anthony TrevelyanMary Adkins|Full Review]]
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===[[The Man I Think I Know Vera Magpie by Mike GayleLaura 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]]''
James DeWitt and Danny Allen are both men in their early thirties whose lives haven't taken them where they were supposed to go. At As an all time low time for both of themopening line that must take some beating, but Vera's telling us the truth. The first two men reconnect husbands, Gary and slowly find theyHarry were abusive, but Larry was a treasure, a keeper, and it're exactly what the other needs. Togethers difficult to understand why Vera would have killed him, they help each other put their lives back togetherparticularly when she was likely to get found out very quickly and now she's in prison with a mandatory life sentence. This Her only friend is Shirley, a beautiful story about friendship and what it really means lesbian, but Vera's not one to help another personlet 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 Man I Think I Know Vera Magpie by Mike GayleLaura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae Black Light by Stephanie ButlandLaura Solomon]]===
[[image:4star3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Ailsa Rae has been sick her whole lifeJim is a university student and, and just as she was edging closer to death she finallythe saying goes, finally he hasn't got the call that she needed, that a heart his troubles to seek. His father committed suicide when he was available for her young and somehow he's never really managed to have a transplantconnect with his step-father. Previously she had felt so helpless His younger brother would be kindly described as having learning difficulties: if you were being honest you'd just say that she had used her blog to make decisions he was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for her, running polls amongst her readers to decide on her actionshim. But Jim's in love with her new hearta woman, but she has been given finds him repulsive and you can understand why: the looks, the attitude, the (lack of) conversational ability and the clothing all leave a new lifelot to be desired. Can Ailsa manage Despite all that's he's not about to start sit back and allow his life to live on her own, drift: he's actually writing ''two'' novels and will her mother let her do that? he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pub. [[The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae Black Light by Stephanie ButlandLaura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[Falling Leaves Redemptor Domus by Stefan MohamedGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]],
When your best friend vanishes, how can you begin to move A young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on? How can you live your life not knowing whether they're okay? And what would you do if they reappeared in your life? – all questions that Vanessa faces every daythe scenic North Wales coast, even seven years after her best friend Mark vanished. When he reappears, she's shocked not only by sent far from his presence back family in her lifethe Far East. As the boy travels to the school, but also by a family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at the fact that he hasn't aged school a day – for himvulnerable orphan, no time has passed since his disappearancewith an uncertain future. ShockedPlunged into a school full of danger and betrayal, confused the boy is seen as a trophy by friends and emotionally reelingenemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, Vanessa must return it comes to her home town in order the boy to attempt to help Mark find clean up the answers he so desperately cravespit of filth that the school has become. But what's waiting for them is far more surprising than either of them could ever have dreamt… [[Falling Leaves Redemptor Domus by Stefan MohamedGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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