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===[[Black Light American Royals by Laura SolomonKatharine McGee]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Jim is Two and a university student andhalf centuries ago, as America won the saying goes, he hasn't got his troubles to seek. His father committed suicide when he was young Revolutionary War and somehow he's never really managed to connect with his step-father. His younger brother would be kindly described as having learning difficulties: if you were being honest you'd just say that he General George Washington was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for himoffered the crown. Jim's in love with a womanToday, but she finds him repulsive and you can understand why: the looks, the attitude, the (lack House of) conversational ability and Washington still sit on the clothing all leave a lot to be desiredthrown with Princess Beatrice next in line. Despite all that's heBeatrice's not about to sit back and allow his whole life has been building up to drift: he's actually writing ''two'' novels her ruling the United States and he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pubtime for her reign is imminent. [[Black Light American Royals by Laura SolomonKatharine McGee|Full Review]]
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===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]===
[[image:2.5star.jpg| stylelink="vertical-alignCategory:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[: top; text-alignCategory: left;"General Fiction|===General Fiction]], [[Redemptor Domus by Gamelyn Chase:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]===
I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[image:4starCategory:Andy Mulligan|the author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy).jpg|link= 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:{{{rating}}} Star ReviewsChris Cleave|Chris Cleave]] , and [[:Category:General FictionDavid Nicholls|General FictionDavid Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness.
A 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, a family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at the school a vulnerable orphan, with an uncertain future. Plunged into a school full of danger and betrayal, the boy is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, it comes to the boy to attempt to clean up the pit of filth that the school has becomeMore fool me. [[Redemptor Domus Train Man by Gamelyn ChaseAndrew Mulligan|Full Review]]
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===[[The Long Path To Wisdom Girl at the Window by Jan-Philipp SendkerRowan Coleman]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|Short StoriesGeneral Fiction]], [[:Category:General FictionParanormal|General FictionParanormal]]
On my travels around the worldTrudy Heaton is going home, I have to a tendency house where her roots burrow back through the centuries and to end up in any bookshop that is selling English-language books, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as the next person, what Ia mother she hasn'm really looking t spoken to for is the 'local' – the cookbook maybesixteen years. Home, her refuge, the maps definitelyPonden Hall, but above all: where she can heal herself and try to come to terms with the folk talestraumatic loss of her husband. If I ever get She needs to Burmabuild bridges with her mother and convince her grieving son that his father is dead. Where better than the house full of light and shadow, I won't need to hunt, I can read before I go. that nurtured her throughout her childhood? [[The Long Path To Wisdom Girl at the Window by Jan-Philipp SendkerRowan Coleman|Full Review]]
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===[[Katalin Street We Are Not Okay by Magda SzaboNatalia Gomes]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
This is a story about the past[[image:4star. A specific past, certainly, in the form of pre-war Budapestjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], 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. [[Katalin Street by Magda Szabo:Category:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral 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]]
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===[[Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link===Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]===
[[imageLife 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''. Then Mark announced that he'd got a job in Canada and he was going whether Rhona wanted to come with him or not. The ''not'' bit of the sentence was the way it worked out and Rhona was left on her own. Well, she wasn't completely on her own:4starshe had friends and family, but it's not the same as having that special someone in your life, that someone who makes you part of a couple. So Rhona had to start again, rejoining a world that bore little resemblance to the one she'd left nine years ago - and there's a lot of difference between being in the middle of your twenties and the middle of your thirties.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:For SharingKeep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough|For SharingFull 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]]<!-- Mandeville Varenne -->
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===[[Every Colour of You Equator by Amelia MandevilleAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]===
[[image:43.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Zoe believes in adding life to years as It strikes me that nobody can speak well as years of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to life. Her worldsee how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', like her namewho spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, is bursting with life and colour. She is who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at the sort bat of girl who would sing a rainbow is she couldan eyelid. Tristan (or ''Tree'' as she calls him) But this book is about so much more than the opposite1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. Fresh out He finds himself trying to find this book's version of hospital following a prolonged stay Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in a psychiatric unittheir pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, he sees things might actually be better. But that equator is a world as long way away – and there's a grey place. whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Every Colour of You Equator by Amelia MandevilleAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[A Spark of Light Needlemouse by Jodi PicoultJane O'Connor]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
The Center is We first meet Sylvia Penton on her birthday and her boss, the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi and Prof, is the source of great controversy when it comes taking her out to the Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice debatelunch. It This is at The Center where one manher favourite day of the year, George Goddard, takes not because it upon himself 's her birthday but because of the special time she gets to get revenge for spend with the loss of man she loves. He's told her that he and his grandchild, in the form of a masswife are going to divorce - Martha is apparently having an affair -shooting. What arises and Sylvia is a novel convinced that details the lives of the remaining hostagesProf will then declare his love and they can be together. She hasn't fully constructed 'together' in her own mind - she envisages it as romantic, as well as other characters central but her imagination hasn't yet progressed to the story. One sexual part of these characters is Hugh McElroy, a hostage negotiator called in to help deflate the situation, who soon discovers that his sister and daughter, Wren, happened to be at relationship. There's time though - she's only been the clinic that dayprof's PA for fifteen years. [[A Spark of Light Needlemouse by Jodi PicoultJane O'Connor|Full Review]]
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===[[Jess Castle Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and the Eyeballs of Death by M B VincentEmily Boyce (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
[[image:4starVintage 1954 starts by thrusting several completely different characters upon us, before deciding to run with them and formulate a 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 goth girl who everyone recognises from an American crime show, but actually is a humble restorer of antiques. We have a cocktail barman, infatuated with the goth girl. We also have a man ruling the roost over a whole suite of individual apartments fabricated from the Haussmann-era mansion his family once owned. Finally something conspires to get them together, and drinking from the same bottle of a rare 1954 red wine. Only, one of them has a bizarre incidence in his family history that also features the same plonk – where a grandfather imbibed, and walked out the door one rainy morning, never to be seen again.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] But of course nobody will be doing any disappearing now, though – will they? [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, [[:Category:CrimeJane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)|CrimeFull Review]]
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 McLean -->
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===[[The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Felicity McLean]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link===Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[What's Left Unsaid by Deborah Stone:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]===
[[image:4starWhen Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old, the Van Apfel sisters disappeared. In the long hot summer of 1992, in an isolated suburb of Australia surrounded by Bushland, the girls vanished during the school's Showstopper concert at the riverside amphitheatre. Did they run away? Were they taken? While the search for the sisters united the small community, they were never found. Returning home years later, Tikka must make sense of that strange moment in time – of the summer that shaped her, and the girls she never forgot.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionThe Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Felicity McLean|General FictionFull Review]]
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]] <!-- Ellis AMS -->
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===[[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith]]===
===[[The Place Where Love Should Be by Elizabeth Ellis]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Long-time followers of The Bookbag will know I''Edward is six weeks old and I’ve had no sleepm a die-hard fan of AMS. I had thirty stitches So you can imagine my excitement at reading a brand new book in my perineuma brand new series, described by the wounds still tug and itch. They had author himself as Scandi Blanc (as opposed to do Scandi Noir)! Here we meet a new detective named Ulf Varg, who works in the stitches twice because Department for Sensitive Crimes, solving those crimes that perhaps fall outside the first lot became infectedusual police parameters. The old-school midwife told me I wasn’t paying enough attention to personal hygiene. I must shower twice a day This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is stabbed in the knee, or better stillthe disappearance of an imaginary boyfriend, take and a salt bathcase of potential werewolves. Do they really expect me to do They're the crimes that? Have they ever tried perhaps nobody else would bother to shower when a baby is crying deal with, and you’re so tired I rather enjoyed them, especially the stabbing where you find that actually, you can barely stand and your partner is banging around downstairs because he’s late for work again?''identify with the person who committed the crime, rather than the victim. [[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith|Full Review]]
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]] <!-- Bowden Kennedy -->
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===[[The Amber Maze Things That are Lost by Christopher BowdenAlan Kennedy]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Hugh Mullion goes away to Dorset for the weekend The final novel in Alan Kennedy's WW2 trilogy sees Captain Alex Vere taken off active duty and, while waiting for his wife banished to arriveScotland, finds providing trade craft spy training. It's stifling and suffocating and feels as much like a mysterious key down prison to Alex as anything the back Germans would provide. And where is Justine? Alex hasn't seen her since he went to ''that'' disastrous meeting with John Cabot, instigator of an antique chair. The grubby the disinformation campaign, and torn label returned to which find her missing. A failed mission is attached reads.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 Amber Maze Things That are Lost by Christopher BowdenAlan Kennedy|Full Review]]
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===[[The Water Thief A Danger to Herself and Others by Claire HajajAlyssa Sheinmel]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionTeens|General FictionTeens]], [[:Category:Literary General Fiction|Literary General Fiction]]
Nick is ''They needed someone to blame, and I was the only available scapegoat. Their daughter was my best friend. Playing the scapegoat was the least I could do under the circumstances.'' Seventeen year old Hannah Gold was born mature – or so her parents tell her. She has dined in fancy restaurants, explored the middle most sophisticated corners of wedding preparations when he decides to leave his fiancée behind in London the globe and take up lived a post in some un-named west African country providing engineering support for the building life of a children's hospital. He has no idea what he is getting himself intoluxury. [[The Water Thief A Danger to Herself and Others by Claire HajajAlyssa Sheinmel|Full Review]]
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===[[Landslide Louis and Louise by Melissa LeetJulie Cohen]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]The area where Jill and Susie lived wasn't highly populated so it was fortunate that they became such good friends, despite the fact that Susie was a year older than Jill. Susie lived with her mother, an alcoholic, and Jill lived with ''her'' mother, who dedicated herself to her garden. Jill's father was Jay Tutle, the photographer, but he spent much of his time working away - often for months on end. In reality there was little difference between the two families: Mrs Smith's alcoholism caused serious illness whilst Susie was still young. Joy and tragedy would visit Jill's home. ''Landslide'' is the story of how what happened determined the course of Jill's life and how great tragedy can breed resilience and hope. [[Landslide by Melissa Leet|Full Review]]
What would you be like, right now, if you'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 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 Louise, born on the same day, to the same parents, but in one storyline Lou is a boy, and in the other a girl. Does it really make a difference, the gender box that is ticked when we arrive in this world? We all know that men and women are treated differently, but this story really highlights how things have been in the past, how they still are, and prompts you to think about how they could be... [[Louis and Louise by Julie Cohen|Full Review]] <!-- Wilson O'Reilly -->
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===[[Aftershocks M for Mammy by A N WilsonEleanor O'Reilly]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
In a country very much The Augustts are, like New Zealandall families, but at the same time most avowedly nota bit complicated. A loving irish family, two women will find their lovebinds them together – but all express that in very different ways. Strong love tooHowever, for our narrator will say that her first attraction for her partner was when misfortune strikes the only thing family they are forced to make sense of all those exaggerated songs she'd heard, and books and poems she'd read, and plays she'd acted work together in – works of art that had until then seemed sheer hyperbole. It was entirely unrequited love for quite some timeorder to understand each other again, but as with a family as complicated as the Augustts it does burgeon, or so we're promised from the off, because of something quite drastic – a major earthquake very much like the one s not always what is spoken that hit Christchurch, but at makes the same time most avowedly notsense. Things are shaken up further when Granny Mae-Anne moves in and takes charge. This book then is the combined exploration Full of the lovers stern words and the story common sense, she's a force of nature who must try her hardest to hold the quakefamily together. [[Aftershocks M for Mammy by A N WilsonEleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]]
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===[[HellQueenie Malone's Unveiling Paradise Hotel by Laura SolomonRuth Hogan]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|Short StoriesGeneral Fiction]], [[:Category:General FictionHumour|General FictionHumour]], [[:Category:FantasyParanormal|FantasyParanormal]]
A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomon|Marsha's Deal]] and I was delighted by the opportunity Tilda returns to Brighton, to read tidy away the sequel, ''Hellremains of her mother's Unveiling''life after her death. It's probably not much of a spoiler Whilst there, she returns to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal''Paradise hotel, but the devil is not one to take defeat lying downa haven for eccentrics and misfits. He's out to wage war on Planet Earth A place where people can be themselves, and particularly on Marsha (who's thought let go of as a 'goody two shoes' in Hell)thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Although a strong person, she's vulnerable where Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her foster children are concerned. Daniel is framed mother for banishing her as a crime he didn't commit and sent to juvenile detention and refused permission to return to live with Marsha. Thenchild, from this place of course there are all wonder. With the other children who are not only targetedhelp of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, but - worst of all - subverted Tilda begins to pick apart the devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears tricky and weaknesses uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and as with many foster children, their self esteem is very fragile. This is no small-scale operation, either - the devil has set up a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Helldistant mother. [[HellQueenie Malone's Unveiling Paradise Hotel by Laura SolomonRuth Hogan|Full Review]]
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 ===[[Staying On The Man Who Came to London by C M TaylorA S Cookson]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honest, Yorkshire's where he'd really like to be. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfectIn 1948, but he's living the first set of Caribbean nationals arrived in Great Britain on a mountain village just beyond the Costa Verde and running a pubship called "Empire Windrush". The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really like They struggled to sell it and return to the UK, what with the uncertainty of Brexit and everything, but there are a couple of problemsfind housing. They worked as labourers. First offThey faced open discrimination, his wife - Laney - refuses forcing them to go back to the UKquickly form their own community. She'd have you believe that she's not wellDecades later, but there's a backstory there that's not being talked aboutFreddy makes the same journey. Then there's the pub, 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 make a bit of money to try and make ends at least come in sight of each other, even if they never meet. [[Staying On by C M Taylor|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]] <!-- Tanoh Rubin -->
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===[[The Day of the Orphan Liberation Square by Dr Nat TanohGareth Rubin]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Saga is eighteen andIn an alternate 1952, like many eighteenSoviet Troops control British Streets. After D-year oldsDay goes horribly wrong, his prime concerns are listening Britain is first occupied by Nazi Germany – only to what his mum calls ''hop-hip'', eating copious amounts of foodbe rescued by Russian soldiers from the East, and learning about girlsAmericans from the west. Living Dividing the nation between them, London soon finds itself split in an affluenttwo, liberal and protected suburb, he has a good lifewall running through it like a scar. However, When Jane Cawson's husband is arrested for the suburb is in Africa, where childhoods can be snatched in an instant. When murder of his friends and family are dragged into the conflict raging around the dictatorship that Saga lives underformer wife, he Jane is forced determined to become an unlikely revolutionaryclear his name. Can chubby Saga really stand up In doing so, Jane follows a trail of corruption that leads her right to the highest levels of the state – and soon finds herself desperate to a murderous regime? And can he stay one step ahead of the soldiers desperate to stop him? murderous secret police… [[The Day of the Orphan Liberation Square by Dr Nat TanohGareth Rubin|Full Review]]
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===[[Murmuration When You Read This by Robert LockMary Adkins]]===
[[image:3star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
''Murmuration'' follows Smith Simonyi and Iris Massey worked together for four years, during which time Iris left her husband at the lives of a host of characters from 1863 to the present altar on their wedding day. From a risqué comic Smith, meanwhile, relied on Iris, but his attention was on making enough money to a fortune tellercover his mother's nursing home fees in Wisconsin, we see running the birth of Blackpool branding agency in New York and its steadily fading glamourlosing money gambling when the pressures got too much for him. There is He was devastated when Iris developed a hint terminal cancer and died at the age of mysticism to thirty three. He was surprised too when he discovered that Iris had been writing a blog in the tale, with the mesmerising dance last six months of her life and her final request of starlings over Smith is that he gets the pier acting blog published as an anchor throughout the distinct narratives here, drawing together disparate stories of lives captivated by the seaa book. [[Murmuration When You Read This by Robert LockMary Adkins|Full Review]]
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===[[Smoking Kills Vera Magpie by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Laura Solomon]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Meet Fabrice Valantine''I have murdered three husbands. He'' As an opening line that must take some beating, but Vera's telling us the truth. The first two husbands, Gary and Harry were abusive, but Larry was a treasure, a headhunterkeeper, and a successful one tooit's difficult to understand why Vera would have killed him, particularly when she was likely to get found out very quickly and now she's in an office in Parisprison with a mandatory life sentence. All around him however his world Her only friend is changing – yesShirley, a lesbian, there is but Vera's not one to let herself be a new ban victim. She's not keen on smoking in all workplaces. Goaded by his non-smoking wife, even though they met over an ashtray, of sorts, he sees having a hypnotist who had success sexual relationship with a mutual friend Shirley (she wouldn't risk the security of her life in stopping their nicotine habit. The session seems to have been successful, however he faces prison for the prospect sake of having such a change to his own personalityfling), his imbued habits but she is keen on getting an education and lifestyle, with fear, when he realises it will never again grant him any pleasure. He needs this pleasure when further changes at work come about – but itshe's what he replaces the habit with that will surprise the moststudying for a degree in English Literature. [[Smoking Kills Vera Magpie by Antoine Laurain and Louise Rogers-Lalaurie (translator)Laura Solomon|Full Review]]
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===[[The Island Black Light by M A BennettLaura 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:5starif 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]] [[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:Teens|Teens]], 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]]
A contemporary take on the savage classic ''Lord of the Flies'': a group of mismatched, 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 the venerable and prestigious Osney School. 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 years, he immediately becomes the butt of every school joke. And some students are determined to make his life more miserable than others... [[The Island by M A Bennett|Full Review]]
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===[[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Redemptor Domus by Helen CullenGamelyn Chase]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
William Woolf is a letter detectiveA young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on the scenic North Wales coast, working sent far from his family in the Dead Letters Depot in Far East London. He spends his days deciphering smudged addressesAs the boy travels to the school, a family tragedy causes the boy to arrive at the school a vulnerable orphan, tracking down mysterious people with an uncertain future. Plunged into a school full of danger and reading endless letters of lovebetrayal, guiltthe boy is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alike. With them locked into their scheming and plotting, death, hope, and everyday lifeit comes to the boy to attempt to clean up the pit of filth that the school has become. [[The Lost Letters of William Woolf Redemptor Domus by Helen CullenGamelyn Chase|Full Review]]
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