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===[[Vera Magpie American Royals by Laura SolomonKatharine McGee]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Two and a half centuries ago, America won the Revolutionary War and General George Washington was offered the crown. Today, the House of Washington still sit on the thrown with Princess Beatrice next in line. Beatrice''I have murdered three husbandss whole life has been building up to her ruling the United States and the time for her reign is imminent.''[[American Royals by Katharine McGee|Full Review]]
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 keeper, and it'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 prison with a mandatory life sentence. 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. [[Vera Magpie by Laura Solomon|Full Review]] <!-- Laura Solomon Mulligan -->
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| style="''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"''|===[[Black Light Train Man by Laura SolomonAndrew Mulligan]]===
[[image:32.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Jim is a university student and, as the saying goes, he hasn't got his troubles I came to seek. His father committed suicide when he was young and somehow he's never really managed this book thinking I knew just what to connect with his step-father. His younger brother would be kindly described as having learning difficultiesexpect, even though it is [[:Category: if you were being honest you'd just say that he was very difficult, but Jim does his best with and for him. JimAndy Mulligan|the author's ]] debut in love with a woman, but she finds him repulsive and you can understand why: the looks, the attitude, the adult novel market (lack of) conversational ability and hence the clothing all leave a lot more mature name – he used to be desiredan Andy). Despite all that's he's not I thought it simple to sum up, the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about to sit back and allow train travel having his life to drift: heturned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn's actually writing t opened it when I''two'' novels d shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and he reads excerpts from these to his friends in the pub. [[Black Light by Laura Solomon:Category:David Nicholls|Full ReviewDavid Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness.
More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]]
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===[[Redemptor Domus The Girl at the Window by Gamelyn ChaseRowan Coleman]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]]
A young boy arrives at an exclusive faith school on the scenic North Wales coastTrudy Heaton is going home, sent far from his family in the Far East. As the boy travels to the school, a family tragedy causes house where her roots burrow back through the boy centuries and to arrive at the school a vulnerable orphanmother she hasn't spoken to for sixteen years. Home, her refuge, Ponden Hall, where she can heal herself and try to come to terms with an uncertain futurethe traumatic loss of her husband. Plunged into a school full of danger She needs to build bridges with her mother and betrayal, the boy convince her grieving son that his father is seen as a trophy by friends and enemies alikedead. With them locked into their scheming Where better than the house full of light and plottingshadow, it comes to the boy to attempt to clean up the pit of filth that the school has become. nurtured her throughout her childhood? [[Redemptor Domus The Girl at the Window by Gamelyn ChaseRowan Coleman|Full Review]]
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===[[The Long Path To Wisdom We Are Not Okay by Jan-Philipp SendkerNatalia Gomes]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Short StoriesTeens|Short StoriesTeens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
On my travels around Set in a typical American town, ''We Are Not Okay'' tells the story of four teenage girls facing the worlddifficulties 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, I have a tendency Ulana, Trina and Sophia, whose friendship statuses vary from BFFs to end up in any bookshop that sworn enemies. The reader is selling English-language bookspresented with a glimpse into each of their lives, but more importantly their minds, and while I buy as many second-hand escapist tales as at times the next personthoughts 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, what Iparticularly in relation to the ''Me Too Movement''. ''m really looking for is the We Are Not Okay'local' – reminds the cookbook maybe, reader of the maps definitely, but above all: the folk tales. If importance of phrases like ''I ever get to Burma, I won't need to hunt, I can read before I gom With Her''. [[The Long Path To Wisdom We Are Not Okay by Jan-Philipp SendkerNatalia Gomes|Full Review]]
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===[[Katalin Street Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Magda SzaboKate Tough]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
This is Life has just hidden behind a story about the corner and stuck a foot out as Rhona Beech came past. A specific past, certainly, 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 form of pre-war Budapest, but also a story about how that past can impact on sentence was the present way it worked out and the futureRhona was left on her own. In this book Well, the first of three Magda Szabó wrote she wasn't completely on her own: she had friends and family, but it's not the same theme between 1969 and 1987 and now newly translated and reissuedas having that special someone in your life, we witness that someone who makes you part of a heart-rending nostalgia for happier days, guilt about those who did not survivecouple. So Rhona had to start again, and rejoining a dogged but doomed determination world that bore little resemblance to cling to longthe one she'd left nine years ago -gone times, feelings and experiences which mark there's a lot of difference between being in the here middle of your twenties and now, staining and warping it into another, subtler miserythe middle of your thirties. [[Katalin Street Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Magda SzaboKate Tough|Full Review]]
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===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link===Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[Santa Goes on Strike by Jem Vanston:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]===
[[image:4starIt strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[:Category:For SharingEquator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|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 Jane O'Connor -->
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===[[Every Colour of You Needlemouse by Amelia MandevilleJane O'Connor]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]]
Zoe believes in adding life to years as well as years to life. Her worldWe first meet Sylvia Penton on her birthday and her boss, like her namethe Prof, is bursting with life and colourtaking her out to lunch. She This is her favourite day of the sort year, not because it's her birthday but because of girl who would sing a rainbow is the special time she gets to spend with the man she couldloves. Tristan (or He's told her that he and his wife are going to divorce - Martha is apparently having an affair - and Sylvia is convinced that the Prof will then declare his love and they can be together. She hasn'Treet fully constructed 'together' in her own mind - she envisages it as romantic, but her imagination hasn't yet progressed to the sexual part of the relationship. There's time though - she calls him) is 's only been the opposite. Fresh out of hospital following a prolonged stay in a psychiatric unit, he sees a world as a grey placeprof's PA for fifteen years. [[Every Colour of You Needlemouse by Amelia MandevilleJane O'Connor|Full Review]]
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===[[A Spark of Light Vintage 1954 by Jodi PicoultAntoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)]]===
[[image:4star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
The Center is the last remaining abortion clinic Vintage 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 state wife who shared his dream of Mississippi and 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 source roost over a whole suite of great controversy when it comes to individual apartments fabricated from the ProHaussmann-Life versus Pro-Choice debateera mansion his family once owned. It is at The Center where one man, George Goddard, takes it upon himself Finally something conspires to get revenge for the loss of his grandchildthem together, in and drinking from the form same bottle of a mass-shootingrare 1954 red wine. What arises is a novel that details the lives of the remaining hostagesOnly, as well as other characters central to the story. One one of these characters is Hugh McElroy, them has a hostage negotiator called bizarre incidence in to help deflate his family history that also features the situationsame plonk – where a grandfather imbibed, who soon discovers that his sister and daughterwalked out the door one rainy morning, Wren, happened never to be at the clinic that dayseen again. But of course nobody will be doing any disappearing now, though – will they? [[A Spark of Light Vintage 1954 by Jodi PicoultAntoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)|Full Review]]
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===[[Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by M B VincentFelicity McLean]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionThrillers|General FictionThrillers]], [[:Category:CrimeGeneral Fiction|CrimeGeneral Fiction]]
Dr Jess CastleWhen Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old, the self proclaimed failure Van Apfel sisters disappeared. In the long hot summer of the prestigious Castle family has returned home to the sleepy1992, idyllic chocolate box town in an isolated suburb of Castle Kidbury. Rather than being delighted, her family are suspicious, especially her fatherAustralia surrounded by Bushland, the judgegirls vanished during the school's Showstopper concert at the riverside amphitheatre. Luckily Did they run away? Were they taken? While the search for Jessthe sisters united the small community, she doesn't have to try too hard to dodge her family's suspicions as a series they were never found. Returning home years later, Tikka must make sense of gruesome local murders are taking place and that's all anyone is talking about. Jess accidentally finds herself strange moment in the thick time – of the investigationsummer that shaped her, and to her delight finds that the girls she can actually be usefulnever forgot. 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 The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by M B VincentFelicity McLean|Full Review]] <!-- Stone AMS -->
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===[[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith]]===
===[[What's Left Unsaid by Deborah Stone]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Sasha has Long-time followers of The Bookbag will know I'm a lot on her platedie-hard fan of AMS. Husband Jeremy is distant and absent and 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 marriage needs workusual police parameters. Son Zac This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is entering stabbed in the knee, the disappearance of an imaginary boyfriend, and a rebellious adolescent phase and itcase of potential werewolves. They's hard re the crimes that perhaps nobody else would bother to know how to redirect him. Mother Anniedeal with, and I rather enjoyed them, an alcoholicespecially the stabbing where you find that actually, is beginning you identify with the journey into dementia and has never been an easy person at who committed the best of times. Thank heavens for her lovely dogcrime, Sebastian, and his unconditional loverather than the victim. [[What's Left Unsaid The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Deborah StoneAlexander McCall Smith|Full Review]]
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===[[The Place Where Love Should Be Things That are Lost by Elizabeth EllisAlan Kennedy]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
The final novel in Alan Kennedy's WW2 trilogy sees Captain Alex Vere taken off active duty and banished to Scotland, providing trade craft spy training. It'Edward is six weeks old s stifling and I’ve had no sleep. I had thirty stitches in my perineum, the wounds still tug suffocating and itch. They had feels as much like a prison to do the stitches twice because Alex as anything the first lot became infectedGermans would provide. The old-school midwife told me I wasn’t paying enough attention And where is Justine? Alex hasn't seen her since he went to personal hygiene. I must shower twice a day''that'' disastrous meeting with John Cabot, or better stillinstigator of the disinformation campaign, take a salt bathand returned to find her missing. Do they really expect me to do that? Have they ever tried to shower when a baby A failed mission is one thing but no Justine is crying and you’re so tired you quite another. Alex 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 babyt get Justine out of his head. Many of them simply managed to put one foot in front of Has she left the other until things calmed down but some will have found it harder and developed post-natal depressionservice? Does she know too much? Is she even still alive? [[The Place Where Love Should Be Things That are Lost by Elizabeth EllisAlan Kennedy|Full Review]]
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===[[A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link===Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]===
[[image:4star''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 most sophisticated corners of the globe and lived a life of luxury.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionA Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel|General FictionFull Review]]
Hugh Mullion goes away to Dorset for the weekend and, while waiting for his wife to arrive, finds a mysterious key down the back of an antique chair. The grubby and torn label to which is attached reads... [[The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden|Full Review]] <!-- Hajaj Cohen -->
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===[[The Water Thief Louis and Louise by Claire HajajJulie Cohen]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Nick is 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 middle 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 wedding preparations when he decides the above, covering the stories of Louis and Louise, born on the same day, to leave his fiancée behind the same parents, but in London one storyline Lou is a boy, and take up a post in some un-named west African country providing engineering support for the building of other a children's hospitalgirl. He has no idea what he Does it really make a difference, the gender box that is getting himself intoticked 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... [[The Water Thief Louis and Louise by Claire HajajJulie Cohen|Full Review]]
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===[[Landslide M for Mammy by Melissa LeetEleanor O'Reilly]]===
[[image:4star.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]]
The Augustts are, like all families, a bit complicated. A loving irish family, their love binds them together – but all express that in very different ways. However, when misfortune strikes the family they are forced to work together in order to understand each other again, as with a 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 takes charge. Full of stern words and common sense, she's a force of nature who must try her hardest to hold the family together. [[M for Mammy by Eleanor O'Reilly|Full Review]] <!-- Wilson Hogan -->
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===[[Aftershocks Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by A N WilsonRuth Hogan]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary General Fiction|Literary General Fiction]], [[:Category:General FictionHumour|Humour]], [[:Category:Paranormal|General FictionParanormal]]
In a country very much like New ZealandTilda returns to Brighton, but at to tidy away the same time most avowedly not, two women will find loveremains of her mother's life after her death. Strong love tooWhilst there, for our narrator will say that her first attraction for her partner was she returns to the only thing to make sense of all those exaggerated songs she'd heardParadise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and books and poems she'd readmisfits. A place where people can be themselves, and plays she'd acted in – works let go of art thoughts that had until then seemed sheer hyperboletorment them elsewhere. It was entirely unrequited love Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for quite some timebanishing her as a child, but it does burgeon, or so we're promised from the off, because this place of something quite drastic – a major earthquake very much like the one that hit Christchurch, but at the same time most avowedly notwonder. This book then is With the combined exploration help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the lovers tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and the story of the quakedistant mother. [[Aftershocks Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by A N WilsonRuth Hogan|Full Review]]
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===[[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] ==[[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|FantasyThe Man Who Came to London by A S Cookson]]===
A little while ago I really enjoyed [[Marsha's Deal by Laura Solomonimage:4star.jpg|Marsha's Deallink=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] and I was delighted by the opportunity to read the sequel, ''Hell's Unveiling''. It's probably not much of a spoiler to say that Marsha bested the devil in ''Marsha's Deal'', but the devil is not one to take defeat lying down. 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 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. Then, of course there are all the other children who are not only targeted, but - worst of all - subverted to the devil's evil ends. He's out to prey on their fears 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 a training complex on earth, complete with an elevator to Hell. [[Hell's Unveiling by Laura Solomon:Category:General Fiction|Full ReviewGeneral Fiction]]
<!-- C M Taylor -->|-| style=''In 1948, the first set of Caribbean nationals arrived in Great Britain on a ship called "width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;Empire Windrush"|[[image:0715653377.jpg|link=http://wwwThey struggled to find housing.amazonThey worked as labourers.coThey faced open discrimination, forcing them to quickly form their own community.uk/dp/0715653377/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]Decades later, Freddy makes the same journey.''
''Does he find a place to live? Does he face stereotypes? Has Britain moved forward?''
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Staying On by C M Taylor]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Tony Metcalfe is a Yorkshireman through and through and being honestFreddie arrives in London in the early 2000s, Yorkshire's where he'd really like to beanswering the call for teachers. You suspect that Scarborough would be perfectHe thinks about his own Jamaican education, but he's living in a mountain village just beyond based on the Costa Verde British system, and running a pub. The Viva Espagñe isn't flourishing: Tony would really like to sell it the way he was taught English nursery rhymes and return to about the UK, what with River Thames. He thinks about the uncertainty love of Brexit cricket and everythingfootball, but there are a couple shared by both countries. And he thinks of the generations of problems. First off, his wife - Laney - refuses to go back to the UKdiaspora who came before him. She'd have you believe that she's not Freddy does well, in his job in East London but there's a backstory there that's not being talked about. Then there's the pubhe does have to face down some stereotypical attitudes from his pupils - all Jamaicans smoke weed, which isndon'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. ? Everybody knows that! [[Staying On The Man Who Came to London by C M TaylorA S Cookson|Full Review]]
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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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