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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__

|author=H G Parry Karen M McManus|title=The Unlikely Escape Cousins|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary= The rich and famous Story family led a life of luxury on Gull Cove Island, until 25 years ago when each of the Story children - Anders, Archer, Adam and Allison - received a mysterious letter from their mother and were cut off completely. But now, a quarter of a century later, their children have been called to return to the island for the summer by their grandmother. What does she want with the cousins? Why did she cut off her children all those years ago? Are the deaths on Gull Cove Island really what they seem? The dark web of twisted lies, secrets and tragedy that has held the Story family up - and held them apart - for a quarter of a century is about to come crashing down.|isbn=0241376947}}{{Frontpage|author=Ruth Hogan|title=Madame Burova|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This book lets us discover several people in different stages of Uriah Heeplife in the early 1970s, all vaguely connected. So we have a bullied half-cast boy (as he would have been called then), a girl in a humdrum job wanting to become a singer, and chiefly, Imelda, the third generation of Madame Burova, ''Tarot-Reader, Palmist and Clairvoyant'', to use her family's sea-front booth. The singer, the scryer and the sufferer's mother will all become staff at a revamped holiday camp, but just before then we see Imelda fly solo for the first time in the family stall. We also see her on her last day, fifty years later, in possession of a pair of letters that will change everything for a woman called Billie. Just who is she, and who delivered the secrets about her to Imelda, and why did it have to remain a secret all this time?|isbn=152937331X}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Clarke|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me

|summary=Brothers Rob This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and Charley have struggled to see eye to eye who works for years - Rob the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a sensible lawyer who exists desperate mission to unearth traitors in the "normal" world - resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|isbn=2952163855}}{{Frontpage|author=Andrea Bajani and Charley Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title=If You Kept a man who is blessed with Record of Sins|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This was an ability incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he can't fully control - one which allows s addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to bring literary characters into do all the real worldnecessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. After years The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of protecting Charleyabandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, Rob wants to discharge his duties the lad's childhood, and leave Charley see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=1939810965}}{{Frontpage|author=David F Ross|title= There's Only One Danny Garvey|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Years ago, Danny Garvey was a footballing prodigy playing for his own devices - local club. Everyone predicted a bright future – but circumstances soon take choices his career in professional football never quite worked out of both their hands. As literary characters begin Thirteen years on, convinced to appear everywherereturn home by his "uncle" Higgy to visit his dying mother, Danny takes over the shambolic and once-great team he used to play for and tries to reform them.|isbn= 1913193500}} {{Frontpage|author=Gail Honeyman|title=Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Eleanor Oliphant is almost 30. She lives in Glasgow, alone. And she likes it soon becomes clear that someone out there shares Charleyway. She works 9-5, 5 days a week, and spends the weekend not drunk, but not sober. alone. And she likes it that way. She lives by a routine, and that's powers and intends to use them fine, thankyouverymuch. Nothing is missing from her life. Except everything is. Until one day, at a concert she won tickets for nefarious gainsin an office raffle, she sees the man she is sure will be her husband. Rob and Charley must team up Eleanor begins a journey to stop make herself the madness - best version of herself that she can, in order to secure this beautiful musician. Then, as she's on her way home one Friday, she and the new IT guy at her office see a battle man collapse in the street and stay close to win him in hospital. Then, before theyshe knows it, her once quiet life becomes a hubbub of social engagements with the man's family and friends, with Raymond from IT and of course her side project of falling in love with Johnnie Lomond. But just as her life seems to be looking up, things take a turn for the characters worse. Is Johnnie all he's cracked up to be? What secrets does Eleanor have from her childhood? Eleanor's walls have been broken down and she has to fight her way out of the world reach The End…shadows - but maybe she doesn't have to do it alone.|isbn=03565137770008172145

|isbn=1643785036B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Wondrous ApothecaryKarma Trap|author=Mary E MartinLisette Boyd

|summary=Those who have known Alexander WainwrightBetween life and death there is a library. And so, 38 minutes after Nora decided to die, she finds herself in the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay WagonMidnight Library. Everything that could've gone wrong in Nora's life has. Her cat died, and Rinaldoshe lost her job, renowned conceptual artist would say that theyher brother won're chalk and cheeset speak to her, her parents are dead, if not sworn enemies. If you've watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworthboy she teaches piano to no longer cares about piano, you'd have said that they were magnetsshe called off her wedding, drawing and repulsing each other in equal measureold Mr Banerjee next door no longer needs her help. Wainwright was at She gave up on all the socially acceptable end of things that would've let her escape the artistic continuumwet, but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there was but a fine dividing line between conceptual art cold town of Bedford and public nuisancegiven her life some purposeful direction. As time has worn onSo at 23:22, heshe realises that she isn's frequently been brought t made for life and decides to the attention die. But instead of death, she finds the policelibrary. On this latest occasion we see him charged Each infinite shelf is filled with arson and theft books, each book providing a chance to try another life she could have lived, in a parallel time. And so, just after midnight on Tuesday the 18th of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could''The Hay Wagon''ve.|isbn=1786892731

|author=Mary H.K. ChoiVincent Panettiere|title=Permanent RecordThese Thy Gifts

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Pablo, ''2006 is a college drop-out, tumultuous year for the Catholic Church. Reports of horrific sexual abuse are becoming widespread. Monsignor Steven Trimboli is working at a New York bodegatroubled. Heworries for the future of the church—and rightly so. A new crime will soon reverberate throughout his church and hit closer to home than he ever imagined.'s massively in debt' As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins to try to make sense of the child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his beloved Catholic church, hediscovers that one child in his own parish has been abused by a priest sent by his bishop. And this isn't just any boy: this is Steve's avoiding his grandson whose mother, is the offspring of a long past relationship between Steve and a gangster's widow. Steve is determined to seek justice for this boy and all children victimised by priests who have been protected by his church. But he finds must also face up to his own failings, going right back to his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one eveningbreaking of the celibacy vows.|isbn=1503199886}} {{Frontpage|author=Delia Owens|title=Where The Crawdads Sing|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary= In 1952, heKya's surprised mother disappeared up the dirt track to discover town, wearing her alligator heels, and never came home. Then one by one her siblings left, ran from the shack on the North Carolina marsh that served as home and the girl he is chatting life that would lead to nothing but suffering, leaving 7-year-old Kya with as he serves is her drunken father. Years pass and Kya - now nicknamed 'Marsh-Girl' – still yearns for a super-famous pop star mother that would never return and, as unlikely as it may seem, they start grew up far too fast for a relationshipgirl who can neither read nor write. With Finally, one character who is trying very hard not night her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone to be seen or noticed survive on the marsh. Eventually, as the years drift painfully by anyone, the time comes when Kya, now an emotional and vastly intelligent young woman, yearns for company besides the other who is seen gulls and followed the land, yearning to be loved and hounded by everyone all over to be held. So, when 2 boys from the worldtown of Barkley Cove find their way to her, it's an interesting clash as they come togethershe finds a new way of life. This isn't just a love story thoughBut in 1969, the body of former star quarterback and actually it's really just Pab's storynew husband Chase Andrews is found lying in the mud of the marsh, about and everyone in town immediately suspects the journey he takes in his life via his meetmysterious, run-down Marsh-up with Leanna SmartGirl.Who is Kya now, after years of isolation and a broken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of murder?|isbn=03490034591472154665

|authorisbn=Daniel Kraus1473692407|title=Blood SugarThe Book of Two Ways|author=Jodi Picoult

|summary=This Dawn Edelstein is a difficult read. And not because of the dark subject matter – death doula: that'll come later – but because of s someone who is there for the way in which it's told. This might put a lot of readers offperson who is dying, and to be honest it'd be hard make their passage to blame them. Kraus tells the story whatever they believe in a distinctive voice unlike any other I've read; an erratic dialect with heavy and frequent slang. The immediate effect is disorientating as easy as possible and distracting, and it takes some time to feel naturalsupport their carers. It's a struggle to acclimatise to Jodyrewarding, caring occupation and Dawn puts her heart and soul into it but this wasn's voicet always her life. Some fifteen years ago she was a graduate student at Yale working towards her doctorate: as an Egyptologist, to get acquainted she was working with his mannerismsher supervisor, but Professor Ian Dumphries, on the story wouldn't be Djehutyakht tombs at Deir el-Bersha on the same without it, and somehow it worksNile in Middle Egypt. It shouldn't Then she was Dawn McDowell: that was her maiden name, but it doesthe name she published under.|isbn=1789091934

|isbn=B07W4MNBSG0241295955|title=Be Careful Who You MarryTrio|author=Lizzy MumfreyWilliam Boyd|rating=45

|summary=It was coming up to Halloween in 1987 1968: the year when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. It's also the year when YSK Films are making a group of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing when they were fiftymovie in Brighton. When youIt's called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon''re only seventeen that seems positively ancient, but Liz was convinced that or ''Ladder the Moon'your entire life depends on who you marry'as it's known on set. The only eligible boys were the Young Farmers and Anny Viklund is the idea of living female star in a farmhouse and having production which is proving to be just a little bit rackety. There are odd pressures on the producer, Talbot Kydd, to employ this old actor friend for a couple of children called Will and Olly appealed days because he needs the money, allow a fading star to Charlotteuse his catchphrase, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined to marry include a song from the rather superior Patrick Shepley-Botham. The place to start their search was obviously the Young Farmers' Halloween disco that weekend. There was just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in the classleading man, whose musical star is fading.

{{Frontpage|author=Anna Bruno|title=Ordinary Hazards|rating=2|genre=General Fiction|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingsummary= Some books either grab you or bore you. And this was one that I wanted so badly to like but unfortunately, I just wasn't hooked.|isbn=1471184862}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1712435728|title=Jamie's Keepsake|author="15" Michael Gallagher<!-- Will Carver -->|rating=4.5|-genre=Teens| stylesummary="widthWhen we first meet Alex Hannah, he's just being released from the Southern General Hospital. The nurse thinks he'll come back to visit the other patients but Alex has no intention of doing that: 10%; vertical-alignhe's been there for a year, on the same ward where his brother died and now, with his hair all shorn off, he's going home in his dead brother's clothes. He wants to get outside and back with his friends: top; text-align: center;"his brother, Forbes, says that the fresh air will do him good and his mother tells him that he's not to mention TB and to say it was tonsillitis. Good luck with that one, Alex.}}{{Frontpage|author=Helen Fisher|title=Space Hopper|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction[[image:1912374838|summary=Faye lost her mum when she was very young. She was raised by some elderly neighbours after her mum died from a cold that got worse, and although they were kind and very good to her she of course missed her mum enormously. So when, unexpectedly, she discovers a time travel conduit (via an old space hopper box in her attic) that takes her back to the 70's and her mum, she revels in the chance to create some memories and get to know the woman who meant so much to her. The time travelling, however, is neither easy nor safe, and Faye fears that her husband won't believe what's happening and so lies to him instead. The lies grow more tangled, and Faye begins to wonder if it's safe for her to return one last time to the past.jpg Should she try to see her mum one last time before her mum's death, or will it change her own future forever to attempt it?|isbn=1471188663}}{{Frontpage|linkauthor=http://wwwClaire McGowan|title=The Push|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Six mums-to-be meet at a prenatal class. It's NCT ''style'', but not the proper NCT. This bit is important, but you have to wait a little to see why. This being London, such a class attracts a wide variety of people, from all sorts of backgrounds, but for most of the ladies the thing they have in common is it's their first baby.amazonProbably after the first one, you don't have time for classes, or think you've got child-rearing down pat.co|isbn=1542019990}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008378363|title=One Perfect Morning|author=Pamela Crane|rating=3.uk/dp/1912374838/ref5|genre=nosim?tagThrillers|summary=thebookbagA husband is about to have his throat cut in his own bed. To find out who -21]]and why - we need to go back nine days and twenty years.

| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Nothing Important Happened Today is a dark, twisted, difficult read. Stories about cults often are, but this is different; it's written with a sense of style that is quite unlike anything I've read before. I can't remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, distinctive narrative voice. While a slim and relatively small book, the slow-moving nature of the plot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages. [[Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver|Full Review]] <!-- Claire North -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:williamabbey.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0316316849/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]  When William Abbey fails to prevent the lynching of a young boy in 1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, as the shadow of the dead boy begins to follow him across the world. Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans and mountains in pursuit of William. As he finds himself unable to resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and seeks to kill the one he loves the most… [[The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North|Full Review]] <!-- Oates -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785656775.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785656775/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Bobby is an angry, damaged man - damage that came from being abandoned as a baby in a bus station locker, and then being thrown from one foster home or detention centre to another, never far from violence or abuse. Eager to succeed as a musician, he arrives in Hollywood to find his dream - but it soon becomes clear that his paranoid delusions and seething rage will enable a capacity for acts of extreme violence. Unpublished for 40 years, this edition of ''The Triumph of the Spider Monkey'' comes combined with a connected novella – ''Love, Careless Love''. [[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates|Full Review]] <!-- Ellory -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1542007232.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542007232/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Berlin, 1989. Miriam is in the middle of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades. She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying. One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name ''Frieda'' that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch. One bombshell outside, then, and two inside. And inside her father, Henryk, what is going Move on, as he has a first person narrative alternating with her story? What will we find happened, as he remembers back to the real Frieda, a young woman that shook him to the core when he was her literature professor? That's right, more bombshells… [[The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory|Full Review]] <!-- McGee -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0241365953.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241365953/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[American Royals by Katharine 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's 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]] <!-- 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 -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785032461.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785032461/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]] Trudy Heaton is going home, to a house where her roots burrow back through the centuries and to a mother 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 the traumatic loss of her husband. She needs to build bridges with her mother and convince 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 Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman|Full Review]] |-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0008291845.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0008291845/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 Newest Graphic Novels 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]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]] Life 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: she 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. [[Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[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]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It 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. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Jane O'Connor -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:B07GLCDXZL.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GLCDXZL/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]] We first meet Sylvia Penton on her birthday and her boss, the Prof, is taking her out to lunch. This is her favourite day of the year, not because it's her birthday but because of the special time she gets to spend with the man she loves. 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't 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's only been the prof's PA for fifteen years. [[Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor|Full Review]] <!-- Laurain -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1910477672.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910477672/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] 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 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. But of course nobody will be doing any disappearing now, though – will they? [[Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- McLean -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786076071.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786076071/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Felicity McLean]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] When 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. [[The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Felicity McLean|Full Review]] <!-- AMS -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1408711265.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408711265/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Long-time followers of The Bookbag will know I'm a die-hard fan of AMS. So you can imagine my excitement at reading a brand new book in a brand new series, described by the author himself as Scandi Blanc (as opposed to Scandi Noir)! Here we meet a new detective named Ulf Varg, who works in the Department for Sensitive Crimes, solving those crimes that perhaps fall outside the usual police parameters. This particular book deals with crimes including someone who is stabbed in the knee, the disappearance of an imaginary boyfriend, and a case of potential werewolves. They're the crimes that perhaps nobody else would bother to deal with, and I rather enjoyed them, especially the stabbing where you find that actually, you identify with the person who committed the crime, rather than the victim. [[The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith|Full Review]] <!-- Kennedy -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0993202349.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993202349/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[The Things That are Lost by Alan Kennedy]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]  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]] <!-- Schienmel -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0349003289.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1492667242/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''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. [[A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}