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

|author= Becky Albertalli and Aisha SaeedKaren M McManus|title= Yes No Maybe So The Cousins|rating= 45|genre= TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= ''We might give it our all 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 crash Allison - received a mysterious letter from their mother and burnwere cut off completely. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going fornow, a quarter of a century later, don't you think?''Jaime has their children have been spending his called to return to the island for the summer helping his cousin by their grandmother. What does she want with campaigning in time 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 special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think quarter of anything worse. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there century is no time like the present about to conquer his fear 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 speaking to life in the publicearly 1970s, all vaguely connected. Maya is So we have a Pakistanibullied half-American Muslim cast boy (as he would have been called then), a girl who is having in a humdrum job wanting to become a singer, and chiefly, Imelda, the worst summer third generation of Madame Burova, ''Tarot-Reader, Palmist and Clairvoyant'', to use her lifefamily's sea-front booth. Her parents are going through The singer, the scryer and the sufferer's mother will all become staff at a separationrevamped holiday camp, she has zero plans but just before then we see Imelda fly solo for the summer to help take first time in the family stall. We also see her mind off things and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy on herlast day, fifty years later, her parents offer to buy her in possession of a car if she agrees to go canvassing. The pair could possibly be the worst canvassing duo in history, as neither of them really want to be there, but as the campaign goes on they discover letters that they care, will change everything for a lotwoman called Billie. Just who is she, and who delivered the secrets about the election - her to Imelda, and maybe even about each otherwhy did it have to remain a secret all this time?|isbn=1471184668152937331X

|author=Elliot ReedStephen Clarke|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingThe Spy Who Inspired Me

|summary=This is the a spoof spy story of , that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a young boy, William Tyceman called Ian Lemming, who is being raised by his uncle after dresses well and 'likes the death of his mother ladies' and his father's abandonment. Howeverwho works for the secret service, it isn't told but in the usual narrative wayplanning side of things more than the active service. InsteadLemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the book is made pair end up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabeticallystranded in Normandy, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what Margaux on earth?!' but I soon grew used a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the styleresistance network, and was instead caught Lemming desperately trying to keep up in William's story.with her!|isbn=19115454182952163855

|author= T R HendrickAndrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title= What if They KnewIf You Kept a Record of Sins|rating= 4.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= ItThis was an 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's 2025addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. Underneath The mother was a lodge businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the Blue Mountain resort original Italian in Pennsylvania2007, is so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a secret facilityprivate farewell address. Here|isbn=1939810965}}{{Frontpage|author=David F Ross|title= There's Only One Danny Garvey|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Years ago, Dr Benton and Danny Garvey was a footballing prodigy playing for his local club. Everyone predicted a bright future – but his team are making some critical scientific advances career in professional football never quite worked out. Thirteen years on behalf of , convinced to return home by his "uncle" Higgy to visit his dying mother, Danny takes over the Benefactorshambolic 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, their anonymous funderalone. AlreadyAnd she likes it that way. She works 9-5, 5 days a week, and spends the team have succeeded in teleporting small primates weekend not drunk, but not sober. alone. And she likes it that way. She lives by a routine, and that's fine, thankyouverymuch. Nothing is missing from her life. Except everything is. Until one place day, at a concert she won tickets for in an office raffle, she sees the man she is sure will be her husband. Eleanor begins a journey to make herself the best version of herself that she can, in order to anothersecure this beautiful musician. ButThen, as she's on her way home one Friday, unbeknownst she and the new IT guy at her office see a man collapse in the street and stay close to him in hospital. Then, before she knows it, her once quiet life becomes a hubbub of social engagements with the Benefactorman's family and friends, Dr Benton has also coded 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 another type of teleportation altogether - travel through timethe worse. And Is Johnnie all he's ready 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 shadows - but maybe she doesn't have to testdo it alone. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for his technology in mind|isbn=17342772110008172145

|authorisbn=H G Parry B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah HeepKarma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|summary=Brothers Rob Between life and Charley have struggled death there is a library. And so, 38 minutes after Nora decided to see eye to eye for years - Rob a sensible lawyer who exists die, she finds herself in the "normal" world - and Charley a man who is blessed with an ability he canMidnight Library. Everything that could've gone wrong in Nora's life has. Her cat died, she lost her job, her brother won't fully control - one which allows him speak to bring literary characters into her, her parents are dead, the real worldboy she teaches piano to no longer cares about piano, she called off her wedding, and old Mr Banerjee next door no longer needs her help. After years She gave up on all the things that would've let her escape the wet, cold town of protecting Charley, Rob wants to discharge his duties Bedford and leave Charley to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out of both their handsgiven her life some purposeful direction. As literary characters begin to appear everywhereSo at 23:22, it soon becomes clear she realises that someone out there shares Charleyshe isn's powers t made for life and intends decides to use them for nefarious gainsdie. But instead of death, she finds the library. Rob and Charley must team up Each infinite shelf is filled with books, each book providing a chance to stop the madness - try another life she could have lived, in a battle to win before theyparallel time. And so, just after midnight on Tuesday the characters and the world reach The End…18th of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could've.|isbn=03565137771786892731

|isbnauthor=1643785036Vincent Panettiere|title=The Wondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E MartinThese Thy Gifts

|summary=Those who have known Alexander Wainwright, ''2006 is a tumultuous year for the landscape artist famous Catholic Church. Reports of horrific sexual abuse are becoming widespread. Monsignor Steven Trimboli is troubled. He worries 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.'' As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins to try to make sense of the child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his Turner prize winning beloved Catholic church, he discovers 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 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 must also face up to his own failings, going right back to his breaking of the celibacy vows.|isbn=1503199886}} {{Frontpage|author=Delia Owens|title=Where The Hay Wagon'Crawdads Sing|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary= In 1952, Kya's mother disappeared up the dirt track to town, wearing her alligator heels, and Rinaldonever came home. Then one by one her siblings left, renowned conceptual artist would say ran from the shack on the North Carolina marsh that they're chalk served as home and cheesethe life that would lead to nothing but suffering, if not sworn enemiesleaving 7-year-old Kya with her drunken father. If youYears pass and Kya - now nicknamed 've watched Marsh-Girl' – still yearns for a mother that would never return and grew up far too fast for a girl who can neither read nor write. Finally, one night her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone to survive on the relationshipmarsh. Eventually, as has our narratorthe years drift painfully by, the time comes when Kya, art dealer Jamie Helmsworthnow an emotional and vastly intelligent young woman, you'd have said that they were magnetsyearns for company besides the gulls and the land, drawing yearning to be loved and repulsing each other in equal measureto be held. Wainwright was at So, when 2 boys from the socially acceptable end town of the artistic continuumBarkley Cove find their way to her, but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there was but she finds a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisancenew way of life. As time has worn onBut in 1969, he's frequently been brought to the attention body of former star quarterback and new husband Chase Andrews is found lying in the mud of the policemarsh, and everyone in town immediately suspects the mysterious, run-down Marsh-Girl. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson Who is Kya now, after years of isolation and theft a broken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of ''The Hay Wagon''.murder?|isbn=1472154665

|authorisbn=Mary H.K. Choi1473692407|title=Permanent RecordThe Book of Two Ways|author=Jodi Picoult

|summary=PabloWhen 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: he's been there for a college drop-outyear, 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: 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, is working at Alex.}}{{Frontpage|author=Helen Fisher|title=Space Hopper|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Faye lost her mum when she was very young. She was raised by some elderly neighbours after her mum died from a New York bodegacold that got worse, and although they were kind and very good to her she of course missed her mum enormously. HeSo 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 massively and her mum, she revels in debtthe 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, heand Faye fears that her husband won't believe what's avoiding his motherhappening and so lies to him instead. The lies grow more tangled, and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Faye begins to wonder if it's safe for her to return one last time to the past. Whilst working Should she try to see her mum one eveninglast time before her mum's death, heor will it change her own future forever to attempt it?|isbn=1471188663}}{{Frontpage|author= Claire McGowan|title=The Push|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Six mums-to-be meet at a prenatal class. It's surprised NCT ''style'', but not the proper NCT. This bit is important, but you have to wait a little to discover that 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 girl he thing they have in common is chatting with as he serves it's their first baby. Probably after the first one, you don't have time for classes, or think you've got child-rearing down pat.|isbn=1542019990}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008378363|title=One Perfect Morning|author=Pamela Crane|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=A husband is a superabout to have his throat cut in his own bed. To find out who - and why -famous pop star we need to go back nine days andtwenty years. Mackenzie, as unlikely as it may seemRobin and Lily met when they all went to the same college in Monroeville, Pennsylvania and twenty years later they're still the best of friends. When they start first met they called themselves the Spicier Girls as a relationshipnod to the famous girl band of the day. With one character who is trying very hard not to Lily would be seen or noticed by anyoneAdventure Spice, Robin the Homemaker and Mackenzie - well, Mackenzie would be the other supporting actress in her own life. She married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughter, Aria, who is seen 's now fifteen-year-old.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B07WWSCGVS|title=The Lies You Told|author=Harriet Tyce|rating=5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new school. She's left the school she loved in New York and followed now she's going to Ashams in North London. It's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and hounded by everyone as the pupils have all over the worldbeen there ''forever'', itthey have their established groups. Robin's going to be an interesting clash as they come togetheroutsider. This isnAnd why is this happening? Well, over a matter of a few days her parents't just marriage fell apart. Andrew Spence is staying in New York - he works for a love story thoughsecurities firm - and her mother, Sadie Roper, and actually ithas come back to London to pick up her practice as a criminal barrister. That's really just Pabeasier said than done when you've been out of the market place - and the country - for more than ten years.}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain|title=The Readers Room|genre=General Fiction|rating=3.5|summary=Violaine's storypublishing house has had a great success, about and it was through the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts. The three people who work in the Readers' Room to sift through what is ninety-nine per cent dross – plus the fourth advisor in her rarefied mansion up the road – all agreed the journey he takes book would be a huge smash, and so it has proven. But there are several 'howevers' to that. As in his , however – Violaine herself is not having life via his meetall her own way, for she has been involved in a near-fatal accident, and starts this book coming round from a coma. And, however – despite all urging, the author of the book has never once made themselves known to the publishers in person, and in fact, offered up with Leanna Smarta most peculiar statement-come-threat in their last email. What is going to befall Violaine, her memory, her staff – and how much is any of it due to the hit novel? And just where the heck did that come from?|isbn=03490034591910477974

|authorisbn=Daniel Kraus085752612X|title=Blood SugarRodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?|author=Curtis Sittenfeld

|summary=This is a difficult I was tempted to read. And not because of ''Rodham'' by the dark subject matter – that'll come later – but because success of the way in which itCurtis Sittenfeld's told''American Wife''. This might put That book wasn't marketed as being a lot portrait of readers offLaura Bush, and to be honest itbut the word ''thinly-veiled''d be hard seemed to blame themoccur very regularly in reviews. Kraus tells How would ''Rodham'' compare? Unfortunately, there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bush, which gave the story in book a distinctive voice unlike any other Ifreshness which the first third of ''Rodham'' lacks. We've all heard the stories, read; an erratic dialect with heavy the books - about Hillary and frequent slang. The immediate effect is disorientating and distracting, and it takes some time to feel naturalparticularly about Bill. It's a struggle to acclimatise to Jodystill an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's voicecareer, if she hadn't had to get acquainted with his mannerisms, but carry the story wouldnburden of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't be left her own run at the same presidency so late? Could she have done better without it, and somehow it works. It shouldn't, but it does.|isbn=1789091934the Clinton surname?

|isbnauthor=B07W4MNBSGAnstey Harris|title=Be Careful Who You Marry|author=Lizzy MumfreyWhere We Belong|rating=45

|summary=It was coming up to Halloween in 1987 I've always believed that places and buildings absorb what happens within them and reflect it back; this is how we can tell that a group of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing when they were fiftysacred space is sacred. When you're only seventeen that seems positively ancientCate Morris believes a similar thing, but Liz was convinced she believes that ''your entire life depends on who you marry''. The only eligible boys were A house absorbs happiness, it blooms into the Young Farmers and wallpaper, the idea wood of living in the window frames, the bricks: that's how it becomes a farmhouse and home.'' She is having a couple of children called Will and Olly appealed these thoughts as she packs up her home. She has to Charlotte, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined to marry the rather superior Patrick Shepley-Bothamleave. The place A combination of circumstances means that is not only redundant but also homeless. With nowhere else to start their search was obviously the Young Farmersgo, she has called on her late husband' Halloween disco that weekends family for help. There was just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in the classJust for a few weeks.|isbn=1471173836

{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- Will Carver -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1912374838.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1912374838/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | 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 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 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 Move 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 Newest Graphic Novels 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]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}