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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__ {{Frontpage |isbnauthor=1529123941 Karen M McManus|title=The Silent Treatment |author=Abbie Greaves Cousins|rating=4.5 |genre=General Fiction |summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs The rich and his wifefamous Story family led a life of luxury on Gull Cove Island, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on until 25 years ago when each of the other handStory children - Anders, has just taken some pills - eight of themArcher, in fact Adam and Allison - received a mysterious letter from their mother and before long she will collapsewere cut off completely. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has But now, a bit quarter of a problem. He has century later, their children have been called to return to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken the island for a whilethe summer by their grandmother. How longWhat does she want with the cousins? Why did she cut off her children all those years ago? WellAre the deaths on Gull Cove Island really what they seem? The dark web of twisted lies, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie secrets and he can't really say if it's likely tragedy that Maggie has tried held the Story family up - and held them apart - for a quarter of a century is about to take her own lifecome crashing down.|isbn=0241376947

|author=Camilla BruceRuth Hogan|title=You Let Madame Burova|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This book lets us discover several people in different stages of life 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 In

|summary= EccentricThis is a spoof spy story, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a year man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Her will instructs her niece Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and nephew the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to enter her home unearth traitors in the resistance network, and find the key Lemming desperately trying to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in keep up with her office: the last story she'll ever tell.!|isbn=17876331792952163855

|author= Becky Albertalli Andrea Bajani and Aisha SaeedElizabeth Harris (translator)|title= Yes No Maybe So If You Kept a Record of Sins|rating= 4.5|genre= TeensLiterary Fiction|summary= ''This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We might give it start as our all hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and crash and burn. But before we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, doneven know his gender or the nature of the person he't you think?''Jaime has been spending s addressing in his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for second person monologue of a special election. When narration, we see him picked up by his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think of anything worse. Howevers chauffeur, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there is no time like the present to conquer his fear of speaking carted off to do all the public. Maya is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who necessary introductions before said mother is having buried the worst summer of her lifefollowing day. Her parents are going through The mother was a separationbusinesswoman, she has zero plans for the summer to help take who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her mind off things (night-time and business) partner, and her only close friend is permanently busyfeelings of abandonment are still strong. To help occupy herAnd so we flit from current (well, her parents offer to buy her a car if she agrees to go canvassing. The pair could possibly be this came out in the worst canvassing duo original Italian in history2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, as neither of them really want to be therethe lad's childhood, but and see just what he has to tell her as the campaign goes on they discover that they care, a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other?private farewell address.|isbn=14711846681939810965

|author=Elliot ReedDavid F Ross|title=A Key There's Only One Danny Garvey|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Years ago, Danny Garvey was a footballing prodigy playing for his local club. Everyone predicted a bright future – but his career in professional football never quite worked out. Thirteen years on, convinced to return home by his "uncle" Higgy to Treehouse Livingvisit 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 that way. 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 fine, thankyouverymuch. Nothing is missing from her life. Except everything is. Until one 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 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 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 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 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 shadows - but maybe she doesn't have to do it alone.|isbn=0008172145}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|summary=This Between life and death there is the story of a young boylibrary. And so, William Tyce38 minutes after Nora decided to die, who is being raised by his uncle after she finds herself in the death of his mother and his fatherMidnight Library. Everything that could've gone wrong in Nora's abandonmentlife has. HoweverHer cat died, she lost her job, it isnher brother won't told in speak to her, her parents are dead, the usual narrative wayboy 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. Instead, She gave up on all the things that would've let her escape the book is made up of glossary entrieswet, written by William, as a way cold town of describing certain eventsBedford and given her life some purposeful direction. So at 23:22, situations she realises that she isn't made for life and emotionsdecides to die. It runs alphabeticallyBut instead of death, starting she finds the library. Each infinite shelf is filled with ABSENCEbooks, then moving each book providing a chance to ALPHABETICAL ORDERtry another life she could have lived, in a parallel time. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what And so, just after midnight on earth?!' but I soon grew used to Tuesday the style18th of April, and was instead caught up in WilliamNora Seed begins to live every life she could's storyve.|isbn=19115454181786892731

|author= T R HendrickVincent Panettiere|title= What if They KnewThese Thy Gifts|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= It's 2025'2006 is a tumultuous year for the 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. Underneath a lodge in '' As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins to try to make sense of the Blue Mountain resort child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his beloved Catholic church, he discovers that one child in Pennsylvania, 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 secret facilitygangster's widow. Steve is determined to seek justice for this boy and all children victimised by priests who have been protected by his church. HereBut he must also face up to his own failings, Dr Benton and going right back to his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf breaking of the Benefactorcelibacy vows.|isbn=1503199886}} {{Frontpage|author=Delia Owens|title=Where The Crawdads Sing|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary= In 1952, Kya's mother disappeared up the dirt track to town, wearing her alligator heels, their anonymous funderand never came home. AlreadyThen one by one her siblings left, ran from the shack on the North Carolina marsh that served as home and the team have succeeded in teleporting small primates from life that would lead to nothing but suffering, leaving 7-year-old Kya with her drunken father. Years pass and Kya - now nicknamed '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 place night her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone to anothersurvive on the marsh. ButEventually, as the years drift painfully by, the time comes when Kya, now an emotional and vastly intelligent young woman, yearns for company besides the gulls and the land, unbeknownst yearning to be loved and to be held. So, when 2 boys from the Benefactortown of Barkley Cove find their way to her, she finds a new way of life. But in 1969, Dr Benton has also coded for another type the body of former star quarterback and new husband Chase Andrews is found lying in the mud of teleportation altogether the marsh, and everyone in town immediately suspects the mysterious, run- travel through timedown Marsh-Girl. And he's ready to test. If successfulWho is Kya now, Benton has after years of isolation and a very specific use for his technology in mindbroken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of murder?|isbn=17342772111472154665

|authorisbn=H G Parry 1473692407|title=The Unlikely Escape Book of Uriah HeepTwo Ways|author=Jodi Picoult

|summary=Brothers Rob and Charley have struggled to see eye to eye for years - Rob Dawn Edelstein is a sensible lawyer death doula: that's someone who exists in is there for the "normal" world - and Charley a man person who is blessed with an ability he can't fully control - one which allows him dying, to bring literary characters into the real world. After years of protecting Charley, Rob wants make their passage to discharge his duties whatever they believe in as easy as possible and leave Charley to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out of both support their handscarers. As literary characters begin to appear everywhere It's a rewarding, caring occupation and Dawn puts her heart and soul into it soon becomes clear that someone out there shares Charleybut this wasn's powers and intends to use them for nefarious gainst always her life. Rob and Charley must team up to stop Some fifteen years ago she was a graduate student at Yale working towards her doctorate: as an Egyptologist, she was working with her supervisor, Professor Ian Dumphries, on the madness Djehutyakht tombs at Deir el- Bersha on the Nile in a battle to win before theyMiddle Egypt. Then she was Dawn McDowell: that was her maiden name, the characters and the world reach The End…|isbn=0356513777name she published under.

|isbn=16437850360241295955|title=The Wondrous ApothecaryTrio|author=Mary E William Boyd|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was 1968: the year when Bobby Kennedy and MartinLuther King were assassinated. It's also the year when YSK Films are making a movie in Brighton. It's called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon'', or ''Ladder the Moon'' as it's known on set. Anny Viklund is the female star in a 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 days because he needs the money, allow a fading star to use his catchphrase, or include a song from the leading man, whose musical star is fading.}} {{Frontpage|author=Anna Bruno|title=Ordinary Hazards|rating=42

|summary=Those who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay Wagon'', and Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk and cheese, if not sworn enemies. If Some books either grab you've watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, or bore you'd have said that they were magnets, drawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the socially acceptable end of the artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo it And this was all too obvious one that there was I wanted so badly to like but a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. As time has worn onunfortunately, he's frequently been brought to the attention of the police. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of ''The Hay Wagon'I just wasn't hooked.|isbn=1471184862

|authorisbn=Mary H.K. Choi1712435728|title=Permanent RecordJamie's Keepsake|author=Michael Gallagher|rating=4.5

|summary=PabloWhen we first meet Alex Hannah, a college drop-out, is working at a New York bodegahe's just being released from the Southern General Hospital. HeThe nurse thinks he's massively in debt, ll come back to visit the other patients but Alex has no intention of doing that: he's avoiding been there for a year, on the same ward where his motherbrother died and now, and he finds with his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one eveninghair all shorn off, he's surprised going home in his dead brother's clothes. He wants to discover get outside and back with his friends: his brother, Forbes, says that the girl fresh air will do him good and his mother tells him that he is chatting with as he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it may seem, they start a relationship. With one character who is trying very hard 's not to be seen or noticed by anyone, mention TB and the other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the world, to say it's an interesting clash as they come togetherwas tonsillitis. This isn't just a love story thoughGood luck with that one, and actually it's really just Pab's story, about the journey he takes in his life via his meet-up with Leanna SmartAlex.|isbn=0349003459

|author=Daniel KrausHelen Fisher|title=Blood SugarSpace 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 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. 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|author= Claire 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. 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 about to have his throat cut in his own bed. To find out who - and why - we need to go back nine days and twenty years. Mackenzie, Robin 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 first met they called themselves the Spicier Girls as a nod to the famous girl band of the day. Lily would be Adventure Spice, Robin the Homemaker and Mackenzie - well, Mackenzie would be the supporting actress in her own life. She married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughter, Aria, who'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 now she's going to Ashams in North London. It's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and as the pupils have all been there ''forever'', they have their established groups. Robin's going to be an outsider. And why is this happening? Well, over a matter of a few days her parents' marriage fell apart. Andrew Spence is staying in New York - he works for a securities firm - and her mother, Sadie Roper, has come back to London to pick up her practice as a criminal barrister. That's easier 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 publishing house has had a great success, 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 book would be a huge smash, and so it has proven. But there are several 'howevers' to that. As in, however – Violaine herself is not having life all 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 a 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=1910477974}}{{Frontpage|isbn=085752612X|title=Rodham: 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 Newest Graphic Novels 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]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}