Changes

|author=Frederic Beigbeder Karen M McManus|title=The 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 Frank Wynne 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 life in the early 1970s, all vaguely connected. So we have a bullied half-cast boy (translatoras 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=A Life Without EndThe Spy Who Inspired Me

|genre=Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, General Fiction|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have This is a birthday this year – I knowspoof spy story, yet another onethat isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. It wonBut it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 't be one of likes the ladies' and who works for the major numberssecret service, but in the time when I have planning side of things more than the same number as Heinz varieties looms active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the horizon. And then pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a few of desperate mission to unearth traitors in the big 0-numbersresistance network, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|isbn=2952163855}}{{Frontpage|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (Which translator)|title=If You Kept a Record of course stands for Over Bloody EightySins|rating=4.) Now if 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but one thatleft 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 the extent addressing in his second person monologue of my mid-life crisisa narration, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesnwe see him picked up by his mother't use that exact phrases chauffeur, but he might be said and carted off to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with do all the assistant to necessary introductions before said mother is buried the first geneticist he interviewsfollowing day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and they end up settled in Romania with a childher (night-time and business) partner, which is at least a way and feelings of continuing abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the life of his genesoriginal Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, and a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to not flick the lad'final way out' switchs childhood, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=16428606701939810965

|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 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 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 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=B08774SJYN0008172145}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Greenbecker GambitKarma Trap|author=Ben GraffLisette Boyd|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.}}{{Frontpage|author=Matt Haig|title=The Midnight Library

|summary=Between life and death there is a library. And so, 38 minutes after Nora decided to die, she finds herself in the Midnight Library. Everything that could've gone wrong in Nora's life has. Her cat died, she lost her job, her brother won'I suppose t speak to her, her parents are dead, the boy 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. She gave up on all the things that would've let her escape the wet, cold town of Bedford and given her life some purposeful direction. So at 23:22, she realises that she isn't made for life and decides to die. But instead of death, she finds the library. Each infinite shelf is filled with 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 odd fleeting sense 18th of loneliness April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could've.|isbn=1786892731}}{{Frontpage|author=Vincent Panettiere|title=These Thy Gifts|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''2006 is a price all truly successful people must pay tumultuous year for our giftsthe Catholic Church. Reports of horrific sexual abuse are becoming widespread. Monsignor Steven Trimboli is troubled. I tell myself that I do He worries for the future of the church—and rightly so willingly. A new crime will soon reverberate throughout his church and hit closer to home than he ever imagined.''

Tennessee Greenbecker. Isn't that a name As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins to try to conjure with? There are hints make sense of the child sexual abuse scandal that it might not have been the name is rocking his beloved Catholic church, he was given at birth, but many of us have moved on, so far as names go, from the discovers that one we were originally saddled withchild in his own parish has been abused by a priest sent by his bishop. GreenbeckerAnd this isn't just any boy: this is Steve's life grandson whose mother is one the offspring of constant reinvention. He tells us that hea long past relationship between Steve and a gangster's the foremost chess player never widow. Steve is determined to seek justice for this boy and all children victimised by priests who have been world champion, and it does seem that he has some considerable talent as far as chess goesprotected by his church. He's determined that But he's must also face up to his own failings, going right back to fulfil what he sees as his destiny. He just needs to do some study to be able to beat breaking of the current players ranked at numbers one and two in the world. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana will not stand in his waycelibacy vows.|isbn=1503199886

|author=J Paul HendersonDelia Owens|title=DaisyWhere 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, 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 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 night her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone to survive on the marsh. Eventually, 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, yearning to be loved and to be held. So, when 2 boys from the town of Barkley Cove find their way to her, she finds a new way of life. But in 1969, the body of former star quarterback and new husband Chase Andrews is found lying in the mud of the marsh, and everyone in town immediately suspects the mysterious, run-down Marsh-Girl. Who is Kya now, after years of isolation and a broken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of murder?|isbn=1472154665}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1473692407|title=The Book of Two Ways|author=Jodi Picoult

|summary=This Dawn Edelstein is a death doula: that's someone who is there for the story of Herod S. Pinkney, a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man person who is dying, to make their passage to whatever they believe in search of as easy as possible and to support their carers. It's a woman called Daisyrewarding, whom he first sees in caring occupation and Dawn puts her heart and soul into it but this wasn't always her life. Some fifteen years ago she was a graduate student at Yale working towards her doctorate: as an episode of Judge Judy on television and instantly falls in love Egyptologist, she was working with her! Rod is writing supervisor, Professor Ian Dumphries, on the novel of his quest, guided by an embittered exDjehutyakht tombs at Deir el-literary agent who is now clearing glasses Bersha on the Nile in a pub for a livingMiddle Egypt. Determined to find and meet DaisyThen she was Dawn McDowell: that was her maiden name, the book takes us through Rod's life, introduces us to his friends, and tells us of what happens in his quest for lovename she published under.|isbn=0857303309

{{Frontpage |isbn=1529123941 0241295955|title=The Silent Treatment Trio|author=Abbie Greaves William Boyd|rating=4.5 |genre=General Fiction |summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs It was 1968: the year when Bobby Kennedy and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfullyMartin Luther King were assassinated. Maggie, on It's also the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, year when YSK Films are making a movie in fact - and before long she will collapseBrighton. When Frank rings It's called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon'', or ''Ladder the emergency services Moon'' as it's known on set. Anny Viklund is the female star in Oxford he has a production which is proving to be just a little bit of a problemrackety. He has There are odd pressures on the producer, Talbot Kydd, to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken employ this old actor friend for a while. How long? Wellcouple of days because he needs the money, it's about six months since he spoke allow a fading star to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own lifeuse his catchphrase, or include a song from the leading man, whose musical star is fading.

|author=Camilla BruceAnna Bruno|title=You Let Me InOrdinary Hazards|rating=42

|summary= Eccentric, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyersSome books either grab you or bore you. Her will instructs her niece and nephew And this was one that I wanted so badly to enter her home and find the key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: the last story shelike but unfortunately, I just wasn'll ever tellt hooked.|isbn=17876331791471184862

|authorisbn= Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed1712435728|title= Yes No Maybe So Jamie's Keepsake|author=Michael Gallagher|rating= 4.5|genre= Teens|summary= ''We might give it our all and crash and burn. But When we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going forfirst meet Alex Hannah, donhe't you think?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'Jaime has s been spending there for a year, on the same ward where his summer helping his cousin brother died and now, with campaigning in time for a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassinghair all shorn off, he can't think of anything worses going home in his dead brother's clothes. However, Jaime has always wanted He wants to be a politician get outside and decides there is no time like the present to conquer back with his friends: his fear of speaking to the public. Maya is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who is having the worst summer of her life. Her parents are going through a separationbrother, Forbes, she has zero plans for says that the summer fresh air will do him good and his mother tells him that he's not to help take her mind off things mention TB and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy her, her parents offer to buy her a car if she agrees to go canvassingsay it was tonsillitis. 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 Good luck with that they careone, a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other?|isbn=1471184668Alex.

|author=Elliot ReedHelen Fisher|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingSpace Hopper|rating=43.5

|summary=This is the story of a Faye lost her mum when she was very young boy, William Tyce, who is being . She was raised by his uncle some elderly neighbours after the death her mum died from a cold that got worse, and although they were kind and very good to her she of his mother and his father's abandonmentcourse missed her mum enormously. HoweverSo when, it isnunexpectedly, she discovers a time travel conduit (via an old space hopper box in her attic) that takes her back to the 70't told s and her mum, she revels in the usual narrative waychance to create some memories and get to know the woman who meant so much to her. InsteadThe time travelling, however, the book is made up of glossary entriesneither easy nor safe, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotionsFaye fears that her husband won't believe what's happening and so lies to him instead. It runs alphabeticallyThe lies grow more tangled, starting with ABSENCE, then moving and Faye begins to wonder if it's safe for her to return one last time to ALPHABETICAL ORDERthe past. As I began Should she try to read I did find myself thinking see her mum one last time before her mum'what on earths death, or will it change her own future forever to attempt it?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story.|isbn=19115454181471188663

|author= T R HendrickClaire McGowan|title= What if They KnewThe Push|rating= 45

|summary= Six mums-to-be meet at a prenatal class. It's 2025NCT ''style'', but not the proper NCT. Underneath a lodge in the Blue Mountain resort in PennsylvaniaThis bit is important, is but you have to wait a secret facilitylittle to see why. HereThis being London, Dr Benton and his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf such a class attracts a wide variety of the Benefactorpeople, their anonymous funder. Alreadyfrom all sorts of backgrounds, but for most of the ladies the team thing they have succeeded in teleporting small primates from one place to anothercommon is it's their first baby. But, unbeknownst to Probably after the Benefactorfirst one, Dr Benton has also coded you don't have time for another type of teleportation altogether classes, or think you've got child- travel through timerearing down pat. And he's ready to test. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for his technology in mind|isbn=17342772111542019990

|authorisbn=H G Parry 0008378363|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah HeepOne Perfect Morning|author=Pamela Crane|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Brothers Rob and Charley A husband is about to have struggled to see eye to eye for years - Rob a sensible lawyer his throat cut in his own bed. To find out who exists in the "normal" world - and Charley a man who is blessed with an ability he can't fully control why - one which allows him we need to bring literary characters into the real worldgo back nine days and twenty years. After years of protecting Charley Mackenzie, Rob wants to discharge his duties Robin and leave Charley Lily met when they all went to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out of both their hands. As literary characters begin to appear everywherethe same college in Monroeville, it soon becomes clear that someone out there shares CharleyPennsylvania and twenty years later they's powers and intends to use them for nefarious gainsre still the best of friends. Rob and Charley must team up to stop When they first met they called themselves the madness - in Spicier Girls as a battle nod to win before theythe famous girl band of the day. Lily would be Adventure Spice, Robin the characters Homemaker and Mackenzie - well, Mackenzie would be the world reach The End…|isbn=0356513777supporting actress in her own life. She married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughter, Aria, who's now fifteen-year-old.

|isbn=1643785036B07WWSCGVS|title=The Wondrous ApothecaryLies You Told|author=Mary E MartinHarriet Tyce|rating=45|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Those who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new school. She'The Hay Wagon'', s left the school she loved in New York and Rinaldo, renowned conceptual artist would say that theynow she're chalk and cheese, if not sworn enemiess going to Ashams in North London. If youIt've watched the relationship, s very upmarket; places are rare as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, youhens'd have said that they were magnets, drawing teeth and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at as the socially acceptable end of the artistic continuum, but with Rinaldo it was pupils have all too obvious that been there was but a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance''forever'', they have their established groups. As time has worn on, heRobin's frequently been brought going to the attention of the policebe an outsider. On And why is this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft 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'The Hay Wagon's easier said than done when you've been out of the market place - and the country - for more than ten years.

|author=Mary H.K. ChoiAntoine Laurain|title=Permanent RecordThe Readers Room|ratinggenre=4General Fiction|genrerating=Teens3.5|summary=Pablo, Violaine's publishing house has had a college drop-outgreat success, is working at a New York bodegaand it was through the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts. HeThe three people who work in the Readers's massively Room to sift through what is ninety-nine per cent dross – plus the fourth advisor in debt, he's avoiding his motherher rarefied mansion up the road – all agreed the book would be a huge smash, and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! so it has proven. Whilst working one evening, heBut there are several 'howevers's surprised to discover that the girl he is chatting with as he serves . As in, however – Violaine herself is not having life all her own way, for she has been involved in a supernear-famous pop star fatal accident, and, as unlikely as it may seem, they start starts this book coming round from a relationshipcoma. With one character who is trying very hard not And, however – despite all urging, the author of the book has never once made themselves known to be seen or noticed by anyonethe publishers in person, and the other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the worldin fact, it's an interesting clash as they offered up a most peculiar statement-come together-threat in their last email. This isn't just a love story thoughWhat is going to befall Violaine, her memory, her staff – and actually how much is any of it's really due to the hit novel? And just Pab's story, about where the journey he takes in his life via his meet-up with Leanna Smart.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 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 Newest Graphic Novels 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]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}