Changes

|isbnauthor=085752612XAndrew Sharp|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?|author=Curtis SittenfeldThe Chef, the Bird and the Blessing

|summary=I was tempted Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to read ''Rodham'' by his employer - is, in his mind, the success head chef of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. That book wasn't marketed as being a portrait Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and he puts all of Laura Bush, but himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the word ''thinlyguests at BOD-veiled'' seemed W safaris but his dream is to occur very regularly become the head chef of a restaurant in reviewsLondon or a big American city. How would ''Rodham'' compare? Unfortunately, there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bush, which gave the book Even to win a freshness which the first third of ''Rodham'' lacksMichelin star. We've all heard the storiesHe is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, read the books - about Hillary Mr Bin (Ben to you and particularly about Bill. Itme) who incurs Mozzy's still an interesting conceptdisapproval for his scruffy ways, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's careerhis uninterest in his guests and - shock, if she hadn't had to carry the burden horror - his allowing of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at bush animals into the presidency so late? Could she have done better without the Clinton surname?house.|isbn=B09926MK8H

|authorisbn=Anstey Harris1901514978|title=Where We BelongThere's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos Alba|rating=4.5

|summary= ILife is different for George Lovelace and he can't really understand why. He've s always believed that places done everything he ought to: steady worker, husband and buildings absorb what happens within them father - and reflect it back; this is how we can tell that a sacred space father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why is sacred. he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Cate Morris believes Why is someone with such a similar thing, she believes that ''A house absorbs happiness, it blooms into the wallpaper, the wood of the window frames, the bricks: thatgood'' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It's how it becomes almost become a home.'' She is having cliche these thoughts as she packs up her home. She has days to leave. A combination of circumstances means suggest that someone who is a little different is not only redundant 'on the spectrum', but also homeless. With nowhere else to go, she George Lovelace has called on her late husbandall the symptoms of Asperger's family for help. Just for a few weeksSyndrome: high-functioning autism.|isbn=1471173836

|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)Freya Sampson|title=A Life Without EndThe Last Library

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=I looked am always a little nervous to start a story about a library, since I am a librarian. I always grit my teeth slightly at the calendar thought of the other weekincoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, and disappointedly realised I have glasses on a birthday chain stereotypes! In this year – I knowstory, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbersmain character, June, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then does put her hair in a few of the big 0-numbersbun, and if all goes wellshe does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But Ididn'll be an OBE. (Which t immediately throw the book out of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisiswindow, because I guess found I have was interested in June, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrasea librarian at the village library, but he might be said when she got sick, June gave up on going to be living one. Determined University and stayed at home to find out how to prolong life for take care of her mum, as well as long taking on a job as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the library assistant to at the first geneticist he interviewslocal library. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and they end up with a childstill reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, which everything in her life is at least a way of continuing about the life of his genes, and a motive to keep ongoingchange. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670183877369X

|isbnauthor=B08774SJYNEmily Critchley|title=The Greenbecker Gambit|author=Ben GraffTiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=53

|summary=''I suppose The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the odd fleeting sense hallmarks of loneliness is a price all truly successful people must pay for our giftssomething good. I tell myself that I do so willingly.'' Tennessee Greenbecker. Isn't that a name to conjure with? There are hints that it might not have been was intrigued by the name he was given at birthplot, but many liked the design of us have moved onthe book, so far as names go, from and thought the one we were originally saddled with. Greenbeckerauthor's life is one of constant reinventionwork sounded interesting. He tells us that he's From the foremost chess player never to have been world champion, and outset it does seem that he has some considerable talent as far as chess goesall looked incredibly promising. He's determined that he's going to fulfil So what he sees as his destiny. He just needs to do some study to be able to beat the current players ranked at numbers one and two in the world. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana will not stand in his way.on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091

|authorisbn=J Paul HendersonB093VPBL5L|title=DaisyCape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker Bittick

|summary=This is Meet Bosner, or, to give him his full title, Petty Officer Third Class Bosner. We never really find out if he has a first name: there's merely a hint that he had the story nickname 'Secretary' at one point. He's simply Bosner to one and all. When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of Herod S2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) at a naval establishment. Pinkney The hours could be long and he was often working nights but at the age of twenty-one, there was always a rather unusual way to work some fun (yet somehow charmingthink drinking and eating) man into his day.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B095CY7NBN|title=Autumn Camp|author=Barry Fowler|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was to be Brian's last camp. He'd founded the organisation some four years ago and had done all the organisation since but he was leaving school and the time had come to hand the reins to someone else. The obvious person was Gary, who is in search 'd always been the fun element of a woman called Daisythe camps and Brian had said that on this camp, whom Gary should act as the leader and he first sees 'd just be there to observe. The problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiser, an administrator if you like. He was the entertainer, the person who basked in an episode of Judge Judy on television the spotlight and instantly falls made things fun - so Brian stepped in love with her! and did the organising. He handed the camp over - and then took it back. And Gary determined to have his revenge. This should have been ''his'' camp.}} {{Frontpage|author=John Boyne|title=The Echo Chamber|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet George Cleverley. Rod He is writing self-defined as "one of the novel few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his questchild, guided by an embittered exbut then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-literary agent sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who is now clearing glasses in hangs around with a pub for virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a livingfit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Determined to find and meet DaisyAdd in a few other characters – therapists, the book takes us through Rod's lifelawyers, introduces us random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his friendslife, and tells us of what happens in his quest for loveyou have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|isbn=08573033090857526219

{{Frontpage |isbn=1529123941 0008444501|title=The Silent Treatment Answer to Everything|author=Abbie Greaves Luke Kennard|rating=4.5 |genre=General Fiction |summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wifeLife should have been good for Emily. She had a lovely husband, MaggieSteven, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfullywho was a speech therapist. Maggie, on We'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, and don't even sleep in fact - and before long she will collapsethe same bed. When Frank rings It isn't so much that Emily has left the emergency services in Oxford he has marital bed as that she's sharing a bit bed with one of a problemher children as it's the only way to get him to sleep during the night. He Arthur and Matty are gorgeous but they are a handful and Emily has a job to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for cope with too - she teaches drama two days a whileweek. How They've not long? Well, moved into a new home in Criterion Gardens: it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie a trendy area that has been gentrified and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her run on semi-communal lines. The residents even share eco-friendly electric cars rather than owning their own life.

|author=Camilla BruceLouise Beech|title=You Let Me InThis Is How We Are Human|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Veronica is a devoted single mother to her son, Sebastian - but she can't give him everything he wants. Sebastian has decided that it's time for him to have sex. But as an autistic 20 year-old, that's easier said than done. And it's starting to cause them both problems. |isbn=1913193713}} {{Frontpage|author=Ananda Devi|title=Eve Out of Her Ruins

|summary= EccentricAt not even 200 pages, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for Eve Out of Her Ruins is one of the shortest books I've read in a long while, but it's one of the most dramatic. It's also told in a year way that I can only describe as brutal: it spares nothing and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyerspulls very few punches, the descriptions stark and unromantic. Her will instructs her niece |isbn=0993009344}} {{Frontpage|author=C J Carey|title=Widowland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's April 1953, and nephew Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to enter her home London, parading around a bit, and find watching over the key sanctioned return to their inheritance the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved in an old manuscript left the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and we are now a protectorate – well, we share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That is her office: job, at least, until the last story shefirst emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler'll ever tells visit.|isbn=1787633179152941198X

|authorisbn= Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed0857527231|title= Yes No Maybe So Dog Days|author=Ericka Waller|rating= 45|genre= TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= George Dempsey is exceedingly angry. It's eight days since his wife, Ellen, died and it'We might give it our all and crash and burns the first time that she's let him down. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for He's lost, donbereft without her ( he 't you think?''Jaime has been spending needs his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for wife, like a special electionsnail needs its shell''). When his mother encourages He misses their ordered life and rather than bringing him meals to go canvassingleave on the doorstep, he can't think of anything worsed much rather have a good row with someone. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there is no time like He's particularly angry about the present to conquer his fear of speaking dachshund puppy which Helen brought home just three weeks before she died. She even dared to contradict him when he told her that the publicdog wasn't staying. Maya is Now he's lumbered with a dog he doesn't want and a Pakistani-American Muslim girl load of busybodies who is having the worst summer of her are trying to interfere in his life. Her parents are going through a separation Worst of all is Betty, she has zero plans who won't take no for the summer to help take her mind off things and her only close friend is permanently busyan answer. To help occupy her Betty knits jumpers for Lucky, her parents offer to buy her greyhound. Lucky spends a car if she agrees to go canvassing. The pair could possibly be the worst canvassing duo in history, as neither lot of them really want time trying to be there, but as the campaign goes on they discover that they care, a lot, about the election - escape from and maybe even about each other?|isbn=1471184668destroy them.

|author=Elliot ReedMartin Venning|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingThe Primary Objective|rating=42

|summary=This is the story of Sometimes a young boybook starts off slowly, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after but eventually draws you in to caring about the death of his mother and his father's abandonmentcharacters or simply wanting to know what happens next. However, Sometimes it isndoesn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book The basic premise is made up of glossary entries, written by Williama good one – a clandestine organisation, operating as a way of describing certain eventscharity, situations but funded by various governments around the world and emotions. It runs alphabeticallypartially (maybe, I'm not sure) under the auspices of the UN, starting with ABSENCEthe primary objective of keeping the peace, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDERby any means possible. As I began Diplomacy is always the first option and sometimes one that needs to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' be carried out by third parties, but I soon grew used for situations when that looks unlikely to the styleyield results Peace International maintains a call-on list of field operatives, ex-military, medics, scientists or anyone else with a taste for adventure and was instead caught up in William's storywilling to risk their life for the sake of it.|isbn=19115454181800461100

|author= T R HendrickKaren M McManus|title= What if They KnewThe Cousins|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary= It's 2025. Underneath The rich and famous Story family led a lodge in life of luxury on Gull Cove Island, until 25 years ago when each of the Blue Mountain resort in PennsylvaniaStory children - Anders, is Archer, Adam and Allison - received a secret facilitymysterious letter from their mother and were cut off completely. HereBut now, Dr Benton and his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf a quarter of the Benefactora century later, their anonymous funder. Already, the team children have succeeded in teleporting small primates from one place been called to return to anotherthe island for the summer by their grandmother. But, unbeknownst to What does she want with the cousins? Why did she cut off her children all those years ago? Are the Benefactordeaths on Gull Cove Island really what they seem? The dark web of twisted lies, Dr Benton secrets and tragedy that has also coded held the Story family up - and held them apart - for another type a quarter of teleportation altogether - travel through time. And he's ready a century is about to testcome crashing down. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for his technology in mind|isbn=17342772110241376947

|author=H G Parry Ruth Hogan|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah HeepMadame Burova|rating=4.5

|summary=Brothers Rob and Charley This book lets us discover several people in different stages of life in the early 1970s, all vaguely connected. So we have struggled to see eye to eye for years a bullied half- Rob cast boy (as he would have been called then), a sensible lawyer who exists girl in a humdrum job wanting to become a singer, and chiefly, Imelda, the "normal" world third generation of Madame Burova, ''Tarot- Reader, Palmist and Charley a man who is blessed with an ability he canClairvoyant'', to use her family't fully control s sea- one which allows him to bring literary characters into the real worldfront booth. After years of protecting Charley The singer, Rob wants to discharge his duties the scryer and leave Charley to his own devices - the sufferer's mother will all become staff at a revamped holiday camp, but circumstances soon take choices out of both their handsjust before then we see Imelda fly solo for the first time in the family stall. As literary characters begin to appear everywhere We also see her on her last day, fifty years later, it soon becomes clear in possession of a pair of letters that someone out there shares Charley's powers and intends to use them will change everything for nefarious gainsa woman called Billie. Rob Just who is she, and Charley must team up to stop who delivered the madness - in a battle secrets about her to win before theyImelda, the characters and the world reach The End…why did it have to remain a secret all this time?|isbn=0356513777152937331X

|isbnauthor=1643785036Stephen Clarke|title=The Wondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E MartinSpy Who Inspired Me

|summary=Those who have known Alexander WainwrightThis is a spoof spy story, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize-winning ''The Hay Wagon'that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and Rinaldo, 'likes the renowned conceptual artist would say that theyladies're chalk and cheesewho works for the secret service, if not sworn enemiesbut in the planning side of things more than the active service. If you've watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie HelmsworthLemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, you'd have said that they were magnets, drawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the socially acceptable pair end of the artistic continuumup stranded in Normandy, but with Rinaldo, it was all too obvious that there was but Margaux on a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisance. As time has worn on, he's frequently been brought desperate mission to unearth traitors in the attention of the police. On this latest occasionresistance network, we see him charged and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with arson and theft of ''The Hay Wagon''.her!|isbn=2952163855

|author=Mary H.K. ChoiAndrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title=Permanent If You Kept a Recordof Sins|rating=4.5|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=PabloThis was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a college drop-out, is working little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at a New York bodega. He's massively in debtBucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's avoiding addressing in his mothersecond person monologue of a narration, and he finds we see him picked up by his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, hemother's surprised chauffeur, and carted off to discover that do all the girl he is chatting with as he serves necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a super-famous pop star andbusinesswoman, as unlikely as it may seem, they start a relationship. With one character who is trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyone clearly left northern Italy and the other who is seen settled in Romania with her (night-time and followed business) partner, and hounded by everyone all over feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the worldoriginal Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, itto the lad's an interesting clash as they come together. This isn't just a love story thoughchildhood, and actually it's really see just Pab's story, about the journey what he takes in his life via his meet-up with Leanna Smarthas to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=03490034591939810965

|author=Daniel KrausDavid F Ross|title=Blood SugarThere'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

|summary=This Eleanor Oliphant is almost 30. She lives in Glasgow, alone. And she likes it that way. She works 9-5, 5 days a difficult readweek, and spends the weekend not drunk, but not sober. alone. And not because of the dark subject matter – she likes it that'll come later – but because of the way in which it's told. This might put She lives by a lot of readers offroutine, and to be honest itthat'd be hard to blame thems fine, thankyouverymuch. Nothing is missing from her life. Except everything is. Kraus tells the story Until one day, at a concert she won tickets for in a distinctive voice unlike any other I've read; an erratic dialect with heavy and frequent slangoffice raffle, she sees the man she is sure will be her husband. The immediate effect is disorientating and distractingEleanor begins a journey to make herself the best version of herself that she can, and it takes some time in order to feel naturalsecure this beautiful musician. ItThen, as she's on her way home one Friday, she and the new IT guy at her office see a struggle man collapse in the street and stay close to acclimatise to Jodyhim in hospital. Then, before she knows it, her once quiet life becomes a hubbub of social engagements with the man's voicefamily 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 get acquainted with his mannerismsbe looking up, but things take a turn for the story wouldnworse. Is Johnnie all he't 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 same without it, and somehow it works. It shouldnshadows - but maybe she doesn't, but have to do it doesalone.|isbn=17890919340008172145

|isbn=B07W4MNBSGB08GFSK2WZ|title=Be Careful Who You MarryThe Karma Trap|author=Lizzy MumfreyLisette Boyd

|summary=It was coming up to Halloween in 1987 Between life and death there is a group of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing when they were fiftylibrary. When you're only seventeen that seems positively ancientAnd so, 38 minutes after Nora decided to die, but Liz was convinced she finds herself in the Midnight Library. Everything that could've gone wrong in Nora'your entire s life depends on who you marry'has. Her cat died, she lost her job, her brother won'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. The only eligible boys were She gave up on all the Young Farmers and things that would've let her escape the idea wet, cold town of living in a farmhouse Bedford and having a couple of children called Will given her life some purposeful direction. So at 23:22, she realises that she isn't made for life and Olly appealed decides to Charlottedie. But instead of death, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined to marry she finds the rather superior Patrick Shepley-Bothamlibrary. The place Each infinite shelf is filled with books, each book providing a chance to start their search was obviously the Young Farmers' Halloween disco that weekendtry another life she could have lived, in a parallel time. There was And so, just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in after midnight on Tuesday the class18th of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could've.|isbn=1786892731

{|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 Move 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 Newest Graphic Novels 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]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}