Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
(20 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)
Line 2: Line 2:
 
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__
 
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
+
|author=Andrew Sharp
|title=The Karma Trap
+
|title=The Chef, the Bird and the Blessing
|author=Lisette Boyd
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
+
|genre=General 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.
+
|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mind, the head chef of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Even to win a Michelin star. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - his allowing of bush animals into the house.
 +
|isbn=B09926MK8H
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Matt Haig
+
|isbn=1901514978
|title=The Midnight Library
+
|title=There's a Problem With Dad
|rating=5
+
|author=Carlos Alba
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|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'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 18th of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could've.
+
|summary=Life is different for George Lovelace and he can't really understand why. He's always done everything he ought to: steady worker, husband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him?  Why does he upset people?  Why is someone with such a ''good'' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues?  Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes?  It's almost become a cliche these days to suggest that someone who is a little different is 'on the spectrum', but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome: high-functioning autism.
|isbn=1786892731
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Vincent Panettiere
+
|author=Freya Sampson
|title=These Thy Gifts
+
|title=The Last Library
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''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.''
+
|summary=I 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 thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she 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 I didn't immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used to be a librarian at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local 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 still reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the change.
 
+
|isbn=183877369X
As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins to try to make sense of the child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his beloved Catholic church, he discovers that one child in his own parish has been abused by a priest sent by his bishop. And this isn't just any boy: this is Steve's grandson whose mother is the offspring of a long past relationship between Steve and a gangster's widow. Steve is determined to seek justice for this boy and all children victimised by priests who have been protected by his church. But he must also face up to his own failings, going right back to his breaking of the celibacy vows.
+
}}
|isbn=1503199886
 
}}  
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Delia Owens
+
|author=Emily Critchley
|title=Where The Crawdads Sing
+
|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers
|rating=5
+
|rating=3
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|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?
+
|summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?
|isbn=1472154665
+
|isbn= 1911427091
}}
+
}}  
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1473692407
+
|isbn=B093VPBL5L
|title=The Book of Two Ways
+
|title=Cape Henry House
|author=Jodi Picoult
+
|author=Jolly Walker Bittick
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dawn Edelstein is a death doula: that's someone who is there for the person who is dying, to make their passage to whatever they believe in as easy as possible and to support their carersIt's a rewarding, caring occupation and Dawn puts her heart and soul into it but this wasn't always her lifeSome 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 Djehutyakht tombs at Deir el-Bersha on the Nile in Middle Egypt.  Then she was Dawn McDowell: that was her maiden name, the name she published under.
+
|summary=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 nickname 'Secretary' at one point.  He's simply Bosner to one and allWhen we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) at a naval establishmentThe hours could be long and he was often working nights but at the age of twenty-one, there was always a way to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into his day.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241295955
+
|isbn=B095CY7NBN
|title=Trio
+
|title=Autumn Camp
|author=William Boyd
+
|author=Barry Fowler
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was 1968: the year when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinatedIt's also the year when YSK Films are making a movie in BrightonIt's called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon'', or ''Ladder the Moon'' as it's known on setAnny Viklund is the female star in a production which is proving to be just a little bit racketyThere 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.
+
|summary=It was to be Brian's last campHe'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 elseThe obvious person was Gary, who'd always been the fun element of the camps and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as the leader and he'd just be there to observe.  The problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiser, an administrator if you likeHe was the entertainer, the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in and did the organisingHe handed the camp over - and then took it back.  And Gary determined to have his revenge.  This should have been ''his'' camp.
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Anna Bruno
+
|author=John Boyne
|title=Ordinary Hazards
+
|title=The Echo Chamber
|rating=2
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Some books either grab you or bore you. And this was one that I wanted so badly to like but unfortunately, I just wasn't hooked.
+
|summary=Meet George Cleverley.  He is self-defined as "one of the 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 child, but 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-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing.  Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you 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=1471184862
+
|isbn=0857526219
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1712435728
+
|isbn=0008444501
|title=Jamie's Keepsake
+
|title=The Answer to Everything
|author=Michael Gallagher
+
|author=Luke Kennard
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Alex Hannah, he's just being released from the Southern General HospitalThe nurse thinks he'll come back to visit the other patients but Alex has no intention of doing that: he's been there for a year, on the same ward where his brother died and now, with his hair all shorn off, he's going home in his dead brother's clothes.  He wants to get outside and back with his friends: his brother, Forbes, says that the fresh air will do him good and his mother tells him that he's not to mention TB and to say it was tonsillitisGood luck with that one, Alex.
+
|summary=Life should have been good for Emily.  She had a lovely husband, Steven, who was a speech therapistWe'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other and don't even sleep in the same bed.  It isn't so much that Emily has left the marital bed as that she's sharing a bed with one of her children as it's the only way to get him to sleep during the night.  Arthur and Matty are gorgeous but they are a handful and Emily has a job to cope with too - she teaches drama two days a week.  They've not long moved into a new home in Criterion Gardens: it's a trendy area that has been gentrified and it's run on semi-communal linesThe residents even share eco-friendly electric cars rather than owning their own.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Helen Fisher
+
|author=Louise Beech
|title=Space Hopper
+
|title=This Is How We Are Human
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|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?
+
|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=1471188663
+
|isbn=1913193713
}}
+
}}  
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Claire McGowan
+
|author=Ananda Devi
|title=The Push
+
|title=Eve Out of Her Ruins
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= General Fiction
+
|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.
+
|summary=At not even 200 pages, 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 way that I can only describe as brutal: it spares nothing and pulls very few punches, the descriptions stark and unromantic.
|isbn=1542019990
+
|isbn=0993009344
}}
+
}}  
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008378363
+
|author=C J Carey
|title=One Perfect Morning
+
|title=Widowland
|author=Pamela Crane
+
|rating=4
|rating=3.5
+
|genre=General Fiction
|genre=Thrillers
+
|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis.  For yes, Britain caved in 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 discouragedAnd 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 reprintThat is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.
|summary=A husband is about to have his throat cut in his own bedTo find out who - and why - we need to go back nine days and twenty years.
+
|isbn=152941198X
 
 
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 friendsWhen 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 lifeShe married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughter, Aria, who's now fifteen-year-old.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07WWSCGVS
+
|isbn=0857527231
|title=The Lies You Told
+
|title=Dog Days
|author=Harriet Tyce
+
|author=Ericka Waller
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Thrillers
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Year six student Robin Spence isn't happy about having to start a new schoolShe's left the school she loved in New York and now she's going to Ashams in North LondonIt's very upmarket; places are rare as hens' teeth and as the pupils have all been there ''forever'', they have their established groupsRobin's going to be an outsiderAnd why is this happening?  Well, over a matter of a few days her parents' marriage fell apartAndrew 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 barristerThat's easier said than done when you've been out of the market place - and the country - for more than ten years.
+
|summary=George Dempsey is exceedingly angryIt's eight days since his wife, Ellen, died and it's the first time that she's let him downHe's lost, bereft without her ( he ''needs his wife, like a snail needs its shell'').  He misses their ordered life and rather than bringing him meals to leave on the doorstep, he'd much rather have a good row with someoneHe's particularly angry about the dachshund puppy which Helen brought home just three weeks before she diedShe even dared to contradict him when he told her that the dog wasn't stayingNow he's lumbered with a dog he doesn't want and a load of busybodies who are trying to interfere in his life.  Worst of all is Betty, who won't take no for an answer.  Betty knits jumpers for Lucky, her greyhoundLucky spends a lot of time trying to escape from and destroy them.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Antoine Laurain
+
|author=Martin Venning
|title=The Readers Room
+
|title=The Primary Objective
 +
|rating=2
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|rating=3.5
+
|summary= Sometimes a book starts off slowly, but eventually draws you in to caring about the characters or simply wanting to know what happens nextSometimes it doesn'tThe basic premise is a good one a clandestine organisation, operating as a charity, but funded by various governments around the world and partially (maybe, I'm not sure) under the auspices of the UN, with the primary objective of keeping the peace, by any means possible.  Diplomacy is always the first option and sometimes one that needs to be carried out by third parties, but for situations when that looks unlikely to yield results Peace International maintains a call-on list of field operatives, ex-military, medics, scientists or anyone else with a taste for adventure and willing to risk their life for the sake of it.
|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 provenBut there are several 'howevers' to thatAs 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=1800461100
|isbn=1910477974
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=085752612X
+
|author=Karen M McManus
|title=Rodham: What if Hillary hadn't Married Bill?
+
|title=The Cousins
|author=Curtis Sittenfeld
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was tempted to read ''Rodham'' by the success of Curtis Sittenfeld's ''American Wife''.  That book wasn't marketed as being a portrait of Laura Bush, but the word ''thinly-veiled'' seemed to occur very regularly in reviews. How would ''Rodham'' compare?  Unfortunately, there is a difference: relatively little was known about Laura Bush, which gave the book a freshness which the first third of ''Rodham'' lacks. We've all heard the stories, read the books - about Hillary and particularly about Bill. It's still an interesting concept, though: how would Hillary have fared if she hadn't subsumed her own ambitions into Bill's career, if she hadn't had to carry the burden of all Bill's baggage and if she hadn't left her own run at the presidency so late?  Could she have done better without the Clinton surname?
+
|summary= The rich and famous Story family led a life of luxury on Gull Cove Island, until 25 years ago when each of the Story children - Anders, Archer, Adam and Allison - received a mysterious letter from their mother and were cut off completely. But now, a quarter of a century later, their children have been called to return to the island for the summer by their grandmother. What does she want with the cousins? Why did she cut off her children all those years ago? Are the deaths on Gull Cove Island really what they seem? The dark web of twisted lies, secrets and tragedy that has held the Story family up - and held them apart - for a quarter of a century is about to come crashing down.
 +
|isbn=0241376947
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Anstey Harris
+
|author=Ruth Hogan
|title=Where We Belong
+
|title=Madame Burova
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= 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 sacred space is sacred.  Cate Morris believes a similar thing, she believes that ''A house absorbs happiness, it blooms into the wallpaper, the wood of the window frames, the bricks: that's how it becomes a home.'' She is having these thoughts as she packs up her homeShe has to leaveA combination of circumstances means that is not only redundant but also homeless.  With nowhere else to go, she has called on her late husband's family for help.  Just for a few weeks.
+
|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 boothThe 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 stallWe 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=1471173836
+
|isbn=152937331X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)
+
|author=Stephen Clarke
|title=A Life Without End
+
|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond.  Or Ian Fleming.  But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service.  Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!
 +
|isbn=2952163855
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)
 +
|title=If You Kept a Record of Sins
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one.  It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE.  (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said 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 the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep ongoing. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?
+
|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.
|isbn=1642860670
+
|isbn=1939810965
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08774SJYN
+
|author=David F Ross
|title=The Greenbecker Gambit
+
|title= There's Only One Danny Garvey
|author=Ben Graff
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''I suppose the odd fleeting sense of loneliness is a price all truly successful people must pay for our gifts. I tell myself that I do so willingly.''
+
|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
Tennessee Greenbecker. Isn't that a name to conjure with? There are hints that it might not have been the name he was given at birth, but many of us have moved on, so far as names go, from the one we were originally saddled with. Greenbecker's life is one of constant reinvention. He tells us that he's the foremost chess player never to have been world champion, and it does seem that he has some considerable talent as far as chess goes. He's determined that he's going to fulfil 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.
 
 
}}  
 
}}  
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=J Paul Henderson
+
|author=Gail Honeyman
|title=Daisy
+
|title=Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is the story of Herod S. Pinkney, a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man who is in search of a woman called Daisy, whom he first sees in an episode of Judge Judy on television and instantly falls in love with her!  Rod is writing the novel of his quest, guided by an embittered ex-literary agent who is now clearing glasses in a pub for a living.  Determined to find and meet Daisy, the book takes us through Rod's life, introduces us to his friends, and tells us of what happens in his quest for love.
+
|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=0857303309
+
|isbn=0008172145
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=1529123941
 
|title=The Silent Treatment
 
|author=Abbie Greaves
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfully. Maggie, on the other hand, has just taken some pills - eight of them, in fact - and before long she will collapse.  When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford he has a bit of a problem. He has to admit that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a while. How long?  Well, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own life.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Camilla Bruce
+
|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
|title=You Let Me In
+
|title=The Karma Trap
 +
|author=Lisette Boyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary= Eccentric, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyers. Her will instructs her niece and nephew to enter her home and find the key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: the last story she'll ever tell.
+
|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.
|isbn=1787633179
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed
+
|author=Matt Haig
|title= Yes No Maybe So
+
|title=The Midnight Library
|rating= 4
+
|rating=5
|genre= Teens
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= ''We might give it our all and crash and burn. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, don't you think?''
+
|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'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 18th of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could've.
Jaime has been spending his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think of anything worse. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician and decides there is no time like the present to conquer his fear of speaking to the public.
+
|isbn=1786892731
Maya is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who is having the worst summer of her life. Her parents are going through a separation, she has zero plans for the summer to help take her mind off things 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 canvassing.  
 
The pair could possibly be the worst canvassing duo in history, as neither of them really want to be there, but as the campaign goes on they discover that they care, a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other?
 
|isbn=1471184668
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Revision as of 13:45, 15 September 2021

B09926MK8H.jpg

Review of

The Chef, the Bird and the Blessing by Andrew Sharp

4star.jpg General Fiction

Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mind, the head chef of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Even to win a Michelin star. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - his allowing of bush animals into the house. Full Review

1901514978.jpg

Review of

There's a Problem With Dad by Carlos Alba

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Life is different for George Lovelace and he can't really understand why. He's always done everything he ought to: steady worker, husband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such a good mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It's almost become a cliche these days to suggest that someone who is a little different is 'on the spectrum', but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome: high-functioning autism. Full Review

183877369X.jpg

Review of

The Last Library by Freya Sampson

4star.jpg General Fiction

I 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 thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she 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 I didn't immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used to be a librarian at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local 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 still reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the change. Full Review

1911427091.jpg

Review of

The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers by Emily Critchley

3star.jpg General Fiction

The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here? Full Review

B093VPBL5L.jpg

Review of

Cape Henry House by Jolly Walker Bittick

4star.jpg General Fiction

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 nickname 'Secretary' at one point. He's simply Bosner to one and all. When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) at a naval establishment. The hours could be long and he was often working nights but at the age of twenty-one, there was always a way to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into his day. Full Review

B095CY7NBN.jpg

Review of

Autumn Camp by Barry Fowler

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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'd always been the fun element of the camps and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as the leader and he'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 the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in 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. Full Review

0857526219.jpg

Review of

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

5star.jpg General Fiction

Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the 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 child, but 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-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you 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. Full Review

0008444501.jpg

Review of

The Answer to Everything by Luke Kennard

4star.jpg General Fiction

Life should have been good for Emily. She had a lovely husband, Steven, who was a speech therapist. We'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other and don't even sleep in the same bed. It isn't so much that Emily has left the marital bed as that she's sharing a bed with one of her children as it's the only way to get him to sleep during the night. Arthur and Matty are gorgeous but they are a handful and Emily has a job to cope with too - she teaches drama two days a week. They've not long moved into a new home in Criterion Gardens: it's a trendy area that has been gentrified and it's run on semi-communal lines. The residents even share eco-friendly electric cars rather than owning their own. Full Review

1913193713.jpg

Review of

This Is How We Are Human by Louise Beech

4star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

0993009344.jpg

Review of

Eve Out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi

4star.jpg General Fiction

At not even 200 pages, 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 way that I can only describe as brutal: it spares nothing and pulls very few punches, the descriptions stark and unromantic. Full Review

152941198X.jpg

Review of

Widowland by C J Carey

4star.jpg General Fiction

It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved in 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 job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit. Full Review

0857527231.jpg

Review of

Dog Days by Ericka Waller

5star.jpg General Fiction

George Dempsey is exceedingly angry. It's eight days since his wife, Ellen, died and it's the first time that she's let him down. He's lost, bereft without her ( he needs his wife, like a snail needs its shell). He misses their ordered life and rather than bringing him meals to leave on the doorstep, he'd much rather have a good row with someone. He's particularly angry about the dachshund puppy which Helen brought home just three weeks before she died. She even dared to contradict him when he told her that the dog wasn't staying. Now he's lumbered with a dog he doesn't want and a load of busybodies who are trying to interfere in his life. Worst of all is Betty, who won't take no for an answer. Betty knits jumpers for Lucky, her greyhound. Lucky spends a lot of time trying to escape from and destroy them. Full Review

1800461100.jpg

Review of

The Primary Objective by Martin Venning

2star.jpg General Fiction

Sometimes a book starts off slowly, but eventually draws you in to caring about the characters or simply wanting to know what happens next. Sometimes it doesn't. The basic premise is a good one – a clandestine organisation, operating as a charity, but funded by various governments around the world and partially (maybe, I'm not sure) under the auspices of the UN, with the primary objective of keeping the peace, by any means possible. Diplomacy is always the first option and sometimes one that needs to be carried out by third parties, but for situations when that looks unlikely to yield results Peace International maintains a call-on list of field operatives, ex-military, medics, scientists or anyone else with a taste for adventure and willing to risk their life for the sake of it. Full Review

0241376947.jpg

Review of

The Cousins by Karen M McManus

5star.jpg General Fiction

The rich and famous Story family led a life of luxury on Gull Cove Island, until 25 years ago when each of the Story children - Anders, Archer, Adam and Allison - received a mysterious letter from their mother and were cut off completely. But now, a quarter of a century later, their children have been called to return to the island for the summer by their grandmother. What does she want with the cousins? Why did she cut off her children all those years ago? Are the deaths on Gull Cove Island really what they seem? The dark web of twisted lies, secrets and tragedy that has held the Story family up - and held them apart - for a quarter of a century is about to come crashing down. Full Review

152937331X.jpg

Review of

Madame Burova by Ruth Hogan

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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? Full Review

2952163855.jpg

Review of

The Spy Who Inspired Me by Stephen Clarke

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her! Full Review

1939810965.jpg

Review of

If You Kept a Record of Sins by Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address. Full Review

1913193500.jpg

Review of

There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

0008172145.jpg

Review of

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

B08GFSK2WZ.jpg

Review of

The Karma Trap by Lisette Boyd

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

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. Full Review

1786892731.jpg

Review of

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

5star.jpg General Fiction

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'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 18th of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could've. Full Review

Move on to Newest Graphic Novels Reviews