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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Cesca MajorOnyi Nwabineli|title= The Last NightAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Spring 1952: Two best friends; Abigail and Mary, sit together Anuri spent her childhood on a benchdisplay to the world, looking out thanks to sea. They have big plansher step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, but know that whatever happens they will always be together. They dream where she posted every step of a new life in America, each with a handsome husband and a happy family. When AbigailAnuri's mother dies unexpectedlychildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, howeverbasically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is sent slowly trying to regain her confidence and to live with get her estranged sister in Devonlife back, and suing her step-mother to take down the friends are torn apartcontent about her. Little does she realise that tragedy lies just around the corner Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and that the ''last night'' will change everything foreversecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Decades later Most importantly, in 2016she is desperately worried about her little sister, a shy furniture-restorer called Irina has been given an unusual commission: to restore an old bureau containing many hidden secretswho is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. As the two stories merge Can she save her sister, curious Irina tries to piece together exactly what happened on and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the ''Last Night.''same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B01FTAPZS2</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rory Gleeson1529153298|title= Rockadoon ShoreThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Cath It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is worried about her friendsPrime Minister. DanDan is struggling with the death of his ex (A woman? I mean, Lucy is drinking way too much and Steph has become closed offhonestly... A weekend away is just ) She's not what 's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they need. They travel out to Rockadoon Lodge've been murdered, but to the wilds in the west of Ireland. But the weekend have 'disappeared' doesn't go sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to planmove the family 'Down South'. JJ When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is more concerned with getting high than spending time with thema frightening, while Merc is humiliated and seeks revengeforeign place, best avoided. And when their elderly neighbour Malachy arrives on their doorstep in For Miv, the dead of night with a gun in his handsmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, nothing will be and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the same again for any of themdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473634075</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Brit Bennett1035906708|title= The MothersDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre= General Fiction|summary= I love it when I get a book so very few have read yetWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but it's hard she was born to say what needs Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to be said, Athens when youshe was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas're not allowed to quotemake it more manageable in the States. ''All good secrets have When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a taste before you tell them…''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399184511</amazonuk>mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Graham NortonAlexander McCall Smith|title= HoldingThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little dramaPerfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and yet operating as an alternative to all the inhabitants are troubledonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Sergeant PJ Collins hasn't always been this overweight Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, mother-as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of-two Brid Riordan hasn't always been an alcoholica break up with a bad boyfriend, and elegant Evelyn Ross hasn't always felt her life a total wasteso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. When human remains are discovered on a farm And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, thought bringing us to be those of Tommy Burkean Edinburgh we already love, an ex lover of both Brid thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Evelynthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, the village's dark past begins but with some new characters who quickly begin to unravelcharm. As the frustrated PJ struggles to solve Katie has no experience in running a case for the first time business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in his lifeher abilities, he unearths a communityand there's worth of angeralways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, resentmentWilliam, secrets, and regret.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444792008</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian McEwanDean Koontz|title=NutshellThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=Literary Fiction Paranormal|summary=Meet TrudyBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Successfully living in a large and valuable London homeHe loses his job, she is heavily pregnanthe loses his fiancee, and in between two men – she has swapped the homeownerhis house gets trashed. Oh, poet and publisher John, for someone completely differenthas delivered a really weird, namely Claudedisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, a nasty, brutish and short type. Some people cannot work out why on earth she it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has made that decision, including our narrator. trashed his house! Oh, and he himself, our narratorThe thing is, Benny is the child she's pregnant withvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a very alert young thingnice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, with nothing else who has been sent to do but kick here help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and therewill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, and practice what you might well call mindfulnessif he, and listen in on Claude and TrudyBenny, as they calmly talk their way to plotting and carrying Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out murder…who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911214330</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frederic Dard and Daniel Seton (translator)Katherine Howe|title=CrushA True Account

|genre=General Fiction |summary=In this story of Thelma and LouiseHannah Masury is living in Boston, it's Louise we meet firsthaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, through her narrationand being made to work there from a young age. She's When she hears there is to be a seventeen year old, telling us hanging of a quite awful and smelly satellite some pirates in the town of Paris , she lives decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified inequal measure, with Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the sight hands of factories and stench of food processing plants keeping her companytwo vicious pirates. She lives at home with her mother, complete with hare-liphides away, so that they don't find and abusive step-fatherkill her too, and is working at one of those factories until then to escape them completely she sees runs away to sea, dressing as a paradise in their midst – the ever-sunny, sexy boy and sophisticated life of an American NATO worker and his wife. Impulsively, she asks to be their maid – and indeed moves into joining the couplenotorious Ned Low's large, messy homepirate ship as a cabin boy. But little does she know what lurks She soon finds herself in the shadows in that buildingthick of things when there is a mutiny on board, behind their gigantic car and their cute porch swing and al-fresco dining – from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the unhappiness, and even the tragedy…ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271988</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Emma Burstall1471180158|title= The Cornish Guest House (Tremarnock)Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who''The Cornish Guest House'' is s a control freak with all the sequel to the best-selling subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'Tremarnockhas his problems'. He' which introduced us to hard-working Liz s asthmatic and her disabled daughter Rosie who were adjusting to life in a small Cornish village by the sea. The sequel begins six months after the first bookmore you read, and Liz and Rosie are happily settled in their new lives and enjoying the warmth of more you'll suspect that he's on the closeautistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -knit community. The village is soon abuzz with gossip, however, as she's a new couple have just moved frequent flier in the local A&E and are planning sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to open a guest houseschool. The affable and good-looking Luke soon charms Missed shifts or the neighbours by immersing himself into village life. His wife Tabitha, need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the other hand, seems aloof and reservedwrong. Could she be hiding It was going to come to a secret?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784972495</amazonuk>head.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jean McNeilB0CKD1L5JL|title= The Dhow HouseRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating= 3.54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Rebecca Laurelson Petr is an English doctor working in an African field hospital in orphan. Rescued by the midst of a political conflict when she strange, reclusive Bear, he is suddenly and inexplicitly forced to leave her post. She goes to stay with her estranged Aunt Julia and her family on Africa's east coast away brought up far from the violence bustling cities and daily blood shed of warbusy human society, however their lives are full in the forests of beach and cocktail parties which contrast greatly to RebeccaWashington's way of livingOlympic Peninsula. But the threat of war is on the horizon for Julia's family After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and their fellow white Africans – terror attacks are armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the rise all along forest, broadcasting the coast strange, wild and Rebecca knows more about it than the rest of her familyrarely heard voices he encounters. With unrest brewing will the true reason for Rebecca's hasty departure from her post be revealed?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079441</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Purple ShadowSarah Marsh|authortitle=Christopher BowdenA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5

|summary=Colin Mallory is After a bout of scarlet fever as a young actor in Parischild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Colin had been working with Suddenly plunged into a theatre company putting on English language Shakespeare productionsworld of silence, everything about her life changes. They were popular but unprofitable so Colin is now at Living in a loose end while his partner, Bryonytime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is off shooting sent to a filmschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Before returning to London From here, Colin meets she ends up with Paul Barnard, an art gallery director in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and his sister's partnerusing a system called Visible Speech. At the Galerie Marion Ducassesame time, Colin Bell is working on other inventions and Paul come across a painting. The portrait of ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a young woman turns out to be Sylvie Ducasse, the great-aunt complicated tangle of the gallery's ownerespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955506743</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sandra IrelandB0BC3YTCMR|title=Beneath The SkinGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary= Robert Walton ''This story is ex-military – not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a soldier suffering bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from combat stress and what he now realises is clearly PTSD. He prefers vitiligo - people were afraid to be called Walt; hug her in case it's short and simple and Walt likes things that are not complicatedcontagious. Alys is fragile, damaged and complicated and It's not the kind of woman Walt easy being a black girl whose skin is looking for84% white. A taxidermist by trade – She had a rather macabre one crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at that – Alys enjoys creating Walter Potter style tableaus in a slightly horrifying tribute church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her sole career influence. Alys runs her business from her homeIn shock, which she shares with even allowed him to give her sister, Mouse and Mouse's son William. It's a strange set up and though Walt needs the job – of handyman/gopher/taxidermy assistant ''must not be squeamish – room and board included'', he wonders what he has let himself in forlift home. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973619</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine

|summary=Postcards from It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece keep arriving at Ellie. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's flat addressed to former occupant Sarah Ibbotsen by parents) felt that it would be a man signing himself as 'A'pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. They may not Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be for Ellie the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but she keeps them anyway was wary - and displays the pictures frightened - of blue seaher grandfather, beaches retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and countryside until she canexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena't resist it any longer; Ellies red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's off to Greece for Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a breakbio-hazard accident. Just before she leaves home Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a package arrives from Asense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. Something very As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different from the fragmented comments on the cardsabout him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. This Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a journal full Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the stories told by people he's met while travelling forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and coming to terms with a love affair that ended almost before it beganeven gallows, if needed. So for Ellie The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the journal becomes her guide book village and that is the journey beginsreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472223209</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0BYF82CXT|title=Precious and GraceSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54

|summary=Friendships can be funny things''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and that is often the case with Precious Fiona – glamorous, successful and Gracevery much in love – move in next door. This is Despite their seventeenth book nowdifferent outlooks on life, and so we have seen their friendship grow and develop a great deal over the years. Both women have grown to understand, respect and love couples befriend each other, through business hardships, personal difficulties and all their many and varied caseslife appears to improve for both pairs. In their current case the pair have a strong difference of opinions, and yet But all is not quite what it seems with their investigation, and so perhaps it is a case of neither one of them being right, and the situation being something else entirely?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408708124</amazonuk>their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Fiona DavisShalini Boland|title= The Doll HouseSilent Bride|rating= 43|genre= General Fiction|summary= New York CityAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, 2016: Rose has quit her job as clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a newscaster wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and investigative journalist – not entirely voluntarily – the wedding is planned and now works for an onset. When the much-line outfit anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the self-mockingly clumsy name of Wordmergecongregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1101984996</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gayle Forman1787636003|title=Leave MeThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary= When you've had a heart attack It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and frightened arrived on the hell out of not just yourself, but your husband, your children – if they had known - your mother and your best friend, you imagine that some long overdue TLC is about to come your wayisland. YouRachel wasn're thinking cardst exactly innocent but she was, flowersperhaps, being waited on handnaive, foot and finger and even though the imminent influx of culinary gifts are likely so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to be low fat, low sugar and taste like the box they came take an interest inher, they're coming, right? she was flattered rather than wary. And you'll probably get It was quite a couple while before he made any sort of months off work physical approach to her and not even have to think about the laundryby that time she was obsessed by him. Or Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the housework? Or taking bar where all the twins to school? Right? Right???? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>147115677X</amazonuk>girls either worked or partied.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa UngerAmanda Craig|title=Ink and BoneThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary= Finlay Montgomery, Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like her grandmother Eloise before her is a very powerful and gifted psychicthe state-of-the-nation novel. Sensitive to There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the unseen, unheard and unknowable, she spends her days among atmosphere of the dead. Visited, bothered, harassed day and sometimes tauntedcapture it, Finlay does her best to manage crafting an image of the gifts that Mother Nature has sought to bestowcountry as it stands in one particular moment. But life is not To say that simple and studying for your degree Amanda Craig is testing skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with five other visitors in the room who are all trying to get your attention genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in the loudest a way that feels natural and most distracting way possiblelived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147115047X</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Annelies Verbeke 152915118X|title= Thirty DaysPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 24.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Thirty Days doesn’t seem to know what it ''Pineapple Street'' is about. The novel follows Alphonse, a Senegalese painter decorator living in the Flanders region story of Belgium with his girlfriend three women: Sasha, Darley and childhood friend Cat, who Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is recovering from cancermarried to their brother Cord. Verbeke puts They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a major emphasis on their intimate but often volatile Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and unsteady relationship, as Sasha if they try 'd like to navigate a new lifestyle in a small town, away from move into the cityPineapple Street property. However Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, there are several other storylines which vie for our attention: Alphonse’s troubled clients who treat him as a sounding board and therapiststreet or so away, his experiences which they own. They won't need any of racism as a black man the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in . Nominally, they had a rural area, Cat’s difficult, warring parents, choice but that wasn't the couple’s elderly neighbour Willem who is obsessed with war graves reality. Darley and has a knack for appearing at precisely Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the wrong moment, and an illegal refugee camp gold digger'. She's living in field trenches a few miles away''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380899</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Oldest GameEmily Critchley|authortitle=Sue LegerOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Moving and eye-opening story of 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a Romanian woman trafficked into Amsterdam move as her son wants to move to another house and forced bring Edie to work live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a prostitutesecret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Sue Leger gives us all pause for thought here And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524635014</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tom ConnollyMadelaine Lucas|title= Men Like AirThirst for Salt|rating= 5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= One April in Manhattan''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the destinies of four very different men are about to collideyear-long relationship that once defined her. Nineteen year old Finn has just arrived in the city along Overlaid with his volatile girlfriend Dillylater wisdom, determined to even the score narrator relives the affair with his older brother Jack for abandoning him in a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the UK in summer after. Set against the aftermath backdrop of their parentsan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator' deaths. Across towns deepening relationship with her older lover, successful gallery owner Leo Emerson is haunted by loneliness, unsettled by the contrast between his life and that of his brother in law and oldest friend Williamdepicting its all-consuming nature, who is content in how it changed her perspective on both his faith romantic and his marriage. When Finn wanders in to Leo's gallery, a series of unexpected familial relationships and interconnected events unfold, changing the lives of all four men togetherhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434880</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=How I Became a DrifterThe Garnett Girls|author=Christmas PhilipGeorgina Moore|reviewerrating=Jill Murphy5

|summary=Fictionalised autobiography told The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a stream-glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle ofWight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-consciousness stylerespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. An unconventional voice speaking Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the universal search for love and acceptancedoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|rating=3Then Richard left them.5 |amazonuk=<amazonuk>152463588X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jane Corry1914585402|title= My Husband's WifeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Autumn 2000I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Newly married lawyer Lily and her artist husband Ed have It was a small apartment in London. Fresh from the honeymoongripping, they're still settling in to their new rolesemotionally wounding read, and their neighbour Francesca and her 9 year old daughter Carla help to take the pressure off a little bitrereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241256488</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Peter Ho DaviesLucy Ashe|title= The FortunesClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Clashes of cultures or cultural enrichmentThe year is 1933. The place? Xenophobia or embracing diversity?TodaySadler's hot topics focus much Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on cultures meeting and notions of foreignnessthe outside but not, we learn, especially in on the context of migrationinside. As suchAnd not on stage, Peter Ho Davies could not have chosen either. Because there's a lot that builds a more current dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and thought-provoking theme for some things, that ''The Fortunesje ne sais quoi'': through four different stories, that don't come from the novel documents some of the history of Chinese people in America over more than centuryclassroom. From railroad workersA stage presence, laundry owners, and prostitutes to film stars and adoptive parentsa charm, a ''The Fortunesjoie de vivre'' tells tales of searching for identity on both national . The difference between a hard-worker, and personal levelsa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340980230</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paul ReadHeather Fawcett|title= The Art Teacher|rating= 4.5|genre= Thrillers |summary=Patrick Owen managed seven years at Highfields Secondary School without punching a pupil in the face. A mediocre teacher, stuck in a struggling school ruled by violent pupils, Patrick goes home every night to an empty flat, and an existence filled with reminders of his life as a faded rock star. When one pupil over steps the mark, a brief mistake plunges Patrick into a world Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of danger, violence, and the glare of the media. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079573</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Bertie Project: A 44 Scotland Street NovelFaeries

|summary=Catching up with old friends Emily Wilde is a pleasurean expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and itresearched meticulously, to write her life's good work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to be back on Scotland Streetfaeries, finding out what everyone she is getting up tonot so good with people. Irene is backSo when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of courseHrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, from nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her travels to book back on the middle-eastright track. Bruce has fallen in loveEnter Wendell Bambleby, Matthew her dashingly handsome and Elspeth have triplet troublesinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and somebody has an extremely unfortunate accident…delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973597</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rowan Hisayo Buchanan1398515388|title= Harmless Like YouThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5

|summary= This is the debut novel from Rowan Hisayo BuchananFirst of all, but you would never know it. It is an accomplishedwas the earthquake, unusualdeep in the ocean floor, poetically written story about a young Japanese girlwhich created the tsunami and this, Yuki Oyamain turn, who has lived most of her life in New Yorkcaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. As suchThe deaths were uncountable, she feels an outsider: the American girls at school ignore her and she finds the rituals loss of her parents' home suffocatinglivelihoods was widespread. Her father has hopes The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of her studying medicine, priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the only thing Yuki enjoys is artconvenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473638321</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma Claire SweeneyChristopher Bowden|title=Owl Song at DawnMr Magenta|rating=54

|summary=Maeve Maloney runs the Sea View Lodge guest house that her parents ran before her. The house has harboured many memories for Maeve over the past 80-years-plus, most Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of which shea seemingly ordinary woman's managed to keep at bay. Howeverlife, carried out by her suppression is endangered when Vincent comes to callnephew after she has died. Far from being an ordinary guest, Vincent is The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a link little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that past Maeve thought she'd outrun but now has nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to relive. Add that him an obligation to trying to teach Steph and Len to fib effectively and life becomes very difficult indeedfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079670</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karin SlaughterJennifer Mason|title=The Kept WomanPartitions of Unity|rating=54

|summary=Special Agent Will Trent is back. Collected by his partnerHere at Bookbag Towers, Faithwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, to attend the scene of a rather brutal murder, Trent queries why the GBI has been called dominatrix and unintentional detective in to what would usually be a standard homicide investigation for Atlanta PD. Arriving at the scene, their boss[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Deputy Director Amanda Wagner is somewhat characteristically pacing when she investigated and barking orders; the victim is none other than ex-cop and all round bad egg, Dale Hardingunravelled a series of disappearances. There is a lot In ''Partitions of bloodUnity'', presumably due she sets her mind to the door-knob and spindle sticking out of Harding's necksolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780893574</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eowyn IveyWill Carver|title=To The Daves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the Bright Edge of story is told in backwards order, leading up to the Worldfateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=If you're going to go pioneering across unexplored lands, at least be prepared to accept what you seek – namely, what you've never seen before. That lesson seems quite obviousA struggling poetry zine, but back a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the time of 1885 Allen Forrester is Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a little too naïve to heed it. A career soldieryen for bullwhips, he is tasked a billionaire with scouring the potential a state-of -the Wolverine River that threads south to the shores of Alaska-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, even though the Russians K(who of course used to own the Territorys, x) have had all manner of lethal encounters with those already living there, and even though on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a major stretch sample of the river has to be traversed cast of characters and settings in winter when entirely frozen over, as the cliffs either side are too impenetrablePreposterous. Allen leaves a much youngerAs you can see, new bride behind – and right from the get-go his journals force him to pen words about strange happenings, strange encounters and things some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of legend coming to lifethis mystery story goes like this... Like I say, what he's never seen before…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472208609</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Gerald WeaverB0B2N7MVYM|title=The First First Gentleman|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Anyone picking up ''The First First Gentleman'' might be forgiven for snorting with laughter and making a sarcastic comment about how timely and potentially satirical it sounds. In a way they’d be right – but probably for different reasons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993291759</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewCalculations of Rational Men|author=Liam Brown|title=Wild LifeDaniel Godfrey|rating=4.5

|summary=Adam Britman goes from a man with it all to homeless in It's the sniff 10th of a lineDecember 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. While looking for somewhere Just to sleep Adam comes across an alternative community put what happens in context, the local parkCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. TheyBut for Joe Marr, it've come together and created structure (including an unofficial allotment) out of s not the disorder missile crisis that's normally equated with living on at the streetsfront of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. It seems perfect so Adam joins themWith the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but perfection can sometimes be an illusionJoe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. As for walking away… thatHe's not going just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be easywary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079700</amazonuk>