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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)Onyi Nwabineli|title=Octavio's JourneyAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction |summary=Meet Octavio. HeAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's a large lunkincreasingly popular presence on social media, a gentle giantwhere she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetingly, had fame, fashion and success through a minor miraclebasically, but has none any longermonetary gain. Octavio, it seems, has some unusual habits – here he Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is, marching off slowly trying to regain her confidence and to the chemist's with a table across his get her life back, for it was all suing her step-mother to take down the doctor had at the time to write a prescription oncontent about her. Now we never learn exactly what the cause of the prescription wasAnuri is battling alcoholism, but we soon find out what the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot readfailing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow the wound to let him escape the need to writereceiving money from them for doing so. UntilMost importantly, that she isdesperately worried about her little sister, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read and write, and to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there who is a whole host the new focus of other things he can put his mind to, both for goodOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and for bad…perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Charlie Laidlaw1529153298|title= The List of Suspicious Things We Learn When We're Dead|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= On the way to a dinner partyIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Lorna Love steps into the path of an oncoming carhonestly... Waking up in ) She's not what appears to be a hospital's worrying Miv's family, but a hospital in which wine is served for supperthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, everyone avoids her questionsthey've been murdered, and but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her nurse looks suspiciously like Sean Conneryfather wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, it soon transpires that Lorna Down South is in Heavena frightening, orforeign place, at least, on HVNbest avoided. Because HVN is a lost, dysfunctional spaceship For Miv, and God the aging hippy captain. At first Lorna can remember nothing, but as move would mean leaving her memories return – some goodbest friend, some badSharon, and she realises 'll do anything to prevent that she has a decision to make, and . She's not worried about the dangers or that maybe, she needs her Mum's stopped talking - to find a way home…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786150352</amazonuk>anyone.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Federico Axat1035906708|title= Kill the Next OneDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= After getting started with the opening chapters We tend to think of Spanish writerMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, Federico Axat's ''Kill the Next One''New York, you might be forgiven for thinking you are stuck with one of those machismo riddled tales where a middle-aged man with a mysterious past is forced to shoot or blunder his way through a by-the-numbers thriller. The spectre of Lee Child's successful Jack Reacher series creeping in around the edges of the page. The novel opens with Ted McKay December 1923 and his Browning pointed only moved to his templeAthens when she was thirteen. He has the perfect life, including a beautiful wife and two adoring children, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but has discovered that he is also her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in possession of an untreatable tumour buried deep within his brain which is slowly killing him. However, right before he decides to take the shot and end his life, there is a knock on his doorStates. Standing behind it is a man named Justin Lynch who tells Ted that he represents an all When she was back in Athens -knowing organisation supposedly so that turns wouldshe could get appropriate training for her voice -be suicides into opportunities to correct she was raised under the imbalances Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the law. Tedher preference for her elder sister, instead of killing himself, could kill someone who really deserves itJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911231065</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurie FrankelAlexander McCall Smith|title=This Is How It Always IsThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=Claude The Perfect Passion Company is the baby of the family. He's very bright. He has a vocabulary way beyond his years so he can hold his own dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the rough and tumble of online apps in providing a house containing four older brothersmore personal, an emergency doctor mother tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a writer father. Claude also likes trip to Canada to wear dressesget away for a while. He wants to become Katie is coming out of a night fairy when he grows break upwith a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And one dayso begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, Claude becomes Poppybringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. He becomes she. Poppy Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's parentsalways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, Penn and RosieWilliam, aren't too concerned at first - children all like to try on different identities and why should Claude/Poppy be any different? But it soon becomes clear that Poppy isn't play-acting at being lend a girl. Poppy is a girl. And things get complicated...hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472241584</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alexandra KleemanDean Koontz|title= You Too Can Have A Body Like MineThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary=A woman known only as A lives in an unnamed American city with her roommateBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, Bhe loses his fiancee, and boyfriendhis house gets trashed. Oh, Cand someone has delivered a really weird, who wants her disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to join him on deserve all this bad luck. He is a reality dating shownice person. A eats mostly popsicles and orangesreally nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, watches endless amounts of televisiona bad weather friend called Spike, often just who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for the commercials — particularly the recurring cartoon escapades being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Kandy KatBenny, the mascot for an entirely chemical dessert — and models herself on an impossible standard of beauty. She fixates on the fifteen minutes will certainly take care of fame a local celebrity named Michael has earned after buying up a WallyBenny's Supermarket's entireenemies, and increasingly ampleif he, supply of veal. MeanwhileBenny, B is attempting to make herself and Harper (a twin of A, waitress slash Private Investigator who in turn hungers for something to give meaning to her life, something aside from Cfinds herself roped into Benny's pornography addictionwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Maybe something like what's gotten into her neighbors across the street, the family who's begun ''ghosting'' themselves beneath white sheets with holes cut for eyes…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008210845</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)Katherine Howe|title=Spring GardenA True Account

|genre=General Fiction |summary=MurakamiHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and (long before the film) Endo's ''Silence''. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writingbeing made to work there from a young age. But now When she hears there's Tomoka Shibasakiis to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and her noted work ''Spring Garden''watch. WhichEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, make no mistake, is definitely JapaneseHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. For instanceShe hides away, if I told you it starts with a man looking up to watch his female neighbour on so that they don't find and kill her balconytoo, and concerns obsessionthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, you could well think it was his about herdressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. But no – perhaps only She soon finds herself in the west thick of things when there is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers herea mutiny on board, and it – and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the novel – concern a singular houseocean waves. And the very singular country it lives in, and the changes it is going through…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura Kaye1471180158|title= English AnimalsMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= When Mirka gets Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a job in man who's a country house in rural England, she has no idea of control freak with all the struggle she faces to make sense subtlety of a very English couple, and a way of life that is entirely alien to herhalf brick. Richard and Sophie are chaotic Jamie's son, drunkenBo, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and kind to Mirkathe more you read, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriagethe more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Mirka is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -making enterprise, taxidermy, and soon surpasses him in skill. After she's a traumatic break two years ago with her family frequent flier in Slovakia, Mirka finds the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hallschool. But Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when she tells Sophie that she is gay, everything she values is Jamie can be controlled and put in danger and she must learn the hard way what she really believes inwrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140870823X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rory GleesonB0CKD1L5JL|title= Rockadoon ShoreRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Cath Petr is worried about her friendsan orphan. DanDan is struggling with Rescued by the death of his exstrange, reclusive Bear, Lucy he is drinking way too much brought up far from bustling cities and Steph has become closed off. A weekend away is just what they need. They travel out to Rockadoon Lodgebusy human society, to the wilds in the west forests of Ireland. But the weekend doesnWashington't go to plans Olympic Peninsula. JJ is more concerned After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with getting high than spending time with themonly a pirate radio transmitter, while Merc is humiliated and seeks revenge. And when their elderly neighbour Malachy arrives Petr goes on their doorstep in a journey through the dead of night with a gun in his handsforest, nothing will be broadcasting the same again for any of them.strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473634075</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Eliza GrahamSarah Marsh|title= Another Day GoneA Sign of Her Own|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=A single event from the past has the power to create After a bout of scarlet fever as a chain-reaction that has powerful consequences in the futurechild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. This is Suddenly plunged into a theme explored and expanded upon world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in ''Another Day Gone,'' a time when the story use of sisters Sara and Polly whosign language was seen as something only savages do, despite being close during childhoodEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, have grown emotionally distant but physically restrained from one another after Polly discovers a devastating family secretsigning. We join their story at the point where the prodigal sister, Polly From here, returns home after years of no contact with her family. Sarah contacts their old nanny Bridie she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the hope of piecing together the family mystery deaf and unearthing using a system called Visible Speech. At the secrets before it same time, Bell is too lateworking on other inventions and ideas, but Bridie's memory is failing and some secrets may be lost foreverEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1503940039</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth HoganB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Keeper of Lost ThingsGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5

|summary=Anthony Peardew lost the love ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of his life before they marriedher fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. In the midst of his tragedy he found solace She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and purpose suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in collecting case it'lost thingss contagious. It' s not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen- things that were left behind on trains, in parks, or found in the gutter, and year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he records each did: Lavender was very good at math and every one carefully, in the hope that perhaps some day they can be reunited with their rightful ownerReggie asked if she would tutor him. He writes stories about the items he finds, becoming a published authorShe readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. However, as he grows older She went to his house and starts to realise that he is dying, he knows he must hand over the task to someone else choosing his housekeeper, Laura, to take on what israped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her, a completely unknown aspect of his lifelift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473635462</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Mike Gayle1472263936|title= The Hope Family CalendarFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Mr Tom Hope is becoming Mr No HopeIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. His wife has been killed in an accident She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and heHamish (Helena's now left, haplessly trying parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to bring the family apartment in up their two young daughters-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. While his mother in law is a help in She grew to love her grandmother and the beginningfamily's maid, Dina, she soon adopts a cruelbut was wary - and frightened -of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to-be-kind approach the Junta and decides expected his family to leave him uphold his values but saw no reason to it, knowing the only way heaccommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father'll step up is if he has no choice in the matters Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473608953</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nadiya HussainDean Koontz|title=The Secret Lives 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 bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the Amir Sistersshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary= The village is isolated and poor. It''In s surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the Field'' is essentially a story villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of two mothers who have been separated from their sons. Liz the forest provides heat and her (adult) son Orin are both Western journalistswarmth, roofs on homes, while Christine and her 12-year-old son Paul are from a remote village in East Africa. After major surgeryeven gallows, Liz flies to East Africa to find her son who has gone walkaboutif needed. At The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the same time, Christine village and that is mourning the loss reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of her own family: her husband has been killed and her son abducted by militiaa man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910369179</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=PJ VanstonB0BYF82CXT|title=Rasmus: A Television TaleSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=It's all about the ratings 'Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in the world a depressing rut of TVboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Therefore the BBCDespite their different outlooks on life, part of the British televisual establishment since TV was invented, feels it has nothing couples befriend each other and life appears to fear from a new internet channelimprove for both pairs. However those in control don't understand But all is not what – it seems, and who – is behind this new phenomenontheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. The mysterious Rasmus has a plan and some savagely innovative ideas; nothing can stand in his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785893610</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jere KrakoffShalini Boland|title=Something Is Rotten in Fettig: A SatireThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53

|summary=Leopold Plotkin finds himself Alice and Seth are a match made in some very hot water when he initiates the Mud Crisisheaven. Leopold inherited the family butcher's shop He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he is could possibly want in a very good wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and skilled butcher. But he doesn't like people watching him work so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is generally lacking in social skillsplanned and set. The shop When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's trade suffers and Leopold decides world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to cover the window with mud so that no-one can see insidebecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1681141973</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The BoyGirls of Summer|author=Wytske VersteegKatie Bishop

|summary=Kito It was a withdrawn childthe summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. It Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was difficult for his parents, especially his motherperhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to reach him. Like many children who turn inwardstake an interest in her, he struggled to make friends at schoolshe was flattered rather than wary. And those It was quite a while before he did make seemed only made any sort of physical approach to use her and by that time she was obsessed by him for access to his games consoles. His dark skin also marked him out Alistair worked for bullying. Kito went missing Henry Taylor, looking after a class trip to his interests on the island and in particular in the beach. His body was discovered when it washed up on bar where all the sand. Kito had drownedgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908446501</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jodi PicoultAmanda Craig|title=Small Great ThingsThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary=Ruth Jefferson is a nurseFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. She looks after new mothers and their babies and sheThere's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the sort atmosphere of nurse that you hope you'll encounter when the day and capture it's your turn, or crafting an image of the turn of anyone close to youcountry as it stands in one particular moment. She cares and To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's good practically synonymous with the 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 job, very good, characters in fact. Turk a way that feels natural and Brittany Bauer and their new son, Davislived-in, were under her carenever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, only Turk took strong exception to Ruth having anything to do grappling with their child: Turk and Brittany were white supremacists - and Ruth Jefferson was black, an African American and despite all her experience she was banned from caring from Davis Bauerissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444788000</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Karen Jennings152915118X|title= Travels With My FatherPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Despite the coda, this does not feel like ''an autobiographical novelPineapple Street''is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. I am not sure why Jennings felt the need Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to couch it in those terms unless there is much in the structure that is fictiontheir brother Cord. IThey'm hoping there re Stocktons, only Sasha isn'ta Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. I am hoping that The problem's exacerbated when the fiction is purely that conceit that this pretends clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to be a novelmove into the Pineapple Street property. If that was necessary Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to get it publishedanother property, a street or so away, then Iwhich they own. They won'll applaud t need any of the subterfugefurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, because this is writing they had a choice but that needs to be readwasn't the reality. It is – if as true as I want it Darley and Georgiana start to be – a delicate reminiscence: a daughtercall Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''in memoriamtheir'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to a father she loved, worshipped, idealised, cared-for, lived with, and yes (in true daughterly fashion) at times, hated'the GD'. A father who was, therefore, a good dad. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907320695</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elin HilderbrandEmily Critchley|title= Winter StormsOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 54|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= A 84 year is a long time old Edie has lived in the life of the Quinn family. So much can happen. For some people this can just be births and deaths and the same small town for almost her whole circle of life, but for the Quinn now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family it's more love triangles, feloniesas Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, drug dealers who stalk youLucy, ex-husbands who haunt youwent missing over 60 years ago, and business opportunities transplanted from the scorching Caribbean to worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the cooler north east coast truth of Americawhat happened all that time ago. As spring leads to summer After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, leads she starts to autumn leads find pockets of memories coming back to winter we follow her. And yet as she remembers the extended family on Nantucket past, she is forgetting more and more in nearby cities (Boston, Manhattan) and learn that as divisive as her day to day life can be, there are some ties that will always bind you. In this case Will she uncover the tie is called Barttruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and whatever else is happening, if he returns then everything else will all be ok.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473620570</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ross ArmstrongMadelaine Lucas|title= The WatcherThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= Thrillers Literary Fiction|summary= Lily Gullick lives with her husband Aiden in ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a new-build flat opposite an estate which has been marked light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for demolition. A keen birdwatchergravity'' Told from a retrospective view, she can't help spying on a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her neighbours. Then one day Lily sees something suspicious through her binoculars and soon her elderly neighbour Jean is found dead. LilyOverlaid with later wisdom, intrigued by the social divide in narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her local area as it becomes increasingly gentrified, knows that she has senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to actits sorrowful end the summer after. But Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her interference is not going unnoticedolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and as she starts to get close to the truth, familial relationships and how it altered her own life comes under threatirrevocably.But can Lily really trust everything she sees?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008181187</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ryan North0008506337|title=Romeo and/or JulietThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=For The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all those who think tragedy plots are too restricted and prescribed-consuming, read apparently onboth sides. In these pages you too will see 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 Romeo had lots of options en route Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to hitting the bottleOxford and having a glittering career. LikewiseIn the event, she could have turned they eloped and Richard took her away from her predestined path at no end the Isle of juncturesWight. And Margo did go to Oxford and went on to what result? become a well-respected journalist. WellThe couple had three children: Rachel, happy marriage Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and a kid called Benholidays were spent at Sandcove, because the leads have just banged peoplefamily home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's heads together and stopped the quarrelling, or Death by Tybalt (mind: ''she would never be able to leave him) or a long life running an establishment curing murderous women, such as a Lady M (her)in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356508536</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henrietta Rose-Innes1914585402|title= NinevehDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Henritetta Rose-InneI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'Nineveh'' instantly reassures you that you are in the presence s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of a confident years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and talented writeraffecting it was. The story of Katya GrubbsIt was a gripping, a second generation pest exterminator who specialises in relocating the bugs and rodents that ruin middle-class garden partiesemotionally wounding read, Rose-Inne writes with the enviable ability of describing both the intricacies of Katya's job and the feeling rereading my review of it simultaneouslymy main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709166</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara Stridsberg and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)Lucy Ashe|title=The Gravity of LoveClara and Olivia

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Particularly literate cover… Setting of The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a real-life mental hospital dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – in Sweden… Mature themes… Opening with an emotion- and closure-laden death… Yessome things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', this book has more than its share of things to put that don't come from the potential reader offclassroom. WhichA stage presence, in this instancea charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, is quite and a large shame indeedstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857054767</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven BurgauerHeather Fawcett|title=The Road To War: Duty & Drill, Courage & CaptureEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|genre=BiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=After World War II Bill Frodsham led Emily Wilde is an everyday life, raising a family in an ordinary US suburb. Heexpert academic scholar on faerie lore, his wife and children became friends with the Burgauer familyshe has travelled extensively, little Steven Burgauer knowing him as Mr F. Time rolls on and little Steven grows upresearched meticulously, and then eventually retires from the American financial sector to write science fiction her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and lecture from time speaking to timefaeries, she is not so good with people. He's therefore surprised So whenshe finds herself far, out far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the bluevillage matriarch, Mr F's daughter tracks him down she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and presents him with a pile of handwritten notes asking Steven to make them into a put her final investigations for her bookback on the right track. These are Mr F's self-authored memoirsEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, stretching from his youth onwards all charm and showing that this seemingly gooddelight, kind but unremarkable man was anything but unremarkablemuch to Emily's frustration. During the war Mr F trained for the impossible and then lived it as But why is he led men across Omaha Beach on D Day. here? He was then captured and spent the rest of the war as a POW in inhumane conditions. What does he want? Steven accepted the request and ''The Road to War'' And what exactly is going on with the result: the life and war of Captain William C Frodsham Jr.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1450218806</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Linda Grant1398515388|title= The Dark CircleBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= It's 1949First of all, it was the earthquake, and with deep in the Second World War overocean floor, a new decade of recovery is beginning. For East End teenagers Lenny which created the tsunami and Miriamthis, life has been suspended. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, they are sent away to a sanatorium in Kentturn, to take caused the cure, submit to the way of the Doctorsnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and learn the deferential way loss of the patientlivelihoods was widespread. Through doors newly opened by The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the one year old NHS, come Lenny in his striped London drape suit, and Miriam in cherry felt red coat, and beret pinned gingerly onto her bluelist of priorities but -black curls. Trapped in a sterile closed environment, six months after the twins find themselves meeting air force officers, tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a car salesman, dog outside a university graduate, a mysterious German woman, convenience store. He wasn't a member of dog person but the Aristocracy, and, arriving convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to blast away their lethargic submission to authority - an American merchant seaman. Together they discover that a cure is tantalisingly just out of reach, open his car door and may only be gained through full scale rebellion.Tamon the dog jumped in..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034900675X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Morgan McCarthyChristopher Bowden|title= The House of BirdsMr Magenta|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Oliver has spent years trying to convince himself that heChristopher Bowden's suited to latest novel is a life patient untangling of money making in the city, and that he doesn't miss a childhood spent in pursuit of mystery, when he cycled around the cobbled lanes of Oxford, exploring its most intriguing corners. When his girlfriend Kate inherits a derelict house - and a fierce family feud - sheseemingly ordinary woman's determined to strip itlife, sell it and move oncarried out by her nephew after she has died. For Oliver though, the house has an allure, and amongst the shelves of The aunt who always provided a discarded, leather bound safe harbour and gilded volumes, he discovers one that conceals a hidden diary from the 1920s. So begins a quest little bit of indulgence to discover the identity of the author, Sophia Louis. It is a portrait of war and marriage, isolation and longing and young nephew had had a story much more interesting life than that will shape the future of the abandoned house - nephew Stephen had ever realised and of Oliver - foreverit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472205847</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christobel KentJennifer Mason|title=The Loving HusbandPartitions of Unity

|genre=Crime General Fiction|summary= When Fran met Nathan everyone assumed she was on the rebound from a lengthy stint Here at the mercy of Nick The Unsuitable. I imagine falling pregnant within those Bookbag Towers, we first few heady months may have added fuel to that particular fire particularly from where Fran's best friend is standing. But when this is followed by a hasty wedding met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and a move to an isolated farmhouse unintentional detective in the Fens[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Fran feels sure that her new role as home-maker when she investigated and mother, so very different from the London party-girl she used to be, is the right one for herunravelled a series of disappearances. So when Fran wakes in the middle In ''Partitions of the night to find NathanUnity''s side of the bed completely cold, she goes sets her mind to look for himsolving a murder.. Finding him bloodied and very much dead was most definitely not part of the bargain.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751562416</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sanjida O'ConnellWill Carver|title= Theory of MindThe Daves Next Door|rating= 3.54|genre= General Fiction|summary=Sandra works Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a zooLondon tube line. As their fates overlap, studying the minds of chimpanzeesstory is told in backwards order, mankindleading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='s nearest living relatives. Her involvment with the animals starts to affect her own relationships'A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in particular that with her new boyfriend Corin. His energy stimulates herthe Northern California redwoods, his passion excites her and his work as a TV producer fascinates her400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, but are his feelings reala women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, or does he want to control her? As her feelings preoccupy her, Sandra continues her research into the emotions a billionaire with a state-of chimps and whether or not they are capable of empathy. During a visit to -the zoo-art S&M dungeon, Sandra meets a strange and isolated childman serving a life sentence in Alabama, Paulan enigmatic signature, son of one of the keepersK(s, and she also meets Kimx), on a scientist who has built cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a killer instinct into sample of the robots she makescast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As Sandra worries about her friends and her relationshipyou can see, things race to a thrilling climax - putting much more than Sandra's emotions at risksome keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this... |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861515480</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Katarina BivaldB0B2N7MVYM|title= The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= The USA is an odd place at times, and not just during election season. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies, places that time forgot, places that ‘’people’’ forgot. Broken Wheel, Iowa is one such place. You’d have no reason to go unless you knew someone there. And Sara does, her pen-pal Amy. Invited by Amy to come for a visit, and with time on her hands due to a recent redundancy, Sara packs her bags (and her books) and buys a plane ticket from her native Sweden to the US Calculations of A.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009959367X</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewRational Men|author=Sara Stewart|title=Whilst I Was OutDaniel Godfrey|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction |summary= Sara StewartIt's debut novel, ''Whilst I Was Out'', opens with all the promise 10th of a book intent to delve head-December 1962 when we first into invention and oddnessmeet Dr Joseph Marr. The narrator of Just to put what happens in context, the story, Alice, Cuban missile crisis is stuck still very fresh in traffic with her husband – who she refers people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to throughout the book as My Dear Husband (or MDH for short) – when he suddenly jumps breathe out of their car and runs off . But for seemingly no reason. The scene opens with a mention of domestic abuse but seems much more interested in Joe Marr, it's not the inherent malfunction of Alicemissile crisis that's husband as she describes his fixation with his bicycle and how her and their three children have taken a back seat to at the front of his mind. He'finding himself' through affairs and cross-country cyclings been convicted of murder.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910903035</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Cesca Major|title= The Last Night|rating= 4|genre= Historical Fiction|summary=Spring 1952: Two best friends; Abigail and Mary With the current state of medical knowledge, sit together on a bench, looking out it's hard to sea. They think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have big plans, been brought but know that whatever happens they will always be together. They dream of a new life Joe Marr has spent his first few days in AmericaHMP Queen's Bench, each with a handsome husband and a happy familyrelatively new prison. When Abigail He's mother dies unexpectedly, however, she is sent just getting used to live with her estranged sister in Devonhis roommate, and the friends are torn apart. Little does she realise that tragedy lies just around the cornerMervyn, and that the ''last night'' will change everything forever. Decades later, in 2016, a shy furniture-restorer called Irina has been given an unusual commission: learning to restore an old bureau containing many hidden secrets. As be wary of the two stories merge, curious Irina tries to piece together exactly what happened on the ''Last NightMcArthur brothers.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B01FTAPZS2</amazonuk>