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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate BeaufoyOnyi Nwabineli|title= The Gingerbread House|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary=''The Gingerbread House'' is not a cottage from a fairytale where a wicked old witch lives but it is in a wonderful rural setting, perfect for getting away from it all. Or it would be, if it weren't for the lady who lives there who, while far from a witch, can be a bit of a b*tch. It's not entirely her fault. Eleanor has dementia and her fading mind makes her confused, angry and quite hard work to care for. With her current carer off to attend her daughter's wedding, Eleanor's daughter in law Tess steps up Allow Me to assume this role in the interim, bringing her precocious daughter Katia with her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785300865</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Pam Jenoff|title=The Orphan's TaleIntroduce Myself

|summary=Herr NeuroffAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's circus has a secret: as well as a much needed wartime source increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of entertainment, itAnuri's also refuge to Jews escaping uncertain concentration camp fateschildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. One such person, Astrid, a trapeze Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and high wire artistto get her life back, lives a precarious life in which suing her possible discovery would be more dangerous than step-mother to take down the content about her nightly act. She's an expert who has perfected Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her art over time PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and therefore resents Neuroff demanding receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she teach Noais desperately worried about her little sister, a non-circus family who is the new comer, quickly. There's a reason behind the circus ownerfocus of Ophelia's demand thoughonline empire. Noa arrives at the circus endangered by an act of kindness: a Jewish baby Can she stole from a Nazi train before leaving the Netherlands. It was a spur of the moment decision that will bind save her to Astrid sister, and perhaps herself and their future, no matter how long… or short… a her relationship with her father at the same time that may be.?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848455364</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)1529153298|title=The Longest NightList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Emma has a philosophy – It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'let the dead rest, and love the livings not what's worrying Miv's family, though. The problem with thatWomen have been disappearing. Well, as a 96-year-oldthey've been murdered, is that there are too few living left, and but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so while the love remains frightening. Miv's upset because she will go through 's overheard that her memories, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all father wants to move the major events of her lifefamily 'Down South'. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husbandWhen you're from Yorkshire, who gets snatched from her at workDown South is a frightening, fleeing to another foreign place to wait for peace, and wait for him in vain, moving to Holland and finding new lovebest avoided. For Miv, and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of warmove would mean leaving her best friend, from rationing right up to exileSharon, death and survivalshe'll do anything to prevent that. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of She's not worried about the dangers or that her two sons Mum's stopped talking - to visit, and then she will die…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>anyone.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Irvine Welsh1035906708|title= The Blade ArtistDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime General Fiction|summary=So. In the interest We tend to think of honest disclosure I should tell you that I love Irvine Welsh's work and I must confess Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to a particularly gruesome fancy for BegbieGreek parents in Manhattan, the notoriously violentNew York, terrifying protector/tormentor of the Trainspotting gangin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Whilst this means you are unlikely to receive an unbiased review, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it does mean you will get a passionate one. It is fair to say that I loved 'Callas'The Blade Artist'' and my only critique would be to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that it she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was over too quickly. For those of you raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who may not be familiar with Welsh's earlier manifestations have mercilessly exploited her and made no fear, you can pick up ''The Blade Artist'' and be transfixed by Jim Francis, artist, father, husband and elegant thug. For those secret of you with previous knowledge of Francis Begbie you'll be instantly drawn back into the world of a man previously defined by petty vengeanceher preference for her elder sister, violence and bloodJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178470055X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda RobertsAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Roots of the TreePerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=The strength of Perfect Passion Company is a tree comes not from what you can seedating agency in Edinburgh, not from run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the trunkonline apps in providing a more personal, the branches tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the leavesbusiness, but from what you can't see - the rootsas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Disturbance Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to the roots can be devastatingcome home to Edinburgh. It's similar in human beings. Annie had lived for 63 yearsAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, secure in the bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love of her parents, Elsie thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Frankthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. She'd looked after them Katie has no experience in her home running a business, or in their final years and it was quite by chance that she came across their wedding certificate when she was sorting out their effects. They had not been married until ''after'' her birthmatch-making, but Ness has full confidence in her birth certificate showed Frank as her father and that her mother was married to him. Something didn't add up abilities, and there was one inescapable conclusion: the man she'd loved as s always her father all those years ''wasn't'' her father after all.very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909716863</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)Dean Koontz|title=The Yellow HouseBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=If you were the needy kindBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, would you really join in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? and his house gets trashed. Would you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there when Oh, and someone carried has delivered a dead dog down off a mountain? really weird, 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 main character in thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this novel doesbad luck. But he has something that will He is a nice person. A really get him noted, well-thought-of, includednice person. He has come to So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the south of France delivery to set up an artists' collectivehis house is a new friend, where he can live and work alongside his counterpartsa bad weather friend called Spike, who can inspire each other and best each other has been sent to create wonderful arthelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. In fact a much-respected guest Spike is on his way nowgoing to take care of Benny, so surely he can find kinship? The guestand will certainly take care of Benny's name isenemies, if he, after allBenny, Gauguinand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Katherine Howe|title=Retribution RoadA True Account

|genre=Historical General Fiction |summary=''Sergeant Bowman wasn't just a hard manHannah Masury is living in Boston, he was something else: having been sent to live with a dangerous man.'' If, indeedfamily who run an inn, and being made to work there was someone who was ideal for from a suicide mission, it was himyoung age. Working as When she hears there is to be a soldier for the East India Company in the rural, remote, outlaw hotbeds hanging of Asia some pirates in the 1850stown, he's tasked with taking a boat of unknown prospects up the Irrawaddy she decides to try go and combat local warlord Pagan Minwatch. It doesn't go well – to start withEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, heHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's supposed to run death at the rule over ruffians saved from the gallowshands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, but canso that they don't command find and kill her too, and then to escape them until hecompletely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's forced his way to having pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the knowledge thick of the mission he needs firstthings when there is a mutiny on board, only for all hell to break loose. But get back he does, only to find that while his nightmares about what really happened and from there we are met with equally dark goings-caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on, the official record suggests the mission never actually existed…ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857053744</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Down1471180158|title=Our Magic HourMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=There had always been KatyJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Audrey and AdamBo, 'has his problems'. TheyHe've been friends since school s asthmatic and nowthe more you read, along with Audreythe more you'll suspect that he's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionalson the autistic spectrum. Then, one day, Katy kills herselfSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. No warning, no reason just no KatyMissed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. The four are suddenly three trying It was going to come to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure it outhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ayobami AdebayoB0CKD1L5JL|title= Stay With MeRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= I have a ''thing'' about blurbs which give away far too much of the stories. Not this timePetr is an orphan. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if Rescued by the burden strange, reclusive Bear, he is too much brought up far from bustling cities and stays too long even love bends, cracks, comes close to breakingbusy human society, and sometimes does break.'' ''But even when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean itthe forests of Washington's no longer love…'' Olympic Peninsula. That is the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in a long time – human company, and it sums up this story. This is armed with only a story about love not being enough…but still being love. I hope this becomes pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a classicjourney through the forest, not just in its native Nigeria but around broadcasting the worldstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elan MastaiSarah Marsh|title= All Our Wrong TodaysA Sign of Her Own

|genre= General Fiction|summary=Welcome to 2016After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, but not as we know itEllen Lark loses her hearing. This version of 2016 was like a picture-perfect scene from a science-fiction movie: Suddenly plunged into a world free from war and poverty, with hover cars, space-tourism, food replicatorsof silence, shiny buildings and AI that catered to every whimeverything about her life changes. This was the resplendent 2016 we were supposed to have, thanks to the invention Living in 1965 of the Goettreider Engine, which created a sustainable form of energy that transformed time when the planet. With all use of the major problems in the world gonesign language was seen as something only savages do, humans were free Ellen is sent to dedicate their time a school where she is taught to the pursuit of science and entertainmentlip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, culminating she ends up in what could be another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the most exciting development yet: deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time machine. But of course, this perfect future would be completely derailed ifBell is working on other inventions and ideas, say, someone went back in time and messed Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up Goettreider's experiment. Maybe the result would be in a world similar to the one we live in now: the world we were never meant to havecomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718184076</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)B0BC3YTCMR|title=Fever DreamGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Meet Carla''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She's was a glamorous older womanvery bright student, with poise and beautya bit too nerdy if truth be told, and someone who still looks a treat suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in a golden bikinicase it's contagious. But inside, sheIt's differentnot easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. The biggest issue she seems to bear relates to an event She had a few years ago, when crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her horse breeder husband had the drama of both a hired, valuable stallion, and their son, being poisoned. Away from the right medical treatment, Carla took David to a woman who said the only hope Then he did: Lavender was a 'migration' – basically, to farm out part of David's spirit very good at math and swap it with someone else's, to dilute the toxinReggie asked if she would tutor him. This She readily agreed: tutoring was a success, as David seems to have survived, although Carla is sure it was the wrong decision – something she now sees David as gladly did at least part monsterchurch: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. But another odd thing about this tale is that it isn't being narrated by CarlaIn shock, but by she even allowed him to give her neighbour, another mother called Amanda, who is renting a holiday lift home nearby. And the further odd thing is to whom she is narrating this story – it's to David…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Heather O'Neill1472263936|title= The Lonely Hearts Hotel|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction |summary=Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Pierrot is a piano prodigy, and Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary show the world has ever seen. Seperated as teenagers and sent off to work during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld - dabbling in sex, drugs, and theft. Will Rose and Pierrot ever reunite? And if they do - what lengths will they go to to make their dream come true? One thing's for sure - neither they nor the theatre nor the underworld will ever look the same...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163359</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Min Jin Lee|title= Pachinko|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= I have often said that much of what I know of the world, its geography, history and politics, I have learned from reading story books. Because I learn this way, I do wonder about people who profess not to read fiction. I wonder how much of the truth of how the world really is passes them by as a result. In the light of 2016 in the UK and the USA, I wonder if this is a concern to be added to all of the others about cuts to arts funding and arts learning and the absolute necessity of having public libraries where children can start to choose for themselves at the earliest age, which stories to read, uncensored by the views of those who might think they know better. I say all this because Pachinko is yet one more of those books that did not just make me think differently about what I thought I knew, but actually opened up to me a world that I knew nothing about: the world of the ethnic Korean in Japan.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786691353</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFigurine|author=Shanthi Sekaran|title=Lucky BoyVictoria Hislop

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Solimar wants more from It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her life than first trip to Greece. She was alone: her Mexican mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home can offer and now sherefused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's 18, she can go find parents) felt that itwould be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her target is to get trip to the USA, a target so blinding that she doesn't realise what reaching out for it will cost. Meanwhile Kavya is living family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the American dreamfirst of several annual visits. Shegrew to love her grandmother and the family's rich in friendshipmaid, familyDina, a loving husband and life prospects but was wary - and yet Kavya has a babyfrightened -shaped hole in of her worldgrandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. The problem is that thereHe was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>Scottish ancestors.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne TylerDean Koontz|title=Vinegar GirlAfter 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 shrouded 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=Kate Battista The village is in an odd isolated and not entirely satisfactory situationpoor. At It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the age villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of twenty nine she finds herself working as a teaching assistant ''and'' running the home for her scientist father (who is eccentric, to say the least) forest provides heat and her younger sister Bunnywarmth, who might be fifteen but is actually three going roofs on thirty. Dr Battista has other problems - homes, and when he has a problem he offloads them onto Kate (he's concerned that she hasn't yet done his taxes). This time thougheven gallows, it's seriousif needed. Pyotr, his brilliant young lab assistant, The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the USA on a visa village and it's about to expire. If that happens Dr Battista is convinced that he'll not be able to complete his work and all that he's done will be for nothingthe reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099589877</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dawn O'PorterB0BYF82CXT|title= The CowsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 3.54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Reading the blurb for this novel, the first novel for adults by author Dawn O'Porter'Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, I got very excited. It talks about the cow being stuck in a piece depressing rut of meatboredom and disappointment, born to breedwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, one of the herd, couples befriend each other and compares this life appears to womenimprove for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, saying how they donand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'t have to fall into a stereotype. I expected a slightly subversive novel about feminism. What I found was an easy to read, enjoyable romp through three modern women's lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008126038</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna TrollopeShalini Boland|title=City The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. 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 world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of FriendsSummer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=It would be unkind and certainly unfair to say that it was Stacey Grant's mother who was the cause of Stacey losing her job: summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she might well have been and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the trigger island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but it she was her manager, Jeff Doddsperhaps, naive, who used her request so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to work flexibly as take an excuse to make interest in her redundant, she was flattered rather than wary. There It was quite a lot while before he made any sort of ''support'' for Stacey - the staff were as stunned as physical approach to her and by that time she wasobsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, but in terms of the people she could rely looking after his interests on, there were just a few. Her mother was out of the equation : it was her dementia which started the problem island and her husband Steve was wrapped up in particular in the fact that he'd just been promoted to board level in his job. There ''were'' bar where all the girls: the four of them had met at University and Stacey, Melissa, Beth and Gaby had been firm friends ever since. And there was Bruno the dogeither worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509823476</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Su BristowAmanda Craig|title= SealskinThree Graces|rating= 4.5|genre= Fantasy General Fiction|summary= Donald is a young fisherman, eking out a lonely living on Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the west coast state-of Scotland-the-nation novel. One night he witnesses There's something miraculous so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment.To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point..and makes She has such a terrible mistake. His action changes gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives - not only his own, but those of his family her characters in a way that feels natural and the entire tightly knit community lived-in which they live. Can he ever atone , never making them ciphers for the wrong he has donesocial commentary but instead fully realised people, and can love grow when its foundation is violence?grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910633607</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cath Weeks152915118X|title= BlindPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= American ex-pat Twyla ''Pineapple Street'' is ready the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to be their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the perfect motherPineapple Street property. She never dreamed her first child would be anything other than perfect himself Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but when hethat wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's born blind she is forced living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to re-evaluate her view of 'the worldGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349410631</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassEmily Critchley|title= For a Little WhileOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 4|genre= Short StoriesCrime|summary=''For 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a Little While'' move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to 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 collection secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of twenty-five short stories from Rick Basswhat happened all that time ago. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass After 'seeing' work this new collection Lucy in the high street, just as she was a wonderful introduction the last time she saw her, she starts to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped find pockets of memories coming backto her. And yet as she remembers the past, simple fables featuring often mundane situationsshe is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters in each tale before her memories are beautifully crafted gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''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 stories are dreamyyear-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, loose narratives covering everything the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from love its inception – the summer after finishing university – to death to choices made its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and chances takenhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jem Lester0008506337|title= Shtum.The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Jonah Jewell is ten years old; he likes Marmite sandwichesThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, being outside and sticking exactly to his routineapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. He cannot speak but he communicates his wants Richard was twenty-one and needs clearlydescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. The adults in his life do nothing but speak but Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they do not communicate nearly as effectively as Jonahfelt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. While functioning from In the outsideevent, this is they eloped and Richard took her away from the story Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a family falling well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and tearing each other apartSasha. Ben Jewell needs to fight for his son Life was lived in London and by doing so needs holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to learn how to fight for himselfleave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409162982</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alice Hoffman1914585402|title= FaithfulDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friendI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to a life in New York City, Shelby remains damaged years back and remember being absolutely floored by the loss of her best friend, stumbling through life blindly how powerful and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at allaffecting it was. But, as she growsIt was a gripping, she discovers emotionemotionally wounding read, survival and happiness, bundled up with dogs, food, books and men she's probably best avoiding… Deep in New York City she find a circle rereading my review of lost and found souls, and the angel who's been watching over her since it my main takeaway was that fateful night all those years ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471157717</amazonuk>I might not have lavished enough praise on it.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tim PearsLucy Ashe|title= The HorsemanClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= The Horseman feels like a novel written much earlier than 2016year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. This is in large part because it is set in 1911 in rural Somerset Identical on the outside but also because Pears writes in a style which is reminiscent of authors in the twentieth centurynot, we learn, if not on the nineteenthinside. Readers who are hoping for actionAnd not on stage, pace and suspense will be sorely disappointed in The Horseman, in which not either. Because there's a lot happens at all; the story could easily be condensed into that builds a couple of pagesdancer. HoweverSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, if you have a rainy weekend in a cosy cottage somewherethat ''je ne sais quoi'', Pears provides that don't come from the perfect companionclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, giving readers an antidote to frenetica ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, twenty first century urban lifeand a star. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1632866935</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)Heather Fawcett|title=OctavioEmily Wilde's JourneyEncyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54|genre=Literary General Fiction |summary=Meet Octavio. He's a large lunkEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, a gentle giant, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetingly, had fame, fashion and success through a minor miracle, but she has none any longer. Octaviotravelled extensively, it seems, has some unusual habits – here he isand researched meticulously, marching off to the chemistwrite her life's with a table across his backwork, for it was all the doctor had very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at the time research and speaking to write a prescription onfaeries, she is not so good with people. Now we never learn exactly what So when she finds herself far, far North in the cause small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the prescription wasvillage matriarch, but we soon find out she is not sure what the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot readshe has done, nor how to redeem herself and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow put her final investigations for her book back on the wound to let him escape the need to writeright track. UntilEnter Wendell Bambleby, that isher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read all charm and writedelight, and much to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there Emily's frustration. But why is a whole host of other things he can put his mind to, both for good, and for bad…here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Charlie Laidlaw1398515388|title= The Things We Learn When We're DeadBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= On First of all, it was the way to a dinner partyearthquake, Lorna Love steps into deep in the path of an oncoming car. Waking up in what appears to be a hospitalocean floor, but a hospital in which wine is served for supper, everyone avoids her questions, created the tsunami and her nurse looks suspiciously like Sean Connerythis, it soon transpires that Lorna is in Heaventurn, or, at least, on HVNcaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. Because HVN is a lost, dysfunctional spaceship The deaths were uncountable, and God the aging hippy captainloss of livelihoods was widespread. At first Lorna can remember nothing, The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but as her memories return – some good, some bad, she realises the convenience store owner's comment that she has a decision he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to make, open his car door and that maybe, she needs to find a way home…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786150352</amazonuk>Tamon the dog jumped in.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Federico AxatChristopher Bowden|title= Kill the Next OneMr Magenta|rating= 4|genre= ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= After getting started with the opening chapters of Spanish writer, Federico AxatChristopher Bowden's ''Kill the Next One'', 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 latest novel is forced to shoot or blunder his way through a by-the-numbers thriller. The spectre patient untangling of Lee Childa seemingly ordinary woman's successful Jack Reacher series creeping in around the edges of the pagelife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The novel opens with Ted McKay aunt who always provided a safe harbour and his Browning pointed to his temple. He has the perfect life, including a beautiful wife and two adoring children, but has discovered that he is also in possession little bit of an untreatable tumour buried deep within his brain which is slowly killing him. However, right before he decides indulgence to take the shot and end his life, there is a knock on his door. Standing behind it is young nephew had had a man named Justin Lynch who tells Ted much more interesting life than that he represents nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an all-knowing organisation that turns would-be suicides into opportunities obligation to correct the imbalances of the law. Ted, instead of killing himself, could kill someone who really deserves find itall out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911231065</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurie FrankelJennifer Mason|title=This Is How It Always IsPartitions of Unity

|summary=Claude is the baby of the family. He's very bright. He has a vocabulary way beyond his years so he can hold his own Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in the rough and tumble of a house containing four older brothers[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], an emergency doctor mother when she investigated and unravelled a writer fatherseries of disappearances. Claude also likes to wear dresses. He wants to become a night fairy when he grows up. And one dayIn ''Partitions of Unity'', Claude becomes Poppy. He becomes she. Poppy's parents, Penn and Rosie, aren't too concerned at first - children all like sets her mind 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 solving a girl. Poppy is a girl. And things get complicatedmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472241584</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alexandra KleemanWill Carver|title= You Too Can Have A Body Like MineThe Daves Next Door|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary=A woman known only Five strangers come together in one moment as A lives a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in an unnamed American city with her roommatebackwards order, B, and boyfriend, C, who wants her leading up to join him on a reality dating showthe fateful moment. |isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''A eats mostly popsicles struggling poetry zine, a mom-and oranges-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, watches endless amounts of television, often a 400-meter hurdler who just for missed the commercials — particularly the recurring cartoon escapades of Kandy Kat2004 Olympics, the mascot a women's track coach with a yen for an entirely chemical dessert — and models herself on an impossible standard bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of beauty. She fixates on -the fifteen minutes of fame -art S&M dungeon, a local celebrity named Michael has earned after buying up man serving a Wally'life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s Supermarket's entire, and increasingly amplex), on a cheap oil painting, supply of vealan erotic art dealer in Georgia... Meanwhile, B '' This is attempting to make herself just a twin sample of A, who the cast of characters and settings in turn hungers for something to give meaning to her lifePreposterous. As you can see, something aside from C's pornography addictionsome keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this... 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>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)B0B2N7MVYM|title=Spring GardenThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=MurakamiIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, and (long before the film) EndoCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's ''Silence''minds. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writingThe world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But now therefor Joe Marr, it's Tomoka Shibasaki, and her noted work ''Spring Garden'not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. Which, make no mistake, is definitely JapaneseHe's been convicted of murder. For instanceWith the current state of medical knowledge, if I told you it starts with a man looking up 's hard to watch his female neighbour on her balcony, and concerns obsession, you could well think it was otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his about her. But no – perhaps only first few days in the west is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers hereHMP Queen's Bench, and it – and the novel – concern a singular houserelatively new prison. And the very singular country it lives inHe's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the changes it is going through…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>McArthur brothers.