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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Dominic SmithOnyi Nwabineli|title= The Last Painting of Sara de VosAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary= If you find Anuri spent her childhood on display to the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinatingworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia''The Last Painting s increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Sara de VosAnuri'' provides a masterclass s childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in how her twenties and she is slowly trying to work up a canvas in stages. Framing the novel as the story of a seventeenth century Dutch paintingregain her confidence and to get her life back, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out suing her step-mother to take down the main contours of his characters and the three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way throughcontent about her. Sara Anuri is one of the few women artists of the period and battling alcoholism, failing to start her painting is of children skating on a frozen canalPhD, her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and he is the patent lawyer receiving money from whom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattanthem for doing so. Ellie Shipley forged a copy of the painting in Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her postgraduate student years and in 2000 finds herself at little sister, who is the centre new focus of a gathering storm which threatens to destroy her reputation as one of SydneyOphelia's foremost fine art academicsonline empire. Satisfying though those first descriptions are Can she save her sister, we then understand these are merely and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the author's equivalent of the delicate chalk lines used by painters of the Dutch Golden Age to mark out the composition which will follow. same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>192526680X</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stewart O'Nan1529153298|title= Last Night at the LobsterThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=The Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is closing some of its poorly-performing branches just before ChristmasPrime Minister. Amid the Christmas lights (A woman? I mean, office parties and forced jollity Manny DeLeonhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, the manager of one of these failing outlets, has to keep it all together for one last daythough. Women have been disappearing. Short-handed Well, with most of the staff whothey've bothered been murdered, but to turn up facing unemployment, he tries have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to make move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best of a bad jobavoided. For Miv, all the while knowing this will be the last day hemove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll spend with the waitress he shouldndo anything to prevent that. She't still be in love with, particularly s not now heworried about the dangers or that her Mum's about stopped talking - to be a dadanyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4. Oh5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and thereonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. 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 blizzard on the waymother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760293865</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Delia EphronAlexander McCall Smith|title=SiracusaThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary= Michael and Lizzie are The Perfect Passion Company is a writer–journalist couple from New York City; Finn and Taylor live with their ten-year-old daughter, Snow, dating agency in PortlandEdinburgh, Maine, where Finn (run by Ness and operating as an old flame of Lizzie's) owns alternative to all the online apps in providing a restaurantmore personal, tailored service. After meeting up by chance on Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to London last year, they decide Canada to go get away together for a proper holiday in Italywhile. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to the Sicilian island of Siracusa via Romecome home to Edinburgh. In alternating chapters And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the narrative moves fluidly between the perspectives of the four adultsIsabel Dalhousie novels, all of whom are reflecting – but with the help of hindsight and therapy – on what ended up being some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a disastrous trip. Although we don't learn until very late on business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in the book exactly what went wrongher abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a sense that it might be something to do with Snow.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786071541</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Caro FraserDean Koontz|title= The Summer House PartyBad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction Paranormal|summary= In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, Benny is having a group of people meet at a country house partyterrifically bad day. Within three years He loses his job, England will be at warhe loses his fiancee, but for nowand his house gets trashed. Oh, time stands still. Dan Ranscombe is clever and goodsomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-lookingsized object to his home, but he resents and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the wealth and easy savoir-faire of fellow guestthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Paul LatimerBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Surely He is a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out thatthe delivery to his house is a new friend, wouldn't she? And what about Dianaa bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, Pauland will certainly take care of Benny's beautiful sisterenemies, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsiderif he, MadeleineBenny, restless and dissatisfied with her role as childrenHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure in his power as a practised seducer. As these guests gather, none has any inkling the choices wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they make will have fateful consequences, lasting through the war and beyondare. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786691485</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PitoniakKatherine Howe|title=The FuturesA True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|isbn=0861547438}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie 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, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes 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. Missed 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. It was going to come to a head.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck, he has just started at Yale College, where he plays ice hockeyPetr is an orphan. Like lots of Rescued by the other playersstrange, reclusive Bear, he is actually Canadianbrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, from small-town British Columbiain the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. One night after After Bear dies and a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm brief sojourn in human company, and they go out for pizza. She technically has armed with only a boyfriend from her Boston boarding school dayspirate radio transmitter, but they soon break up and before long Julia and Evan have become inseparablePetr goes on a journey through the forest, as they will remain for broadcasting the rest of their college yearsstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lizzy MumfreySarah Marsh|title=Fall OutA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5

|summary=Charlton's the sort After a bout of village where people aspire to livescarlet fever as a child, despite its apparent ordinarinessEllen Lark loses her hearing. There's the usual mix Suddenly plunged into a world of commuters (it's not ''too'' far from London) and those who make their lives in the villagesilence, everything about her life changes. Richard Hughes is Living in a commuter, but his wife Jessica works at time when the local academyuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where both their children - Alfie and Hannah - are pupils. Pete Cole she is a newly-promoted police superintendent and clearly still fond of his voluptuous wifetaught to lip read, Susiebut physically restrained from signing. ActuallyFrom here, some of that voluptuousness might be better described as fat - Pete suspects that he might need longer arms to hug her before longshe ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Less popular At the same time, Bell is Gary Webber. He's the sort of man who causes people to heave working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a sigh complicated tangle of relief when he joins someone else for a drink at the golf clubespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911079840</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Clare FisherB0BC3YTCMR|title= All the Good ThingsGirls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Nature, nurture, chance and circumstance; all combine to produce the ''This story of Bethany Mitchell, a young adult who writes from her prison cellis not for everyone. We know only that she has committed a 'bad thing', a bad thing that she sees as the end  Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her storyfifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. Armed with She was a simple task, Erikavery bright student, a psychologistbit too nerdy if truth be told, sets out and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to challenge hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a 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 church: thiswas just an extension. She asks Beth simply went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to compile give her a list of all the good things in her lifelift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024127575X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Robert Harris1472263936|title= ConclaveThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary= It is hard was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to believe Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that Harris has managed it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to bring such pace the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the often lengthy family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and complex process frightened - of a conclaveher grandfather, but he has wrung out every piece retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of mystery his close connections to the Junta and the result had me reading through long into the nightexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. I simply could not put this down His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784751839</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Suzanne LealDean Koontz|title= The Teacher's SecretAfter Death|rating= 4.53|genre= General Fiction|summary= Terry has been teaching Michael Mace, Head of Security, at his suburban Australian junior school for yearsa top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Everyone knows 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, heck half – as he sits up and looks around at the kids in shrouded bodies of his class have parents who were dead friends and former pupils of colleagues. As he recovers hissenses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. He ''Everything''s an institution. You know the sort Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore. And he does not take kindly to a new young upstart showing up |isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and trying to meddlepoor. HeIt's not nasty about itsurrounded by a 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 forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, but it rubs him up if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the wrong wayreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079077</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Diney CosteloeB0BYF82CXT|title= The Married GirlsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Wynsdown''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, 1949. In the small Somerset village stuck in a depressing rut of Wynsdownboredom and disappointment, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married to farmer Billy. She arrived from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and now feels settled very much in her adopted homelove – move in next door. MeanwhileDespite their different outlooks on life, the squire's fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned couples befriend each other and life appears to the village with a fiancée in towimprove for both pairs. Daphne But all is beautifulnot what it seems, charming... and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphne's past, but she has worked hard to conceal that which could unravel her carefully built life. For Charlotte, too, a dangerous past is coming back in the shape of fellow refugee, bad boy Harry Black. Forever bound by their childhoods, Charlotte will always care increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for him, but Harrytragedy.'s return disrupts the village quiet and it's not long before gossip spreads. The war may have ended, but for these girls, trouble is only just beginning...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784976121</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= J S Rais-DaalShalini Boland|title= Purple FlameThe Silent Bride|rating= 43|genre= General Fiction |summary=Life hasn't Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been easy searching for teenager Zach Ford. He just lost his entire family to a freak car accident; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and he's barely keeping himself togetherutter husband-material. Each day She is more gruelling than the lastall he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, but for Zachsuccessful, it goes much deeper than confident… and so the pressure of exams inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the threats of bullies wedding is planned and teachers at schoolset. Zach has a secret power that many seek and a few would kill for. He When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is possessed walked down the aisle by a demonher father, but beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the demon has a purpose: revenge on the people responsible for Zach's pain. As it congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns outto face his approaching bride, the car accident that killed his family wasn't so accidental. Every tragic thing thatAlice's happened to Zach recently world implodes because she has been carefully orchestrated with one mistake — Zach was supposed to die in absolutely no idea who the man at the accidentaltar is, too. Since he didn't, he has who is waiting for her to become a target, but the demon inside won't let him go quietly. Zach will fight, even if his behaviour leaves him alone and struggling. He'll get his vengeance, but it soon becomes apparent this supernatural battle goes back a lot longer than Zach's lifetime. Something ancient now festers, and a final battle brews amidst Heaven and Hellwife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524678872</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Justin Huggler1787636003|title=The Return HomeGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 35|genre= General Fiction|summary= The uniqueness of a boyhood spent growing up in Jersey is conveyed in some memorable imagery in this novel, intersecting It was the German wartime occupation of summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, the Afghan resistance perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to the Russians take an interest in the 1980s her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and present day conflict in Syriaby that time she was obsessed by him. Ben, now working internationally Alistair worked for a human rights advocacy organisationHenry Taylor, flits back and forth between reflections on his boyhood and looking after his adult self. He is both attempting to solve the mystery of what became of his uncle Jack, who had a brief but lasting impact interests on him as a child, and trying to decide how to save his disintegrating marriage. For the first few chapters I enjoyed these time shifts back island and forth, advancing with Ben in understanding particular in the meaning of events which as an eight year old he could only partly grasp. Ben also develops a deepening appreciation of the choices he has made in life, such as his choice of career, by examining bar where all the influences on his childhood selfgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722028</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita ShreveAmanda Craig|title=The Stars are FireThree Graces

|summary=Meet GraceFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. SheThere's not exactly trapped in a loveless marriagesomething so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, but something like crafting an image of the country as itstands 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. She has no real way away from such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the kitchen sink, and two very young children to care for while lives of her husband is characters in a civil engineer. Her motherway that feels natural and lived-in-law hates her, never making them ciphers for social commentary but she has a great relationship with a girlfriend neighbour – except said friend Rosie has a wondrous love lifeinstead fully realised people, while Grace's experience grappling with sex is getting worse and worse. Things deteriorate when Grace's husband, Gene, loses his mother, and retreats from intimacy even further. The small community around Grace – and an endless rain shower – are closing in around herissues far larger than themselves. But what would happen to her and those she cares for if a real disaster were to occur?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408702983</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jill Santopolo152915118X|title= The Light We LostPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=11th September 2001''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Lucy Darley and Gabe meet in New York on George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a day that will change their lives – and Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the world – forevertribe. As The problem's exacerbated when the city burns behind themclan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they kiss for 'd like to move into the very first timePineapple Street property. Over the next thirteen years they are torn apart Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, then brought back togethera street or so away, time and time againwhich they own. It They won's a journey t need any of dreams, of desiresthe furniture from Pineapple Street, of jealousy, of forgiveness – so Sasha and above allCord can move straight in. Nominally, love. As Lucy is faced with they had a devastating choice, she wonders whether but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their love is a matter of destiny or chance'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008224560</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Allie RogersEmily Critchley|title= Little GoldOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 54|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= The heat is oppressive and storms are brewing in Brighton 84 year old Edie has lived in the summer of 1982. Little Goldsame small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a boyish girl on the brink of adolescencemove 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 struggling with tormented by the reality memory of her broken family childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a home descending into chaos. Her only refuge is secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the tree at thing that reveals the end truth of her gardenwhat happened all that time ago. Into her fractured life steps elderly neighbour, Peggy Baxter. The connection between After 'seeing' Lucy in the two is instanthigh street, but just when it seems that Little Gold has found solaceas she was the last time she saw her, outsiders appear who seek she starts to take advantage find pockets of memories coming back to her frail family in the worst way possible. In an era when so much is hard to speak aloud, can Little Gold share enough of her life to avert disaster? And can Peggy Baxteryet as she remembers the past, a woman running out of time she is forgetting more and with more in her own secrets day to bear, recognise day life. Will she uncover the danger before ittruth about Lucy's too latedisappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1787199959</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Meg HowreyMadelaine Lucas|title= The WanderersThirst for Salt|rating= 35|genre= General Literary Fiction |summary= Set in the near future''Love, I'd read, NASA prepares was supposed to send three astronauts in to space to put be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the first humans on Marsyear-long relationship that once defined her. Helen KaneOverlaid with later wisdom, Yoshi Tanaka, and Sergei Kuznetsov are the trio selected for narrator relives the mission, but they must first prove themselves by spending seventeen months in affair with a simulation that mirrors conditions on Marsman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Each Set against the backdrop of the astronauts has their own reason an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for taking part in Salt'' details the mission 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 their familial relationships with their families will be put to the ultimate test as they begin this journey of discovery and escapismhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471146650</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lisa McInerney0008506337|title= Blood MiraclesThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Like 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-yearone 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 -oldsgoing to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, Ryan Cusack is trying they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to get his head around who he is. This is not a good time for his boss Oxford and went on to exploit his dual heritage by opening become a new black market route well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and 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 Italy to Ireland. It is certainly not a good time for his adored girlfriend Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to decide heleave him in charge's irreparably corrupted. And he really wishes he hadn't accidentally caught the eye of an ornery grandmother who fancies herself his saviour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444798898</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Cat Clarke1914585402|title= GirlhoodDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'Girlhood's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There' focuses on s Only One Danny Garvey]] a group couple of friends; Harperyears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, Rowanemotionally wounding read, Lily and Ama, who are fast approaching the end of term at an elite boarding school in the middle rereading my review of nowhere. The arrival of Kirsty causes a seismic shift in this previously supportive friendship group and Harper soon finds herself caught between her old friends and the mysterious new girl who seems to it my main takeaway was that I might not have so much in common with herlavished enough praise on it. But is Kirsty who she claims to be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784292737</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Suellen DaintyLucy Ashe|title= The Housekeeper|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Annie has broken the cardinal rule of never mixing business with pleasure, and so when the latter ends, she's left without the former, and in need of a new job. She never thought about being a housekeeper, but her OCD tendencies mixed with years of working in hospitality mean she's quite capable, especially when an opportunity arises with her girl crush, Emma Helmsley, one half of a well-known celeb couple on the London circuit. Nothing is ever as it seems, though, Clara and Annie soon finds that behind those tall walls there is a family no less dysfunctional than anyone else's, despite their fame, fortune, and front page headlines.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1476771405</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Helen Phillips|title=The Beautiful BureaucratOlivia

|summary=Meet JosephineThe year is 1933. Married to Joseph Jones, she has kept her maiden name to keep at least some character to her identityThe place? Sadler's Wells. As opposed to her new bossBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, who has twins no genderless. Identical on the outside but not, no facewe learn, and horrid halitosison the inside. The job Josephine is forced to choose is a simple oneAnd not on stage, of taking a fileeither. Because there's paper contents, clicking up the subject on a huge database, entering lot that builds a date newly printed on the sheet, and repeatingdancer. Told to obey strict secrecy rulesSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, she starts attention to find unusual signs of malignance all over detail – a man in a grey sweatshirt following herand some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', post redirected when nobody knows where Josephine and Joseph are even living that don't come from one month to the nextclassroom. A stage presence, and a husband missing from the marital bed more and more often… Is there charm, a way for her find ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a spark of happiness in the humdrum, windowless cell she workshard-worker, and the horrid housing that is all the couple can afford?a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273328</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Roisin MeaneyHeather Fawcett|title= The ReunionEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= This Emily Wilde is an emotional story about expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the lives very first encyclopaedia of two Irish sistersfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, beginning she is not so good with their invitation to attend a twenty year reunion back at their Convent High Schoolpeople. They are both unsure whether to go So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, their adult lives having veered off in totally different and dramatic directions since leaving school. We find out that somehow offended the sisters have each suffered terrible life eventsvillage matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, changing them nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for ever from her book back on the children they wereright track. The story reveals how they begin to re-build their lives Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, supporting one another all charm and becoming delight, much closer in to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the process.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144479972X</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Claire North1398515388|title= The End of Boy and the DayDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= At First of all, it was the end of earthquake, deep in the dayocean floor, Death visits everyone. Right before thatwhich created the tsunami and this, Charlie does. You might meet him in a hospitalturn, in a warzonecaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, or at and the scene loss of a traffic accidentlivelihoods was widespread.Then again, you might meet him at The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the North Pole tsunami - he gets everywhereKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. From jungles to deserts to tundra, you may come across Charlie. Would you shake him by He wasn't a dog person but the hand, take the gift convenience store owner's comment that he offers, or would you pay no attention call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the words he says? Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. He never knows whichdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316316741</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marie NDiaye and Jordan Stump (translator)Christopher Bowden|title= LadivineMr Magenta|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Ladivine centres on the life Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of Clarisse, a seemingly ordinary woman tormented by guilt and shame over her abandonment of her mother, and Clarisse's daughter Ladivinelife, a woman haunted carried out by her mother's choicesnephew after she has died. As tragedy unfolds the mysteries of Clarisse's life The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and her determination to escape a past she cannot reconcile with her ambition irreparably alter the lives little bit of her daughter and husband. The sadness at the heart of this book is that Clarisse, driven by shame about her background chooses indulgence to create another a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and identity and through this deception creates an insurmountable barrier between herself and the rest of the world. When given the opportunity it seems to let down her defences and be honest about who she truly is, Clarisse falls prey to a violent, damaged man and finds herself drawn into him an intoxicating web of violence, drunk on truth and freedom obligation to exist without pretencefind it all out. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848666047</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= E G RodfordJennifer Mason|title= The Surgeon's Case: George Kocharyan Mystery 2Partitions of Unity|rating= 4|genre= Crime General Fiction|summary=In the second instalment of this seriesHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, Private Investigator George Kocharyan has been hired dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a well-known local man to track down some missing valuablesseries of disappearances. Bill Galbraith, a world-famous surgeon at CambridgeIn 's Addenbrooke's Hospital who hosts a popular medical television programme, has had his briefcase stolen by his live-in domestic servant, Aurora. According to Galbraith, this briefcase contains confidential notes concerning an important patient Partitions of his at the hospital. George agrees to look into the theftUnity'', assuming it will be a relatively easy and straightforward case – little does he know, he's about she sets her mind to enter solving a world of deceit and dysfunctionmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178565005X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diney CosteloeWill Carver|title=The New NeighboursDaves 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 story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=Dartmouth Circle has always been ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the epitome 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of British middle class propriety-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... Manicured lawns, well-kept house facades… All '' This is where it should be just a sample of the cast of characters and life is orderedsettings in Preposterous. As you can see, with some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|isbn=B09STS96HS}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM|title=The Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's the disrupting influence 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the townCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's university students out of sight and minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out of mind. Imagine, thenBut for Joe Marr, it's not the horror when missile crisis that's at the good citizens front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the Circle hear current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that one of their houses… THEIR houses… the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has been bought as student accommodationspent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. Will it He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the harbinger of doom they expect?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784972665</amazonuk>McArthur brothers.