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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Joanna BarnardOnyi Nwabineli|title= Hush Little BabyAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Babies donAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri't break bones s childhood for no reasonsponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Something has Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to happen regain her confidence andto get her life back, normally, someone else will be involved. So when suing her step-mother to take down the hospital says Oliver has a broken arm, suspicion lands on his familycontent about her. Could it be his mother? But she was out all evening Anuri is battling alcoholism, drinking with failing to start her old colleagues (hence why she smells of booze when they arrive in A&E). Could it be his father? Sally left him in charge of their sonPhD, but he may have popped out for a while (something she doesn't know…yet) undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and if he was out then he too was away receiving money from his son at the time of the crimethem for doing so. Or could it be his half-sister Martha? She's a responsible teenager most of the time Most importantly, and she would have no reason to harm is desperately worried about her baby brotherlittle sister, but therewho is the new focus of Ophelia's a nagging feeling about that night that online empire. Can she just can't shake.save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785030337</amazonuk>0861546873
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elif Shafak1529153298|title= Three Daughters The List of EveSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre= General Fiction|summary=Set in Istanbul in 2016It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what'Three Daughters of Eves worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they' centres on Perive been murdered, a Turkish woman who finds herself thinking back but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her years at Oxford University father wants to distract herself move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a boring dinner partyfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Her reminiscing is triggered when she finds an old polaroid of herself For Miv, the move would mean leaving her friends Mona and Shirinbest friend, Sharon, and the rebellious Professor Azurshe'll do anything to prevent that. Much of her thoughts revolve around She's not worried about the scandal dangers or that prevented her from graduating from her dream universityMum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4. More 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of a commentary on religion than a storyMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the novel asks many questions about faith States. When she was back in Athens - in particular, Islam supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and whether its customs and traditions can be adapted to suit modern lifemade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241978882</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Andre AlexisAlexander McCall Smith|title= The Hidden KeysPerfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Tancred Palmieri The Perfect Passion Company is a talented thief thrown into dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the path of Willow Azarian an eccentriconline apps in providing a more personal, unpredictable heroin addicttailored service. She is also part of Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the Azarian dynastybusiness, bequeathed almost as Ness is planning to take a million dollars upon her father's deathtrip to Canada to get away for a while. Each Katie is coming out of the Azarian children were also gifted a deeply personal memento moribreak up with a bad boyfriend, which Willow is convinced make up an intricate treasure huntand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. She enlists the help of Tancred And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to steal each iteman Edinburgh we already love, solve thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the mystery and prove she is not blindly following Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a baseless fantasy. Tancred must use all his skills to infiltrate the homes of each of Willow's siblingsbusiness, or in match-making, uncover the clues hidden but Ness has full confidence in each item her abilities, and fight off the rival interests of competing criminals there's always her very helpful (and the police.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781258422</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alison Jean LesterDean Koontz|title= Yuki Means HappinessThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 34.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary= High-tech Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and high-risehis house gets trashed. Oh, kimonosand someone has delivered a really weird, and bigdisturbing coffin-eyed visuals – through a dynamic juxtaposition of the ultra modern sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the traditionalthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Japan has succeeded in branding itself both as an intriguing travel destination Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that does not cease the delivery to surprisehis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, but at the same time defies who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being ever wholly full understood by outsidersa good person. All Spike is going to take care of this has come to be encapsulated Benny, and reinforced in Sofia Coppolawill certainly take care of Benny's cult classic enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny''Lost in Translation'': the iconic still of Scarlett Johansson standing at the scramble crossing in Shibuya has come to represent Japan in pop culture as much as the more traditional cherry blossom imagerys wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549628</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= S V BerlinKatherine Howe|title= The FavouriteA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Siblings Edward and Isobel Vernon haven't spoken Hannah Masury is living in years Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and live on opposite sides being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the Atlantic. When their mother Mary dies unexpectedlytown, they are thrown together she decides to sort through the family homego and watch. With Edward Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's diffident but devoted girlfriend, Julie, making an awkward threesome, each stumbles through death at the practicalities hands of funeral preparation two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and house clearingkill her too, trying and then to escape them completely she runs away to make sense of their emotions sea, dressing as a boy and their feelings toward one anotherjoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Isobel makes She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a disturbing discovery mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her fateful decision has consequences for all rip roaring tale of them, challenging their beliefs about the past, hopes for life on the future and understanding of Mary's role in keeping them at once apart and togetherocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993563384</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Julia Claiborne JohnsonPenny 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=Be Frank with MeRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In June 2009 Isaac Vargas sends his assistantPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, twenty-four-year-old Alice Whitleyreclusive Bear, to Bel Airhe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, California to help Mimi Gillespie produce her long-awaited second novelin the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Under After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the name Mforest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.M}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3. Banning5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Mimi issued Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a wildly successful novel back world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the 1970suse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, ''Pitched''Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, which quickly became she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a modern classic system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on every American adolescentother inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary='s list of assigned reading 'This story is not for schooleveryone. She's the sort ' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of figure Harper Lee her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was for decades: a onevery bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo -hit literary wonder and an infamous reclusepeople were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. But there It's one key difference here: Mimi has not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a ninecrush on seventeen-year-old sonReggie 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: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, Frankshe even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782399208</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kay Langdale1472263936|title=The Way Back to UsFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A household revolves around its weakest member It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and because itHamish (Helena's revolving there's always a danger parents) felt that some people - such as it would be a spouse pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up- will market Kolonaki would be spun the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the outsidefamily's maid, Dina, whilst other childrenbut was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, loosely attached retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the main carer will be 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 Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a distancetop secret biological research facility, never completely close, but never escaping eitheris among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. In the centre are the carer and the person who needs that careFinding himself in a makeshift mortuary, bonded together covered in such plastic, he has a way sense that it's actually difficult something very, very bad has happened to offer help or even friendshiphim – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. So it As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is with Anna and Teddy, who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA as itsomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s generally known. HeMichael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's five now, confined to surrounded by a wheelchair or his Whizzybug 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 not putting warmth, roofs on much weight as chewing homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and swallowing are difficultthat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473618363</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Hendrik Groen and Hester Velmans (translator)B0BYF82CXT|title= The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ years OldSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= As the old adage goes''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, to walk stuck in a mile in someone else's shoes is to gain some understanding depressing rut of what it is to be that person. Admittedlyboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, Hendrik Groen isn't successful and very much up for long walks any more, but he does acquire a swish mobility scooter to zoom around in; one could say that we get to zoom a mile love – move in Groen's shoesnext door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and ohlife appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, what fun shoes he wears!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405924004</amazonuk>and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah FranklinShalini Boland|title= ShelterThe Silent Bride|rating= 53|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Connie Granger Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has escaped her bombedbeen searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-out city home, finding refuge material. She is all he could possibly want in the Women's Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.<br>Seppewife; beautiful, an Italian prisoner of warsuccessful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is haunted eagerly accepted by his memoriesAlice and the wedding is planned and set. In When the forest campmuch-anticipated day arrives, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as they are drawn togethershe 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 world outside their forest haven man at the altar is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumbling, and both must now make a life-defining choice.<br>What price will they pay who is waiting for freedom? What will they fight her to protect?become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer McVeigh1787636003|title=Leopard at the DoorThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=18 year old It was the summer when Rachel Fullsmith returns home to Kenya after being away at school in England Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and finds a lot can change in 6 yearsarrived on the island. Of course she realises her motherRachel wasn's death would alter things t exactly innocent but she's not prepared for her father's livewas, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in 'companion' Sara nor Sara's son Harold sleeping in Rachel's old roomher, she was flattered rather than wary. Michael the Kikuyu servant boy It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she grew up with is still there though and now a man with his own ideaswas obsessed by him. Meanwhile Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the unrest between island and in particular in the British rulers and bar where all the local Mau Mau fighters is increasing and about to blowgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241247616</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Lucy DanielsAmanda Craig|title= Summer at Hope MeadowsThree Graces|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Animal Ark'' was a popular series Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of children-the-nation novel. There's books written between 1994 something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and 2008. The stories focus on a young girl called Mandy Hopecapture it, crafting an image of the daughter of two vets who run a practice, Animal Ark, country as it stands in the Yorkshire town of Welfordone particular moment. Along To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with her best friend James, the children seek to help out creatures in needgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. The series consisted of 94 books in total and was written by She has such a collection gift for weaving the ongoing issues of authors writing under the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. ''Summer at Hope Meadows'' is day into the first lives of her characters in a new series way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for adult readerssocial commentary but instead fully realised people, continuing grown-up Mandy's story now that she is a fully qualified vetgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473653878</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)152915118X|title=Madame Bovary of the SuburbsPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''It starts with becoming a homeownerPineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, then settling inDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, then reproducing.only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. WellThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, it actually starts a lot before thenTilda, with a set of fractured memories of our heroineasks Cord and Sasha if they's childhood – things she recalls her parents and relatives saying both d like to and about hermove into the Pineapple Street property. It goes through her childhood, Tilda and Chip have renovated and pen letters downsized to another property, a best friend conveying her wishes for her lifestreet or so away, those wishes being revised and affirmed by which they own. They won't need any of the liberty of university yearsfurniture from Pineapple Street, those wishes being met with or denied by married life… so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Someone archly could point out that you should be careful what you wish forNominally, they had a choice but not even our wise, modern woman could not see that wasn't the next step after reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the reproducing – gold digger'. She'standing disappointed s living in front of ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the refrigerator'GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054686</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania HershmanEmily Critchley|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories Crime|summary=I won't be alone 84 year old Edie has lived in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardthe same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a 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. Going through from A-ZHowever, witnessing 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 bounty secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of ideas and characters what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in short order can be too muchthe high street, but do you have just as she was the right last time she saw her, she starts to pick and choose according find pockets of memories coming back to what appealsher. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and what time you have more in her day to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surelyday life. Such would appear to be Will she uncover the case here. The last time I read one of this authortruth about Lucy's collectionsdisappearance before her move, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they before her memories are also spread into sections.gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jane JohnsonMadelaine Lucas|title= Court of LionsThirst for Salt|rating= 5|genre= Historical Literary Fiction |summary= Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra''Love, one of the most beautiful places on earthI'd read, she works as was supposed to be a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends shelight and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity's happy with her new life – but how could she be? Kate's alone Told from a retrospective view, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about to bring her faceyoung woman unravels the year-to-face with long relationship that once defined her greatest fear. Five centuries agoOverlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of paperman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. The paper was folded and pressed into one Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the Alhambra24-year-old narrator's walls. There it has laindeepening relationship with her older lover, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granadadepicting its all-consuming nature, the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers how it. Born of love, in a time of danger changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and desperation, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate's life foreverhow it altered her irrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>0861546490
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Cohen0008506337|title=TogetherThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is a The love story told backwardsaffair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the most beautiful manner, so that we know from the very beginning that Emily and Robert love each other enormously, . Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that he is about to break Richard's influence would take her heart in the most dreadful way in order away from what they felt she could achieve - going to protect Oxford and having a secret that they've lived with for decadesglittering career. Seeing their love unfold in reverse is beautifulIn the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. We get Margo did go to know them once they have already gotten Oxford and went on to know each otherbecome a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and it makes for an unusual and interesting structureSasha. The secret they hold is referred to throughoutLife was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, but it isn't revealed until very late in the bookfamily home on the Isle of Wight. IEven then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo'm guessing very few readers will figure it out. Even once you know, you want s mind: ''she would never be able to go back and read the whole story again leave him in the light of the information you now holdcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409171744</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kate Mildenhall1914585402|title= SkylarkingDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Kate I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and Harriet are best friends growing up together on an isolated Australian caperemember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. As the daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything, until It was a fishermangripping, McPhailemotionally wounding read, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings rereading my review of envy and longing. An innocent moment in McPhail's hut then occurs it my main takeaway was that threatens to tear their peaceful community apartI might not have lavished enough praise on it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Zoe DuncanLucy Ashe|title= The Shifting PoolsClara and Olivia|rating= 24.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Perhaps the most overused phrase in fiction publishing The year is 1933. The place? Sadler''life-affirming''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, closely followed by ''human condition'either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. The Shifting Pools takes this Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to a whole new level. Its blurb boasts detail – and some things, that it is ''charged throughout with the beautiful urgency of lifeje ne sais quoi'', whatever that means. It isndon't. And that's come from the problemclassroom. This isn't A stage presence, a bad bookcharm, but it sets itself up to fail. A cardinal rule of writing is a ''focus on the small stuffjoie de vivre''. If you set out to write The difference between a ''life affirming'' novel that answers all the ''big questions''hard-worker, you'll struggle. And it is this trap that Zoe Duncan falls into. In her quest for profundity she loses her wayand a star. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785630369</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah HealyHeather Fawcett|title= The Sisters Chase|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Mary and Bunny. That's how it has always been ever since Bunny was born. Two sisters with an unbreakable bond, twisted together so tight that they were two sides of the same coin. Bunny was MaryEmily Wilde's whole world; nothing else really mattered; school...friends...boys...well, maybe one boy, but he was something altogether extraordinary. When the unthinkable happened, Mary and Bunny found themselves completely alone in the world, and that's when Mary decided to take an unforgettable road trip, just the two of them, across the United States, in search Encyclopaedia of a place where they could belong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0544960076</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Joy Rhoades|title=The Woolgrower's CompanionFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1945: The war Emily Wilde is in its dying days an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and creating problems far from researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the different frontsvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. For instanceWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in Australiathe small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what can be she has done with , nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the Italian POWs brought into the country? right track. The solution seems Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to be their use as cheap labour. In this way Kate DowdEmily's father agrees to take two onto his sheep farm in drought-ridden New South Walesfrustration. Kate But why is initially wary of the two men – Vittorio and Luca – but gradually she realises that not all dangers come from outside her community. he here? What does he want? Life And what exactly is going on a sheep station may be harsh but for Kate it's going to get a lot worse.with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784741345</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jonathan Levi1398515388|title= SeptimaniaThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= First and foremost a tale of loveall, it was the earthquake, Septimania delivers deep in the frustrations ocean floor, which created the tsunami and agony of two people who find each other and then lose each otherthis, in turn, all on caused the same daynuclear meltdown. But what a momentous day! Life takes Malory The result was complete and Louisa off in totally different directions but strangely their paths cross again and againutter devastation. Malory The deaths were uncountable, searching to uncover his past, moves to Rome and discovers great and incredible facts about his ancestrythe loss of livelihoods was widespread. Louisa, 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 brilliant mathematician, is head hunted for 'secretconvenience store. He wasn' work and is signed up by her father for t a life time's contract with dog person but the American Government. She completely disappears from Maloryconvenience store owner's life and comment that he has no way of knowing how would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to find her again. They are both trapped open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in their separate lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>071565196X</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)Christopher Bowden|title=The PortraitMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Pierre-Francois. He should by rights be an antiques dealer, as he made Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a fortune selling on his first collection (patient untangling of erasers) while at school, and funded both his university and carnal education, with prostitutesa seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by trading tooher nephew after she has died. He is, however, The aunt who always provided a patent and intellectual property lawyer, safe harbour and his wife is forever demanding a reduction in the space his collections take up in their flat. But he still dabbles – although this latest visit little bit of indulgence to the showrooms will cause a lot of unexpected incident. In amongst the grot at a low-key sale he finds an ancient pastel, showing himself – young nephew had had a bewigged, antique version of himself, even if, however, nobody else sees the connection between Pierre-Francois much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and the picture's subject. Still, as it seems to him an effeminate uncle told him, ''real objects carry memory of their past owners'' – and Pierre-Francois is intent on finding the truths behind those memoriesobligation to find it all out. Little does he know just what he will discover…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477435</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Virginie Despentes and Frank Wynne (translator)Jennifer Mason|title= Vernon Subutex 1Partitions of Unity|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Vernon Subutex is a wanted man. Following the death of Alex BleachHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, Vernon's generous benefactor dominatrix and publicly adored musicianunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Vernon now has the last recordings when she investigated and unravelled a series of Alexdisappearances. In 's drug induced ramblings. Kicked out 'Partitions of his apartment the story follows Vernon as he couch surfs his way across Paris, pursued by journalists and media moguls desperate to cash in on BleachUnity''s death. Eventually finding himself out of luck, friends and money Vernon is left sleeping rough, half mad and forced to bear witness she sets her mind to solving a shocking act of violencemurder... In a world of capricious friends and grasping avaricious journalists who can Vernon trust?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857055410</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rowena MacDonaldWill Carver|title= The Threat Level Remains SevereDaves Next Door|rating= 3.54|genre= General Fiction|summary=Grace Ambrose isn't Brigitte Jones, honest; for Five strangers come together in one thing she doesn't keep moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a diaryLondon tube line. Grace As their fates overlap, the story is our typical misogynistic Hollywood stereotype supporting female charactertold in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment. She is the |isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''secretly hot chickA struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women'' who will suddenly take off their glassess track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, shake out their hair and reveal themselves to have been beautiful all along. We follow Grace and her romantic adventures K(and misadventuress, x) over three years , on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of her life at the House cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of Commonsthis mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910709158</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt HaigB0B2N7MVYM|title=How to Stop TimeThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom is an albatross. ThatIt's not to say he has a freakish wingspan, or anything, but it means he's not a mayfly. In contrast to all us regular humans with our temperamental bodies living out short lifespans, he ages at a speed roughly one-fifteenth the 10th of that at which December 1962 when we do, and barely gets touched by any diseasefirst meet Dr Joseph Marr. It means he will live for several more centuries than the ones he has witnessed so far, but ever since his mother was drowned as a witch due Just to his teenaged self never ageingput what happens in context, he has known the best thing for him – and others – Cuban missile crisis is to regularly move onstill very fresh in people's minds. Solitude The world has been tempered since the late Victorian era, when other people even older than him press-ganged him into their society of albatrosses, but the fact of the matter is that falling in love really is barely had a no-nochance to breathe out. But thatfor Joe Marr, it's not to say it never happened, and the missile crisis that's not to say that he can't feel things for at the albatross daughter hefront of his mind. He's not seen for centuriesbeen convicted of murder. It might be With the only thing he has to live for…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782118616</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Dane Huckelbridge|title= Castle current state of Water|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Barry Bleeker and Sophie Ducel are two very different people destined medical knowledge, it's hard to take think otherwise than that the same journeyprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. As they are both aboard a flight He's just getting used to the Marquesas Islandshis roommate, Mervyn, their tiny plane crashes leaving Barry and Sophie the only survivors. Until recently, Barry was an investment banker in New York before he decided learning to leave his life behind and pursue his dream be wary of painting. Sophie meanwhile, was a French architect who along with her husband Etienne was planning a honeymoon of a lifetime. Now Barry and Sophie are alone on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific, where they must learn to put aside their differences and surviveMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008217858</amazonuk>
}}
 
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