Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Scoop of the YearOnyi Nwabineli|authortitle=Tom ClaverAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Martin is an ambitious journalist working Anuri spent her childhood on display to the Financial Review. Martin is good at his job world, thanks to her step- accuratemother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, dedicatedwhere she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, hardworking and with a good nose for a scoopmonetary gain. But Martin Now Anuri is also uninterested in the culture that comes with reporting. He has a wife her twenties and two daughters at home she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and he doesn't want to waste time and money in the pubget her life back, talking macho nonsense with suing her step-mother to take down the other hackscontent about her. He Anuri is a far cry battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from his colleague Tom de Lacythem for doing so. Most importantly, a charismaticshe is desperately worried about her little sister, silver-spooned charmer with piercing blue eyes. Tom doesnwho is the new focus of Ophelia't just grab the limelight though - he also grabs the promotion to industrial correspondents online empire. And that is Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the job Martin not only wanted, but needed.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1788036220</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1529153298|title=The Good Pilot Peter WoodhouseList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=If youIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've never read an Alexander McCall Smith novelbeen murdered, but to have always thought you might like to try, one day then this might be the book to start with'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Rather than face the daunting task of leaping into one of his now very long-running series, this is a standalone novel, and it gives a good flavour of AMSMiv's upset because she's style, the way he can write overheard that her father wants to evoke a feeling of time and place, and move the warm optimism underlying his words that is so very reassuring and comforting to readfamily 'Down South'. It calls itself When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a wartime romance'frightening, which it isforeign place, and yet it is much more than that besidesbest avoided. Focussing mainly on ValFor Miv, a young woman working as a Land Girlthe move would mean leaving her best friend, we see her falling in love with an American pilotSharon, Mike Rogersand she'll do anything to prevent that. Thanks to a sheepdog on ValShe's farm (the Peter Woodhouse from not worried about the title) their lives become entwined with dangers or that of a German soldier, and the book shows us a variety of friendships as they grow and develop over the yearsher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846974097</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Krysten Ritter1035906708|title= BonfireDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence We tend to think of her small town roots. Now working Maria Callas as an environmental lawyer in ChicagoGreek, but she has a thriving careerwas born to Greek parents in Manhattan, a modern apartmentNew York, in December 1923 and her pick of meaningless one-night standsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen.But when a new case takes Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her back home father changed it to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town's most high-profile company and economic heart, Abby begins Callas' to find strange connections to Barrens' biggest scandal from make it more than a decade ago involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her closest friends--just before Kaycee disappeared for good.Abby knows the key to solving any case lies manageable in the weak spots, the unanswered questionsStates. But as When she tries desperately to find out what really happened to Kaycee, troubling memories begin to resurface and was back in Athens - supposedly so that she begins to doubt could get appropriate training for her own observations. And when voice - she unearths an even more disturbing secret--was raised under the Nazi occupation by a ritual called ''The Game,'' it will threaten the reputations, mother who mercilessly exploited her and lives, made no secret of the community and risk exposing a darkness that may consume herpreference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524759848</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice HoffmanAlexander McCall Smith|title= The Rules of MagicPerfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= I've read several of Alice Hoffman's novelsThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, although strangelyrun by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, not tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the one she's most famous for ''Practical Magic''business, which went on as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to be made into get away for a filmwhile. ''The Rules Katie is coming out of Magic'' is a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the long-awaited prequel chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to that bookan Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and tells the story of three siblings of the Owens family; FrannyIsabel Dalhousie novels, Jet and Vincentbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. The two sistersKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, Franny and Jetthere's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, go on to become the two aunts in the ''Practical Magic'' story.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471157679</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stephen FryDean Koontz|title= Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient GreeceThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= ReferenceParanormal|summary= The Greek Myths areBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, arguablyhe loses his fiancee, the greatest stories ever toldand his house gets trashed. So old Oh, and influential they cast someone has delivered a shadow over western tales really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and traditionsit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, yet remain relatable and readable millennia laterBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Here comedian So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, actora bad weather friend called Spike, television presenterwho 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, actor and author Stephen Fry brings his considerable talent to these special stories will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and recreates them with Harper (a wit, warmth and humanity that brings them waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into the modern age whilst still giving the honour and respect that such ancient and influential stories deserveBenny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718188721</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lorenzo Marone and Shaun Whiteside (Translator)Katherine Howe|title=The Temptation to Be HappyA True Account

|summary=Cesare Hannah Masury is 77living in Boston, widowedhaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, generally ignored by the offspring he likes and bothered too much by the one he doesn'tbeing made to work there from a young age. StillWhen she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, he finds ways she decides to fill his daysgo and watch. If heEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's not taking advantage death at the hands of his friend-with-benefits arrangement with aging lady of the night Rossanatwo vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, or keeping an eye on his grandsonand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, hedressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's making mischief pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in league with elderly neighbours like Signora Vitaliano (local mad cat woman) and Marino (the non-IT-literate computer guy). Their minds are diverted from their usual pursuits thick of things when there is a young couple move into the apartment block providing Cesare with a concern mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the conviction that he has to do something, whatever the fall out or personal dangerocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786072882</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lars Mytting and Paul Russell Grant (Translator)1471180158|title=The Sixteen Trees of the SommeMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|summary=While his grandfather lived the past was Jamie Matson works in an area of certainty upper-class grocery store, for Edvard. At aged 4 hea man who'd been taken to live s a control freak with his grandparents, having survived all the accident that killed his parentssubtlety of a half brick. Now his grandfather Jamie's son, Bo, 'has died revelations are coming to light showing Edvard his family history is different from what heproblems'd believed… his mother. He's birthplaceasthmatic and the more you read, his motherthe more you'll suspect that he's name, on the whereabouts of late Greatautistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -Uncle Einar… she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and thatsometimes Bo's without looking more deeply into the fatal accident itselfnot fit enough to go to school. Edvard is determined Missed shifts or the need to solve the puzzle, a determination that will take him be away on time to pick Bo up from his native Norway school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to an area of France synonymous with devastation and a remote Scottish island loaded with secretshead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857056069</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis de BernieresB0CKD1L5JL|title=Blue DogRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=Mick's mother had a mental breakdown after his father's death Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and Mick was sent to live in busy human society, in the outback with Granpaforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. On the face of it you'd think that it was going to be After Bear dies and a lonely life for an eleven-year-old city boybrief sojourn in human company, and armed with no school to attendonly a pirate radio transmitter, in fact no other children anywhere near. Granpa's busy too: life Petr goes on a cattle station is brutal for anyonejourney through the forest, with all broadcasting the heat strange, wild and the dust. But they've all got to make the best of the situationrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784704172</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah WinmanMarsh|title=Tin ManA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other 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=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to 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: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=Ellis is a tin man – someone who practices the under-esteemed art of panel beatingIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. He can remove a dintShe was alone: her mother, dent or blemish Greek by expertly applying force so that you can't even feel where birth, had left the mark was. If he has family home and refused to choose what would define his life, thoughreturn, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it wouldn’t would be his joba pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. It Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be Michael the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and Anniethe family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Michael, He was proud of his close connections to the lad he grew up with Junta and Annie who completed their triangle, changing expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena'everything s red hair and nothinggreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. Now only Ellis remains…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755390954</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Durian Sukegawa and Alison Watts (translator)Dean Koontz|title= Sweet Bean PasteAfter Death|rating= 53|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Sweet Bean Paste'' centres on SentaroMichael Mace, an ex-con who dreams Head of being Security, at a writer, but instead spends his days making dorayakitop secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a type of Japanese pancakebio-hazard accident. He reluctantly employs Tokue Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, an elderly lady with disfigured handshe has a sense that something very, after tasting her divine bean paste - very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the perfect filling for said dorayakishrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. Predictably 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|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a friendship soon blossoms between 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 pairforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, despite her age and appearanceeven gallows, if needed. In many waysThe fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, this could sound cliché - a protagonist learns a valuable lesson about not judging someone by their appearance after finding a friend in someone they never expected to likedrunken, not exactly an unheardself-indulgent, lazy lout of concepta man is tolerated. Yet, Sukegawa still manages to enthral his audience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786071959</amazonuk>

 {{newreview <!-- remove 11 Oct -->Frontpage|authorisbn=Terence J FryB0BYF82CXT|title=The Creative Writer for the Creative NewspaperSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=1.54

|summary=The man we shall come to know as The Creative Writer was looking out ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of the window of his office boredom and disappointment, when he spotted a beautiful woman struggling to stay upright Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in the tornado which was rattling the windows ferociouslynext door. Then he realised that it wasn't just Despite their different outlooks on life, the dreadful weather which was affecting her: the woman was doubled up in pain couples befriend each other and he could see bloodlife appears to improve for both pairs. AmazinglyBut all is not what it seems, no one was stopping to help her, worried, he would find out later that, they might be sued if something went wrong. The Creative Writer had no such worries - he dashed out into the tornado and brought her back into the house, shouting at his grandmother that she should call an ambulancetheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524682136</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Catherine BurnsShalini Boland|title= The VisitorsSilent Bride|rating= 53|genre= ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brotherAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, Johnclever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a decaying Georgian townhouse on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her fifties who still sleeps with teddy bearswife; beautiful, successful, Marion does her best to shut out confident… and so the shocking secret that John keeps in inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the cellarwedding is planned and set. Until, suddenly When the much-anticipated day arrives, John has a heart attack and Marion Alice is forced to go walked down to the cellar herself aisle by her father, beaming with pride and face excitement as she surveys the gruesome truth that her brother has kept hidden. As questions are asked congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and secrets unravelwhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, maybe John isnAlice't s world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the only one with a dark sideman at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1787199851</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= J R Ward1787636003|title= Devil's CutThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=I feel as though I came to this book under false pretenses. I requested It was the book thinking I was getting a murder mystery summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and instead I arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was thrown head first into a roaring family saga. Indeed, said murder mystery though pivotal in the history of the familyperhaps, naive, is more of a quiet subplot and catalyst from where to begin the storytelling for the book. And so it was I was met with the Baldwine family and the Bradford Bourbon Company. The initial meeting is a romantic one as the family are presented high up in their castle on the hill when thirty-four-year- or old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in this case from their beautiful Kentuckian Bradford Family Estate replete with tea rosesher, fruit trees and hazy Southern sunshineshe was flattered rather than wary. It isn't long however was quite a while before Ward transports the reader from such rolling splendour he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the darkest corners of human psychology wherein fathers island and sons may share in particular in the bar where all the same lover, brothers are divided by suspicion and jealousy and women are used as trophies and commoditiesgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349417024</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phill FeatherstoneAmanda Craig|title= Paradise GirlThree Graces|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Kerryl Shaw lives on a Yorkshire farm – a somewhat idealised one that survives on a few hens and two or three cows and a few sheep. The kind Few styles of farm that might have been profitable in contemporary fiction interest me like the 1950s but by state-of-the time Kerryl has arrived should have been struggling-nation novel. A teenage boy not pulling his weight, now that There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the grandparents are old day and capture it, crafting an image of the father country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is dead, skilled at doing this would not be met embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with exasperated indulgencethe genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. There are no stock-hands, no farm managers, no applications She has such a gift for subsidies, or worries about weaving the tax return. Maybe ongoing issues of the unwelcome wind turbine covers day into the costs lives of the rest of it. Alreadyher characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, in settingnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, it's feeling a little unrealgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. But maybe we can forgive that… |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785898728</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sandra Aragona152915118X|title=Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive DiplomacyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=Sarah ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to Giorgio 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 Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and when we first meet them hedownsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won's Something Very Senior in t need any of the foreign ministry furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in Rome. Nominally, much they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the disappointment of his mother who thought gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that hethey abbreviate it to 'the GD'd be there .}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her (in Sicily)whole life, but not only does he go now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and marry a foreignerbring 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, he has and the worry that there was a job which will take him secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all over that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the worldlast time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Such And yet as she remembers the past, she is the forgetting more and more in her day to day life of the diplomat. Their two daughters have Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are 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 lead be a pretty peripatetic life toolight and weightless feeling, but when I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the family comes into our lives they24-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 how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O're Leary was all -consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in Rome love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - for going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the time being - event, they eloped and just back Richard took her away from Nigeriathe Isle of Wight. To add Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a 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 confusion theredoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's Beagle, just about as undiplomatic a dog as youmind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''ll encounter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1542733405</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Neviaser1914585402|title=You Dear, Sweet ManDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross

|summary=Bobby FastowI reviewed David F Ross's journey to work on the subway was an oasis of calm in an otherwise exhausting day: nothing was required book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of him. He could sit years back and relax, gazing at the adverts until he got to his stop remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and went to his physically-demanding jobaffecting it was. The ad for BurgerBlast caught his eye: a beautiful woman It was sitting on a boardroom tablegripping, encouraging you to emotionally wounding read about the business's move away from artery-choking food to a healthier menu, but and rereading my review of it wasn't the message which caught Bobby's attention. It my main takeaway was the woman. She seemed to be looking directly at him and he could that I might not have sworn that she winked..lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0976018527</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Laura SolomonLucy Ashe|title=Taking WainuiClara and Olivia|rating=24.5

|summary= This The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the first time I have come across Laura Solomonoutside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's worka lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a New Zealand writer who has won writing prizes for both her fiction and poetrycharm, a ''joie de vivre''. Although this book appears to be The difference between a collection of short storieshard-worker, I found its format somewhat confusingand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>8193409353</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Debbie HowellsHeather Fawcett|title= The Death Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of HerFaeries|rating= 34|genre= General Fiction|summary=In a quiet part of rural CornwallEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, villagers are shocked to learn that a local woman and she has been attacked travelled extensively, and left for dead in a maize field. So severe are her injuriesresearched meticulously, that her memory has been affected and she struggles to remember details of write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. She tells the police that Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she thinks her name is Evienot so good with people. Then So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she remembers something else; is not sure what she has a three-year-old daughter called Angel. Where is Angeldone, nor how to redeem herself and what happened to put her final investigations for her when book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her mother was attacked? The police frantically search for Angel's whereaboutsdashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, but on closer examination of Eviemuch to Emily's cottage, they find no evidence of a child ever having lived there..frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1509834648</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1398515388|title=The House of Unexpected SistersBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=Dear Mma Ramotswe is backFirst of all, for it was the eighteenth (!) book earthquake, deep in the seriesocean floor, which created the tsunami and what a beautiful book it is. I ran through the whole tumult of emotions whilst reading this story, with all in turn, caused the usual moments of humour, annoying (nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and yet endearing) idiosyncrasies of characterutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, low level mystery solving and endless cups the loss of redbush tealivelihoods was widespread. There is 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 case for the agency with dog outside a lady who has been wrongfully fired from her jobconvenience store. ThereHe wasn's t a dog person but the worrying, background presence of Mma Makutsiconvenience store owner's nemesis, Violet Sepotho, who must surely have been involved comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in this poor lady's job woes. And there is the difficult discovery of an unknown family member for Mma Ramotswe, and an unwelcome return from another.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408708140</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maja Lunde and Diane Oatley (translator)Christopher Bowden|title=The History of BeesMr Magenta

|summary=Bees are Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a handy symbol patient untangling of the planeta seemingly ordinary woman's environmental degradationlife, as you'll know if you've read anything carried out by [[:Category:Dave Goulson|Dave Goulson]] – whose endorsement is featured proudly on the cover of this Uher nephew after she has died.K. release The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of Norwegian children's writer Maja Lunde's first novel for adults. The creatures also provide subtle links between the book's three story linesindulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471162745</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jem VanstonJennifer Mason|title=A Cat Called Dog 2 - The One with the KittensPartitions of Unity

|summary=GeorgeHere at Bookbag Towers, Dog the cat we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and Eric the stray were indulging themselves with a philosophical discussion unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when they heard some strange mewing. Three kittens had found their way into the garden she investigated and told the resident cats that their mother had told them to run away when unravelled a two-legs cat catcher came for them allseries of disappearances. Mother couldnIn 't run as 'Partitions of Unity'', she had sets her mind to solving a sore paw, but Daisy, Maisie and Boo had run and run and runmurder. They'd no idea what happened to her - or how to get back home again. George is getting on in years and wouldn't like to upset his two legs, The Lady, by being away from home for too long, so he appoints Dog as leader of an expedition to reunite the kittens and their Mother.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786293390</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susi OsborneWill Carver|title=Angelica StoneThe Daves Next Door

|summary=I'd say that Angelica Stone was known Five strangers come together in one moment as Angel a suicide bomber prepares to her friends, but she's not big detonate his vest on friendsa London tube line. She has As their fates overlap, the sort of background you dread hearing about: sexually abused as a childstory is told in backwards order, grabbed by leading up to the care system and didn't so much fall through the cracks as escaped its clutches and then had to learn how to copefateful moment. She|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='s been told that she's taintedA struggling poetry zine, that she ruins every relationship without intending to a mom-and that she-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's best staying away from 'decent' people. One track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of her jobs is working -the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a supermarket and it's there that she meets Lola Moriarty and ''she'scheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''  This is just a completely different kettle sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of fishthis mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911320947</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Virginia MacgregorB0B2N7MVYM|title= Before I Was YoursThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Rosie can see clearly her future family in her mind. And It's the 10th of December 1962 when that doesn't happen, she adaptswe first meet Dr Joseph Marr. So maybe she won't carry the baby inside her Just to put what happens in context, but that lovely blonde girl at the adoption event could be their new daughter. Yes, she looks like she belongs to them already. ItCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's meant minds. The world has barely had a chance to bebreathe out. Except But for Joe Marr, it's notthe missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. Rosie and Sam don He't get to have a genetic child s been convicted of murder. With the current state of their ownmedical knowledge, and they donit't get s hard to adopt think otherwise than that the perfect blonde girlprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. They end up with the exact opposite: a boy from Kenya with a peculiar back story and an ardent wish not He's just getting used to be adopted. As optimistic as Rosie his roommate, Mervyn, and Sam try learning to be, this isn't quite what they pictured or hoped forwary of the McArthur brothers. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751565229</amazonuk>