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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__

|author=Camilla BruceOnyi Nwabineli|title=You Let Allow Me Into Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri 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's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It'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 been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|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 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 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. 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 Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, 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 the delivery to his house is a new friend, a 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, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A 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

|summary= EccentricPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and has been pronounced legally dead by her lawyersbusy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Her will instructs her niece After Bear dies and nephew to enter her home a brief sojourn in human company, and find armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the key to their inheritance in an old manuscript left in her office: forest, broadcasting the last story she'll ever tellstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|isbn=1787633179

|author= Becky Albertalli and Aisha SaeedSarah Marsh|title= Yes No Maybe So A Sign of Her Own|rating= 43.5|genre= TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= ''We might give it our all and crash and burnAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, don't you think?''Jaime has been spending his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for Suddenly plunged into a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassingworld of silence, he can't think of anything worseeverything about her life changes. However, Jaime has always wanted to be Living in a politician and decides there is no time like when the present to conquer his fear use of speaking sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to the public. Maya is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who school where she is having the worst summer of her lifetaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Her parents are going through a separation From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has zero plans for been teaching the summer to help take her mind off things deaf and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy her, her parents offer to buy her using a car if she agrees to go canvassingsystem called Visible Speech. The pair could possibly be At the worst canvassing duo in historysame time, as neither of them really want to be there, but as the campaign goes Bell is working on they discover that they careother inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other?complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=14711846681035401614

|authorisbn=Elliot ReedB0BC3YTCMR|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5

|summary=''This story is the story not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a young boyvery bright student, William Tycea bit too nerdy if truth be told, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his fathersuffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's abandonmentcontagious. However, it isnIt't told in the usual narrative ways not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as She had a way of describing certain events, situations crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and emotionsReggie asked if she would tutor him. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to ALPHABETICAL ORDERhis house and he raped her. As I began In shock, she even allowed him to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's storygive her a lift home.|isbn=1911545418

|authorisbn= T R Hendrick1472263936|title= What if They KnewThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary= Itwas 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 Hamish (Helena's 2025parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Underneath a lodge Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the Blue Mountain resort in Pennsylvaniafamily's maid, is a secret facility. HereDina, Dr Benton but was wary - and his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf frightened - of the Benefactorher grandfather, their anonymous funderretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Already, He was proud of his close connections to the team have succeeded in teleporting small primates from one place Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to anotheraccommodate them. But, unbeknownst to the Benefactor, Dr Benton has also coded for another type of teleportation altogether His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - travel through time. And heinherited from her father's ready to testScottish ancestors. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for his technology in mind|isbn=1734277211

|author=H G Parry Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah HeepGrave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=Brothers Rob The village is isolated and Charley have struggled to see eye to eye for years - Rob poor. It's surrounded by a sensible lawyer who exists in Witching Forest. And the "normal" world villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and Charley a man who is blessed with an ability he can't fully control - one which allows him to bring literary characters into the real worldits blossom provides herbal medicines. After years The black wood of protecting Charleythe forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, Rob wants to discharge his duties and leave Charley to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out of both their hands. As literary characters begin to appear everywhereeven gallows, it soon becomes clear that someone out there shares Charley's powers and intends to use them for nefarious gainsif needed. Rob The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and Charley must team up to stop that is the madness reason Volushka, a drunken, self- in indulgent, lazy lout of a battle to win before they, the characters and the world reach The End…|isbn=0356513777man is tolerated.

|isbn=1643785036B0BYF82CXT|title=The Wondrous ApothecarySemi-Detached|author=Mary E MartinDeborah Stone

|summary=Those who have known Alexander Wainwright, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay Wagon''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and Rinaldodisappointment, renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk when Terry and cheeseFiona – glamorous, if successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not sworn enemieswhat it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. If you've watched the relationship, as He is everything she has our narratorbeen searching for; handsome, art dealer Jamie Helmsworthaccomplished, you'd have said that they were magnetsclever, drawing funny; total and repulsing each other utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in equal measurea wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. Wainwright was at When the socially acceptable end of much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the artistic continuumaisle by her father, but beaming with Rinaldo it pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was all too obvious the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that there was but a fine dividing line between conceptual art she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and public nuisancearrived on the island. As time has worn onRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he's frequently been brought made any sort of physical approach to the attention of the policeher and by that time she was obsessed by him. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and theft of ''The Hay Wagon''in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.

|author=Mary H.K. ChoiAmanda Craig|title=Permanent RecordThree Graces|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Pablo, a college dropFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-out, is working at a New York bodeganation novel. HeThere's massively in debt, he's avoiding his mother, something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one eveningcapture it, he's surprised to discover that crafting an image of the girl he is chatting with as he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely country as it may seem, they start a relationshipstands in one particular moment. With one character who To say that Amanda Craig is trying very hard not to skilled at doing this would be seen or noticed by anyone, and the other who is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the world, itembarrassingly inadequate: she's an interesting clash as they come togetherpractically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. This isn't just She has such a love story though, and actually it's really just Pab's story, about gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the journey he takes lives of her characters in his life via his meeta way that feels natural and lived-up in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with Leanna Smartissues far larger than themselves.|isbn=0349003459140871468X

|authorisbn=Daniel Kraus152915118X|title=Blood SugarPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=This ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a difficult read. And not because of the dark subject matter – thatStockton by birth so she isn'll come later – but because of t readily accepted into the way in which ittribe. The problem's told. This might put a lot of readers offexacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and to be honest itSasha if they'd be hard like to blame them. Kraus tells move into the story in a distinctive voice unlike any other I've read; an erratic dialect with heavy and frequent slangPineapple Street property. The immediate effect is disorientating Tilda and distracting, Chip have renovated and it takes some time downsized to feel naturalanother property, a street or so away, which they own. It They won's a struggle to acclimatise to Jody's voicet need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, to get acquainted with his mannerismsso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but the story wouldnthat wasn't be the same without it, reality. Darley and somehow it worksGeorgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. It shouldn She's living in 't, but 'their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it doesto 'the GD'.|isbn=1789091934

|isbnauthor=B07W4MNBSGEmily Critchley|title=Be Careful Who You Marry|author=Lizzy MumfreyOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It was coming up 84 year old Edie has lived in the 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 Halloween in 1987 lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a group secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing when they were fiftyhappened all that time ago. When youAfter 'seeing're only seventeen that seems positively ancientLucy in the high street, but Liz just as she was convinced that ''your entire life depends on who you marry''the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. The only eligible boys were And yet as she remembers the Young Farmers past, she is forgetting more and the idea of living more in a farmhouse and having a couple of children called Will and Olly appealed her day to Charlotte, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined to marry the rather superior Patrick Shepley-Bothamday life. The place to start their search was obviously Will she uncover the Young Farmerstruth about Lucy' Halloween disco that weekend. There was just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in the class.s disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250

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 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingisbn="15" 0008506337<!-- Will Carver -->|title=The Garnett Girls|-author=Georgina Moore| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"5|genre=General Fiction[[image:1912374838.jpg|linksummary=httpThe 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-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 - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children://wwwRachel, Imogen and Sasha.amazon Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight.co Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.uk/dp/1912374838/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]

{{Frontpage| styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[Nothing Important Happened Today There's Only One Danny Garvey by Will CarverDavid F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]]a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lucy Ashe|title=Clara and Olivia|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a 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 charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|isbn=0861544080}}{{Frontpage|author=Heather Fawcett|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst 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 the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|isbn=0356519120}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}}

{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Bowden|title=Mr Magenta|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence 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. |isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Partitions of Unity|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[imagePreposterous:4starAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances.jpgIn ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder...|linkisbn=Category:{B09LQR9FRF}}{{Frontpage|author=Will Carver|title=The Daves 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}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous:An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|General Fiction]]summary=''A 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's 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, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''

Nothing Important Happened Today This is just a dark, twisted, difficult read. Stories about cults often are, but this is different; it's written with a sense sample of style that is quite unlike anything I've read before. I can't remember ever having read a novel with such an odd, distinctive narrative voice. While a slim and relatively small book, the slow-moving nature cast of the plot makes it feel far larger than its 276 pages. [[Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver|Full Review]] <!-- Claire North -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:williamabbey.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0316316849/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]  When William Abbey fails to prevent the lynching of a young boy in 1880's South Africa, he finds himself cursed by the grieving mother. A naïve English Doctor, he slowly learns the weight of the curse upon him, as the shadow of the dead boy begins to follow him across the world. Never stopping, always growing – it crosses oceans characters and mountains settings in pursuit of WilliamPreposterous. As he finds himself unable to resist speaking the truths that he hears in othersyou can see, he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and seeks to kill the one he loves the most… [[some keeping up will be required! The Pursuit basic premise of William Abbey by Claire North|Full Review]] <!-- Oates -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785656775this mystery story goes like this.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785656775/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|B09STS96HS}}===[[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]FrontpageBobby is an angry, damaged man - damage that came from being abandoned as a baby in a bus station locker, and then being thrown from one foster home or detention centre to another, never far from violence or abuse. Eager to succeed as a musician, he arrives in Hollywood to find his dream - but it soon becomes clear that his paranoid delusions and seething rage will enable a capacity for acts of extreme violence. Unpublished for 40 years, this edition of ''The Triumph of the Spider Monkey'' comes combined with a connected novella – ''Love, Careless Love''. [[The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates|Full Review]] <!-- Ellory -->|-| styleisbn=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|B0B2N7MVYM[[image:1542007232.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542007232/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|title===[[The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Berlin, 1989. Miriam is in the middle Calculations of a city freshly united, with the Wall newly broken down and people able to cross at liberty for the first time in decades. She is in the middle of such euphoria, but cannot feel it, for she has not left her father's apartment in weeks, nursing him as he lies dying. One standard bed-bath, however, is very different, when he gasps the name ''Frieda'' that she does not recognise – and she sees for the first time ever a tattoo for his camp inmate identity under his watch. One bombshell outside, then, and two inside. And inside her father, Henryk, what is going on, as he has a first person narrative alternating with her story? What will we find happened, as he remembers back to the real Frieda, a young woman that shook him to the core when he was her literature professor? That's right, more bombshells… [[The Rabbit Girls by Anna Ellory|Full Review]] <!-- McGee -->Rational Men|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Daniel Godfrey[[image:0241365953.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241365953/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|5===[[American Royals by Katharine McGee]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Two and a half centuries ago, America won the Revolutionary War and General George Washington was offered the crown. Today, the House of Washington still sit on the thrown with Princess Beatrice next in line. Beatrice's whole life has been building up to her ruling the United States and the time for her reign is imminent. [[American Royals by Katharine McGee|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| stylesummary=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the authorIt's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, the tale 10th of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it December 1962 when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Coleman -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785032461.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785032461/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]] Trudy Heaton is going home, Just to a house where her roots burrow back through the centuries and to a mother she hasn't spoken to for sixteen years. Home, her refuge, Ponden Hallput what happens in context, where she can heal herself and try to come to terms with the traumatic loss of her husband. She needs to build bridges with her mother and convince her grieving son that his father Cuban missile crisis is dead. Where better than the house full of light and shadow, that nurtured her throughout her childhood? [[The Girl at the Window by Rowan Coleman|Full Review]] |-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0008291845.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0008291845/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[We Are Not Okay by Natalia Gomes]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Teens|Teens]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Set still very fresh in a typical American town, ''We Are Not Okay'' tells the story of four teenage girls facing the difficulties brought on by high school and growing up as a girl in todaypeople's societyminds. The novel is told from four different perspectives, those of Lucy, Ulana, Trina and Sophia, whose friendship statuses vary from BFFs to sworn enemies. The reader is presented with a glimpse into each of their lives, but more importantly their minds, and at times the thoughts of those characters could have been taken directly from my own. Gomes world has created barely had a heartbreakingly real and relevant novel that focuses on prominent topic areas which are becoming ingrained in our society, particularly in relation chance to the ''Me Too Movement''. ''We Are Not Okay'' reminds the reader of the importance of phrases like ''I'm With Her''. [[We Are Not Okay by Natalia Gomes|Full Review]]  <!-- Kate Tough -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:034914365X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/034914365X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]] Life has just hidden behind a corner and stuck a foot breathe out as Rhona Beech came past. She and Mark had been together But for nine years and it was beginning to feel ''settled''. Then Mark announced that he'd got a job in Canada and he was going whether Rhona wanted to come with him or not. The ''not'' bit of the sentence was the way it worked out and Rhona was left on her own. Well, she wasn't completely on her own: she had friends and familyJoe Marr, but it's not the same as having that special someone in your life, that someone who makes you part of a couple. So Rhona had to start again, rejoining a world missile crisis that bore little resemblance to the one she'd left nine years ago - and there's a lot of difference between being in the middle of your twenties and the middle of your thirties. [[Keep Walking Rhona Beech by Kate Tough|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity front of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocidehis mind. He finds himself trying to find this book's version been convicted of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be bettermurder. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Jane O'Connor -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:B07GLCDXZL.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GLCDXZL/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Women's Fiction|Women's Fiction]] We first meet Sylvia Penton on her birthday and her boss, With the Prof, is taking her out to lunch. This is her favourite day current state of the yearmedical knowledge, not because it's her birthday but because of the special time she gets hard to spend with the man she loves. He's told her that he and his wife are going to divorce - Martha is apparently having an affair - and Sylvia is convinced think otherwise than that the Prof will then declare prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his love and they can be together. She hasnfirst few days in HMP Queen't fully constructed 'together' in her own mind - she envisages it as romantics Bench, but her imagination hasn't yet progressed to the sexual part of the relationshipa relatively new prison. ThereHe's time though - she's only been the prof's PA for fifteen years. [[Needlemouse by Jane O'Connor|Full Review]] <!-- Laurain -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1910477672.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910477672/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Vintage 1954 starts by thrusting several completely different characters upon us, before deciding just getting used to run with them and formulate a plot. So we have an American biker, just landing in Paris but unfortunately not with the wife who shared his dream of visiting the city together. We have a goth girl who everyone recognises from an American crime showroommate, but actually is a humble restorer of antiques. We have a cocktail barman, infatuated with the goth girl. We also have a man ruling the roost over a whole suite of individual apartments fabricated from the Haussmann-era mansion his family once owned. Finally something conspires to get them togetherMervyn, and drinking from the same bottle of a rare 1954 red wine. Only, one of them has a bizarre incidence in his family history that also features the same plonk – where a grandfather imbibed, and walked out the door one rainy morning, never learning to be seen again. But wary of course nobody will be doing any disappearing now, though – will they? [[Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, Jane Aitken (translator) and Emily Boyce (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- McLean -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1786076071.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.cothe McArthur brothers.uk/dp/1786076071/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Felicity McLean]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] When Tikka Molloy was eleven and one-sixth years old, the Van Apfel sisters disappeared. In the long hot summer of 1992, in an isolated suburb of Australia surrounded by Bushland, the girls vanished during the school's Showstopper concert at the riverside amphitheatre. Did they run away? Were they taken? While the search for the sisters united the small community, they were never found. Returning home years later, Tikka must make sense of that strange moment in time – of the summer that shaped her, and the girls she never forgot. [[The Van Apfel Girls are Gone by Felicity McLean|Full Review]]