Changes

|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to 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=B08774SJYN1529153298|title=The Greenbacker GambitList of Suspicious Things|author=Ben GraffJennie Godfrey

|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'I suppose . 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 odd fleeting sense business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of loneliness 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 price 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 truly successful people must pay 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 our giftsa man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. I tell myself He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that I 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|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. 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 forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A 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 so willingly, 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.}}

Tennessee Greenbecker{{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Isn She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena't s parents) felt that it would be a name pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to conjure with? There are hints that it might not have been the name he was given at birthfamily apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but many was wary - and frightened - of us have moved onher grandfather, so far as names go, from retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the one we were originally saddled withJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Greenbecker His prejudices included Helena's life 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 top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is one of constant reinventionreleased in a bio-hazard accident. He tells us 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's sits up and looks around at the foremost chess player never to have been world championshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, and it does seem he realises that there is something different about him; he has some considerable talent as far as chess goescan ''feel'' everything. He ''Everything's determined that he's going to fulfil what he sees as his destiny. He just needs to do some study to be able to beat the current players ranked at numbers one and two in the world. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana will not stand in his way Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467

|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=J Paul HendersonWilliam Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. }} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=DaisySemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=This is the story of Herod S. Pinkney''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a rather unusual (yet somehow charming) man who is in search depressing rut of a woman called Daisyboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, whom he first sees successful and very much in love – move in an episode of Judge Judy next door. Despite their different outlooks on television life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and instantly falls 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 love with her! heaven. Rod He is writing the novel of his questeverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, guided by an embittered exfunny; total and utter husband-literary agent who material. She is now clearing glasses all he could possibly want in a pub for a livingwife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. Determined When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to find celebrate this joyful day and meet Daisywhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, the book takes us through RodAlice's lifeworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, introduces us who is waiting for her to become his friends, and tells us of what happens in his quest for lovewife.|isbn=08573033091662507089

{{Frontpage |isbn=1529123941 1787636003|title=The Silent Treatment Girls of Summer|author=Abbie Greaves Katie Bishop|rating=4.5 |genre=General Fiction |summary= When we meet Professor Frank Hobbs It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and his wife, Maggie, Frank is playing chess against his computer, although not very successfullyCaroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. MaggieRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, on the other handnaive, has just taken some pills so when thirty- eight of themfour-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, in fact - and before long she will collapsewas flattered rather than wary. When Frank rings the emergency services in Oxford It was quite a while before he has a bit made any sort of a problem. He has physical approach to admit her and by that he and Maggie haven't actually spoken for a whiletime she was obsessed by him. How long? WellAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, it's about six months since he spoke to Maggie looking after his interests on the island and he can't really say if it's likely that Maggie has tried to take her own lifein particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.

|author=Camilla BruceAmanda Craig|title=You Let Me InThree Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''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 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 downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon

|summary= EccentricThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, isolated romance novelist Cassandra Tipp has been missing for a year apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and has been pronounced legally dead described by her lawyersMargo's mother as 'an older man'. Her will instructs parents worried that Richard's influence would take her niece away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and nephew having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to enter her home Oxford and find the key went on to their inheritance become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in an old manuscript left in her officeLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: the last story ''shewould never be able to leave him in charge''ll ever tell.|isbn=1787633179Then Richard left them.

|authorisbn= Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed1914585402|title= Yes No Maybe So Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'We might give it our all and crash and burn. But we might win. We might actually change things. And that maybe makes it still worth going for, don't you think?'s Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'Jaime has been spending his summer helping his cousin with campaigning in time for s Only One Danny Garvey]] a special election. When his mother encourages him to go canvassing, he can't think couple of anything worse. However, Jaime has always wanted to be a politician years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and decides there is no time like the present to conquer his fear of speaking to the publicaffecting it was. Maya is It was a Pakistani-American Muslim girl who is having the worst summer of her life. Her parents are going through a separationgripping, emotionally wounding read, she has zero plans for the summer to help take her mind off things and her only close friend is permanently busy. To help occupy her, her parents offer to buy her a car if she agrees to go canvassing. The pair could possibly be the worst canvassing duo in history, as neither rereading my review of them really want to be there, but as the campaign goes it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on they discover that they care, a lot, about the election - and maybe even about each other?|isbn=1471184668it.

|author=Elliot ReedLucy 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 Key to Treehouse Livingstage 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

|summary=This Emily Wilde is the story of a young boyan expert academic scholar on faerie lore, William Tyceand she has travelled extensively, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his fatherresearched meticulously, to write her life's abandonmentwork, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. HoweverWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, it isn't told in the usual narrative wayshe is not so good with people. InsteadSo when she finds herself far, far North in the book is made up small village of glossary entriesHrafvsnik, written by Williamhaving somehow offended the village matriarch, as a way of describing certain eventsshe is not sure what she has done, situations nor how to redeem herself and emotionsput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. It runs alphabeticallyEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, starting with ABSENCEall charm and delight, then moving much to ALPHABETICAL ORDEREmily's frustration. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on earthwith the faerie folk around Hravsnik?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story.|isbn=19115454180356519120

|authorisbn= T R Hendrick1398515388|title= What if They KnewThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= It's 2025. Underneath a lodge First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the Blue Mountain resort ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in Pennsylvaniaturn, is a secret facilitycaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. Here The deaths were uncountable, Dr Benton and his team are making some critical scientific advances on behalf the loss of the Benefactor, their anonymous funderlivelihoods was widespread. Already, the team have succeeded in teleporting small primates The fact that many pets were separated from one place to another. But, unbeknownst to their owners came far down the Benefactor, Dr Benton has also coded for another type list of teleportation altogether priorities but - six months after the tsunami - travel through timeKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. And he He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's ready comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to test. If successful, Benton has a very specific use for open his technology car door and Tamon the dog jumped in mind|isbn=1734277211.

|author=H G Parry Christopher Bowden|title=The Unlikely Escape of Uriah HeepMr Magenta

|summary=Brothers Rob and Charley have struggled to see eye to eye for years - Rob Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a sensible lawyer seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who exists in the "normal" world - always provided a safe harbour 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 world. After years little bit of protecting Charley, Rob wants indulgence to discharge his duties a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and leave Charley it seems to his own devices - but circumstances soon take choices out of both their hands. As literary characters begin him an obligation to appear everywhere, find it soon becomes clear that someone all out there shares Charley's powers and intends to use them for nefarious gains. Rob and Charley must team up to stop the madness - in a battle to win before they, the characters and the world reach The End…|isbn=0356513777B0B6Z9VJDW

|isbnauthor=1643785036Jennifer Mason|title=The Wondrous Apothecary|author=Mary E MartinPartitions of Unity

|summary=Those who have known Alexander WainwrightHere at Bookbag Towers, the landscape artist famous for his Turner prize winning ''The Hay Wagon''we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and Rinaldounintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], renowned conceptual artist would say that they're chalk when she investigated and cheese, if not sworn enemiesunravelled a series of disappearances. If youIn 've watched the relationship, as has our narrator, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, you'd have said that they were magnets, drawing and repulsing each other in equal measure. Wainwright was at the socially acceptable end Partitions of the artistic continuumUnity'', but with Rinaldo it was all too obvious that there was but she sets her mind to solving a fine dividing line between conceptual art and public nuisancemurder. As time has worn on, he's frequently been brought to the attention of the police. On this latest occasion we see him charged with arson and theft of ''The Hay Wagon''.|isbn=B09LQR9FRF

|author=Mary H.K. ChoiWill Carver|title=Permanent RecordThe Daves Next Door

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Pablo, a college drop-out, is working at a New York bodega. He's massively Five strangers come together in debt, he's avoiding his mother, and he finds his joy in creating unusual snacks with random ingredients! Whilst working one evening, he's surprised to discover that the girl he is chatting with moment as he serves is a super-famous pop star and, as unlikely as it may seem, they start suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a relationshipLondon tube line. With one character who is trying very hard not to be seen or noticed by anyoneAs their fates overlap, and the other who story is seen and followed and hounded by everyone all over the worldtold in backwards order, it's an interesting clash as they come together. This isn't just a love story though, and actually it's really just Pab's story, about leading up to the journey he takes in his life via his meet-up with Leanna Smartfateful moment.|isbn=03490034591914585186}}

|author=Daniel KrausJennifer Mason|title=Blood SugarPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=This is ''A struggling poetry zine, a difficult read. And not because of mom-and-pop mobile diner in the dark subject matter – that'll come later – but because of Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the way in which it2004 Olympics, a women's told. This might put track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a lot state-of readers off-the-art S&M dungeon, and to be honest it'd be hard to blame them. Kraus tells the story a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a distinctive voice unlike any other I've read; cheap oil painting, an erratic dialect with heavy and frequent slangerotic art dealer in Georgia.. The immediate effect is disorientating and distracting, and it takes some time to feel natural. It's ' This is just a struggle to acclimatise to Jody's voice, to get acquainted with his mannerisms, but sample of the story wouldn't be the same without it, cast of characters and somehow it workssettings in Preposterous. It shouldn'tAs you can see, but it doessome keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|isbn=1789091934B09STS96HS

|isbn=B07W4MNBSGB0B2N7MVYM|title=Be Careful Who You MarryThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Lizzy MumfreyDaniel Godfrey|rating=45

|summary=It was coming up to Halloween in 1987 and a group 's the 10th of sixth-form schoolgirls wondered what they would be doing December 1962 when they were fiftywe first meet Dr Joseph Marr. When you're only seventeen that seems positively ancientJust to put what happens in context, but Liz was convinced that ''your entire life depends on who you marry'the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The only eligible boys were world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the Young Farmers and missile crisis that's at the idea front of living in a farmhouse and having a couple his mind. He's been convicted of children called Will and Olly appealed to Charlotte, or perhaps William and Oliver if you were Elizabeth who was determined to marry the rather superior Patrick Shepley-Bothammurder. The place With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to start their search was obviously think otherwise than that the Young Farmersprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen' Halloween disco that weekends Bench, a relatively new prison. There was He's just one problem - there were too many Elizabeths in getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the classMcArthur brothers.

{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- Will Carver -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1912374838.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1912374838/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nothing Important Happened Today by Will Carver]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Nothing Important Happened Today is a dark, twisted, difficult read. Stories about cults often are, but this is different; it's written with a sense 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 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 and mountains in pursuit of William. As he finds himself unable to resist speaking the truths that he hears in others, he also learns that the dark shadow is deadly – and seeks to kill the one he loves the most… [[The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North|Full Review]] <!-- Oates -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785656775.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785656775/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"| ===[[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]] Bobby 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 -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1542007232.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542007232/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[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 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 -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0241365953.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0241365953/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[American Royals by Katharine McGee]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=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 -->|-| style=''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 author'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 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 when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. 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, 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 Hall, 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 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 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 today's society. 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 has created a heartbreakingly real and relevant novel that focuses on prominent topic areas which are becoming ingrained in our society, particularly in relation 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 out as Rhona Beech came past. She and Mark had been together 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 Move on her own. Well, she wasn't completely on her own: she had friends and family, 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 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 Newest Graphic Novels 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 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 genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version 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 better. 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]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}