132,585
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian BarnesOnyi Nwabineli|title=Staring at the Sun|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle Leslie, hyacinths and golf tees. It's perhaps best forgotten, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large in her life - mostly on the golf course - until the War comes and he runs away to America. He's replaced by Tommy Prosser, a grounded pilot who once saw the sun rise twice in one day and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michael, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off Allow Me to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroom. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Russell Celyn Jones|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower is the main means of transport. But in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one another, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their lives. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Owen Sheers|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step- hemother Ophelia's five hundred pounds if heincreasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's an ouncechildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there for a customary break, and finds his sortsuing her step-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as mother to take down the bar dancercontent about her. He manages Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to tread both on the toes of his local colleague start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and some Greek rivalsreceiving money from them for doing so. And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut upOphelia's online empire. It's a big stone that hides himCan she save her sister, but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Rice1529153298|title=Angel TimeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toby OIt'Dare s 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion for musicPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, history and playing his beloved lutehonestly... He) She's not what's worrying Miv's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years agofamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. One day while on a Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'job. When you' he re from Yorkshire, Down South is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemptionfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Toby agrees For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to become prevent that. She's not worried about the Angeldangers or that her Mum's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment stopped talking - to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century Englandanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John E Smelcer1035906708|title=The Great DeathDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunity. At the beginning We tend to think of the twentieth centuryMaria Callas as Greek, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measlesbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, smallpoxNew York, in December 1923 and influenzaonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. No community Her original surname was spared. In most cases, half of a villageKalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's population died within a weekto make it more manageable in the States. In some cases, there were no survivors. It When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the end Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer to the dreadful period as the Great Deathher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendAlexander McCall Smith|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole The Perfect Passion Company is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, a dating agency in a pigstyEdinburgh, sharing run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all too thin party wall with his parents and working the online apps in providing a bookshopmore personal, tailored service. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into Ness has asked her school uniformyounger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, trying as Ness is planning to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life in the provinces take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is not as coming out of a break up with a bad as she would like to believeboyfriend, and desperately attempting so jumps at the chance to talk his mother out of her quest come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' showan Edinburgh we already love, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yetIsabel Dalhousie novels, the worst is still but with some new characters who quickly begin to comecharm. Think Katie has no experience in running a crumbling economybusiness, redundancy, affairs, deathor in match-making, a family member challenging him but Ness has full confidence in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it's going to be a tough year for the Molesher abilities, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back always her very helpful (and watch his life spin out of control around him.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxDean Koontz|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Set in IndiaBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, familiar territory for Therouxand his house gets trashed. Oh, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of and someone has delivered a travel writer suffering from writerreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-patpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a story of nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a mystery of new friend, a dead body in bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected waysgood person. The story Spike is more about obsession going to take care of Benny, and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerwill certainly take care of Benny's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than sheenemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's letting on?wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersKatherine Howe|title=The Wild ThingsA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet MaxHannah 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 I say he sometimes gets the wrong end she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the stick about adultstown, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, or dislikes his motherHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels death at the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factshands of two vicious pirates. He is 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 bit of boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a rascal to say the leastcabin boy. But all that might change She soon finds herself in the thick of things when he finds himself travelling to there is a strange land of roisterous animalsmutiny on board, and ends from there we are caught up installed as their kingin her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harlan Coben1471180158|title=Tell No OneMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=IJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who've been meaning to get around to reading some or s a control freak with all the subtlety of Harlan Cobena half brick. Jamie's workson, Bo, because if 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the reviews are to be believed and more you are a fan of read, the more you'll suspect that he'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instruments on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she' thriller, s a frequent flier in the man is quite simply local A&E and sometimes Bo's not capable of turning out a duff novelfit enough to go to school. But you know how it is, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be read controlled and reviewed, I just somehow hadn't managed to give him my full attentionput in the wrong. Until nowIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Nickels B0CKD1L5JL|title=Another Kind of LovingRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mike Hennessy was a journalist whose speciality was Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the war-torn parts of the world strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and October 1992 found him busy human society, in Sarajevo visiting a childrenthe forests of Washington's home to get a story. The orphanage was on the right side of town – away from the main barrage – but it had few other advantagesOlympic Peninsula. There was no heat After Bear dies and little food or watera brief sojourn in human company, but it was here that he found Jasminkaand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, part Serbbroadcasting the strange, part Bosniak wild and eleven or twelve years old. In a phone call to his wife Mike suggested that perhaps Jasminka could come and stay with them for a whilerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=rashbreSarah Marsh|title=The TriangleA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Brian's trip to the art gallery was After a treat, courtesy bout of scarlet fever as a private ticket from child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a friend and the white room was much better than the last gallery he'd visitedworld of silence, everything about her life changes. It Living in a time when the use of sign language wasseen as something only savages do, though, Ellen is sent to be his last such visit as he was silently knifed by a professional hit manschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. His friends were stunnedFrom here, not just at his death, but at she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the way in which it had come aboutdeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. What could Brian have been doing to attract ''that'' sort of attention? Jake had given him At the ticket same time, Bell is working on other inventions and it dawned on him that he had been the target rather than Brianideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Some recent events clicked into place…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1425171893</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura SolomonB0BC3YTCMR|title=An Imitation of LifeGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are introduced to the baby girl, Celia with a detailed, blow-by-blow account of her dreadful physical condition, from her unusual eyes, her even more unusual teeth, her lumpy body and the ever-growing hump on her shoulder. Forget the Elephant Man, here we have elephant baby. Everything ''This story is stacked against her. She is abandoned by her mother, her father is unknownnot for everyone. And as if all that wasn't enough to make you weep, she is unceremoniously dumped on a doorstep - to die. But she doesn't. She lives. And what an extra-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out for her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1472263936|title=The Comfort of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie 5)Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As always with Alexander McCall Smith, this fifth book It was in the Sunday Philosophy series benefits from being read in sequence with the previous titles1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. One of the beautiful aspects of his writing is that his characters develop slowlyShe was alone: her mother, gentlyGreek by birth, over had left the series so although you could probably dive in here family home and refused to return, but Mary and get Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a fair idea of his style you really should start at pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the beginning to thoroughly enjoy family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the pleasure first of an AMS readseveral annual visits. In this episode Isabel is busy taking care of She grew to love her songrandmother and the family's maid, CharlieDina, looking after but was wary - and frightened - of her niece Cat's delicatessengrandfather, editing retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the review Junta and struggling with her own personal fears over her relationship with Jamieexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. And she wouldn't be Isabel if she didn't, somehow, get entangled in someone elseHis prejudices included Helena's problems, someone elsered hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's life, and here she finds herself trapped into investigating the case of a doctor whose career has been ruinedScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120552</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt HiltonDean Koontz|title=Dead Men's DustAfter Death|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Joe Hunter helps Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 peoplewho die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. That's what Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he does. He's been around the block has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and to say that only him – as he has learned a trick or two along sits up and looks around at the way might be something shrouded bodies of an understatementhis dead friends and former colleagues. No-one really knows much about Joe Hunter and certainly As he recovers his past senses, he realises that there is not something that many would be brave enough to poke around indifferent about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340978236</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Imogen Parker B0BVDC2VWH|title=This Little WorldThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I havenThe village is isolated and poor. It't read s surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the first two books in villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the trilogy but that didn't spoil my enjoyment forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of ''This Little World''. They all stand alone as individual novels being buried alive is an existential superstition in their own right. Those readers who have already enjoyed the first two books will know most of village and that is the characters and will be keen to find out reason Volushka, a drunken, self- what happens nextindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552151548</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Donohue B0BYF82CXT|title=Angels of DestructionSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In an opening chapter reminiscent of Cathy's ghostly appearance at the window 'Bill and Amanda are living in [[Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte|Wuthering Heights]]a semi-detached house, widowed Margaret Quinn opens her front door stuck in the middle a depressing rut of a wintry night to a half-frozenboredom and disappointment, waif-like child, Norahwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, who appears to have arrived out of nowhere. Lonely successful and withdrawn very much in the wake of her daughter Erica's disappearance many years earlier, Margaret takes love – move in apparently-orphaned Norahnext door. Despite their different outlooks on life, passing her off as her granddaughterthe couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But Norah all is no ordinary child…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086138</amazonuk>not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
}}
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Irene Stanley had lived Alice and Seth are a match made in Illinois all her life, on a farm which had heaven. He is everything she has been in her family searching for generations ; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and where the boundary of the property was the Mississippi riverutter husband-material. She had friendsis all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, family confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and her church in the area wedding is planned and it came as a shock when Nate came home one set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and said that he was considering taking a job excitement as a Deputy Sheriff in Oregon (that's pronounced ''Organ'' she surveys the congregation – only tourists say ''Or-ee-gon''). It wasn't long before they and their children, Shep friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and Bliss, made the long overland journey when Seth turns to their new home. Shep was a quiet boyface his approaching bride, a talented musician but against his motherAlice's expectations he settled into his new life well. Irene wasn't totally convincedworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, but accepted that life wasn't too bad who is waiting for the family. That all changed when she was called home from work her to find that Shep had been murderedbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230740847</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Johan Minto 1787636003|title=The Virtuous SaintGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Marcus Hoag has been searching for It was the lost Regula Monachorum of St Benedict for summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the last island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty five years and the fruits of his research are recorded -four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a notebook which while before he carries with made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. He's been searching Alistair worked for clues Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in stained glass windows particular in churches and cathedrals and the discovery of two previously unknown windows at his old university, St Peter's in New York, sets him on a journey to Englandbar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire Connor and G P Taylor Amanda Craig|title=Rosie: Note to SelfThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the first state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of a five book deal Claire Connor, writing in partnership with GP Taylor, brings us a modern romance based loosely on the story atmosphere of Ruth from the Bible. This is total chick-litday and capture it, and from crafting an image of the first few pages I thought country as it was just going to stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be a very light, funny romance storyembarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. However, the story quickly takes She has such a depressing turn and gift for weaving the rest ongoing issues of the book is as much an exploration day into the lives of grief as it is her characters in a romance novelway 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1850788332</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Audrey Niffenegger 152915118X|title=Her Fearful SymmetryPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Elspeth Noblin dies ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of Leukemiathree women: Sasha, she leaves behind a strange bequest that will have dramatic Darley and tragic consequencesGeorgiana. She leaves her London flat Darley and George are sisters and all the trappings of her life Sasha is married to the their brother Cord. They'mirrorre Stocktons, only Sasha isn' twins of her own twin sister who currently live outside Chicago. This is news to the twins who didnt a Stockton by birth so she isn't even know that they had an auntreadily accepted into the tribe. The only condition of her legacy is that problem's exacerbated when the twinsclan matriarch, Julia Tilda, asks Cord and Valentina, have Sasha if they'd like to live in move into the flat, which is adjacent Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to Highgate Cemeteryanother property, for a year before street or so away, which they can sell itown. It is clear They won't need any of the furniture from the outset that Elspeth has secrets about her relationship with her twin sister EdiePineapple Street, which she is keen to keep hidden from the twinsso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but when it turns out that Elspeth hasnwasn't quite left the apartment after her death, things get a whole lot messier for everyonereality.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085611</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=F G Cottam |title=Dark Echo|rating=3 Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In Rouen She's living in September 1917, a French detachment are guarding the Cathedral''their'' family home. Guarding They use it and using so often that they abbreviate it as a barracks and still doing their best to treat it as a house of God. After all, you cannot make a fortress out of a place designed to be welcoming. One night 'the fog descends, thick and eerie, and reminiscent of the gas attacks in the trenchesGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340953896</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick Taylor Emily Critchley|title=An Irish Country VillageOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Dr Barry Laverty is working 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for the olderalmost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and somewhat irascible Dr Fingal O'Reillybring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, in Edie is tormented by the fictional Ulster village memory of Ballybucklebo. Theyher childhood friend, Lucy, their housekeeper Mrs Kinkaidwho went missing over 60 years ago, and the residents worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the village were introduced in high street, just as she was the book [[An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor|An Irish Country Doctor]]last time she saw her, which I haven't readshe starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, so it took me a few chapters she is forgetting more and more in her day to get into this novelday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224024</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Who is Agnes Owens? A Scottish author who portrays working class life from the nineteen forties and fifties. Now an octogenarian''Love, apparently Agnes Owens started writing at the age of 58. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new editionI'd read, was supposed to be a companion volume to her short storieslight and weightless feeling, published in 2008. but I donhad always longed for gravity't think you'll be disappointed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Brownlee 0008506337|title=BaitThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jake Moore was in the Flying Squad but a bullet put paid to his career The love affair between Margo Garnett and ten years later hepoet Richard O's running a gameLeary was all-fishing business consuming, apparently on the Kenyan coastboth sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Times are hard Richard was twenty-one and theredescribed by Margo's every chance 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 business will fold unless he event, they eloped and his partner, Harry, can find Richard took her away from the money Isle of Wight. Margo did go to pay their billsOxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Some strange things are happening Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the game fishing business too – one of their number has died in a mysterious explosion family home on his boat and the body Isle of a man who shouldnWight. 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''t have been aboard has been washed up on the shore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749928840</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charlie Williams 1914585402|title=Stairway to HellDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is looking like a bad night for Rick Suntan, club singer. HeI reviewed David F Ross's merely trying to put some Doctor Who into his Cliff Richard renditions (donbook [[There't ask), when he gets bottled off the stage. Oh, s Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and sackedaffecting it was. OhIt was a gripping, and his girlfriend changes the locks on him. Ohemotionally wounding read, and he gets shot. From this mess of a life comes an even more unusual thread, courtesy rereading my review of his small-scale manager. Is the latter, we feel, some Mephisto to Rick's Faust - or just a saddened alcoholic? Neither, in fact - he's a messenger, with the news it my main takeaway was that Rick is actually David Bowie's soul, inverted into the body of a nonentityI might not have lavished enough praise on it. Courtesy of Jimmy Page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668689X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex Kava Lucy Ashe|title=Black FridayClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no reason to be suspicious of less. Identical on the college kids wandering around ''Mall of America'' outside but not, we learn, on the busiest shopping day of the yearinside. They look just like everyone elseAnd not on stage, either. But in fact these kids are actually up to serious mischief: they think the jamming devices they are carrying in their identical red backpacks will disrupt the greedy capitalist storesBecause there' computer systems, causing delays and s a lot that builds a big dip in salesdancer. The truth isSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, if they had been aware that said identical red backpacks were actually stuffed with enough explosives attention to knock the Earth off its axis detail – and some things, that in fact''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a remote control device would turn them each into suicide bombershard-worker, perhaps they would not have got out of bed that day?and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303322</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph Finder Heather Fawcett|title=VanishedEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the wake of a ferocious attackEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, Lauren Heller finds herself in a hospital bedto write her life's work, groggy from 24 hours the very first encyclopaedia of oblivionfaeries. Her head Whilst she is bandaged brilliant at research and throbbing and her husband, Rogerspeaking to faeries, she is not only missing – he has vanished without a traceso good with people. Enter Roger's brother Nick Heller So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the pre-eminent investigator at Stoddard Associates with a cv that includes a spell as ex-Army Special Forces. Nick village matriarch, she is a man who does not take orders from anyone sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and a man put her final investigations for whom family is of her book back on the ultimate importanceright track. As Stoddard's finestEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, most inventive all charm and successful operatordelight, Nick Heller much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is used to getting results but this time, going on with the case is personal.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755342089</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil Forsyth 1398515388|title=Let Them Come ThroughThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Nick Santini spent most First of his childhood conning all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the drunken patrons of his father's bar out of their beer money nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and spending it on ciderutter devastation. With patchy schooling The deaths were uncountable, an abusive father and no real talents beyond his ability to lie, career choices for Nick the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were few and separated from their owners came far between, so when down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a friend gives him some money dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to break free, Nick spends it on an office open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in Soviet Street, hires a secretary, and advertises his services as a medium.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846686989</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Henry PorterChristopher Bowden|title=The Dying LightMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=WeChristopher Bowden're s latest novel is a little way into the future: the Prime Minister followed two whom you might recognise. The first was so dangerously casual that members patient untangling of cabinet only realised what decisions had been taken when they read the papers the next day. a seemingly ordinary woman''His'' successor was prone to childish tantrumss life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The Olympics are spoken aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of in the past tense indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and John Temple's government is well-established under his seemingly calm leadership. It hasn't been without its glitches thoughit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752874845</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam SavageJennifer Mason|title=The Cry Partitions of the SlothUnity|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Andrew Whittaker. In some untold time of recent American historyHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, he is forced through a failed marriage dominatrix and an artistic temperament at odds with so many other peopleunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], to let properties to tenants he does not like, for $120 when she investigated and unravelled a monthseries of disappearances. The lodgers might not like the state In ''Partitions of the buildings - ceilings falling through and so on - but thatUnity''s another matter, she sets her mind to solving a murder. He would much prefer to be left alone in front of his little Olivetti typewriter and create art. He runs a literary journal, of a kind, called "Soap", which no-one likes, no-one reads (and often, with dodgy, cheap printing, no-one could physically read it anyway), and which makes him poorer in time, money and spirit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297856499</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris Cleave Will Carver|title=IncendiaryThe Daves Next Door|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When the Book Reviewing Gods first suggested I re-read this book (the first time they have asked such Five strangers come together in one moment as a repeat of me) I felt like writing them suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a letterLondon tube line. But soon any draft I might have made would have referred not so much to the duplicated experienceAs their fates overlap, but the joys of rediscovered depthsstory is told in backwards order, characters lost and found again, and a plot leading up to be experienced once morethe fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998482</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick NeateJennifer Mason|title=JerusalemPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With cricket's so'A struggling poetry zine, a mom-called Barmy Army and their murderously boorish renditions of Jerusalem-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the rise 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of -the BNP and the renewed media focus on immigration-art S&M dungeon, the question of British national identity has rarely been more a man serving a life sentence in the spotlight. Patrick Neate'Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s timely new novel Jerusalem, the third in x), on a loosely fitting trilogy, tackles the spiky issues of identitycheap oil painting, race and the impact of colonialism an erotic art dealer in this entertaining yet in some ways frustrating bookGeorgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490410</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Ryan HydeB0B2N7MVYM|title=When I Found YouThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people'Lost and insecures minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, you found me, you found meit's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. He''s just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.}}