Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances DayOnyi Nwabineli|title=Dead Cat With FirelighterAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're in Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world of modern art. A couple who met at art college are on the verge of breaking up, as thanks to her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptualstep-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, pompous bits where she posted every step of (almost literally) rubbish Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and nothinginfluencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. We're also Now Anuri is in the world of the wannabe stars her twenties and starlets, she is slowly trying to make the jump from wellregain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-thought of provincial comedy theatre mother to Hollywoodtake down the content about her. And in the background in both instancesAnuri is battling alcoholism, are guru-type Svengalis, pulling stringsfailing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - secretly abusing people online and a lot more - to get their charges to famereceiving money from them for doing so. And a bit Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of contract killing Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and murder on her relationship with her father at the side.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Billy Hopkins1529153298|title=Tommy's WorldThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born in October 1886 in CollyhurstIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, one of the poorerhonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, inner-city suburbs of Manchesterthough. Women have been disappearing. His father had Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite a good job and there wasnso frightening. Miv's upset because she't a lot of money s overheard that her father wants to spare but Tommy remembered move the home as being filled with love and laughterfamily 'Down South'. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in the form of worldly goodsWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. All that was to change when his father died of spinal meningitis For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and he and his mother had she'll do anything to move into cheaper lodgingsprevent that. Even She's not worried about the dangers or that tenuous security wasnher Mum't s stopped talking - to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Chamberlain1035906708|title=The Bay at MidnightDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts properly 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 a letter is discoveredshe was thirteen. It will have devastating consequences for several families - and life will never be Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the same againStates. Apparently, the wrong person When she was convicted back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a murder. Moreover, the writer mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of this letter appears to know who did commit this crime. Unfortunatelyher preference for her elder sister, the writer dies before able to make contact with the policeJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hazel McHaffie Alexander McCall Smith|title=Right to DieThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just onceThe 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 for NaomiNess has full confidence in her abilities, Adamand there's death 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 just the beginninghaving a terrifically bad day. Coming across He loses his job, he loses his personalfiancee, private diary of and his time from diagnosis house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to subsequent demisehis home, she and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is forced the very last person to relive deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the awful months during which delivery to his body began house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to betray 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 his will to live was replaced with certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a will to die...on his own termswaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Morag JossKatherine Howe|title=The Night FollowingA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted by the discovery that her husband has Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been having sent to live with a family who run an affairinn, and being made to work there from a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lane, killing Ruth Mitchell, an elderly cyclistyoung age. The woman doesn't wait for the police When she hears there is to arrive; she goes home and parks her car be a hanging of some pirates in the garage where town, she smashes it almost beyond recognition. When her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes it's been done decides to punish him go and he packs his bagswatch. After Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a few days the woman goes to young boy's death at the home hands of the dead woman; she doesntwo vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't go find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to the doorsea, but from dressing as a hidden spot nearby she can see boy and joining the widower, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping wellnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Wracked with guilt, She soon finds herself in the woman makes thick of things when there is a decision: the only way she can atone for mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her actions is to step into the shoes rip roaring tale of life on the dead womanocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shirley Jackson1471180158|title=The Haunting of Hill HouseMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There was Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a time before Stephen Kinghalf brick. There was time before Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He'The Shinings asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. There was a Sometimes Jamie needs to take time when off at short notice - she'horrors a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo' was s not rooted 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 blood, guts and gorethe wrong. I owe a slight apology It was going to come to Mr King, because along with the gutsier side of the genre, I will own that he is a master at suspensehead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian BarnesB0CKD1L5JL|title=Staring at the SunRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle LesliePetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, hyacinths he is brought up far from bustling cities and golf tees. It's perhaps best forgottenbusy human society, 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. Heforests of Washington's replaced by Tommy Prosser, Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a grounded pilot who once saw the sun rise twice brief sojourn in one day human company, and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michaelarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a policemanjourney through the forest, broadcasting the strange, whom Jean eventually marries. He doesn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life wild and rarely heard voices he doesn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap that Michael sent her off to obtain before the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroomencounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell Celyn JonesSarah Marsh|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) A Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules After a bout of scarlet fever as a medieval-style fiefdom in child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a post-climate change Walesworld of silence, everything about her life changes. Life is different Living in many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower is time when the main means use of transportsign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. But From here, she ends up in many ways it's much another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same - people still fight one anothertime, towns still have sink estatesBell is working on other inventions and ideas, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in their livesa complicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Owen SheersB0BC3YTCMR|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In the old tale, Branwen is the sister of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of Britain. She marries the King of Ireland, who doesn't treat her well. She manages to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war and killings ensue.
 
In this new tale, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers who, in the wake of the devastating foot and mouth outbreak, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her a story involving the superstitions about the ravens in the Tower of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=J R Stephenson
|title=Crooked Justice
|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounce. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there for a customary break, and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as the bar dancer. He manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivals. And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up. It's a big stone that hides him, but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revenge.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Anne Rice
|title=Angel Time
|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toby O'Dare 'This story is an extremely efficient hit man with a passion not for music, history and playing his beloved luteeveryone. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago. One day while on a 'job' he is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become the Angel's human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent on an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century England.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=John E Smelcer|title=Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Great Death|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='As Western Europeans settled Alaska, they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunityIncident happened. At the beginning of the twentieth century She was a very bright student, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from a pandemic of measles, smallpoxbit too nerdy if truth be told, and influenzasuffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village It's population died within not easy being a weekblack girl whose skin is 84% white. In some cases, there were no survivors 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. It She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was the end of just an ancient way of lifeextension. She went to his house and he raped her. Natives still refer In shock, she even allowed him to the dreadful period as the Great Deathgive her a lift home.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1472263936|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and livingIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, quite literallyGreek by birth, in a pigstyhad left the family home and refused to return, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents but Mary and working in a bookshop. ItHamish (Helena's not quite how life was supposed to turn outparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying Her trip to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the provinces is not as bad as she would like first of several annual visits. She grew to believelove her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and desperately attempting to talk his mother out frightened - of her quest grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over Junta and expected his increasingly frequent visits family to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst is still uphold his values but saw no reason to comeaccommodate them. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – it His prejudices included Helena's going to be a tough year for the Moles, red hair and theregreen eyes - inherited from her father's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin out of control around himScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul TherouxDean Koontz|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaAfter Death|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set in IndiaMichael Mace, familiar territory for TherouxHead of Security, ''A Dead Hand'' tells the story of at a travel writer suffering from writer's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pattop secret biological research facility, the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating is among 55 people who die when a story of virus is released in a mystery of bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a dead body makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a hotel leads sense that something very, very bad has happened to him to release – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his creativity in very unexpected waysdead friends and former colleagues. The story As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is more something different about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Ungerhim; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she Michael isn't ''Michael''s letting on?anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dave EggersB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Wild ThingsGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet MaxThe village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. When I say he sometimes gets And the wrong end villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the stick about adultsforest provides heat and warmth, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriendroofs on homes, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revengeand even gallows, I am certainly understating the factsif needed. He The fear of being buried alive is a bit of a rascal to say an existential superstition in the least. But all village and that might change when he finds himself travelling to is the reason Volushka, a strange land drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kinga man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harlan CobenB0BYF82CXT|title=Tell No OneSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've been meaning to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's work, because if the reviews are to be believed Bill and you Amanda are living in a fan semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of the 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thrillerboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the man couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is quite simply not capable of turning out a duff novel. But you know how what it isseems, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books to be read and reviewed, I just somehow hadntheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''t managed to give him my full attention. Until now.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie Nickels Shalini Boland|title=Another Kind of LovingThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mike Hennessy was Alice and Seth are a journalist whose speciality was the war-torn parts of the world and October 1992 found him match made in Sarajevo visiting a children'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 advantagesheaven. There was no heat and little food or waterHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, but it was here that he found Jasminkaaccomplished, part Serbclever, part Bosniak funny; total and eleven or twelve years oldutter husband-material. In She is all he could possibly want in a phone call to his wife Mike suggested that perhaps Jasminka could come ; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and stay set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with them 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 a whileher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=rashbre1787636003|title=The TriangleGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=BrianIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn's trip t exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to the art gallery was a treattake an interest in her, courtesy of a private ticket from a friend and the white room she was much better flattered rather than the last gallery he'd visitedwary. It was, though, quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to be his last such visit as he her and by that time she was silently knifed obsessed by a professional hit manhim. His friends were stunnedAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, not just at looking after his death, but at interests on the way island and in particular in which it had come about. What could Brian have been doing to attract ''that'' sort of attention? Jake had given him the ticket and it dawned on him that he had been bar where all the target rather than Briangirls either worked or partied. Some recent events clicked into place…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425171893</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura SolomonAmanda Craig|title=An Imitation of LifeThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are introduced to Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the baby girl, Celia with a detailed, blowstate-byof-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 shouldernation novel. Forget There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the Elephant Manatmosphere of the day and capture it, here we have elephant baby. Everything is stacked against her. She is abandoned by her mother, her father is unknowncrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. And as if all To say that wasn't enough to make you weep, she Amanda Craig is unceremoniously dumped on a doorstep - to die. But skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she doesn'ts practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She lives. And what an extra-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out for her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tamsin Reeves |title=A Place of Safety|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=There are lots of reasons to take in such a lodger gift for your spare room, but for Martha one weaving the ongoing issues of the best is to get one up on her recently departed scoundrel day into the lives of an ex-husband. And it's not like her financial situation is looking too rosy since he left her for another woman – characters in a woman who is also pregnant with his child. The fact way that her lodger is a He, feels natural and that he's a Foreigner (and from Afghanistanlived-in, no less) is just the icing on the cake. Colin's going to be furiousnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and Martha can't waitgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849231370</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith152915118X|title=The Comfort of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie 5)Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As always with Alexander McCall Smith''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, this fifth book in the Sunday Philosophy series benefits from being read in sequence with only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the previous titlestribe. One of The problem's exacerbated when the beautiful aspects of his writing is that his characters develop slowlyclan matriarch, gentlyTilda, over the series so although you could probably dive in here asks Cord and get a fair idea of his style you really should start at the beginning Sasha if they'd like to thoroughly enjoy move into the pleasure of an AMS readPineapple Street property. In this episode Isabel is busy taking care of her sonTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, Charliea street or so away, looking after her niece Catwhich they own. They won's delicatessent need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, editing the review so Sasha and struggling with her own personal fears over her relationship with JamieCord can move straight in. And she wouldnNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't be Isabel if she didnthe reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She't, somehow, get entangled s living in someone else's problems, someone else's life, and here she finds herself trapped into investigating their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the case of a doctor whose career has been ruinedGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120552</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt HiltonEmily Critchley|title=Dead Men's DustOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Joe Hunter helps people84 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 lose her memory. That's 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 secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what he doeshappened all that time ago. HeAfter 'seeing's been around Lucy in the high street, just as she was the block and last time she saw her, she starts to say that he has learned a trick or two along the way might be something find pockets of an understatementmemories coming back to her. No-one really knows much about Joe Hunter and certainly his And yet as she remembers the past , she is not something that many would be brave enough forgetting more and more in her day to poke around inday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340978236</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
{{newreview|author=Imogen Parker |title=This Little World|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I haven't read 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 first two books in summer after. Set against the trilogy but that didnbackdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town 't spoil my enjoyment of 'Thirst for Salt'This Little World'details the 24-year-old narrator'. They s deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all stand alone as individual novels in their own right. Those readers who have already enjoyed the first two books will know most of the characters -consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and will be keen to find out - what happens nexthow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552151548</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Donohue 0008506337|title=Angels of DestructionThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In The 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 opening chapter reminiscent of Cathyolder man'. Her parents worried that Richard's ghostly appearance at influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the window in [[Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte|Wuthering Heights]]event, widowed Margaret Quinn opens they eloped and Richard took her front door in away from the middle Isle of a wintry night Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a halfwell-frozenrespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, waif-like childImogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, Norah, who appears to have arrived out the family home on the Isle of nowhereWight. Lonely and withdrawn in Even then the wake of her daughter Ericadoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's disappearance many years earlier, Margaret takes mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in apparently-orphaned Norah, passing her off as her granddaughtercharge''. But Norah is no ordinary child…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086138</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Walter Moers |title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice|rating=4Then Richard left them.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Naseem Rakha 1914585402|title=The Crying TreeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Irene Stanley had lived in Illinois all her life, on I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a farm which had been in her family for generations and where the boundary couple of the property was the Mississippi river. She had friends, family years back and her church in the area remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it came as a shock when Nate came home one day and said that he was considering taking a job as a Deputy Sheriff in Oregon (that's pronounced ''Organ'' – only tourists say ''Or-ee-gon''). It wasn't long before they and their children, Shep and Bliss, made the long overland journey to their new home. Shep was a quiet boygripping, a talented musician but against his mother's expectations he settled into his new life well. Irene wasn't totally convincedemotionally wounding read, but accepted that life wasn't too bad for the family. That all changed when she and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was called home from work to find that Shep had been murderedI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230740847</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Johan Minto Lucy Ashe|title=The Virtuous SaintClara and Olivia|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Marcus Hoag has been searching for The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the lost Regula Monachorum of St Benedict for outside but not, we learn, on the last thirty five years and the fruits of his research are recorded in a notebook which he carries with himinside. And not on stage, either. HeBecause there's been searching for clues in stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals 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 discovery of two previously unknown windows at his old universityclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, St Petera ''joie de vivre's in New York'. The difference between a hard-worker, sets him on and a journey to Englandstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955855756</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Claire Connor and G P Taylor Heather Fawcett|title=Rosie: Note to SelfEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 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 a five book deal Claire Connorfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, writing in partnership she is not so good with GP Taylorpeople. So when she finds herself far, brings us a modern romance based loosely on far North in the story small village of Ruth from Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the Bible. This village matriarch, she is total chick-litnot sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and from put her final investigations for her book back on the first few pages I thought it was just going to be a very light, funny romance storyright track. HoweverEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, the story quickly takes a depressing turn all charm and the rest of the book delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is as much an exploration of grief as it he here? What does he want? And what exactly is a romance novel.going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1850788332</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Audrey Niffenegger 1398515388|title=Her Fearful SymmetryThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Elspeth Noblin dies First of Leukemiaall, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, she leaves behind a strange bequest that will have dramatic in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and tragic consequencesutter devastation. She leaves her London flat The deaths were uncountable, and all the trappings loss of her life to livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the 'mirror' twins list of her own twin sister who currently live priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside Chicagoa convenience store. This is news to the twins who didn He wasn't even know that they had an aunt. The only condition of her legacy is that the twins, Julia and Valentina, have to live in the flat, which is adjacent to Highgate Cemetery, for a year before they can sell it. It is clear from dog person but the outset convenience store owner's comment that Elspeth has secrets about her relationship with her twin sister Edie, which she is keen he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to keep hidden from open his car door and Tamon the twins, but when it turns out that Elspeth hasn't quite left the apartment after her death, things get a whole lot messier for everyonedog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224085611</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G Cottam Christopher Bowden|title=Dark EchoMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Rouen in September 1917Christopher 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 French detachment are guarding the Cathedral. Guarding it safe harbour and using it as a barracks little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and still doing their best it seems to treat him an obligation to find 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 trenches.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340953896</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick Taylor Jennifer Mason|title=An Irish Country VillagePartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Barry Laverty is working for the olderHere at Bookbag Towers, and somewhat irascible Dr Fingal O'Reilly, in the fictional Ulster village of Ballybucklebo. They, their housekeeper Mrs Kinkaidwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and the residents of the village were introduced unintentional detective in the book [[Preposterous: An Irish Country Doctor Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Patrick TaylorJennifer Mason|An Irish Country DoctorPreposterous]], which I havenwhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity''t read, so it took me she sets her mind to solving a few chapters to get into this novelmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863224024</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith Will Carver|title=The Lost Art of GratitudeDaves Next Door|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I should say to begin with that it would probably be tricky to leap into reading this series with this latest book. This is the sixth book Five strangers come together in the ''Sunday Philosophy Club'' series and returns us one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to the life of Isabel Dalhousie, our gentle philosophising heroinedetonate his vest on a London tube line. She is still living with her partnerAs their fates overlap, Jamie, and her son Charlie, editing her philosophy journal, and of course interfering in the lives of others. Her niece, Cat, has another dodgy boyfriend, this time a tightrope walker... Her 'enemy', Christopher Dove, story is causing more friction and somehow, at a toddler's birthday party, Isabel simply can't help herself and finds herself embroiled told in the woes of a previous foebackwards order, Minty Auchterlonie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700638</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Agnes Owens |title=The Complete Novellas|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, apparently Agnes Owens started writing at leading up to the age of 58. Here are five previously published stories collected into one new edition, a companion volume to her short stories, published in 2008. I don't think you'll be disappointedfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971373</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt Dunn Jennifer Mason|title=The Good Bride GuidePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As he approaches ''A struggling poetry zine, a milestone birthdaymom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, Ben begins to think back on his old relationships. While none of them seemed right at a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the time2004 Olympics, hea women's not quite sure that track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the other option – his current single status – is really any better. With -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a good friend about to enter into life sentence in Alabama, an arranged marriageenigmatic signature, Ben has K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of the by cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this point predictable yet wacky idea that he needs the same thing – a nice young woman hand-picked for him by his parentsmystery story goes like this... After all, who knows him better than they do?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847395236</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Brownlee B0B2N7MVYM|title=BaitThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jake Moore was It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Flying Squad but a bullet put paid to his career and ten years later heCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's running minds. The world has barely had a game-fishing business on the Kenyan coastchance to breathe out. Times are hard and thereBut for Joe Marr, it's every chance not the missile crisis that 's at the business will fold unless he and front of his partner, Harry, can find the money to pay their billsmind. He's been convicted of murder. Some strange things are happening in With the game fishing business too – one current state of their number medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has died spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a mysterious explosion on relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his boat roommate, Mervyn, and the body learning to be wary of a man who shouldn't have been aboard has been washed up on the shoreMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749928840</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Thomas Pynchon |title=Inherent Vice|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=The close of the '60s, the dawn of the '70s. San Francisco. Some people say the most influential people are Nixon and his cronies. Some people say they're Charlie Manson and his cronies. Some people call the smog surrounding everyone in the Bay Area air pollution, others a drug haze. Doc, the sole proprietor of LSD Investigations, is approached by different people, requesting two jobs of him, which both point to the same bigwig property developer. One of these is from his ex, now with said mogul, another is from a man whose prime interest immediately dies. How will this escalate into a manic mystery, hitting Move on mysterious yachts taking odd journeys, missing people, Nixon, dead people coming back to life, unusual retreats, and a host more?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408948X</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]