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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Isabel AshdownOnyi Nwabineli|title=GlasshopperAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Thirteen-year-old Jake is just like any other boy Anuri spent her childhood on display to the cusp of puberty: new music and Saturday jobs are at the top of his agenda, while girls are the strange exotic creatures that must be looked at but not touched (particularly his pretty Classics teacher). But behind closed doorsworld, Jake struggles thanks to cope with his her step-motherOphelia's ongoing battle with depression and alcoholism. His father moved out a few weeks ago. So has his older brotherincreasingly popular presence on social media, Matthew. That leaves Jake as the man where she posted every step of the house: the one who must remember to get him Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and little brother, Andybasically, up monetary gain. Now Anuri is in time for school in the morning; the one making toast for dinner; 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 one keeping a watchful eye over his mother content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to make sure start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she doesnis desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia't get s online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself into any serious trouble.and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954930975</amazonuk>0861546873
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Colquhoun1529153298|title=Beyond ReasonThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'Beyond Reasons not what's worrying Miv' is a deceptively complex novel - a black comedy about the conflicts within religions family, though. Women have been disappearing. The main focus of the plot Well, Edward Bunyanthey've been murdered, is a radical within the Church of England who is trying but to take religion in a new (and rather amusing) direction in order have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to get move the public interested in it againfamily 'Down South'. Bunyan claims to have When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a direct link with God as well as spiritual powersfrightening, such as being able to levitate and read mindsforeign place, best avoided. For Miv, which leave his colleague and old college the move would mean leaving her best friend, Reverend Ralph Sharon, and she'Marmyll do anything to prevent that. She' Marmaduke, unsure s not worried about both his friendship with Bunyan and his own religious beliefsthe dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529348</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Buckley 1035906708|title=ContactDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dominic Pattison's life began We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to veer off course badly on a Tuesday Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in MayDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. ItHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's a fairly banal Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday that Dominic probably experiences quite frequently. He feels the need to tell us about make it. In detailmore manageable in the States. And, sadly, not 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 particularly engaging stylemother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003869</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Wayne J HarrisAlexander McCall Smith|title=Sins of the AngelThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Dr Gideon Matthews, a shouty hellfire and damnation preacher, has just delivered a sermon all about the evils of women being allowed into the church hierarchy and, on his way home afterwards, he is murdered. The following day however he wakes up in hospital or, actually, an angel called Gabriel finds himself inside Dr Matthews' body, able to recall Dr Matthews' memories and thoughts and feelings but acting now as himself. Gabriel goes a little bit wild, finding himself overwhelmed by the new feelings and desires he experiences in this body, sinning left, right and centre and causing scandal at his every move. He is also wondering for what purpose he has been brought into this body and finds that he is dreaming about a demon, someone who is persuading an unknown monk to commit murders in God's name and who seems to be getting closer and closer to Dr Matthews in order to kill him too...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1438994699</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen M Irwin|title=The Darkening|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book has The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the 'S' word written all over itonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. NoNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, not sex - supernaturalas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. So, it's got all things Katie is coming out of a break up with a bit spookybad boyfriend, not-quite-right, strange coincidencesand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit that when I read 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 blurb on the back cover Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groansome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Not really my cup of tea. But I'm openKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-minded making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and Ithere'll read anything once. I'm glad I did. Irwin is Australian. For some reason I haven't read too many books by Australian authorss always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, so I was keen to get reading.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751543969</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert KaplowDean Koontz|title=Me and Orson WellesThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Richard Samuels sees everything in terms of Benny is having a performanceterrifically bad day. He loses his job, through the rose-tinted lens of the theatrical celebrities he listens to on the radioloses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway stage through Oh, and someone has delivered a chance encounter with Orson Wellesreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it seems as if all 's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his dreams may be about house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to come truedeserve all this bad luck. He goes from being the guy is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that all the girls see as delivery to his house is a new friend, one of the bookish kids at schoola 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 the glamour take care of mingling with stars Benny, and will certainly take care of the stage. We follow RichardBenny's struggle to balance this newly discovered wonderland enemies, if he, Benny, and his school life, not to mention his disapproving motherHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099540193</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteKatherine Howe|title=The Man on the MoorA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1913 relations Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with Germany were deteriorating steadilya family who run an inn, but and being made to work there didn't seem from a young age. When she hears there is to be any connection with a hanging of some pirates in the international situation when a London clerktown, George Stephensshe decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, was found dead Hannah finds herself embroiled in a country lane on young boy's death at the edge hands of Dartmoortwo vicious pirates. The moor had been his passion She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and he'd always been keen then to escape London and return them completely she runs away to Devon. It was an odd death but in all probability it would have been put down sea, dressing as an accident if Georgea boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's mother had not announced that George was the son of the Kaiserpirate ship as a cabin boy. Despite her fondness for gin She soon finds herself in the story she told was oddly compelling thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and when it was linked from there we are caught up with in her rip roaring tale of life on the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm George's death seemed less and less like an accidentocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Day1471180158|title=Dead Cat With Firelighter|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=We're in the world of modern art. A couple who met at art college are on the verge of breaking up, as her success at fine arts is only bettered by his sudden rise to fame in the world of his conceptual, pompous bits of (almost literally) rubbish and nothing. We're also in the world of the wannabe stars and starlets, trying to make the jump from well-thought of provincial comedy theatre to Hollywood. And in the background in both instances, are guru-type Svengalis, pulling strings, and aiming to do as much as is morally justifiable - and a lot more - to get their charges to fame. And a bit of contract killing and murder on the side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaybe Tomorrow|author=Billy Hopkins|title=Tommy's WorldPenny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tommy Hopkins was born Jamie Matson works in October 1886 in Collyhurstan upper-class grocery store, one of for a man who's a control freak with all the poorer, inner-city suburbs subtlety of Manchestera half brick. His father had quite a good job and there wasnJamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems't a lot of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughter. He was an only child but thought 's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than 's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the form of worldly goodslocal A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. All that was Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to change pick Bo up from school are occasions when his father died of spinal meningitis Jamie can be controlled and he and his mother had to move into cheaper lodgingsput in the wrong. Even that tenuous security wasn't It was going to come to last for long – his mother died of a heart attack in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years oldhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane ChamberlainB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Bay at MidnightRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts properly when a letter Petr is discoveredan orphan. It will have devastating consequences for several families - Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and life will never be busy human society, in the same againforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. ApparentlyAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, the wrong person was convicted for and armed with only a murder. Moreoverpirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the writer of this letter appears to know who did commit this crime. Unfortunatelyforest, broadcasting the writer dies before able to make contact with the policestrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hazel McHaffie Sarah Marsh|title=Right to DieA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just once, but for Naomi, Adam's death is just the beginning. Coming across his personal, private diary After a bout of his time from diagnosis to subsequent demise, she is forced to relive the awful months during which his body began to betray him and his will to live was replaced with scarlet fever as a will to die...on his own terms.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Morag Joss|title=The Night Following|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Distracted by the discovery that her husband has been having an affairchild, a middle-aged woman Ellen Lark loses concentration while driving along her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a quiet laneworld of silence, killing Ruth Mitchell, an elderly cyclisteverything about her life changes. The woman doesn't wait for the police to arrive; she goes home and parks her car Living in a time when the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognition. When her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes it's been done use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to punish him and he packs his bags. After a few days the woman goes to the home of the dead woman; school where she doesn't go is taught to the doorlip 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 hidden spot nearby she can see system called Visible Speech. At the widowersame time, an elderly gentleman who Bell is clearly not coping well. Wracked with guiltworking on other inventions and ideas, the woman makes and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a decision: the only way she can atone for her actions is to step into the shoes complicated tangle of the dead womanespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>1035401614
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|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounceThis story is not for everyone. 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>}}
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{{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>
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{{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>
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{{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>
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{{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
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{{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>
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{{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 atmosphere of the Elephant Manday 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 has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives. And what an extraof her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out in, never making them ciphers for hersocial commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tamsin Reeves 152915118X|title=A Place of Safety|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=There are lots of reasons to take in a lodger for your spare room, but for Martha one of the best is to get one up on her recently departed scoundrel of an ex-husband. And it's not like her financial situation is looking too rosy since he left her for another woman – a woman who is also pregnant with his child. The fact that her lodger is a He, and that he's a Foreigner (and from Afghanistan, no less) is just the icing on the cake. Colin's going to be furious, and Martha can't wait.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849231370</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPineapple Street|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Comfort of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie 5)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>
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{{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
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{{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''
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{{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>}}
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{{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>
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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>
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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>
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