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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dan RhodesOnyi Nwabineli|title=Little Hands ClappingAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The first character Anuri spent her childhood on display to mention in this book is a moth. Itthe world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's a human mothincreasingly popular presence on social media, drawn to the flame that is a museum where she posted every step of suicide - a supposedly cautionaryAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her lifeback, suing her step-affirmingmother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, memento morifailing to start her PhD, somewhere in Germanyundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Its curator Most importantly, she is an old hand at lonely, unloved museumsdesperately worried about her little sister, fresh from an art gallery in an airport - it didn't take off - who notices is the noise new focus of the latest suicide to happen in the museumOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and goes right back to sleep. A spider crawls into his mouth perhaps herself and gets eaten.her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847675298</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robin Cook1529153298|title=InterventionThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although Robin Cook has written many booksIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what'Interventions worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they' is the first one that I ve been murdered, but to have read - I'm a Robin Cook disappeared'virgin.doesn' This is a big book in many respectst sound quite so frightening. ItMiv's upset because she's a classic, glossy overheard that her father wants to move the family 'coffee tableDown South' edition; it. When you's re from Yorkshire, Down South is a bigfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, satisfying read and itshe's a multi-layered book in ll do anything to prevent that it covers many current-day topics which have their roots in history. In fact, this book is so multiShe's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking -dimensional that, you could argue, there are several books within this bookto anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743633</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karan Mahajan1035906708|title=Family PlanningDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mr Rakesh Ahuja is Delhi's Mister We tend to think of Urban Development and so farMaria Callas as Greek, has managed but she was born to do well Greek parents in his career. HoweverManhattan, New York, his family life is beginning in December 1923 and only moved to take over - he already has Athens when she was thirteen children and a fourteenth is on the way. The eldest, Arjun, now a teenager Her original surname was born Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to Mr Ahuja's first wife, but up til now, Arjun is unaware of this factCallas' to make it more manageable in the States. Sangita Ahuja, the long When she was back in Athens -suffering wife, is aware supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her relationship with Arjun may never be the same again. Meanwhile, Arjun is only interested in one thing voice - how to attract she was raised under the attention Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the gorgeous girl on his school busher preference for her elder sister, Jackie. What will happen to the family when Mr Ahuja finally tells the truth?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099523299</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jed MercurioAlexander McCall Smith|title=American AdultererThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered how history would have viewed Jack Kennedy if he'd died The Perfect Passion Company is a natural death rather than dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an assassin's bulletalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. As an extension of that I've also thought that he might not have lived that much longer had nature been allowed Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take its coursea trip to Canada to get away for a while. He's one Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the most-written-about Presidents of all time 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 finding a the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new angle – even characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a fictional one – is not easybusiness, or in match-making, but Jed Mercurio Ness has looked at Kennedyfull confidence in her abilities, and there's adult life through the prism of his sexual peccadilloes always her very helpful (and his health.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099515873</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim PearsKatherine Howe|title=LandedA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have hesitated Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to write this review becauselive with a family who run an inn, truthfully, I am not ''entirely'' sure that I know what happened at the endand being made to work there from a young age. I read it all. I actually read the end several times. And then I skipped back When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the middletown, just she decides to check somethinggo and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, before trying Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the end againhands of two vicious pirates. I have decided to just believe in what I ''think'' happenedShe hides away, and since I so that they don't want find and kill her too, and then to spoil it for other readers then I donescape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low't have to make s pirate ship as a complete fool cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of myself writing down what it things when there is I think! And actuallya mutiny on board, that mysteriousness is part and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the charm of the story. So, slight confusion aside, I still gave this book four stars, and this is why..ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020079</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laila Lalami 1471180158|title=Secret SonMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Secret Son'' is the story of Youssef ElJamie Matson works in an upper-Mekkiclass grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the slum-dwelling teenage son subtlety of single mother Rachidaa half brick. Youssef Jamie's son, Bo, 'has always been told that his father is deadproblems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, so when he finds out his mother has lied to conceal the fact more you'll suspect that he was born out of wedlock, he plunges headlong into an identity crisis's on the autistic spectrum. He tracks down his real father, Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a wealthy businessman called Nabil Amrani who is surprisingly enthusiastic about his illegitimate sonfrequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's arrivalnot fit enough to go to school. Nabil has recently fallen out with his daughter Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and he seizes this opportunity put in the wrong. It was going to come to mould Youssef into the obedient son he has always wanteda head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918296</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samuel BonnerB0CKD1L5JL|title=PlaygroundRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jonah grew up in London but his motherPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, getting increasingly worried about social disintegration and increasing crimereclusive Bear, has moved them he is brought up to Nottingham. Jonah is a bright lad far from bustling cities and halfway through a media coursebusy human society, but hein the forests of Washington's finding it difficult to fit inOlympic Peninsula. He's also finding the new racial mix After Bear dies and a problem - there's palpable tension between black brief sojourn in human company, and brown-skinned people armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on campusa journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he often feels alienated and a bit like a fish out of waterencounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1902835190</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan BradySarah Marsh|title=VenomA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=David Marion isn't used to finding hitmen standing at his front doorAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, though you wouldn't be able to tell that such Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a thing might be trueworld of silence, given everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the speed and competency with which Marion dispatches said hitman and then disappearsuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, seeminglyEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, off the face of the Earthbut physically restrained from signing. Dr. Helen Freyl is a physicist working for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the worlddeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. She At the same time, Bell is alsoworking on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up until his disappearance, David Marion's sometime lover and is grief-stricken to the point in a complicated tangle of distraction by his sudden absence from her life, as she believes him to be deadespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0743267907</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1472263936|title=A Very British CoupThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=No one had anticipated It was in 1968 that Labour would win the electionHelena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, not least because had left the party leader was Harry Perkinsfamily home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a former steel workerpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. His manifesto included promises Her trip to remove all American bases from British soil, public control of finance and the dismantling family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of media empiresseveral annual visits. There were a few other things too – but theyShe grew to love her grandmother and the family'll do for starters. The establishment – to a man – was appalled. Press baronss maid, media starsDina, bishops but was wary - and civil service mandarins knew that, for the good frightened - of the country (not themselvesher grandfather, ''retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of course'') something had his close connections to be done the Junta and ''obviously'' the end would justify whatever means they had expected his family to take uphold his values but saw no reason to achieve their aimsaccommodate them. Harry Perkins had to be removed His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from officeher father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687403</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel HeathDean Koontz|title=The Finest Type Of English WomanhoodAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was just after the end Michael Mace, Head of the Second World War and seventeen year old Laura Trelling was Security, at a loose end top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in her Sussex villagea bio-hazard accident. She didn't really fit Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in with the other young people plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and her eccentric parents were becoming more only him – as he sits up and more isolated, to looks around at the extent that Laura was embarrassed by their carelessness shrouded bodies of her welfarehis dead friends and former colleagues. A chance encounter with Paul Lovell was to change As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything and before long she was on her way to a South Africa not yet burdened with apartheid. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532743</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bobbie DarbyshireB0BVDC2VWH|title=Truth GamesThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The central theme in this book village is sex - isolated and lots of itpoor. WeIt're introduced to s surrounded by a group of mainly twentysomethings and thirtysomethingsWitching Forest. Men And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and womenits blossom provides herbal medicines. Most The black wood of them are attractive the forest provides heat and hold down glamorous jobs warmth, roofs on homes, and careerseven gallows, if needed. All The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in rude health, with wonderful social lives the village and trendy homes. They all appear, on that is the surfacereason Volushka, to be a bunch drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of shiny, happy peoplea man is tolerated. What on earth could be missing?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905614721</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony QuinnB0BYF82CXT|title=The Rescue ManSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This love affair tale with the city of Liverpool is mostly told through the eyes of architect Tom Baines. With the Second World War looming''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, Baines is desperately working on stuck in a book to capture the memory depressing rut of buildings that are at riskboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and appears a man more very much in love with – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the past couples befriend each other and solidlife appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, cold structures than mankindand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531933</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul MurrayShalini Boland|title=Skippy DiesThe Silent Bride|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Life in Seabrook College is a mess. Some of the staff are young enough to remember their own school days there, but many are certainly too old for that. A lot of the boys are victims of ragging and bullying for being too chunky, or too smart - but some are so chunky and smart there's a certain kudos to them. The female of the species is a thing only spied from their own school next door, and only met by selling them ritalin as a weight-control pill, or meeting them at the very rare combined school disco.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241141826</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sapphire|title=Precious|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Precious Jones Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is a sixteen year old black girl from Harlem – well everything she's never actually has been out of Harlem – searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and when we meet her she's pregnant by her own father for the second timeutter husband-material. Her first child was She is all he could possibly want in a girl wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and she was born with Down's Syndrome. With unconscious irony Precious calls her ''Little Mongo'' the wedding is planned and leaves her to live with her grandmotherset. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her second pregnancy becomes obvious father, beaming with pride and excitement as shesurveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's expelled from school and joins an alternative education programme. Precious really wants to learn and world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the book altar is, who is the story of waiting for her journey from illiteracy to maturitybecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548720</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ru Freeman1787636003|title=A Disobedient GirlThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Disobedient Girl'' follows two women struggling to retain control of their lives in It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the face of servitudeisland. Latha is a servant girl to the affluent Vithanage family, whose daughter, Thara, is Latha Rachel wasn's age. As childrent exactly innocent but she was, the girls are the best of friendsperhaps, but they are destined to be separated by classnaive, which is made painfully obvious so when boys come into the picture. Meanwhile, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another man's love childshe was flattered rather than wary. Biso's husband murdered her lover in It was quite a hateful rage when while before he uncovered made any sort of physical approach to her affair and she realises by that time she must escape was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his house if she interests on the island and her children are to live. Latha too seeks escape, but she finds it in particular in the bar where all the arms of Thara's boyfriend and this sets off a chain of events that will echo far into her futuregirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Panos KarnezisAmanda Craig|title=The ConventThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Our Lady Few styles of Mercy is a small convent on contemporary fiction interest me like the Spanish sierra made up state-of a handful -the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of devoted nuns who live their lives simply, carrying out their daily duties like clockwork. However things change when a suitcase containing a newborn baby is left mysteriously outside the convent doors. The Mother Superior, Sister Maria Ines, believes atmosphere of the baby to be a miracle day and plans to keep him in the conventcapture it, but crafting an image of the other sisters do not agreecountry as it stands in one particular moment. During the events To say that follow Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the true characters genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the nuns inside ongoing issues of the convent are revealed and day into the peace lives of her characters in a way that the sisters enjoy is stripped away to show the tension that has been bubbling away under the surfacefeels 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>0224079344</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Glenn Cooper152915118X|title=Book of SoulsPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Area 51 ''Pineapple Street'' is not what you think it the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha ismarried to their brother Cord. No - all that UFO kerfuffle is They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a smokescreen for Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the powers that be clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to hide even better move into the most unusual manuscript known Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to (another property, a handful street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of) mankind - the most unearthly, singularfurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and unsettling book, Cord can move straight in thousands and thousands of volumes. All except oneNominally, which is about to come under they had a choice but that wasn't the hammer in a London auction housereality. Our hero Will Piper must go very reluctantly on the trail of it Darley and its secrets, a trail which will force him and others Georgiana start to become entangled with shadowy agents, who in turn know call Sasha 'the very day of all their enemygold digger's deaths.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099534479</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P Robert Smith|title=Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= She's living in 'Sunday Daffodil and Other Happy Endings'their' is the sort of book you finish with the feeling that you've just read something with a million different meaningsfamily home. DonThey use it so often that they abbreviate it to 't be surprised if you feel like you should start the whole thing again but with your brain more fully engaged, and perhaps thatGD's the whole point.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535238</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Isabel AshdownEmily Critchley|title=GlasshopperOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Thirteen-84 year-old Jake Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is just like any other boy on the cusp of puberty: new music facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and Saturday jobs are at bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the top memory of his agendaher childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, while girls are and the strange exotic creatures worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that must somehow might be looked at but not touched (particularly his pretty Classics teacher)the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. But behind closed doors, Jake struggles to cope with his mother After 'seeing's ongoing battle with depression and alcoholism. His father moved out a few weeks ago. So has his older brotherLucy in the high street, Matthew. That leaves Jake just as she was the man last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the house: the one who must remember to get him past, she is forgetting more and little brother, Andy, up more in time for school in the morning; the one making toast for dinner; and the one keeping a watchful eye over his mother her day to make sure day life. Will she doesnuncover the truth about Lucy't get herself into any serious trouble.s disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954930975</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''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Buckley 0008506337|title=ContactThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dominic PattisonThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's life began to veer off course badly Leary was all-consuming, apparently on a Tuesday both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in Maylove. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. ItHer parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a fairly banal Tuesdaywell-respected journalist. The kind couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Tuesday that Dominic probably experiences quite frequentlyWight. He feels Even then the need doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to tell us about it. In detailleave him in charge''.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wayne J Harris1914585402|title=Sins of the Angel|rating=3.5|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 Dashboard Elvis 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>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Stephen M Irwin|title=The DarkeningDavid F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This I reviewed David F Ross's book has the [[There'Ss Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There' word written all over s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting itwas. No, not sex - supernatural. So, it's got all things It was a bit spooky, not-quite-rightgripping, strange coincidences. They are sprinkled throughout like rock salt. I must admit that when I emotionally wounding read the blurb on the back cover with its supernatural theme, I gave an inward groan. Not really and rereading my cup review of tea. But it my main takeaway was that I'm open-minded and I'll read anything once. I'm glad I did. Irwin is Australianmight not have lavished enough praise on it. For some reason I haven't read too many books by Australian authors, so I was keen to get reading.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751543969</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert KaplowLucy Ashe|title=Me Clara and Orson WellesOlivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Samuels sees everything in terms of a performanceThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, through twins no less. Identical on the rose-tinted lens of the theatrical celebrities he listens to outside but not, we learn, on the radioinside. So when he stumbles onto the Broadway And not on stage through , either. Because there's a lot that builds a chance encounter with Orson Wellesdancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, it seems as if all his dreams may be about attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come true. He goes from being the guy that all the girls see as classroom. A stage presence, a friendcharm, one of the bookish kids at schoola ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, to the glamour of mingling with stars of the stage. We follow Richard's struggle to balance this newly discovered wonderland and his school life, not to mention his disapproving mothera star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099540193</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Van der KisteHeather Fawcett|title=The Man on the MoorEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1913 relations with Germany were deteriorating steadilyEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, but there didnto write her life't seem to be any connection with the international situation when a London clerks work, George Stephens, was found dead in a country lane on the edge very first encyclopaedia of Dartmoorfaeries. The moor had been his passion Whilst she is brilliant at research and he'd always been keen speaking to escape London and return to Devonfaeries, she is not so good with people. It was an odd death but So when she finds herself far, far North in all probability it would have been put down as an accident if George's mother had not announced that George was the son small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the Kaiserright track. Despite Enter Wendell Bambleby, her fondness for gin the story she told was oddly compelling dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and when it was linked up with the fact that two German officers had been staying at a nearby farm Georgedelight, much to Emily's death seemed less and less like an accidentfrustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904744230</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Day1398515388|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 The Boy and murder on the side.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954337751</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Billy Hopkins|title=Tommy's WorldSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tommy Hopkins First of all, it was born the earthquake, deep in October 1886 the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in Collyhurstturn, one of caused the poorer, inner-city suburbs of Manchesternuclear meltdown. His father had quite a good job The result was complete and there wasn't a lot of money to spare but Tommy remembered the home as being filled with love and laughterutter devastation. He was an only child but thought that he was spoilt in terms of affection rather than in The deaths were uncountable, and the form loss of worldly goodslivelihoods was widespread. All The fact that was to change when his father died many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of spinal meningitis and he and his mother had to move into cheaper lodgingspriorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Even that tenuous security He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to last for long – open his mother died of a heart attack car door and Tamon the dog jumped in her thirties, leaving Tommy an orphan before he was eight years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755359585</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane ChamberlainChristopher Bowden|title=The Bay at MidnightMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts properly when a letter Christopher Bowden's latest novel is discovered. It will have devastating consequences for several families - and life will never be the same again. Apparently, the wrong person was convicted for a murder. Moreover, the writer patient untangling of this letter appears to know who did commit this crime. Unfortunately, the writer dies before able to make contact with the police.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303640</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel McHaffie |title=Right to Die|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It must be hard enough watching your partner die just once, but for Naomi, Adama seemingly ordinary woman's death is just the beginninglife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. Coming across his personal, private diary The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of his time from diagnosis indulgence to subsequent demise, she is forced to relive the awful months during which his body began a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to betray him and his will to live was replaced with a will an obligation to die...on his own termsfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906307210</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Morag JossJennifer Mason|title=The Night FollowingPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Distracted by the discovery that her husband has been having an affairHere at Bookbag Towers, a middle-aged woman loses concentration while driving along a quiet lanewe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, killing Ruth Mitchelldominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], an elderly cyclist. The woman doesn't wait for the police to arrive; when she goes home investigated and parks her car in the garage where she smashes it almost beyond recognitionunravelled a series of disappearances. When her arrogant husband sees the damage he believes itIn ''s been done to punish him and he packs his bags. After a few days the woman goes to the home Partitions of the dead woman; she doesnUnity''t go to the door, but from a hidden spot nearby she can see the widower, an elderly gentleman who is clearly not coping well. Wracked with guilt, the woman makes a decision: the only way she can atone for sets her actions is mind to step into the shoes of the dead womansolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715638815</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonWill Carver|title=The Haunting of Hill HouseDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There was Five strangers come together in one moment as a time before Stephen Kingsuicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. There was time before ''The Shining''. There was a time when 'horror' was not rooted As their fates overlap, the story is told in bloodbackwards order, guts and gore. I owe a slight apology leading up to Mr King, because along with the gutsier side of the genre, I will own that he is a master at suspensefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191449</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian BarnesJennifer Mason|title=Staring at the SunPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|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 Cyprusstruggling poetry zine, he goes there for a customary break, mom-and finds his sort-of mollpop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as meter hurdler who just missed the bar dancer. He manages to tread both on the toes of his local colleague and some Greek rivals. And when 2004 Olympics, a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides to pack up and shut up. Itwomen's track coach with a big stone that hides himyen for bullwhips, 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 is an extremely efficient hit man billionaire with a passion for musicstate-of-the-art S&M dungeon, history and playing his beloved lute. He's also something of a lost soul having turned his back on God many years ago. One day while on man serving a 'job' he is visited by life sentence in Alabama, an Angel who offers him a chance at redemption. Toby agrees to become the Angel'enigmatic signature, K(s human instrument and help save lives rather than take them. He is sent , x), on a cheap oil painting, an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder erotic art dealer in 13th Century EnglandGeorgia.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>}}..''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue TownsendB0B2N7MVYM|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. It's not quite how life was supposed to turn outthe 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying Just to reassure glamorous wife Daisy that life put what happens in the provinces is not as bad as she would like to believecontext, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy Kyle'' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to the toilet is really the last thing he needs. And yet, the worst Cuban missile crisis is still to come. Think a crumbling economy, redundancy, affairs, death, a family member challenging him very fresh in the novel writing stakes and a query over the big C – itpeople's going minds. The world has barely had a chance to be a tough year for the Moles, and there's little that ol' Adrian can do except sit back and watch his life spin breathe out of control around him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Theroux|title=A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Set in India, familiar territory But for TherouxJoe Marr, it''A Dead Hand'' tells s not the story of a travel writer suffering from writermissile crisis that's block (also known as 'dead hand') until a chance letter from an American ex-pat, at the mysterious Mrs Unger, relating a story front of a mystery of a dead body in a hotel leads him to release his creativity in very unexpected waysmind. The story is more about obsession and infatuation than it is about the mystery itself as the narrator falls under Mrs Unger He's Tantric charms. But does she have more to hide than she's letting on?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144639</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dave Eggers|title=The Wild Things|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Maxbeen convicted of murder. When I say he sometimes gets With the wrong end current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the stick about adults, or dislikes prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his motherfirst few days in HMP Queen's new boyfriendBench, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the factsrelatively new prison. He is a bit of a rascal 's just getting used to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to a strange land be wary of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingthe McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>
}}
