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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=G S MattuOnyi Nwabineli|title=Sons and FascinationAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book concentrates Anuri spent her childhood on emotions. Take an impressionable young man, add in a chance (?) encounter with an attractive older woman and then stand well back as display to the fireworks explode and as familyworld, friends and colleagues get sucked in thanks to their deepening relationship. I must say Iher step-mother Ophelia'm not keen s increasingly popular presence on the title (a little pretentious social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for a work of fiction sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in my opinion her twenties and more suited she is slowly trying to poetry) regain her confidence and even when it was ever so gently explained later on in to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the book (twice) I still didn't warm content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to itstart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. All in all Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, not off to who is the greatest new focus of startsOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907756000</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Wilding1529153298|title=Cross Country Murder SongThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with the It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (unnamedA woman? I mean, honestly...) central character in a therapy session in downtown New York. The air is charged and tension is presentShe's not what's worrying Miv's family, big-timethough. This is one troubled human beingWomen have been disappearing. And of courseWell, childhood issues and experiences are dominant in this question and answer sessionthey've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. We soon find out Miv's upset because she's overheard that this individual has secrets in his basementher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. It all becomes too muchWhen you're from Yorkshire, he packs Down South is a bag and hits frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the road move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and so she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the story starts properdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Asa Jones1035906708|title=The Illustrated Mind of Mike Reeves|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Mike Reeves doesn't have his troubles to seek. His wife was brutally raped some four or five years ago and whilst she might seem to be recovered she cannot stand to be touched by a man – any man, Mike included. Quite suddenly Mike was alone, in every way – until he found himself drawn to the darker arts and began to dabble in Tarot, the Runes and I Ching. He's guided by two spirits. Sean is a wise and benevolent older man and Debbie, well she… isn't. She's the one who satisfies Mike's sexual needs. If that's all sounding rather good, then hesitate a moment, for with the good comes the bad and the bad is in the form of Tony a (very) real-life gangster who's been doing his own dabbling in the spirit world. When their worlds clash Mike has a problem which could well be more than he can handle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>160693905X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Margaret Forster|title=Diary of an Ordinary WomanDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After reading the introductionWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, I couldn't help but sneak a sly read at the author's note right at the end of the novel. I don't usually do this. I'm glad I did as the information is both surprising and revelatory. Back she was born to the beginning and Chapter 1 ... We meet the 13 year old Millicent Greek parents in 1914. By her written statements and recorded mannerismsManhattan, we see that she's a girl who knows her own mind. For exampleNew York, she thinks writing in her diary every single day could be dull December 1923 and boring so she's made a golden rule that she's only going moved to write something down Athens when she feels like itwas thirteen. Some may call her precocious Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but I liked Millicent right from the start. Courtesy of her diary we find out that shefather changed it to 's part of a large and boisterous family. She doesnCallas't appreciate all to make it more manageable in the noise and chatter from her siblingsStates. She craves peace and quiet to think and to read. She's a prolific reader. She also believes When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she's smart and clever and wants to 'do' something with could get appropriate training for her life when voice - she grows up. She's not sure what exactly but she certainly doesn't want to be was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mere housewife mother who mercilessly exploited her and mothermade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099449285</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt DunnAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Accidental ProposalPerfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Middleton seems like The Perfect Passion Company is a pretty decent guy. He always stops dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to buy all the online apps in providing a Big Issues from Billymore 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 local homeless man and he takes his elderly widowed neighbour shopping once trip to Canada to get away for a weekwhile. These are some Katie is coming out of the reasons why his girlfrienda break up with a bad boyfriend, Sam, loves him and so muchjumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. One night And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, after a friend's weddingbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, Sam asks Ed if he would also like thanks to get married 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to which Ed enthusiastically replies 'yes'charm. However Katie has no experience in running a business, the following morningor in match-making, whilst nursing his hangoverbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, he cannot work out if it was a hypothetical question or an actual proposal. His best mate Dan is no help at all and is quite incredulous that anyone should ever want there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to marry Ed.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847395244</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=William StyronDean Koontz|title=The Suicide RunBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesParanormal|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding Benny is having a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartialsterrifically bad day. He loses his job, is forced to wonder if he is winning loses his own battles against those arriving fiancee, and leavinghis house gets trashed. A soldier remembers calming memoriesOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and those causing tensionit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, as he rests up before actionBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. And So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a highly-charged young manbad weather friend called Spike, there may be too much risk who has been sent to be found in his high-octane downtimehelp 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Molly CarrKatherine Howe|title=The Sign of FearA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mary Watson - Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a distant second young age. When she hears there is to John Watsonbe a hanging of some pirates in the town, who of course was a distant second she decides to Sherlock Holmesgo and watch. Fed up with staying Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at home while the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her new husband spends too much time at 221b Baker Street, or and then to escape them completely she runs away with Holmes sleuthingto sea, she gets to dabble her own feet dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the underworld waters thick of things when there is a certain Professor Moriarty comes callingmutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907685006</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Stephen Fink1471180158|title=A Storm In The BloodMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He'A Storm In The Bloods asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he' is based s on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a true story involving frequent flier in the police force local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the government of the day trying need to be away on time to suppress racial tensions pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in early 20th century Londonthe wrong. It has resonance for our modern times as we grapple with similar situations and problemswas going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Allegra GoodmanB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Cookbook CollectorRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Cookbook Collector'' Petr is all about emotionsan orphan. Concentrating on twoRescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, younghe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, American women who are vastly different in many areas the forests of their lives Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and also armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on their outlook on lifea journey through the forest, Goodman digs deeper to find out what makes them tick - what makes them get up in broadcasting the morningstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848875398</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Craig SmithSarah Marsh|title=Cold RainA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life was pretty good for Dr David Albo. He'd just had fifteen months away from his job After a bout of scarlet fever as an associate professor of English at a university in the mid-western USAchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. He lived on Suddenly plunged into a plantation-style farmhouse with a beautiful and intelligent wife and a step-daughter who adored himworld of silence, everything about her life changes. He Living in a time when the use of sign language was even going back seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to work in the expectation that he might well be offered a full professorship school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the not-too-distant future deaf and just to put using a system called Visible Speech. At the icing same time, Bell is working on the cake he's been clear other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of alcohol for two years. Yes; life was very goodespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190580234X</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna GavaldaB0BC3YTCMR|title=ConsolationGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Charles, the main character right at the start''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. And straight awayShe was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's no secret that, as a middle-aged professional (hecontagious. It's an architect and not easy being a successful one at that) he's jadedblack girl whose skin is 84% white. BeenShe had a crush on seventeen-there, doneyear-that old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and got-the-bloody-tee-shirt just about sums Reggie asked if she would tutor him up pretty well. He's acquired (somehow) a beautiful, witty and clever partner and also a step-daughter whom he adoresShe readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. As the story deepens, I soon acknowledged that the step-daughter seems She went to be about the only true love in his life. He's luke-warm about the rest of his family house and that includes his partner and his ageing parentshe raped her. Is this man going through some mid-life crisisIn shock, would be an obvious question she even allowed him to askgive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531925</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Hawken1472263936|title=The Dead Women of JuarezFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Although It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the story related here is a work of fictionfamily home and refused to return, the situation is based on fact. The Mexican border city of Juárez has a shocking problem with female homicides but Mary and Hamish (usually young and invariably prettyHelena's parents)felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Official statistics put Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the number first of murders at 400 since 1993 whileseveral annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, we are toldDina, residents believe that the true number but was wary - and frightened - of disappeared women is closer to 5000her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. But attention He was proud of his close connections to this problem is diverted by drug crime, although the two may not be entirely unrelatedJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Anything that raises public awareness of this terrible situation, such as Hawken His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's book, is to be encouragedScottish ancestorsSo much for the fact, what about the fiction?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668773X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela KlaffkeDean Koontz|title=SnappedAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=They say that Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a good idea virus is to write about what you knowreleased in a bio-hazard accident. WellFinding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, Klaffke seems he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to have heeded that piece him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of advicehis dead friends and former colleagues. She writes here As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about a fictional fashion writer called Sara B (note the pretentious second capital letter) who is the central characterhim; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. And although Sara B Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is now in her middle years, sheisolated and poor. It's still acting surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like a teenagerfruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. She's got The black wood of the younger boyfriend/loverforest provides heat and warmth, got the latest fashion look which she can deftly put her stamp roofs onhomes, got the invites to the best parties and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the best venues with village and that is the must-be-seenreason Volushka, a drunken, self-with minor celebrities. But - is she happy? I knowindulgent, it seems lazy lout of a silly question, but man is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304337</amazonuk>tolerated.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane ChamberlainB0BYF82CXT|title=Breaking the SilenceSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As I've reviewed several of Chamberlain's previous books Bill and enjoyed themAmanda are living in a semi-detached house, I was looking forward to getting stuck in to this onea depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. We meet Despite their different outlooks on life, the central character; wife couples befriend each other and mother life appears to five-year-old Emmaimprove for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, Lauraand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. She's distraught. Her father (Emma's grandfather) has just passed away but his dying wish has really upset Laura. It's }}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a strange request and she doesn't know what to make of it. She confides match made in her husband thinking that two heads are better than oneheaven. He's a brilliant academic is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and could give some muchutter husband-needed advicematerial. But She is all he doesn'tcould possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. In factWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, he behaves like a five-year-old himself Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and almost has a tantrum. Odd. Now poor Laurawhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's doubly confusedworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, upset and doesn't know how who is waiting for her to handle her grief. Tough timesbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778304140</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lola Shoneyin1787636003|title=The Secret Lives Girls of Baba Segi's WivesSummer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is one of those books It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that you read with a smile on your face. It's full of gloriously unsavoury characters caught in a terrible web of deceit. We are promised 'four women, one husband she and a devastating secret' Caroline went backpacking around Greece and it delivers arrived on all three countsthe island. Sure the secret is quite well signposted and Shoneyin doesn Rachel wasn't really make much of an effort to divert the reader from putting two and two togetherexactly innocent but she was, although it takes wife number fourperhaps, Bolanlenaive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an inordinate amount interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the penny to drop, but it's not about discovering island and in particular in the deception - it's about bar where all the glorious journey of how things unfoldgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687497</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cornelius MedveiAmanda Craig|title=Caroline: A MysteryThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mr ShawFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. HeThere's an insurance worker something so utterly compelling about any writer who takes his wife can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and son off on their annual vacation one yearcapture it, and finds himself indulging crafting an image of the country as it stands in a surprisingly platonic holiday romanceone particular moment. The subject of his infatuation, Caroline, has eyes, ears, hair and more To say that easily combine with Mr ShawAmanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's fondness practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for classical Persian love poetry. At weaving the end ongoing issues of the holiday he lets his wife and son depart while he takes day into the lives of her characters in a further week off to walk all the way home with Caroline. Who isthat feels natural and lived-in, as it happensnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, a donkeygrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553881</amazonuk>140871468X
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Martin152915118X|title=An Object of BeautyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Leave aside ''Pineapple Street'' is the title story of the book for a minutethree women: Sasha, the book itself is also 'an object of beauty' with its striking front cover Darley and primary colours artfully arrangedGeorgiana. And then I turned the book over Darley and George are sisters and said Sasha is married to myself, ohtheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, itonly Sasha isn's t a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem'thats exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'' Steve Martind like to move into the Pineapple Street property. I knew he was - Tilda and is - Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a very funny actor but I didnstreet or so away, which they own. They won't know that he was also a writerneed any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. SoNominally, before Ithey had a choice but that wasn'd even opened t the book I was thinking - will he be as good a writer as he is an actorreality. I was about Darley and Georgiana start to find out call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home.They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297863290</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom CampbellEmily Critchley|title=FoldOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Five men 84 year old Edie has lived in Reading circulate their monthly poker evenings around their respective housesthe 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. None However, Edie is tormented by the memory of them like all her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the others, none of them seem to completely like worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the game, but they're more-or-less happy with thing that reveals the habittruth of what happened all that time ago. ItAfter 's seeing' Lucy in the way the five different personalities approach the evenings that we are concerned with, and enjoy principallyhigh street, especially when just as she was the poorest playerlast time she saw her, Nick, decides she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to clash with his polar opposite, Dougher. And what might happen if a non-playing character were yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to enter thingsday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and make them even feistierbefore her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408807602</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=Francois Lelord|title=Hector and the Secrets of Love|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Professor Cormorant has gone AWOL. Tasked with developing drugs to cure Told from a lot of illsretrospective view, by making us fall in love, he has fled with his secrets, his prototypes, and a few samples young woman unravels the year-long relationship that may or may not be dangerousonce defined her. It is down to HectorOverlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a psychiatrist, man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to chase him down, work out where Cormorant is in his researches, and if possible help bring its sorrowful end the trade secrets back to summer after. Set against the company his girlfriend, and now himself, works backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for. With Salt'' details the exotic far East his destination24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, a partner left behinddepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and time on his hand to muse on the subject of love, will Hector find more than just a bunch of chemicals in a syringe?how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906040338</amazonuk>0861546490
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edward Wright0008506337|title=From BloodThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=While IThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'm not mad about the titleLeary was all-consuming, the bookapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's cover is atmospherically good influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - it says going to the reader 'please pick me up Oxford and read mehaving a glittering career.' So I did. In the event, The book opens in 1960s America with they eloped and Richard took her away from the Prologue. A bunch Isle of radical thinkers are angryWight. They turn this pent-up anger into Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-oiled, well-ordered act of violencerespected journalist. Lives are lostThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. But Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the perpetrators are clever and most Isle of them escape justiceWight. They do what many around Even then the world have done before them; they go underground. But several key members are still at large ..doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752891774</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=David Lindsley|title=The Darkfall Switch|rating=3Then Richard left them.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens on a sultry, hot summer's day in central London. Imagine the stifling heat is the subliminal message here, especially for those passengers on the underground - ' ... as if they were all joined in some macabre dance as the train rattled along the tunnel. Everybody pressed against others.' Suddenly there's a problem with the infrastructure. A big problem. As the experts frantically work behind the scenes to get London moving again - the unthinkable happens. People lose their lives in what appears to be a power cut.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070909146X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Lorber1914585402|title=Benny Allen Was A Star: A New York Music StoryDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alan Lorber has written a fictional and I suspect a semi autobiographical account of his years as a top music arranger in the 1950reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's and early 1960Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's, Only One Danny Garvey]] a period couple of huge change in the music industry culminating with the breakthrough of the Beatles in Americayears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Rather than simply writing It was a factual narrative of his involvement during this period he decided to tell the story of the fictional Benny Allengripping, emotionally wounding read, a classically trained musician who almost by accident gets involved in the music publishing business and then goes rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on to produce some hugely successful orchestrations on many of the top hit records of the timeit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0041VXCTA</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah HarknessLucy Ashe|title=A Discovery of WitchesClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The back cover is full of praise for this debut novel which has been involved in a publishing 'tussle', no less. Impressive. I was looking forward to reading what all the fuss was about. The title is terrific too. But was the book a terrific read?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755374029</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Elfriede Jelinek
|title=The Piano Teacher
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Erika is a single woman in her thirties, who, despite the best efforts of her mother, did not succeed as a concert musician, but instead works as a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory. I say best efforts, I mean outright pressure. Erika and her mother make for an unusual relationship - the older relying on the glory, company and complete obedience of the younger, the daughter sharing a bed with her mother even at this stage of her life. All this is until a young student at the school decides he will be a younger lover for Erika, and forces his will into the household. But who, should such a relationship actually form, is going to be the power-maker?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687373</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Maria Angels Anglada
|title=The Auschwitz Violin
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Poland in The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the early 1990soutside but not, we learn, a violin singson the inside. The maestro who owns it produces such a music from itAnd not on stage, people are forced to take noteeither. TheyBecause there'd s a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be even more amazed if she could bring herself taught or learnt – discipline, attention to state exactly how detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the instrument came to beclassroom. For this was the work of DanielA stage presence, a charm, suffering in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau''joie de vivre''. Stumbles, chances, halfThe difference between a hard-liesworker, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour and engage in his real-world careera star. But is there a price to pay in doing something you love, just for a man you can only hate?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849016437</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bethan DarwinHeather Fawcett|title=Two Times TwentyEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You can tell from 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 beginning very first encyclopaedia of this novel that you're in Walesfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. The young Anna (as we travel back So when she finds herself far, far North in time) the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is meeting not sure what will be long-term friendsshe has done, Bob nor how to redeem herself and Janeput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. We find Anna rather proudly introducing Enter Wendell Bambleby, her two young sons dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Bob butting in with delight, much to Emily'Duw, good-sized boys for their age ... Make good rugby players one days frustration.' But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touch.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190678423X</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Dawson1398515388|title=CODEXThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I read First of all, it was the resume on earthquake, deep in the back cover I immediately thought that it was going to be one of those high-octaneocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, action every second paragraphin turn, type of thrillerscaused the nuclear meltdown. All action The result was complete and perhaps very little substanceutter devastation. I The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was happily proved wrongwidespread. And very early on The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in the novel, as well, which was good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956577008</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DurantineChristopher Bowden|title=The Chocolate AssassinMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the final days Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of the Second World War as the allied guns came ever closer a young German was sent on a secret mission to Americaseemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyone, including the U-boat captain The aunt who took him across the Atlantic, about the nature always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of his mission. Fifty five years later the U-boat captain, Eric Hoest, long settled in the States, was murdered at his beach home. Samuel Grey, police detective and part-time student was called in indulgence to investigate the murder. The local police chief thought a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that the most likely murderer was the neighbour who nephew Stephen had reported the crime, but Grey suspected that the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoest's backgroundever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1451579527</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila O'FlanaganJennifer Mason|title=A Season to RememberPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We Here at Bookbag Towers, we first meet the Lodge ownersmet Elizabeth Cromwell, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating dominatrix and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets unintentional detective in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], the unthinkable has happenedwhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. Empty rooms. TheyIn ''Partitions of Unity''re not used , she sets her mind to empty rooms, at any time of the yearsolving a murder. Normally the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack Everett and David ColesWill Carver|title=Last Mission: the last hours of the Third ReichThe Daves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet Five strangers come together in one moment as a couple of characters living in the United States. A husband and wife and suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a relation of theirs called PaulLondon tube line. On As their fates overlap, the surfacestory is told in backwards order, they appear leading up to be enjoying happy, normal lives. But all is not what is seems. We soon find out that the husband, Carl has some secrets. Pretty big ones. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - in his home, for example. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked about, or rather whispered about, with a handful of trusted 'acquaintances' over a beer or twofateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary E MartinJennifer Mason|title=The Drawing LessonPreposterous: The First in the Trilogy of RemembranceAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander Wainwright is the UK's premier artist. He's A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just won missed the Turner 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with ''The Hay Wagon'' – a painting yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a luminousstate-of-the-art S&M dungeon, moonlit landscape. He should be at the peak of his powersa man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, but he'K(s about to lose his muse and, more worryinglyx), there seems to be something wrong with his sight and the year to come is going to be traumatic. The story of it is told by his friendon a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, who has pieced together what he knows, what he's heard – and used a little artistic licence to fill in the gapsGeorgia... It's a most unusual story which will take you deep into the world of artists and writers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450229360</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview|author=Cathleen Schine|title=The Three Weissmanns This is just a sample of the cast of Westport|rating=3characters and settings in Preposterous.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The novel begins with Joseph Weissmann, or Josie as he is known, deciding at the age basic premise of 78 that he no longer wants to be married to Betty after 48 years togetherthis mystery story goes like this. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences, but the truth is he has fallen head over heels in love. Betty is devastated, her life in tatters, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to her.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John IrvingB0B2N7MVYM|title=Last Night in Twisted River|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in a log-cutters' encampment. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind of comfort - a decent job, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting it. But a pair Calculations of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to flee. They leave behind a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safety-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generations, will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted River.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRational Men|author=Tony Bayliss|title=Past ContinuousDaniel Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The authorIt's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the authorCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's sonminds.' Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that the schoolboy Matthew The world has barely had a knack with computerschance to breathe out. HeBut for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's a bit at the front of a whiz-kidhis mind. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit been convicted of a loner as wellmurder. He stands out at school for all With the wrong reasons but hecurrent state of medical knowledge, it's coping with it - just. And early on hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in the book we meet Sophie. SheHMP Queen's Bench, a big part of this bookrelatively new prison. SheHe's around Matthew's age. She is bright just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own goodlearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Sam Hayes|title=Someone Else's Son|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want Move on to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]