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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General fictionFiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri'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 life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antoinette Van Huegten1529153298|title=Saving MaxThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The one-page Prologue sees us at the scene of the crime. Two teenagers It's 1979 and a lot of blood - one of whom will not surviveMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Seems like an open-and-shut case - but is it(A woman? We then go back in time to a medical consulting room in downtown New YorkI mean, honestly... ) Hot-shot lawyer and time-pressedShe's not what's worrying Miv's family, single mum Danielle is trying to understand her severely disabled sonthough. Women have been disappearing. Even allowing for the normal teenage angst and racing hormonesWell, they've been murdered, things are not good at homebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. She knows itMiv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. Max knows itWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. And For Miv, the medical profession at largemove would mean leaving her best friend, know itSharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. Something needs She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to be done before things get out of handanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304086</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Edwards1035906708|title=The Lake of DreamsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with a lovely and intriguing sentence - 'My name is Lucy Jarrett and before I knew about the girl We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in the window ... I found myself living Manhattan, New York, in a village near the sea in Japan.' Who could fail December 1923 and only moved to be drawn into a story after reading that, I thoughtAthens when she was thirteen. I Her original surname was hooked immediately. Edwards gives us a fleeting taste of life Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in Japan, particularly the importance (almost reverence) of nature and gardens, public and privateStates. This sets the tone When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the novel which is captivating Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and interesting, but put together beautifullymade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, unhurriedJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0142428396</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nikesh ShuklaAlexander McCall Smith|title=Coconut UnlimitedThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It The Perfect Passion Company is the early 1990's and Amita dating agency in Edinburgh, Anand run by Ness and Nishant are three young Asian boys in operating as an alternative to all white private schoolthe online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. As such they are considered massively uncool by default. Too bad then that their Asian peers in Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the North London Gujarati enclave known business, as Harrow think that they are Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a bunch while. Katie is coming out of stuck a break up toffswith a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Soft. Weak. No street cred whatsoever. Worst of all they are labelled as 'Coconuts' (brown on 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 outsideIsabel Dalhousie novels, white on the inside)but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. There's only one thing for it - start Katie has no experience in running a hip-hop band. The fact that they don't have any songsbusiness, talent or initially any idea what hipin match-hop actually sounds like isnmaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there't really a problem. As everyone knowss always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, forming to lend a band makes you 'pretty cool' and after that the girls simply fall at your feet.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704372045</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth HaynesDean Koontz|title=Into The Darkest CornerBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=The book didn't actually look that appealing. The cover Benny is on the sepia side of dullhaving a terrifically bad day. I didn't know the author's name He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and the title didn't really grab mehis house gets trashed. When I started reading we were straight into the transcript of Oh, and someone has delivered a court case in which really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it seemed 's possible that a police officer whoever or whatever was being questioned in court about inside is the thing that has trashed his relationship with a woman. house! He was accused of being violent to herThe thing is, but it seemed that Benny is the boot was really on the other footvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. Then we were into He is a story – or even two stories – with two time lines some four years apartnice person. A really nice person. Within ten minutes I couldn't put So fortunately for Benny it down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251579</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Pastor|title=Lumen|rating=4|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Cracowturns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, Polanda bad weather friend called Spike, October 1939: The Germans have recently occupied Poland and are seeking who has been sent to establish their authority. Captain Martin Bora of the Wehrmacht (the German army) has just arrived in the city help him since Benny is clearly under attack from the battlefield to take up nefarious forces for being a posting to Intelligencegood person. His boss asks Bora Spike is going to drive him to a convent every day to see the renowned Abbesstake care of Benny, rumoured to have mystic and healing powers. A few days laterwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, thoughBenny, she is found shot dead in the grounds of her convent. Bora is asked to investigate and report back. He proceeds to investigate Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who shot her and why, but as his investigation continues, there exactly they are more questions for Bora and the reader. Where does this case fit in with the priorities of the occupying forces?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904738664</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jake Wallis SimonsKatherine Howe|title=The English German GirlA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When it began it wasn't pleasantHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, but and being made to work there was hope that it would get betterfrom a young age. Rosa's fatherWhen she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, Otto was a doctor she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and she lived with him, her mother, Ingahorrified in equal measure, elder brother Heinrich and younger sister Hedi Hannah finds herself embroiled in a pleasant flat in Berlinyoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. The turn of opinion against Jews was slow – an anti-Jewish pin handed to Rosa as she went shoppingShe hides away, friends who felt so that they couldndon't remain such obvious friends – certainly for find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the time being – and notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a change of employment for Ottocabin boy. It was better for She soon finds herself in the patients if they didn't have contact with himthick of things when there is a mutiny on board, even if he was a good doctorand from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971764</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nathacha Appanah1471180158|title=The Last BrotherMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=WeJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who're on s a control freak with all the south coast of England in the middle subtlety of a hot summer in a very upmarket enclavehalf brick. Jamie's son, not dissimilar to SandbanksBo, along the coast a bit'has his problems'. The locals are going about their business, about their daily lives He's asthmatic and Bale obligingly introduces them to us one by one and also gives us an idea of their respective backgroundsthe more you read, their family members and even some of the house designs more you' ... each home had a private jettyll suspect that he' for example.s on the autistic spectrum. New money is also apparent along with ostentatious taste. WhatSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's also apparent is that troublea frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's afootnot fit enough to go to school. Big Missed shifts or the need to be away on timeto pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090765</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daphne KalotayB0CKD1L5JL|title=Russian WinterRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel's structure goes back and forth from the past to Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the present day. The book opens with Ninastrange, now elderlyreclusive Bear, in pain he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in a wheelchair: waiting to die basically. And even although shethe forests of Washington's lived an interesting life, now all she has for company is a daily home-helpOlympic Peninsula. I was struck straight away by how prickly Nina is After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and I could feel all those emotions seething underneath armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the surface. So forest, broadcasting the question is - why has she decided to sell some of her exquisite jewellery. Is it to help pay the bills? Or some other reason? We find out by degreesstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553244</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott MarianiSarah Marsh|title=The Lost RelicA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ben Hope went to Italy to visit After a former SAS comrade and offer him bout of scarlet fever as a jobchild, but he's got marriage and happiness – and Ben's trade is far from the front Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of his mindsilence, everything about her life changes. It's whilst he's driving away that Ben nearly runs down Living in a small boy and unwittingly walks into time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a deadly heist which will see 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 boy deaf and his mother – and many others – brutally murderedusing a system called Visible Speech. It's only At the beginning for Ben though as he find himself fleeing for his life same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and accused Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of murder. When the state needs to act people – even heroes – are disposableespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561977</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane JanesB0BC3YTCMR|title=Why Don't You Come For Me?Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over a decade ago Jo's daughter was abducted from in front of a shop whilst she and her husband were on holiday. The pushchair was found on a cliff edge but there was no trace of Lauren, even on the beach below. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture of her daughter on the front simply saying that the writer still has Lauren. The police, the people who know what happened believe the cards to be a hoax. Jo believes differently. She also realises that as she has moved house and remarried and the 'This story has faded from press attention someone is going to a great deal of trouble to keep track of hernot for everyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849011257</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Wilding1472263936|title=Cross Country Murder SongThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (unnamedHelena's parents) central character in felt that it would be a therapy session pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in downtown New Yorkup-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. The air is charged She grew to love her grandmother and tension is presentthe family's maid, bigDina, but was wary -time. This is one troubled human beingand frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. And He was proud of course, childhood issues his close connections to the Junta and experiences are dominant in this question and answer session. We soon find out that this individual has secrets in expected his family to uphold his basementvalues but saw no reason to accommodate them. It all becomes too much, he packs a bag His prejudices included Helena's red hair and hits the road and so the story starts propergreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Asa JonesDean Koontz|title=The Illustrated Mind of Mike ReevesAfter Death|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>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Forster|title=Diary of an Ordinary Woman|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After reading the introductionMichael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, I couldn't help but sneak is among 55 people who die when 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 virus is both surprising and revelatory. Back to the beginning and Chapter 1 ..released in a bio-hazard accident. We meet the 13 year old Millicent Finding himself in 1914. By her written statements and recorded mannerisms, we see that she's a girl who knows her own mind. For examplemakeshift mortuary, she thinks writing covered in her diary every single day could be dull and boring so she's made plastic, he has a golden rule sense that she's something very, very bad has happened to him – and only going to write something down when she feels like it. Some may call her precocious but I liked Millicent right from him – as he sits up and looks around at the startshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. Courtesy of her diary we find out As he recovers his senses, he realises that shethere is something different about him; he can ''feel's part of a large and boisterous family' everything. She doesn't appreciate all the noise and chatter from her siblings. She craves peace and quiet to think and to read. She's a prolific readerEverything''. She also believes that sheMichael isn's smart and clever and wants to t 'do' something with her life when she grows up. SheMichael's not sure what exactly but she certainly doesn't want to be a mere housewife and motheranymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099449285</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt DunnB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Accidental ProposalGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Middleton seems like The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a pretty decent guyWitching Forest. He always stops to buy a Big Issues from Billy, a local homeless man And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and he takes his elderly widowed neighbour shopping once a weekits blossom provides herbal medicines. These are some The black wood of the reasons why his girlfriendforest provides heat and warmth, Samroofs on homes, loves him so much. One nightand even gallows, after a friend's wedding, Sam asks Ed if he would also like to get married to which Ed enthusiastically replies 'yes'needed. HoweverThe fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, the following morninga drunken, whilst nursing his hangoverself-indulgent, he cannot work out if it was lazy lout of a hypothetical question or an actual proposal. His best mate Dan man is no help at all and is quite incredulous that anyone should ever want to marry Edtolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847395244</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William StyronB0BYF82CXT|title=The Suicide RunSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=A WW2 naval soldier''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, guarding stuck in a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartialsdepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving successful and leavingvery much in love – move in next door. A soldier remembers calming memoriesDespite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and those causing tensionlife appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, as he rests up before action. And and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk to be found in his high-octane downtimetragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Molly CarrShalini Boland|title=The Sign of FearSilent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mary Watson Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband- material. She is all he could possibly want in a distant second to John Watsonwife; beautiful, successful, who of course was a distant second to Sherlock Holmesconfident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. Fed up with staying at home while When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her new husband spends too much time at 221b Baker Streetfather, or away beaming with Holmes sleuthingpride 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 gets has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to dabble her own feet in the underworld waters when a certain Professor Moriarty comes callingbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907685006</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Stephen Fink1787636003|title=A Storm In The BloodGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Storm In The Blood'' is based on a true story involving It was the police force summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the government of the day trying island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to suppress racial tensions take an interest in early 20th century Londonher, she was flattered rather than wary. It has resonance 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 our modern times as we grapple with similar situations Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and problemsin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Allegra GoodmanAmanda Craig|title=The Cookbook CollectorThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There''The Cookbook Collector'' is all s something so utterly compelling about emotions. Concentrating on twoany writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, young, American women who are vastly different crafting an image of the country as it stands in many areas one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of their contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and also on their outlook on lifelived-in, Goodman digs deeper to find out what makes never making them tick - what makes them get up in the morningciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848875398</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Craig Smith152915118X|title=Cold Rain|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Life was pretty good for Dr David Albo. He'd just had fifteen months away from his job as an associate professor of English at a university in the mid-western USA. He lived on a plantation-style farmhouse with a beautiful and intelligent wife and a step-daughter who adored him. He was even going back to work in the expectation that he might well be offered a full professorship in the not-too-distant future and just to put the icing on the cake he's been clear of alcohol for two years. Yes; life was very good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190580234X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPineapple Street|author=Anna Gavalda|title=ConsolationJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Charles''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, the main character right at the startDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. And straight away, itThey's no secret thatre Stocktons, as a middle-aged professional (heonly Sasha isn's an architect and t a successful one at that) heStockton by birth so she isn's jadedt readily accepted into the tribe. Been-thereThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, done-that Tilda, asks Cord and got-Sasha if they'd like to move into the-bloody-tee-shirt just about sums him up pretty wellPineapple Street property. He's acquired (somehow) a beautiful, witty Tilda and clever partner Chip have renovated and also downsized to another property, a step-daughter whom he adoresstreet or so away, which they own. As They won't need any of the story deepensfurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, I soon acknowledged they had a choice but that wasn't the step-daughter seems reality. Darley and Georgiana start to be about call Sasha 'the only true love in his lifegold digger'. He She's luke-warm about the rest of his living in ''their'' family and home. They use it so often that includes his partner and his ageing parents. Is this man going through some mid-life crisis, would be an obvious question they abbreviate it to ask'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531925</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam HawkenEmily Critchley|title=The Dead Women of JuarezOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Although 84 year old Edie has lived in the story related here same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a work of fictionmove as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, the situation as Edie is based on factstarting to lose her memory. The Mexican border city of Juárez has a shocking problem with female homicides (usually young and invariably pretty). Official statistics put However, Edie is tormented by the number memory of murders at 400 since 1993 whileher childhood friend, we are toldLucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, residents believe and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the true number truth of disappeared women is closer to 5000what happened all that time ago. But attention to this problem is diverted by drug crime After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, although just as she was the two may not be entirely unrelatedlast time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Anything that raises public awareness of this terrible situation, such And yet as Hawken's bookshe remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to be encouragedday life. So much for Will she uncover the facttruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, what about the fictionand before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668773X</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=Diane Chamberlain0008506337|title=Breaking the SilenceThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As IThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O've reviewed several of Chamberlain's previous books and enjoyed themLeary was all-consuming, I apparently on both sides. Margo was looking forward to getting stuck just sixteen when they fell in to this onelove. We meet the central character; wife Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother to five-year-old Emma, Laura. Sheas 'an older man's distraught. Her father (Emmaparents worried that Richard's grandfather) has just passed influence would take her away but his dying wish has really upset Laura. It's a strange request and from what they felt she doesn't know what could achieve - going to make of itOxford and having a glittering career. She confides in In the event, they eloped and Richard took her husband thinking that two heads are better than oneaway from the Isle of Wight. He's Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a brilliant academic and could give some muchwell-needed advicerespected journalist. But he doesn't. In factThe couple had three children: Rachel, he behaves like a five-year-old himself Imogen and almost has a tantrumSasha. OddLife was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Now poor LauraEven then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's doubly confused, upset and doesnmind: ''t know how she would never be able to handle her grief. Tough timesleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304140</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cornelius Medvei1914585402|title=Caroline: A MysteryDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mr Shaw. HeI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's an insurance worker who takes his wife Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and son off on their annual vacation one year, remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and finds himself indulging in affecting it was. It was a surprisingly platonic holiday romance. The subject of his infatuation, Caroline, has eyesgripping, earsemotionally wounding read, hair and more rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that easily combine with Mr Shaw's fondness for classical Persian love poetry. At the end of the holiday he lets his wife and son depart while he takes a further week off to walk all the way home with Caroline. Who is, as I might not have lavished enough praise on it happens, a donkey.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553881</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steve MartinLucy Ashe|title=An Object of BeautyClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Leave aside the title of the book for a minute, the book itself The year is also 1933. The place? Sadler'an object of beauty' with its striking front cover s Wells. Ballerinas Clara and primary colours artfully arrangedOlivia are sisters, twins no less. And then I turned Identical on the book over and said to myselfoutside but not, we learn, ohon the inside. And not on stage, iteither. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''thatje ne sais quoi'' Steve Martin. I knew he was - and is - a very funny actor but I didn, that don't know that he was also come from the classroom. A stage presence, a writer. Socharm, before Ia ''joie de vivre''d even opened the book I was thinking . The difference between a hard- will he be as good worker, and a writer as he is an actor. I was about to find out ..star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297863290</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom CampbellHeather Fawcett|title=FoldEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Five men in Reading circulate their monthly poker evenings around their respective housesEmily 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 faeries. None of them like all the others, none of them seem Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to completely like the gamefaeries, but they're more-or-less happy she is not so good with the habitpeople. It's So when she finds herself far, far North in the way small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the five different personalities approach 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 evenings that we are concerned withright track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and enjoy principallyinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, especially when the poorest player, Nickall charm and delight, decides much to clash with his polar opposite, DougEmily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what might happen if a non-playing character were to enter things, and make them even feistierexactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408807602</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francois Lelord1398515388|title=Hector The Boy and the Secrets of LoveDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Professor Cormorant has gone AWOL. Tasked with developing drugs to cure a lot First of illsall, it was the earthquake, by making us fall deep in lovethe ocean floor, he has fled with his secretswhich created the tsunami and this, his prototypesin turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and a few samples that may or may not be dangerousutter devastation. It is down to HectorThe deaths were uncountable, a psychiatrist, to chase him and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down, work out where Cormorant is in his researches, and if possible help bring the trade secrets back to list of priorities but - six months after the company his girlfriend, and now himself, works fortsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. With He wasn't a dog person but the exotic far East convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his destination, a partner left behind, car door and time on his hand to muse on Tamon the subject of love, will Hector find more than just a bunch of chemicals dog jumped in a syringe?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906040338</amazonuk>.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edward WrightChristopher Bowden|title=From BloodMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=While I'm not mad about the title, the bookChristopher Bowden's cover latest novel is atmospherically good - it says to the reader a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman'please pick me up and read me.' So I dids life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The book opens in 1960s America with the Prologue. A bunch aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of radical thinkers are angry. They turn this pent-up anger into indulgence to a young nephew had had a well-oiled, well-ordered act of violence. Lives are lost. But the perpetrators are clever much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and most of them escape justice. They do what many around the world have done before them; they go underground. But several key members are still at large ..it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0752891774</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David LindsleyJennifer Mason|title=The Darkfall SwitchPartitions of Unity|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens on a sultryHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, hot summer's day dominatrix and unintentional detective in central London[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. Imagine the stifling heat is the subliminal message here, especially for those passengers on the underground - In '' ... as if they were all joined in some macabre dance as the train rattled along the tunnel. Everybody pressed against others.Partitions of Unity' Suddenly there's , she sets her mind to solving a problem with the infrastructure. A big problemmurder. 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070909146X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{Frontpage|author=Will Carver|title=The Daves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan LorberJennifer Mason|title=Benny Allen Was A StarPreposterous: A New York Music StoryAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alan Lorber has written ''A struggling poetry zine, a fictional mom-and I suspect -pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a semi autobiographical account of his years as 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a top music arranger in the 1950's and early 1960women'strack coach with a yen for bullwhips, a period of huge change in the music industry culminating billionaire with the breakthrough of the Beatles in America. Rather than simply writing a factual narrative of his involvement during this period he decided to tell the story state-of -the fictional Benny Allen-art S&M dungeon, a classically trained musician who almost by accident gets involved man serving a life sentence in the music publishing business and then goes Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on to produce some hugely successful orchestrations on many of the top hit records of the timea cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0041VXCTA</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elfriede JelinekB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Piano TeacherCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Erika is a single woman in her thirties, who, despite It's the best efforts 10th of her motherDecember 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, did not succeed as a concert musician, but instead works as a teacher at the Vienna ConservatoryCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. I say best efforts, I mean outright pressureThe world has barely had a chance to breathe out. Erika and her mother make But for an unusual relationship - Joe Marr, it's not the older relying on missile crisis that's at the glory, company and complete obedience front of the younger, the daughter sharing a bed with her mother even at this stage his mind. He's been convicted of her lifemurder. All this is until a young student at With the school decides he will be a younger lover for Erikacurrent state of medical knowledge, and forces it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his will into the householdfirst few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. But whoHe's just getting used to his roommate, should such a relationship actually formMervyn, is going and learning to be wary of the power-maker?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687373</amazonuk>McArthur brothers.
}}