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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=In The Sea There Are CrocodilesOnyi Nwabineli|authortitle=Fabio GedaAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|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'In The Sea There Are Crocoiles'' s childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is based on a true story slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about a young boy left by his mother her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to fend start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for himselfdoing so. As if that wasn't difficult enoughMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, he's stranded in Pakistan while who is the rest new focus of his family are in war-ravaged Afghanistan. ItOphelia's a collaboration between Afghan Enaiatollah online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and his Italian translator, Fabio - this book is already a big hit her relationship with Italian readers (it says so on her father at the back cover blurb). Enaiatollah eventually claimed political asylum in Italy.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857560085</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Forgetting Zoe1529153298|author=Ray Robinson|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summarytitle=''Forgetting Zoe'' opens with Thurman, one of the two main characters. We see that his home life is dreadful - with a violent and cruel father and a mother who is weak. And as an only child (to rather elderly parents) Thurman hears his father's violence directed at his mother. Their home is out of the way and in an isolated spot, so really the three of them form a very unhappy threesome indeed. The reader is left in no doubt as to the nature of the father with lines such as, ''As a form of punishment Father would press one of his hands down on top List of Thurman's head so forcefully that Thurman's legs would buckle... that blood would trickle down his forehead...''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009953763X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Poison TreeSuspicious Things|author=Erin KellyJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Karen It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is ending her university years and has her future mapped outPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. But then she meets Biba Well, they've been murdered, who opens doors but to a world have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's never seen before, and overheard that her father wants to move the type of intense friendship that shefamily 'Down South's never experienced either. As Karen embarks on this friendship When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, she collects all kinds of new experiences along the waybest avoided. At For Miv, the start of that summermove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she could never have predicted just how indelible 'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the mark left by the friendship would turn out dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to beanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444701053</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare Jacob1035906708|title=Ophelia in PiecesDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barrister Ophelia Dormandy had been working hard – wellWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, overworking – for the last six months and on the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday but she decided that she would go home early was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and cook a decent meal for her husband and herself. She even decided that she would wear the red dress which Patrick liked. But only moved to Athens when she got home Patrick and their son, Alex, were eating ice creamswas thirteen. He didnHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas't seem to make it more manageable in the least interested States. When she was back in dinner and then admitted Athens - supposedly so that he she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was having an affair. Ophelia threw him out – and then began raised under the long haul of trying to be Nazi occupation by a decent single parent in a job where the hours were long mother who mercilessly exploited her and the money uncertainmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595147</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elliott HallAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Children's CrusadePerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We back-track several years The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to get all the low-down and history on Felix. It's interestingonline apps in providing a more personal, very interestingtailored service. He's like some sort of American 007 but not all of his plans have been successful. Some have back-fired Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and he has look after the scars business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to prove itCanada to get away for a while. In fact although in his prime yearsKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, Felix could be healthier and is forced so jumps at the chance to come home to take regular medicationEdinburgh. And throughout the so begins this new story Hall tells from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us why that isto an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Chapter TwoKatie has no experience in running a business, which sees Felix or in Nevada opens with the nomatch-nonsense line making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there''I came to Las Vegas s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to kill lend a man.'' But who? And why? We get the answers all in Hall's good time.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848540752</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=J Robert LennonDean Koontz|title=CastleThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=In the late winter of 2006 Erich Loesch returns 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 Gerrysburghis home, NY (Pop 2310 and falling) and buys six hundred it's possible that whoever or so acres of undeveloped land on whatever was inside is the edge of thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the countyvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. Loesch grew up in Gerrysburg, but he's been away He is a long timenice person. The place hasn't changed much except through long, slow declineA really nice person. There are vacant lots where he remembers homesSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, businessesa bad weather friend called Spike, amenities. There are one or two people who remember has been sent to help him, or remember his familysince Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. They remember what happened Spike is going to the familytake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, or heard about what happened to him afterwardsand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1555975593</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel GennKatherine Howe|title=The CureA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We get the background on Eugene early on Hannah Masury is living in the story; Boston, having been sent to live with a troubled childhood with family who run an alcoholic father who was often not at homeinn, and being made to work there from a young age. Instead he was working on When she hears there is to be a building site hanging of some pirates in London the town, she decides to go and drinking away much of his wageswatch. His wife Enthralled and children didnhorrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy't appear to benefit much - either financially or emotionallys death at the hands of two vicious pirates. Eugene still bears plenty of invisible scars from She hides away, so that time they don't find and now grown upkill her too, would like and then to carve out his own path escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and thinks a fresh start would be joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a good ideacabin boy. Although it's not altogether She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a fresh start as he chooses to work mutiny on the same construction site as his father board, and even lives from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the same lodgings in the East Endocean waves. Is this his own unique way of exorcising some ghosts?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184901583X</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathy Glass1471180158|title=Run, Mummy, RunMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Aisha is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a young, beautiful and successful woman man who has worked hard to get where she is. But there is one thing missing in her life: 's a man. Still living control freak with her parents at all the age subtlety of thirty a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and inexperienced when it comes the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to men, Aisha wonders if take time off at short notice - she will ever find 's a husband. But then she spots an ad frequent flier in the paper local A&E and plucking up all her courage and determination, she decides sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to replyschool. This could Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be her only chance at love controlled and she doesn't want put in the wrong. It was going to come to waste ita head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007299281</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Blake MorrisonB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Last WeekendRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens in the sunny month of June when Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the invitation is givenstrange, via telephonereclusive Bear, he is brought up far from Ollie bustling cities and Daisy to Ian and Emily. Or Em as she's called throughout - there's a lovely explanation busy human society, in the forests of why Ian insists on shortening his wifeWashington's nameOlympic Peninsula. And even After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with this generous and seemingly innocent phone callonly a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, all hell seems to break loose as Ian decides to de-cipher broadcasting the call. Did they mean this? Did they really mean that? And lots of undercurrents strange, wild and negative feelings start to bubble uprarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954234X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicholas HoggSarah Marsh|title=The Hummingbird and the BearA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sam Taylor seems to have After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a charmed world of silence, everything about her life – changes. Living in a City job that brings him wealth and prestigetime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a wonderful fiancée 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 deaf and using a lovely London homesystem called Visible Speech. But all this can't compensate for a childhood that contained great sorrow; he At the same time, Bell is haunted by working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a sense complicated tangle of being somehow incomplete. When a chance encounter at a wedding brings a new woman into this life, he begins to hope that he has found everything he really needsespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184901647X</amazonuk>1035401614
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa JewellB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Making of UsGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lydia, Robyn and Dean are ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three completely different people with only one thing in commonweeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. According to an online donor registry She was a very bright student, they were all fathered by the same sperm donor. Some have known of their heritage for a whilebit too nerdy if truth be told, others are just finding out, but none of them knew the other two existed. Until nowand suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. At the same time, their donor father It's life not easy being a black girl whose skin is slipping away84% white. His last wish is to know of the impact his 'noble' act may have She had, the legacy it is leaving a crush on the worldseventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. And in Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this information age it's not that hard was just an extension. She went to trace your roots, unless, that ishis house and he raped her. In shock, you're searching for people who don't want she even allowed him to be foundgive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846055741</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenn Ashworth1472263936|title=Cold LightThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=''Cold Light'' is the story of three teenage girls who become involved It was in a predatory adult world1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. As She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the story opens we're looking back on what happened from a decade later family home and we know that one of the girlsrefused to return, Chloë, died in a Valentinebut Mary and Hamish (Helena's Day suicide pactparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. The town council has finally decided on a memorial to Chloë – it's Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be a summerhouse at the side first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the pond where she drowned, although itfamily's difficult maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to understand quite why anyone would want the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to sit thereaccommodate them. The groundHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes -breaking ceremony is being televised when it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But Lola, our narrator, knows that theyinherited from her father've found a bodys Scottish ancestors. She also knows who it is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444721445</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kristina McMorrisB0BVDC2VWH|title=Letters From HomeThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Liz Stephens accompanies a couple of friends to a GI social occasionThe village is isolated and poor. SheIt's content and already 'spoken for' so she wouldn't normally be here where essentially most people are footsurrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-loose like fruit provides nutrition and fancy-freeits blossom provides herbal medicines. But she's promised her good friend Betty to come along. As The black wood of the evening progresses with lots of singing forest provides heat and dancingwarmth, roofs on homes, things become both interesting and just a little dangerouseven gallows, if needed. But for whom? Who are we talking about here? Liz bumps into one The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the many GIs present. His name's Morgan. An instant spark village and that is there - or so someone believes. But they both end the evening on reason Volushka, a lessdrunken, self-than-satisfactory note. Liz returns to her life with her soon-to-be-fiance and Morgan goes off to warindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847562418</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve HelyB0BYF82CXT|title=How I Became a Famous NovelistSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became 'Bill and Amanda are living in a Famous Novelist'semi-detached house, this clearly isn't intended to be stuck in a subtle book. So I can hardly complain depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when a cynical look at the writing industry swings raw punches Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in every directionnext door. It just isn't my sort of humourDespite their different outlooks on life, but equallythe couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, if you rave about and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BressShalini Boland|title=The Dysfunctional FamilySilent Bride|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Societies are constantly changing Alice and sociology students Seth are presented with theories to help them to comprehend what's happeninga match made in heaven. Here we have a different approach: a family He is everything she has been paid searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a small amount of money to write diaries which they would keep secret from other members of wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the family wedding is planned and which would be available for publicationset. This book When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the result and we follow Phil and Sue Brown and their two sonsaisle by her father, Jack beaming with pride and Theo though a traumatic period which lasts for just over two months. The entries in excitement as she surveys the diaries are made daily congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and we read what when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has happened absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to each member of the 'dysfunctional family'become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B0048ELN32</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Quindlen1787636003|title=Every Last OneThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mary Beth Latham is contemplating her average, ordinary life where every day is more of less It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the sameisland. Would things be better if life were more exciting Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, variedperhaps, newsworthy? Is that naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a legitimate thing while before he made any sort of physical approach to hope for? They say to be careful what you wish her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked forHenry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and Mary Beth never comes right out and says this is what she wants, but there are hints to this effectin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537966</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John LawtonAmanda Craig|title=A Lily of the FieldThree Graces|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens in the early 1930s in Vienna where we meet one of the main characters; ten year old Meret. She's gifted musically and in particular in playing the cello. Even at this tender age, people are talking about her starry future on the world stage. She is the apple of her father's eye and soon she's being given extra musical tuition by a kind but much older man. He's old enough to be her grandfather but nevertheless they strike up a rather unusual friendship with music being the common denominator. But some of their conversations are serious and quite grown-up for a young girl, not yet into puberty. The tutor, Viktor Rosen is Jewish and has already suffered at the hands of the Germans. Meret progresses at such a pace that before you know it, she's performing in public. Her life appears to be wonderful and full of future promise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611856019</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kim Newman|title=Anno Dracula|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=The story begins in London. It is 1888 and Queen Victoria is on the throne. She has recently remarried, taking as her husband the infamous vampire Count Dracula. Dracula's influence is all around London as more and more of its citizens turn willingly to vampirism, whilst others resist its temptations. A distinct sense of social and political unrest is in the air as factions speak out against the race of vampires, somehow spurred on by the serial killer at large. Known at first as the Silver Knife, but later as Jack the Ripper, this killer targets young vampire women in Whitechapel, prostitutes who have recently turned to vampirism, known as new-borns. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857680838</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexander Baron|title=There's No Home|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the year 1943 day and Sicily has been invaded (along with other parts capture it, crafting an image of Europe). The menfolk have gone (will they return?) and the women, children and old people left behind are a sorry sightcountry as it stands in one particular moment. Impoverished, ragged and To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with barely enough food to eatthe genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. A British company She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of soldiers rolls the day into town ... and everything changes. The men are foot-sore, exhausted and dirty. They are also glassy-eyed with the horrors lives of war. And as if her characters in a way that were not enoughfeels natural and lived-in, the Sicilian sun beats down on never making them mercilessly. But there's some good news - they're here to rest and recuperate ciphers for a whilesocial commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956308600</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Raj Kumar152915118X|title=SharafPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With its subtitle "Forbidden love in ''Pineapple Street'' is the kingdom story of faith three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and honour"Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, I expected something entirely different from only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn'Sharaft readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they' d like to what it deliveredmove into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. For They won't need any of the second time furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in as many weeks I . Nominally, they had misjudged a book by, if not its cover exactly, certainly by its setting choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and its blurbGeorgiana start to 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>1905802331</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark WatsonEmily Critchley|title=ElevenOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The book's title 84 year old Edie has been well thought outlived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. Xavier IrelandHowever, Edie is tormented by the main character has memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the number ''Eleven'' if you take his initials as Roman numbers (XI) and worry that there are eleven individuals who are involved in this chain reaction of events. When I read was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the blurb on thing that reveals the back cover, truth of what caught my eye above happened all else was the line that time ago. After 'seeing'whether Lucy in the choices we don't make affect us high street, just as powerfully as those we doshe was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her.' And of courseyet as she remembers the past, when we take no action she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about something in our lives, itLucy's a form of action in effect.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184983136X</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mavis CheekMadelaine Lucas|title=The Lovers of Pound HillThirst for Salt|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Archaeologist Molly Bonner had something about her. She definitely wasn't dressed for the country when she arrived in Lufferton Boney and she'd captured the heart of one young man before she'd even walked down the street. She captured another when she offered money to work on the Gnome of Pound Hill, but Miles Whittington was ruled by his wallet and he was keen to make money out of the Gnome. The Gnome, you see, was what might euphemistically be called 'well endowed' and Miles had visions of charging visitors to make use of the, er, fertility rites. One thing was certain – none of the villagers of Lufferton Boney would be the same by the time that Molly Bonner (not only an archaeologist but also the archaeologist's granddaughter) had finished her work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091931665</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alan Warner|title=The Stars in the Bright Sky|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In 1999, Alan Warner introduced us to a wonderful set of characters in 'The Sopranos' when a school choir from a backwater town in Scotland went on a trip to the big city. Much debauchery ensued. Love, I'The Stars in the Bright Sky' once again reunites most of the original gang and there is no need to have d read the first book to pick up on the diverse characters. Now though, they've grown up (or at least got older!) and are gathered at Gatwick Airport was supposed to set off on be a girlslight and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity' holiday.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009946182X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Geraint Anderson|title=Just Business|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The inside cover blurb tells us that the author himself has worked in the square mile in London, so presumably he'll have first-hand experience in the world of finance. The book is bang up-to-date, as it mentions the first whiff of the sub-prime disaster which seemed to start the whole collapse of the (up till then) safe and often extremely well-paid banking sector.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755381726</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annalena McAfee0008506337|title=The Spoiler|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Several things about this novel intrigued me. It is about two female journalists of very different generations. Also, it is set in the recent past – 1997. While newspaper production had been computerised, it was just before internet access at home and work became affordable and accessible to far more people and so became mass media, and newspapers were almost entirely a print medium – newspaper websites were just around the corner. Annalena McAfee has an insider's knowledge of the newspaper world as she was a journalist for many years, and her career included founding the Guardian's review section in its current form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554357</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGarnett Girls|author=Megan Abbott|title=The End of EverythingGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Connolly The love affair between Margo Garnett and [[Tell No One by Harlan Coben|Harlan Coben]]poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both of whom I've readsides. So, it Margo was off to a pretty good startjust sixteen when they fell in love. The front cover graphics Richard was twenty-one and large print scream out described by Margo'thrillers mother as '. We get the essence of Cody early on. He's a an older man who likes to do his own thing and doesn't take kindly to orders or red tape. All Her parents worried that red tape is shit, is probably how Cody Richard's influence would describe it in his own colourful and downtake her away from what they felt she could achieve -going to-earth fashionOxford and having a glittering career. He looks older than his years. In the event, Maybe that's down to a messy domestic life they eloped and also to Richard took her away from the hours he puts in on the jobIsle of Wight. He lives Margo did go to Oxford and went on his own and has to become a teenage son he doesn't see often enoughwell-respected journalist. OhThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and he smokes like a chimney Sasha. Life was lived in London and drinks like a fishholidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. In short, heEven then the doubts about Richard's a mess. But somehow he stumbles through his police work - with a lot of help and support drinking were never far from a long-suffering colleagueMargo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872984</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Jackson Bennett1914585402|title=The Company Man|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''The Times'' says on the front cover that Bennett Dashboard Elvis is 'clearly a writer to watch' so I had high hopes for this novel. We meet two of the central characters, American policeman Garvey and Englishman Hayes. Garvey's working cv is straightforward enough - he carries out police work, some of which is pretty grisly. But what about Hayes? He appears to be all things to all men but at the end of the day well, he's 'The Company Man' which gives the book its title. And so a complex scenario starts to unravel ...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497924</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDead|author=Justine Kilkerr|title=Advice for StraysDavid F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you have ever fancied a grown up version of I reviewed David F Ross's book [[The Tiger Who Came to Tea There's Only One Danny Garvey by Judith KerrDavid F Ross|The Tiger who came to TeaThere's Only One Danny Garvey]], the cover a couple of this Vintage edition should hook you into reading Justine Kilkerr's first novel. Here sits a sad years back and patient-looking lion, and the female figure beside him, hidden remember being absolutely floored by an umbrella, has that same vulnerable look of mother how powerful and child in Judith Kerr's classic children's picture bookaffecting it was. At first this seems like It was a ridiculous connectiongripping, but thinking about emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it later my main takeaway was that I'm struck with the analogy, might not to mention the similarity in authors' nameshave lavished enough praise on it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535262</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather GudenkaufLucy Ashe|title=These Things HiddenClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Golden girl Allison Glenn was living The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the perfect teenage life until she was imprisoned for a monstrous crimeoutside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Now sheBecause there's twenty-one and has been released from prison to live in a halfway houselot that builds a dancer. Allison is keen Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to put detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the past behind herclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, but when she returns to her home town of Linden Falls she soon discovers that no one has forgotten her crimea ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, least of all her parents and her little sister, Brynna star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>077830437X</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Meg WolitzerHeather Fawcett|title=The UncouplingEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dory Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and Robby Lang had one of those marriages that everyone envies. They're not just loversshe has travelled extensively, they're best friends too and they never seem researched meticulously, to tire write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of each otherfaeries. They're both popular teachers Whilst she is brilliant at Eleanor Roosevelt High School ('Elro' research and speaking to those who know it well) where their daughter faeries, she is a studentnot so good with people. It's sometimes difficult to have your parent teaching at your schoolSo when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, but everything seems nor how to rub along reasonably well redeem herself and Dory was delighted when daughter Willa got a part in put her final investigations for her book back on the school playright track. It's ''Lysistrata'' Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and whilst the drama teacher has to tone it down a little it still the play about the women insufferable rival who refuse arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to have sex Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with their men until they call a halt to the war they're fighting.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701186216</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasha Solomons1398515388|title=The Novel in Boy and the ViolaDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Elise Landau arrived in England in 1938First of all, it was the earthquake, a refugee from Vienna where she and her family had had a good lifestyle. In England she's destined for Tyneford deep in Dorset where she'll be a parlour maid at the big house. She's not exactly looking forward to itocean floor, but she's escaped Vienna with some of her mother's jewels sewn into which created the seams of her dresses tsunami and her father's latest novelthis, in manuscriptturn, is hidden in caused the body of her violanuclear meltdown. Her sister is leaving for the USA The result was complete and her parents hope to followutter devastation. Surely Elise will be able to join them before too long? The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. She knows The fact that she wonmany 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 like Englanda 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>034099567X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul MagrsChristopher Bowden|title=The Bride That Time ForgotMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christmas Christopher Bowden's latest novel is approaching in the seaside town a patient untangling of Whitby and Brenda is busy sprucing up her B&B. She hasn't seen her best friend, neighbour and investigating partner Effie for a few weeks, since Effieseemingly ordinary woman's strange gentleman friend Alucard life, carried out by her nephew after she has reappeareddied. Brenda The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and Effie are the guardians a little bit of the gateway indulgence to Hell which just happens a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to be right on their doorstep in Whitby, but since Effie has shut herself away, Brenda has turned him an obligation to her friend Robert, the owner of the local hotel to help her with her investigations into the ever present strange goings on in the town, involving vampires, monsters and a rather strange carfind it all out. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755359453</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi WoodJennifer Mason|title=The Godless BoysPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Britain. 1986. The country became Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a theocracy during the 1950s and since then outbreaks series of secular terrorism have been dealt with by exiledisappearances. The atheists have been sent In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to the Island where they can burn churches as they pleasesolving a murder.. Aside from a weekly boat bringing donated supplies, the exiled must shift as best they can on a remote snippet of land in the North Sea. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330530127</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James Patterson and Neil McMahonWill Carver|title=ToysThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel has Five strangers come together in one moment as a very glamorous opening. We're at President Jacklin's inauguration party and the easy flow of narration gets me seamlessly and effortlessly into the story. There are plenty of comments and observations pertaining suicide bomber prepares to the super-duper hi-tech times of the story, so as early as page 10 Hays and detonate his beautiful wife Lizbeth, who are invitees, are attended to by vest on a well-trained and well-programmed ''iJeeves butler.'' I loved that phrase. It made me smile. The Bakers are an impressive and influential coupleLondon tube line. As part of the 'elite' society they expect a flawless, ordered life for themselves and their family. And Patterson then informs us that mere human beings have been relegated to menial work and most of them live pitiful lives and serves them rightfates overlap, apparently. They're despised but their labour is necessary to oil the wheels of the important daily lives of the elites. But the elites have extremely ambitious plans. Can they pull them off?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057701</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louise Welsh|title=Naming the Bones|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Murray Watson story is a Doctor of English Literature embarking on a year-long sabbatical to pursue his long-held dream of writing the definitive biography of Archie Lunan andtold in backwards order, as a specifically intended by-product, restore Lunan's poetry leading up to its rightful place in the high canon of Scots creativityfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847672566</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita ShreveJennifer Mason|title=RescuePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we meet Peter Webster he's 'A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a rookie paramedic 400-meter hurdler who takes an emergency call to help just missed the 2004 Olympics, a drunk driver whowomen's been badly injured in track coach with a car crash. It was touch and go as to whether or not Sheila Arsenault made ityen for bullwhips, but she did and afterwards Webster can't get her out a billionaire with a state-of his thoughts. Every instinct tells him that he shouldn't get involved with her – that it'll mean trouble – but perhaps it was -the long-art S&M dungeon, shininga man serving a life sentence in Alabama, dark hair that tipped the balance and Webster is involved an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in an intense love affairGeorgia... He's also involved in Sheila's life – for better or for worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408700735</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philippe Claudel and Euan CameronB0B2N7MVYM|title=Monsieur Linh and His ChildThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=From a war-ravaged country a bit like a Vietnam or a Cambodia an old man carries It's the fragile frame 10th of his granddaughter aboard December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a refugeechance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's ship, staring at the receding horizon all front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the weeks current state of medical knowledge, it takes 's hard to arrive at think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a city a bit like a Seattle or a New Yorkrelatively new prison. He and she are given the basics of a new life together but it's up just getting used to himhis roommate, Monsieur LinhMervyn, and learning to find friendship, which he does, accepting uncomprehendingly be wary of the chatty company of a fellow mourner called BarkMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694990</amazonuk>
}}
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