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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe DunthorneOnyi Nwabineli|title=Wild AbandonAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When your first novel has been successfulAnuri 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, it adds pressure onto suing her step-mother to take down the secondcontent about her. This Anuri is the situation facing Joe Dunthornebattling alcoholism, as his debut [[Submarine by Joe Dunthorne|Submarine]] won several awardsfailing to start her PhD, was adapted into a film undergoing therapy and came highly praised by The Bookbagsecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. This means Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia''Wild Abandon'' has to be rather good to keep his reputation intacts online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024114406X</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Gibbons1529153298|title=WestwoodThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was instantly attracted to this novel as itIt's set largely in Hampstead 1979 and Highgate, which Margaret Thatcher is territory Prime Minister. (A woman? Imean, honestly...) She's not what'm fortunate enough s worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to be familiar withhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. I was also instantly attracted Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to Margaret – move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a young woman with frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the worries of the world on move would mean leaving her shoulders. Continually concerned with politics and the impact of war on those far away as well as close bybest friend, Margaret has genuine warmth and concern for her fellow human beingsSharon, and this pulls she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the reader into dangers or that her story straight awayMum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952872X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Esi Edugyan1035906708|title=Half-Blood BluesDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sid and his friend Chip are revisiting their youthWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, more than 50 years ago. They were jazz musiciansNew York, living and working in Berlin December 1923 and Paris, until they had only moved to escape Nazi occupied Paris in 1940 to return to BaltimoreAthens when she was thirteen. Now Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it is 1992, and all the others they worked with are long since dead. They have just been involved in a documentary about their experiences, and are about to return 'Callas' to Germany (soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall) for a jazz festival make it more manageable in memory of the great Hiero FalkStates. Hieronymus Falk When she was a young black German musician with an exceptional musical talent, the star of their band, the Hotback in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -Time Swingers. He she was picked up raised under the Nazi occupation by 'the Boots' as Sid refers to the Germans, in Paris in 1940, a mother who mercilessly exploited her and disappeared into a concentration campmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, then they heard he was released but died in 1948Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687756</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ira Levin|title=Rosemary's Baby|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=A young couple find the beginnings of a dream life together in a new apartment in a New York building that a friend says is a hotbed of death and misfortune. But it seems perfect. His job prospects as an actor have never been better, and they're quickly accepted into the elderly community of their neighbours. What's more, she - Rosemary - gets pregnant. Nothing can go wrong, can it? None of this happiness and hope can come at a dreadful cost - can it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015880</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Luke WilliamsAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Echo ChamberPerfect Passion Company|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1946, in the last days of the British Empire, Evie Steppman had exceptional hearing. She remembers what it was like in the womb, the pumping of her mother's blood, the different tones of her father's voice telling her stories, and the clatter of outside noise, yet to be recognized as the falling of rain or the whining of the wind. As she grew up she learnt to listen to the sounds around her, for even in silence there is still the echo of one's own heartbeat. Now, many years later, her hearing is going, and with it her memories. Confined to an attic space in Scotland she needs to write her story down before it is too late. To do this she turns to objects – a pocket watch, maps, photos and diaries, to help re-form her past, to take us on a journey – not through sights, but through sounds.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143004</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Brooks|title=Grow Up|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Jasper is seventeen. He spends his time pretending to revise for his AS levels, fantasising about sex with Georgia Treely, hanging out with self-harming best friend Tenaya watching cheesy TV shows, and taking ketamine and mephedrone with his friends. When he's at a loose end, he goes to sex chatrooms in a quest to see how far he can get without going private (paying). He's also convinced that his step-father, Keith, is a homicidal maniac whose next victim is likely to be Jasper's mother...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857861875</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Richmond|title=Sisyphusa|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb tells us that Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the mentally ill (for whatever reason or reasons) are still stigmatised by various sectors of societyonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. I would agree. I then flip Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the book over business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to the front cover which has the words 'the mental health publisher' and straight get away some for a while. Katie is coming out of us may already be making a judgement (perhaps unfairly too) before they even open break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the bookchance to come home to Edinburgh. Perhaps And so begins this up-front honesty by the publisher negates somewhat the terrific title new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and terrific graphics of the coverIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Just my own personal opinion here. The publishing company is being supported by the Arts CouncilKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, England.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849915261</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ira LevinDean Koontz|title=The Stepford WivesBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary='It can't be Benny is having a coincidence that Stepford women are all the way they are' says Bobbie, Joanna Eberhart's only friend in Stepfordterrifically bad day. Joanna has recently come to live in the idyllic suburban town of Stepford with her husband He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and two childrenhis house gets trashed. She is an independent woman with her own part-time career as a photographer, is intelligentOh, liberated and someone has delivered a keen interest in feminism. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015899</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Summer Wood|title=Wrecker|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I found the book title intriguing really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and wondered if Iit'd got caught up in some demolition yard story by mistake. s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! WoodThe thing is, at some stage in Benny is the book does give her readers the explanationvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. It's He is a boy's name apparently and the detailed explanation is rather charming - and aptnice person. A really nice person. But So fortunately for Benny it's also just turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a tad over-the-top (in terms of credibility I'm thinking) and by the time I'd finished the book I was heartily sick of this name which had short-term appeal bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for mebeing a good person. I was muttering Spike is going to myself saying silly things like - why cantake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny't s enemies, if he be called Billy, for example. But IBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'm not writing the books wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408809311</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip Jose FarmerKatherine Howe|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless PeerA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book has reached 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 young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the dizzy heights town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of an ''International Bestseller'' with plaudits all over its coverstwo vicious pirates. And itShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a debut novel, albeit by an author who has worked in journalismcabin boy. SoShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, am I going to be another notch and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the book-reading bedpost, so to speak?ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849160317</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Steele1471180158|title=The WatchersMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At over 500 pages IJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who'm sincerely hoping that this book is going to appeal. The back cover blurb is promising, informing the reader that s a control freak with all the author is a well-travelled cameraman/editor subtlety of many years standing. The story opens with a young Marc Rochat starting a new life in Switzerlandhalf brick. Everything is strange and new to him. He becomes a night-watchman at the local cathedral and carries out Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his duties diligentlyproblems'. He doesn't mind s asthmatic and the fact more you read, the more you'll suspect that ithe's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a rather solitary job as he more than makes up for frequent flier in the silence (when the bells are local A&E and sometimes Bo's not ringing that is) by chatting away fit enough to go to all of the various bells as if they were humanschool. Marc's conversations with his 'ladies' Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are utterly charmingoccasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. I could listen It was going to them all daycome to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593067517</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John HartB0CKD1L5JL|title=Iron HouseRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hart Petr is already a best-selling author so he has a lot to live up to with his latest bookan orphan. At over 400 pages it's a bigRescued by the strange, meaty read. The story opens with Michaelreclusive Bear, now an adult. In his primehe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, with in the woman he loves and about to become a father: life is looking very rosy indeed. He thinks that heforests of Washington's left his shady past behind him foreverOlympic Peninsula. He's wrong. Hart gives his readers After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a little background info pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on Michaela journey through the forest, broadcasting the central characterstrange, just enough to whet our appetites. It worked for me wild and I was eager to keep turning the pages. At the start of the book there's a definite sense of something catastrophic about to happen and that it involves Michael in some wayrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848541791</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim ThorntonSarah Marsh|title=Death A Sign of an Unsigned BandHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Russell knows that his band is going nowhereAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, and everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the prospect use of a life consisting sign language was seen as something only of savages do, Ellen is sent to a grim day job and some depressing creative exercises school where she is getting him downtaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. But when Josh turns From here, she ends up with in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a potential way out, it's not quite system called Visible Speech. At the way Russellsame time, or any of the Bell is working on other band membersinventions and ideas, would have envisagedand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531879</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Haley TannerB0BC3YTCMR|title=Vaclav and Lena|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Vaclav and Lena are both children of Russian immigrants, growing up in Brooklyn. Vaclav dreams of becoming a fantastic magician, with his friend Lena as his assistant, and as children they practise their routine together, making lists of the things they'll need, the costumes they will wear and the tricks they will perform. Vaclav is confident and happy, but Lena is quiet, withdrawn and struggles with speaking English. Yet Vaclav believes, always, that they are destined to be together. Even when Lena disappears one day and is gone from his life for many years still he hopes that, somehow, he will find her again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020443</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGood Girls Die|author=Jon Blake|title=69ers: A Novel About the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival of MusicAyura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1969, as Thunderclap Newman proclaimed in their one and only musical claim to fame, there was something in the air. The alternative generation were talking about the recent Woodstock Festival in America, and eagerly looking forward to what promised to be a similar gathering, albeit on a smaller scale, at the Isle of Wight at the end of August, where Bob Dylan was headlining.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908105658</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Wesley Stace|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer|rating=3''This story is not for everyone.5|genre=Crime|summary="Nothing in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of this subtle tale of English music in the making, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]" ''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Makkai1472263936|title=The BorrowerFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the front cover blurb family home and refused to return, but Mary and didnHamish (Helena't quite get s parents) felt that it 'She borrowed would be a child. He stole pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding herGreek heritage.' I don't mind 'not getting it' Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the slightest as it just makes me want first of several annual visits. She grew to read love her grandmother and the book even morefamily's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. So I He was keen proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to get stuck into this debut noveluphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021008</amazonuk>
}}
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Annie Sweet buys Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a home with her familytop secret biological research facility, she feels inexplicably bonded to it from first sightis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. As life brings unwelcome changes for her Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, she decides very bad has happened to uncover him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the history shrouded bodies of her house to provide a distraction his dead friends and to understand her feelings former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about her homehim; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091937035</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane ChamberlainB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Midwife's ConfessionGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I feel that IThe village is isolated and poor. It've barely finished s surrounded by a Chamberlain review when up pops another of her books Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread- such seems to be proliferationlike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The story opens with black wood of the build-up to the death of middle-aged midwifeforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, Noelleif needed. Her friendsThe fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, all a little younger than herself and with families of their owndrunken, are busy getting on with their daily lives. But someone self- suddenly - remembers they haven't heard from Noelle for some days. It's unusual as this group indulgent, lazy lout of chatty friends are forever phoning, texting or popping round to each other's housesa man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304663</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bella PollenB0BYF82CXT|title=The Summer of the BearSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Letty Fleming''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, recently widowedstuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, is driving her three children hundreds of miles north to a new when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and hopefully happy very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life on a remote Scottish island. We get a peek at the personalities of , the children straight away: Alba is opinionated couples befriend each other and strong-willed, life appears to improve for exampleboth pairs. Still young she's managed to acquire a list as long as her arm of her 'hates' in the world - fishBut all is not what it seems, English teachers and doors which their increasingly interconnected relationships are ajar all feature and I didn't care as I couldn't help liking her. At least she knows her own mindfated for tragedy. What will she be like when she's grown up, for heaven's sake?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519069</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Celine IbeShalini Boland|title=Shadow of a ThiefThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Obinna's childhood had been gloriously happy, living Alice and Seth are a match made in the Nigerian village with Mamaheaven. But when he was fifteen years old Mama told him that He is everything she was not his motherhas been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, but his grandmother and that his mother funny; total and father were deadutter husband-material. Stunned She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and almost disbelieving he went to bed only to be woken so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by a loud noise in Alice and the nightwedding is planned and set. It came from Mama's room but when Obinna went to When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she was dead on surveys the floor. The boy could have lived with neighbours who would have been only too glad congregation – their friends assembled to have him, but he set off as soon as he could celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his only living relativeapproaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his Uncle Raffiawife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907629149</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dawn French1787636003|title=A Tiny Bit MarvellousThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over It was the years I have become something of a Dawn French fansummer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. She has consistently entertained and quite frankly made my sides split with laughter as Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an actorinterest in her, comedian, and most recently as she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a writer with while before he made any sort of physical approach to her wonderful autobiography [[Dear Fatty and by Dawn French|Dear Fatty]]that time she was obsessed by him. So when I saw her first novel ‘A Tiny Bit Marvellous’ waiting Alistair worked for me Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on The Bookbag shelves I thought here’s another treat from this remarkable entertainerthe island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046341</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Storm at the DoorAmanda Craig|authortitle=Stefan Merrill BlockThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author, Stefan Merrill Block, is writing Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about members any writer who can catch hold of his own family in ''The Storm at the Door''. The story opens at atmosphere of the endday and capture it, if you get my driftcrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. We see To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the elderly grandmother Katherine in a bit genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a spot, wondering whether to open and then read a bunch gift for weaving the ongoing issues of papers. These papers (these red-hot papers) are the words and thoughts day into the lives of her husband Frederick from his time characters in a mental institution. If she opens way that feels natural and lived-in, never making themciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, then it will be opening a veritable can of wormsgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. Does she or doesn't she?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571269591</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=A Conspiracy Of FriendsPineapple Street|author=Alexander McCall SmithJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, here we Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are again back with our friends sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in Corduroy Mansions in this. Nominally, their third bookthey had a choice but that wasn't the reality. I found Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in 'A Conspiracy Of Friends'their' ' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a little slow move as her son wants to start move to another house and bring Edie to live withhis family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and I worried the worry that perhaps I had tired there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the characterslast time she saw her, but a few chapters later she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the pace picked up past, she is forgetting more and once again I was thoroughly entertained by more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the quirky characterstruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, interesting thoughts and ideas.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971829</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''
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=In The Sea There Are CrocodilesGarnett Girls|author=Fabio GedaGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''In The Sea There Are Crocoileslove affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'' is based Leary was all-consuming, apparently on a true story about a young boy left both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by his Margo's mother to fend for himselfas 'an older man'. As if Her parents worried that wasnRichard't difficult enoughs influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, he's stranded in Pakistan while they eloped and Richard took her away from the rest Isle of his family are in warWight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-ravaged Afghanistanrespected journalist. It's a collaboration between Afghan Enaiatollah The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and his Italian translatorholidays were spent at Sandcove, Fabio - this book is already a big hit with Italian readers (it says so the family home on the back cover blurb)Isle of Wight. Enaiatollah eventually claimed political asylum Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in Italycharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560085</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=The Poison TreeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Erin KellyDavid F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Karen is ending her university I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and has her future mapped outaffecting it was. But then she meets BibaIt was a gripping, who opens doors to a world she's never seen beforeemotionally wounding read, and to the type rereading my review of intense friendship it my main takeaway was that she's never experienced either. As Karen embarks I might not have lavished enough praise on this friendship, she collects all kinds of new experiences along the wayit. At the start of that summer, she could never have predicted just how indelible the mark left by the friendship would turn out to be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444701053</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare JacobLucy Ashe|title=Ophelia in PiecesClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barrister Ophelia Dormandy had been working hard – wellThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, overworking – for twins no less. Identical on the last six months and outside but not, we learn, on the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday she decided inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that she would go home early and cook builds a decent meal for her husband and herselfdancer. She even decided Some things that she would wear the red dress which Patrick liked. But when she got home Patrick can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and their sonsome things, Alexthat ''je ne sais quoi'', were eating ice creams. He didnthat don't seem in come from the least interested in dinner and then admitted that he was having an affairclassroom. Ophelia threw him out – and then began the long haul of trying to be A stage presence, a charm, a decent single parent in ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a job where the hours were long hard-worker, and the money uncertaina star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595147</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elliott HallHeather Fawcett|title=The ChildrenEmily Wilde's CrusadeEncyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We back-track several years Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to get the low-down and history on Felix. Itwrite her life's interestingwork, the very interesting. He's like some sort first encyclopaedia of American 007 but not all of his plans have been successfulfaeries. Some have back-fired Whilst she is brilliant at research and he has the scars speaking to prove itfaeries, she is not so good with people. In fact although So when she finds herself far, far North in his prime yearsthe small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, Felix could be healthier and she is forced not sure what she has done, nor how to take regular medication. And throughout redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the story Hall tells us why that isright track. Chapter TwoEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, which sees Felix in Nevada opens with the no-nonsense line much to Emily''I came to Las Vegas to kill a mans frustration.'' But whowhy is he here? And whyWhat does he want? We get And what exactly is going on with the answers all in Hall's good time.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848540752</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J Robert Lennon1398515388|title=CastleThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In First of all, it was the late winter of 2006 Erich Loesch returns to Gerrysburgearthquake, NY (Pop 2310 and falling) and buys six hundred or so acres of undeveloped land on deep in the edge of ocean floor, which created the county. Loesch grew up tsunami and this, in Gerrysburgturn, but he's been away a long timecaused the nuclear meltdown. The place hasn't changed much except through long, slow declineresult was complete and utter devastation. There are vacant lots where he remembers homesThe deaths were uncountable, businesses, amenitiesand the loss of livelihoods was widespread. There are one or two people who remember him, or remember his family 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. They remember what happened 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 family, or heard about what happened to him afterwardsdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1555975593</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel GennChristopher Bowden|title=The CureMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We get the background on Eugene early on in the story; Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a troubled childhood with an alcoholic father patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who was often not at home. Instead he was working on always provided a building site in London safe harbour and drinking away much a little bit of his wages. His wife and children didn't appear indulgence to benefit a young nephew had had a much - either financially or emotionally. Eugene still bears plenty of invisible scars from more interesting life than that time nephew Stephen had ever realised and now grown up, would like it seems to him an obligation to carve find it all out his own path and thinks a fresh start would be a good idea. Although it's not altogether a fresh start as he chooses to work on the same construction site as his father and even lives in the same lodgings in the East End. Is this his own unique way of exorcising some ghosts?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184901583X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cathy GlassJennifer Mason|title=Run, Mummy, RunPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Aisha is a youngHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, beautiful dominatrix and successful woman who has worked hard to get where she is. But there is one thing missing unintentional detective in her life[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a manseries of disappearances. Still living with her parents at the age In ''Partitions of thirty and inexperienced when it comes to menUnity'', Aisha wonders if she will ever find sets her mind to solving a husbandmurder. But then she spots an ad in the paper and plucking up all her courage and determination, she decides to reply. This could be her only chance at love and she doesn't want to waste it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007299281</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{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=Blake MorrisonJennifer Mason|title=The Last WeekendPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the sunny month Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of June when -the invitation is given-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, via telephonex), from Ollie and Daisy to Ian and Emilyon a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... Or Em as she's called throughout - there's This is just a lovely explanation sample of why Ian insists on shortening his wife's name. And even with this generous and seemingly innocent phone call, all hell seems to break loose as Ian decides to de-cipher the call. Did they mean this? Did they really mean that? And lots cast of undercurrents characters and negative feelings start to bubble settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping upwill be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009954234X</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas HoggB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Hummingbird and the BearCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sam Taylor seems It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to have a charmed life – a City job that brings him wealth and prestigeput what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a wonderful fiancée and a lovely London homechance to breathe out. But all this canfor Joe Marr, it't compensate for a childhood s not the missile crisis that contained great sorrow; he is haunted by a sense 's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of being somehow incompletemurder. When a chance encounter at a wedding brings With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to 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 relatively new woman into this lifeprison. He's just getting used to his roommate, he begins Mervyn, and learning to hope that he has found everything he really needsbe wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901647X</amazonuk>
}}