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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila KohlerOnyi Nwabineli|title=Becoming Jane Eyre|rating=2|genre=General Fiction|summary=There is no denying that the Brontë family lived an interesting life. While some authors' lives are shrouded in mystery, with their characters far better known than they themselves are, that's not really the case with the Brontës. Various biographers have, over the years, provided a clear picture of 19th century Yorkshire life thanks to a wealth of original letters and diaries preserved from the time. This makes Kohler's choice of topic slightly odd. Rather than an attempt Allow Me to imagine the unknown lives of the sisters, it is a cobbling together of facts and assumptions that have been in the public arena for some time. For anyone who knows anything about the Brontës, it really is nothing new, and that's a shame.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010862</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Phil Rickman|title=The Secrets of PainIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's a freezing winterincreasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's night childhood for sponsorships and a couple of the locals are driving home when they come across a strange influencer deals and disturbing incident, basically, monetary gain. They don't know what to make of it but as the SAS have a training presence Now Anuri is in the area Gomer her twenties and Danny put it down she is slowly trying to exercises regain her confidence and breath a sigh of relief. It's anything for a quiet to get her life round these parts and thanks back, suing her step-mother to Rickman's excellent writing, we soon see that these men, Gomer especially, are characters in themselves. Plenty of personalitytake down the content about her. Once seenAnuri is battling alcoholism, difficult failing to forgetstart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. And I didnMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia't want to forget thems online empire. They also speak in Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the local dialect which comes across very well indeed.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848872739</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erin Morgenstern1529153298|title=The Night CircusList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Night Circus moves from town to town; appearing with no warningIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, no announcementsthough. The attractions seem impossible – a carousel with breathing animals Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, handkerchiefs but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that turn into birds in front of her father wants to move the watchful eyes of the audience, doors that appear and disappearfamily 'Down South'. In the middle of it all are Celia When you're from Yorkshire, the daughter of Down South is a famous illusionistfrightening, and Marcoforeign place, the apprentice of a mysterious magicianbest avoided. From a young age For Miv, the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to win a prize prevent that neither of them understands; and an end . She's not worried about the dangers or that will leave only one standingher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy B Hughes1035906708|title=The Expendable ManDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dorothy B Hughes (1904-93) took a journalism degree We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Kansas CityManhattan, Missouri New York, in December 1923 and started her distinguished career with a prize-winning book of poemsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her first hard-boiled thriller appeared in 1940 and original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it was followed by more than a dozen manageable in the next decadeStates. Three were made into noir films and When she was back in 1944 Hughes went to Hollywood to assist Hitchcock on his film, ''Spellbound''. Here Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she met Ingrid Bergman was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and consequently Humphrey Bogart came to buy the film rights to one made no secret of her novelspreference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1903155584</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukAlexander McCall Smith|title=DamnedThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Are you thereThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, Satan? It's metailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, Madison'as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. I'm Katie is coming out of a break up with a spunkybad boyfriend, lively tweenage girland so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, except I'm a dead onebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and I'm in Hellthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to my surprisecharm. While I'm here I'll find out just where it is all those cold Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-calling telegraphers ring you from just while you're settling down to your evening mealmaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and where the worldthere's wasted sperm and discarded toenail clippings fetch up. I'll have always her very hairy encounters with demons of Satan's helpful (and mankind's makingrather handsome) neighbour, William, and with some superlative plotting and flashbacks I'll find to lend a clearer approach to why I was put here in the first place.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224091158</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily BarrDean Koontz|title=The First WifeBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Lilybella Tatiana Blossom Button (who thankfully – for our sake as well as hers – goes by Benny is having a simple Lily) has had an upbringing almost as unconventional as her nameterrifically bad day. Raised by her grandparents He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, we join her following their recent deaths and soon discover she is quite unlike most other 20 year oldshis house gets trashed. It’s going to be a brisk transition from a sheltered life in Oh, and someone has delivered a small cottagereally weird, nursing elderly relatives disturbing coffin-sized object to the Real World but with no money to speak off, she’ll have to pull herself togetherhis home, and quickly. Her background it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is an important part of Lily and contributes enormously to her trusting and a little immature personality the thing that will later be her downfall. A few weeks later, though, and things are looking up. She has taken a room in a trashed his house where she ! The thing is much more one of the family than just a lodger. She’s found some cleaning work and, even more exciting, one of her agency clients Benny is a rather dashing ex-celeb and his beautiful, elegant wife. Yes, Lily’s star is definitely on the rise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755351371</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Erinna Mettler|title=Starlings|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I have very last person to say that what was a big factor in me choosing to read (and review) deserve all this book was its urban front coverbad luck. Monochrome, He is a bit gritty but with plenty of skynice person. The first character we meet is Andy, an ex-prisonerA really nice person. He's on So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his own now and time house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is heavy on his handsclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. He stares out Spike is going to take care of his windowBenny, twelve floors up and thinks back to when he had a nice family life. All thatwill certainly take care of Benny's gone now. He stands enemies, if he, Benny, and looks down at the children in a nearby playground and temptation rises all over again Harper (he was convicted as a paedophilewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure)can figure out who exactly they are. He'll need to find the inner strength to resist - but can he?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956511929</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithKatherine Howe|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Forgotten Affairs of YouthA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=My husband Hannah Masury is soon living in Boston, having been sent to take live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work trip to Edinburgh and I am very jealousthere from a young age. Mainly because thanks When she hears there is to AMS' novels I feel like I already know be a hanging of some pirates in the citytown, she decides to go and I would love to walk watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the footsteps hands of Isabel or any of the characters from his other seriestwo vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don'44 Scotland Street'. Sot find and kill her too, and then to console me, I have turned escape them completely she runs away to the latest in the Isabel Dalhousie series. I must admitsea, I was dressing as a little wary at boy and joining the beginning since I was quite disappointed with Isabelnotorious Ned Low's seventh outing, [[Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks of Others by Alexander McCall Smith|The Charming Quirks of Others]], and I wondered what I would do if this one also proved to be pirate ship as a let downcabin boy. Fortunately it wasn'tShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and dear Isabel is back from there we are caught up in sparkling form!her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408703394</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Gruen1471180158|title=Ape HouseMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Isabel Duncan is a scientist working with Bonobo chimpsJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, teaching them sign language. John Thigpen is for a journalist man who comes to meet 's a control freak with all the apes and write subtlety of a story about Isabelhalf brick. Jamie's work with themson, Bo, 'has his problems'. He is moved by 's asthmatic and the apesmore you read, by their behaviour the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and Isabelsometimes Bo's obviously very close relationship with themnot fit enough to go to school. Soon after he leaves, however, there is a bomb at Missed shifts or the centre by a group of extremists who want need to be away on time to liberate pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the apeswrong. Isabel begins a desperate hunt It was going to try and discover where they've gone, and John finds himself also caught up, trying come to discover the truth of what's happeneda head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444716026</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger SmithB0CKD1L5JL|title=Dust DevilsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary="Rosie Dell had come to end itPetr is an orphan. For keeps this time." ''It'' Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the affair that sheforests of Washington's been having with Ben Baker, one of the richest men in the countryOlympic Peninsula. Unfortunately for Rosie, she doesn't say what she's come to say… unfortunately for Ben, for RosieAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and for her familyarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, someone has plans to end it for her. ActuallyPetr goes on a journey through the forest, not plansbroadcasting the strange, as such. She shouldn't have been there. Everything that happens next wouldn't have, if she hadn't beenwild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687950</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monique TruongSarah Marsh|title=Bitter in the MouthA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Linda HammerickAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a young girl growing up in North Carolina world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the late 1970'suse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is differentsent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. She suffers from synesthesia From here, tasting things when she speaks or hears words. She grows ends up with her great-uncle, Baby Harper, as her best friend, as hissingsong voice is in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the only one she can hear without deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the accompanying tastessame time, Bell is working on other inventions and writes letters back ideas, and forth with her best friend Kelly rather than have long conversations with herEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099474743</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten Reed1472263936|title=The Ice AgeFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Two people road It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip across Americato Greece. Sort of. They don She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena't start off together, s parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or meet understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up intentionally, and -market Kolonaki would be the age gap is purposely provocativefirst of several annual visits. She likes him because hegrew to love her grandmother and the family's old and has pointymaid, vampire teeth he might use to bite her with (Twilight sell outDina, much?) She is 17. We don't know but was wary - and frightened - of her namegrandfather, but it is she who tells us the storyretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He is called Gunther. People think she is was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his daughtervalues but saw no reason to accommodate them. They hope she is. It His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's just too odd to comprehend otherwiseScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447200411</amazonuk>
}}
{{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=Patrick deWittB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Sisters BrothersGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Invariably, the Booker Prize longlist contains one book that The village is more on the side of light reading than the more worthy isolated and overtly literary fare that it is usually associated withpoor. It'The Sisters Brothers' is s surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the 2011 choicevillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. Set in The black wood of the US in 1851forest provides heat and warmth, it details the adventures of two brothersroofs on homes, Eli and Charlie Sisterseven gallows, who are hired hands for a mysterious boss known only as the Commodoreif needed. Narrated by Eli, who has slightly more The fear of a conscience than his older brother, being buried alive is an existential superstition in the story starts with village and that is the Commodore ordering reason Volushka, a hitdrunken, for reasons unknownself-indulgent, on lazy lout of a certain Hermann Kermit Warmman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847083188</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vanessa DiffenbaughB0BYF82CXT|title=The Language of FlowersSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story see''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-saws detached house, stuck in a chapter at a time between the teenage Victoria depressing rut of boredom and the child Victoria. The book opens with (the teen) Victoria leaving foster care for good. She's been a difficult child to place sodisappointment, now at 18when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, she is a troubled successful and angry young woman with many unsolved issuesvery much in love – move in next door. The constant link has been MeredithDespite their different outlooks on life, the loyal social workercouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But Victoria now wants shot of the lot of themall is not what it seems, Meredith included. Victoria can now be as free as a bird and do what she wants, when she wantstheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Bliss. Or is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230752586</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret PellingShalini Boland|title=A Diamond in the SkyThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Dora in Alice and Seth are a reflective mood match made in what used to be the nurseryheaven. WellHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, it still is accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband- except there's no baby there nowmaterial. Pelling tells us down She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the storyline exactly what happened and why inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the (a bit mushy for me) title of the book wedding is key to the story of Doraplanned and set. It gets mentions throughout. As Dora sits in When the empty nursery she can't help but remuch-live that tragic event all over again. ''Her arms were wrapping themselves around anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her so tight that father, beaming with pride and excitement as she was having trouble breathing.'' She's now a total mess surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and thatwhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's about world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the sum total of her life man at the momentaltar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife. Dora now thinks she's a dreadful person. And no one will want to know a dreadful person, will they?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784280</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Zoe Heller1787636003|title=Notes on a ScandalThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barbara has been teaching at St George's for several years, It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and in spite of her caustic words arrived on the institution, it is very much the focus of her lonely lifeisland. When newcomer, Sheba joins them, Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she forms a strong bond with herwas, and becomes part of Sheba's life. Sheba is married with two childrenperhaps, but her attraction to a pupil, Connollynaive, leads her so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to risk everything take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a liaison while before he made any sort of which Barbara is extremely jealousphysical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. As a result Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, their apparent friendship travels a sinister pathlooking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024195455X</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few 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 day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in 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 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 lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A D Miller152915118X|title=SnowdropsPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover, a snowy scene with majestic architecture in ''Pineapple Street'' is the backgroundstory of three women: Sasha, is arresting Darley and also suggests a thriller-type readGeorgiana. I was keen Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to find out why the book was called their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn'Snowdropst 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 hoped Sasha if they'd like to move into the author would enlighten mePineapple Street property. He did - Tilda and Chip have renovated and it's nothing downsized to do with flowers another property, a street or gardeningso away, which they own. ItThey won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's rather chilling and altogether more interestingliving in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874537</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dori OstermillerEmily Critchley|title=Outside the Ordinary WorldOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Although not keen on 84 year old Edie has lived in the title (same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a little clunky) I did feel 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. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that this there was going to a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be a book I'd enjoythe thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. Ostermiller has some fulsome praise for this debut novel including from After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the author [[:Category:Diane Chamberlain|Diane Chamberlain]]last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And after reading yet as she remembers the back cover blurb I can sense a similarity which past, she is fine by meforgetting more and more in her day to day life. (I thoroughly enjoyed all of ChamberlainWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's books). Would I enjoy this book as muchdisappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>077830468X</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yvvette EdwardsMadelaine Lucas|title=A Cupboard Full of CoatsThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''He just knockedLove, I'd read, that was all, knocked supposed to be a light and the front door and waitedweightless feeling, like the fourteen years since but I'd killed my mother hadn't happened...had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith0008506337|title=44 Scotland Street: Bertie Plays the Blues|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In this seventh outing to Scotland Street we're back with the cast of familiar characters. Matthew and Elspeth have had their triplets and must now face the trials of being new parents, with three times the trouble! Angus and Domenica are attempting to resolve the tricky issue of where they will live once they're married. And what of dear Bertie? Well, he's finally reached a point of having had enough of his mother so, with the help of his friend, he puts himself up for adoption on Ebay!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971888</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Garnett Girls|author=Laura Kasischke|title=The RaisingGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Craig is returning to universityThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, where he is widely viewed apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as being responsible for the death of his girlfriend Nicole, in a road accident'an older man'. Suffering Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from postwhat they felt she could achieve -traumatic stress going to Oxford and memory loss as having a result of glittering career. In the accidentevent, Craig is an obvious candidate they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to fall victim Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the hauntings that start to occur around family home on the campusIsle of Wight. But it Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's not just Craig who is seeing inexplicable things happen at the university.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857891545</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon Ings|title=Dead Water|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary=The standard advice mind: ''she would never be able to artists has always been "donleave him in charge''t gild the lily". For those writers who appear not to understand how this relates to their art form, let me offer up a basic translation: don't complicate a brilliant plot!
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldson1914585402|title=The GloomsterDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=WeI reviewed David F Ross've all been theres 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 affecting it was. Finding fault with everything around usIt was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down I might not have lavished enough praise on all creation - including, of course, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithLucy Ashe|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks of OthersClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I do wonder, sometimes, how it The year is possible that Mr Alexander McCall Smith can possibly manage to write so many novels1933. The place? WouldnSadler't it be fascinating to meet hims Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, and see if twins no less. Identical on the stories just ooze out of him non-stopoutside but not, we learn, and if he walks around with pen and paper at all times jotting things down as they occur to himon the inside.And not on stage, either.. In this book heBecause there's bringing us backa lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, once againattention to detail – and some things, to Isabel Dalhousiethat ''je ne sais quoi''s world. If you , that don't know who Isabel is then you should really forget all about this book for come from the moment and go right back to the beginning to [http://wwwclassroom.amazonA stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''.co.uk/dp/0349118698?tag=thebookbagThe difference between a hard-21&camp=1406&creative=6394&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0349118698&adid=12XVW0J2SJ9MJA2J2YPB& The Sunday Philosophy Club] so you can get all the characters in order worker, and know what's going ona star. If you're already up to date, however, and have read up to [[The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith|The Lost Art of Gratitude]] then you're good to go!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349123128</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brett BattlesHeather Fawcett|title=The SilencedEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the fourth instalment very first encyclopaedia of the Jonathan Quinn series, Quinn faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and his team are hired speaking to clean up after an operation and find a mysterious woman has followed them there. Before they can stop herfaeries, she disappearsis not so good with people. On So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the next job village matriarch, she turns up againis not sure what she has done, this time with friendsnor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and things start to go drastically wrong. Quinn must find this woman insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and stop herdelight, but in the meantime somebody has become very interested in finding out Jonathan Quinnmuch to Emily's real identity and frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is getting closer to his family. Quinn has to make a choice; do his job or save his familygoing on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092881</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thierry Jonquet1398515388|title=Tarantula: The Skin I Live InBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a large French country houseFirst of all, it was the earthquake, an expert deep in facial reconstruction surgery keeps a beautiful woman locked up the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in her bedroomturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. He placates her with opium, but barks orders through hugely powerful speakers The result was complete and an intercomutter devastation. She tantalises him with her sexualityThe deaths were uncountable, which he tries to ignore, except for when he seems to abuse it in a sort and the loss of S/M way when he does let her into society, as he forces her to prostitute herselflivelihoods was widespread. Elsewhere, 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 young, inept bank robber holes himself up in dog outside a sunny house, waiting for the heat to dieconvenience store. And finally, He wasn't a young man is held chained up 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 a cellar at the hands of an unknown possessor.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687942</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ira LevinChristopher Bowden|title=The Boys From BrazilMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When your first Christopher Bowden's latest novel has been successful, it adds pressure onto the second. This is the situation facing Joe Dunthornea patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, as his debut [[Submarine carried out by Joe Dunthorne|Submarine]] won several awards, was adapted into her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a film much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and came highly praised by The Bookbag. This means ''Wild Abandon'' has it seems to be rather good him an obligation to keep his reputation intactfind it all out. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024114406X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stella GibbonsJennifer Mason|title=Westwood|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I was instantly attracted to this novel as it's set largely in Hampstead and Highgate, which is territory I'm fortunate enough to be familiar with. I was also instantly attracted to Margaret – a young woman with the worries Partitions of the world on her shoulders. Continually concerned with politics and the impact of war on those far away as well as close by, Margaret has genuine warmth and concern for her fellow human beings, and this pulls the reader into her story straight away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009952872X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Esi Edugyan|title=Half-Blood BluesUnity|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sid and his friend Chip are revisiting their youthHere at Bookbag Towers, more than 50 years ago. They were jazz musicianswe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, living dominatrix and working unintentional detective in Berlin and Paris, until they had to escape Nazi occupied Paris in 1940 to return to Baltimore. Now it is 1992[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and all the others they worked with are long since dead. They have just been involved in unravelled a documentary about their experiences, and are about to return to Germany (soon after the fall series of the Berlin Wall) for a jazz festival in memory of the great Hiero Falkdisappearances. Hieronymus Falk was a young black German musician with an exceptional musical talent, the star In ''Partitions of their band, the Hot-Time Swingers. He was picked up by Unity'the Boots' as Sid refers , she sets her mind to the Germans, in Paris in 1940, and disappeared into solving a concentration camp, then they heard he was released but died in 1948murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687756</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ira LevinWill Carver|title=Rosemary's BabyThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A young couple find the beginnings of a dream life Five strangers come together in one moment as a new apartment in a New York building that suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a friend says is a hotbed of death and misfortuneLondon tube line. But it seems perfect. His job prospects as an actor have never been betterAs their fates overlap, and they're quickly accepted into the elderly community of their neighbours. What's morestory is told in backwards order, she - Rosemary - gets pregnantleading up to the fateful moment. Nothing can go wrong, can it? None of this happiness and hope can come at a dreadful cost - can it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849015880</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Luke WilliamsJennifer Mason|title=The Echo ChamberPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1946''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the last days of the British EmpireNorthern California redwoods, Evie Steppman had exceptional hearing. She remembers what it was like in a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the womb2004 Olympics, the pumping of her mothera women's bloodtrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, the different tones a billionaire with a state-of her father's voice telling her stories, and -the clatter of outside noise-art S&M dungeon, 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 a man serving a life sentence in silence there is still the echo of one's own heartbeat. Now, many years laterAlabama, 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 watchenigmatic signature, maps, photos and diariesK(s, to help re-form her pastx), to take us on a journey – not through sightscheap oil painting, but through soundsan erotic art dealer in Georgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143004</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael RichmondB0B2N7MVYM|title=SisyphusaThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb tells us that It's the mentally ill (for whatever reason or reasons) are still stigmatised by various sectors 10th of societyDecember 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. I would agreeJust to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. I then flip the book over The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the front cover which has the words missile crisis that's at the mental health publisherfront of his mind. He' and straight away some s been convicted of us may already be making a judgement (perhaps unfairly too) before they even open the bookmurder. Perhaps this up-front honesty by the publisher negates somewhat With the terrific title and terrific graphics current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the coverprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. Just my own personal opinion here. The publishing company is being supported by He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the Arts Council, EnglandMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849915261</amazonuk>
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