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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda GillardOnyi Nwabineli|title=Untying the KnotAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered why it's not axiomatic that a man should stand by his woman – although perhaps it couldn't be set Anuri spent her childhood on display to music quite so easily – but Fay had failed the world, thanks to stand by her man. To make it worsestep-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she was an army wife posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and they just don't desert – influencer deals and Magnus was a hero, basically, monetary gain. He'd been Now Anuri is in bomb disposal her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and despite being blown up had briefed his number two to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about the bomb before he was taken off to hospitalher. He was good-lookingAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, charismatic – undergoing therapy and divorcedsecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Fay knew that marrying Magnus had been a mistake – but Most importantly, she also admitted that is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the biggest mistake new focus of all was divorcing himOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B005JTAMQO</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ulrika Jonsson1529153298|title=The Importance List of Being MyrtleSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=title will help to draw readers in, I thinkIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. The blurb on the back cover suggests a cosy(A woman? I mean, domestic readhonestly.. I was looking forward to it. ) We initially get all the sorry details leading up to AustinShe's not what's worrying Miv's untimely deathfamily, though. On the local busWomen have been disappearing. Well, of all placesthey've been murdered, as he made his way but to workhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. A kindly Italian/Australian man called Gianni sees it all happening (in fact Austin dies in his arms)Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. We also get When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a lot of background info on Giannifrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, right at the very beginningmove would mean leaving her best friend, which I thought slowed up Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the story somewhatdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043202</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sheila Kohler1035906708|title=Becoming Jane EyreDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is no denying that the Brontë family lived an interesting life. While some authors' lives are shrouded We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in mysteryManhattan, with their characters far better known than they themselves areNew York, that's not really the case with the Brontësin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Various biographers have, over the years, provided a clear picture of 19th century Yorkshire life thanks Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it 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 Callas' to imagine the unknown lives of the sisters, make it is a cobbling together of facts and assumptions that have been more manageable in the public arena for some timeStates. For anyone When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who knows anything about the Brontës, it really is nothing newmercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, and that's a shameJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010862</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil RickmanAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Secrets of PainPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's The 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 freezing winter's night more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a couple trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the locals are driving chance to come home when they come across a strange and disturbing incidentto Edinburgh. They don't know what And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to make of it 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but as the SAS have with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a training presence business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in the area Gomer her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and Danny put it down rather handsome) neighbour, William, to exercises lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and breath a sigh of reliefhis house gets trashed. It's anything for Oh, and someone has delivered a quiet life round these parts really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and thanks to Rickmanit's excellent writing, we soon see possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that these menhas trashed his house! The thing is, Gomer especially, are characters in themselvesBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. Plenty of personalityA really nice person. Once seenSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, difficult who has been sent to forgethelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. And I didnSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny't want to forget them. They also speak in the local dialect which comes across very well indeeds wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848872739</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erin MorgensternKatherine Howe|title=The Night CircusA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Night Circus moves from town Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to town; appearing live with no warninga family who run an inn, no announcementsand being made to work there from a young age. The attractions seem impossible – When she hears there is to be a carousel with breathing animals, handkerchiefs that turn into birds hanging of some pirates in front of the watchful eyes of the audiencetown, doors that appear she decides to go and disappearwatch. In Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the middle hands of it all are Celiatwo vicious pirates. She hides away, the daughter of a famous illusionistso that they don't find and kill her too, and Marcothen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the apprentice of notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a mysterious magiciancabin boy. From a young age She soon finds herself in the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills to win thick of things when there is a prize that neither mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of them understands; and an end that will leave only one standinglife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy B Hughes1471180158|title=The Expendable ManMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dorothy B Hughes (1904Jamie Matson works in an upper-93) took class grocery store, for a man who's a journalism degree in Kansas City, Missouri and started her distinguished career control freak with all the subtlety of a prize-winning book of poemshalf brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. Her first hard-boiled thriller appeared in 1940 He's asthmatic and it was followed by the more you read, the more than you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a dozen frequent flier in the next decade. Three were made into noir films local A&E and in 1944 Hughes went sometimes Bo's not fit enough to Hollywood go to assist Hitchcock school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on his film, ''Spellbound''time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. Here she met Ingrid Bergman and consequently Humphrey Bogart came It was going to buy the film rights come to one of her novelsa head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1903155584</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck PalahniukB0CKD1L5JL|title=DamnedRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison'Petr is an orphan. I'm a spunky, lively tweenage girl, except I'm a dead oneRescued by the strange, and I'm in Hellreclusive Bear, to my surprise. While I'm here I'll find out just where it he is all those cold-calling telegraphers ring you brought up far from just while you're settling down to your evening mealbustling cities and busy human society, and where in the worldforests of Washington's wasted sperm and discarded toenail clippings fetch upOlympic Peninsula. I'll have very hairy encounters with demons of Satan's and mankind's making, and with some superlative plotting After Bear dies and flashbacks I'll find a clearer approach to why I was put here brief sojourn in the first place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091158</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emily Barr|title=The First Wife|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Lilybella Tatiana Blossom Button (who thankfully – for our sake as well as hers – goes by a simple Lily) has had an upbringing almost as unconventional as her name. Raised by her grandparentshuman company, we join her following their recent deaths and soon discover she is quite unlike most other 20 year olds. It’s going to be a brisk transition from a sheltered life in a small cottage, nursing elderly relatives to the Real World but armed with no money to speak off, she’ll have to pull herself together, and quickly. Her background is an important part of Lily and contributes enormously to her trusting and only a little immature personality that will later be her downfall. A few weeks laterpirate radio transmitter, though, and things are looking up. She has taken a room in Petr goes on a house where she is much more one of journey through the family than just a lodger. She’s found some cleaning work andforest, even more excitingbroadcasting the strange, one of her agency clients is a rather dashing ex-celeb wild and his beautiful, elegant wife. Yes, Lily’s star is definitely on the riserarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755351371</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erinna MettlerSarah Marsh|title=StarlingsA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have to say that what was After a bout of scarlet fever as a big factor in me choosing to read (and review) this book was its urban front coverchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Monochrome, Suddenly plunged into a bit gritty but with plenty world of sky. The first character we meet is Andysilence, an ex-prisonereverything about her life changes. He's on his own now and Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is heavy on his handssent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. He stares out of his windowFrom here, twelve floors she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and thinks back to when he had using a nice family lifesystem called Visible Speech. All that's gone now. He stands At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and looks down at the children Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a nearby playground and temptation rises all over again (he was convicted as a paedophile)complicated tangle of espionage. He'll need to find the inner strength to resist - but can he?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956511929</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0BC3YTCMR|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Forgotten Affairs of YouthGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=My husband is soon to take a work trip to Edinburgh and I am very jealous. Mainly because thanks to AMS' novels I feel like I already know the city, and I would love to walk in the footsteps of Isabel or any of the characters from his other series, '44 Scotland Street'This story is not for everyone. So, to console me, I have turned to the latest in the Isabel Dalhousie series. I must admit, I was a little wary at the beginning since I was quite disappointed with Isabel'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 a let down. Fortunately it wasn't, and dear Isabel is back in sparkling form!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408703394</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roger Smith1472263936|title=Dust DevilsThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary="Rosie Dell had come It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to end it. For keeps this timeGreece." ''It'' is She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the affair that shefamily home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's been having with Ben Baker, one of parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the richest men family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the countryfirst of several annual visits. Unfortunately for Rosie, she doesn't say what sheShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's come to say… unfortunately for Benmaid, for RosieDina, but was wary - and for frightened - of her familygrandfather, someone has plans to end it for herretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Actually, not plans, as suchHe was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. She shouldnHis prejudices included Helena't have been there. Everything that happens next wouldns red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father't have, if she hadn't beens Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687950</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monique TruongDean Koontz|title=Bitter in the MouthAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Linda HammerickMichael Mace, Head of Security, at a young girl growing up in North Carolina in the late 1970'stop secret biological research facility, is different. She suffers from synesthesia, tasting things among 55 people who die when she speaks or hears wordsa virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. She grows up with her great-uncle Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, Baby Harpercovered in plastic, as her best friendhe has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as hissingsong voice is the only one she can hear without the accompanying tastes, he sits up and writes letters back and forth with her best friend Kelly rather than have long conversations with her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099474743</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Meg Rosoff|title=There Is No Dog|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Ok. Imagine God is actually a teenage immortal, much in looks around at the vein shrouded bodies of teenage humanshis dead friends and former colleagues. He rushes As he recovers his coursework (creation) and while there are flashes of brilliance and potential in itsenses, he realises that thereis something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s no real thought or organisation and so the whole thing doesn. Michael isn't really work properly. But God is too busy having a lie-in or lusting after buxom young women to be ironing out these sorts of boring creases in the making of a successful planet''Michael'' anymore. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327162</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten ReedB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Ice AgeGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=2.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Two people road trip across AmericaThe village is isolated and poor. Sort ofIt's surrounded by a Witching Forest. They don't start off together, or meet up intentionally, And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the age gap is purposely provocative. She likes him because he's old forest provides heat and has pointywarmth, roofs on homes, vampire teeth he might use to bite her with (Twilight sell outand even gallows, much?) She is 17if needed. We don't know her name, but it The fear of being buried alive is she who tells us an existential superstition in the story. He village and that is called Gunther. People think she the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is his daughter. They hope she is. It's just too odd to comprehend otherwisetolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447200411</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick deWittB0BYF82CXT|title=The Sisters BrothersSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Invariably, the Booker Prize longlist contains one book that is more on the side of light reading than the more worthy and overtly literary fare that it is usually associated with. 'The Sisters Brothers' is the 2011 choice. Set Bill and Amanda are living in the US a semi-detached house, stuck in 1851, it details the adventures a depressing rut of two brothersboredom and disappointment, Eli when Terry and Charlie SistersFiona – glamorous, who are hired hands for a mysterious boss known only as the Commodoresuccessful and very much in love – move in next door. Narrated by Eli, who has slightly more of a conscience than his older brotherDespite their different outlooks on life, the story starts with the Commodore ordering a hitcouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for reasons unknown, on a certain Hermann Kermit Warmtragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847083188</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Vanessa DiffenbaughShalini Boland|title=The Language of FlowersSilent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story see-saws Alice and Seth are a chapter at a time between the teenage Victoria and the child Victoriamatch made in heaven. The book opens with (the teen) Victoria leaving foster care He is everything she has been searching for good; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She's been is all he could possibly want in a difficult child to place sowife; beautiful, now at 18successful, she confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is a troubled planned and angry young woman with many unsolved issuesset. The constant link has been MeredithWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the loyal social worker. But Victoria now wants shot of the lot of themaisle by her father, Meredith included. Victoria can now be beaming with pride and excitement as free as a bird she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and do what when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she wantshas absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, when she wants. Blisswho is waiting for her to become his wife. Or is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230752586</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Pelling1787636003|title=A Diamond in the SkyThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Dora in a reflective mood in what used to be It was the nursery. Well, it still is - except there's no baby there now. Pelling tells us down the storyline exactly what happened summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and why Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the (a bit mushy for me) title of the book is key to the story of Dora. It gets mentions throughoutisland. As Dora sits in the empty nursery she canRachel wasn't help exactly innocent but reshe was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-live that tragic event all over againfour-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. ''Her arms were wrapping themselves around It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her so tight and by that time she was having trouble breathingobsessed by him.'' She's now a total mess Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and that's about in particular in the sum total of her life at bar where all the moment. Dora now thinks she's a dreadful persongirls either worked or partied. And no one will want to know a dreadful person, will they?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784280</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zoe HellerAmanda Craig|title=Notes on a ScandalThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barbara has been teaching at St GeorgeFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's for several yearssomething so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, and in spite crafting an image of her caustic words on the institution, country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is very much skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the focus genre of her lonely lifecontemporary social fiction at this point. When newcomer, Sheba joins them, she forms She has such a strong bond with gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her, characters in a way that feels natural and becomes part of Sheba's life. Sheba is married with two childrenlived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but her attraction to a pupilinstead fully realised people, Connolly, leads her to risk everything in a liaison of which Barbara is extremely jealous. As a result, their apparent friendship travels a sinister pathgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024195455X</amazonuk>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, that was all, knocked and the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since I'd killed my mother hadn't happened...'' Jinx is cold and she knows it. She cleans obsessively - a largely pointless taskread, since there is little mess was supposed to clean since her husband be a light and young sonweightless feeling, tired of her frigidity, moved out. She cooks beautifully balanced meals that look aesthetic on the plate. But her food offers sustenance, not comfort. In fact, Jinx feels most at home amongst the dead people she works with as a funeral home cosmetologist. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688382</amazonuk>}}but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Kasischke0008506337|title=The RaisingGarnett Girls|author=Georgina 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
}}
{{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
}}
{{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>
}}