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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Larry PontiusOnyi Nwabineli|title=Future KingAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's the near future 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 King Charles III has ascended the throne of to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the United Kingdom with Camilla as his Queen Consortcontent about her. The country Anuri is in a mess with rampant inflationbattling alcoholism, unemploymentfailing to start her PhD, a crumbling infrastructure undergoing therapy and riots: the secretly abusing people have taken to calling this time ''The Troubles''online and receiving money from them for doing so. Such situations breed power-hungry politicians and Prime Minister Alistair Saxon has plans to become Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the dictator new focus of the countryOphelia's online empire. When the King refuses to give his assent to the Emergency Powers ActCan she save her sister, Saxon and his fellow-conspirators kidnap perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the Royal family to prevent Charles speaking against the EPA.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1463766297</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten Tranter1529153298|title=The LegacyList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite a chunky book so Tranter has given herself plenty of space and time to build up a nice level of suspense here as well as putting some flesh on the bones of her central charactersfrightening. The book opens - towards Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the end of the storyfamily 'Down South'. So we have firmWhen you're from Yorkshire, but platonic friendsDown South is a frightening, Julia and Ralph both very concerned about their mutual friendforeign place, Ingridbest avoided. She supposedly died on 9/11 - but with no remainsFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, no burialSharon, their grief hasnand she't an outletll do anything to prevent that. They need (She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to quote that much used word) closureanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857380621</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joe Simpson1035906708|title=The Sound of GravityDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Patrick is climbing We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in the Alps with his girlfriend. They are taking an unusual and difficult ascentManhattan, New York, in December 1923 and it is winteronly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. A storm blows up. Whilst they are camping overnight, PatrickHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's girlfriend loses her footingto make it more manageable in the States. He manages to catch When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her hand, and then voice - she slips through his fingers and falls into was raised under the Nazi occupation by a chasm. The novel details the days mother who mercilessly exploited her and hours in the run-up to this tragedy, and the aftermathmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, both immediate and long termJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224072641</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin WilsonAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Family FangPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Annie Fang The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be againoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. But it Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to this - her film actress career take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is on the rocks coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the kind of self-destruction chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so much enjoyed by tabloid writersbegins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and he the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- wellmaking, hebut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's here because of always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a jumbo spud gunterrifically bad day. Neither want life back at He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planningand it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, without any consideration of feelingsBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, or consent - in a whole career of performance art piecesbad weather friend called Spike, designed who has been sent to enact help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a point good person. Spike is going to take care of life or just cause havocBenny, 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's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip RothKatherine Howe|title=NemesisA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1944Hannah Masury is living in Boston, Newarkhaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, New Jerseyand being made to work there from a young age. SummerWhen she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Hot. Bucky CantorEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young Jewish manboy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, is gym teacher so that they don't find and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the districtkill her too, helping all those interested become fit young men, able and then to escape them completely she runs away to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were coolersea, dressing as a boy and if there were no polio epidemic happeningjoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. But She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there isa mutiny on board, and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs life on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nina Bell1471180158|title=The Empty NestersMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With their children all off to university (most from the same school yearJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, plus an erroneous one for a man who took 's a handy-for-control freak with all the-sake-subtlety of-the-story gap year), ita half brick. Jamie's all change for the parents in this book – for Clover and Georgeson, and Laura and TimBo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and Alice. Though some of the fathers are presentmore you read, as the more you'd expect this is ll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a tale told mainly from frequent flier in the eyes of the mothers. Clover local A&E and Laura have been friends forever, while Clover and Alicesometimes Bo's relationship is more recentnot fit enough to go to school. As for Laura Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and Alice, well they really don't get on, making life a little tricky at times for Clover, stuck somewhere put in the middlewrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751543667</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan HillB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Shadows in the StreetRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover graphics leave Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the reader in no doubt that this strange, reclusive Bear, he is a thriller brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the blurb on the back cover mentions the troubles forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in Afghanistanhuman company, deadly bombsand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, sniffer dogsPetr goes on a journey through the forest, so broadcasting the theme here is bang up to-date strange, wild and many would possibly say, relevantrarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092598</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Evelio RoseroSarah Marsh|title=Good OfficesA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 1945 After a German bomber crashed on bout of scarlet fever as a glacier in Icelandchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. This might not have been quite so extraordinary were it not for the fact that there were both German and American officers on boardSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Two of the passengers are killed Living in a time when the crashuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, one sets off for help and four people remainEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, trapped in the plane, eventually freezing to deathbut physically restrained from signing. Just before the end of last century the glacier gave From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the plane deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the US army began an operation to remove the wreckage as secretly as possiblesame time, but two young Icelanders are caught up in what Bell is going working on. One contacts his sister but before he can complete the call they are grabbed by the soldiersother inventions and ideas, brutally attacked and their bodies and snowmobiles dumped Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a crevassecomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535637</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda GillardB0BC3YTCMR|title=Untying the KnotGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered why it's This story is not axiomatic that a man should stand by his woman – although perhaps it couldn't be set to music quite so easily – but Fay had failed to stand by her manfor everyone. To make it worse, she was an army wife and they just don't desert – and Magnus was a hero. He'd been in bomb disposal and despite being blown up had briefed his number two about the bomb before he was taken off to hospital. He was good-looking, charismatic – and divorced. Fay knew that marrying Magnus had been a mistake – but she also admitted that the biggest mistake of all was divorcing him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005JTAMQO</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sheila Kohler1472263936|title=Becoming Jane EyreThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=25
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is no denying It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the Brontë family lived an interesting life. While some authors' lives are shrouded in mysteryhome and refused to return, with their characters far better known than they themselves are, thatbut Mary and Hamish (Helena's not really 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 case with family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the Brontësfirst of several annual visits. Various biographers have, over the years, provided a clear picture of 19th century Yorkshire life thanks She grew to a wealth of original letters love her grandmother and diaries preserved from the time. This makes Kohlerfamily's choice maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of topic slightly oddher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Rather than an attempt He was proud of his close connections to imagine the unknown lives of the sisters, it is a cobbling together of facts Junta and assumptions that have been in the public arena for some timeexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. For anyone who knows anything about the Brontës, it really is nothing new, His prejudices included Helena's red hair and thatgreen eyes - inherited from her father's a shameScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010862</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil RickmanDean Koontz|title=The Secrets of PainAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a freezing winter's night and top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a couple of the locals are driving home when they come across virus is released in a strange and disturbing incidentbio-hazard accident. They don't know what to make of it but as the SAS have Finding himself in a training presence makeshift mortuary, covered in the area Gomer plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and Danny put it down to exercises only him – as he sits up and breath a sigh looks around at the shrouded bodies of reliefhis dead friends and former colleagues. ItAs he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel's anything for a quiet life round these parts and thanks to Rickman's excellent writing, we soon see that these men, Gomer especially, are characters in themselveseverything. Plenty of personality''Everything''. Once seen, difficult to forget. And I didnMichael isn't want to forget them. They also speak in the local dialect which comes across very well indeed''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848872739</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erin MorgensternB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Night CircusGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Night Circus moves from town to town; appearing with no warning, no announcementsvillage is isolated and poor. The attractions seem impossible – It's surrounded by a carousel with breathing animals, handkerchiefs that turn into birds in front of Witching Forest. And the watchful eyes villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the audienceforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, doors that appear and disappeareven gallows, if needed. In The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the middle of it all are Celiavillage and that is the reason Volushka, the daughter of a famous illusionistdrunken, and Marcoself-indulgent, the apprentice lazy lout of a mysterious magician. From a young age the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills to win a prize that neither of them understands; and an end that will leave only one standingman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy B HughesB0BYF82CXT|title=The Expendable Man|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Dorothy B Hughes (1904-93) took a journalism degree in Kansas City, Missouri and started her distinguished career with a prize-winning book of poems. Her first hardSemi-boiled thriller appeared in 1940 and it was followed by more than a dozen in the next decade. Three were made into noir films and in 1944 Hughes went to Hollywood to assist Hitchcock on his film, ''Spellbound''. Here she met Ingrid Bergman and consequently Humphrey Bogart came to buy the film rights to one of her novels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1903155584</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDetached|author=Chuck Palahniuk|title=DamnedDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Are you there, Satan? It's meBill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, Madison'. I'm stuck in a spunkydepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, lively tweenage girl, except I'm a dead onewhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and I'm very much in love – move in Hellnext door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to my surpriseimprove for both pairs. While I'm here I'll find out just where But all is not what it is all those cold-calling telegraphers ring you from just while you're settling down to your evening mealseems, and where the world's wasted sperm and discarded toenail clippings fetch uptheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. I'll have very hairy encounters with demons of Satan's and mankind's making, and with some superlative plotting and flashbacks I'll find a clearer approach to why I was put here in the first place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091158</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily BarrShalini Boland|title=The First WifeSilent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lilybella Tatiana Blossom Button (who thankfully – for our sake as well as hers – goes by Alice and Seth are a simple Lily) match made in heaven. He is everything she has had an upbringing almost as unconventional as her name. Raised by her grandparentsbeen searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, we join her following their recent deaths funny; total and soon discover she utter husband-material. She is quite unlike most other 20 year olds. It’s going to be a brisk transition from a sheltered life all he could possibly want in a small cottage, nursing elderly relatives to the Real World but with no money to speak offwife; beautiful, she’ll have to pull herself togethersuccessful, confident… and quickly. Her background so the inevitable proposal is an important part of Lily eagerly accepted by Alice and contributes enormously to her trusting the wedding is planned and a little immature personality that will later be her downfallset. A few weeks later When the much-anticipated day arrives, thoughAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and things are looking up. She has taken a room in a house where excitement as she is much more one of surveys the family than just a lodger. She’s found some cleaning work congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day andwhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, even more excitingAlice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, one of who is waiting for her agency clients is a rather dashing ex-celeb and to become his beautiful, elegant wife. Yes, Lily’s star is definitely on the rise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755351371</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erinna Mettler1787636003|title=StarlingsThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have to say It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that what was a big factor in me choosing to read (she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and review) this book was its urban front coverarrived on the island. MonochromeRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, a bit gritty but with plenty of sky. The first character we meet is Andyperhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an ex-prisonerinterest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. He's on his own now It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time is heavy on his handsshe was obsessed by him. He stares out of Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his window, twelve floors up interests on the island and thinks back to when he had a nice family life. All that's gone now. He stands and looks down at in particular in the children in a nearby playground and temptation rises bar where all over again (he was convicted as a paedophile)the girls either worked or partied. He'll need to find the inner strength to resist - but can he?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956511929</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithAmanda Craig|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Forgotten Affairs of YouthThree Graces
|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 Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like I already know the city, and I would love to walk in state-of-the footsteps -nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of Isabel or any the atmosphere of the characters from his other seriesday and capture it, '44 Scotland Street'. So, to console me, I have turned to crafting an image of the latest 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 Isabel Dalhousie seriesgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. I must admit, I was She has such a little wary at gift for weaving the beginning since I was quite disappointed with Isabel's seventh outing, [[Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks ongoing issues of Others by Alexander McCall Smith|The Charming Quirks the day into the lives of Others]], and I wondered what I would do if this one also proved to be her characters in a let down. Fortunately it wasn't, way that feels natural and dear Isabel is back lived-in sparkling form!, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408703394</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Gruen152915118X|title=Ape HousePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Isabel Duncan ''Pineapple Street'' is a scientist working with Bonobo chimpsthe story of three women: Sasha, teaching them sign languageDarley and Georgiana. John Thigpen Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is a journalist who comes married to meet the apes and write their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a story about IsabelStockton by birth so she isn's work with themt readily accepted into the tribe. He is moved by The problem's exacerbated when the apesclan matriarch, by their behaviour Tilda, asks Cord and IsabelSasha if they's obviously very close relationship with themd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Soon after he leavesTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, howevera street or so away, there is a bomb at the centre by a group which they own. They won't need any of extremists who want to liberate the apesfurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Isabel begins Nominally, they had a desperate hunt to try and discover where theychoice but that wasn've gone, t the reality. Darley and John finds himself also caught up, trying Georgiana start to discover call Sasha 'the truth of whatgold digger'. She's happenedliving in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444716026</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger SmithEmily Critchley|title=Dust DevilsOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary="Rosie Dell had come 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to end itlose her memory. For keeps this However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that timeago." After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Monique Truong0008506337|title=Bitter in the MouthThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Linda HammerickThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, a young girl growing up apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in North Carolina in the late 1970love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's, is differentmother as 'an older man'. She suffers Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from synesthesia, tasting things when what they felt she speaks or hears wordscould achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. She grows up with In the event, they eloped and Richard took her greataway from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-unclerespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Baby HarperImogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, as her best friend, as hissingsong voice is the only one family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she can hear without the accompanying tastes, and writes letters back and forth with her best friend Kelly rather than have long conversations with herwould never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099474743</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten Reed1914585402|title=The Ice AgeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Two people road trip across America. Sort 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 ofyears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. They don't start off togetherIt was a gripping, or meet up intentionallyemotionally wounding read, and the age gap is purposely provocative. She likes him because he's old and has pointy, vampire teeth he rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might use to bite her with (Twilight sell out, much?) She is 17. We don't know her name, but not have lavished enough praise on it is she who tells us the story. He is called Gunther. People think she is his daughter. They hope she is. It's just too odd to comprehend otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447200411</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick deWittLucy Ashe|title=The Sisters BrothersClara and Olivia|rating=4|genre=Literary 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 in the US in 1851, it details the adventures of two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, who are hired hands for a mysterious boss known only as the Commodore. Narrated by Eli, who has slightly more of a conscience than his older brother, the story starts with the Commodore ordering a hit, for reasons unknown, on a certain Hermann Kermit Warm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847083188</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Vanessa Diffenbaugh|title=The Language of Flowers|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story see-saws a chapter at a time between year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the teenage Victoria and outside but not, we learn, on the child Victoriainside. The book opens with (the teen) Victoria leaving foster care for goodAnd not on stage, either. SheBecause there's been a difficult child lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to place sodetail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, now at 18a charm, she is a troubled and angry young woman with many unsolved issues''joie de vivre''. The constant link has been Meredith, the loyal social difference between a hard-worker. But Victoria now wants shot of the lot of them, Meredith included. Victoria can now be as free as and a bird and do what she wants, when she wantsstar. Bliss. Or is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230752586</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret PellingHeather Fawcett|title=A Diamond in the SkyEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Dora in a reflective mood in what used Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to be write her life's work, the nurseryvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. WellWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, it still she is - except there's no baby there nownot so good with people. Pelling tells us down So when she finds herself far, far North in the storyline exactly small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what happened she has done, nor how to redeem herself and why and the (a bit mushy put her final investigations for me) title of the her book is key to back on the story of Doraright track. It gets mentions throughout. As Dora sits in the empty nursery she can't help but re-live that tragic event Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all over again. ''Her arms were wrapping themselves around her so tight that she was having trouble breathing.'' She's now a total mess charm and thatdelight, much to Emily's about the sum total of her life at the momentfrustration. Dora now thinks she's a dreadful person. But why is he here? What does he want? And no one will want to know a dreadful person, will theywhat exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784280</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Zoe Heller1398515388|title=Notes on a ScandalThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barbara has been teaching at St George's for several yearsFirst of all, it was the earthquake, and deep in spite of her caustic words on the institutionocean floor, it is very much which created the focus of her lonely life. When newcomertsunami and this, Sheba joins themin turn, she forms a strong bond with hercaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and becomes part the loss of Sheba's lifelivelihoods was widespread. Sheba is married with two children, The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but her attraction to - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a pupil, Connolly, leads her to risk everything in dog outside a liaison of which Barbara is extremely jealousconvenience store. As He wasn't a result, their apparent friendship travels a sinister pathdog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024195455X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A D MillerChristopher Bowden|title=SnowdropsMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The front cover, aunt who always provided a snowy scene with majestic architecture in the background, is arresting safe harbour and also suggests a thriller-type read. I was keen little bit of indulgence to find out why the book was called ''Snowdrops'' and hoped the author would enlighten me. He did - a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it's nothing seems to him an obligation to do with flowers or gardening. It's rather chilling and altogether more interestingfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848874537</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dori OstermillerJennifer Mason|title=Outside the Ordinary WorldPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although not keen on the title (a little clunky) I did feel that this was going to be a book I'd enjoy. Ostermiller has some fulsome praise for this debut novel including from the author Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous:Category:Diane ChamberlainAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Diane ChamberlainPreposterous]]. And after reading the back cover blurb I can sense , when she investigated and unravelled a similarity which is fine by meseries of disappearances. (I thoroughly enjoyed all In ''Partitions of ChamberlainUnity''s books), she sets her mind to solving a murder... Would I enjoy this book as much?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>077830468X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In this seventh outing Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to Scotland Street we're back with the cast of familiar charactersdetonate his vest on a London tube line. Matthew and Elspeth have had As their triplets and must now face fates overlap, the trials of being new parentsstory is told in backwards order, with three times the trouble! Angus and Domenica are attempting leading up to resolve the tricky issue of where they will live once they're marriedfateful moment. 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!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971888</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura KasischkeJennifer Mason|title=The RaisingPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Craig is returning to university''A struggling poetry zine, where he is widely viewed as being responsible for a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the death of his girlfriend NicoleNorthern California redwoods, in a road accident. Suffering from post400-traumatic stress and memory loss as meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a result state-of -the accident-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, Craig is an obvious candidate to fall victim to the hauntings that start to occur around the campuserotic art dealer in Georgia... But it's not just Craig who is seeing inexplicable things happen at the university.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857891545</amazonuk>}}'
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia DonaldsonB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Gloomster|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We've all been there. Finding fault with everything around us, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down on all creation - including, Calculations of course, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRational Men|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks of OthersDaniel Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I do wonderIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, sometimes, how it the Cuban missile crisis is possible that Mr Alexander McCall Smith can possibly manage to write so many novels? still very fresh in people's minds. Wouldn't it be fascinating The world has barely had a chance to meet him, and see if the stories just ooze breathe out of him non-stop. But for Joe Marr, and if he walks around with pen and paper at all times jotting things down as they occur to him... In this book heit's bringing us back, once again, to Isabel Dalhousienot the missile crisis that's worldat the front of his mind. If you donHe't know who Isabel is then you should really forget all about this book for s been convicted of murder. With the moment and go right back current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the beginning to [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0349118698?tag=thebookbag-21&camp=1406&creative=6394&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0349118698&adid=12XVW0J2SJ9MJA2J2YPB& The Sunday Philosophy Club] so you can get all the characters prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in order and know whatHMP Queen's going onBench, a relatively new prison. If youHe're already up s just getting used to datehis roommate, howeverMervyn, and have read up learning to [[The Lost Art be wary of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith|The Lost Art of Gratitude]] then you're good to go!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349123128</amazonuk>the McArthur brothers.
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