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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General fictionFiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Khaled Hosseini1529153298|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Graphic NovelsGeneral Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A confessionwoman? I mean, honestly... ) If thereShe's one book Inot what'm not likely to read, its worrying Miv's that which everyone else is readingfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. If it turns into a hugely popular film for all the left-wing chattering classes to rave overWell, then thatthey's just more grist ve been murdered, but to my mill – Ihave 'disappeared' doesn'll always have a chance to catch up on it later on, even if I never take that opportunityt sound quite so frightening. IMiv'm not alone in acting like this – see a friend and colleagues upset because she's similar admission when reviewing [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith]]overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. But at leastWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, through the medium of the graphic novelbest avoided. For Miv, the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I'm missing, with this adaptationmove would mean leaving her best friend, by Italian artistsSharon, of a hugely successful – and therefore delayable – novelshe'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815257</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035906708|authortitle=Jennifer HaighDiva|titleauthor=FaithDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As a ''We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York Times Bestseller'' I was expecting great things from this book; coupled with the fact that I really enjoy American fiction, I in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was itching to get readingthirteen. The story is told from the perspective of Sheila, sister Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to Mike and half-sister 'Callas' to Arthur (he's normally called Art). Art is the priest and who is at the centre of make it more manageable in the stormStates. We go When she was back in time and discover Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a rather pious woman mother who has had a hard start to married life. She's now left to bring up mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her young son, Art, on preference for her own. But things pick up pretty quickly from here and as an attractive woman it's not long before she meets someone else. Two more children are born and they all settle down into a normalelder sister, American family unitJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007225091</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|author=Jaimy Gordon|title=Lord of Misrule|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=West Virginia, 1970. We're at a rundown race track, of the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race to interrupt the boredom. Into things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing. His girlfriend is here too to help out, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all before. Also in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run and won.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Unusual Uses for Olive Oil: A Von Igelfeld NovelThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Following on from ''The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom'' which was 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 compilation of three shorter volumesmore personal, this book sees Professor Dr Von Igelfeld still dealing with his academic colleagues but also with tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the prospect business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a love interest, break up with a recently widowed ladybad boyfriend, Frau Benz, who has inherited and so jumps at the large Schloss in Regensburgchance to come home to Edinburgh. Is And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love in , thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the air? Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Or will his arch rivalKatie has no experience in running a business, Unterholzer interfere once again?or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316027545</amazonuk>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 his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny 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, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike 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's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie DuffyKatherine Howe|title=The Generation GameA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Do you remember ''The Generation Game'' TV showHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with old Brucie a family who run an inn, and then Larry Grayson managing being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the mayhem? town, she decides to go and watch. Where were you when Charles Enthralled and Di got married? What about when Diana died? Therehorrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's plenty death at the hands of reminiscing two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to be done in this book sea, dressing as Sophie Duffy takes us from a boy and joining the 1960notorious Ned Low's to 2006 through pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the life thick of her character, Philippathings when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in a book that fleets from funny, heartwarming moments to real sadnessher rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248017</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Larry Pontius1471180158|title=Future KingMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the near future and King Charles III has ascended the throne subtlety of the United Kingdom with Camilla as his Queen Consorta half brick. The country is in a mess with rampant inflationJamie's son, unemploymentBo, a crumbling infrastructure 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and riots: the people have taken to calling this time ''The Troublesmore you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Such situations breed powerSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -hungry politicians she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and Prime Minister Alistair Saxon has plans sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to become the dictator of the countryschool. When Missed shifts or the King refuses need to give his assent be away on time to the Emergency Powers Act, Saxon pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and his fellow-conspirators kidnap put in the Royal family wrong. It was going to prevent Charles speaking against the EPAcome to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1463766297</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kirsten TranterB0CKD1L5JL|title=The LegacyRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This Petr is quite a chunky book so Tranter has given herself plenty of space an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and time to build up a nice level of suspense here as well as putting some flesh on busy human society, in the bones forests of her central charactersWashington's Olympic Peninsula. The book opens - towards the end of the story. So we have firmAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, but platonic friends, Julia and Ralph both very concerned about their mutual friendarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Ingrid. She supposedly died Petr goes on 9/11 - but with no remainsa journey through the forest, no burialbroadcasting the strange, their grief hasn't an outlet. They need (to quote that much used word) closurewild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857380621</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe SimpsonSarah Marsh|title=The Sound A Sign of GravityHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Patrick is climbing in the Alps with his girlfriendAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. They are taking an unusual and difficult ascentSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, and it is wintereverything about her life changes. A storm blows up. Whilst they are camping overnightLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, Patrick's girlfriend loses her footingbut physically restrained from signing. He manages to catch her handFrom here, and then she slips through his fingers ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and falls into using a chasmsystem called Visible Speech. The novel details the days and hours in At the run-up to this tragedysame time, Bell is working on other inventions and the aftermathideas, both immediate and long termEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224072641</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin WilsonB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Family FangGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''Annie Fang Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought theyin case it'd ever be agains contagious. But it has come to this - her film actress career It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on the rocks with the kind of selfseventeen-year-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and old Reggie Anderson but never thought he - well, would notice her. Then he's here because of a jumbo spud gundid: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. Neither want life back She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieceschurch: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, designed she even allowed him to enact give her a point of life or just cause havoclift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Roth1472263936|title=NemesisThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1944, Newark, New Jersey. SummerIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Hot. Bucky CantorShe was alone: her mother, a young Jewish manGreek by birth, is gym teacher had left the family home and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the districtrefused to return, helping all those interested become fit young men, able but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing the family apartment in up- serving in market Kolonaki would be the forcesfirst of several annual visits. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at handShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, if it were coolerDina, but was wary - and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there isfrightened - of her grandfather, and nobody knows what is causing itretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Is it flies? Is it a gang He was proud of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to neighbourhood? accommodate them. Is it blacks, germs on money His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour inherited from his charges under a blistering sun?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>her father's Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nina BellDean Koontz|title=The Empty NestersAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With their children all off to university (most from the same school yearMichael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, plus an erroneous one is among 55 people who took die when a virus is released in a handybio-for-the-sake-of-the-story gap year)hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, it's all change for the parents covered in this book – for Clover and Georgeplastic, and Laura and Timhe has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and Alice. Though some of the fathers are present, only him – as you'd expect this is a tale told mainly from he sits up and looks around at the eyes shrouded bodies of the mothers. Clover and Laura have been his dead friends forever, while Clover and Alice's relationship is more recentformer colleagues. As for Laura and Alicehe recovers his senses, well they really donhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't get on, making life a little tricky at times for Clover, stuck somewhere in the middle''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751543667</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan HillB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Shadows in the StreetGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover graphics leave the reader in no doubt that this village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a thriller Witching Forest. 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 blurb forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on the back cover mentions the troubles in Afghanistan, deadly bombshomes, sniffer dogs, so the theme here is bang up to-date and many would possibly sayeven gallows, relevantif needed. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092598</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Evelio Rosero|title=Good Offices|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Here The fear of being buried alive is a church an existential superstition in Bogota nobody seems to want to leave. In part one it the village and that is a large group of the elderlyreason Volushka, given a weeklydrunken, tasteless meal from the charitable fundsself-indulgent, but bitterly refusing to quit the place, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivity. In part two it is the congregation, as lazy lout of a rare need for a stand-in priest seems to be a blessing. And in part three it man is that priest himself, stuck among the household of Tancredo, the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old womentolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050672</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Arnaldur IndridasonB0BYF82CXT|title=Operation NapoleonSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 1945 ''Bill and Amanda are living in a German bomber crashed on semi-detached house, stuck in a glacier in Iceland. This might not have been quite so extraordinary were it not for the fact that there were both German depressing rut of boredom and American officers on board. Two of the passengers are killed in the crashdisappointment, one sets off for help when Terry and four people remainFiona – glamorous, trapped successful and very much in the planelove – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, eventually freezing to death. Just before the end of last century the glacier gave up the plane couples befriend each other and the US army began an operation life appears to remove the wreckage as secretly as possible, but two young Icelanders are caught up in improve for both pairs. But all is not what is going on. One contacts his sister but before he can complete the call they are grabbed by the soldiersit seems, brutally attacked and their bodies and snowmobiles dumped in a crevasseincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535637</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda GillardShalini Boland|title=Untying the KnotThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered why it's not axiomatic that Alice and Seth are 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 manmatch made in heaven. To make it worseHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, she was an army wife accomplished, clever, funny; total and they just don't desert – and Magnus was a heroutter husband-material. He'd been She is all he could possibly want in bomb disposal a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and despite being blown up had briefed his number two about the bomb before he was taken off to hospitalwedding is planned and set. He was goodWhen the much-lookinganticipated day arrives, charismatic Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and divorced. Fay knew that marrying Magnus had been a mistake – but when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she also admitted that has absolutely no idea who the biggest mistake of all was divorcing himman at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B005JTAMQO</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ulrika Jonsson1787636003|title=The Importance Girls of Being MyrtleSummer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=title will help to draw readers in, I think. The blurb It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the back cover suggests a cosy, domestic readisland. I Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was looking forward , perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to ittake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. We initially get all the sorry details leading up It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to Austin's untimely deathher and by that time she was obsessed by him. On the local busAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, of all places, as he made looking after his way to work. A kindly Italian/Australian man called Gianni sees it all happening (interests on the island and in fact Austin dies particular in his arms). We also get a lot of background info on Gianni, right at the very beginning, which I thought slowed up bar where all the story somewhatgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043202</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila KohlerAmanda Craig|title=Becoming Jane EyreThree Graces|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is no denying that Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the Brontë family lived an interesting life-nation novel. While some authors' lives are shrouded in mystery, with their characters far better known than they themselves are, thatThere's not really something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the case with atmosphere of the Brontës. Various biographers haveday and capture it, over the years, provided a clear picture crafting an image of 19th century Yorkshire life thanks to a wealth of original letters and diaries preserved from the timecountry as it stands in one particular moment. This makes KohlerTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's choice practically synonymous with the genre of topic slightly oddcontemporary social fiction at this point. Rather than an attempt to imagine She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the unknown lives of the sisters, it is her characters in a cobbling together of facts way that feels natural and assumptions that have been lived-in the public arena , never making them ciphers for some time. For anyone who knows anything about the Brontëssocial commentary but instead fully realised people, it really is nothing new, and that's a shamegrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849010862</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil Rickman152915118X|title=The Secrets of PainPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's a freezing winter's night Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and a couple of the locals George are driving home when they come across a strange sisters and disturbing incidentSasha is married to their brother Cord. They don're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't know what to make of it but as readily accepted into the SAS have a training presence in tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the area Gomer clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Danny put it down Sasha if they'd like to exercises and breath a sigh of reliefmove into the Pineapple Street property. It's anything for a quiet life round these parts Tilda and Chip have renovated and thanks downsized to Rickman's excellent writinganother property, we soon see that these mena street or so away, Gomer especiallywhich they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, are characters so Sasha and Cord can move straight in themselves. Plenty of personalityNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Once seen, difficult Darley and Georgiana start to forgetcall Sasha 'the gold digger'. And I didn She's living in ''their''t want to forget themfamily home. They also speak in use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the local dialect which comes across very well indeedGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872739</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erin MorgensternEmily Critchley|title=The Night CircusOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=54|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The Night Circus moves from 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 town; appearing live with no warninghis family, no announcementsas Edie is starting to lose her memory. The attractions seem impossible – a carousel with breathing animals However, handkerchiefs that turn into birds in front Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the watchful eyes of worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the audience, doors thing that appear and disappear. In reveals the middle truth of it what happened all are Celiathat time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the daughter last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of a famous illusionistmemories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and Marco, the apprentice of a mysterious magicianmore in her day to day life. From a young age Will she uncover the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills to win a prize that neither of them understands; truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and an end that will leave only one standing.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dorothy B HughesMadelaine Lucas|title=The Expendable ManThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Dorothy B Hughes (1904-93) took a journalism degree in Kansas City''Love, I'd read, Missouri and started her distinguished career with a prize-winning book of poems. Her first hard-boiled thriller appeared in 1940 and it was followed by more than supposed to be a dozen in the next decade. Three were made into noir films light and in 1944 Hughes went to Hollywood to assist Hitchcock on his filmweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''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>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emily Barr0008506337|title=The First WifeGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lilybella Tatiana Blossom Button (who thankfully – for our sake as well The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as hers – goes by a simple Lily) has had 'an upbringing almost as unconventional as her nameolder man'. Raised by Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her grandparents, we join her following their recent deaths and soon discover away from what they felt she is quite unlike most other 20 year olds. It’s could achieve - going to be Oxford and having a brisk transition from a sheltered life in a small cottage, nursing elderly relatives to glittering career. In the Real World but with no money to speak off, she’ll have to pull herself togetherevent, they eloped and quicklyRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Her background is an important part of Lily Margo did go to Oxford and contributes enormously went on to her trusting and become a little immature personality that will later be her downfallwell-respected journalist. A few weeks later, though The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and things are looking upSasha. She has taken a room Life was lived in a house where she is much more one of London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family than just a lodger. She’s found some cleaning work and, even more exciting, one home on the Isle of her agency clients is a rather dashing ex-celeb and his beautiful, elegant wifeWight. Yes, Lily’s star is definitely on Even then the risedoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755351371</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1914585402|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Forgotten Affairs of YouthDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|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'. 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 Isabelreviewed David F Ross's seventh outing, book [[Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks of Others There's Only One Danny Garvey by Alexander McCall SmithDavid F Ross|The Charming Quirks of OthersThere's Only One Danny Garvey]]a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I wondered what I would do if this one also proved to be a let downmight not have lavished enough praise on it. Fortunately it wasn't, and dear Isabel is back in sparkling form!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408703394</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara GruenLucy Ashe|title=Ape HouseClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Isabel Duncan The year is a scientist working with Bonobo chimps, teaching them sign language1933. John Thigpen is a journalist who comes to meet the apes and write a story about IsabelThe place? Sadler's work with themWells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. He is moved by Identical on the apesoutside but not, by their behaviour and Isabel's obviously very close relationship with themwe learn, on the inside. Soon after he leaves, howeverAnd not on stage, either. Because there is 's a bomb at the centre by lot that builds a group of extremists who want dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to liberate detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the apesclassroom. Isabel begins A stage presence, a charm, a desperate hunt to try and discover where they've gone'joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and John finds himself also caught up, trying to discover the truth of what's happeneda star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444716026</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger SmithHeather Fawcett|title=Dust DevilsEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary="Rosie Dell had come Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to end it. For keeps this timewrite her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries." ''It'' Whilst she is the affair that brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she's been having is not so good with Ben Bakerpeople. So when she finds herself far, one far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the richest men in the country. Unfortunately for Rosievillage matriarch, she doesn't say is not sure what she's come has done, nor how to say… unfortunately for Ben, for Rosie, redeem herself and for put her family, someone has plans to end it final investigations for herbook back on the right track. ActuallyEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, not plansall charm and delight, as suchmuch to Emily's frustration. She shouldn't have been there. But why is he here? What does he want? Everything that happens next wouldn't have, if she hadn't been.And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687950</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Monique Truong1398515388|title=Bitter in The Boy and the MouthDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Linda HammerickFirst of all, a young girl growing up it was the earthquake, deep in North Carolina the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the late 1970'snuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, is differentand the loss of livelihoods was widespread. She suffers The fact that many pets were separated from synesthesia, tasting things when she speaks or hears words. She grows up with her greattheir owners came far down the list of priorities but -uncle, Baby Harper, as her best friend, as hissingsong voice is six months after the only one she can hear without tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the accompanying tastes, convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and writes letters back and forth with her best friend Kelly rather than have long conversations with herTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099474743</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Meg RosoffChristopher Bowden|title=There Is No Dog|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Ok. Imagine God is actually a teenage immortal, much in the vein of teenage humans. He rushes his coursework (creation) and while there are flashes of brilliance and potential in it, there's no real thought or organisation and so the whole thing doesn'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. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327162</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kirsten Reed|title=The Ice Age|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Two people road trip across America. Sort of. They don't start off together, or meet up intentionally, and the age gap is purposely provocative. She likes him because he's old and has pointy, vampire teeth he might use to bite her with (Twilight sell out, much?) She is 17. We don't know her name, but 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>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick deWitt|title=The Sisters Brothers|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 FlowersMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story see-saws Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a chapter at patient untangling of a time between the teenage Victoria and the child Victoria. The book opens with (the teen) Victoria leaving foster care for good. Sheseemingly ordinary woman's been a difficult child to place so, now at 18life, carried out by her nephew after she is has died. The aunt who always provided a troubled safe harbour and angry a little bit of indulgence to a young woman with many unsolved issues. The constant link has been Meredith, the loyal social worker. But Victoria now wants shot of the lot of them, Meredith included. Victoria can now be as free as nephew had had a bird much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and do what she wants, when she wantsit seems to him an obligation to find it all out. Bliss. Or is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230752586</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret PellingJennifer Mason|title=A Diamond in the SkyPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Dora Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in a reflective mood in what used to be the nursery. Well[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], it still is - except there's no baby there now. Pelling tells us down the storyline exactly what happened when she investigated and why and the (unravelled a bit mushy for me) title series of the book is key to the story of Doradisappearances. It gets mentions throughout. As Dora sits in the empty nursery she canIn ''t help but re-live that tragic event all over again. Partitions of Unity''Her arms were wrapping themselves around , she sets her so tight that she was having trouble breathingmind to solving a murder.'' She's now a total mess and that's about the sum total of her life at the moment. Dora now thinks she's a dreadful person. And no one will want to know a dreadful person, will they?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906784280</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front coverFive strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, a snowy scene with majestic architecture the story is told in the backgroundbackwards order, is arresting and also suggests a thriller-type read. I was keen leading up to find out why the book was called ''Snowdrops'' and hoped the author would enlighten me. He did - and it's nothing to do with flowers or gardening. It's rather chilling and altogether more interestingfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848874537</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dori OstermillerJennifer Mason|title=Outside the Ordinary WorldPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although not keen on ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the title (Northern California redwoods, a little clunky) I did feel that this was going to be 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a book Iwomen'd enjoy. Ostermiller has some fulsome praise s track coach with a yen for this debut novel including from bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the author [[:Category:Diane Chamberlain|Diane Chamberlain]]. And after reading the back cover blurb I can sense -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a similarity which is fine by me. life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(I thoroughly enjoyed all of Chamberlain's books, x). Would I enjoy this book as much?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830468X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yvvette Edwards|title=A Cupboard Full of Coats|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''He just knocked, that was all, knocked and the front door and waitedon a cheap oil painting, like the fourteen years since I'd killed my mother hadn't happenedan erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0B2N7MVYM|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 The Calculations 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>}} {{newreviewRational Men|author=Laura Kasischke|title=The RaisingDaniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Craig is returning It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to universityput what happens in context, where he the Cuban missile crisis is widely viewed as being responsible still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the death missile crisis that's at the front of his girlfriend Nicole, in a road accidentmind. Suffering from post-traumatic stress and memory loss as a result He's been convicted of murder. With the accidentcurrent state of medical knowledge, Craig is an obvious candidate to fall victim it's hard to the hauntings think otherwise than that start to occur around the campusprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. But it He's not just Craig who is seeing inexplicable things happen at getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the universityMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857891545</amazonuk>
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