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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William GiraldiOnyi Nwabineli|title=Busy MonstersAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian. He's proved it Anuri spent her childhood on display to usthe world, if not thanks to herstep-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, by going after her possessivebasically, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat insteadmonetary gain. But lo Now Anuri is in her twenties and behold, she's declared she's off is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to discover the real love of get her life back, suing her step- mother to take down the giant squidcontent about her. Failing Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to stop thisstart her PhD, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessiveundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, then goes on a hunt of his own - for Bigfootshe is desperately worried about her little sister, all who is the whilenew focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative of and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columns.time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Sparks1529153298|title=The Best of Me|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Since watching the film of 'The Notebook' years ago I've always fancied reading some Nicholas Sparks books but never quite got around to it until I saw this, his newest offering. Here we have the tale of two childhood sweethearts whose love was always threatened by the fact that they were from opposite sides of the tracks - he from the rough, poor family that is forever on the wrong side of the law, and she from one of the better, respected families in the town. After life forces them apart they go on to live very different lives, but it seems that neither one has ever forgotten that early passion. Drawn back together for the funeral of an old friend they are both forced to look at the choices they've made in their lives and where they go to from here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marius Brill|title=How to Forget|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=If you are a fan of the BBC's 'Hustle' series, you will absolutely love Marius Brill’s 'How to Forget'. It’s a funny, clever and twisted tale of grifters and con tricks with a bit of magic thrown in for good measure. Brill gives us a cast of strange characters: there's an ethically dubious brain scientist, a dodgy Derren Brown-type TV celebrity whose interests are guarded by two violent but somewhat hapless Hasidic Jewish thugs, an equally violent FBI agent and a female British copper. At the heart List of the story though is an apparently naïve British magician, Peter, and a supreme grifter, Kate, in whose life Peter finds himself entangled.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520717</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=S G Browne|title=FatedJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Clever It's 1979 and very funnyMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, this is the sort of book where you immediately feel in safe handsthough. S Women have been disappearing.G Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Browne has gone Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to town (New York)move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, satirising just about every aspect of modern lifeSharon, and my reading was continually interrupted by bells clanging loudly in recognition in my headshe'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954728</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Titania Hardie1035906708|title=The House of the WindDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I loved the intriguing title We tend to think of the book Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was hoping that Hardie explains itthirteen. She does: not only that Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but the wind element (no pun intended) is mentioned throughout at regular intervals. A nice touch, I thought and not over-played either. The short Prologue describes a young girl on the eve of her father changed it to 'terrible fate.Callas' But fate seems to have changed its mind at make it more manageable in the very last minuteStates. And this strange/weird/scary event happens at When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Casa al Vento - 'The House Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the Windher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755346297</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane SandersonAlexander McCall Smith|title=Netherwood|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The cover of Netherwood features a bold promise - 'Perfect for fans of Downton Abbey'. The basic features of a reliable 'upstairs/downstairs' saga are all present; the landed gentry enjoying their estate, the staff servicing it and the locals, all relying on the fortunate family for their own income.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751547638</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Khaled Hosseini|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A confession. If there's one book I'm not likely to read, it's that which everyone else is reading. If it turns into a hugely popular film for all the left-wing chattering classes to rave over, then that's just more grist to my mill – I'll always have a chance to catch up on it later on, even if I never take that opportunity. I'm not alone in acting like this – see a friend and colleague's similar admission when reviewing [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith]]. But at least, through the medium of the graphic novel, the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I'm missing, with this adaptation, by Italian artists, of a hugely successful – and therefore delayable – novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815257</amazonuk>}}{{newreview |author=Jennifer Haigh|title=FaithPassion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As The Perfect Passion Company is a ''New York Times Bestseller'' I was expecting great things from this book; coupled with dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the fact that I really enjoy American fictiononline apps in providing a more personal, I was itching to get readingtailored service. The story is told from Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the perspective of Sheilabusiness, sister as Ness is planning to Mike and half-sister take a trip to Canada to Arthur (he's normally called Art)get away for a while. Art Katie is the priest coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and who is so jumps at the centre of the stormchance to come home to Edinburgh. We go back in time And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and discover a rather pious woman the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who has had a hard start quickly begin to married lifecharm. She's now left to bring up her young sonKatie has no experience in running a business, Artor in match-making, on but Ness has full confidence in her own. But things pick up pretty quickly from here abilities, and as an attractive woman itthere's not long before she meets someone else. Two more children are born always her very helpful (and they all settle down into rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a normal, American family unit.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007225091</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonDean Koontz|title=Lord of MisruleThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=West VirginiaBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, 1970and his house gets trashed. We're at Oh, and someone has delivered a rundown race trackreally weird, of disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living inthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, with Benny is the occasional race very last person to interrupt the boredomdeserve all this bad luck. Into things comes He is a young upstart hoping nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make 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 packet before fleeinggood person. His girlfriend Spike is here too going to help outtake care of Benny, and naively eager for success will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all before. Also in the background are some small-time gangsters Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who are not too keen at for once not knowing finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who is doing what and how races exactly they are going to be run and won.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithKatherine Howe|title=Unusual Uses for Olive Oil: A Von Igelfeld NovelTrue Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Following on Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from ''The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom'' which was a compilation young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of three shorter volumessome pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, this book sees Professor Dr Von Igelfeld still dealing with his academic colleagues but also with Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the prospect hands of a love interesttwo vicious pirates. She hides away, a recently widowed ladyso that they don't find and kill her too, Frau Benzand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, who has inherited dressing as a boy and joining the large Schloss in Regensburgnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Is love She soon finds herself in the air? Or will his arch rivalthick of things when there is a mutiny on board, Unterholzer interfere once again?and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316027545</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Duffy1471180158|title=The Generation GameMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Do you remember Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'The Generation Gamehas his problems'. He' TV shows asthmatic and the more you read, with old Brucie and then Larry Grayson managing the mayhem? Where were more you when Charles and Di got married? 'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. What about when Diana died? ThereSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's plenty of reminiscing to be done a frequent flier in this book as Sophie Duffy takes us from the 1960local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to 2006 through school. Missed shifts or the life of her character, Philippa, need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a book that fleets from funny, heartwarming moments to real sadnesshead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908248017</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Larry PontiusB0CKD1L5JL|title=Future King|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's the near future and King Charles III has ascended the throne of the United Kingdom with Camilla as his Queen Consort. The country is in a mess with rampant inflation, unemployment, a crumbling infrastructure and riots: the people have taken to calling this time ''The Troubles''. Such situations breed power-hungry politicians and Prime Minister Alistair Saxon has plans to become the dictator of the country. When the King refuses to give his assent to the Emergency Powers Act, Saxon and his fellow-conspirators kidnap the Royal family to prevent Charles speaking against the EPA.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1463766297</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author=Kirsten Tranter|title=The LegacyJeffrey 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 plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – for Clover and George, only him – as he sits up and Laura looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and Timformer colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and Alicepoor. Though some of the fathers are present, as youIt'd expect this is s surrounded by a tale told mainly from Witching Forest. And the 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 mothers. Clover forest provides heat and Laura have been friends foreverwarmth, roofs on homes, while Clover and Alice's relationship even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is more recent. As for Laura an existential superstition in the village and Alicethat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, well they really don't get onself-indulgent, making life lazy lout of a little tricky at times for Clover, stuck somewhere in the middleman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751543667</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan HillB0BYF82CXT|title=The Shadows in the StreetSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=This is the fifth novel ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in Susan Hill's series about the detective Simon Serraillernext door. Although you could probably follow Despite their different outlooks on life, the story without knowing the previous books I think it does help couples befriend each other and life appears to have some background on who improve for both pairs. But all the characters are. I really love the way Hill weaves her story around some wonderful character studies. Simon is actually hardly in this novelnot what it seems, and the focus instead is on the their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'extras', with a lot of details being put into characters who will only be around for this particular novel but who live and breathe through it wonderfully well. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099499282</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan LewisShalini Boland|title=Into DustThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover graphics leave the reader Alice and Seth are a match made in no doubt that this heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a thriller wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the blurb on inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the back cover mentions wedding is planned and set. When the troubles in Afghanistanmuch-anticipated day arrives, deadly bombsAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, sniffer dogsbeaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, so Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the theme here altar is, who is bang up waiting for her to-date and many would possibly say, relevantbecome his wife. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092598</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Evelio Rosero1787636003|title=Good OfficesThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Here is a church in Bogota nobody seems to want to leaveIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. In part one it is a large group of the elderlyRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, given a weeklyperhaps, tasteless meal from the charitable fundsnaive, but bitterly refusing so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to quit the placetake an interest in her, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivityshe was flattered rather than wary. In part two it is the congregation, as It was quite a rare need for a stand-in priest seems while before he made any sort of physical approach to be a blessingher and by that time she was obsessed by him. And Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in part three it is that priest himself, stuck among the household of Tancredo, bar where all the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old womengirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050672</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Arnaldur IndridasonAmanda Craig|title=Operation NapoleonThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 1945 a German bomber crashed on a glacier in IcelandFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. This might not have been quite There's something so extraordinary were it not for utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the fact that there were both German day and American officers on board. Two capture it, crafting an image of the passengers are killed country as it stands in the crash, one sets off for help and four people remain, trapped in particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the plane, eventually freezing to deathgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Just before She has such a gift for weaving the end ongoing issues of last century the glacier gave up day into the plane lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and the US army began an operation to remove the wreckage as secretly as possiblelived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but two young Icelanders are caught up in what is going on. One contacts his sister but before he can complete the call they are grabbed by the soldiersinstead fully realised people, brutally attacked and their bodies and snowmobiles dumped in a crevassegrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535637</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda Gillard152915118X|title=Untying the KnotPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered why it's not axiomatic that Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a man should stand Stockton by his woman – although perhaps it couldnbirth so she isn't be set to music quite so easily – but Fay had failed to stand by her manreadily accepted into the tribe. To make it worseThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, she was an army wife asks Cord and Sasha if they just don't desert – d like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and Magnus was downsized to another property, a herostreet or so away, which they own. HeThey won'd been in bomb disposal and despite being blown up had briefed his number two about t need any of the bomb before he was taken off to hospital. He was good-lookingfurniture from Pineapple Street, charismatic – so Sasha and divorcedCord can move straight in. Fay knew that marrying Magnus Nominally, they had been a mistake – choice but she also admitted that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the biggest mistake of all was divorcing himGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005JTAMQO</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ulrika JonssonEmily Critchley|title=The Importance of Being MyrtleOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=title will help 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 draw readers inlive with his family, I thinkas Edie is starting to lose her memory. The blurb on However, Edie is tormented by the back cover suggests memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a cosy, domestic read. I secret she was looking forward to itkeeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. We initially get all After 'seeing' Lucy in the sorry details leading up to Austin's untimely death. On high street, just as she was the local buslast time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of all places, as he made his way memories coming back to workher. A kindly Italian/Australian man called Gianni sees it all happening (And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in fact Austin dies in his arms)her day to day life. We also get a lot of background info on Gianni, right at Will she uncover the very beginningtruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, which I thought slowed up the story somewhat.and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141043202</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Phil Rickman0008506337|title=The Secrets of Pain|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's a freezing winter's night and a couple of the locals are driving home when they come across a strange and disturbing incident. They don't know what to make of it but as the SAS have a training presence in the area Gomer and Danny put it down to exercises and breath a sigh of relief. It'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 themselves. Plenty of personality. Once seen, difficult to forget. And I didn't want to forget them. They also speak in the local dialect which comes across very well indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848872739</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGarnett Girls|author=Erin Morgenstern|title=The Night CircusGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Night Circus moves from town to town; appearing with no warninglove affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, no announcementsapparently on both sides. The attractions seem impossible – a carousel with breathing animals, handkerchiefs that turn into birds Margo was just sixteen when they fell in front of the watchful eyes of the audience, doors love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that appear Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and disappearhaving a glittering career. In the middle of it all are Celiaevent, they eloped and Richard took her away from the daughter Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a famous illusionistwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and Marcoholidays were spent at Sandcove, the apprentice family home on the Isle of a mysterious magicianWight. From a young age Even then the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to win a prize that neither of them understands; and an end that will leave only one standinghim in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck Palahniuk1914585402|title=DamnedDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I reviewed David F Ross'Are you there, Satan? Its book [[There's me, MadisonOnly 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. I'm It was a spunkygripping, lively tweenage girl, except I'm a dead oneemotionally wounding read, and I'm in Hell, to rereading my surprise. While I'm here I'll find out just where review of it is all those cold-calling telegraphers ring you from just while you're settling down to your evening meal, and where the world's wasted sperm and discarded toenail clippings fetch up. my main takeaway was that I'll might not 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 placelavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091158</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily BarrLucy Ashe|title=The First WifeClara and Olivia
|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 nameThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Raised by her grandparentsBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, we join her following their recent deaths and soon discover she is quite unlike most other 20 year oldstwins no less. It’s going to be a brisk transition from a sheltered life in a small cottage, nursing elderly relatives to Identical on the Real World outside but with no money to speak offnot, we learn, she’ll have to pull herself togetheron the inside. And not on stage, and quicklyeither. Her background is an important part of Lily and contributes enormously to her trusting and Because there's a lot that builds a little immature personality dancer. Some things that will later can be her downfall. A few weeks later, thoughtaught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things are looking up, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. She has taken A stage presence, a room in charm, a house where she is much more one of the family than just a lodger''joie de vivre''. She’s found some cleaning work and, even more exciting, one of her agency clients is The difference between a rather dashing exhard-celeb worker, and his beautiful, elegant wife. Yes, Lily’s a star is definitely on the rise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755351371</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erinna MettlerHeather Fawcett|title=StarlingsEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to say that what was a big factor in me choosing to read (and review) this book was its urban front coverwrite her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. MonochromeWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, a bit gritty but she is not so good with plenty of skypeople. The first character we meet So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is Andynot sure what she has done, an ex-prisoner. He's on his own now nor how to redeem herself and time is heavy put her final investigations for her book back on his handsthe right track. He stares out of his windowEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, twelve floors up all charm and thinks back delight, much to when he had a nice family life. All thatEmily's gone nowfrustration. He stands and looks down at the children in a nearby playground and temptation rises all over again (But why is he here? What does he was convicted as a paedophile). want? He'll need to find And what exactly is going on with the inner strength to resist - but can hefaerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956511929</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1398515388|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Forgotten Affairs of YouthBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|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 First of all, it was the cityearthquake, and I would love to walk deep in the footsteps of Isabel or any of ocean floor, which created the characters from his other seriestsunami and this, in turn, '44 Scotland Street'caused the nuclear meltdown. So, to console me, I have turned to the latest in the Isabel Dalhousie seriesThe result was complete and utter devastation. I must admitThe deaths were uncountable, I was a little wary at and the beginning since I loss of livelihoods was quite disappointed with Isabel's seventh outing, [[Isabel Dalhousie: widespread. The Charming Quirks fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list 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 priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a let downconvenience store. Fortunately it He wasn't, a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and dear Isabel is back Tamon the dog jumped in sparkling form!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408703394</amazonuk>.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara GruenChristopher Bowden|title=Ape HouseMr Magenta|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Isabel Duncan Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a scientist working with Bonobo chimps, teaching them sign language. John Thigpen is a journalist who comes to meet the apes and write patient untangling of a story about Isabelseemingly ordinary woman's work with them. He is moved by the apeslife, carried out by their behaviour and Isabel's obviously very close relationship with themher nephew after she has died. Soon after he leaves, however, there is The aunt who always provided a bomb at the centre by safe harbour and a group little bit of extremists who want indulgence to liberate the apes. Isabel begins a desperate hunt young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to try and discover where they've gone, and John finds himself also caught up, trying him an obligation to discover the truth of what's happenedfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444716026</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger SmithJennifer Mason|title=Dust DevilsPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary="Rosie Dell had come to end itHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. For keeps this time." In ''ItPartitions of Unity'' is the affair that she's been having with Ben Baker, one of the richest men in the country. Unfortunately for Rosie, she doesn't say what she's come to say… unfortunately for Ben, for Rosie, and for sets her family, someone has plans mind to end it for hersolving a murder. Actually, not plans, as such. She shouldn't have been there. Everything that happens next wouldn't have, if she hadn't been.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687950</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monique TruongWill Carver|title=Bitter in the MouthThe Daves Next Door|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Linda Hammerick, a young girl growing up Five strangers come together in North Carolina in the late 1970's, is different. She suffers from synesthesia, tasting things when she speaks or hears words. She grows up with her great-uncle, Baby Harper, as her best friend, one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate hissingsong voice is the only one she can hear without the accompanying tastes, 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 vest on a teenage immortal, much in the vein of teenage humansLondon tube line. He rushes his coursework (creation) and while there are flashes of brilliance and potential in itAs their fates overlap, there's no real thought or organisation and so the whole thing doesn't really work properly. But God story is too busy having a lie-told in or lusting after buxom young women backwards order, leading up to be ironing out these sorts of boring creases in the making of a successful planetfateful moment. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327162</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kirsten ReedJennifer Mason|title=The Ice AgePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=2.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Two people road trip across America. Sort of. They don't start off together'A struggling poetry zine, or meet up intentionallya mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, and a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the age gap is purposely provocative. She likes him because he2004 Olympics, a women's old and has pointytrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, vampire teeth he might use to bite her a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(Twilight sell outs, much?x) She is 17. We don't know her name, but it is she who tells us the storyon a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia. 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>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Vanessa DiffenbaughB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Language Calculations of FlowersRational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story see-saws a chapter at a time between It's the teenage Victoria and 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the child VictoriaCuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The book opens with (the teen) Victoria leaving foster care for goodworld has barely had a chance to breathe out. SheBut for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's been a difficult child to place so, now at 18, she is a troubled and angry young woman with many unsolved issuesthe front of his mind. The constant link has He's been Meredith, the loyal social workerconvicted of murder. But Victoria now wants shot With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the lot of themprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, Meredith includeda relatively new prison. Victoria can now He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be as free as a bird and do what she wants, when she wantswary of the McArthur brothers. Bliss. Or is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230752586</amazonuk>
}}