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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=R J PalacioOnyi Nwabineli|title=WonderAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On Anuri spent her childhood on display to the face of it Matt King is very lucky. Heworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's descended from one increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of HawaiiAnuri's largest landowners childhood for sponsorships and is a wealthy man as well as being an attorneyinfluencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. He's married Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to the flighty, flirtatious Joanie regain her confidence and has two daughtersto get her life back, teenager Alex, a model who might just have a bit of a drug problem and ten year old Scottiesuing her step-mother to take down the content about her. She's feistyAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, clever undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and - receiving money from them for me - stole the bookdoing so. Have you ever noticed that when luck changes it doesn't do it in baby steps? It does it in ''lumps''. Joanie Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is involved in a powerboat accident and sinks into an irreversible coma as a result the new focus of a head injury. But thereOphelia's more piling uponline empire. Matt discovers that Joanie has been having an affair. Does Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the man who's been - er - enjoying his wife have the right to say his goodbyes toosame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570246</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Womersley1529153298|title=BereftThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Quinn WalkerIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, a young Australian man fresh from fighting on the European front in World War Onehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, returns but to the very town he was drummed out of ten years before, after being accused of raping and killing his own younger sisterhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Two things have beaten him Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the small settlement - onefamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, the global flu pandemic; two Down South is a telegram saying he died bravely in action earlier in the warfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. And For Miv, the less you know of what he meets move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and does back in Flint the better, she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the more to keep this fresh and brilliant bookdangers or that her Mum's many intrigues as secret as they were for mestopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386549</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Schulman1035906708|title=This Beautiful LifeDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard and Liz are new in town which is always a bummerWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, except this town is Manhattan so really nothing else could ever compare. They’ve only moved from upstate New York but it seems a world away now. Liz has given up her post at the university she was born to concentrate on kids Coco and Jake and is finding juggling their social lives a full time job Greek parents in itself but is just about making a space for herself among the other mothers at the school gates. Things are going ok. And thenManhattan, one dayNew York, their nice, comfortable world starts in December 1923 and only moved to crumbleAthens when she was thirteen. Jake receives an explicit email from a classmate and in disbelief, forwards Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it straight on to a friend. Except rather than coming back to him with advice on what the heck 'Callas' to do next, the friend chooses to send make it on to another friend, who does more manageable in the sameStates. Round and round it goes, round When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the school, round the city, round the online world. Everyone knows where it came from Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and soon Jake’s academic futuremade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, his father’s career and his whole family’s social standing are hanging in the balanceJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857896237</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Courtney SullivanAlexander McCall Smith|title=MaineThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Kellehers' beach-front holiday home Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Maine was built on a plot of land won Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a bar-room bet at the end of World War IImore personal, tailored service. It's not in Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the same league business, as the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port but there are Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a couple while. Katie is coming out of substantial properties on a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the plot and there's still room chance to come home to spareEdinburgh. It's a place of indulgenceAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, secrets thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the sort of burning cruelty which you only get in families Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who care for each other - some of the timequickly begin to charm. ''Maine'' is essentially the story of Katie has no experience in running a summer at the property business, or in match- making, but the seeds of what happens wereNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, of courseWilliam, planted long ago.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085789496X</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chad HarbachDean Koontz|title=The Art of FieldingBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=''The Art of Fielding'' Benny is basically having a US-style campus novel featuring baseballterrifically bad day. There are similarities in style between this He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and many of John Irving's workshis house gets trashed. Oh, with baseball substituting for Irving's wrestling focus. Thisand someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to the UK-readerhis home, raises and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the first potential barrier as we arething that has trashed his house! The thing is, as a rule, largely ignorant of Benny is the US fixation with the intricacies of baseball. Certainly you don't need an in depth knowledge very last person to appreciate deserve all this story - 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 really a story of friendshipnew friend, ambition and the sporting dreams of youth - but despite a loose understanding of the sport I felt that I would have benefitted bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from more knowledge particularly towards the end when there is nefarious forces for being a climactic baseball matchgood person. You kind Spike is going to take care of get the pointBenny, but I and will certainly felt that I was missing out on a little take care of the tensionBenny's enemies, in much the same way I'd expect a US reader to be perplexed if the story had been based on sayhe, Benny, cricket. Itand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a minor flaw though and it would be a shame if potential readers dismissed it for this reasonwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007374445</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eowyn IveyKatherine Howe|title=The Snow ChildA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The heart of Alaskan native, Eowyn Ivey's debut novel Hannah Masury is a re-telling of the Russian fairy tale ''Snegurochka'' or ''The Snow Child''. Set here living in Alaska in the 1920sBoston, Jack and Mabel have moved from the East coast having been sent to start live with a new lifefamily who run an inn, apart and being made to work there from anything a young age. When she hears there is to help Mabel get over the grief be a hanging of having lost her only child some pirates in childbirththe town, she decides to go and watch. Life Enthralled and horrified in Alaska is tough and Jack struggles to farm his new homestead. Then equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the first snowfall hands of the seasontwo 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 sea, dressing as a playful snowball fight leads to boy and joining the couple building notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a snowman, or more accurately a snowgirlcabin boy. The next morning She soon finds herself in the snowgirl has vanished along with the mittens and scarf that adorned her and Jack sees thick of things when there is a ghostly figuremutiny on board, possibly a young girl, running and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the woodsocean waves. Can they have created a snow child? Is this their longed for daughter?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755380525</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=C J Sansom1471180158|title=Winter in MadridMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Despite being injured at Dunkirk Harry Brett was still willing to do his bit Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for his countrya man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. The deafness from the bomb which killed the man standing next to him on the beach - and the resulting panic attacks had begun to recede and he was willingJamie's son, if not keenBo, to go to Spain to do some work for the ''sneaky beakies'has his problems'. He wasn't a spy by nature or inclination but he was one of s asthmatic and the more you read, the few people who might be able to make contact with - and report back on - Sandy Forsyth whomore you'd been at his public school. Therell suspect that he's another old Rookwoodian who's left some history in Madridon the autistic spectrum. Bernie Piper went Sometimes Jamie needs to Spain to fight for the International Brigades take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the Civil War local A&E and was thought sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to have been killed at Jarama but his body had never been foundschool. The Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school is not are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the only link thoughwrong. Barbara Clare was Bernie's girlfriend - she It was going to come to a Red Cross nurse - and now she was living with Sandy Forsythhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330411985</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue TownsendB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole was just three months away from his fourteenth birthday when he began writing his diary on New Year's DayPetr is an orphan. He's just on Rescued by the edge of true adolescence - pimples are appearing as strange, reclusive Bear, he is a little bit of interest brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the opposite sex. Heforests of Washington's thinking about what he might like to do ''eventually'', but his first major challenge is the breakdown of his parents' marriageOlympic Peninsula. He writes After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a wonderful mixture of ''knowingness'' pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and innocence and usually manages to get things just ever-so-slightly wrongrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046422</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bruce RobinsonSarah Marsh|title=The Rum Diary - A ScreenplaySign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto After a failing newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rica, bout of scarlet fever as the only candidate for the job, and in a semi-comatose state induced by too many miniatures from the hotel minibarchild, stumbles Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a conspiracy world of epic proportionssilence, via classic bar room brawls and nightclub mayhemeverything about her life changes. On the way he (almost) writes horoscopes and bowling championship stories, meets Living in a time when the fantastically erotic girlfriend use of the evil businessmansign language was seen as something only savages do, and teams up with Ellen is sent to a proto-Nazi out of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSDschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a photographer side kicksystem called Visible Speech. There is no question that this is Hunter S Thompson territory At the same time, especially when all the above Bell is combined with a wittyworking on other inventions and ideas, slow-talking hero who and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in spite of his alcoholic haze sees clearly through the exploitation a complicated tangle of a third world country by its massive first world near neighbourespionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555697</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louisa YoungB0BC3YTCMR|title=My Dear I Wanted to Tell YouGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=It takes a while for the full power of Louisa Young's remarkable ''My Dear I Wanted To Tell You'' to become apparent, but when it does, it can hardly fail to move you. Set just before and during World War One, it's a This story of love and human spirit against the odds. The impact of the book is in what happens to the characters, so I don't want to give too much away, but it's worth pointing out that it's not for the overly squeamish reader particularly in some of the descriptions of surgical procedures, which have clearly been meticulously researched by Youngeveryone. The title itself it taken from the opening words of the standard letters that the wounded were given to send to loved ones back home. The wounded were required to fill in the blanks.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007361432</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christie Watson1472263936|title=Tiny Sunbirds Far AwayThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Tiny Sunbirds Far Away'' starts It was in Lagos but soon moves 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to the rural, oil producing Niger DeltaGreece. This allows Christie Watson's young narrator She was alone: her mother, 12 year old BlessingGreek by birth, had left the family home and refused to view the traditional ways afresh. Itreturn, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a clever device and young Blessing is shocked by pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the rural conditions after a relatively luxurious life family apartment in Lagos with a good school and a modern apartmentup-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. But when She grew to love her mother discovers her father on top of another womangrandmother and the family's maid, Dina, she takes Blessing but was wary - and frightened - of her older brothergrandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the asthmatic Ezikiel, back Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her family homefather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163758</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick LakeDean Koontz|title=In DarknessAfter Death|rating=53|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Shorty Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is lying released in the rubble of the great Haitian earthquake of 2010a bio-hazard accident. If Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he's not rescued soonhas a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he will die. Shorty is from Site Soley, the sprawling slum of Port-au-Prince. After sits up and looks around at the murder shrouded bodies of his father dead friends and abduction of former colleagues. As he recovers his twin sistersenses, Shorty has allowed himself to fall further and further into the slumhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s gang culture. But Route 9 Michael isn't all about drug-dealing and gun-running - it's also about feeding the poor and educating the children. And Shorty has a great deal to teach his readers, as he recounts his life while waiting to die'Michael'' anymore. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408824183</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon LelicB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Child WhoGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Simon Lelic's third book, ''The Child Who'', takes him back to the format that worked so successfully with his first novel, ''Rupture'', avoiding the near-future angle he took, less successfully I felt, with his second bookvillage is isolated and poor. LelicIt's themes are always inspired surrounded by real events that have been in a Witching Forest. And the newsvillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. HereThe black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, he tackles the murder of an 11 year old child by Danieland even gallows, a 12 year oldif needed. The creative inspiration fear of being buried alive is surely an existential superstition in the James Bulger case village and he acknowledges that is the creative debt to Blake Morrison's ''As If'' on that very subjectreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330522744</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Heather PeaceB0BYF82CXT|title=All To Play ForSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Back ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in August 1985 at the time of the Edinburgh Festival a group depressing rut of people met boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in what could have been difficult circumstances. They were arrested for causing a disturbance despite the fact that they weren't really involved love – move in the fracas and it was all a misunderstandingnext door. Little did they know that in Despite their different outlooks on life, the following decade they would all be involved - one way couples befriend each other and another - in producing drama life appears to improve for the BBC as it went through one of the toughest periods in its historyboth pairs. The tale But all is told - mainly - by Rhiannonnot what it seems, but we hear the stories of Nicky, Maggie, Jill, Jonathan and Christheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Names will change, but they'll all wander the circular corridors of power in Langford Place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908248130</amazonuk>'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Damian McNichollShalini Boland|title=Twisted AgendasThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Writing about Ireland Alice and the IrishSeth are a match made in 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 wife; beautiful, successful, especially confident… and so the dimension of inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the Troubles wedding is planned and set. When the IRAmuch-anticipated day arrives, from a third hand American perspective Alice is a recipe for cliché walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and stereotype. Balancing excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and interweaving the story of American journalist Piper with that of Irishman Dannywhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's search world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for independence in London does enable McNicholl in some part her to achieve a wry and knowing stance, making us hope for a clever twist away from the predictably which always seems so closebecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248025</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Barry1787636003|title=City The Girls of BohaneSummer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Bohane is a thoroughly lawless townIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, set in what would appear so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to be some kind of parallel universe. We are told it is set take an interest in 2053her, but it's a town without any technology or modern luxuriesshe was flattered rather than wary. It's was quite a violent place fuelled while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by alcohol, drugs and lust with a patois style language that takes a little work to get intotime she was obsessed by him. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book island and ''City of Bohane'' is nominated for this year's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly goodin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090577</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kerry YoungAmanda Craig|title=PaoThree Graces|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=In her Costa Prize short-listed first novel, Kerry Young brings together a huge number of elements that make up a good story. Set in Jamaica, the time period covers 1938 to almost present day, it is the political backdrop of independence and control over Jamaica's assets that informs much of the story. But while the politics of Jamaica resound throughout the book, it's also a very personal story about the life of the eponymous Yang Pao. Issues of race, class, love, family, ambition and business philosophy - Pao's guiding light is Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' - are skilfully woven into the mix to make this a great book to curl up with on a cold winter's night.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140881207X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gavin James Bower|title=Made in Britain|rating=25
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The settings Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the intertwined tales state-of Russell, -the working class swot trapped by his conditions, Charlie, the heroic 'lad-nation novel. There' s something so utterly compelling about any writer who gets caught in can catch hold of the drugs scene and Hayley the naïve wannabee with a single parent father are atmosphere of the school rooms day and backstreetscapture it, flats, pubs and clubs crafting an image of Every Town, the vision country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of twenty-first century deprivation that Bower conjurescontemporary social fiction at this point. Or rather fails to conjure, She has such a gift for weaving the device ongoing issues of making the 16 year olds tell day into the story from their own first person narrative deprives the reader lives of her characters in a genuine sense of the physical reality way that feels natural and lived-in which this story unfolds, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704372290</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura Wilkinson152915118X|title=Bloodmining|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Although Wilkinson has placed her story in the near future, for the most part, you wouldn't necessarily be aware of that fact. Personally, I was delighted as I'm not a fan of futuristic fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907335145</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPineapple Street|author=Kerry Jamieson|title=The Forgotten LiesJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the mid-thirties, the golden age of Hollywood, three aspiring starlets shared a studio house on Lantana Drive as they waited to hear if they were going to have a career in the movies – or not. Charlotte (soon to be Carlie for acting purposes), Verbena, known to her friends (and ''onlyPineapple Street'' her friends) as Bee and Ivy were desperate for is the role story of a lifetimethree women: Sasha, which would put their name in lightsDarley and Georgiana. There was an added appeal. Whoever won would star opposite Liam Malone – good looking, charismatic Darley and George are sisters and ''very'' Sasha is married with six childrento their brother Cord. It wasnThey're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't just a case of being able to actStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. Their lives would be under intense scrutiny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141026049</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Conny Braam|title=The Cocaine Salesman|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Picture a world of hellish exclusionproblem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, nightmarish noise and imagesTilda, asks Cord and horrid violenceSasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Picture one person trying Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to live through the sleepless nightsanother property, the isolation among his peersa street or so away, the permanent sense of dreadful threatwhich they own. Picture him needing drugsThey won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. His best friend might even be called CharlieNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. But donDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 't picture an inner city slum, 2012, but a man on the front gold digger'. She's living in World War One''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel ConnorEmily Critchley|title=SisterwivesOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=When I first read 84 year old Edie has lived in the title (I hadn't yet read 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 lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the back cover blurb) I glibly thought worry that it there was a secret she was about two sisters and their marriageskeeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. WrongAfter '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. This debut novel by Connor And yet as she remembers the past, she is about two very different women (one is no forgetting more and more than a girl really) who just happen in her day to 'marry' the same manday life. I use Will she uncover the word marry very loosely indeed. Their communitytruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, their rules, their descriptions etc can be rather quirky. Marriages and before her memories are normally called 'sealings'.'gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0946745587</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=D. J. Connell0008506337|title=Sherry Cracker Gets NormalThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Whilst itThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's wrong to judge a book by its coverLeary was all-consuming, a mere sight of Dapparently on both sides. J Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Connell Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's second novel mother as 'Sherry Cracker Gets Normalan older man' is enough . Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to make me smileOxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The title is amusing; couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the colourful design enticing and family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the effusive praise for Connelldoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's debut mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge'Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar' encouraging.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000733219X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Javier Marias1914585402|title=While the Women are SleepingDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Connecticut innkeeper Faston Hanks is obsessive. HeI reviewed David F Ross's very keen on food but itbook [[There's cars – and particularly old cars – which drive him. This time heOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's involved in the search for the only one Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of the fifty Blower Bentleys made which remains unaccounted for. SM3912 was originally purchased years back and remember being absolutely floored by Lord Brougham how powerful and Vaux and ownership can be traced to one D H Sessions, after which the trail goes coldaffecting it was. We know something which Faston doesn't know though – the Bentley came into the hands of Stephan SidlowIt was a gripping, who was high up in the APR during World War IIemotionally wounding read, by less than honest means. But then Sidlow and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was less than honest about which side he was supporting in the warthat I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780920180</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ernest ClineLucy Ashe|title=Ready Player OneClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A short while agoThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, I stumbled across either. Because there's a lot that builds a highly enjoyable film called dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''Fanboysje ne sais quoi'', about a bunch of that don''Star Wars'' fans trying to break into George Lucas' mansion to get a sneak preview of t come from the new filmclassroom. I didn't pay much attention to the name of the writerA stage presence, a charm, until I came across Ernest Clinea 's author bio in ''Ready Player Onejoie de vivre'' . The difference between a hard-worker, and realised it was written by the same person. This immediately gave me high hopesa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846059372</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert HarrisHeather Fawcett|title=The Fear IndexEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With the FTSE recording its biggest quarterly drop in yearsEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, turmoil on the bond markets and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the prospect very first encyclopaedia of economic meltdown faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the possible disintegration small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the euro zonevillage matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, Robert Harrismuch to Emily' new thriller couldn't be more timelys frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091936969</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Bale1398515388|title=Blood FallsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read and reviewed Bale's [[Terror's Reach by Tom Bale|Terror's Reach]]and enjoyed it. What would I think First of his latest? Joe is doing his level best to live an unremarkable (almost invisible) life in Bristol. He uses his brawn to pay his modest bills for rentall, food etc. But you could sayit was the earthquake, once a copperdeep in the ocean floor, always a copper so his brain is not idlewhich created the tsunami and this, it's in constant useturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Whirring away in the background The result was complete and it's just as wellutter devastation. Joe soon senses imminent danger when a couple of blokes stroll byThe deaths were uncountable, stop and ask his gaffer the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a couple of questionsconvenience store. Joe needs He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to be somewhere else - open his car door and fastTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809325X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John O'ConnellChristopher Bowden|title=The Baskerville Legacy: A NovelMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1900, and a man on Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a ship coming back from the Boer War to edit the Daily Express meets one patient untangling of his heroes in the form of Arthur Conan Doyle. With similar experiences and interests yet different enough to bounce off each other they take up the idea of collaborating on a plot. When they do fix on time to do so, it leads to literary prospects, which lead to a weekseemingly ordinary woman's research together on Dartmoorlife, which leads to ''carried out by her nephew after she has died. The Hound aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of the Baskervilles''. But perhaps in indulgence to a young nephew had had a way much more interesting life than that only one of them intendednephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595465</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Syd MooreJennifer Mason|title=The Drowning PoolPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with a group of young women out on the townHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, letting their hair down dominatrix and having fun. Moore describes all of them unintentional detective in a fresh [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and modern voice which I really liked. It came across as unravelled a breath series of fresh airdisappearances. The story, SarahIn 's story is told by Sarah herself. But it's told from the perspective Partitions of looking back after itUnity's all happened so there's lots of why-didn't-I-see-that-coming language. Hindsight, in she sets her mind to solving a wordmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847562663</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read and enjoyed Hislop's 'The Island' so I was looking forward Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to reading this bookdetonate his vest on a London tube line. The Prologue is May 2007 and readers are treated to a vivid coastal description of As their fates overlap, the area which story is to play such a big part told in the novel. Lines such as 'With the lifting hazebackwards order, Mount Olympus gradually emerged far away across the Thermaic Gulf and leading up to the restful blues of sea and sky shrugged off their pale shroudfateful moment.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755377737</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=William GiraldiJennifer Mason|title=Busy MonstersPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian. He's proved it to us'A struggling poetry zine, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill a mom- if only ended up rescuing a cat instead. But lo and behold-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, she's declared she's off to discover the real love of her life a 400- meter hurdler who just missed the giant squid. Failing to stop this2004 Olympics, Charlie spends too long a women's track coach with a Nessie obsessiveyen for bullwhips, then goes on a hunt billionaire with a state-of his own - for Bigfoot, all the while-art S&M dungeon, chapter by chaptera man serving a life sentence in Alabama, sending his narrative of the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographicalan enigmatic signature, frivolous columns.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicholas Sparks|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 thisK(s, 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 roughx), poor family that is forever on the wrong side of the lawa cheap oil painting, and she from one of the better, respected families an erotic art dealer in the townGeorgia.. 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>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S G BrowneB0B2N7MVYM|title=FatedThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Clever and It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very funnyfresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, this is it's not the missile crisis that's at the sort front of book where you immediately feel in safe handshis mind. S He's been convicted of murder.G With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. Browne has gone He's just getting used to town (New York)his roommate, satirising just about every aspect of modern lifeMervyn, and my reading was continually interrupted by bells clanging loudly in recognition in my headlearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954728</amazonuk>
}}