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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Annabelle R Charbit|title=A Life Lived Ridiculously|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Maxine is from a Jewish family who think that as her 20s are nearing their end, she should be married. Maxine, for her part, hasn't found anyone to interest her and is more concerned with combining her job and her studies and getting away from the yoke of her parents. She is also worried about her possessions and worries that she has too many and that they make her flat look untidy. She just can't get her flat organised the way she likes it, either, with the light not being quite right and never quite being able to decide which room her television should be in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0984642862</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Henning MankellOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Troubled Man|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Hakan von Enke was a retired naval officer and a man of routine. Each morning he went for a long walk in the forest near his Stockholm home, but one day he failed Allow Me to return. It's a long way from Ystad, Kurt Wallander's home town and the only reason he became involved in the case was the fact that von Enke's son Hans was the partner of Wallander's daughter Linda. Wallander became concerned about von Enke some months before when they had a long discussion at his seventy-fifth birthday party. He'd seemed worried and wary of a stranger in the street. Von Enke's disappearance hit the family hard - and then his wife disappeared as well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548402</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Bourne|title=PantheonIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The year is 1940. Oxford don James Zennor wants Anuri spent her childhood on display to serve his countrythe world, but due thanks to an injury sustained while fighting in the Spanish Civil War heher step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's rejected as unfit. When his wife childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and young son disappear, thoughbasically, the trail leads monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to America in a journey which will plunge him into a world of secret societies, clandestine dealsget her life back, and the chance suing her step-mother to play his part in take down the war effort after all. If he survivescontent 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007413637</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bethan Roberts1529153298|title=My PolicemanThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story opens with two schoolfriends Sylvie It's 1979 and Marion doing Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what teenagers do best - talking and giggling about boys's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Sylvie has a rather dishy and handsome older brother called Tom - and Marion has developed a bit of a crush on himWell, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. But itMiv's upset because she's nothing overheard that her father wants to worry about, shemove the family 'Down South'll grow out of it. Except she doesnWhen you'tre from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. Even althoughFor Miv, deep downthe move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she has misgivings about this rather lukewarm romance'll do anything to prevent that. She's actually sizzling hot for some action, a bit of kissing, a bit of harmless snogging - but Tomnot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's the one who is lukewarmstopped talking - to anyone. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185848</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Suzanne Bugler1035906708|title=The Child InsideDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rachel Morgan feels that We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she does not fit was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in anywhereDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Certainly not with all of the other mums at Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her son Jonofather changed it to 's posh school. Certainly not with all Callas' to make it more manageable in the happy jolly families on the beaches when they are on holidayStates. And most of all, When she no longer feels was back in Athens - supposedly so that she fits in with could get appropriate training for her own little family. Nothing ever feels right and voice - she continually feels isolated on was raised under the outside looking in. Of course, these feelings lead to an increasing sense Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of dissatisfaction which she can only deal with by dwelling on what she perceives as her happier pastpreference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510916</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack SheffieldAlexander McCall Smith|title=Educating JackThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=September 1982 sees the beginning of Jack Sheffield's sixth year The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as head of Ragley-on-an alternative to all the-Forest village school online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and some of look after the village regulars are realising that this business, as Ness is going planning to be take a year trip to Canada to remember too. Nora Pratt has been in the coffee shop get away for a quarter while. Katie is coming out of a century nowbreak up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Ronnie And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith decides that , bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the world of employment might be for him after all - Isabel Dalhousie novels, but is sacked from one job after a matter of secondswith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. At the cinema it's ET who's pulling Katie has no experience in running a business, or in the crowds and Prince William comes into the world along with the 20p piece (well match- not at ''exactly'' the same time)making, but itNess has full confidence in her abilities, and there's Jack Sheffield who is going always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to face the biggest change.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0593065697</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony RossDean Koontz|title=A Fairy TaleThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=In Balaclava Street Bessie was boredBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Even her book wasn't helpingHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. It was about fairies Oh, and she didn't believe in themsomeone has delivered a really weird, ''obviously''. And even if they did exist they'd have more sense than disturbing coffin-sized object to live in the gloomy streets around the millhis home, wouldnand it't they? s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! Playing with her ball in The thing is, Benny is the back yard she encountered her next-door neighbour, Mrs Leaf and very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a strange friendship developed between the old woman and the young girlnice person. A really nice person. It was difficult So fortunately for Bessie Benny it turns out that the delivery to work out if Mrs Leaf actually believed in fairieshis house is a new friend, but it seemed strange that as Bessie got oldera bad weather friend called Spike, Mrs Leaf seemed who has been sent to get youngerhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. And 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'' was Mrs Leaf?they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849393559</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon McGregorKatherine Howe|title=This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like YouA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's Spring 1924 Hannah Masury is living in South WalesBoston, and young undertaker Wilfred is going having been sent to learn the hard way how serious the trivial can be. Fascinated by live with a girl's dress - worn very seductively by Grace, family who he has met but twice as run an adult - he blurts out inn, and being made to work there from a marriage proposalyoung age. As much as wants When she hears there is to take it backbe a hanging of some pirates in the town, she won't let himdecides to go and watch. He tries to move onEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, leaving her disappointed, especially when he falls for Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the daughter hands of a man he buries, but..two vicious pirates. There are things dangerously spokenShe hides away, dangerously left unsaidso that they don't find and kill her too, and a complex web of divided loyalties and enforced connections, in this brilliant debut novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330561</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karen Harper|title=Shakespeare's Mistress|rating=2|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The conceit of ''Shakespeare's Mistress'' is that Shakespeare was married then to Anne Whateley the day before he was married escape them completely she runs away to Anne Hathawaysea, dressing as a boy and Anne W remained joining the love of his life, with an affair (if you can have an affair with your notorious Ned Low'wife') continued s pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in London where the same Anne was also the famed ''dark lady'' thick of his sonnets. There things when there is some basis for this theory in that the parish records do show a mysterious entry into the register for just such a contract the day before the Hathaway marriage but although the author claims this is 'faction'mutiny on board, it's very much at and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the fiction end of that scale and is really a 'what if?' pieceocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091940427</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1471180158|title=The Growing Pains of Adrian MoleMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The country might be at war over the Falklands but life is hardly straightJamie Matson works in an upper-forward in class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the Mole householdsubtlety of a half brick. AdrianJamie's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs and itson, Bo, 's not long before Adrian is shocked to learn that has his mother is pregnantproblems'. He's equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (a.k.a. asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'stick insectll suspect that he') along a path which isn't particularly slippy, although he does s on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice that - she seems to have put on quite 's a bit of weight. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickle, but adorable, as ever frequent flier in the local A&E and Adriansometimes Bo's hormones not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are still playing hop-scotch with his brainoccasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. So, what's new?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>It was going to come to a head.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan HillB0CKD1L5JL|title=A Kind ManRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet EvePetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and her husbandbusy human society, in the title character, Tommy. Sheforests of Washington's at a bit of a sticky wicket in life, for however much they want a baby, her sister and his feckless husband churn out son after son after son, and go no lengths at all to love themOlympic Peninsula. So when Eve After Bear dies and Tommy do at last have a childbrief sojourn in human company, it's and armed with only a tragedy for it to die when only three years old. But in this plot, which you'll thank me for not going into furtherpirate radio transmitter, there will be Petr goes on a lot more swings and roundaboutsjourney through the forest, of torment and ecstasy, doldrums and delightsbroadcasting the strange, hell wild and heaven, to comerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555441</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John NivenSarah Marsh|title=The Second ComingA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=God has come back from After a bout of scarlet fever as a holiday and has some catching up to dochild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. What’s been happening on Earth for the last couple Suddenly plunged into a world of hundred years? silence, everything about her life changes. The realisation hits him hard... it makes him sick Living in facta 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, but physically restrained from signing. So what’s From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the answer? deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. To quote At the religious clichésame time, Jesus Bell is. After working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a board meeting with the senior saints, God decides that his son must be torn away from jamming with Hendrix to go back to the streets of the world to remind the sinners complicated tangle of the wayespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=R J PalacioB0BC3YTCMR|title=WonderGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On the face of it Matt King is very lucky. He's descended from one of Hawaii's largest landowners and This story is a wealthy man as well as being an attorney. He's married to the flighty, flirtatious Joanie and has two daughters, teenager Alex, a model who might just have a bit of a drug problem and ten year old Scottie. She's feisty, clever and - not for me - stole the book. Have you ever noticed that when luck changes it doesn't do it in baby steps? It does it in ''lumps''. Joanie is involved in a powerboat accident and sinks into an irreversible coma as a result of a head injuryeveryone. But there's more piling up. Matt discovers that Joanie has been having an affair. Does the man who's been - er - enjoying his wife have the right to say his goodbyes too?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570246</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Schulman1472263936|title=This Beautiful LifeThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard and Liz are new It was in town which is always a bummer, 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 1968 that Helena McCloud made her post at the university first trip to concentrate on kids Coco and Jake and is finding juggling their social lives a full time job in itself but is just about making a space for herself among the other mothers at the school gatesGreece. Things are going ok. And then She was alone: her mother, one dayGreek by birth, their nicehad left the family home and refused to return, comfortable world starts to crumble. Jake receives an explicit email from a classmate but Mary and in disbelief, forwards Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it straight on to would be a friendpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Except rather than coming back Her trip to him with advice on what the heck to do next, family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the friend chooses first of several annual visits. She grew to send it on to another friend, who does the same. Round love her grandmother and round it goes, round the schoolfamily's maid, round the cityDina, round the online world. Everyone knows where it came from but was wary - and soon Jake’s academic futurefrightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his father’s career close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his whole family’s social standing are hanging in the balancevalues but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857896237</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former 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}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Courtney SullivanB0BVDC2VWH|title=MaineThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Kellehers' beach-front holiday home in Maine was built on a plot of land won in a bar-room bet at the end of World War IIvillage is isolated and poor. It's not in the same league as the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port but there are surrounded by a couple of substantial properties on Witching Forest. And the plot villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and there's still room to spareits blossom provides herbal medicines. It's a place The black wood of indulgencethe forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, secrets and the sort even gallows, if needed. The fear of burning cruelty which you only get being buried alive is an existential superstition in families who care for each other - some of the time. ''Maine'' village and that is essentially the story of reason Volushka, a summer at the property drunken, self- but the seeds of what happens wereindulgent, lazy lout of course, planted long agoa man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789496X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chad HarbachB0BYF82CXT|title=The Art of FieldingSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Art of Fielding'' is basically a US-style campus novel featuring baseball. There Bill and Amanda are similarities living in style between this and many of John Irving's works, with baseball substituting for Irving's wrestling focus. This, to the UKa semi-readerdetached house, raises the first potential barrier as we are, as a rule, largely ignorant of the US fixation with the intricacies of baseball. Certainly you don't need an stuck in depth knowledge to appreciate this story - it is really a story depressing rut of friendshipboredom and disappointment, ambition when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and the sporting dreams of youth - but despite a loose understanding of the sport I felt that I would have benefitted from more knowledge particularly towards the end when there is a climactic baseball matchvery much in love – move in next door. You kind of get the point, but I certainly felt that I was missing out Despite their different outlooks on a little of the tensionlife, in much the same way I'd expect a US reader couples befriend each other and life appears to be perplexed if the story had been based on sayimprove for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, cricket. It's a minor flaw though and it would be a shame if potential readers dismissed it their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for this reasontragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007374445</amazonuk>''
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth 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, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, 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 when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eowyn Ivey1787636003|title=The Snow ChildGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The heart of Alaskan nativeIt 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, Eowyn Ivey's debut novel is a reso when thirty-four-year-telling of the Russian fairy tale ''Snegurochka'' or ''The Snow Child''. Set here old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in Alaska in the 1920sher, Jack and Mabel have moved from the East coast to start she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a new life, apart from anything while before he made any sort of physical approach to help Mabel get over the grief of having lost her only child in childbirth. Life in Alaska is tough and Jack struggles to farm his new homesteadby that time she was obsessed by him. Then in the first snowfall of the season Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, a playful snowball fight leads to looking after his interests on the couple building a snowman, or more accurately a snowgirl. The next morning the snowgirl has vanished along with the mittens island and scarf that adorned her and Jack sees a ghostly figure, possibly a young girl, running in particular in the bar where all the woodsgirls either worked or partied. Can they have created a snow child? Is this their longed for daughter?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755380525</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=C J SansomAmanda Craig|title=Winter in MadridThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Despite being injured at Dunkirk Harry Brett was still willing to do his bit for his country. The deafness from the bomb which killed Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the man standing next to him on the beach state- and the resulting panic attacks had begun to recede and he was willing, if not keen, to go to Spain to do some work for the ''sneaky beakies''. He wasn't a spy by nature or inclination but he was one of -the few people who might be able to make contact with - and report back on - Sandy Forsyth who'd been at his public schoolnation novel. There's another old Rookwoodian something so utterly compelling about any writer whocan catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's left some history in Madridpractically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Bernie Piper went to Spain to fight She has such a gift for weaving the International Brigades in ongoing issues of the Civil War and was thought to have been killed at Jarama but his body had never been found. The school is not day into the only link though. Barbara Clare was Bernie's girlfriend - she was lives of her characters in a Red Cross nurse way that feels natural and lived- and now she was living in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with Sandy Forsythissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330411985</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend152915118X|title=The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Adrian Mole was just ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three months away from his fourteenth birthday when he began writing his diary on New Yearwomen: 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 Stockton by birth so she isn's Dayt readily accepted into the tribe. He The problem's just on exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the edge of true adolescence - pimples are appearing as is Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a little bit street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of interest the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in . Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the opposite sexreality. HeDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's thinking about what he might like to do living in ''their'eventually'family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his first major challenge family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the breakdown memory of his parents' marriageher childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. He writes with a wonderful mixture of ''knowingnessAfter 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and innocence and usually manages more in her day to get things just ever-so-slightly wrongday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046422</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bruce RobinsonMadelaine Lucas|title=The Rum Diary - A ScreenplayThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It takes a while for the full power of Louisa Young's remarkable ''My Dear Love, I Wanted To Tell You'' to become apparent, but when it doesd read, it can hardly fail was supposed to move you. Set just before and during World War One, it's be a story of love light and human spirit against the odds. The impact of the book is in what happens to the charactersweightless feeling, so but I don't want to give too much away, but ithad always longed for gravity'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 Young. 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 Watson0008506337|title=Tiny Sunbirds Far AwayThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=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'Tiny Sunbirds Far Aways mother as 'an older man' starts in Lagos but soon moves to the rural, oil producing Niger Delta. This allows Christie Watson Her parents worried that Richard's young narrator, 12 year old Blessing, influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to view Oxford and having a glittering career. In the traditional ways afresh. It's a clever device event, they eloped and young Blessing is shocked by Richard took her away from the rural conditions after a relatively luxurious life in Lagos with a good school Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a modern apartmentwell-respected journalist. But when her mother discovers her father on top of another woman The couple had three children: Rachel, she takes Blessing Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and her older brotherholidays were spent at Sandcove, the asthmatic Ezikiel, back to her family homeon the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163758</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Lelic1914585402|title=The Child WhoDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Simon LelicI reviewed David F Ross's third book, [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'The Child Who'', takes him s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years 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 book. Lelic's themes are always inspired and remember being absolutely floored by real events that have been in the newshow powerful and affecting it was. HereIt was a gripping, he tackles the murder of an 11 year old child by Danielemotionally wounding read, a 12 year old. The creative inspiration is surely the James Bulger case and he acknowledges the creative debt to Blake Morrison's ''As If'' rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on that very subjectit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330522744</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather PeaceLucy Ashe|title=All To Play ForClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Back in August 1985 at The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the time of outside but not, we learn, on the Edinburgh Festival a group of people met in what could have been difficult circumstancesinside. And not on stage, either. They were arrested for causing Because there's a disturbance despite the fact lot that they weren't really involved in the fracas and it was all builds a misunderstandingdancer. Little did they know Some things that in the following decade they would all can be involved - one way taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and another - in producing drama for some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the BBC as it went through one of the toughest periods in its historyclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The tale is told - mainly difference between a hard- by Rhiannon, but we hear the stories of Nickyworker, Maggie, Jill, Jonathan and Chris. Names will change, but they'll all wander the circular corridors of power in Langford Placea star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248130</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Damian McNichollHeather Fawcett|title=Twisted AgendasEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Writing about Ireland Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the Irishvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, especially far North in the dimension small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the Troubles village 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 IRAright track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, from a third hand American perspective is a recipe for cliché her dashingly handsome and stereotype. Balancing insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and interweaving the story of American journalist Piper with that of Irishman Dannydelight, much to Emily's search for independence in London frustration. But why is he here? What does enable McNicholl in some he want? part to achieve a wry and knowing stance, making us hope for a clever twist away from And what exactly is going on with the predictably which always seems so close.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248025</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Barry1398515388|title=City of BohaneThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Bohane is a thoroughly lawless townFirst of all, it was the earthquake, set deep in what would appear to be some kind of parallel universe. We are told it is set the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in 2053turn, but it's a town without any technology or modern luxuriescaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. It's a violent place fuelled by alcohol The deaths were uncountable, drugs and lust with 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 patois style language that takes dog outside a little work to get intoconvenience store. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest He wasn't a dog person but the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book and ''City of Bohane'' is nominated for this yearconvenience store owner's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly goodcomment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090577</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kerry YoungChristopher Bowden|title=PaoMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In her Costa Prize short-listed first Christopher Bowden's latest novel, Kerry Young brings together is a huge number patient untangling 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 Jamaicaseemingly ordinary woman's assets that informs much of the storylife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. But while the politics The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of Jamaica resound throughout the book, it's also indulgence to a young nephew had had a very personal story about the much more interesting life of the eponymous Yang Pao. Issues of race, class, love, family, ambition than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and business philosophy - Pao's guiding light is Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' - are skilfully woven into the mix it seems to make this a great book him an obligation to curl up with on a cold winter's nightfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140881207X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gavin James BowerJennifer Mason|title=Made in BritainPartitions of Unity|rating=24
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The settings of the intertwined tales of RussellHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, the working class swot trapped dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by his conditionsJennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Charlie, the heroic when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In 'lad' who gets caught in the drugs scene and Hayley the naïve wannabee with a single parent father are the school rooms and backstreets, flats, pubs and clubs Partitions of Every TownUnity'', the vision of twenty-first century deprivation that Bower conjures. Or rather fails she sets her mind to conjure, for the device of making the 16 year olds tell the story from their own first person narrative deprives the reader of solving a genuine sense of the physical reality in which this story unfoldsmurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704372290</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura WilkinsonWill Carver|title=BloodminingThe Daves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although Wilkinson has placed her story Five strangers come together in the near future, for the most part, you wouldn't necessarily be aware of that fact. Personally, I was delighted one moment as I'm not a fan of futuristic fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907335145</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kerry Jamieson|title=The Forgotten Lies|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In the mid-thirties, the golden age of Hollywood, three aspiring starlets shared a studio house suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on Lantana Drive as they waited to hear if they were going to have a career in the movies – or notLondon tube line. Charlotte (soon to be Carlie for acting purposes), VerbenaAs their fates overlap, known to her friends (and ''only'' her friends) as Bee and Ivy were desperate for the role of a lifetime, which would put their name story is told in lights. There was an added appeal. Whoever won would star opposite Liam Malone – good lookingbackwards order, charismatic and ''very'' married with six children. It wasn't just a case of being able leading up to act. 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 exclusion, nightmarish noise and images, and horrid violence. Picture one person trying to live through the sleepless nights, the isolation among his peers, the permanent sense of dreadful threat. Picture him needing drugs. His best friend might even be called Charlie. But don't picture an inner city slum, 2012, but a man on the front in World War Onefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel ConnorJennifer Mason|title=SisterwivesPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I first read the title (I hadn't yet read 'A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the back cover blurb) I glibly thought that it was about two sisters and their marriages. Wrong. This debut novel by Connor is about two very different women (one is no more than Northern California redwoods, a girl really) 400-meter hurdler who just happen to 'marrymissed the 2004 Olympics, a women' s track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the same -art S&M dungeon, a manserving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia. I use the word marry very loosely indeed. Their community, their rules, their descriptions etc can be rather quirky. Marriages are normally called 'sealings'.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0946745587</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=D. J. ConnellB0B2N7MVYM|title=Sherry Cracker Gets NormalThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Whilst itIt's wrong the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to judge a book by its coverput what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a mere sight of Dchance to breathe out. J. Connell But for Joe Marr, it's second novel not the missile crisis that'Sherry Cracker Gets Normals at the front of his mind. He' is enough to make me smiles been convicted of murder. The title is amusing; With the colourful design enticing and current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the effusive praise for Connellprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's debut 'Julian Corkle is Bench, a Filthy Liarrelatively new prison. He' encouragings just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000733219X</amazonuk>
}}
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