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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BroderickOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Bankruptcy DiariesAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 2000Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, Paul Livingson graduated from university where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and got his first proper grown up job, basically, monetary gain. By 2007 he had filed Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for bankruptcydoing so. With no failed businesses Most importantly, unfortunate property depreciation or poor stock market investments in between you might be at a loss to see how he ended up thereshe is desperately worried about her little sister, until you read his diary who is the new focus of those years Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and it all becomes crystal clear.perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956511937</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francis Gilbert1529153298|title=The Last Day List of TermSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's the last day of term at the Gilda Ball Academy1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, and English teacher Martin canbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't wait for sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the holiday to startfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. Shaken by For Miv, the death of his move would mean leaving her best friend Jack in a riot at the school, heSharon, and she's failed ll do anything to notice his marriage falling to pieces and his relationship with his son deterioratingprevent that. Just when he thinks things can She't get any worse, an anonymous pupil accuses him of inappropriate sexual conducts not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906021511</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Evonne Wareham1035906708|title=Never Coming Home|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Kaz Elmore has almost come to terms with her daughter's death. She died while on holiday in America with her father (Kaz's ex husband) and her ashes have been scattered on the river. As tragic as it is, Kaz has no alternative but to accept that her daughter is never coming back. However, one day she receives a visit from a man called Devlin, who witnessed the accident and was holding Jamie when she died. His sole intention is to provide some comfort for Kaz by telling her that her daughter was not alone but when he spots photographs of Jamie, he realises that she is not the child who died in his arms.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931704</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Andrea Eames|title=The Cry of the Go-Away BirdDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We tend to think of 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 thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'The Cry of the Go-Away BirdCallas' is to make it more manageable in the debut novel from Andrea EamesStates. It revolves around Elise, a white Zimbabwean girl living through When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her teens on the eve of the Mugabevoice -sponsored farm invasions at she was raised under the beginning of this century. The author herself grew up in Zimbabwe before moving to New Zealand with Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her family at the age of seventeen and there is a strong sense made no secret of memoir and personal experience in the novelher preference for her elder sister, which has both positive and negative effects on the narrativeJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553733</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Saturday Big Tent Wedding PartyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander McCall Smith makes it The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look so easyafter the business, churning out book after delightful book that continue as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to delight and amuse his loyal readersget away for a while. His writing seems effortlessKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and in so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new storyfrom Alexander McCall Smith, once againbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters remain the wonderful friends we have always known and expected them who quickly begin to becharm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, as if they really are alive and living these stories somewhere there's always her very helpful (and AMS is simply transcribing them for our pleasure.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349123136</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rosie DastgirKatherine Howe|title=A Small FortuneTrue Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harris Anwar Hannah Masury is truly living in Boston, having been sent to live with a man family who is split between two worldsrun an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. He's When she hears there is to be a British Pakistani, proud hanging of his Eastern roots, but when he came to some pirates in the UK he changed his name from Haaris - with a longtown, flat vowel - she decides to the more acceptable Harris go and his clothing was that favoured by an English gentlemanwatch. HeEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's proud and he would say many reasons to be prouddeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. Some of the things of which he's proud are relatively small - the vacuum cleaner which he's had for twenty years might not work particularly wellShe hides away, but he's proud so that hethey don's hung on t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to it. Hesea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's proud pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of his carthings when there is a mutiny on board, the central heating which he installed himself and most from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of all he's proud of his daughterlife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857383736</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Nicholls1471180158|title=One DayMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I knew within Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the first ten pages that I was going to love subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'One Dayhas his problems'. He'. It is s asthmatic and the only book that has kept me up at nightmore you read, distracted me throughout the day and woken me up early in the morning. I couldnmore you't put it down, and didnll suspect that he't want to either. I have always found it difficult to settle s on a favourite type of story, or even a specific genre that I like, but this novel made me realise that what I want in a book is realism. As Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley enjoyed their late night conversation in the opening moments of the book, Nicholls pulled me into his worldautistic spectrum.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340896981</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Green|title=The Fault in Our Stars|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Having been diagnosed at age 12 with stage 4 thyroid cancer, Hazel was prepared Sometimes Jamie needs to die. Then take time off at age 14, short notice - she's a miracle treatment shrunk the tumours frequent flier in her lungs...for the time beinglocal A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Hazel could live for years, Missed shifts or she could die at any the need to be away on time, but her days to pick Bo up from school are spent tethered to an oxygen tank occasions when Jamie can be controlled and under constant surveillance and treatment to keep put in the cancer at baywrong. Hazel is now 16. With her life in a constant holding pattern, Hazel meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support group. Augustus is gorgeous, sharp-witted, in remission and completely attracted to Hazel. As their relationship blossoms and grows, Hazel finds she has It was going to re-examine her attitude about life and death, illness and wellness and love. Their brief journey together leaves a lasting legacy behind that will change everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0525478817</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ken MacLeod|title=Intrusion|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Pregnant Hope doesn't want come to take the Fix, a genetic cure-all pill that corrects the DNA of an unborn child and protects it from all sorts of diseases. Hope's husband Hugh doesn't really understand her objections to the Fix - in fact, Hope never really articulates them at all - but supports her right to choosehead. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499390</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Etgar KeretB0CKD1L5JL|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=In Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the openingstrange, titular storyreclusive Bear, Keret he is forced by several people to create, brought up far from bustling cities and alterbusy human society, a short short story. Itin the forests of Washington's a plain metaphor for the history of Israel, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from the originalOlympic Peninsula. And what follows are probably the sort of shortAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, tantalisingand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, open-endedPetr goes on a journey through the forest, rough-round-broadcasting the-edges strange, wild and surreal results of being compelled to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basisrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne TylerSarah Marsh|title=The Beginner's GoodbyeA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Aaron's wifeAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Dorothy, was killed in an accidentEllen Lark loses her hearing. An oak tree fell on their homeSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, demolishing the sun porch where Dorothy happened to be at the timeeverything about her life changes. He worried that if he had done things differently (Living in a matter time when the use of some biscuits and sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a television set) Dorothy might not have been school where she was and might still be alive and for a while he camped out in the wrecked house until further damage forced him is taught to move in with his sisterlip read, but physically restrained from signing. It was then that he realised that Dorothy wasn't really dead - wellFrom here, not dead as we understand it - as she materialised ends up in odd places, wearing another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the clothes she used to wear deaf and eventually staying with Aaron for longer periods of timeusing a system called Visible Speech. And gradually they began to bickerAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, just like and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a long-married couple..complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701187190</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth HaynesB0BC3YTCMR|title=Revenge of the TideGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maud Perifanis wasn't unduly worried when her husband didn't return home one evening as he often stayed in his office when he was working and the news that he had been killed in a car accident, well out of Athens on the Saronic Gulf, was a shock to This story is not for everyone in the house on Paradise Street where the extended family lived. Nikitas had been brought up by his aunt Alexandra and her husband and she now lived in one apartment, Orestes (his son from his second marriage) in the studio and he, Maud and their daughter Tig lived in a third apartment. There was someone missing though. Antigone was Alexandra's sister - and Nikitas' mother - but she'd left Greece for Russia when he was three and he hadn't seen her since. She was over eighty when she heard the news and she came back for the funeral.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595694</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1472263936|title=The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 13Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Those of you who are frequent visitors It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to The Bookbag will know return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that I am it would be a big fan pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of Alexander McCall Smithseveral annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's writingmaid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. I am supremely happy that he continues He was proud of his close connections to write so regularly the Junta and reliably, providing me with much looked forward expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to reading matter several times through the yearaccommodate them. This time itHis prejudices included Helena's the turn of Mma Ramotswe to slip back into my mind as we read of red hair and green eyes - inherited from her detecting adventures in this, the thirteenth book in the seriesfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408702606</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah MoggachDean Koontz|title=The Best Exotic Marigold HotelAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set 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 remote hill top town makeshift mortuary, covered in the Himalayas where the earth plastic, he has folded to create the majestic scenery, a young womansense that something very, Maya, recently widowed arrives to be closer very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the scene shrouded bodies of her husbandhis 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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's climbing accidentsurrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. There, she encounters a rich variety of characters who seem to leap The black wood of the page, foremost of which two at opposite ends both of society forest provides heat and life's journey - Charuwarmth, a young peasant girl whose emerging relationship with a young cook is touching and sweetroofs on homes, and Maya's eccentric landlordeven gallows, a relict if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the Raj who may or may not be in possession of some intriguing personal letters village and that pertain to India's history and is the departing Britishreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857388312</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick AlexanderB0BYF82CXT|title=The Case of the Missing BoyfriendSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that CC had it all. At thirty nine she was near the top of the advertising business''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, owned her own flat stuck in north London and had a group depressing rut of closeboredom and disappointment, party-going friends. That's what you saw from the outsidewhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, looking successful and very much in love – move innext door. What CC saw was a Despite their different outlooks on life that lacked that one essential which she seemed unable to acquire. She was desperate to find , the man of her dreams couples befriend each other and preferably one who would whisk her off life appears to a farm house in Devon where she'd live ''The'' ''Good'' ''Life''improve for both pairs. In the meantime she was stuck with the memories of too many heartbreaksBut all is not what it seems, a mother whose current lifestyle brought a very unfortunate word to mind and being on the periphery of her friendstheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.' dramas - and as they were all gay she didn't have a lot of chance of meeting that elusive man.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789630X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BauerShalini Boland|title=Rocks in the BellyThe Silent Bride|rating=43|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Jon Bauer's first novelAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, ''Rocks in the Belly''clever, is an emotional journeyfunny; total and utter husband-material. The narrator She is all he could possibly want in a man in his late 20s who has returned from Canada to visit his mother who has cancer of wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the brainwedding is planned and set. The narrator himself When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is emotionally damaged from walked down the relationship that he had with his mother from childhood when she and aisle by her husband fostered children andfather, interspersed beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the narrativecongregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, is Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the voice of narrator man at eight years old and in particular telling the experience of one foster boy, Robertaltar is, who we know from early on in the book suffered a significant tragedy while in their care. What that event was will be revealed in due course, but it is clear that the young boy suffered hugely from jealousy of waiting for her to become his mother's love for these foster childrenwife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688450</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aifric Campbell1787636003|title=On The FloorGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Geri Molloy, It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the central character in Aifric Campbell's ''On The Floor'island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, may be earning a six figure salary working at a London investment bank just prior so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to the outbreak of the 1991 invasion of Kuwaittake an interest in her, but she's seriously messed upwas flattered rather than wary. Drinking heavily, sleeping lightly and mourning the end It was quite a while before he made any sort of a relationship, she may be a mathematical genius with a direct line physical approach to a mysterious Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager with whom her and by that time she tradeswas obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, but her life is increasingly being controlled by other peoplelooking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688086</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ada WilsonAmanda Craig|title=Red Army Faction BluesThree Graces|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Ada Wilson admits that his fascination with Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the period is what drove his work on this -nation novel, and it is . There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the wealth atmosphere of detail the day and background that strikes one when reading his account capture it, crafting an image of Peter Urbach, the undercover agent whose role was to act country as an agent provocateur to the Red Brigadeit stands in one particular moment. Urbach To say that Amanda Craig is revealed from skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the outset as genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a plant, an undercover operative who needs to keep all events of the group 'noted and filed' gift for his masters. And throughout weaving the first half ongoing issues of the novel we see Urbach recording day into the changes lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and developmentslived-in, the complex web of political ideologynever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, naivety and the pure egocentricity of youth which created the happening of the Baader-Meinhof ganggrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1901927482</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Green152915118X|title=Memoirs of an Imaginary FriendPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Max ''Pineapple Street'' is 8 years oldthe story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. He likes Lego Darley and Star Wars George are sisters and playing with toy soldiersSasha is married to their brother Cord. He can tell you 102 words that rhyme with tree They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. He scarfs down grilled cheese sandwiches The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and chicken and rice. He does not Sasha if they'd like physical contactto move into the Pineapple Street property. He lives with his mum Tilda and Chip have renovated and dad who argue about what is best for him downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and why he’s not normal like other boys Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and girlsGeorgiana 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 GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751547875</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William NicholsonEmily Critchley|title=The Secret Intensity of Everyday LifeOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=William Nicholson's ''The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life'' 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is an ensemble story focussing predominantly on middle class facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and mainly middle age people living in a Sussex villagebring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. The cover However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the book suggests worry that it is little more than there was a superior chic-lit style story secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of how Laura reacts when an ex-lover from what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her past appears from out , she starts to find pockets of the blue memories coming back to disrupt her marriage and two children, but while this is a central issue that runs throughout . And yet as she remembers the bookpast, this she is only a small part of forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the story. Ittruth about Lucy's far better than that might suggest.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184916195X</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Grace McCleenMadelaine Lucas|title=The Land of DecorationThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Grace McCleen's debut novel'Love, I''The Land of Decoration'' paints an originald read, unsettling, sometimes dark and generally rather wonderful picture. Narrated by ten year old Judith, raised by her father who is was supposed to be a fundamental religious follower of the end of the world is nigh variety, it looks at bullying, both at school light and in more general societyweightless feeling, faith and the possible rejection thereof and the strength of childhood imagination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118681X</amazonuk>}}but I had always longed for gravity''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Annabelle R Charbit0008506337|title=A Life Lived RidiculouslyThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maxine is from a Jewish family who think The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that as Richard's influence would take her 20s are nearing their end, away from what they felt she should be marriedcould achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. MaxineIn the event, for her part, hasn't found anyone to interest her they eloped and is more concerned with combining Richard took her job and her studies and getting away from the yoke Isle of her parentsWight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. She is also worried about her possessions The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and worries that she has too many Sasha. Life was lived in London and that they make her flat look untidyholidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. She just canEven then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''t get her flat organised the way she likes it, either, with the light not being quite right and would never quite being be able to decide which room her television should be leave him incharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0984642862</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Bourne1914585402|title=PantheonDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The year is 1940. Oxford don James Zennor wants to serve his country, but due to an injury sustained while fighting in the Spanish Civil War heI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's rejected as unfit. When his wife and young son disappear, though, the trail leads to America in Only One Danny Garvey]] a journey which will plunge him into a world couple of secret societies, clandestine deals, and the chance to play his part in the war effort after all. If he survives...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007413637</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bethan Roberts|title=My Policeman|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The story opens with two schoolfriends Sylvie years back and Marion doing what teenagers do best - talking remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and giggling about boysaffecting it was. Sylvie has It was a rather dishy and handsome older brother called Tom - gripping, emotionally wounding read, and Marion has developed a bit rereading my review of a crush it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on him. But it's nothing to worry about, she'll grow out of it. Except she doesn't. Even although, deep down, she has misgivings about this rather lukewarm romance. She's actually sizzling hot for some action, a bit of kissing, a bit of harmless snogging - but Tom's the one who is lukewarm. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185848</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Suzanne BuglerLucy Ashe|title=The Child InsideClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rachel Morgan feels that she does not fit in anywhereThe year is 1933. Certainly not with all of the other mums at her son JonoThe place? Sadler's posh schoolWells. Certainly Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not with all the happy jolly families , we learn, on the beaches when they are on holidayinside. And most of allnot on stage, she no longer feels either. Because there's a lot that she fits in with her own little familybuilds a dancer. Nothing ever feels right Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and she continually feels isolated on some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the outside looking inclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. Of courseThe difference between a hard-worker, these feelings lead to an increasing sense of dissatisfaction which she can only deal with by dwelling on what she perceives as her happier pastand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330510916</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack SheffieldHeather Fawcett|title=Educating JackEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=September 1982 sees the beginning of Jack SheffieldEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's sixth year as head work, the very first encyclopaedia of Ragley-on-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-Forest small village school and some of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village regulars are realising that this matriarch, she is going not sure what she has done, nor how to be a year to remember too. Nora Pratt has been in the coffee shop redeem herself and put her final investigations for a quarter of a century now. Ronnie Smith decides that her book back on the world of employment might be for him after all - but is sacked from one job after a matter of secondsright track. At the cinema it's ET Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who's pulling in the crowds arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Prince William comes into the world along with the 20p piece (well - not at ''exactly'' the same time)delight, but itmuch to Emily's Jack Sheffield who frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going to face on with the biggest change.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0593065697</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Ross1398515388|title=A Fairy TaleThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's Spring 1924 First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in South Walesthe ocean floor, which created the tsunami and young undertaker Wilfred is going to learn the hard way how serious this, in turn, caused the trivial can benuclear meltdown. Fascinated by a girl's dress - worn very seductively by Grace, who he has met but twice as an adult - he blurts out a marriage proposalThe result was complete and utter devastation. As much as wants to take it backThe deaths were uncountable, she won't let himand the loss of livelihoods was widespread. He tries to move on, leaving her disappointed, especially when he falls for The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the daughter list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a man he buries, but..convenience store. There are things dangerously spoken, dangerously left unsaid, and He wasn't a complex web of divided loyalties dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and enforced connections, Tamon the dog jumped in this brilliant debut novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330561</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen HarperChristopher Bowden|title=Shakespeare's Mistress|rating=2|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The conceit of ''Shakespeare's Mistress'' is that Shakespeare was married to Anne Whateley the day before he was married to Anne Hathaway, and Anne W remained the love of his life, with an affair (if you can have an affair with your 'wife') continued in London where the same Anne was also the famed ''dark lady'' of his sonnets. 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', it's very much at the fiction end of that scale and is really a 'what if?' piece.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091940427</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sue Townsend|title=The Growing Pains of Adrian MoleMr Magenta|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The country might be at war over the Falklands but life is hardly straight-forward in the Mole household. Adrian's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs and itChristopher Bowden's not long before Adrian latest novel is shocked to learn that his mother is pregnant. He's equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (a.k.a. the 'stick insect') along patient untangling of a path which isnseemingly ordinary woman't particularly slippys life, although he does notice that carried out by her nephew after she seems to have put on quite has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of weight. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickle, but adorable, as indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and Adrian's hormones are still playing hop-scotch with his brainit seems to him an obligation to find it all out. So, what's new?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan HillJennifer Mason|title=A Kind ManPartitions of Unity|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Eve, and her husband, the title character, Tommy. She's Here at a bit of a sticky wicket in lifeBookbag Towers, for however much they want a babywe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, her sister dominatrix and his feckless husband churn out son after son after sonunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], and go no lengths at all to love them. So when Eve she investigated and Tommy do at last have unravelled a child, itseries of disappearances. In 's a tragedy for it to die when only three years old. But in this plot, which you'll thank me for not going into further, there will be a lot more swings and roundabouts, Partitions of torment and ecstasy, doldrums and delights, hell and heavenUnity'', she sets her mind to comesolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555441</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John NivenWill Carver|title=The Second ComingDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=God has Five strangers come back from together in one moment as a holiday and has some catching up suicide bomber prepares to do. What’s been happening detonate his vest on Earth for the last couple of hundred years? The realisation hits him harda London tube line... it makes him sick in fact. So what’s As their fates overlap, the answer? To quote the religious cliché, Jesus story is. After 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 of the way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=R J Palacio|title=Wonder|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=August Pullman was born with a rare genetic defect that has caused extreme facial disfiguration. He has undergone 27 surgeries since he was born and has always been vulnerable to illness. In told in backwards order to deal with his medical needs and to shield him from the staring and cruelty of the world, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents for his entire life. But Auggie is stronger now and all of that is about to change. Auggie is about leading up to enter school for the first time – and he’s petrified. ‘Wonder’ is the story of Auggie’s first year at Beecher Prep and his first journey alone into the outside worldfateful moment. But can he confront the challenges that wait for him there and convince his classmates, new friends, family and himself that, underneath his unusual appearance, he is just the same as everybody else?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370332288</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kaui Hart HemmingsJennifer Mason|title=The DescendantsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On the face of it Matt King is very lucky. He's descended from one of Hawaii's largest landowners A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and is a wealthy man as well as being an attorney. He's married to -pop mobile diner in the flighty, flirtatious Joanie and has two daughters, teenager AlexNorthern California redwoods, a model 400-meter hurdler who might just have missed the 2004 Olympics, a bit of a drug problem and ten year old Scottie. Shewomen's feistytrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, clever and a billionaire with a state- for me of- 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 -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a powerboat accident and sinks into cheap oil painting, an irreversible coma as a result of a head injuryerotic art dealer in Georgia. 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 SchulmanB0B2N7MVYM|title=This Beautiful LifeThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard and Liz are new It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in town which is always a bummercontext, 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 to concentrate on kids Coco and Jake and Cuban missile crisis is finding juggling their social lives a full time job still very fresh in itself but is just about making a space for herself among the other mothers at the school gatespeople's minds. Things are going ok. And then, one day, their nice, comfortable The world starts to crumble. Jake receives an explicit email from has barely had a classmate and in disbelief, forwards it straight on chance to a friendbreathe out. Except rather than coming back to him with advice on what the heck to do next But for Joe Marr, the friend chooses to send it on to another friend, who does 's not the same. Round and round it goes, round missile crisis that's at the school, round the city, round the online world. Everyone knows where it came from and soon Jake’s academic future, front of his father’s career and his whole family’s social standing are hanging in the balancemind.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857896237</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Courtney Sullivan|title=Maine|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Kellehers He' beach-front holiday home in Maine was built on a plot s been convicted of land won in a bar-room bet at murder. With the end current state of World War II. Itmedical knowledge, it's not in hard to think otherwise than that the same league as the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port prosecution would never have been brought but there are a couple of substantial properties on the plot and thereJoe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's still room to spareBench, a relatively new prison. ItHe's a place of indulgencejust getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, secrets and the sort of burning cruelty which you only get in families who care for each other - some of the time. ''Maine'' is essentially the story learning to be wary of a summer at the property - but the seeds of what happens were, of course, planted long agoMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789496X</amazonuk>
}}