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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin AmisOnyi Nwabineli|title=Lionel Asbo|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon Allow Me to create some pretty nasty, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. He's violent, uncouth and ignorant. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block with his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character in the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent and kind, that is if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Ben FountainAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's ''Billy Lynnincreasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's Long Halftime Walk''childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, Billy monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and what she is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back from , suing her step-mother to take down the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistscontent about her. The US army Anuri is battling alcoholism, keen failing to gain PR start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite the fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next weekfor doing so. The majority of the book takes place on the last day of this tour when Billy Most importantly, she is in his home-state of Texasdesperately worried about her little sister, where who is the Bush link makes it even more pro-war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American new focus of PR eventsOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, the Thanksgiving football game and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. Accompanying the troop is a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised the soldiers that he can sell their story to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simple.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shams Uddin1529153298|title=The Year from JahannamList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Wright It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family begin a blog in January 2011, though. They all want to celebrate a new start after the turmoil of recent years Women have been disappearing. Father Richard had Well, they've been a casualty of the financial crisismurdered, working for Lehman Brothers at the time of its collapse, and the ensuing chaos had affected the entire family one way or anotherbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. But Richard retrained, secured a new job and has recently earned a huge bonus. At last Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family are back on track and enjoying the fruits of hard labour'Down South'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957175205</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jan Wallentin|title=Strindberg When you's Star|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Just as he re from Yorkshire, Down South is preparing for an appearance on a television showfrightening, a stranger approaches Don Titelman and asks for his helpforeign place, best avoided. This manFor Miv, Erik Hallthe move would mean leaving her best friend, has recently discovered a mysterious body at the bottom of a flooded mine shaftSharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. Whilst perfectly preserved, medical checks confirm She's not worried about the man had been dead for nearly a hundred years. The deceased apparently committed suicide whilst holding on dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to a metal ankh with some strange writings on itanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)1035906708|title=Every Day, Every HourDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friends. In normal situations one might add ''and a whole lot more'' We tend to that sentencethink of Maria Callas as Greek, but Dora and Luka are she was born to Greek parents in KindergartenManhattan, New York, which makes their intense relationship hard in December 1923 and only moved to defineAthens when she was thirteen. As they grow into adults, however, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it becomes obvious that there is something between them and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight this 'Callas' to make it is there and is not going to fade awaymore manageable in the States. Dora’s parents move When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her across voice - she was raised under the continent, careers develop Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and flourish, out made no secret of nowhere they are enveloped by family livesher preference for her elder sister, but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back to one anotherJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gerry WellsAlexander McCall Smith|title=Kicking the Hornets' NestThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hilary, The Perfect Passion Company is a single mother of two troublesome boys meets Daviddating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an elderly writer with problems of his ownalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, through Facebooktailored service. It’s an odd beginning – they have Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a mutual friendbad boyfriend, and so one adds jumps at the otherchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and then they start chatting quite spontaneously – the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but sets the scene well for their atypical relationshipwith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Hilary’s Katie has no experience in New Zealandrunning a business, David’s or in London. They are many decades apart match-making, but Ness has full confidence in age but are clearly both quite lonely her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and looking for someone to talk to. Sorather handsome) neighbour, with the vague anonymity of social networking on their sideWilliam, they reach out to one another.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9881993296</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lionel ShriverDean Koontz|title=The New RepublicBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=Lionel Shriver adds 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 beardreally weird, disturbing coffin-shaped appendage sized object to Southern Portugal in The New Republic his home, and immediately it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has it fighting for independencetrashed his house! The thing is, taking a wry look at terrorism as well as Benny is the ethics of the international press corpsvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. After He is a series of international terrorism acts, nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the Os Soldados Ousados De Barbadelivery to his house is a new friend, or the SOB for shorta bad weather friend called Spike, have gone quiet at the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler who has vanished without been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a tracegood person. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps 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 BarringtonBenny's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killers, as it werewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne SwardKatherine Howe|title=BreathlessA True Account|rating=34.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are those who say that, on an individual level, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate it. Oh, if only it were so easy. ''Breathless'' is one of those that I neither love nor hate, and yet am not totally uninspired by either. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Cleave|title=Gold|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Novels that feature sport often put people off reading themHannah Masury is living in Boston, particularly if you are not au fait having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the sport town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in question. Howeverequal measure, while the characters Hannah finds herself embroiled in Chris Cleavea young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don''Gold'' are athletest find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, specifically cyclists aiming for dressing as a boy and joining the 2012 London Olympics, itnotorious Ned Low's more about the characters themselvespirate ship as a cabin boy. In fact, if you are looking for a book to read to avoid She soon finds herself in the brouhaha thick of the Olympics this year but still want to get things when there is a taste mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of what all life on the fuss is about, this would be a superb choiceocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340963433</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Lee1471180158|title=JoyMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Very stylishJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, observant for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and oh so spikythe more you read, this is an incredible, often uncomfortable novel the more you'll suspect that you just he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can't be controlled and put downin the wrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020427</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Miranda FranceB0CKD1L5JL|title=That Summer at Hill FarmRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you were to pass Hill Farm you would think it Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the perfect country idyll with lambs in the fieldsstrange, reclusive Bear, children playing he is brought up far from bustling cities and the farmhouse nestled busy human society, in the folds forests of the hills. The truth though is different. Farmer Hayes loves the land, but heWashington's no farmerOlympic Peninsula. His wife is neglected After Bear dies and it's not that long since Isabel miscarried her fourth child. She loves her children but she's not a particularly good housewife - or wife. She brief sojourn in human company, and Hayes were rather bounced into marriage by her aging and doting parents. Now she's trapped in armed with only a house with death-watch beetle and pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a husband who is struggling to keep journey through the forest, broadcasting the farm goingstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555131</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie NickelsSarah Marsh|title=The Other Side A Sign of SilenceHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Pippa Eastman went to Australia to get away from After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her domineering father, the historian Joseph Eastman and it was there that she met Jude, the son of two Ten Pound Pomshearing. Their relationship was goodSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, but not exactly committed on either side. It was everything about having funher life changes. Familial ties were surprisingly strong though and Living in a time when Joseph Eastman developed Alzheimer's Disease Pippa returned to the UK use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to care for him. Slightly a school where she is taught to her surpriselip read, Jude followed her - determined to track down the alcoholic father who had left him and his mother in Australiabut physically restrained from signing. It's only after her father's death that Pippa finds herself From here, she ends up in search of her father's life - another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and trying to establish that he wasn't using a murderersystem called Visible Speech.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781762686</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Nicholson|title=The Golden Hour|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Maggie is nervous about committing to a live-in relationship At the same time, terrified by the idea that there must be something better out there. Dean Bell is terrified of losing the love of his life working on other inventions and old Mrs Dickinson is justideas, well, terrified. Henry is frustrated by rabbits and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in his garden, Alan is frustrated by work, and Liz is frustrated by old Mrs Dickinson, who is her mother..a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849163936</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel GlattauerB0BC3YTCMR|title=Love VirtuallyGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Emmi sends and email to cancel a magazine subscription, she has no idea what a slight typo in the email address will lead to – a life-changing, potentially marriage-wrecking, all-consuming online love affair with the man whom she emails in error. What starts as an insignificant, casual message quickly becomes something much more important to both her and Leo as two people who have never met start to share their secrets and wishes, dreams and fears with each other, ''This story is not just because they can but, it seems, because they have tofor everyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050958</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Allan Hendry1472263936|title=End Game|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=A decade ago arms dealer Peter Rossi and Bill Rawlings, theologian, were in rough terrain two thousand feet above the Dead Sea. Rawlings was looking for something, but what, or where? It still wasn't entirely clear to Rossi when it was necessary for them to make a dramatic escape from a group of men - and the resulting carnage would be the stuff of nightmares for Rossi for many years to come. A decade later and at the other side of the world Bradley O'Connor, billionaire computer scientist, was forced to land his vintage plane on a mountain track in heavy snow and in the cold and lonely night which followed found his plane surrounded by a group of men eerily similar - had he but known it - to those Rossi and Rawlings had encountered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848972431</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Figurine|author=Eliza Graham|title=The History RoomVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with a key scene from Meredith’s childhood 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 then springs forward refused to the present day return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the incident family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the history roomfirst of several annual visits. The prank sets the tone for the whole novel – sinister in many subtle ways She grew to love her grandmother and having several layers of meaning. The cast assemble around the fall out from the prank and each character is beautifully drawn. Hughfamily's maid, Meredith’s husbandDina, is suffering the results of horrors he experienced in Helmand. Meredith’s immediate family are also traumatised by the death but was wary - and frightened - of her mother. In this highly charged atmospheregrandfather, it’s hard to know whether they are taking the prank too seriously or if it does indeed imply worrying occurrences within the schoolretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Add in the presence He was proud of strangers in his close connections to the form of new pupils Junta and new staff, expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and before long even the most longgreen eyes -held relationships begin to suffer as a result of all the suspicions that are brought out by the prankinherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509276</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukDean Koontz|title=Invisible Monsters RemixAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Don't expect this to be the kind Michael Mace, Head of story that goes: and thenSecurity, and thenat a top secret biological research facility, and thenis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected Finding himself in a couple of Palahniuk booksmakeshift mortuary, upon his firstcovered in plastic, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British successhe has a sense that something very, and never got round very bad has happened to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] him – and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then only him – as he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, sits up and I got to look looks around at it after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marcello Fois|title=Memory of the Abyss|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are on Sardinia, over a hundred years ago. It is a land shrouded bodies of legend, where storytellers can see a different nature to the moon each night his dead friends and convey that in their earthly storiesformer colleagues. It's a world of wonderAs he recovers his senses, where sheep he realises that there is something different about him; he can fall from the skies for more than one reason''feel'' everything. It's a poor land, where lads are expected to be responsible shepherds by the time they are ten'Everything''. As a result people look after each other - except, while returning from a Christening Samuele and his father are refused basic hospitality. Later when the boy runs away one night the land falls away beneath him - yet he finds a girl to ground him to this earth. Which is most relevant when he goes to war, and particularly when he comes back and finds himself a wronged man, and in need of vengeance..Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francis BennettB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Crabber StoriesGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=John White was known to everyone as Crabber The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - a nickname which he once earned and which then stuck its bread- like fruit provides nutrition and he grew up on the shores its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of Long Island in the nineteen-fifties. It was a close-knit community forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and a time when children had more freedom than they are likely to be allowed noweven gallows, if needed. We watch as Crabber grows from The fear of being a boy still suffering from buried alive is an existential superstition in the death of his elder brother when we first met him through to a time when he's old enough to go on a hunting trip on village and that is the mainland with reason Volushka, a local family. He tells his own storiesdrunken, self-indulgent, as truthfully as he can and with the sort lazy lout of insight which children have before life injects its cynicisma man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Belinda SeawardB0BYF82CXT|title=The Beautiful Truth|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are two parallel story lines in Belinda Seaward's ''The Beautiful Truth'': one set in the present day and one in wartime Poland. Both involve love stories and personal struggles, and there are repeating themes such as horses and the stars that effectively provide links between the two in this clearly wellSemi-researched and engrossing narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719521114</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDetached|author=EL James|title=Fifty Shades FreedDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When the [[Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James|first]] book ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a trilogy is outstandingly awesomedepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the [[Fifty Shades Darker by EL James|second]] is pretty darn excellent, couples befriend each other and life appears to read the final instalment is a no-brainer reallyimprove for both pairs. And, I suspect that is why this book But all is selling so well, because while it’s a mildly interesting reading, in my mind not what it didn’t come close to the first two offerings in terms of intriguing charactersseems, a suspense filled plot or general and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''kinky-fuckery''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099579944</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maggie ShipsteadShalini Boland|title=Seating ArrangementsThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Weddings Alice and Seth are always a potential source match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for intrigue and drama. In Maggie Shipstead's debut novel; handsome, accomplished, ''Seating Arrangements''clever, there's plenty of that going onfunny; total and utter husband-material. Set She is all he could possibly want in a New England island called Waskekewife; beautiful, Winn Van Meter's eldest daughtersuccessful, Daphne, who confident… and so the inevitable proposal is already heavily pregnant eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is about to marry Greyson Duffplanned and set. The problems start when Daphne's retinue of bridesmaids When the much-anticipated day arrives, who include her sister, Livia, who has had her heart broken Alice is walked down the aisle by her first love to the son of Winn's social arch rivalfather, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the flirtatious Agatha mix with Greysoncongregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's brothers. Add in world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the fact that Winn has always had a yearning altar is, who is waiting for Agatha and things get decidedly messyher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>000742521X</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Parsons1787636003|title=Catching the SunThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Finn had been a builder, but bankruptcy intervened It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and taxi driving provided some sort of living for him, his wife, Tess Caroline went backpacking around Greece and twins Rory and Keevaarrived on the island. And Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so it might have continued but for two burglars in his home. Tom 'confronted' them when thirty-four-year- and nearly went old Alistair Wright started to jailtake an interest in her, but his conviction mean that taxi driving she was no longer an optionflattered rather than wary. Then It was quite a chance encounter brought him the offer while before he made any sort of another driving job - but this one physical approach to her and by that time she was in Phuket in Thailand - and included accommodationobsessed by him. There's a saying that if something seems too good to be true then it probably isAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, but when you're as close to looking after his interests on the bottom as Tom Finn there comes a time when you've got to take a chance island and hope that this is your lucky dayin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007327811</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Camilla MacphersonAmanda Craig|title=Pictures at an ExhibitionThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A story designed around Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the display state-of individual paintings at -the National Gallery during World War Two held immediate appeal for me-nation novel. Alas, Claire There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and Robcapture it, crafting an image of the central characters 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 novel, did notgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Claire’s extreme irrationality is jarring even within She has such a gift for weaving the context ongoing issues of the ordeal she has endured. Rob seems inconsiderate, clearly due to day into the barrage lives of irrationality he is having to live with on her characters in a daily basis. But while way that is understandablefeels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, I did worry that I might be reading a novel that contained no likeable charactersgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099560445</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=EL James152915118X|title=Fifty Shades DarkerPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Not a lot of time has passed since ''Pineapple Street'' is the [[Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James|first instalment]] story of Ana’s adventures with the man she calls Fifty Shadesthree women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. Perhaps unusually for a follow up it’s not months or years later They're Stocktons, in fact just only Sasha isn't a few days have gone Stockton bybirth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. Lots of things have changed The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, thoughasks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Successful businessman Christian is still our tortured hero Tilda and Chip have renovated and Anadownsized to another property, now in her first proper joba street or so away, remains our befuddled heroine but they’re not Christian-and-Ana which they own. They won't need any more having parted ways at the end of book one. At the same timefurniture from Pineapple Street, a lot has stayed the sameso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. They’re not having quite as much dirty sex as Nominally, they were had a choice but that wasn't the tensions are still therereality. He’s still incapable of letting her get on with things without interfering (you’ve got Darley and Georgiana start to love a guy who buys call Sasha 'the company you work at, just to keep an eye on things)gold digger'. And he still has, let’s say, particular preferences when it comes to his bedroom antics She's living in ''their'' family home. So, They use it seems, does Ana. With what were increasingly becoming her regular nocturnal activities now off limits, she’s started craving them. Craving things she didn’t know were possible a month or so ago. Craving things she’s aware nice girls wouldn’t…unless it’s all one big unspoken secret in the sisterhood. Craving things often that, let’s be honest, a massive number of readers probably quite fancy themselves after they abbreviate it to 'the literary foreplay that was book 1GD'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099579928</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roland VernonEmily Critchley|title=The Good Wife's CastleOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=We start 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 a father's suicidehis family, a child watching as he steps 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 chair 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. After 'seeing' Lucy in the milking room with high street, just as she was the noose around his necklast time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. A father who died for shameAnd yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552775533</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''
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toni Morrison0008506337|title=HomeThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Toni MorrisonThe 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'Home. Her parents worried that Richard'' is simply a beautifully crafted novella. Set in post Korean war America, it features some familiar Morrison characteristics. Veteran Frank is suffering s influence would take her away from what we would now call postthey felt she could achieve -traumatic stress disorder, but is released from service with no treatment as so many weregoing to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, especially if they were black no doubt. But at least he has survived unlike his two friends whom he grew up with. Frank is troubled eloped and has his flaws, but also has dignityRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. He finds himself returning Margo did go to the Georgia home, Lotus, he longed Oxford and went on to escape from as become a childwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, another typical Morrison settlement with nothing going for it apart from the goodness Imogen and dignity of the people who live thereSasha. What draws him back is Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the news that his younger sister, Cee, is suffering from family home on the aftermath Isle of some medical experimentationWight. It sounds grim stuff, but while life is hard, it Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's not a traumatically difficult readmind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186070</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Madeleine Tobert1914585402|title=The Sea On Our SkinDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I reviewed David F Ross'Amalie Matete woke up alone on the first day of her life as a married woman…her battered body…the bruises on her thighss book [[There'. Amalie had scarcely been prepared for this. s Only sixteen, sheOne Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'd spent all s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of her time in the village years back and was marrying a stranger, a man who had seen her only once. But she was lucky. With no father to give her away, she was lucky to be remember being married at all, her mother tried to tell her. On her wedding day Amalie had been frightened absolutely floored by the stormhow powerful and affecting it was. It was a bad omen she said. Just a stormgripping, emotionally wounding read, her mother saidand rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444734113</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=EL JamesLucy Ashe|title=Fifty Shades Of GreyClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When college student Ana steps in at The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the last minute to cover an interview of a local tycoon for outside but not, we learn, on the uni paperinside. And not on stage, she never imagines how what is supposed to be either. Because there's a lot that builds a one off meeting will change her life completely over the months to comedancer. She has no plans Some things that can be taught or expectations learnt – discipline, attention to see him again, but Christian Grey knows what he wants detail – and takes great pains to get itsome things, so with Ana now next on his list of target acquisitionsthat ''je ne sais quoi'', she has very little hope of escaping unscathedthat don't come from the classroom. Swiftly realising that he is not your average wealthy bachelorA stage presence, a charm, Ana falls head first into a foreign and confusing new world she has no clue how to navigate''joie de vivre''. With pressure on to sign on the dotted line or leave and never return, Ana has to decide how far she’s willing to go to follow her heartThe difference between a hard-worker, and when she should listen to the screaming voices in her head insteada star. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099579936</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John IrvingHeather Fawcett|title=In One PersonEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life''In One Person'' s work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is a sensitive story of sexual identitybrilliant at research and speaking to faeries, narrated by a bisexual writer who she is now not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in his later yearsthe small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, recalling she is not only his own coming sure what she has done, nor how to terms with his sexuality redeem herself and attraction to menput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, women her dashingly handsome and transgenders while at school in a New England schoolinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, but also his later years all charm and the devastating impact of the AIDS virus in 1980s America. At times the content is quite graphicdelight, but John Irving captures the outsidermuch to Emily's feelings beautifully in this tale of secrecy in a confusing world of identityfrustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857520962</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wiley Cash1398515388|title=A Land More Kind Than HomeThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a small town First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in western North Carolina there was a storefront church with newspapers across the windows so that no one could see ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, inturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Adelaide Lyle remembered to days when it The result was a storecomplete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, as well as and the days when she used to attend loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the church regularly, list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a woman died in dog outside a convenience store. He wasn'healing' ritual which involved t a snake and her body was left in her garden she decided that she couldn't attend and nor could she allow dog person but the townconvenience store owner's children comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to run open his car door and Tamon the risk. For a while this separation worked reasonably well until a series of incidents, many quite small dog jumped in themselves, provoked a tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520806</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew NicollChristopher Bowden|title=If You're Reading This, I'm Already DeadMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story at the heart of Andrew NicollChristopher Bowden's ''If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead'' latest novel is bizarre but not entirely a patient untangling of Nicolla seemingly ordinary woman's own creationlife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. It is narrated by German-born Otto Witte, The aunt who is rapidly recording always provided a strange time in his life while Allied bombs are falling in World War Two Germany, although the events that he relates go back to 1913 when Otto was an acrobat working in safe harbour and a travelling circus currently in Buda, or perhaps Pest - he's not quite sure. In addition to his acrobatic skills, he is also blessed with an impressive set of whiskers which make him the dead ringer for the newly appointed Turkish King little bit of Albania. If only he can get there before the claimant indulgence to the crown, perhaps he can steal the country and complete an unlikely rise in status. In the company of his pal, Max, a strongman, young nephew had had a blind mind-reader much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and his beautiful daughter, it seems to him an exotic dancer and a purloined camel, what could possibly go wrong?obligation to find it all out. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857384937</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Asko SahlbergJennifer Mason|title=The BrothersPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're in the family home of ErikHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in Finland[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], in 1809. It's large enough to have been the most impressive farmstead when his mother was taken there as a young bride, and she still lives there, with an elderly retainer, Erik, Erik's untrusting wife investigated and some other servants. One night the brother unravelled a series of the family, Henrik, returns, and all the bad blood gets spilleddisappearances. Not just about a neighbourIn ''s horse and hotheaded plans for it, not just over a marriage, and not even about the fact that when Sweden and Russia fought over Finland and the territory changed hands, the brothers were on opposing sides.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095628406X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer Egan|title=The Invisible Circus|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Set in 1978, 18-year old Phoebe is living with her mother in San Francisco. Her father died some years ago, before her elder sister, Faith, a charismatic idealist and true child Partitions of the 1960s left for Europe where she died in 1970. Faith was always her fatherUnity's favourite, While Phoebe's older brother, Barry, is now a computer millionaire, on leaving high school Phoebe decides on a whim to follow she sets her sister's path mind to Europe in the hope of finding what happened in Italy and to finally understand her beloved sister's actionssolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780331223</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kirsten TranterWill Carver|title=A Common LossThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There were five friends - Dylan, Brian, Tallis, Cameron and Elliot - but then Dylan was killed Five strangers come together in one moment as a road accident and the remaining four had suicide bomber prepares to come to terms with how the dynamics of the group had changeddetonate his vest on a London tube line. Dylan had always been As their fates overlap, the fixerstory is told in backwards order, the solver and the mediator. He'd been the one the other four had gone to when they had problems because he'd always come leading up with something and it was usually an ingenious solution. It wasn't until after Dylan's death that the four friends realised that Dylan knew their dirtiest secrets - and that someone else had access to all the informationfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857382756</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BroderickJennifer Mason|title=The Bankruptcy DiariesPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 2000''A struggling poetry zine, Paul Livingson graduated from university a mom-and got his first proper grown up job. By 2007 he had filed -pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bankruptcy. With no failed businessesbullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, unfortunate property depreciation or poor stock market investments a man serving a life sentence in between you might be at Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a loss to see how he ended up therecheap oil painting, until you read his diary of those years and it all becomes crystal clearan erotic art dealer in Georgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956511937</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Evonne WarehamB0B2N7MVYM|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>}} {{newreview|author=Andrea Eames|title=The Cry of the Go-Away Bird|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary='The Cry of the Go-Away Bird' is the debut novel from Andrea Eames. It revolves around Elise, a white Zimbabwean girl living through her teens on the eve Calculations of the Mugabe-sponsored farm invasions at the beginning of this century. The author herself grew up in Zimbabwe before moving to New Zealand with her family at the age of seventeen and there is a strong sense of memoir and personal experience in the novel, which has both positive and negative effects on the narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553733</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRational Men|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Saturday Big Tent Wedding PartyDaniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander McCall Smith makes it look so easy, churning out book after delightful book that continue to delight and amuse his loyal readersIt's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. His writing seems effortless, and Just to put what happens in this story, once againcontext, the characters remain the wonderful friends we have always known and expected them to be, as if they really are alive and living these stories somewhere and AMS Cuban missile crisis is simply transcribing them for our pleasurestill very fresh in people's minds.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349123136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rosie Dastgir|title=A Small Fortune|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Harris Anwar is truly The world has barely had a man who is split between two worldschance to breathe out. HeBut for Joe Marr, it's a British Pakistani, proud of his Eastern roots, but when he came to not the UK he changed his name from Haaris - with a long, flat vowel - to missile crisis that's at the more acceptable Harris and front of his clothing was that favoured by an English gentlemanmind. He's proud and he would say many reasons to be proudbeen convicted of murder. Some of With the things current state of which hemedical knowledge, it's proud are relatively small - hard to think otherwise than that the vacuum cleaner which heprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's had for twenty years might not work particularly wellBench, but he's proud that he's hung on to ita relatively new prison. He's proud of just getting used to his carroommate, Mervyn, the central heating which he installed himself and most learning to be wary of all he's proud of his daughterthe McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857383736</amazonuk>
}}