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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Herman KochOnyi Nwabineli|title=The DinnerAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Serge Lohman, presidential candidate, is not the kind of man Anuri spent her childhood on display to frequent the cafés of ordinary peopleworld, and so when his brother Paul and his wife Claire join Serge and wife Babette for dinnerthanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, it can only be at the fanciest where she posted every step of locales, Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and for 'fanciest' read poshest, snootiestbasically, and most overpricedmonetary gain. And while they may be Now Anuri is in Hollandher twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, going Dutch is not on suing her step-mother to take down the menucontent about her. This Anuri is not Serge’s storybattling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, howeverundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. It Most importantly, she is Paul’sdesperately worried about her little sister, and what he lacks in terms who is the new focus of incomeOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, power and influence compared to his brother, he more than makes up for perhaps herself and her relationship with dry humour and astute observations.her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848873824</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Barnes1529153298|title=In the Kingdom The List of MenSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book begins beautifully with all the characters springing to life through fantastically spare It's 1979 and creative descriptionMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... By the time we reach Gin) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, living with but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her her grandfather in father wants to move the stifling atmosphere of family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a strict Methodist minister’s homefrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the story is in full swing move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and we follow Gin through her teenage years as she tries hard 'll do anything to rebel against all prevent that. She's not worried about the limitations placed upon dangers or that herMum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009194421X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Luis Sepulveda1035906708|title=The Shadow of What we WereDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ChileWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, the modern day. Four elderly men meet for one last timebut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, planning something suspiciously underhandNew York, having made arrangements - in December 1923 and discussed Internet dating - onlineonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. We're let into the fact that the grandfather of one Her original surname was a bank robber in a classic tale of Robin Hood-style wealth distribution, Kalogeropoulos but as her father changed it to what the outcome of their plans might be we're forced Callas' to waitmake it more manageable in the States. Elsewhere a domestic incident leads to a bizarre death When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by record player. And you can just tell I'm suggesting you wait to discover the link..a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1609450027</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie DuffyAlexander McCall Smith|title=This Holey LifeThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Vicky's husband 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 found faith asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and since he's working look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a curate now rather than trip to Canada to get away for a plumber Vicky has been dragged into church life whether she likes it or notwhile. She's struggling to raise her family whilst dealing Katie is coming out of a break up with her own grief when suddenly into a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the mix chance to come her irritating big brother 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 his little boythe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. As VickyKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's patience is stretched paper-thin the lies woven within always her family begin to unravel very helpful (and she struggles rather handsome) neighbour, William, to keep everything and everyone together.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908775971</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cath StaincliffeDean Koontz|title=Split SecondThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=On a late December evening, Emma Curtis Benny is on having a bus travelling home from work when she becomes aware of a young lad being picked on by three othersterrifically bad day. Too scared to intervene He loses his job, she sits alone feeling guilty but taking everything in. To her shamehe loses his fiancee, nineteen year old student, Jason Barnes, comes downstairs on the bus and immediately challenges the three youthshis house gets trashed. Luke Oh, the young victim, leaps off the bus and someone has delivered a chase follows. Jason continues really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to try and defend Lukehis home, and they end up in Jasonit's front garden where possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his parents witness house! The thing is, Benny is the brutal attackvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Eventually So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the trio run off leaving Luke unconscious on the snowy ground. Worse stilldelivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, is the realisation that Jason who has been stabbed 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 tragically it turns Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out to be fatalwho exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849013462</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter HellerKatherine Howe|title=The Dog StarsA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are in North America Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a near but post-Apocalyptic future. Those few humans family who run an inn, and being made to survive work there from a pandemic have young age. When she hears there is to be treated as carriersa hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and/or armed and desperate, and so are particularly of note to military-minded survivalist Bangleywatch. And climate Enthralled and eco-problems have killed off many common specieshorrified in equal measure, something closer to narrator HigHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's heartdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, as he's a more placid, huntinso that they don't find and kill her too, shootin' and fishin' guy. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnership, but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has his watch-tower, while Hig takes off in his Cessna then to get escape them completely she runs away from it allto sea, dressing as a boy and his flights act joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a first line cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of defense. But things when there is it all life could bea mutiny on board, for Hig and his dog and Bangley? What is Hig still to make from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the last inviting contact he heard on his plane's radio - even if that was three years ago? ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755392590</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Frayn1471180158|title=SkiosMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set on Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a Greek island, man who's a cultural foundation is preparing for control freak with all the biggest event in its year at which renowned academic Dr Norman Wilfred is due to give the keynote speechsubtlety of a half brick. Also heading to the island on the same plane is Oliver Fox Jamie's son, a morally vacant but charming LotharioBo, who 'has arranged an assignation with a girl who his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he has met for only five minutes but has invited 's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to spend a week with him take time off at the villa that he was due spend a week with his exshort notice -girlfriend before she threw him out. But when 's a frequent flier in the girl sent local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to collect Dr Wilfred from school. Missed shifts or the airport, Nikki, turns out need to be irresistibly charming Oliver decides away on time to play pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the role of Dr Wilfred and follow her wrong. It was going to the foundation while the real Dr Wilfred, minus luggage is transported come to the villa at the other end of the islanda head. Someone still has to give the speech though - will it be the real Dr Wilfred or the fake Dr Wilfred?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571281419</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ned BeaumanB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Teleportation AccidentRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's hard to know where to start in reviewing Ned Beauman's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation Accident''Petr is an orphan. Reading itRescued by the strange, you feel like the parent of an ADHD-suffering child. At times it reclusive Bear, he is lovable, brilliant brought up far from bustling cities and entertainingbusy human society, at others you just want to reach for in the Ritalin forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and tell it to sit in a corner quietly while it composes itself. A clue to both the brilliance and frustration of Beauman is brief sojourn in the vast range of writers to whom he has been compared in both this human company, and his first novel [[Boxerarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Beetle by Ned Beauman|BoxerPetr goes on a journey through the forest, Beetle]]. There are hints of people as wide ranging as [[:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]], [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P G Wodehouse]], [[:Category:Douglas Adams|Douglas Adams]]broadcasting the strange, Raymond Chandler even [[:Category:Angela Carter|Angela Carter]] to name just a few. Beauman takes a huge range of styles wild and genres and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be a challenge keeping up with him at timesrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340998423</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jim Haskin is After a bout of scarlet fever as a very odd manchild, doing Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a very odd jobworld of silence, in a very odd country if this book is to be believedeverything about her life changes. An advertising guru Living in San Francisco, he owns a touchy feely company which boasts such wonders time when the use of sign language was seen as a ‘Dream Pod’something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a room for his team school where she is taught to relax in with sleeping bagslip read, TVs and a cooler brimming with organic fruit teabut physically restrained from signing. That’s for their down time From here, she ends up in between saving another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the world, promoting one eco-friendly item after another deaf and doing other worthy thingsusing a system called Visible Speech. Except behind At the scenessame time, Jim Haskin Bell is not that man. While his team are organising poetry slams to help homeless prostitutesworking on other inventions and ideas, he’s coming and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up with fight-back campaigns, showing that bleach makes in a beach better, chemical spills aren't as bad as you first might think, and other quite inexplicable thingscomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542226</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0BC3YTCMR|title=Sunshine on Scotland StreetGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I can hardly believe this ''This story is the eighth book about Scotland Streetnot for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's so nice to just pick up where we left off and discover whatcontagious. It's been happening not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to all our friendshis house and he raped her. This time we have Angus and Domenica's weddingIn shock, Cyril's adventures whilst they're away on their honeymoon, Bruce encounters she even allowed him to give her a rather strange gentleman and of course there's plenty of Bertie to entertain us!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972329</amazonuk>lift home.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Palin1472263936|title=The TruthFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Keith Mabbutt It was at one of those points in life when everything seemed 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to be changingGreece. His marriage She was on alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the rocks. His relationship with his children was not goodfamily home and refused to 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. He knew that he was a writer - he had a British Gas Award Her trip to prove it the family apartment in up- but market Kolonaki would be the investigative journalist which he once was had been replaced by someone who did corporate vanity projectsfirst of several annual visits. He skated over She grew to love her grandmother and the unpalatable and accentuated what there family's maid, Dina, but was that was positive wary - and he was paid passably well for doing itfrightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. When he He was offered the chance proud of his close connections to write a biography of Hamish Melville, the influential humanitarian activist, he seized the chance Junta and not just because the money on offer was beyond expected his family to uphold his wildest dreamsvalues 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>0297860216</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven AmsterdamDean Koontz|title=What the Family NeededAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Steven Amsterdam's first novel [[Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam|Things We Didn't See Coming]] won several awards including The Guardian First Boom Award. His second bookMichael Mace, Head of Security, 'What the Family Needed'at a top secret biological research facility, is similar 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 it too contains a large dose of the strangesomething very, yet it doesn't quite work very bad has happened to him – and only him – as well. The book is centred he sits up and looks around the families of two sisters, with each member having their own chapter told at different stages of their lives. In each one the various family members are facing problems shrouded bodies of some sort or other his dead friends and each mysteriously achieves some sort of super-power former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that they there is something different about him; he can ''feel'need' to partly overcome these, although not always with the desired resultseverything. From early on, the reader suspects that Alek, elder sister Natalie ''Everything''s younger son who appears as an imaginative kid when we first meet him, is at the heart of the weirdness and sure enough he has the final chapter in the book. Just don Michael isn't expect everything to be explained''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846555809</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrey KurkovB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Milkman in the NightGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If youThe village is isolated and poor. It're going to go sleepwalking, there are better places to do so than in Kiev in s surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the grip villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of its usual snowythe forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, cold and bleak winter - even gallows, if there needed. The fear of being buried alive is a lovely blonde at an existential superstition in the end of your journey. Semyon village and that is living this reality, unaware of the strange consequencesreason Volushka, just as others around him are unaware of the strange consequences of their actions - such as the airport security men who purloin some impounded drugs and test them on the cat. We also have a young single mother selling herself drunken, self- just not in that way - commuting into indulgent, lazy lout of a capital where some are rich enough to try and stave of ageing, and to cheat death in various ways..man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548860</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon RichB0BYF82CXT|title=What in God's NameSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In ''What Bill and Amanda are living in God's Name'', Simon Rich imagines Heaven Inc as a corporate entitysemi-detached house, with all the dysfunctional trappings of many stuck in a large company. At the head depressing rut of the operationboredom and disappointment, as you might expectwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, is God, although he seems to have lost his interest successful and very much in planet Earth and certainly love – move in the operation of heavennext door. In factDespite their different outlooks on life, he'd rather be watching the religious channels on satellite television or opening a restaurant. Although he would like couples befriend each other and life appears to see rock group ''Lynyrd'' ''Skynyrd'' re-form before he's done with the planetimprove for both pairs. In fact the only two who really care about But all is not what goes on down here are a workaholic angel named Craig who works in the Miracles Department and the recently promoted Eliza who has been labouring away, somewhat fruitlessly it seems, in the Prayers Department. When Eliza finds that her work on preparing prayers for God has been and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for nothing, her anger threatens the end of the world, unless Craig and Eliza can help a couple of hopeless humans find love with each othertragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688485</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon CanterShalini Boland|title=WorthThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=RichardAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, an Ad manclever, funny; total and Sarah, utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a city lawyer meetwife; beautiful, get marriedsuccessful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and decide to leave London behind for an idyllic country life insteadset. He’ll do some drawing When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, maybe look into illustrating. She’ll do voluntary work. They will start to Enjoy Life a bit more. They will become Better People. They will be beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the envy of all congregation – their friends still toiling away in 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 big smokealtar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546825</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melanie Gideon1787636003|title=Wife 22|rating=4.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Alice and William Buckle have been married for quite a few years and have two teenage children and a dog. With their busy lives, they end up having little time for each other and rarely get the opportunity to talk about the things that matter. In order to do something about her feelings The Girls of discontent, Alice googles 'happy marriage?' and although there seem to be no magic secrets for success, a little later she is invited to take part in an online survey about modern marriage. She is given the label, Wife 22, and is assigned to her caseworker, Researcher 101, who sends her questions periodically, and is also available through email to answer any queries. Alice soon enjoys being able to pour her heart out through the questions that she has to answer but also finds that she is becoming more than a little attracted to her faceless caseworker. They start chatting through facebook and Alice finds it quite exciting to mildly flirt with her new friend. However, the more she does so, the more disgruntled she becomes with her own husband. There comes a point though where Alice has to decide whether to take things further and if she does, what will become of her marriage?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007481772</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSummer|author=Ivo Stourton|title=The Book Lover's TaleKatie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Matt will admit It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that his writing career failedshe and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, and so he had when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to join his wife take an interest in interior designher, where she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he can use his love made any sort of books physical approach to arrange - at a cost - the contents, design her and most importantly the colours, of upper class people's home libraries for themby that time she was obsessed by him. He'll concede that it's a good way to get into Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the houses, island and beds, of rich women, such as his latest flame, Claudiain particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. But why is this, his confession, talking of murder?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather GudenkaufAmanda Craig|title=One Breath AwayThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mrs Oliver has spent her life in Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the classroom-nation novel. Educating. Guiding. Nurturing. But on There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the last day and capture it, crafting an image of term all the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she really wants is to get to 's practically synonymous with the afternoon bell without any dramagenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. A gunman walking She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in to her classroom really does not fit a way that feels natural and lived-in , never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with her plansissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848451326</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timeri N Murari152915118X|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Janie Ryan ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is born married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into a definitely underprivileged familythe tribe. Despite a mother who tries The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to make move into the right decisionsPineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, growing up becomes a fight for survival (both figuratively street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and literally) as Janie encounters social servicesCord can move straight in. Nominally, tough schools, domestic violence they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and an array of Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'uncles', all promising a better future family home. They use it so often that seems as tangible as they abbreviate it to 'the holy grailGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186399</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen MacInnesEmily Critchley|title=Above SuspicionOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In 84 year old Edie has lived in the summer of 1939 Oxford professor Richard Myles 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 wife Frances were preparing for their annual European holiday when they were visited family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by an old the memory of her childhood friend , Lucy, who had went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a request secret she was keeping for themLucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. Would they start their holiday After 'seeing' Lucy in Paristhe high street, meet a man there and then continue their holiday just as he directed? There she was a great deal of tension in Europe and Richard Myles was reluctant to undertake the tasklast time she saw her, mainly because he didn't want she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to put his wife at riskher. Frances had other ideasAnd yet as she remembers the past, but not even they were above suspicionshe is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. At first they were watched but Will she uncover the attentions of some shadowy figures became more pressing as they realised that pre-war Germany was not a comfortable place to be.truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781161534</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=Drew Thomas0008506337|title=CurtainsThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Danny is 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 Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a performer on London’s cabaret circuitglittering career. In the event, but his hard work isn’t doing much for his status they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. When he meets Veronica, who promises Margo did go to Oxford and went on to make him become a starwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, he the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never guesses that this might be too good able to be true. Rapidly falling leave him in love with her – or so he thinks – soon his life revolves around doing her biddingcharge''. But Veronica is a more complex individual than Danny could ever have imagined - and her forcefulness will lead Then Richard left them both down an unimaginable path.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957187807</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Kavenna1914585402|title=Come to the EdgeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you are fortunate enough to own a rural second home hideaway in the UK, this beautifully written I reviewed David F Ross's book will probably give you nightmares. For the rest of us, it[[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a great readcouple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. The target for Joanna Kavenna's satire is the unused propertyIt was a gripping, owned by the wealthyemotionally wounding read, depriving the local population and rereading my review of anywhere to live in the places they it my main takeaway was that I might not have grown uplavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780872135</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon DenmanLucy Ashe|title=ConnectedClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Doug, a maths and computing undergraduate at Essex University, has just pulled the most amazing girlThe year is 1933. So heThe place? Sadler's not really that interested in the file of fractals research best friend Kal has just sent himWells. But while Doug Ballerinas Clara and Cindy Olivia are busily getting it sisters, twins no less. Identical onthe outside but not, we learn, something has gone horribly wrong for Kal and Doug emerges from afternoon delight to on the horrific discovery that his friend has committed suicideinside. Miles away in the countrysideAnd not on stage, Peter is attending his brothereither. Because there's funeral. Martin was a musician but not lot that builds a tortured artist dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and it seems inconceivable some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that he too would take his own lifedon't come from the classroom. But the tripA stage presence, for Petera charm, is more than a family obligation - it's the chance of 'joie de vivre''. The difference between a break from hard-worker, and a stale marriage and an opportunity to indulge in some guilty proximity to his newly-bereaved sister-in-lawstar. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B0089YQPI0</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane FeaverHeather Fawcett|title=An Inventory Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of HeavenFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mavis Gaunt was evacuated to Shipleigh in Devon during World War II Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and went researched meticulously, to live with write her aunt. It wasnlife't just an escape from s work, the dangers very first encyclopaedia of London - it was a welcome relief from her parents' loveless marriage and in her mind it became a heavenly retreatfaeries. In her twenties Whilst she is brilliant at research and with her mother dead there was nothing speaking to keep her in London faeries, she is not so she headed back to Shipleighgood with people. She struck up an unlikely friendship with Frances UpcottSo when she finds herself far, one far North in the small village of three children of a reclusive farmer andHrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, almost against her willshe is not sure what she has done, found nor how to redeem herself drawn into and put her final investigations for her book back on the life of the farmright track. It gave Enter Wendell Bambleby, her a sense of belonging but it ended in tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330006</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Martin Amis|title=Lionel Asbo|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nastydashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads all charm and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. He's violentdelight, uncouth and ignorant. Hemuch to Emily's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bullsfrustration. His 'manner' But why is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on 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. faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben Fountain1398515388|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk''First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, Billy which created the tsunami and what is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from this, in turn, caused the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistsnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The US armydeaths were uncountable, keen to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next week. The majority of many pets were separated from their owners came far down the book takes place on the last day list of this tour when Billy is in his homepriorities but -state of Texas, where six months after the Bush link makes it even more protsunami -war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American of PR events, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadiumKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Accompanying the troop is He wasn't a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised dog person but the soldiers convenience store owner's comment that he can sell their story would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simpleopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shams UddinChristopher Bowden|title=The Year from JahannamMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Wright family begin Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a blog in January 2011. They all want to celebrate a new start after the turmoil patient untangling of recent years. Father Richard had been a casualty of the financial crisisseemingly ordinary woman's life, working for Lehman Brothers at the time of its collapse, and the ensuing chaos had affected the entire family one way or another. But Richard retrained, secured a new job and carried out by her nephew after she has recently earned a huge bonusdied. At last the family are back on track and enjoying the fruits of hard labour. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957175205</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jan Wallentin|title=Strindberg's Star|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Just as he is preparing for an appearance on a television show, The aunt who always provided a stranger approaches Don Titelman safe harbour and asks for his help. This man, Erik Hall, has recently discovered a mysterious body at the bottom little bit of indulgence to a flooded mine shaft. Whilst perfectly preserved, medical checks confirm the man young nephew had had been dead for nearly a hundred years. The deceased apparently committed suicide whilst holding on much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to a metal ankh with some strange writings on find itall out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848879873</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)Jennifer Mason|title=Every Day, Every Hour|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friends. In normal situations one might add ''and a whole lot more'' to that sentence, but Dora and Luka are in Kindergarten, which makes their intense relationship hard to define. As they grow into adults, however, it becomes obvious that there is something between them and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight this it is there and is not going to fade away. Dora’s parents move her across the continent, careers develop and flourish, out Partitions of nowhere they are enveloped by family lives, but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back to one another.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gerry Wells|title=Kicking the Hornets' NestUnity|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=WWII books about the RAF and the Navy are quite common. Books about Special Operations Executive and similar organisations proliferate. Stories about the army are fewer and try as I might I really couldn't think of one which was other than incidentally about tank crew, so when the opportunity came I ''had'' to read 'Kicking the Hornets' Nest' particularly as it's written by an author who crewed a Sherman tank in Operation Overlord, back in June 1944. I had just a couple of nagging doubts. It's a book of short stories. Would I find it easy to pick up - and out down again? The big worry was whether or not this was going to be a macho action story, which wouldn't really be my cup of tea at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780881568</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laura Solomon|title=Hilary and David|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=HilaryHere at Bookbag Towers, a single mother of two troublesome boys meets David, an elderly writer with problems of his own, through Facebook. It’s an odd beginning – they have a mutual friend, so one adds the otherwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and then they start chatting quite spontaneously – but sets the scene well for their atypical relationship. Hilary’s unintentional detective in New Zealand[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], David’s in London. They are many decades apart in age but are clearly both quite lonely when she investigated and looking for someone to talk tounravelled a series of disappearances. So, with the vague anonymity In ''Partitions of social networking on their sideUnity'', they reach out she sets her mind to one anothersolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9881993296</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lionel ShriverWill Carver|title=The New Republic|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Lionel Shriver adds a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal in The New Republic and immediately has it fighting for independence, taking a wry look at terrorism as well as the ethics of the international press corps. After a series of international terrorism acts, the Os Soldados Ousados De Barba, or the SOB for short, have gone quiet at the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a trace. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barrington's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killers, as it were. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne Sward|title=Breathless|rating=3.5|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=GoldDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Novels that feature sport often put people off reading them, particularly if you are not au fait with the sport Five strangers come together in questionone moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. HoweverAs their fates overlap, while the characters story is told in Chris Cleave's ''Gold'' are athletes, specifically cyclists aiming for the 2012 London Olympicsbackwards order, it's more about the characters themselves. In fact, if you are looking for a book to read leading up to avoid the brouhaha of the Olympics this year but still want to get a taste of what all the fuss is about, this would be a superb choicefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340963433</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreview|author=Jonathan Lee|title=Joy|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Very stylish, observant and oh so spiky, this is an incredible, often uncomfortable novel that you just can't put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020427</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miranda FranceJennifer Mason|title=That Summer at Hill FarmPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you were to pass Hill Farm you would think it the perfect country idyll with lambs in the fields''A struggling poetry zine, children playing a mom-and the farmhouse nestled -pop mobile diner in the folds of Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the hills. The truth though is different. Farmer Hayes loves the land2004 Olympics, but hea women's no farmer. His wife is neglected and it's not that long since Isabel miscarried her fourth child. She loves her children but she's not track coach with a particularly good housewife - or wife. She and Hayes were rather bounced into marriage by her aging and doting parents. Now she's trapped in yen for bullwhips, a house billionaire with deatha state-watch beetle and of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a husband who is struggling to keep the farm goingcheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555131</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William NicholsonB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Golden HourCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maggie It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is nervous about committing still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to a live-in relationshipbreathe out. But for Joe Marr, terrified by it's not the idea missile crisis that there must be something better out there's at the front of his mind. Dean is terrified He's been convicted of losing murder. With the love current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his life and old Mrs Dickinson is justfirst few days in HMP Queen's Bench, well, terrifieda relatively new prison. Henry is frustrated by rabbits in He's just getting used to his gardenroommate, Alan is frustrated by workMervyn, and Liz is frustrated by old Mrs Dickinson, who is her mother..learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163936</amazonuk>
}}