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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dawn FrenchOnyi Nwabineli|title=Oh Dear Silvia|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=When Dawn French wrote her first novel [[A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French|A Tiny Bit Marvellous]] I was eager to read it, looking forward to plenty of silly humour and those elusive-when-reading out loud laughs. I was disappointed unfortunately, and actually came away from the book feeling annoyed with the characters and quite discouraged and depressed somehow. So, I approached her new novel with a little trepidation, unsure as Allow Me to whether she deserved a second chance. I'm glad I gave her the benefit of the doubt!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718156064</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Salley Vickers|title=The Cleaner of ChartresIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Agnes is a mystery Anuri spent her childhood on display to the residents of Chartresworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, even as where she goes about filling any shortfall in labour hereposted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, doing any odd job therebasically, and cleaning for some of the people monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and around the fabulous cathedral the town she is so proud of – slowly trying to regain her confidence andto get her life back, even in suing her step-mother to take down the end, cleaning the cathedral itselfcontent about her. There Anuri is an agedbattling alcoholism, dotty professor from Walesfailing to start her PhD, two extremely curmudgeonly undergoing therapy and bitter old gossips, secretly abusing people online and more than enough members of the order whose faith has lapsedreceiving money from them for doing so. She seems perfectly willing to do anything one asksMost importantly, so much so that one might ask whyshe is desperately worried about her little sister, although nobody seems to do so. The answers might be in who is the even-numbered chapters, which take us deeper into this characternew focus of Ophelia's extraordinary pastonline empire. Can she save her sister, and to a linked series of quite tragic events…perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670922129</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Meek1529153298|title=The Heart Broke InList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'The Heart Broke Ins not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, James Meek manages but to combine some big and serious issues into a compellingly readable and entertaining moral thrillerhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. At Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the centre of the book are two siblings who are very differentfamily 'Down South'. Ritchie When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a former rock starfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, now working in the world of reality television producing a game show about teenage pop bands while his younger sistermove would mean leaving her best friend, BecSharon, is a devoted scientist working on a cure for malariaand she'll do anything to prevent that. On the one hand it's a story of family dynamics, but it She's also a thoughtful and well constructed tale of morality and judgement. Setting science against religion it asks very modern day questions not worried about who is the guardian of morality in todaydangers or that her Mum's world and who, if stopped talking - to anyone, has the right to judge others' behaviour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857862901</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sally Tissington1035906708|title=Crocodile on the CarouselDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cath Furnish's life has been so marked out by suffering We tend to such an extent that think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she believes that's what life's about. Despite being married was born to BillGreek parents in Manhattan, raising her granddaughter Amanda New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her daughter Marie being TVfather changed it to 's Callas'Happy Lady', Cath is attracted to make it more manageable in the biblical book of Job, a co-sufferer in her eyesStates. She's even bought a grotesque carousel When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the back garden incorporating such jolly figures as Nazi occupation by a crocodile, a bleeding horse mother who mercilessly exploited her and the gates made no secret of death because it reminds her of him. As much as Amanda loves preference for her grandmotherelder sister, she doesn't want to continue living like this and so sets herself a mission. Despite opposition she ''will'' disprove her upbringing and find love and happiness, so help herJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780950101</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=J K RowlingAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Casual VacancyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's hard The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to know how to describe my experience reading JK Rowling's new bookall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and her first departure from look after the world of Hogwartsbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. 'Liked it' doesn't seem appropriateKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, because I didn't reallyand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. I found it very bleakAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, depressing thanks to 44 Scotland Street and disturbing the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to be honestcharm. I have Katie has no experience in running a friend who is reading it at the moment business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and she says shethere's really enjoying italways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, which just makes me shake my head becauseWilliam, really, this isn't the sort of book you enjoy.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140870420X</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Syd MooreDean Koontz|title=Witch HuntThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The history of witchcraft and thing is, Benny is the complexities of current social politics do not appear very last person to be deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the easiest ingredients delivery to blend smoothly into his house is a new friend, a novel. But Moore has achieved thisbad weather friend called Spike, skilfully weaving the threads of the middle ages with the modern day. This achievement who has also been mixed with some fascinating points about feminismsent 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, witchcraft and Essex stereotypeswill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, all the while presenting them as the narrative of the protagonistif he, Benny, Sadieand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847562698</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E FlanneryKatherine Howe|title=God's GiftA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An ex-soap actorHannah Masury is living in Boston, Tommy Armstrong now hosts having been sent to live with a successful Saturday night chat show. It covers entertainment family who run an inn, and current affairsbeing made to work there from a young age. Recently divorced When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, single Tommy enjoys bedding his researchers she decides to go and then firing themwatch. It Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's something to dodeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, after all, no? And particularly enjoyable if so that theydon're willing t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to take it up the bum. Tommy likes bums. Irritatinglysea, dressing as a boy and joining the ''Dirty Bitch'', aka Susan, Tommynotorious Ned Low's ex-wife, has forgotten all about bums and become pirate ship as a born-again Christiancabin boy. Her new partner She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a 21st century Mary Whitehousemutiny on board, leading a campaign to clean and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the mediaocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B009AEUOFS</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rowan Coleman1471180158|title=Dearest RoseMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rose has finally escaped. For years she has put up with her bullying husband and lived Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the sadness subtlety of her mothera half brick. Jamie's suicide after her father left when she was a young girl. Only onceson, when she was heavily pregnant with her daughter MaddieBo, did anyone show her any warmth 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and kindness and treat her like a human being in her own right. That person was Frasier McCleodthe more you read, an art dealer who had been trying to trace Rosethe more you'll suspect that he's father, John Jacobs,who happened on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to be a very exciting artist. Although take time off at short notice - she couldn't help him, Frasier sent s a postcard frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to thank her and it is go to school. Missed shifts or the village pictured need to be away on that postcard that she makes her way time to nine years later pick Bo up from school are occasions when she Jamie can be controlled and put up with her husband's cruelty no morein the wrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551276</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony CapellaB0CKD1L5JL|title=Love and Other Dangerous ChemicalsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Just when you thought you’d seen (read?) everything, comes this book, the story of the chemistry of Chemistry. Dr Steven J. Fisher Petr is an Oxford scientist whose special area of interest is orphan. Rescued by the female orgasm. His latest work strange, reclusive Bear, he is attracting interest brought up far from drug companies bustling cities and busy human society, in the public alike for it’s an elusive subject: forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a pill that will do for women what Viagra did for men (and I don’t mean help their cardiac problems). Currently brief sojourn in the clinical trial stagehuman company, the results are looking promising until there’s and armed with only a new addition to his group of guinea pigs in the form of Anniepirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a literature post-grad from journey through the same university. Her lover (also her PhD supervisor) is keen for her to take part in forest, broadcasting the hope that Dr Fisher can fix her problem (strange, wild and it is ‘her’ problem, not theirs). Simply put, Annie would rather read a good book than have a good… well, you can fill in your own rhyme hererarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857890255</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy DawsonSarah Marsh|title=Little SisterA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Kate Palmer’s After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life has been blighted with tragedychanges. Her sister Emily died at the age of thirteen Living in a freak accident. Her parents could not cope with time when the grief and subsequently divorced leading use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to her mother living in America and her father suffering a breakdownschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Years later From here, she is married to Rob ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and struggling to cope with being using a new mother to two month old Mathiassystem called Visible Speech. Kate’s always been At the sensible one whereas her younger sistersame time, Anya, has always had a tendency to run away from her troubles Bell is working on other inventions and has never managed to settle down. Thereforeideas, it should come as no surprise to Kate that Anya has taken off once again and has gone diving Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in Mexico. That would have been OK but Anya is now missinga complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751542512</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter HoegB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Elephant Keepers' ChildrenGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Danish writer Peter Høeg ''This story is best known not for his third novel [[Miss Smillaeveryone.'s Feeling For Snow by Peter Hoeg|Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow]], partly because it Lavender Daniels was made into one three weeks short of the more beautiful movie adaptations of modern fictionher fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. While his latest book 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 contagious. It'The Elephant Keepers' Children'' is unlikely to change that association, it s not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a magical, story told through the eyes of the charmingly precocious fourteen crush on seventeen-year -old Peter, full of farcical events, zany chases Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and brilliantly named charactersReggie asked if she would tutor him. If you are looking for a gritty, realistic novel, She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this won't fit the bill, but for all its madcap events, Høeg continues was just an extension. She went to his arch view of events house and has surprising depth in the form of philosophical consideration of religions and faithhe raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846555841</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Jennings1472263936|title=Sworn SecretThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A year ago Anna Thorne It was found dead after presumably falling from the roof of in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her school after drinking vodkafirst trip to Greece. Twelve months later She was alone: her mother, her parentsGreek by birth, Kate had left the family home and Jonrefused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her sistergrandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, LizzieDina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, are still trying retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to make sense of the Junta and come expected his family to terms with what has happened. They each have their own way of dealing with their grief which, rather than uniting, serves uphold his values but saw no reason to isolate each of accommodate them. Ultimately, they are becoming three sad strangers living under the same roof His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901969X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julie CorbinDean Koontz|title=Do Me No HarmAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Olivia Somers is minding her own businessMichael Mace, trying to raise two kids alone in the wake Head of her divorceSecurity, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when everything goes wrong and her son, Robbie, ends up a virus is released in hospitala bio-hazard accident. It’s hard to work out what really happened, or even if Robbie is giving her the full story, but when there’s Finding himself in a further incidentmakeshift mortuary, this time involving a break covered in at their homeplastic, it becomes clear he has a sense that these are no random attackssomething very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and someone is out to get them. With looks around at the help shrouded bodies of a friendly (his dead friends and handsome) detectiveformer colleagues. As he recovers his senses, Olivia tries to piece together the puzzle to work who he realises that there is behind the trouble, and it’s a race against time to figure it out before the next unwelcome surprise from the culpritsomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340918969</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian McEwan|title=Sweet Tooth|rating=4 ''Everything''.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ian McEwan's Michael isn't 'Sweet Tooth'Michael' is part spy novel but more a love story and a tale of deception and half truths. It's also, more subtly, a book about the power, role and importance of fiction. Set in the 1970s, with frequent musical and political references to the UK at that time, Serena Frome is a beautiful, Cambridge-educated daughter of an Anglican bishop with a taste for unsuitable romances. From an early affair with a man who turns out to be homosexual, to an affair with an older lecturer she moves on to a surprise job at MI5 where she had a crush on one of her bosses, again and awkward, repressed and unattractive individual before encountering talented author Tom Haley as part of her job with whom she once again falls in love. Few of these men are what they seem, and neither for that matter is Serena when she has to hide her job from Haleyanymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224097377</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Uncommon Appeal of CloudsGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So, here we are with Isabel Dalhousie in her ninth story, The village is isolated and Ipoor. It'm assuming that you know who she is s surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by now because reallyfarming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, if you don'troofs on homes, then you'd better not start with book number nine and instead you should really go all the way back to the beginning even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the series village and ''The Sunday Philosophy Club.'' Ifthat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, on the other handself-indulgent, you are well acquainted with Isabel then settle yourself down for another good read from the master lazy lout of gentle, funny fictiona man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408704145</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Favel ParrettB0BYF82CXT|title=Past the ShallowsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harry Curren lives with Miles (one of his brothers) ''Bill and their widowed father Amanda are living in a small Tasmanian fishing community. Their mother has been killed semi-detached house, stuck in a car accident but life goes on even if it's more damaged depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and disjointed than beforevery much in love – move in next door. Miles still goes out Despite their different outlooks on his father's fishing boat to ensure their income and Harry spends his time at schoollife, outside amusing himself or being with his the couples befriend each other brother, Joe, who, and life appears to improve for some reasonboth pairs. But all is not what it seems, lives with and their grandfatherincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848547501</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charity NormanShalini Boland|title=After The FallSilent Bride|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It’s the middle of the night when five year old Finn falls from the balcony at his home Alice and Seth are a match made in a remote part of New Zealandheaven. Leaving his twin brother He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and older sister utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in the care of a neighbourwife; beautiful, successful, his mother Martha stays with him as a helicopter races him to confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the nearest hospitalwedding is planned and set. But as he is rushed into surgery When the much-anticipated day arrives, she Alice is taken to one side for questioningwalked down the aisle by her father, beaming with first nursing staff then pride and excitement as she surveys the police congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and social workers raising concerns. Was Finn really sleep walking, something he is prone to do? But if so, how did he come when Seth turns to have suspicious bruises on one side of face his bodyapproaching bride, not in keeping with how he landed? And if it wasn’t Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the accident Martha altar is saying it was, was his mother involved or who is she covering waiting for someone?her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>174331096X</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy Koomson1787636003|title=The Rose Petal Beach|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Tamia and Scott met at school and they were friends before they were anything else although it wasn't to the liking Girls of either family. Scott's brother referred to Tamia as ''that'' - a reference to the colour of her skin. Tamia's family weren't racially prejudiced but they knew the Challey family and their reputation for criminality. It wasn't what they wanted for their daughter: they saw a university education, but were to be disappointed on both counts. It looked to be working well: the marriage seemed stable and they had two beautiful daughters, but then one night it all fell apart. Scott was arrested in front of his wife and children for a dreadful crime. As if this wasn't bad enough, Tami's world disintegrated even further when she discovered that Scott's accuser was someone whom she regarded as a close friend.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874960</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSummer|author=Chris Worthington|title=Setting The Record StraightKatie Bishop|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When he It was twelve Geoff Dealer returned to his Texas home the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and walked in arrived on what looked like a frightening situationthe island. A manRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, trousers round his ankles was pushing his mother up against a wall and she was squealingflattered rather than wary. Mindful It was quite a while before he made any sort of his father's advice about using a gun Geoff grabbed it from the gun cabinet physical approach to her and injured the man with his first shot. The second killed by that time she was obsessed by him. It was their neighbour and Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his father's best friend - who'd obviously been more than a friend to his mother. Lizzie Dealer took interests on the blame - saying that she'd been attacked island and had grabbed in particular in the gun from her son - but her husband was arrested and was killed in prison a couple of days laterbar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848767080</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Herman KochAmanda Craig|title=The DinnerThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Serge Lohman, presidential candidate, is not Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the kind state-of man to frequent -the cafés of ordinary people, and -nation novel. There's something so when his brother Paul and his wife Claire join Serge and wife Babette for dinner, it utterly compelling about any writer who can only be at catch hold of the fanciest atmosphere of locales, the day and for 'fanciest' read poshestcapture it, snootiest, and most overpricedcrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. And while they may To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be in Holland, going Dutch is not on embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the menugenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. This is not Serge’s story, however. It is Paul’s, She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and what he lacks lived-in terms of income, power and influence compared to his brothernever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, he more grappling with issues far larger than makes up for with dry humour and astute observationsthemselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848873824</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Barnes152915118X|title=In the Kingdom of MenPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book begins beautifully with all ''Pineapple Street'' is the characters springing story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to life through fantastically spare and creative descriptiontheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. By The problem's exacerbated when the time we reach Ginclan matriarch, Tilda, living with her her grandfather in asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the stifling atmosphere of Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a strict Methodist minister’s homestreet or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the story is furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in full swing . Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and we follow Gin through her teenage years as she tries hard Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to rebel against all 'the limitations placed upon herGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009194421X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Luis SepulvedaEmily Critchley|title=The Shadow of What we WereOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Chile84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, the modern dayas Edie is starting to lose her memory. Four elderly men meet for one last timeHowever, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, planning something suspiciously underhandwho went missing over 60 years ago, having made arrangements - and discussed Internet dating - online. We're let into the fact worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the grandfather truth of one was a bank robber what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in a classic tale of Robin Hood-style wealth distributionthe high street, but just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to what the outcome find pockets of their plans might be we're forced memories coming back to waither. Elsewhere a domestic incident leads And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to a bizarre death - by record playerday life. And you can just tell IWill she uncover the truth about Lucy'm suggesting you wait to discover the link...s disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1609450027</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cath Staincliffe0008506337|title=Split SecondThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On a late December eveningThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, Emma Curtis is apparently on a bus travelling home from work both sides. Margo was just sixteen when she becomes aware of a young lad being picked on they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by three othersMargo's mother as 'an older man'. Too scared Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to intervene, she sits alone feeling guilty but taking everything inOxford and having a glittering career. To her shame In the event, nineteen year old student, Jason Barnes, comes downstairs on the bus they eloped and immediately challenges Richard took her away from the three youthsIsle of Wight. Luke, the young victim, leaps off the bus Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a chase followswell-respected journalist. Jason continues to try and defend Luke The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and they end up Sasha. Life was lived in Jason's front garden where his parents witness London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the brutal attack. Eventually the trio run off leaving Luke unconscious family home on the snowy groundIsle of Wight. Worse still, is Even then the realisation that Jason has been stabbed and tragically it turns out doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to be fatalleave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013462</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Heller1914585402|title=The Dog StarsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are in North America in a near but post-Apocalyptic future. Those few humans to survive a pandemic have to be treated as carriers, and/or armed and desperate, and so are particularly of note to military-minded survivalist Bangley. And climate and eco-problems have killed off many common species, something closer to narrator HigI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's heart, as heOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a more placid, huntin', shootin' couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and fishin' guyaffecting it was. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnershipIt was a gripping, but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has his watch-tower, while Hig takes off in his Cessna to get away from it allemotionally wounding read, and his flights act as a first line rereading my review of defense. But is it all life could be, for Hig and his dog and Bangley? What is Hig still to make of the last inviting contact he heard my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on his plane's radio - even if that was three years ago? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755392590</amazonuk>it.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael FraynLucy Ashe|title=SkiosClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set on a Greek island, a cultural foundation is preparing for the biggest event in its The year at which renowned academic Dr Norman Wilfred is due to give the keynote speech1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Also heading to Identical on the island outside but not, we learn, on the same plane is Oliver Foxinside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a morally vacant but charming Lothario, who has arranged an assignation with a girl who he has met for only five minutes but has invited to spend a week with him at the villa lot that he was due spend builds a week with his ex-girlfriend before she threw him outdancer. But when the girl sent Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to collect Dr Wilfred detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the airportclassroom. A stage presence, Nikkia charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, turns out to be irresistibly charming Oliver decides to play the role of Dr Wilfred and follow her to the foundation while the real Dr Wilfred, minus luggage is transported to the villa at the other end of the islanda star. Someone still has to give the speech though - will it be the real Dr Wilfred or the fake Dr Wilfred?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571281419</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanHeather Fawcett|title=The Teleportation AccidentEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's hard to know where Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to start in reviewing Ned Beaumanwrite her life's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation Accident''. Reading itwork, you feel like the parent very first encyclopaedia of an ADHD-suffering childfaeries. At times it Whilst she is lovable, brilliant and entertaining, at others you just want to reach for the Ritalin research and tell it speaking to sit faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in a corner quietly while it composes itself. A clue to both the brilliance and frustration small village of Beauman Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is in the vast range of writers not sure what she has done, nor how to whom he has been compared in both this redeem herself and his first novel [[Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman|Boxer, Beetle]]put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. There are hints of people as wide ranging as [[:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]] Enter Wendell Bambleby, [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P G Wodehouse]]her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, [[:Category:Douglas Adams|Douglas Adams]]all charm and delight, Raymond Chandler even [[:Category:Angela Carter|Angela Carter]] much to name just a fewEmily's frustration. Beauman takes a huge range of styles and genres and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be a challenge keeping up But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with him at times.the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998423</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Howard L Anderson1398515388|title=Albert of AdelaideThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Albert First of all, it was the Duck-Billed Platypus lives earthquake, deep in an Adelaide zoo but knows there's more to life than the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. There must be as he's heard The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the storiesloss of livelihoods was widespread. Somewhere beyond The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the cages is Old Australia, tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a land of dreams where there are no zoos and no human captors, just animals who are free to govern themselves and live in perpetual peace and happinessconvenience store. ThatHe wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's a world comment that Albert wants he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to be a part of open his car door and so he escapes, realising that for Tamon the first time dog jumped in his short life his future is in his own webbed paws.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668840X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manu JosephChristopher Bowden|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other PeopleMr Magenta|rating=3.54|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog familyChristopher Bowden''. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below the breadline due to Ouseps latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's constant drinkinglife, and carried out by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma her nephew after she has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next doordied. But their other son Unni is The aunt who always provided a ''cartoonist hottie'' - safe harbour and a handsome prodigy little bit of the comic strip world - or he was until he took indulgence to a young nephew had had a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and output, trying it seems to him an obligation to seek the cause of this suicide, and what we have here is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truthfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles McLeodJennifer Mason|title=American WeatherPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jim Haskin is a very odd manHere at Bookbag Towers, doing a very odd jobwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in a very odd country if this book is to be believed. [[Preposterous: An advertising guru in San FranciscoElizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], he owns when she investigated and unravelled a touchy feely company which boasts such wonders as a ‘Dream Pod’series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', a room for his team she sets her mind to relax in with sleeping bags, TVs and solving a cooler brimming with organic fruit teamurder. That’s for their down time in between saving the world, promoting one eco-friendly item after another and doing other worthy things. Except behind the scenes, Jim Haskin is not that man. While his team are organising poetry slams to help homeless prostitutes, he’s coming up with fight-back campaigns, showing that bleach makes a beach better, chemical spills aren't as bad as you first might think, and other quite inexplicable things.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542226</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-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 bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|isbn=B09STS96HS}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0B2N7MVYM|title=Sunshine on Scotland StreetThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I can hardly believe this 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 the eighth book about Scotland Streetstill very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, and it's so nice to just pick up where we left off and discover whatnot the missile crisis that's been happening to all our friendsat the front of his mind. This time we have Angus and DomenicaHe's weddingbeen convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, Cyrilit's adventures whilst theyhard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen're away on their honeymoons Bench, Bruce encounters a rather strange gentleman and of course thererelatively new prison. He's plenty just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of Bertie to entertain us!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972329</amazonuk>the McArthur brothers.
}}
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