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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General fictionFiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harriet Lane1529153298|title=Alys, AlwaysThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harriet LaneIt's debut novel1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'Alyss family, Alwaysthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have ' garnered a raft of favourable coverage from the professional reviewers when it was first published in hardbackdisappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Concerning, as it does, a young woman who works as a sub-editor in a publishing company and a Booker winning novelist, there is always the chance Miv's upset because she's overheard that this was due her father wants to move the reviewers merely recognizing the world that is portrayedfamily 'Down South'. This view is unfounded though - it When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a superbly drawnfrightening, foreign place, frequently very funnybest avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and often psychologically chilling story of ambition and class differencesshe'll do anything to prevent that. It thoroughly deserves all She's not worried about the praise dangers or that has been heaped upon ither Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780220014</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Harrington1035906708|title=PenelopeDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Penelope is a socially awkward Harvard studentWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, chronicling her first year at the famed institution. She has a thing for Hercule Poirot (don’t we all?)but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, is allergic to catsNew York, in December 1923 and quite worryingly believes that ''Dirty Dancing: Havana Nightsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' is one of the best films of all times. She is determined to make friends but finds it more manageable in the options quite limitedStates. Her roommates are either too studious (Emma) or too dubious (Lan) and the boys downstairs are peculiar creatures, to say When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the least. The dashing, mysterious foreigner Gustav is worth Nazi occupation by a second glance, but never seems to be where she wants him to be, when she wants him to be theremother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, which is annoyingJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844089266</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael WhiteAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Kennedy ConspiracyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Kennedy assassination has been Perfect Passion Company is a topic of interest and conspiracy ever since it happened. A little while agodating agency in Edinburgh, Stephen King put his own take on that period of American history run by using it Ness and operating as an alternative to all the basis for his novel ''11/22/63''online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Now Michael White Ness has done asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the samebusiness, taking as Ness is planning to take a similar tack trip to King in wondering what would happen if people could go back Canada to that period get away for a while. Katie is coming out of timea break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance 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 the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but using the concept of rebirth instead of one of time travelwith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099569272</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip S NeweyKatherine Howe|title=Maybe They'll Remember MeA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Gregory receives Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a letter from family who run an ageing actress requesting his presenceinn, he takes the only sensible action: he hops on and being made to work there from a plane young age. When she hears there is to Switzerland be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to visit her homego and watch. Whilst there Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, she reveals Hannah finds herself embroiled in a multi-layered story young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that helps him understand more about his parentsthey don' lifet find and kill her too, and by associationthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, his dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of lifeon the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148006632X</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erlend Loe1471180158|title=DopplerMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Doppler. He describes himself late Jamie Matson works in this as 'an upper-class grocery store, for a failed man of my time. Or just who's a man control freak with all the subtlety of a failed timehalf brick. Depending on how you look at it.Jamie' The typical Oslo residents son, a diligent career man with a young familyBo, he falls off 'has his mountain bike one day problems'. He's asthmatic and has a kind of epiphanythe more you read, deciding to avoid everyone else and live alone in the forestmore you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. The book starts when he gains Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a companion however – he is short of food frequent flier in the local A&E and drink and kills an elk, only sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to find school. Missed shifts or the animal's baby latching need to be away on time to him pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and forming an unbreakable bond…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851050</amazonuk>put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wayne MacauleyB0CKD1L5JL|title=The CookRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Frasier’s Law states that if you flick through Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the TV channels long enoughstrange, no matter what time reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of day or night you will eventually stumble across Kelsey Grammar enjoying Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a cappuccino in Café Nervosa brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the greatest sitcom spin off of them allstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780876378</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=C J SansomSarah Marsh|title=DominionA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1952 and twelve years since Churchill became Minister After a bout of War and Halifax took over from Chamberlain scarlet fever as Prime Ministera child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Churchill had thought that he might be able to run the war from that position butSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, Halifax, the appeaser, held sway and Britain surrendered to Germany everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the aftermath use of Dunkirk. Russia fought onsign language was seen as something only savages do, but it was Ellen is sent to a war of attrition rather than one which looked school where she is taught to come to a clear conclusionlip read, but physically restrained from signing. The British people are From here, she ends up in another school studying under a violent, authoritarian rule Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and British Jews face using a grim futuresystem called Visible Speech. Winston Churchill - aged At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and possibly infirm - is the head of the Resistance organisationideas, but he's forced to live his life and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in hiding and on the runa complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230744168</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0BC3YTCMR|title=Trains and Lovers: The Heart's JourneyGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Do you have ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a train journey to make? Will it take you several hours? If sovery bright student, then I can't think of a better place bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to sit and read Alexander McCall Smithhug her in case it's new, standalone novelcontagious. It's all about four people travelling not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on a train you see, 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 his house and it's all about lovehe raped her. I gorged on it one eveningIn shock, reading it all in one go without stopping, and it's really rather lovely!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972450</amazonuk>she even allowed him to give her a lift home.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Monica McInerney1472263936|title=The House of MemoriesFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ella Fox's life would never have been described as easyIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Her parents divorced when she She was young and not long after, alone: her father was killed in a light aircraft crash. Her mother remarried , Greek by birth, had left the family home and although Ella loved her new refused to return, but Mary and funny stepbrother, Charlie, she could not stem Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her feelings of jealousy when grandparents or understanding her half sister Jess is born not long after Greek heritage. Her trip to the marriagefamily apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. Although she lived halfway across the world from him, she always turned She grew to love her Uncle Lucas in her lowest moments. Itgrandmother and the family's hardly surprising thenmaid, that years laterDina, after the tragic death but was wary - and frightened - of her twenty month old songrandfather, Felix, she ultimately runs retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her uncle in Londonfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230763014</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A K HillDean Koontz|title=A Mediocre ManAfter Death|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Francis James HumbletonMichael Mace, the 'mediocre man' Head of the title Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is quiet and reserved, hardworking and released in a man of such regular habits that his neighbours can set their clocks by his departure to work each morningbio-hazard accident. His life was unassumingFinding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, unnoticed by all but he has a sense that something very few , very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his death only came to light because dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his employers knew senses, he realises that there is something must be wrong when different about him; he didncan 't return to work after the Christmas break'feel'' everything. Mr Humbleton had been murdered, at precisely (what else could it be?) 3am in what looked to be a burglary gone wrong''Everything''. Only Mr Humbleton had nothing that was worth stealing and itMichael isn't ''Michael''s down to Detective Inspector Johnson and Detective Constable Smith to investigate his life as well as his deathanymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B008YWQTME</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John GrishamB0BVDC2VWH|title=The RacketeerGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Malcolm Bannister The village is forty-three years old isolated and a lawyerpoor. HeIt's also in prison for surrounded by a crime he didn't know he was committing Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and in which he had no criminal intentits blossom provides herbal medicines. Halfway through a ten-year stretch he's the only The black man in wood of the prison serving time for a white collar crime: that's what happens when you're just a bit naive forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and what looks like a genuine real estate deal turns out to be part of a massive money laundering operationeven gallows, if needed. The prison he's fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is relatively relaxed and he's the librarianreason Volushka, but he's lost his joba drunken, his wife's divorced him and he wonders if he'll ever see his young son again. Other than thatself-indulgent, life's pretty much lazy lout of a muchnessman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444729748</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dawn FrenchB0BYF82CXT|title=Oh Dear SilviaSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|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''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, looking forward to plenty stuck in a depressing rut of silly humour boredom and those elusive-disappointment, when-reading out loud laughsTerry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. I was disappointed unfortunatelyDespite their different outlooks on life, and actually came away from the book feeling annoyed with the characters couples befriend each other and quite discouraged and depressed somehowlife appears to improve for both pairs. SoBut all is not what it seems, I approached her new novel with a little trepidation, unsure as to whether she deserved a second chanceand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. I'm glad I gave her the benefit of the doubt!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718156064</amazonuk>'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Salley VickersShalini Boland|title=The Cleaner of ChartresSilent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Agnes is Alice and Seth are a mystery to the residents of Chartres, even as she goes about filling any shortfall in labour here, doing any odd job there, and cleaning for some of the people in and around the fabulous cathedral the town is so proud of – and, even match made in the end, cleaning the cathedral itselfheaven. There He is an agedeverything she has been searching for; handsome, dotty professor from Walesaccomplished, two extremely curmudgeonly and bitter old gossipsclever, funny; total and more than enough members of the order whose faith has lapsedutter husband-material. She seems perfectly willing to do anything one asksis all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, so much so that one might ask whysuccessful, although nobody seems to do confident… and sothe inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. The answers might be in When the evenmuch-numbered chaptersanticipated day arrives, which take us deeper into Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this characterjoyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's extraordinary pastworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, and who is waiting for her to a linked series of quite tragic events…become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670922129</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Meek1787636003|title=The Heart Broke InGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In ''The Heart Broke In'', James Meek manages to combine some big It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and serious issues into a compellingly readable Caroline went backpacking around Greece and entertaining moral thriller. At the centre of arrived on the book are two siblings who are very differentisland. Ritchie is a former rock star Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, now working so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in the world of reality television producing a game show about teenage pop bands while his younger sister, Becher, is a devoted scientist working on a cure for malariashe was flattered rather than wary. On the one hand it's It was quite a story while before he made any sort of family dynamics, but it's also a thoughtful and well constructed tale of morality physical approach to her and judgementby that time she was obsessed by him. Setting science against religion it asks very modern day questions about who is Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the guardian of morality island and in particular in today's world and who, if anyone, has the right to judge others' behaviourbar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857862901</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sally TissingtonAmanda Craig|title=Crocodile on the CarouselThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cath FurnishFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's life has been something so marked out by suffering to such utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an extent image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she believes that's what life's about. Despite being married to Bill, raising her granddaughter Amanda and her daughter Marie being TV's 'Happy Lady', Cath is attracted to practically synonymous with the biblical book genre of Job, a co-sufferer in her eyescontemporary social fiction at this point. She's even bought has such a grotesque carousel gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the back garden incorporating such jolly figures as a crocodile, a bleeding horse and day into the gates lives of death because it reminds her of him. As much as Amanda loves her grandmother, she doesn't want to continue living like this and so sets herself characters in a mission. Despite opposition she ''will'' disprove her upbringing way that feels natural and find love and happinesslived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, so help hergrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780950101</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J K Rowling152915118X|title=The Casual VacancyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's hard to know how to describe my experience reading JK Rowling's new bookPineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and her first departure from the world of HogwartsGeorgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They'Liked it' doesnre Stocktons, only Sasha isn't seem appropriate, because I didna Stockton by birth so she isn't reallyreadily accepted into the tribe. I found it very bleakThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, depressing asks Cord and disturbing Sasha if they'd like to be honestmove into the Pineapple Street property. I Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a friend who is reading it at street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the moment reality. Darley and she says sheGeorgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's really enjoying living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it, which just makes me shake my head because, really, this isnto 't the sort of book you enjoyGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140870420X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Syd MooreEmily Critchley|title=Witch HuntOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The history of witchcraft 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 the complexities of current social politics do not appear bring Edie to be the easiest ingredients live with his family, as Edie is starting to blend smoothly into a novellose her memory. But Moore has achieved this However, skilfully weaving Edie is tormented by the threads memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the middle ages with thing that reveals the modern daytruth of what happened all that time ago. This achievement has also been mixed with some fascinating points about feminism, witchcraft and Essex stereotypes After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, all the while presenting them just as she was the narrative last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the protagonistpast, Sadieshe 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>1847562698</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=John E Flannery0008506337|title=God's GiftThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An exThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-soap actorconsuming, Tommy Armstrong now hosts a successful Saturday night chat showapparently on both sides. It covers entertainment and current affairs Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Recently divorced, single Tommy enjoys bedding his researchers Richard was twenty-one and then firing themdescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. It Her parents worried that Richard's something influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to do, after allOxford and having a glittering career. In the event, no? And particularly enjoyable if they're willing eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to take it up the bumbecome a well-respected journalist. Tommy likes bums The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Irritatingly Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: 'Dirty Bitch'she would never be able to leave him in charge', aka Susan, Tommy's ex-wife, has forgotten all about bums and become a born-again Christian. Her new partner is a 21st century Mary Whitehouse, leading a campaign to clean up the media.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B009AEUOFS</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Capella1914585402|title=Love and Other Dangerous ChemicalsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Just when you thought you’d seen (read?) everything, comes this I reviewed David F Ross's book, the story of the chemistry of Chemistry. Dr Steven J. Fisher is an Oxford scientist whose special area [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of interest is the female orgasm. His latest work is attracting interest from drug companies years back and the public alike for it’s an elusive subject: a pill that will do for women what Viagra did for men (remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and I don’t mean help their cardiac problems)affecting it was. Currently in the clinical trial stageIt was a gripping, the results are looking promising until there’s a new addition to his group of guinea pigs in the form of Annieemotionally wounding read, a literature post-grad from the same university. Her lover (also her PhD supervisor) is keen for her to take part in the hope that Dr Fisher can fix her problem (and rereading my review of it is ‘her’ problem, my main takeaway was that I might not theirs). Simply put, Annie would rather read a good book than have a good… well, you can fill in your own rhyme herelavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857890255</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy DawsonAshe|title=Little Sister|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Kate Palmer’s life has been blighted with tragedy. Her sister Emily died at the age of thirteen in a freak accident. Her parents could not cope with the grief and subsequently divorced leading to her mother living in America Clara and her father suffering a breakdown. Years later, she is married to Rob and struggling to cope with being a new mother to two month old Mathias. Kate’s always been the sensible one whereas her younger sister, Anya, has always had a tendency to run away from her troubles and has never managed to settle down. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to Kate that Anya has taken off once again and has gone diving in Mexico. That would have been OK but Anya is now missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751542512</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Hoeg|title=The Elephant Keepers' ChildrenOlivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Danish writer Peter Høeg The year is best known for his third novel [[Miss Smilla1933. The place? Sadler's Feeling For Snow by Peter Hoeg|Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow]]Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, partly because it was made into one of on the more beautiful movie adaptations of modern fictioninside. While his latest bookAnd not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that 'The Elephant Keepers' Childrenje ne sais quoi'' is unlikely to change , that associationdon't come from the classroom. A stage presence, it is a magicalcharm, story told through the eyes of the charmingly precocious fourteen year old Peter, full of farcical events, zany chases and brilliantly named charactersa ''joie de vivre''. If you are looking for The difference between a gritty, realistic novel, this won't fit the bill, but for all its madcap eventshard-worker, Høeg continues his arch view of events and has surprising depth in the form of philosophical consideration of religions and faitha star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846555841</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda JenningsHeather Fawcett|title=Sworn SecretEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A year ago Anna Thorne was found dead after presumably falling from the roof of her school after drinking vodka. Twelve months laterEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, her parentsand she has travelled extensively, Kate and Jonresearched meticulously, and to write her sisterlife's work, Lizzie, are still trying to make sense the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and come speaking to terms faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has happeneddone, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. They each have their own way of dealing with their grief which Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, rather than unitingall charm and delight, serves much to isolate each of themEmily's frustration. Ultimately, they are becoming three sad strangers living under But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the same roof.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184901969X</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Corbin1398515388|title=Do Me No HarmThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dr Olivia Somers is minding her own businessFirst of all, it was the earthquake, trying to raise two kids alone deep in the wake of her divorceocean floor, when everything goes wrong which created the tsunami and her sonthis, Robbiein turn, ends up in hospitalcaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. It’s hard to work out what really happened The deaths were uncountable, or even if Robbie is giving her and the full story, loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but when there’s - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a further incident, this time involving dog outside a break in at their home, it becomes clear that these are no random attacks, and someone is out to get themconvenience store. With the help of He wasn't a friendly (and handsome) detective, Olivia tries to piece together dog person but the puzzle convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to work who is behind the trouble, open his car door and it’s a race against time to figure it out before Tamon the next unwelcome surprise from the culpritdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340918969</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian McEwanChristopher Bowden|title=Sweet ToothMr Magenta|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ian McEwan's ''Sweet Tooth'' 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 Haley.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097377</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So, here we are with Isabel Dalhousie in her ninth story, and IChristopher Bowden'm assuming that you know who she s latest novel is by now because really, if you dona patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman'ts life, then you'd better not start with book number nine carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and instead you should really go all the way back a little bit of indulgence to the beginning of the series a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and ''The Sunday Philosophy Club.'' If, on the other hand, you are well acquainted with Isabel then settle yourself down for another good read from the master of gentle, funny fictionit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704145</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Favel ParrettJennifer Mason|title=Past the ShallowsPartitions of Unity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harry Curren lives with Miles (one of his brothers) Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and their widowed father unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a small Tasmanian fishing communityseries of disappearances. Their mother has been killed in a car accident but life goes on even if itIn ''Partitions of Unity's more damaged and disjointed than before. Miles still goes out on his father's fishing boat , she sets her mind to ensure their income and Harry spends his time at school, outside amusing himself or being with his other brother, Joe, who, for some reason, lives with their grandfathersolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848547501</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charity NormanWill Carver|title=After The FallDaves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It’s the middle of the night when five year old Finn falls from the balcony at his home Five strangers come together in one moment as a remote part of New Zealand. Leaving suicide bomber prepares to detonate his twin brother and older sister in the care of vest on a neighbourLondon tube line. As their fates overlap, his mother Martha stays with him as a helicopter races him to the nearest hospital. But as he story is rushed into surgerytold in backwards order, she is taken leading up to one side for questioning, with first nursing staff then the police and social workers raising concernsfateful moment. Was Finn really sleep walking, something he is prone to do? But if so, how did he come to have suspicious bruises on one side of his body, not in keeping with how he landed? And if it wasn’t the accident Martha is saying it was, was his mother involved or is she covering for someone?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>174331096X</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dorothy KoomsonJennifer Mason|title=The Rose Petal BeachPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Tamia and Scott met at school and they were friends before they were anything else although it wasn't to the liking of either family. Scott's brother referred to Tamia as ''that'' A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and- pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a reference to 400-meter hurdler who just missed the colour of her skin. Tamia2004 Olympics, a women's family weren't racially prejudiced but they knew track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the Challey family and their reputation for criminality. It wasn't what they wanted for their daughter: they saw -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a university educationlife sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), but were to be disappointed on both countsa cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia. 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>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Herman KochB0B2N7MVYM|title=The DinnerCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Serge Lohman, presidential candidate, is not It's the kind 10th of man December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to frequent put what happens in context, the cafés of ordinary Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people, and so when his brother Paul and his wife Claire join Serge and wife Babette 's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for dinnerJoe Marr, it can only be 's not the missile crisis that's at the fanciest front of locales, and for his mind. He'fanciest' read poshest, snootiest, and most overpriceds been convicted of murder. And while they may be in Holland With the current state of medical knowledge, going Dutch is not on it's hard to think otherwise than that the menu. This is not Serge’s storyprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, howevera relatively new prison. It is Paul’s He's just getting used to his roommate, and what he lacks in terms of incomeMervyn, power and influence compared learning to his brother, he more than makes up for with dry humour and astute observationsbe wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873824</amazonuk>
}}