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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick AlexanderOnyi Nwabineli|title=The French HouseAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=CC was trapped in a job Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she no longer felt able to do in a city which wasnposted every step of Anuri't really hers childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Her boyfriend, Victor, had moved to France to live Now Anuri is in a farmhouse he'd inherited her twenties and whilst giving everything up she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and moving out there to join him wasn't the most rational decision she'd ever taken it ''did'' feel like a get her life back, suing her step in -mother to take down the right directioncontent about her. Only - there were a couple of problemsAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. The south Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of France in January can be bitterly cold, particularly when youOphelia're a good way up a mountains online empire. And it's going to feel even worse when the property you're going to lacks some of Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the most basic facilities - amongst them most of a roof.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857896350</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lesley Gray1529153298|title=The King's JockeyList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In June 1913 Emily Wilding Davison ran out in front of the KingIt's horse at the Epsom Derby: she died of her injuries1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Her actions are often quoted in history books and whether you think her to be a suffragette martyr or a deluded (A woman? I mean, few are ignorant of her or honestly...) She's not what she did's worrying Miv's family, though. But how many people remember the jockey who was up on that fateful day? Women have been disappearing. Few will know his nameWell, or that what happened at the Derby would haunt him for years they've been murdered, but to come as he believed himself responsible for killing Emily Davisonhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv''The Kings upset because she's Jockeyoverheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South' . When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the story of Herbert move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'Bertiell do anything to prevent that. She' Jones, of s not worried about the life which brought him dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to the Derby and of what happened in the years afterwardsanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907947612</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jami Attenberg1035906708|title=The MiddlesteinsDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edie Middlestein almost has the American dream within her grasp. She trained We tend to think of Maria Callas as a lawyerGreek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, has a husbandNew York, a daughter who followed her professional footsteps in December 1923 and a son married only moved to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving childrenAthens when she was thirteen. There are just two flies Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1States. Edie is When she was back in Athens - supposedly so morbidly obese that she has to undergo surgery; could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and 2. this is the moment made no secret of her husband chooses to leave preference for herelder sister, Jackie. Apart from that…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jodi PicoultAlexander McCall Smith|title=The StorytellerPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sage Singer The Perfect Passion Company is scarred both mentally and physically 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 never really got over asked her mother's deathyounger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. She works as Katie is coming out of a break up with a baker as bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the night work allows her chance to come home to hide away Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from people Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and sleep in daylight hoursthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but she does develop one friendship which probably only happens because it seems non-threateningwith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Josef WeberKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, pillar of the local communitybut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, attends the same grief counselling group as Sage - and hethere's in his nineties. But when Sage relaxes into the relationship Josef tells always her about himself very helpful (and asks her rather handsome) neighbour, William, to help him to die. Sage is shocked at the request and then repelled as Josef tells her more of his story.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444766635</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paula LichtarowiczDean Koontz|title=The First Book 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 Calamity LeekBenny, 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}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I know I'm going Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to face live with a dilemma in reviewing this bookfamily who run an inn, because, really, the best way and being made to approach it is to come at it knowing nothing at allwork there from a young age. And it's very hard When she hears there is to write about it without giving be a hanging of some important things away! Let's start with pirates in the basicstown, in that this is a story told by Calamity Leek, a child living together with her 'sisters', taken care of by 'aunty' she decides to go and occasionally visited by 'mother'watch. Calamity is Enthralled and horrified in charge of a book called the Appendixequal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in which everything a young boy's death at the girls could possibly need to know about their lives is writtenhands of two vicious pirates. They live closeted in their own small farmyard areaShe hides away, protected from the outside world by 'the wallso that they don't find and kill her too, their enemies being the 'injuns' and 'demonmales'. I knowthen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, thatdressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a lot cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of words things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in quotes. Let me explain..her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091944228</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will Storr1471180158|title=The Hunger and the Howling of Killian LoneMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Killian Lone grows up Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a home lacking in love and securityhalf brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. For these He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he relies 's on his elderly aunt Dorothy, an accomplished cookthe autistic spectrum. Indeed his visits Sometimes Jamie needs to Dorothy revolve around food as he absorbs all take time off at short notice - she can teach him, slowly inheriting her passion 's a frequent flier in the local A&E and skill along with her knowledgesometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. This attachment Missed shifts or the need to food then becomes his career choice, leading be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the unfortunate discovery of a family secret that has remained hidden for a very long timewrong. Why 'unfortunate'? There's It was going to come to a reason for its concealment… a very, very good reasonhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720807</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom WinterB0CKD1L5JL|title=Lost and FoundRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carol has lived in a state of unhappiness for many yearsPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, married to a man she doesn't love (and probably never has) and with a daughter whom she doesn't understand (and probably never will). But Sophie he is just about independent now brought up far from bustling cities and Carol is determined that she's going to tell Bob that busy human society, in the marriage is over - that sheforests of Washington's leaving - but something always gets in the wayOlympic Peninsula. As her frustration grows she writes letters - to the world at large - After Bear dies and posts them. It doesn't ''change'' anythinga brief sojourn in human company, but she does feel better. She even puts and armed with only a smiley face pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the envelopeforest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472101596</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Beth GutcheonSarah Marsh|title=GossipA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Loviah FrenchAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf met when they were at boarding schoolEllen Lark loses her hearing. Lovie owns Suddenly plunged into a top-class dress shop world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in Manhattan - a time when the place where women use of a certain class go when they want sign language was seen as something for only savages do, Ellen is sent to a special occasion and school where she is taught to be secure in the knowledge that they will be treated well and discreetlylip read, but physically restrained from signing. Dinah is a columnist From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who chronicles has been teaching the lives of New York's rich deaf and famous, whilst Avis is using a prominent figure in the art worldsystem called Visible Speech. Lovie At the same time, Bell is our narrator working on other inventions and she's also the glue which holds the three women together. They're both devoted to her ideas, and she to them, but Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a small, imagined slight, many decades earlier, has left an icy distance between Dinah and Aviscomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857899821</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernardine BishopB0BC3YTCMR|title=Unexpected Lessons in LoveGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cecilia Banks ''This story is not 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 Helen Gatehouse met by chance suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in a doctorcase it's waiting room and a friendship developed because they were both cancer survivors, albeit with a colostomycontagious. It was 's not easy being a case of opposites attracting: Cecilia was quiet, reserved, married for the second time and the mother of Ian whom she idolisedblack girl whose skin is 84% white. Helen She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never married, loud in the nicest sense of the word and an authorthought he would notice her. They gave each other mutual support Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and an outlet for their preoccupationsReggie asked if she would tutor him. People with whom you can discuss the, er, intricacies of your stoma are few and far between! The relationship wasn't entirely uncriticalShe readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: Helen this was less than impressed when Ian dumped (sorry - there's really no other word for it) a baby on just an extension. She went to his motherhouse and he raped her. Cephas was the result of a fling he'd had with the child's mother and In shock, she'd disappeared. He - even allowed him to give her a war correspondent - was on his way abroadlift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854782X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Prowse1472263936|title=What have I done?The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Kate Gavier married Mark Brooker, she It was full of optimism for their marriage and their futurein 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. However She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, from had left the first day of their marriagefamily home and refused to return, her dreams were shattered as she realised but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that Mark was nothing more than it would be a cruel bullypity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. He even insisted on calling her Kathryn rather than Kate which is how she prefers Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be knownthe first of several annual visits. There followed sixteen years of torment and torture as Mark strove She grew to control his wife and punish love her for any wrongdoings – of which there were many. To the outside world though, it looked as though Mark grandmother and Kathryn had the perfect loving marriagefamily's maid, mainly due to Kathryn’s resolve to spare her childrenDina, Dominic but was wary - and Lydiafrightened - of her grandfather, from knowing retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and witnessing their father’s crueltyexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. One day though, she snapped His prejudices included Helena's red hair and, for the first time in green eyes - inherited from her life, fought back. Hours later, Mark was dead and Kathryn was locked up in a police cell being questioned about what happenedfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781853789</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joyce Carol OatesB0BVDC2VWH|title=Daddy LoveThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A short while ago, I read [[The Corn Maiden village is isolated and Other Nightmares poor. It's surrounded by Joyce Carol Oates]] a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and was moved by the sheer emotional impact of the stories it containedits blossom provides herbal medicines. This was especially true The black wood of the title storyforest provides heat and warmth, which looked at the impact roofs on a family torn by the disappearance of their daughterhomes, and even gallows, if needed. The synopsis of ''Daddy Love'' suggested a similar impact, given the nature fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the story village and what I'd recently discovered about that is the power reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of Oates' writinga man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781850658</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J E RyderB0BYF82CXT|title=Blood PoolSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Samantha Shelley was surprised to become the owner of ''Bill and Amanda are living in a boatyard when her husband died semi-detached house, stuck in a cliff fall. She had worked depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in the East Devon boatyard - run it love – move in fact - for quite some time but it's the men of the Shelley 'blood pool' who have always inherited the land for the past two hundred yearsnext door. She was aware of ill-feeling against her in the villageDespite their different outlooks on life, but her priority was to keep the business running as smoothly as possible for herself couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for the staff she employedboth pairs. There was some support in the village - an old friendBut all is not what it seems, known to one and all as their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'the Prof' - had always been there for her and willing to listen to her outpourings or just to chatter as she drank coffee. Then he disappeared in violent circumstances.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00AR0XFX2</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia GregsonShalini Boland|title=Jasmine NightsThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The temptingly titled Jasmine Nights starts promisinglyAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. Saba He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a talented singer whose gift to wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the war wedding is entertaining planned and set. When the troopsmuch-anticipated day arrives, comes from an unhappy family backgroundAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and one that when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has little patience for absolutely no idea who the man at the opportunities for women brought about by war. Domaltar is, a fighter pilot who has sustained injuries, is feeling displaced - the war has changed waiting for her to become his world foreverwife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409103048</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Toni Jordan1787636003|title=Nine DaysThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christopher 'Kip' Westaway lives in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia with mother Jean, sister Connie It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and his twin, Francisarrived on the island. Kip's mother considers him a layabout who doesnRachel wasn't deserve the special privileges of his educationally elite brother and exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so he works at the big house next door for the Hustingswhen thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, caring for their horsesshe was flattered rather than wary. One day Mr Husting presents Kip with It was quite a shilling; their little secretwhile before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. As its 1939Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, that's a fair amount of money so Kip hides it away, not realising how special that coin will become as looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the decades passgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444763555</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah ButlerAmanda Craig|title=Ten Things I've Learnt About LoveThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alice returns home to spend time with her dying fatherFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. SheThere's been travelling in Mongoliasomething so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, finding temporary escape from crafting an image of the issues that had haunted her life country as it stands in London but now, on her return, events bring the pain she thought was behind her into sharp focusone particular moment. Meanwhile Daniel To say that Amanda Craig is an elderly vagrant who calls skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the streets genre of London homecontemporary social fiction at this point. He seeks his lost child, leaving She has such a trail gift for weaving the ongoing issues of random items across the city in day into the hope lives of reunion like someone occupying her characters in a verse of ''Eleanor Rigby''. Disparate lives, seeking love way that feels natural and acceptance lived-in a world that seems to exclude it, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447222490</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gavin Extence152915118X|title=The Universe Versus Alex WoodsPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= While re-entering ''Pineapple Street'' is the UK with some human ashes and a stash story of marijuanathree women: Sasha, Alex Woods Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is stopped married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by customs birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and referred Sasha if they'd like to move into the policePineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. It all started 6 years before whenThey won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, as an 11 year old living so Sasha and Cord can move straight in England's West Country. Nominally, his escape from bullies necessitates breaking into they had a shed; choice but that wasn't the shed of a man with a gun pointing at Alexreality. The man is American Vietnam veteran Isaac Peterson Darley and, whatever his school teachers may say Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the contrary, this is the moment when Alexgold digger'. She's education really begins; this and living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the moment when he was hit on the head by a passing meteor of courseGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444765884</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carolyn MathewsEmily Critchley|title=Transforming PandoraOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet Pandora Armstrong 84 year old Edie has lived in the spring of 2003 she's grieving same small town for almost her husbandwhole life, Mikebut now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, who had died just a few weeks beforeas Edie is starting to lose her memory. It hadn't been his first heart attack However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and he had reduced his workload but this attack the worry that there was a secret she was fatalkeeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. He was only After 'seeing' Lucy in his fifties and Pandora feels that he'd been snatched away from her the high street, just as they'd only been married for a few years. When a friend suggests that she goes with was the last time she saw her , she starts to an Evening of Clairvoyance she runs out find pockets of excuses memories coming back to refuse and although her. And yet as she's not exactly ''convinced'' by what remembers the past, she hears there's a lingering doubtis forgetting more and more in her day to day life. A spirit voice mentioned her children and Pandora was adamant that Will she didn't have any children - ituncover the truth about Lucy's actually quite a sore point - but that wasn't true of Mike.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780997450</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=Chloe Hooper0008506337|title=The EngagementGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Chloe Hooper's gothic, psychological thriller concerns an The love affair between a thirtyMargo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-something English girlconsuming, Liese, working apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in Australia at her unclelove. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's real estate business influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a blandly handsome Australian farmer, Alexanderglittering career. Set over one weekend as Liese is heading to Alexander's remote family farm for In the first time for a weekend of passionevent, this is a classic 'girl trapped in spooky house they eloped and situation' story with a dark, sexual twistRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Liese, who trained as an interior architect, met Alexander while showing him around exclusive Melbourne properties Margo did go to Oxford and, has somehow managed went on to get herself into become a situation whereby Alexander pays her for her attentionswell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, believing that she is some kind of prostituteImogen and Sasha. He's even paying her handsomely for her time Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the weekendIsle of Wight. With debts of her own, Liese willingly encourages this perception with little idea of Even then the problems doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to which this fantasy will leadleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096346</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jack Sheffield1914585402|title=School's Out!Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= The beginning of September 1983 starts I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a new academic year for the village primary school couple of Ragley-on-the-Forestyears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Headmaster Jack Sheffield starts the autumn term with It was a skip in his step as he and wife Sally enjoy their new babygripping, emotionally wounding read, John William despite the broken nights. What else will the year bring? The advent of a new teacher and a tragedy that strikes sorrow in the heart rereading my review of the village reduces Jack's skip a bit but there are always moments to lift the mood; for instance, whatever it my main takeaway was that little Madonna Fazackerly did in her cat's ear. It's all there in the school's daily log; perhaps I might not the one that the inspectors see, you understand, all is explained in living detail here in Jack's memoir of life as a teacher and villagerhave lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552167037</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie DivryLucy Ashe|title=The Library of Unrequited LoveClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Prepare yourself to try a book The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the likes of which youinside. And not on stage, either. Because there'd never particularly expect, and prepare yourself to find it becoming s a favourite – one lot that has builds a snappy story, yet is a monologue, one dancer. Some things that concerns what we all love can be taught or learnt – booksdiscipline, attention to detail – and lovesome things, yet one that also intrigues and tempts us with other''je ne sais quoi'', very diverse subjectsthat don't come from the classroom. One morning our narrator turns up to start work early at her geography station in A stage presence, a very large but provincial librarycharm, and finds a locked-in regular''joie de vivre''. Over the next hour and twenty or so (for I read it out loud) she talks to him, barely allowing him The difference between a word in edgewayshard-worker, and what we get is one big, fat lump of a paragraph of her worldstar. Told you to be prepared for the unusual…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051415</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen MartellHeather Fawcett|title=IntermissionEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There Emily Wilde is a line in Alan Bennettan expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's play 'The History Boys' that I lovework, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. It talks about 'subjunctive history'Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, imagining things that might have happenedshe is not so good with people. In ''Intermission''So when she finds herself far, his first book far North in English as opposed the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to Welshredeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, Owen Martell borrows this ideaher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, taking an event a surmising all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what may have happened afterwards.exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434022047</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samantha Harvey1398515388|title=All is SongThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Some books are hard work. I have no problem with that if I feel there’s a reason to persevere; if I can sense that First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the book is going to deliver a story tsunami and the hard work is necessary to enjoy it fullythis, then I will happily plod alongin turn, re-reading sections if necessarycaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, to get and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the full benefit list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the noveldog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099566060</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthChristopher Bowden|title=The Friday GospelsMr Magenta|rating=54|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=There are five in the Leeke family. Martin is the father and he works in the mail sorting office. ThereChristopher Bowden's not latest novel is a lot patient untangling of ''pleasure'' in Martina seemingly ordinary woman's life, but if you were making a list you'd put Bovril at the top of itcarried out by her nephew after she has died. She's The aunt who always provided a labrador and Martin's obsessed with her training. Well, he's partly obsessed with the training and the training is partly an excuse for his other obsession. Nina owns two labradors and Martin sees them (he and Nina, that is - not he safe harbour and the labs) as having a future together. It would be easy little bit of indulgence to be critical, but Martin's wife is in a wheelchair. Pauline's been unwell since the birth of their youngest child. She's not quite doubly incontinent, but accidents are frequent and embarrassing. She's also got young nephew had had a penchant for spending on home improvements - despite the fact much more interesting life than that there ''really'' isn't the money for themnephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444707728</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Wm Paul YoungJennifer Mason|title=Cross RoadsPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=Spirituality and ReligionGeneral Fiction|summary=WmHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. Paul YoungIn 's debut novel 'Partitions of Unity'The Shack'' was a revelation in many ways. Whilst many disagreed with his theology, it was refreshing she sets her mind to see such an overtly faith based book on the bestseller listssolving a murder. Personally, I found it a very moving story and whilst I thought it helpful on some points, it tended to skim over others. Now we get to see if Young can repeat his success with his new novel, ''Cross Roads''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444745972</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{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}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francesca SegalJennifer Mason|title=The InnocentsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Francesca Segal's debut novel'A struggling poetry zine, ''The Innocents'' is set a mom-and-pop mobile diner in upper classthe Northern California redwoods, Jewisha 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, North London. Adam is about to marry his childhood sweetheart, Rachel, and is working as a lawyer in her fatherwomen's business. Into this romantic idyl though comes Ellietrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, Rachel's wayward cousin who has been forced to flee a billionaire with a state-of-the US following an appearance -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an 'art house' movie of dubious repute andenigmatic signature, K(s, it turns outx), further scandal. Ellie is everything that Rachel is not; on a modelcheap oil painting, worldly, sexy and temptingan erotic art dealer in Georgia... As Adam gets drawn into wanting to 'rescue' her and look after her, his whole future with Rachel is thrown into doubt and the story becomes a will they, won't they get together narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186992</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harriet LaneB0B2N7MVYM|title=Alys, AlwaysThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harriet LaneIt's debut novel, ''Alys, Always'' garnered a raft the 10th of favourable coverage from the professional reviewers December 1962 when it was we first published meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in hardback. Concerningcontext, as it does, a young woman who works as a sub-editor the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a publishing company and a Booker winning novelistchance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, there is always it's not the chance missile crisis that this was due to 's at the reviewers merely recognizing front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the world current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that is portrayedthe prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. This view is unfounded though - it is a superbly drawn He's just getting used to his roommate, frequently very funnyMervyn, and often psychologically chilling story learning to be wary of ambition and class differences. It thoroughly deserves all the praise that has been heaped upon itMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780220014</amazonuk>
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