Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]{{adsense2}}__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Heaven and HellOnyi Nwabineli|authortitle=Jon Kalman StefanssonAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=IcelandAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, a hundred years agothanks 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. From a place that Now Anuri is the very definition of rural in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and remoteto get her life back, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row suing her step-mother to a profitable banktake down the content about her. It carries six men on the way outAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and five on the way backsecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. The deceased Most importantly, she is the best friend – or perhaps only friend – of the main characterdesperately worried about her little sister, who is still young enough to merely be known as ''boy'the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. When he returns to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answerCan she save her sister, and for what, after perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the tragedy he has witnessed.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849164061</amazonuk>0861546873

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of my DesiresSuspicious Things|author=Gregoire DelacourtJennie Godfrey|rating=3.5

|summary=Jocelyne It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is in her fortiesPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, married to Jo, and mother to one stillborn little girl and two twenty-something children who have grown distant from her with timehonestly... ) She owns a haberdashery shop in the small town where she lives, and she's writing an online blog which is growing in popularitynot what's worrying Miv's family, though. Although there Women have been bumps in the pastdisappearing. Well, they've been murdered, with her violent husband struggling with their little girlbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's death, the early death of her mother and overheard that her fatherwants to move the family 'Down South'. When you's debilitating stroke her life re from Yorkshire, Down South is now reasonably stable and at a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the start of the story she seemsmove would mean leaving her best friend, on the surfaceSharon, and she'll do anything to be happy although one suspects prevent that beneath . She's not worried about the veneer there are unresolved issues for Jocelynedangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297868357</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Delinsky1035906708|title=Sweet Salt AirDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|summary=It's ten years since Charlotte and Nicole were close. Since then Nicole has married JulianWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, an eminent surgeon and Charlotte has made her way as a writer. She has a base but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, but it's little bigger than a cupboard in December 1923 and is only a place moved to stay between foreign assignmentsAthens when she was thirteen. Nicole lives in Philadelphia Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but still spends her summers at her familyfather changed it to 'Callas's property off the coast of Maine. This year is going to be make it more manageable in the last time thoughStates. Her father died suddenly and her mother can't bear to go When she was back to Quinniepeague, in Athens - supposedly so Nicole is returning to the island to clear the house that she could get appropriate training for sale. And her voice - she's going to write was raised under the Nazi occupation by a cookbookmother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472104579</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Kind of KinAlexander McCall Smith|authortitle=Rilla AskewThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=Welcome The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to Cedarall the online apps in providing a more personal, Oklahomatailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, 2008as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. The big issue Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the day is immigration 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 this town is at the centre of Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a political storm. Bill 1830 business, or in match-making, but Ness has just been passed creating havoc as the Mexican inhabitants are rounded up full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and driven out of town.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782390103</amazonuk>1846976596

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=Back 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 Bloodtake 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}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom WolfeKatherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=34.5

|summary=He may now be 81Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, but and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there are no signs that Tom Wolfe is mellowing. Is his latest ''Back to Blood'' another magnificent addition to the Wolfe hall or is he merely bringing up the bodies? Well for me, it's be a little hanging of both. The book's great strength and also its main weakness are some pirates in the similarities between this Miami-set story of racial town, she decides to go and cultural tension watch. Enthralled and his New York-set classic [[The Bonfire of horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire hands of the Vanities]]two vicious pirates. There are familiar themes: newspapers She hides away, racial tensionso that they don't find and kill her too, the super-rich behaving disgracefully and lost in their own ego-maniathen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and a lively writing style shot through with angry humour, all of which bring to mind ''The Bonfire of joining the Vanities'notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. As She soon finds herself in the thick of things when thereis a mutiny on board, he takes several characters and from different worlds whose lives intersect there we are caught up in unexpected ways. But while taking those ingredients might seem a very welcome thing, her rip roaring tale of life on the end result suffers in comparisonocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099578530</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Unfaithfully YoursMaybe Tomorrow|author=Nigel WilliamsPenny Parkes|rating=4.5

|summary=When Nigel Williams first really burst on to the bestJamie Matson works in an upper-seller listclass grocery store, for a man who's a couple control freak with all the subtlety of decades ago, it was with a book set in Wimbledon that really quite tickled a younger me – and my motherhalf brick. But then he produced two more in the same seriesJamie's son, and we soon decided he was a bit of a one-trick ponyBo, and could never be sure how much of the trilogy we'd read, or be too eager to read more. Flash forward, and Williams has certainly branched out – his setting this time is Putneyproblems'. Wimbledon Common is now Putney HeathHe's asthmatic and the more you read, and so the more you'll suspect that he's onthe autistic spectrum. But here he provides an epistolatory novel – Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and if theresometimes Bo's one kind of novel not fit enough to go to make me prick up my ears it is one built from lettersschool. It is Missed shifts or the blatant two-need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and-fro timing of put in the narrative, and the succinctness that characters are formed with, that wrong. strike me as obvious benefits of such It was going to come to a book – and Unfaithfully Yours has those and many morehead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472106741</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Love in Revolution|author=B R CollinsFrontpage|ratingisbn=5|genre=Teens|summary=Everyone in her village - in an unnamed Basque country - loves pello and Esteya is no different. It's the national sport and its heroes are national heroes. That the holder of the Kings Cup hails from her village is a source of pride to Esteya, her twin brother Martin, and everyone else. Except older brother Leon. So when the Bull comes home for a visit, everyone is excited. And when a young peasant boy challenges him to a game, everyone laughs. And when the peasant boy wins, everyone is shocked and discomfited. Except Leon. Leon, a communist sympathiser, sees it as a symbolic victory of the peasant over the dissolute regime of the King. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815702</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Never PagesRadio Free Olympia|author=Graham ThomasJeffrey Dunn

|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=''There are two rules that the Dream Investigator must follow:''<br>''1. Document everything.''<br>''2. Keep moving forward.'' Master G Petr is in search of his one true love, Lucyan orphan. But Lucy is lost in Rescued by the NeverRealmstrange, the dimension that separates the living from whatever comes after. In the NeverRealmreclusive Bear, memories do not exist. So how he is Master G - the Dream Investigator - to find her? From the very first momentbrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, his journey into in the NeverRealm is destroying his mindforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, turning thoughts and knowledge and recollection to sandarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, shifting sand. He will need courage to face Petr goes on a journey through the nightmarish environment. He will need fortitude to resist forest, broadcasting the degeneration. He will need to find Brekkerstrange, his unreliable scientist friend. And wild and rarely heard voices he'll need the companionship of Paisley, a dog named after a carpet..encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956742203</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Things We NeedFrontpage|author=Jennifer Close|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Claire Coffey used to live in New York with a successful job and a great fiancé; her sister Martha used to be a nurse; and her brother Max should have been looking forward to finishing his final year at college before embarking on an exciting and interesting career. However, things don’t always turn out the way that one expects which is why all three siblings end up back at the family home needing the support of their parents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186658</amazonuk>}}  {{newreviewSarah Marsh|title=A Cat Called Dog|author=Jem VanstonSign of Her Own

|summary= ''Cats are not dogs. And dogs are not cats. Even two-legs know that. But Dog was After a cat, because that was his name: he was bout of scarlet fever as a cat - a cat called Dog - and he was happy with that too.'' Confused? Don't be. Dog may be happy but he is the confused onechild, not youEllen Lark loses her hearing. He is Suddenly plunged into a catworld of silence, everything about her life changes. He is '' Living in a cat''. But he's called Dog because he behaves like one. He pokes his tongue out like a puppy. When he gets excited, he wags his tail like a puppy. And, horror time when the use of horrorssign language was seen as something only savages do, he even yaps and barks like Ellen is sent to a puppy. This kitten-cat school where she is only one summer oldtaught to lip read, so perhaps it's not too latebut physically restrained from signing. Perhaps From here, if he were to find she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a tutor, he could learn to be a ''proper'' catsystem called Visible Speech. A cat who understands At the feline holy trinity of eatingsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, sleeping and washing. A cat who understands his importance to two-legs. A cat who can proudly take his place among the others Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of the best species in the worldespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780885598</amazonuk>1035401614

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Closed DoorsGood Girls Die|author=Lisa O'DonnellAyura Ayira

|summary=Did you listen at doors ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when you were little? The Incident happened. Did you hang She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from the banisters, trying vitiligo - people were afraid to hear what was going on hug her in the grown up world when youcase it's contagious. It'd been banished to your room? s not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. In this story, eleven She had a crush on seventeen-year -old Michael finds out most of his information by listeningReggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. He's adept Then he did: Lavender was very good at creeping around math and learning snippets of information, local gossip 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 tidbits of family dynamicshe raped her. But one nightIn shock, when his mum comes she even allowed him to give her a lift home screaming and covered in blood the secrets that Michael becomes privvy too are far more disturbing than what Tricia down the road has been getting up to.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022551</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mike Gayle1472263936|title=Turning FortyThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=I It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the mistake of reading Mike Gaylefamily home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's ''Turning Thirty'' parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the weeks before I did sofirst of several annual visits. Despite it being a story She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of a man whose life fell apart just before his 30th birthday, he still seemed close connections to the Junta and expected his family to be doing better than I was, which made it a readable uphold his values but depressing experiencesaw no reason to accommodate them. Fortunately, His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father'Turning Forty'' is being published about 15 months before I reach that milestone and my life is in a different place which, hopefully, will combine to make it a more enjoyable reads Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340918535</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon PontDean Koontz|title=Remember 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 Breathehim – 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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=We meet Sam Grant on his 27th birthday, but he's not out celebratingThe village is isolated and poor. HeIt's got flu and just to add to his problems he's got surrounded by a boil in his groin Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - or on his thigh its bread- depending on which side like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the doctor's desk you're sitting. Sam's not been looking after himself since his girlfriend dumped him just over three months ago forest provides heat and when you work in adland the opportunities for not looking after yourself are many warmth, roofs on homes, and variedeven gallows, if needed. The millenium hasn't quite arrived, 'austerity' hasn't even been thought about fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and living an out-of-control life has never been easier. What we get that is Sam's diarythe reason Volushka, but it's not in chronological ordera drunken, with some of it going back to before he met Sarah self- the girl he didn't really wantindulgent, but struggles to get overlazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909273007</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Grace McCleenB0BYF82CXT|title=The Professor of PoetrySemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=Grace McCleen's ''The Professor of Poetry'' is Elizabeth StoneBill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, a 52 year old aged professor at a London University. When the book opens she has just discovered that a cancer scare is now stuck in remission, but forced by her illness to take a sabbatical, she sets about researching her latest book based on some papers depressing rut of TS Eliot. This takes her back to Oxfordboredom and disappointment, to her alma mater when Terry and raises the prospect of seeing her former professor thereFiona – glamorous, a man convinced of the young Miss Stone's potential at an early age, but whose last meeting was somewhat awkward. McCleen looks at the issues raised by generations of poets, namely time, death successful and very much in love– move in next door. For Professor StoneDespite their different outlooks on life, the first has passed, the second come uncomfortably close couples befriend each other and the third remains unknown life appears to herimprove for both pairs. What's moreBut all is not what it seems, her academic focus is on the music of love poetry which is somewhat ironic in that she avoids human and their increasingly interconnected relationships perhaps due to the death of her mother at an early age and an unhappy foster experience, while also having a peculiar aversion to musicare fated for tragedy. Perhaps though this is what allows her a detached ability to write academic studies.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444769952</amazonuk>''

{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. 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 wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, 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 joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel Joycewasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=PerfectThree Graces

|summary=In 1972 two seconds were added to Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the yearstate-of-the-nation novel. 11 year old Byron Hemmings heard There's something so utterly compelling about it from his friend James any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and felt capture it wouldn't be a good thing. In fact at , crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment Bryon's watch's second hand reversed something happened . To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would mean neither his or Jamesbe embarrassingly inadequate: she' s practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives would ever be the same againof her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857520660</amazonuk>140871468X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=419Pineapple Street|author=Will FergusonJenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=Anyone who has ever opened an E-Mail which proves ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to be their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a plea for assistance in getting large amounts of money ahead of Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the authorities will recognise the themetribe. Laura Curtis The problem' father had such an E-Mail s exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and having tried Sasha if they'd like to help move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and spent all his moneydownsized to another property, he has driven his car off a bridgestreet or so away, which they own. Meanwhile They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in Nigeria. Nominally, they had a pregnant young woman walks through the dust, trying to escape her family and find something choice but that ever she doesnwasn't know what she is looking forthe reality. In Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the Niger Delta, meanwhile, the oil companies are moving in and a whole way of life is changing gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the fishing villages thereGD'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855056</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Juan Pablo VillalobosEmily Critchley|title=Down The Rabbit HoleOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Down The Rabbit Hole 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a fictional tale of a young boy’s life move as the her son of a Mexican drug lordwants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. Tochtli narrates However, Edie is tormented by the story memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and gives us the worry that there was a child’s view secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of the sordid world what happened all that his father rulestime ago. We are shown After 'seeing' Lucy in the positives and negatives of this kind of lifestyle high street, just as Tochtli sees thingsshe was the last time she saw her, from presents galore she starts to having find pockets of memories coming back to call his father by his first nameher. This book And yet as she remembers the past, she is a strange blend of childlike wonder within a violent worldforgetting 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>1908276282</amazonuk>1804181250

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=Isabelle Grey0008506337|title=The Bad MotherGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=35

|summary=When we first meet Tessa Parker she has a major problem The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on her handsboth sides. Her seventeen-year-old son has been missing since the previous dayMargo was just sixteen when they fell in love. The police are involved Richard was twenty-one and Tessa is beside herself with worry. Shedescribed by Margo's told the police quite a bit - however you canmother as 'an older man't help but feel . Her parents worried that thereRichard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a lot more going on that she's not tellingglittering career. To find out In the full story we event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go back four monthsto Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. 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: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386484</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Irene Nemirovsky and Sandra Smith (translator)1914585402|title=The MisunderstandingDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5

|summary=After the Great War Yves Harteloup was a disappointed young man when he returned to the resort where he had spent idyllic childhood summers. It wasnI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There't long before he became infatuated s Only One Danny Garvey by the beautiful Denise - mother of David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a young child, wife couple of an older man who was away on business years back and bored. In the heat of the summer the relationship is intoxicating remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and Denise falls passionately in love with Yvesaffecting it was. When they return to Paris Denise envisages It was a little flat which they will furnish to their taste for afternoons gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of leisure and pleasure but the truth is it my main takeaway was that Yves must return to his mundane office job and try to make every franc stretch as far as I might not have lavished enough praise on it can. In the drab autumn of Paris Denise is driven mad with desire for Yves and their love disintegrates under the burden of misunderstanding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563843</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Isabel AshdownLucy Ashe|title=Summer of '76Clara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary=1976 was a blisteringly hot summerThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. People celebrated when it eventually did rain Ballerinas Clara and at one point it was so hot that Big Ben stopped workingOlivia are sisters, twins no less. It would be Identical on the summer that Luke Wolff turned eighteen and he planned outside but not, we learn, on leaving the Isle of White and going to poly in Brightoninside. He had a job at the holiday campAnd not on stage, which was hard work but either. Because there was 's a lot that builds a great social life too dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and even some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the possibility of romanceclassroom. His parents were happy to let him have his independence - after allA stage presence, he was a sensiblecharm, well-balanced young man a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard- worker, and they were rather preoccupied with their own problems. Looking in, you'd have thought that the Wolffs were the ideal family: from the inside there were obviously one or two cracksa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434333</amazonuk>0861544080

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cees NooteboomHeather Fawcett|title=RitualsEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54

|summary=''Rituals'' introduces us to AmsterdamEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and to Innishe has travelled extensively, firstly in 1960and researched meticulously, then in 1950to write her life's work, and then in the 1970svery first encyclopaedia of faeries. When we first meet Inni, it is when he Whilst she is a middle-aged man in 1960. Far from responsible brilliant at research and hard-workingspeaking to faeries, we see him as someone who she is impulsive and recklessnot so good with people. So when she finds herself far, even to far North in the point small village of cruelty to his wife - who formulates plans to leave him. It Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is only after this frankly miserable first impression that we meet the younger Inninot sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and we see how a chance meeting with a man called Arnold Taads had changed put her final investigations for her book back on the course of his liferight track. Taads is a man obsessed with matriculating his life down to the last second Enter Wendell Bambleby, letting time dictate what he can do, with whom he can do it withher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm anddelight, most importantly, when. In Part three, in another chance meeting, the now ageing Inni meets Taadsmuch to Emily' son, Phillips frustration. Phillip, though having never met his father, curiously lives a life that But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is an echo of his father's; though as Arnold isolated himself in going on with the mountains, Phillip isolates himself in meditation and the methodology of the tea ceremony.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782067175</amazonuk>0356519120

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Quinn1398515388|title=The StreetsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Anthony Quinn's ''The Streets'' is set in London in First of all, it was the early 1880s earthquake, deep in the area known as Somers Townocean floor, which to those not familiar with London geography is created the area around Euston, St Pancras tsunami and King's Cross stations. Today, much of this falls under the trendy Camden area, but in turn, caused the 1880s, nuclear meltdown. The result was the site of some of the worst slum tenements in the capitalcomplete and utter devastation. Some 50 years' earlier The deaths were uncountable, Charles Dickens lived in this part of London and although he had died by the time this is set, loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the depiction list of priorities but - six months after the poverty is not far from what we would term Dickensiantsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. The book is narrated by David Wildeblood, who is He wasn't a principled dog person but naive young man who finds employment as an 'investigator' for the charismatic Mr Marchmontconvenience store owner's ''The Labouring Classes of London'' - a strange mix of social geography comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and journalism publishing regular stories of Tamon the poor who reside dog jumped in the slums of London.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575159</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth ThomasChristopher Bowden|title=The Home CornerMr Magenta|rating=3.54

|summary=When you finish your Highers, you’re supposed to go on to university, especially if you’re Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a girl like Luisa. But she’s failed hersseemingly ordinary woman's life, so for now higher education is carried out, and working is unfortunately inby her nephew after she has died. So, she finds The aunt who always provided a job working as safe harbour and a classroom assistant in a primary school. It’s not something she ever wanted little bit of indulgence to do, and she finds herself in a weird sort of limbo, at young nephew had had a much more interesting life stage somewhere between the children in her class, than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and her proper grown-up adult colleaguesit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057123061X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lucy CruickshanksJennifer Mason|title=The Trader Partitions of SaigonUnity|rating=54

|summary=In the Saigon of the 1980s the Vietnam War is over but the traces remain. Alexander has deserted from the US army Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and makes a comfortable living selling girls to local business men. Phuc used to be a business manunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], complete with mansion and the means to keep his wife when she investigated and three children in affluence. Now his family live in unravelled a shanty hut, afraid series of the ruling government that spies through the eyes disappearances. In ''Partitions of children. At last he finds a way outUnity'', his luck just needs she sets her mind to holdsolving a murder. Hanh also lives in poverty, desperately trying to help her sick mother with the pittance she earns from cleaning one of the city's many open latrines. Then one day she meets someone who offers so much more. His name is Alexander.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782063218</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

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=Alain MabanckouB0B2N7MVYM|title=Tomorrow I'll Be TwentyThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey

|summary=Michel 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 as carefree as any child can be during that difficult process called 'growing upstill very fresh in people's minds. Here in Congo Brazzaville he The world has his best friend Lounesbarely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, a crush on Caroline (his best friendit's not the missile crisis that's sister), at the hassles front of school and a family consisting his mind. He's been convicted of two mothers in two houses which seems perfectly normalmurder. HeWith the current state of medical knowledge, it's also being educated about hard to think otherwise than that the world by prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his father; a world that changes daily as itfirst few days in HMP Queen's 1979Bench, a relatively new prison. Never mindHe's just getting used to his roommate, he can always marry Caroline as long as he meets her conditions: she requires childrenMervyn, a red 5-seater car and a white doglearning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685842</amazonuk>