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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Second Life of Amy ArcherOnyi Nwabineli|authortitle=R S PatemanAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ten years ago, a little girl vanished from a playground near Anuri spent her London home. Her body was never found. A decade childhood ondisplay to the world, and her parents are different people, thanks to her step-mother Beth still hung up Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on what didsocial media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, or didn’t happen that daybasically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her father Brian twenties and she is slowly trying to move on with his new familyregain her confidence and to get her life back, his new daughters. On suing her step-mother to take down the anniversary of content about her disappearance. Anuri is battling alcoholism, a strange visitor arrives on Beth’s doorstep saying she knows what happened failing to Amy Archer. She also knows a great deal about Beth’s lifestart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and Amy’s, receiving money from that timethem for doing so. Things no one should know. No one could know. But Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the only explanation is beyond beliefnew focus of Ophelia's online empire. Either someone is playing a cruel joke on Beth Can she save her sister, or it’s and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time to start believing in miracles.?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409128563</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The Night RainbowList of Suspicious Things|author=Claire KingJennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You knowIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, there’s no reason a book has honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to be happy in order have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to be goodmove the family 'Down South'. The Night Rainbow When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is proof of thisa frightening, foreign place, best avoided. Set geographically in France and actually in For Miv, the head of a five year old girlmove would mean leaving her best friend, it follows the adventures of the summer when Pea’s (short for Peony or PivoineSharon, depending who you ask) pregnant mother was too miserable and she'll do anything to care for her; prevent that. She's not worried about the summer following the still birth of Pea’s sister and the tragic accidental death of dangers or that her fatherMum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408841843</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=LongbournDiva|author=Jo BakerDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So we have had Jane Austen [[Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith|meet zombies]]We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, and now something perhaps even more reprehensible – social realism. This is a world where people slip up but she was born to Greek parents in hogshitManhattan, where rain pisses it downNew York, in December 1923 and if the weekly routine washday is bad, you should try it only moved to Athens when five Bennet daughters have their coinciding periodsshe was thirteen. Sarah is Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the middle of all this, trying to do her share of the housework with one hand at times, lest pus from her blisters get on the linen, or her callouses crack openStates. But why can When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she not could get appropriate training for her feelings about James, voice - she was raised under the new mysterious footman fresh from Nazi occupation by a mother who-knows-where, straight in mercilessly exploited her head, and why is made no secret of her heart turned by the mulatto servant of the Bingleys up at Netherfield?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857522019</amazonuk>preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Beneath an Irish SkyAlexander McCall Smith|authortitle=Isabella ConnorThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In The Perfect Passion Company is a hospital warddating agency in Edinburgh, Luke Kiernan is stirring from run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a tranquiliser-induced sleep following a serious car accidentmore personal, tailored service. His ribs Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and legs hurt and he has an awful feeling that his mother look after the business, as Ness is deadplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. But who Katie is that stranger sitting beside coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the bed? Surely it can’t be his fatherchance 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 father Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who pushed his mother away twenty years ago because he was ashamed quickly begin to have charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there''gypo kid'' around? Luke wants answers. But more than thats always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, he wants revenge.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781890048</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=His FatherThe 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 Sonwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Tony BlackKatherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Joey Driscol and his wifeHannah Masury is living in Boston, Shaunahaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, left Ireland for Australia on and being made to work there from a 'wet May morning in 1968'young age. It was supposed When she hears there is to be a new starthanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. It is now 1978 Enthralled and the dreams of an idyllic escape have slowly crumbledhorrified in equal measure, and Joey is forced to admit that 'Hannah finds herself embroiled in a fresh start cannot last foreveryoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. Marti She hides away, their eight-year-old son, watches his parentsso that they don' marriage collapse firsthandt find and kill her too, yet he asks the same question as the baffled reader: why? But before he has had time and then to answer this conundrum, his mother whisks him off escape them completely she runs away to Ireland. The rashness of the move ensures Joey must follow his sonsea, dressing as a boy and so begins his frightful odyssey back to joining the Old Countrynotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. You see, 'Marti was his son She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, the one pure and good thing from there we are caught up in his her rip roaring tale of life', and he wasn't going to let Shauna just take himon the ocean waves. But why Ireland, a place they both hated, a place to which they vowed never to return?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845026365</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=The Summer We All Ran AwayMaybe Tomorrow|author=Cassandra ParkinPenny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a summer man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of running awaya half brick. Davey runs away from home Jamie's son, Bo, beaten and drunk'has his problems'. He meets Priss's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a sixteen year old, who is also running. Tom frequent flier in the local A&E and Kate accept them both into a huge, mysterious house, a house that doesnsometimes Bo't belong s not fit enough to any of themgo to school. Thirty years ago, Jack Laker bought Missed shifts or the house need to run be away on time to pick Bo up from his superstar lifestyle. Young girls, drugs, school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and touring had caused him to take an overdoseput in the wrong. As his agent tries It was going to convince him come to tour with the new album he has written, Jack meets a young actress at the house party being thrown in his honour. The same party he is desperately trying to avoidhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909395315</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=The Next Time You See MeRadio Free Olympia|author=Holly Goddard JonesJeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Small Town America''Petr is an orphan. WhatRescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's the betting you already have it pictured? The downtown areaOlympic Peninsula. The upmarket suburb. The downbeat housing district. The High School After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with all its little league (in every sense of only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the expression) dramas strange, wild and drama queensrarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782390839</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael HonigB0BC3YTCMR|title=Goldblatt's DescentGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Dr Malcolm Goldblatt has just started another temporary Senior Registrar's role in yet another hospital'This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. However this time She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's differentcontagious. This It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is his last attempt to springboard his career into 84% white. She had a consultant's gradecrush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Whether Then he succeeds or not depends on so many factorsdid: 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 two-faced, murderously ambitious colleague, the patients house and Fuertler's Syndromehe raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a condition that may be obscure and comparatively unimportant but still has the power to make or break himlift home. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857898930</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, 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 father's Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=J Courtney SullivanDean 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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The EngagementsGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although you might not immediately realise it, this The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the story villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of a ring, the people associated with it forest provides heat and of one particular ''real'' woman who created something of which few people can be unaware. That woman was Mary Frances Geretywarmth, roofs on homes, a copywriter with Ayer and Son - one of even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the eminent advertising agencies in village and that is the nineteen forties. Under some pressure to come up with reason Volushka, a phrase for de Beers advertsdrunken, Frances scribbled ''A Diamond is Forever'' self- one indulgent, lazy lout of the most memorable lines in advertising. Frances never married but was probably single-handedly responsible for diamonds being the favoured stone in engagement rings. Her story weaves its way through the stories of our fictional couplesa man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844089363</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=FamiliarSemi-Detached|author=J Robert LennonDeborah Stone|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Is there ''Bill and Amanda are living in a greater change semi-detached house, stuck in the life of a middle-aged woman than the death depressing rut of her teenage son? Elisa might have thought notboredom and disappointment, having been forced to bury fifteen year old Silaswhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and try and very much in love – move on with her husband Derek and the year-older son, Samin next door. But a greater change occurs Despite their different outlooks on the way back from her annuallife, solo pilgrimage to his grave – something very weird happens to the universe. She pops from one car to another, from under a cloudless sky to a slightly greyer one – couples befriend each other and from her self as Elisa life appears to a world where people call her Lisa, where she improve for both pairs. But all is plumpernot what it seems, in a different job, stiil married to Derek in the same home – but still the mother of two young men…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689473</amazonuk>and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Sorrow of AngelsShalini Boland|authortitle=Jon Kalman StefanssonThe Silent Bride|rating=3.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Our decidedly unheroic main character Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been at the café searching for three weeks now; handsome, so we are following on very closely from [[Heaven accomplished, clever, funny; total and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson|Heaven and Hell]]utter husband-material. After the tragedy and soul-searching of that first book, She is all he seems settled could possibly want in the ridiculous family that has formed around him therea wife; beautiful, finding employmentsuccessful, enjoying confident… and so the literature, yet being very intrigued inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the female bodywedding is planned and set. The man who When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is still young enough to be known only as ''walked down the boy'' might have latched on to stability for onceaisle by her father, beaming with pride and replaced excitement as she surveys the family and best friend he had lost. But everything is restless in congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this environment, joyful day and once again he might just be tempted when Seth turns to go on a journeyface his approaching bride, with another male companion, despite Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the harshness of man at the surroundsaltar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051652</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=Heaven and HellThe Girls of Summer|author=Jon Kalman StefanssonKatie Bishop|rating=45|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Iceland, a hundred years ago. From a place It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that is the very definition of rural she and remote, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row to a profitable bank. It carries six men on the way out, Caroline went backpacking around Greece and five arrived on the way backisland. The deceased is the best friend – or Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps only friend – of the main character, who is still young enough naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to merely be known as ''boy''take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. When It was quite a while before he returns made any sort of physical approach to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answer, her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for whatHenry Taylor, looking after his interests on the tragedy he has witnessedisland and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849164061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The List of my DesiresAmanda Craig|authortitle=Gregoire DelacourtThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jocelyne is in her forties, married to Jo, and mother to one stillborn little girl and two twentyFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something children so utterly compelling about any writer who have grown distant from her with time. She owns a haberdashery shop in can catch hold of the atmosphere of the small town where she livesday and capture it, and she's writing crafting an online blog which is growing image of the country as it stands in popularityone particular moment. Although there have been bumps in the past, with her violent husband struggling with their little girlTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's death, practically synonymous with the early death genre of her mother and her father's debilitating stroke her life is now reasonably stable and contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the start ongoing issues of the story she seemsday into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, on the surfacenever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, to be happy although one suspects that beneath the veneer there are unresolved grappling with issues for Jocelynefar larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297868357</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Delinsky152915118X|title=Sweet Salt AirPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's ten years since Charlotte 'Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Nicole were closeGeorgiana. Since then Nicole has Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married Julian, an eminent surgeon and Charlotte has made her way as a writerto their brother Cord. She has a base in New YorkThey're Stocktons, but itonly Sasha isn's little bigger than t a cupboard and is only a place to stay between foreign assignmentsStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. Nicole lives in Philadelphia but still spends her summers at her familyThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property off the coast of Maine. This year is going Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to be the last time thoughanother property, a street or so away, which they own. Her father died suddenly They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and her mother Cord canmove straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't bear to go back to Quinniepeague, so Nicole is returning to the island reality. Darley and Georgiana start to clear call Sasha 'the house for salegold digger'. And she She's going living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to write a cookbook'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472104579</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Kind of KinEmily Critchley|authortitle=Rilla AskewOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Welcome 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 Cedarmove to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, Oklahomaas Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, 2008. The big issue Edie is tormented by the 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 day is immigration and this town is at thing that reveals the centre truth of a political stormwhat happened all that time ago. Bill 1830 has After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just been passed creating havoc as she was the Mexican inhabitants are rounded up last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and driven out of townmore 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>1782390103</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|isbn=0008506337|title=Back to BloodThe Garnett Girls|author=Tom WolfeGeorgina Moore|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=He may now be 81The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, but there are no signs that Tom Wolfe is mellowingapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Is his latest Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'Back to Bloodan older man'. Her parents worried that Richard' another magnificent addition s influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the Wolfe hall or is he merely bringing up the bodies? Well for meevent, it's a little of both. The book's great strength they eloped and also its main weakness are in Richard took her away from the similarities between this Miami-set story Isle of racial Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and cultural tension and his New Yorkwent on to become a well-set classic [[respected journalist. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire of the Vanities]]. There are familiar themescouple had three children: newspapersRachel, racial tension, the super-rich behaving disgracefully Imogen and lost Sasha. Life was lived in their own ego-mania, London and a lively writing style shot through with angry humourholidays were spent at Sandcove, all the family home on the Isle of which bring to Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind : ''The Bonfire of the Vanitiesshe would never be able to leave him in charge''. As there, he takes several characters from different worlds whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. But while taking those ingredients might seem a very welcome thing, the end result suffers in comparison Then Richard left them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099578530</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Unfaithfully YoursDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Nigel WilliamsDavid F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Nigel Williams first really burst on to the best-seller list, I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of decades ago, years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was with a book set in Wimbledon that really quite tickled a younger me – and my mother. But then he produced two more in the same series, and we soon decided he It was a bit of a one-trick pony, and could never be sure how much of the trilogy we'd readgripping, or be too eager to emotionally wounding read more. Flash forward, and Williams has certainly branched out – his setting this time is Putney. Wimbledon Common is now Putney Heath, and so on. But here he provides an epistolatory novel – and if there's one kind rereading my review of novel to make me prick up it my ears main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it is one built from letters. It is the blatant two-and-fro timing of the narrative, and the succinctness that characters are formed with, that strike me as obvious benefits of such a book – and Unfaithfully Yours has those and many more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472106741</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Love in RevolutionLucy Ashe|authortitle=B R CollinsClara and Olivia|rating=4.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Everyone in her village - in an unnamed Basque country - loves pello and Esteya The year is no different1933. ItThe place? Sadler's the national sport Wells. Ballerinas Clara and its heroes Olivia are national heroessisters, twins no less. That Identical on the holder of the Kings Cup hails from her village is a source of pride to Esteyaoutside but not, her twin brother Martinwe learn, and everyone elseon the inside. Except older brother Leon. So when the Bull comes home for a visitAnd not on stage, everyone is excitedeither. And when Because there's a young peasant boy challenges him to lot that builds a game, everyone laughsdancer. And when the peasant boy winsSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, everyone is shocked attention to detail – and discomfited. Except Leon. Leonsome things, a communist sympathiser, sees it as a symbolic victory of the peasant over the dissolute regime of the King. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815702</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Never Pages|author=Graham Thomas|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary=that ''There are two rules that the Dream Investigator must follow:je ne sais quoi''<br>, that don''1. Document everythingt come from the classroom.A stage presence, a charm, a ''<br>joie de vivre''2. Keep moving forward.'' Master G is in search of his one true love, Lucy. But Lucy is lost in the NeverRealm, the dimension that separates the living from whatever comes after. In the NeverRealm, memories do not exist. So how is Master G The difference between a hard- the Dream Investigator - to find her? From the very first momentworker, his journey into the NeverRealm is destroying his mind, turning thoughts and knowledge and recollection to sand, shifting sand. He will need courage to face the nightmarish environment. He will need fortitude to resist the degeneration. He will need to find Brekker, his unreliable scientist friend. And he'll need the companionship of Paisley, a dog named after a carpet..star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956742203</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Things We NeedHeather Fawcett|authortitle=Jennifer CloseEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= ''Cats are not dogs. And dogs are not cats. Even two-legs know that. But Dog was a catEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, because that was his name: he was a cat - a cat called Dog - and he was happy with that too.researched meticulously, to write her life'' Confused? Don't bes work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Dog may be happy but he Whilst she is the confused onebrilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not you. He is a cat. He is ''a cat''so good with people. But he's called Dog because he behaves like one. He pokes his tongue out like a puppy. When he gets excited So when she finds herself far, he wags his tail like a puppy. Andfar North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, horror of horrorshaving somehow offended the village matriarch, he even yaps and barks like a puppy. This kitten-cat she is only one summer old, so perhaps it's not too late. Perhapssure what she has done, if he were nor how to find a tutorredeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, he could learn to be a ''proper'' cat. A cat her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who understands the feline holy trinity of eatingarrives unexpectedly, sleeping all charm and washing. A cat who understands his importance delight, much to two-legsEmily's frustration. A cat who can proudly take his place among But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the others of the best species in the world.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780885598</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=Closed DoorsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Lisa O'DonnellSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Did you listen at doors when you were little? Did you hang from First of all, it was the banistersearthquake, trying to hear what was going on deep in the grown up world when you'd been banished to your room? In ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this story, eleven year old Michael finds out most of his information by listeningin turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. He's adept at creeping around The result was complete and learning snippets of informationutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, local gossip and tidbits the loss of family dynamicslivelihoods was widespread. But one night, when his mum comes home screaming and covered in blood the secrets The fact that Michael becomes privvy too are many pets were separated from their owners came far more disturbing than what Tricia down the road has been getting up 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 toopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022551</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mike GayleChristopher Bowden|title=Turning FortyMr Magenta|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I made the mistake Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of reading Mike Gaylea seemingly ordinary woman's ''Turning Thirty'' in the weeks before I did solife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. Despite it being The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a story little bit of indulgence to a man whose young nephew had had a much more interesting life fell apart just before his 30th birthday, he still seemed to be doing better than I was, which made it a readable but depressing experience. Fortunately, ''Turning Forty'' is being published about 15 months before I reach that milestone nephew Stephen had ever realised and my life is in a different place which, hopefully, will combine it seems to him an obligation to make find it a more enjoyable readall out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340918535</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon PontJennifer Mason|title=Remember to BreathePartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Sam Grant on his 27th birthdayHere at Bookbag Towers, but he's not out celebrating. He's got flu we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and just to add to his problems he's got a boil unintentional detective in his groin - or on his thigh - depending on which side 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 and [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when you work in adland the opportunities for not looking after yourself are many she investigated and variedunravelled a series of disappearances. The millenium hasnIn 't quite arrived, 'austerity' hasn't even been thought about and living an out-Partitions of-control life has never been easier. What we get is Sam's diary, but itUnity's not in chronological order, with some of it going back to before he met Sarah - the girl he didn't really want, but struggles she sets her mind to get oversolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909273007</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|isbn=B09STS96HS}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Grace McCleenB0B2N7MVYM|title=The Professor Calculations of PoetryRational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Grace McCleenIt's ''The Professor the 10th of PoetryDecember 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people'' is Elizabeth Stone, a 52 year old aged professor at a London Universitys minds. When the book opens she The world has just discovered that barely had a cancer scare is now in remission, but forced by her illness chance to take a sabbatical, she sets about researching her latest book based on some papers of TS Eliotbreathe out. This takes her back to Oxford But for Joe Marr, to her alma mater and raises it's not the missile crisis that's at the prospect front of seeing her former professor there, a man convinced of the young Miss Stonehis mind. He's potential at an early age, but whose last meeting was somewhat awkwardbeen convicted of murder. McCleen looks at With the issues raised by generations current state of poets, namely time, death and love. For Professor Stonemedical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first has passedfew days in HMP Queen's Bench, the second come uncomfortably close and the third remains unknown to hera relatively new prison. What He's morejust getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, her academic focus is on the music and learning to be wary of love poetry which is somewhat ironic in that she avoids human 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 music. Perhaps though this is what allows her a detached ability to write academic studiesMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444769952</amazonuk>
}}
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