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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Girl Who Was Saturday NightOnyi Nwabineli|authortitle=Heather O’NeillAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5

|summary=The time: Anuri spent her childhood on display to the 1995; the place: Quebec. The Tremblay family have espoused the cause world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Quebeçois separation from English-speaking Canada Anuri's childhood for many years. Etienne Tremblay has been a prominentsponsorships and influencer deals and, political folk singer throughout the childhood of Nouschkabasically, monetary gain. his daughter, Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her identical twin brotherlife back, Nicolas. The young children themselves appeared on stage frequently and have been brought up much in suing her step-mother to take down the public eyecontent about her. Their father Anuri is almost always absent battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from their life as he feeds his selfishness on public adorationthem for doing so. Their mother only existed for them as a name in a hit song Most importantly, she is desperately worried about a one night standher little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. They were cared for by Loulou Can she save her sister, a loving grandfather lacking any influence over their behaviour.and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849163324</amazonuk>0861546873

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J Paul Henderson1529153298|title=Last Bus to CoffeevilleThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5

|summary=Dr Eugene Chaney III promised Nancy one thing; a promise he hoped heIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'd never s family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to deliverhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. However, in the midst of their elderly years Nancy confirms Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the time has comefamily 'Down South'. So Eugene gathers together an unlikely fellowship and When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a bus that used to belong to Paul McCartney and plans a journey to Coffeevillefrightening, foreign place, making it as much of a holiday as possiblebest avoided. Just one thing though: before they set outFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, they must spring Nancy and she'll do anything to prevent that may . She's not be as easy as it sounds… even if it worried about the dangers or that her Mum''did'' sound easys stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843443341</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=The QuickeningDiva|author=Julie MyersonDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=Rachel and Dan are on holiday We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in the CaribbeanManhattan, New York, but soon after they arrive on the island of Antigua odd in December 1923 and disturbing things start only moved to happenAthens when she was thirteen. Items seemingly move by themselves. Things break. People appear out of nowhere. And then, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the attacks startStates. Rachel is petrified. Newly pregnant When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she is worrying could get appropriate training for her baby’s safety as well as her own, and voice - she has was raised under the Nazi occupation by a nagging feeling in mother who mercilessly exploited her stomach that the one person she should be able to trust is the one she simply cannot. Dan is acting strangely and though she begs him to let them go home earlymade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, he plays down her fearsJackie. Why won’t he believe what she’s saying, and take her seriously?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099580241</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WinterAlexander McCall Smith|title=Arms Wide OpenThe Perfect Passion Company

|summary=Meredith loves her husband Alistair (The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the father of online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her teenage twins Jemima younger cousin Katie if she could come and Luke)look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. This Katie is coming out of a bit of break up with a problem though as Alistair now has Charlottebad boyfriend, a new and younger modelso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. With his And so begins this new coupling in mindstory from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, Alistair decides thanks to take the twins on holiday so they 44 Scotland Street and Charlotte can bond. Surprisingly Meredith agrees wholeheartedly; she's sure that a week with the twins would break any fledgling relationship up. Meanwhile Meredith's own twin brother, JackIsabel Dalhousie novels, is 'taking a break from work' which is fine but you'd think he could at least take a turn visiting his dementia-bound mother… or at least Meredith would think that and regularly doeswith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Jack isn't as responsible as she isKatie has no experience in running a business, or in fact he isn't as a lot of things as she is match-making, but Meredith knows it will all turn out ok Ness has full confidence in the endher abilities, andthere's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, after the incident with the dead bird in the bleachWilliam, she may just be right.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472101685</amazonuk>1846976596

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Dark HorseDean Koontz|authortitle=Rumer GoddenThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=Dark Invader was 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 wellreally weird, disturbing coffin-bred racehorse sized object to his home, and had the looks to go with it but he 's possible that whoever or whatever was disappointing in inside is the thing that has trashed his first season in England and his owner had better uses 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 money delivery to his sale could bringhouse 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. He was shipped out Spike is going to Indiatake care of Benny, which might sound rather extremeand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, but was not uncommon 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=Hannah Masury is living in the nineteen thirties Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there were some benefitsfrom a young age. The main one was that he was going When she hears there is to be a good owner who cared for his welfare hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a trainer who realised that he would get most out young boy's death at the hands of his horses if they were contentedtwo vicious pirates. His new owner She hides away, Mr Leventineso that they don't find and kill her too, even arranged for his lad and then to travel out escape them completely she runs away to India with him sea, dressing as a boy and this was probably Dark Invaderjoining the notorious Ned Low's greatest piece of luckpirate ship as a cabin boy. Ted Mullins not only loved She soon finds herself in the horse - he understood himthick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844088529</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=The One I WasMaybe Tomorrow|author=Eliza GrahamPenny Parkes

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In 1939Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, before for a man who's a control freak with all the outbreak subtlety of the Second World Wara half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, a boy arrived at Harwich docks'has his problems'. He was a Kindertransport refugee fleeing 's asthmatic and the anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. Benjamin Goldman would change his name to Benny Gault when his idea that more you read, the war wouldnmore you't happen and ll suspect that he could go home to Germany came to nothing, but in 's on the meantime he was adopted by Lord and Lady Dornerautistic spectrum. Six boys were Sometimes Jamie needs to live take time off at their country home short notice - Fairfleet - and be educated by she's a private tutor. On frequent flier in the face of it Bennylocal A&E and sometimes Bo's luck could not have worked out better, but he fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was hiding going to come to a secrethead. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910229016</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Who is Tom Ditto?Radio Free Olympia|author=Danny WallaceJeffrey Dunn

|summary=Danny Wallace Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the foremost exponent strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of ‘Bet Based Non-Fiction’ that I knowWashington's Olympic Peninsula. This is when After Bear dies and a bloke says something daft brief sojourn in the pub human company, and follows armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through; Wallace has started his own cultthe forest, broadcasting the strange, his own nation wild and said Yes to absolutely rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{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, everythingabout her life changes. HoweverLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, some things are fine as Ellen is sent to a quirky adventure 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 real worldsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''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 suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but following people around London never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and copying their every move? Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. That sounds a little like stalking She went to me his house and should perhaps be best explored in the world of fictionhe raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a world like Danny Wallace’s new novel ‘Who Is Tom Ditto?’|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091919037</amazonuk>lift home.

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=Look Who's BackThe Figurine|author=Timur VermesVictoria Hislop

|summary=''Hitler Youth Ronaldo! Which way It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the street?'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. With these words a very misguided Nazi Fuhrer asks for his first directions Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the Berlin first of 2011several annual visits. Mistakenly believing She grew to love her grandmother and the lad to be a party junior member with his own name on his football shirtfamily's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, he also thinks for a while it is still 1945retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He's soon informed was proud of his close connections to the truth, Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but still makes some unfortunate conclusions – that the street kiosks selling Turkish language newspapers are a sign of a Soviet-beating alliance between the two countries, that people eat granola bars because the war still leads saw no reason to a bread shortage, and that people making an ironic speech bubble with their fingers in the air is all that is left of the Hitler saluteaccommodate them. But yes, after a long hiatus neither he nor our author is particularly concerned with explaining, His prejudices included Helena''that man'' is back – s red hair and if he has his way hegreen eyes - inherited from her father's going to be just as popular this time round…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052926</amazonuk>Scottish ancestors.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Something Like HappyDean Koontz|authortitle=John BurnsideAfter Death|rating=4.53|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=How do you pick Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a name for top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a short story collection? virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. It seems Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to me 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 Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and other storiespoor. It'' adds surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-on is like picking a favourite child, a promotion of one portion fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the content above the restforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. [[:Category:John Burnside|John Burnside]] has got a title story here, but such The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the mood of the book village and that he seems to have nailed is the matterreason Volushka, a drunken, and picked the most apposite name. ''Something Like Happy'' could in self-indulgent, lazy lout of a way be the title for practically every piece hereman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575590</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=Brief Loves That Live ForeverSemi-Detached|author=Andrei MakineDeborah Stone|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator is inspired to think back through his life on the girls ''Bill and women he has been Amanda are living in love witha semi-detached house, partly because stuck in a depressing rut of a time spent with an associate boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – a time marked by a seemingly most unremarkable encounter with a further woman – whom he deemed had never been loved. The associateglamorous, you see, had spent half his adult life successful and very much in Soviet camps for political instruction love – our narrator himself was an orphan move in the 1960s' Soviet Unionnext door. This snappy volume takes us through episodes in several lives at Despite their different points during outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and since the second half of communist rule – life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and finally explains the import of that unremarkable encounter…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780870493</amazonuk>their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=A Single BreathShalini Boland|authortitle=Lucy ClarkeThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53

|summary=Eva Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is blissfully content with lifeeverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She has a fulfilling career is all he could possibly want in her job as a midwife wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and a happy marriage to the man of her dreams who clearly adores herwedding is planned and set. Her contented existence is thrown into complete turmoil when, early one morning When the much-anticipated day arrives, her beloved husband Jackson Alice is swept out to sea whilst fishing on walked down the Dorset coast. It seems that in one fell swoopaisle by her father, all of her hopes beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and dreams have been washed away into when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the coldaltar is, white waterwho is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007481365</amazonuk>1662507089

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Hunt1787636003|title=EverlandThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=There have been two expeditions to It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the Antarctic island of Everland a century apart. The illRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-fated 1913 trip of Dinnersold Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, Napps and Millet-Bass is primitive by today's standardsshe was flattered rather than wary. The 2012 expedition is better equipped, better prepared and arrives at It was quite a better time while before he made any sort of year so all bodes well for Decker, Brix physical approach to her and Jessby that time she was obsessed by him. But despite Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the differences both expeditions have things island and in common. Both groups carry secrets, some become obvious but others ''remain behind waiting to become discovered''particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490658</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she'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 of 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.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=Kinder Than SolitudePineapple Street|author=Yiyun LiJenny Jackson

|summary=Yiyun Li's 'Pineapple Street'Kinder Than Solitude'' opens with a death but is the story goes back much further than thatof three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. When orphaned Ruyu arrives in Beijing Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to stay with their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a distant relation to go to school, Stockton by birth so she finds herself sharing a bedroom with isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the rebellious Shaoai clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and going Sasha if they'd like to school with move into the serious Moran Pineapple Street property. Tilda and her friend Boyang. Ruyu is not an easy character Chip have renovated and her arrival seems downsized to disrupt everyoneanother property, a street or so away, which they own. They won's lives even though Moran t need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Boyang look after herCord can move straight in. However an Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn'accident' changes everything. All four of them live with t the consequences of what happened either physically or mentallyreality. Moran Darley and Ruyu both leave China and settle in Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the US, while Boyang and Shaoai stay gold digger'. She's living in China''their'' family home. The book switches between They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the events of the past and the presentGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007329822</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Collected Works of A J FikryEmily Critchley|authortitle=Gabrielle ZevinOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=A J Fikry 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is not having facing a good time. He's lost move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his wife family, as Edie is starting to a car crash, and he's not making that much moneylose her memory. The book store he runsHowever, stuck out on a limb on a quiet island communityEdie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, is too remote to turn a profit year-roundwho went missing over 60 years ago, and he has just dismissed the latest publisherworry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing's rep to turn up at his doorLucy in the high street, partly because just as she was the last time she saw her previous counterpart, an inconsequential part she starts to find pockets of A J's life when all is said and done, had died and he didn't know about itmemories coming back to her. But his bad time is about to get a lot worse, And yet as she remembers the one thing he owns worth the most – a rare bookpast, she is forgetting more and more valuable than his house, his business, anything – is about in her day to vanishday life. Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household…Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704617</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreview|title=A Love Like Blood|author=Marcus Sedgwick|rating=4.5|genre=Horror|summary=One day towards the end of World War Two, Charles Jackson is dragged to a museum of antiquities just outside Told from a newly liberated Paris by his commanding officer during their downtime. While the other looks at the unusual ancient artefactsretrospective view, Jackson finds something much more horrific – a man in a wartime bunker in young woman unravels the grounds, squatting over a female figure, blood on his lips year-long relationship that could only have come from once defined her neckline. Years Overlaid with laterwisdom, Jackson returns to Paris for reasons to do the narrator relives the affair with his medical career, and finds the same a man in twenty years her senior from its inception – the company of someone who, were he only aware of summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the fact, is to become summer after. Set against the first and possibly only love backdrop of his life. But thatan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's not the only time the paths of Jackson deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and the mysterious male are destined to cross – the prologue was set in the late 1960s…how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144475193X</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon: The No 1 Ladies' Detective AgencyGarnett Girls|author=Alexander McCall SmithGeorgina Moore

|summary=Although the No. 1 LadiesThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O' Detective Agency belongs to Mma RamotsweLeary was all-consuming, I often feel that Grace Makutsi really shares equally in these stories and, in this particular episode, she has reached a truly lovely high point apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in her lifelove. We saw her arrive to work for Mma Ramotswe, initially standing upon the laurels of her unheardRichard was twenty-of 97% in her secretarial exams, one and throughout the series she has developed, both described by Margo's mother as a character and as a person'an older man'. She grew Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her role away from secretary what they felt she could achieve - going to associate detective (with great determination at times!), she bought new shoes Oxford and sometimes conversed with themhaving a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and then we rejoiced with Richard took her when she married Phuti away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and began went on to build become a home with himwell-respected journalist. This time around Mma Makutsi is pregnantThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, but the question family home on everyonethe Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind is will : ''she ever speak would never be able to Mma Ramotswe about the baby before it arrives?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349139288</amazonuk>}}leave him in charge''.

{{newreview|author=Lesley Glaister|title=Little Egypt|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Twins Isis and Osiris are now in their 90s, living together in Little Egypt, the English manor house where they were born and brought up. Their names are a clue to their parents' near fetish for everything Egyptian. In fact this near fetish leads their parents to Egypt itself, in search of a big discovery back in the 1920s, demonstrating more enthusiasm than savvy. Having Then Richard left the twins in the care of the housekeeper, they never return. Isis and Osiris are now bound to the house, tied not by love or memories but dark secrets that won't let gothem.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190777372X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=The Blazing WorldDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Siri HustvedtDavid F Ross

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross'All intellectual s book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and artistic endeavours…fare better in the mind of the crowd when the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it can locate was. It was a cock and a pair of balls.' Thus we are introduced to the unforgettable Harriet Burden – larger-than-lifegripping, emotionally wounding read, six-foot-tall amazon artist – and to some rereading my review of the novel's essential elements: musing it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on what makes intellectual products successful in a postmodern marketplace, feminist resentment of the overvaluing of male achievement, and an unapologetic, playful boldness with languageit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444779648</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The EnchantedLucy Ashe|authortitle=Rene DenfeldClara and Olivia

|summary=Death Row, in a prison somewhere in the rural USThe year is 1933. ItThe place? Sadler's an old prison tooWells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, where twins no less. Identical on the modern sensors and security will never be seenoutside but not, and where those waiting years for their finalwe learn, final appeals – or for on the closing act in their life – remain undergroundinside. And not on stage, in dank cells that have no mod-cons, and can easily flood when the rains raise the water table too higheither. ItBecause there's where a man called York is seeing out his days, and whereas lot that builds a female investigator is trying her hardest to get evidence dancer. Some things that might see his sentence quashed can be taught or changedlearnt – discipline, he is saying it should be carried out forthwith. While she tries attention to piece together what got him there detail – and what made him take some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that terminal decisiondon't come from the classroom. A stage presence, shadows of her own dark background are forced to move into sighta charm, a ''joie de vivre''. All this is told us by the omniscient narration of another man on Death RowThe difference between a hard-worker, thanks to two heinous crimes…and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297870491</amazonuk>0861544080

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather Fawcett|title=The Dead WifeEmily Wilde's Handbook|author=Hannah BeckermanEncyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54

|summary=Rachel wasnEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life't ready s work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to drop dead at thirty-fivefaeries, she is not so good with people. It's been a year since - a year So when she's spent trapped finds herself far, far North in some sort the small village of netherworld that allows her briefHrafvsnik, tantalising glimpses of having somehow offended the lives of those village matriarch, she is not sure what she's left behind. There's no apparent rhyme or reason has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the glimpsesright track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and Rachel wishes they were more often insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and lasted longerdelight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718178149</amazonuk>0356519120

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fadia Faqir1398515388|title=Willow Trees Don't WeepThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Najwa has been raised by her mother First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and grandmother with only stories of how awful her father this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result wascomplete and utter devastation. He can't answer for himself as he left The deaths were uncountable, and the farm when Najwa loss of livelihoods was three years oldwidespread. After her mother's death Najwa is encouraged by her grandmother to find him as her grandmother is too frail to protect her and The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a single woman with neither husband nor male guardian is considered loose and worthless in Ammanconvenience store. And so He wasn't a dog person but the journey begins, taking Najwa convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to Pakistan open his car door and Tamon the centre of Taliban training, to Afghanistan and eventually to a Europe which deigns itself more civilised but seems more aliendog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178206950X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barbara ConstantineChristopher Bowden|title=And Then Came PauletteMr Magenta

|summary=Ferdinand was Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a widower and he lived with his sonseemingly ordinary woman's life, daughter-in-law and their two children on the family farmcarried out by her nephew after she has died. Well, he did until the family moved away. Apparently Ferdinand was occasionally prone to swear The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and obviously children can never be allowed to hear such words. That left him on his own except for the children’s kitten a little bit of indulgence to which their mother was allergic in a farmhouse which demanded young nephew had had a family. He was lonely much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and he began... well, let’s call it making mischief. Assault is such seems to him an ugly word, isn’t it? Then he met Marceline - or rather he encountered her dog and in returning obligation to find it discovered the old woman is a room filled with gas and leaking rain water through the roofall out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085705242X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Saira ShahJennifer Mason|title=The Mouseproof KitchenPartitions of Unity

|summary=Anna (a chef) Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and her partner Tobias (a composer) have it allunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: a great relationshipAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], dreams of moving to France so that Anna can open a well-respected restaurant when she investigated and, to top it all off, they're expecting unravelled a beautiful babyseries of disappearances. When Freya is born she is indeed beautiful; sheIn ''Partitions of Unity''s also profoundly disabled. However, Anna and Tobias decide to follow their dream anyway, not worrying about anything until the moment they have she sets her mind tosolving a murder.. Once they've bought their ramshackle home in the Languedoc they realise that the moments they have to worry about come more quickly and frequently than they'd realised and their support system is eccentric to say the least.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575140</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Charm OffensiveWill Carver|authortitle=William ThackerThe Daves Next Door

|summary=When Joe, a retired politician is named Five strangers come together in one moment as a tabloid slur he is faced with mending suicide bomber prepares to detonate his reputation. Can he regenerate his life? William Thacker has chosen vest on a heady combination for his first novel; politics and PRLondon tube line. A book like this has immediate appeal on As their fates overlap, the basis of being so contemporary and almost painfully pertinent to our timesstory is told in backwards order, so I was really looking forward leading up to reading itthe fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909878537</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Lemon GroveJennifer Mason|authortitle=Helen WalshPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=''The Lemon Grove'' is not the book I expected it to be. No better no worseA struggling poetry zine, just not what I expected. Set a mom-and-pop mobile diner in Mallorcathe Northern California redwoods, it is the tale of a summer in 400-meter hurdler who just missed the sunshine2004 Olympics, but though they’ve holidayed at this villa a women's track coach with a yen for yearsbullwhips, this summer is a bit different for Jenn and Greg. There are lots billionaire with a state-of things -the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in this book that are Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a bit quirkycheap oil painting, and the holiday set up an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just one a sample of them: the couple are joined by Greg’s daughter (Jen’s step-daughter) cast of characters and her boyfriendsettings in Preposterous. It’s not wildly unconventional in the real worldAs you can see, but for one reason or another it’s the sort some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of chaotic set up many authors wouldn’t bother to createthis mystery story goes like this.. And yet as you read this book you wonder why, because it adds a dynamic that is definitely different, and in a good way. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472212088</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM|title=Family LikenessThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Caitlin DaviesDaniel Godfrey|rating=4.5

|summary=On a summer’s day It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in 1950context, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a smartly-dressed white woman brings her young mixed-race daughterchance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, Murielit's not the missile crisis that's at the front of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the branch children’s home Hoodfield Houseprosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, where she will leave her and never returna relatively new prison. Muriel is physically well cared for He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, but has persistent questions about her identity and place in learning to be wary of the worldMcArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099558688</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=The Atheist's Prayer|author=Amy R Biddle|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I don’t shy away from a book with a little edge, in fact Move on to [[:Category:Chuck Palahniuk|Chuck PalahniukNewest Graphic Novels Reviews]] is one of my favourite authors and his books can be so sharp you can shave with them. On the surface ''The Atheist’s Prayer'' would seem to be courting controversy; why else have such a provocative title? But, is it really that shocking? Nope. This is a story about how people deal with the modern world and what happens when dangerous ideals infect a vulnerable group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780995822</amazonuk>}}