Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kevin Maher
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title=Last Night on Earth
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Baby Bonnie is born in London in 1996 to Jay and Shauna but her traumatic birth and the aftermath causes the previously happy couple to separateJay looks back searching for how he got to this point and Shauna looks for answers in psychotherapy with a less than orthodox Danish analystMeanwhile both share Bonnie and worry about where they go from here.   
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|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain.  Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about herAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing soMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empireCan she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408705079</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tina Seskis
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|isbn=1529153298
|title=When We Were Friends
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|title=The List of Suspicious Things
 +
|author=Jennie Godfrey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Six friends meet at Bristol University; six very different people from six very different backgroundsSix lives intertwined in an assortment of ways… break-ups, marriages, careers, motherhood and bereavement; until one night six become five.
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|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister.  (A woman?  I mean, honestly...)  She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though.  Women have been disappearing.  Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening.  Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'.  When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoidedFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that.  She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405917954</amazonuk >
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michael Laub
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|isbn=1035906708
|title=Diary of the Fall
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|title=Diva
|rating=4
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|author=Daisy Goodwin
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen.  Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States.  When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
 +
|title=The Perfect Passion Company
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Diary of the Fall is a story about regret, guilt and resentment. It's told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, who reflects on not just his own life but also the lives of his father and grandfather.
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|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service.  Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while.  Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh.  And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm.  Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581795</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1846976596
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Dean Koontz
 +
|title=The Bad Weather Friend
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Paranormal
 +
|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house!  The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck.  He is a nice person.  A really nice person.  So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person.  Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
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|isbn=1662500491
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=James Wilson
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|author=Katherine Howe
|title=The Summer of Broken Stories
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|title=A True Account
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=England 1950: Soon-to-be-10, Mark Davenant is a typical lad with a typical lad's lifeHe loves adding to his model train layout, he plays with his mates and walking best friend Barney the dogIt's on one such walk he comes across Aubrey, an elderly writer living in the forestThey build a friendship based on shared stories and imaginingsNot all in the village are accepting though and, when they try to drive Aubrey out, Mark feels himself torn between old loyalties and new.
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|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young ageWhen she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watchEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious piratesShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boyShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883571</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861547438
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
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|isbn=1471180158
|title= The Novel Habits of Happiness
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|title=Maybe Tomorrow
|rating=5
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|author=Penny Parkes
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There are some authors who I pick up with a contented sigh, knowing that I am in safe handsAlexander McCall Smith is currently my favourite, and thank goodness he is so prolific with his writing that my reading habit is fed on a regular basis!  This is the tenth novel in the Sunday Philosophy Club series, and we settle down once more to a visit to Isabel Dalhousie in her beloved EdinburghIsabel is wondering, perhaps belatedly, if she is sometimes rather judgmental of peopleIn particular, she’s having an awful lot of qualms about her niece, Cat’s, latest romance. Will Isabel find herself forced to intervene, or can she sit back and let nature take its course?
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|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick.  Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'He'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 frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to schoolMissed 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 wrongIt was going to come to a head.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408706636</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nina George and Simon Pare (translator)
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL
|title=The Little Paris Bookshop
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|title=Radio Free Olympia
 +
|author=Jeffrey Dunn
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Monsieur Perdu has a barge on the Seine, and in that barge he has his bookshopActually, rather than being a normal sort of bookshop it is more of a chemist's, since he is something of a literary apothecary, prescribing books to his customers that he senses will soothe their souls, and relieve whatever troubles are ailing themHe only has to speak to them a little, sometimes only has to see them, and he instinctively knows which book will help them. Despite his skills, however, he seems unable to diagnose and resolve his own emotional issues and he is, as the translation of his French surname tells us, Mr Lost.
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|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic PeninsulaAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349140359</amazonuk>
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}}
 +
{{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 changesLiving 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.
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|isbn=1035401614
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Marcus Dalrymple
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|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Flesh and Blood: True Fiction
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|title=Good Girls Die
 +
|author=Ayura Ayira
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Brit John Colson is in Mexico teaching, having been invited out there by his godfather and local school owner Carlos Manuel FerminJohn soon settles in, soon forming a love of the countryBut then it all changes…  Visiting a public toilet at the wrong moment means that John hears a murder being committed beyond his cubicle doorHe goes to the police as he would in the UK but this is Mexico; from that moment on John Colson is a marked manMeanwhile elsewhere in Mexico tourists are being attracted by more than hot sunshine and tacos.
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|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1502821087</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
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 contagiousIt's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% whiteShe had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice herThen he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him.  She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extensionShe went to his house and he raped her.  In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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|author=Antoine Laurain, Emily Boyce (translator) and Jane Aitken (translator)
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{{Frontpage
|title=The Red Notebook
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|isbn=1472263936
 +
|title=The Figurine
 +
|author=Victoria Hislop
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Laure.  She's a widow in her 40s, who is entering her Parisian apartment building one night when she's mugged, and her handbag stolenMeet Laurent, a middle-aged bookseller, who happens upon the handbag the following morning in the street, just before the binmen take it away, never to be seen againMore or less snubbed when trying to hand it to the police as lost property, he decides to take it upon himself to reunite the bag with its rightful owner.  He has no idea their names are so intimately linked, and despite a lot of things being in the bag (including the titular notebook) there is no cash, no phone and no ID documentation at allWhat's more – and what looks like making the idea even more fruitless – he has no idea that Laure has fallen into a coma as a result of the mugging…
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|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 heritageHer trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visitsShe 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 themHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313862</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stefan Mohamed
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|author=Dean Koontz
|title=Bitter Sixteen
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|title=After Death
|rating=5
+
|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.
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|isbn=1662500467
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH
 +
|title=The Grave Listeners
 +
|author=William Frank
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Stanly Bird is about to turn sixteen - a solitary teen in a small Welsh town, he has few friends. Unless you count his talking dog, Daryl...
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|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.  
 +
}}
  
A splitting headache on the eve of his birthday soon develops into incredible powers, and Stanly swiftly finds himself defending his neighbourhood, falling in love, and gaining his first real friends. When jealous rivals, a mysterious figure and a horrific evil come into play though, Stanly finds himself cast away from home, and struggling to save everything he has come to hold dear.
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{{Frontpage
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630136</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B0BYF82CXT
}}
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|title=Semi-Detached
{{newreview
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|author=Deborah Stone
|author=Fiona Neill
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|rating=4
|title=The Good Girl
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Romy is a sixth former who is unremarkable. A good student from a professional family, her aspiration is to become a doctor, and it’s an achievable, rather than lofty goal. Or it was. Because a video has surfaced and it shows Romy doing something that is hardly going to help her medical school application. Or her future career. Or her future life, full stop. For Ailsa, the head teacher, she has the double whammy of trying to keep the school out of the headlines and protect her child who is now at the centre of the controversy. And it’s clearly all the neighbours’ fault.
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|summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718181271</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christina Nichol
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|author=Shalini Boland
|title=Waiting for the Electricity
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|title=The Silent Bride
|rating=4.5
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|rating=3
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Slims Achmed Makashvili is determined to leave his native GeorgiaIt's a country buffeted and often invaded by its neighbours and plagued with lack of amenitiesOn hearing that Hilary Clinton is running a competition, the prize for which is a trip to the States and knowing all he has to do is overstay his visa for a better life, Slims' letters to Hilary begin.  Eventually he gets to the US but… Well, be careful what you wish for.
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|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-materialShe 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 setWhen 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649876</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662507089
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stuart Prebble
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|isbn=1787636003
|title=The Insect Farm
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|title=The Girls of Summer
|rating=4
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|author=Katie Bishop
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was predisposed to enjoy this book before I'd even opened the cover. It set me in mind of [[The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams]] - another tale of a challenged person who finds refuge in an obsession with insects. But where [[The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams|The Behaviour of Moths]] focuses on two warring sisters, ''The Insect Farm'' has two brothers as the central characters: Roger, who has special needs, and his devoted younger brother Jonathan. Both boys develop an obsession, Roger with his insect farm and Jonathan with a woman, Harriet. When obsession eventually leads to the violence of destruction, other behaviours come into play: feelings of guilt quickly switch to the fear of capture and the sly acts of a man keen to lay the blame elsewhere.
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|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn'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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846883547</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Caroline Vermalle and Anna Aitken (translator)
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|author=Amanda Craig
|title=George's Grand Tour
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|title=Three Graces
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=George loves the Tour de France so when his over protective daughter goes way for an extended holiday the time is right to do it himself. Being 83 there will have to be some concessions, using a car rather than a bike for a start and he'll take his neighbour Charles (a stripling at 76) with him.  He'll also take his mobile phone since his landline has been diverted to it so no one knows he's gone. Yes, good luck with that George!
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313730</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 140871468X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Caitlin Moran
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|isbn=152915118X
|title=How to Build a Girl
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|title=Pineapple Street
 +
|author=Jenny Jackson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1990 - Wolverhampton. Johanna Morrigan is 14, intelligent, funny and from a loving family. Unfortunately, said family consists of a depressed mother, a mostly drunk father, an older brother with issues of his own, and three younger brothers to worry about. Well read, witty and hugely intelligent, Johanna longs for escape, building a new version of herself and gaining employment as a writer, frequently travelling to the drink, sex and drug filled bars and bedsits of London.
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|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana.  Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe.  The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own.  They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in.  Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality.  Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'.  She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091949017</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Margaret Henderson Smith
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|author=Emily Critchley
|title=The Turn of the Tide
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|title=One Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Crime
|summary=Harriet Glover is well and truly over Mark after he left her standing at the altarShe's pregnant with Sir Joris Sanderson's child and he's keen to make the relationship permanent, but ghosts from ''his'' past return to haunt him, unfortunately at a rather important dinner partyThe mystery of 'Amber' really has to be solved and the web of lies which surround her dismantledHarriet is still being led astray by Tricia Harrington (or so Harriet's mother would have you believe...) and she can't really make up her mind about 'Mr Sanderson', particularly when the man from MI6 is aroundShe's got a lot to cope with and that's before we even get on to the subject of the Prime Minister's daughter's wedding, which ''must'' remain secret.
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|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memoryHowever, 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 thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time agoAfter 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the 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 more in her day to day lifeWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845496485</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804181250
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ivan Repila and Sophie Hughes (translator)
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|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse
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|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you pick up a copy of this book you realise how small it is.  You'll know, of course, that pockets hardly exist that are normally big enough to hold what we used to call a pocket book, but here is the exception to prove the rule.  It's wee.  The story is on a hundred pages.  The concision is partly down to it starting after the beginning, for we first meet Big and Small, two brothers, once they're stuck down a large well in the middle of a forest. Tasked with a family errand, they're trapped at the bottom of a natural Erlenmeyer flask, and even a desperate move cannot get either out. This is the story of the next three months in their existence, as they brave hunger, delirium, loss of language, and the brute and unstinting human selfishness needed for existence.
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|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271015</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
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
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=James Hannah
+
|isbn=0008506337
|title=The A-Z of You and Me
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|title=The Garnett Girls
|rating=4
+
|author=Georgina Moore
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lying in a hospital bed, refusing visits from friends, Ivo is alone. Only his carer, Sheila, provides company - and she asks him to think of a different part of his body for each letter of the alphabet, and then to tell a tale about each one.
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|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides.  Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'.  Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career.  In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight.  Margo did go to 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>0857522647</amazonuk>
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 +
Then Richard left them.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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|author=Ann-Marie MacDonald
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Adult Onset
+
|isbn=1914585402
|rating=3.5
+
|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead
 +
|author=David F Ross
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At midlife, Mary Rose MacKinnon has settled down with her partner, Hilary, and is raising two young children. Opting to fulfill the role of stay at home mum, she has placed her career as an author on hold. What follows is a bid to reconcile this new identity with her former idea of self. Success, however, depends on Mary Rose facing up to the confusions of her past.
+
|summary=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 years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473610133</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Diana Sweeney
 
|title=The Minnow
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Diana Sweeney's ''The Minnow'' is an Australian book aimed at Young Adults that features death, grief, abuse, fear and loneliness. Teenage pregnancy lies at its heart while bereavement, and trying to come to terms with loss, bubbles just under the surface, constantly. But don't be misled. This novel isn't some earnest pedagogical attempt to convey teenage angst and elicit grave pity or understanding from the reader. What rescues it from mawkishness is the beautiful voice of the narrator, Tom (or Holly, if you prefer her real name). Tom doesn't fall prey to self-pity. She simply describes her world as she sees it, matter-of-fact. And the fact that her view is rather unusual (she talks to fish, dead people and her unborn child - and they talk back) doesn't really matter. Nothing can detract from the sheer lyricism of her voice. As a reader, you just have to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>192218201X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Hermione Eyre
+
|author=Lucy Ashe
|title=Viper Wine
+
|title=Clara and Olivia
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
 
|summary=Venetia Stanley lives in Seventeeth century London. A celebrated beauty, she has had poems written in honour of her, and portraits painted by one of the leading artists of the time. Married to a handsome, kind and adventurous man, Venetia is kept in a life of luxury, and, at first glance - has everything she could ever have dreamed of. Except Venetia is not happy. A woman who has made her name and fortune because of her beauty, she is convinced that her allure is quickly slipping through her fingers. Signing a pact with an apothecary for his famed restorative 'Viper Wine', Venetia is set on a dangerous path.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581663</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Liam Brown
 
|title=Real Monsters
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lorna was 12 when she was sent home from school, watched the unfurling events of 9/11 on her TV and recognised her father's office block aflame and falling. Her fight for mental survival started at that moment and the use of alcohol to quell the memories came soon after but then she meets Danny her life saver.  Shortly after this they marry and Danny joins the army. He's sent to fight the monsters, the fundamentalist organisations, which destroyed Lorna's childhood. However when what's left of his unit becomes lost in the desert without food, water or equipment, the focus changes from military victory to personal survival and those monsters are still out there…
+
|summary=The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910394564</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0861544080
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Chigozie Obioma
+
|author=Heather Fawcett
|title=The Fishermen
+
|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book is essentially a cautionary family tale of four brothers and the way they react to a prophecy about them by the local madman. It is also, in a sense, a coming-of-age story where Ben, the young narrator, is plunged into premature adulthood under the most brutal of circumstances.  And it is about brotherly love. None of these descriptions, however, convey the fact that this book is written by an exciting new voice in African literary fiction.
+
|summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people.  So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track.  Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957548850</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356519120
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jonathan Kemp
+
|isbn=1398515388
|title=Ghosting
+
|title=The Boy and the Dog
|rating=5
+
|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Grace Wellbeck is 64 - living on a canal boat in London with her second husband, she lives a relatively settled life of routine.
+
|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown.  The result was complete and utter devastation.  The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. 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 convenience store.  He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
A chance encounter with a man in the street changes everything though - a man who is the spitting image of her first, deceased husband. Is he a ghost? Is Grace going mad?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251560</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
 
|author=Nicci Cloke
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Lay Me Down
+
|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=4.5
+
|title=Mr Magenta
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=It's New Year's Eve and the nightclub is pulsating with sound.  The revellers heave and swell in oceanic waves and Jack is preparing to call it a night, when he is presented with Elsa.  She is small; delicate and pretty and alluringly confident - a heady combination for a man like Jack - and though he wants, with every fibre of his being, to walk away, to go home and forget her, he doesn't.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593653</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Antonia Honeywell
 
|title=The Ship
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sixteen year old Lalla has spent her life in London – mostly inside her family home. Because this is not the London of today, or any other day. When Lalla was seven, the apocalypse arrived; banks crashed, flood defences failed, power failed – and the world could only focus on survival. Now the Nazareth Act is in force and without your identity card, you don’t exist – literally, as you will be shot if you don't produce it.
+
|summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871498</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Nigel Packer
+
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=The Restoration of Otto Laird
+
|title=Partitions of Unity
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Restoration of Otto Laird'' is an interesting concept for a story. It pitches an ageing architect against an ageing building that was built early in Otto's career. When Otto makes the trip from Switzerland to London to try and save Marlowe house from demolition, he takes an unwilling journey down his own past.  
+
|summary= Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751553077</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Walthew
+
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Complex Chemistry of Loss
+
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Deep in rural France James Kerr was admitted to a psychiatric clinic.  His mental problems were deep and intractable.  Superficially he seemed never to have got over the sudden death of his mother and sister when he was a child and after their death his relationship with his father had deteriorated because his father refused to speak of their loss.  There were additional factors too: Kerr had spent some time in Afghanistan in a secret capacity.  In fact much of his life since he went to university had involved putting up a front, but doing something else in the background.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00OLMHCW2</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
+
}}  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Brooke Davis
+
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=Lost and Found
+
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Millie Bird keeps a notebook. She writes in it all of the Dead Things that she sees. Her Very First Dead Thing was her dog Rambo. Then there were other things a spider, a Bird… but then there was number 28. The twenty-eighth dead thing than Millie Bird noticed was her Dad.
+
|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...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091958903</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
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
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jonathan Lethem
+
|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM
|title=Dissident Gardens
+
|title=The Calculations of Rational Men
 +
|author=Daniel Godfrey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rose Zimmer, a feisty American communist radical, takes on many good and great causes. These include everything from feminism and racism to the changing course of Stalinism in the American C.P. but most of all; her biggest causes are the people around her. The effects upon them are diverse and devastating. She often propels them to success but at the same time they feel battered and must escape according to their own needs. Her affections are real but invasive. Rose keeps a shrine to Abraham Lincoln. Rose’s self-assertion within the perimeters of the German-designed 20th Century New York suburb of Queens, a multi-cultural suburb and a planned housing development similar to Hampstead Garden City provide the setting for Jonathan Lethem’s Tour de Force.
+
|summary=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 still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it'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 prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563428</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Virginia Burges
 
|title=The Virtuoso
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=The title character of ''The Virtuoso'' is Isabelle Bryant, a professional violinist who has earned the affectionate nickname of 'Beethoven's Babe'. She was the youngest-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition and gave her first solo performance, of Beethoven's violin concerto, at Royal Albert Hall. 'Her violin represented another limb to her, it was that precious. It felt so natural, like an extension of her body.' It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the violin is Isabelle's life.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00R07U0B0</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Revision as of 10:04, 22 March 2024

0861546873.jpg

Review of

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time? Full Review

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Review of

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

5star.jpg General Fiction

It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. Full Review

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Review of

Diva by Daisy Goodwin

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Full Review

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Review of

The Perfect Passion Company by Alexander McCall Smith

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand… Full Review

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Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review

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Review of

A True Account by Katherine Howe

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a 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 young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Full Review

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Review of

Maybe Tomorrow by Penny Parkes

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He'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 frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not 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 going to come to a head. Full Review

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Review of

Radio Free Olympia by Jeffrey Dunn

4star.jpg General Fiction

Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. Full Review

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Review of

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

3.5star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

Good Girls Die by Ayura Ayira

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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 never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. Full Review

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Review of

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop

5star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

After Death by Dean Koontz

3star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

The Grave Listeners by William Frank

4star.jpg General Fiction

The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. Full Review

B0BYF82CXT.jpg

Review of

Semi-Detached by Deborah Stone

4star.jpg General Fiction

Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Full Review

1662507089.jpg

Review of

The Silent Bride by Shalini Boland

3star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

1787636003.jpg

Review of

The Girls of Summer by Katie Bishop

5star.jpg General Fiction

It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn'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. Full Review

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Review of

Three Graces by Amanda Craig

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

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Review of

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

Pineapple Street is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in their family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'. Full Review

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Review of

One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley

4star.jpg Crime

84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, 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 thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the 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 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? Full Review

0861546490.jpg

Review of

Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas

5star.jpg Literary Fiction

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. Full Review

0008506337.jpg

Review of

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

5star.jpg General Fiction

The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to 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.

Then Richard left them. Full Review

1914585402.jpg

Review of

Dashboard Elvis is Dead by David F Ross

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

I reviewed David F Ross's book There's Only One Danny Garvey a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it. Full Review

0861544080.jpg

Review of

Clara and Olivia by Lucy Ashe

4.5star.jpg General Fiction

The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that je ne sais quoi, that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a joie de vivre. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. Full Review

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Review of

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, 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? Full Review

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Review of

The Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

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First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. 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 convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in. Full Review

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Review of

Mr Magenta by Christopher Bowden

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Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. Full Review

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Review of

Partitions of Unity by Jennifer Mason

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Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in Preposterous, when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In Partitions of Unity, she sets her mind to solving a murder... Full Review

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Review of

The Daves Next Door by Will Carver

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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. Full Review

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Review of

Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason

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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... Full Review

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Review of

The Calculations of Rational Men by Daniel Godfrey

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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 still very fresh in people's minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it'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 prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothers. Full Review

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