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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Aldous HuxleyOnyi Nwabineli|title= After Many A SummerAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian General Fiction|summary= Like many 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 usAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, I suspectbasically, 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, I knew nothing who is the new focus of Huxley other than Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the "required reading" same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'Brave New Worlds not what's worrying Miv's family, though. NaturallyWomen have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, on but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that basis aloneher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, he was pigeon-holed in my head under the heading 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'Sci-fi s stopped talking - must check out further''to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784870358</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jill Ciment1035906708|title=Heroic MeasuresDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|summary=Ruth and Alex Cohen have We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to move from their beloved Greek parents in Manhattan, New York apartment. They love it, but it's five floors up and there's no elevator. Reluctantly they're having an open day for prospective purchasers - in December 1923 and hoping that they'll be able only moved to buy something not ''too'' far out which has that elusive elevatorAthens when she was thirteen. It's not just them, either. There's Dorothy. Dorothy ('Dottie' to those who know Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her well) is their Daschund. She's getting on in years, but then so are Ruth and Alex. Then - the day before the open house - two things happen. An unmarked petrol truck is blocking the city's main tunnel and there's no sign of the driver. You don't even need father changed it to have ''long'Callas' memories to worry about terrorists make it more manageable in Manhattanthe States. Then Dottie yelps When she was back in pain and Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she can't stand up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271945</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sebastian Faulks|title= Where my Heart Used to Beat|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction |summary= In the early 1980’s, on a small island off was raised under the South of France, a Doctor named Robert Hendricks confronts his life – memories of wars, work, loves, and losses. As his history is explored and questioned Nazi occupation by his host, Hendricks recalls days in Scottish universities, Italian trenches, mental asylums and windswept beaches. Links to the past are uncovered, and the raw wounds they expose take Hendricks on a search for sanity mother who mercilessly exploited her and raises the question – is life comprised made no secret of events themselvesher preference for her elder sister, or the way in which an individual chooses to remember them?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936837</amazonuk>Jackie.

{{newreviewFrontpage

|title=The Revolving Door of LifePerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=I am always happy 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 sit back down get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with old friendsa 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 catch up on what has been happening on 44 Scotland Streetand the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. As Katie has no experience in the last episode [[Bertierunning a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's Guide always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to Life lend a hand…|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 Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith]] there 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 plenty of Bertie throughout the whole story. thing that has trashed his house! Bertie The thing is my favourite character by far, so this was Benny is the very pleasing last person to me! deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Our other favourites are there tooSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, howevera bad weather friend called Spike, so there's something who has been sent to please everyone, help him since Benny is clearly under attack from Bruce nefarious forces for beinga good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, welland will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, BruceBenny, and dear Angus reciting Harper (a poem at the endwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973287</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rachel ElliottKatherine Howe|title= Whispers Through A MegaphoneTrue Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Miriam doesn’t speak. WellHannah Masury is living in Boston, that’s not strictly true. She does speakhaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, but nothing above a whisper which makes it hard and being made to have work there from a conversation with heryoung age. Particularly as When she hasn’t left her house hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in three years. But today is the day. She’s going town, she decides to open that door go and walk outside. She really iswatch. Ralph has finally twigged (Enthralled and with no small amount of surprise) that his wife Sadie doesn’t actually love him. And now he’s not sure if she ever really did. Having spent so much time regurgitating his every moment onto Social Mediahorrified in equal measure, Ralph hasn’t really had Hannah finds herself embroiled in a chance to think about ityoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. But now he hasShe hides away, it is so shockingly awful that he has decided they don't find and kill her too, and then to run away. And of all the places he could run escape them completely she runs away tosea, he has chosen dressing as a boy and joining the same woods that Miriam has picked to be the first place she will visit out-of-doorsnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. And Sadie? Well, she’s had enough of reading Tweets and living vicariously through She soon finds herself in the posts thick of others. Sadie things when there is going to have an adventure a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of her ownlife on the ocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992918227</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gregoire Delacourt1471180158|title=The First Thing You SeeMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5

|summary=Arthur Dreyfuss is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a fairly run control freak with all the subtlety of the mill young mana half brick. He likes big breastsJamie's son, carsBo, Juplier beer and big breasts'has his problems'. He’s also rather keen on big breasts. A good-looking boy, even if he does say so himself He''…like Ryan Goslings asthmatic and the more you read, only better lookingthe more you'll suspect that he' we will s on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take him time off at his word, although one would had thought short notice - she's a better looking Ryan Gosling would have had his fill of Zepplin chested females so as frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to dilute his desire for themschool. In any event, I suspect his longings stem Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from the fact that a young mechanic living a quiet school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and uneventful life put in a tiny village in rural France is unlikely to have a multitude of such femmes crossing his path in search of their daily baguettethe wrong. That said, when Arthur one day opens his front door It was going to come to find a rather distressed but undeniably luscious Scarlett Johansson on his doorstep, he does not question his luck. He invites her in. As you dohead. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871021</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John PiperB0CKD1L5JL|title=Claude's JourneyRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=One routinePetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, normally uneventful journey changes Claudein the forests of Washington's life forever,Olympic Peninsula. It begins with After Bear dies and a chance encounter brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a malevolent hen party and carries pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on with a journey through the forest, broadcasting the betrayal of those he thought strange, wild and rarely heard voices he could trust sending him into a spiral of captivity and fetishist slaveryencounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00EJQSLLG</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Beth MillerSarah Marsh|title= The Good NeighbourA Sign of Her Own|rating= 43.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Minette has not had the best experience After a bout of neighbours. It's hard when you have a new born. They're not known for being quiet scarlet fever as a mouse at all times and occasionallychild, well, occasionally they scream through the night. So she's glad when the nasty couple move and are replaced by Cath and Ellen Lark loses her two kidshearing. A fellow mother! An ally! Surely she will be more understanding?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091956331</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Fausto Brizzi|title= One Hundred Days of Happiness|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Sometimes ''Serendipity'' coerces ''Fate'' Suddenly plunged into making sure you read a particular bookworld of silence, everything about her life changes. I picked ''One Hundred Days…'' off the shelf on Living in a time when the back of the blurb from an author use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a book I haven't actually school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. I confused From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the title of their book with one I adoreddeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Make of that what you willAt the same time, I'm going to call it a happy accidentBell is working on other inventions and ideas, because this is and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a book many complicated tangle of us really need to readespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447269012</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S E CraythorneB0BC3YTCMR|title=How You See MeGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Daniel's father 'This story is ill after a stroke and so Daniel needs to go home to Norfolk to nurse himnot for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. While there he continues to write letters to his beloved girlfriend AliceShe was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, his sister Mab and his boss suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to keep them up to datehug her in case it's contagious. The problems in DanielIt's life are not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a lot closer 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 home than those his house and he's left behind in his normal life thoughraped her. Gradually the reasons why Daniel left Norfolk return In shock, she even allowed him to him, increasing in intensity until it's much, much too lategive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908434562</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Massey 1472263936|title=The Last Four Days Of Paddy BuckleyFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45

|summary= Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher'sIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, a long-established—some say had left the best—funeral family home in Dublin. One night driving home after an unexpected encounter with a clientand refused to return, Paddy hits but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pedestrian crossing the streetpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending Her trip to do the right thingfamily apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. As he bends over She grew to help love her grandmother and the man, he recognizes him. Itfamily's Donal Cullenmaid, Dina, brother but was wary - and frightened - of one her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the most notorious mobsters in DublinJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. And he His prejudices included Helena's dead. Shocked red hair and scared, Paddy jumps back in his car and drives away before anyone notices whatgreen eyes - inherited from her father's happenedScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594634858</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James LovegroveDean Koontz|title=Sherlock Holmes After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio- hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Thinking EngineGrave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=In this hyperThe village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants -connected world, it is not difficult to conceive its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of machines that can answer perplexing questions in the blink of an eyeforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, communicate over a vast network or and even seemingly outsmart humansgallows, if needed. Of course, The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the year 1895village and that is the reason Volushka, such a machine would be viewed with deep suspicion and curiosity; hailed as a miracledrunken, self-indulgent, or condemned as the work lazy lout of dark supernatural forces. James Lovegrove put this idea to the test in his latest Sherlock Holmes adventure, ''The Thinking Engine'', which pits a man against machine in the ultimate battle of witsis tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783295031</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=C B CalicoB0BYF82CXT|title=Dandelion AngelSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=In her Author's Note, debut novelist C.B. Calico reveals that ''Dandelion Angel'' was inspired by Bill and Amanda are living in a nonsemi-fiction workdetached house, ''Understanding the Borderline Mother'' by Christine Ann Lawson. The four mother/daughter relationships stuck in this Germany-set novel – all marked to some extent by dysfunction, physical a depressing rut of boredom and/or verbal abusedisappointment, when Terry and borderline personality disorder Fiona – are based on Lawson's metaphorical classifications: the hermit, the queen, the waifglamorous, successful and the witch. Looping back through her four storylines very much in three complete cycles, Calico shows how mental illness is rooted in childhood experiences and can go on to affect a whole family.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0112SC9CA</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett|title=The Silent History|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Well, they kept this quiet love – for reasons that will become obvious. A couple of years ago people move in America were giving birth to problematic kidsnext door. They (the children) were soon found to be unnaturally quiet – perhaps crying with hunger or pain, but never even trying to 'ooga-wooga' Despite their way into their parents' hearts. They were later found to be completely unable to speakdifferent outlooks on life, they could not read the couples befriend each other and indeed they could not understand anything said life appears to them, or shown them, as an instructionimprove for both pairs. They were physically unable to parse anything as languageBut all is not what it seems, and were in a silent world of their own. But right about now they and we increasingly interconnected relationships are combining worlds – schools are being set up, and funds are being made available, and people are coming down on the endless divide as to whether they are just problematic, disabled – or even the blessed. In a couple of years, however, the problems the virus that is causing these people to be born with will be shown to be a major problem – and that is before the kids themselves change. For they will be able to switch their mental abilities much like a blind man can hear more than the average, and will be able to comprehend body and facial language much more coherently than anyone elsefated for tragedy. Throughout this timeline, however, people will be working hard to try and study the problem, and put it right – if indeed 'right' is the correct word…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009959286X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Crown and Jamie Searle Romanelli (translator)Shalini Boland|title=SiriusThe Silent Bride

|summary=Meet LeviAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He's a humble little dog living with a loving family. They've spent so much time with him he is everything she has learnt some tricks – not only the usual onesbeen searching for; handsome, of beggingaccomplished, or playing deadclever, but walking on two legsfunny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, somersaulting on to his two other pawssuccessful, confident… and giving so the Hitler saluteinevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. If this was 2015 in When the UK he would be shoemuch-in for Britain's Got Talent (although anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the Hitler salute might lose him a few votesaisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to be honest) but celebrate this is 1930s Berlin, joyful day and things are starting when Seth turns to get horrendously tough and nasty for Jewish families like his. Querying the statute laws that demand a formalisation of Jewish names face his owners rename Levi after Siriusapproaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the Great Dog in man at the night skies. But nobody can foresee what happens when Jews are pushed harder and harder from their neighbourhoodsaltar is, and nobody can see what a Great Dog star Sirius can who is waiting for her to become, in the most unlikely of milieux – Hollywood…his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784081981</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Meike Ziervogel1787636003|title=KautharThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Meet LydiaIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. SheRachel wasn's a normal British girlt exactly innocent but she was, interested in following both her fatherperhaps, and Nadia Comanecinaive, into the world of gymnastics but not brave enough so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to pull off the larger set piecestake an interest in her, and with not much more to interrupt her days she was flattered rather than wondering why boys always have to talk about their willieswary. Now meet Kauthar, It was quite a white British convert while before he made any sort of physical approach to Islam, devoted follower of the precepts of her religion, ardent wife and stalwartly self-fulfilling, no-nonsense and satisfiedby that time she was obsessed by him. But what is this – why is she talking of being alone in a desertAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and why is she directly addressing her god regarding how she ''can't perform any movementin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. Because it is torn apart''? Has something gone wrong?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630292</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia HeaberlinAmanda Craig|title=Black Eyed SusansThree Graces

|summary=I knew little about this book before I started it Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of- other than the intriguing title and the scant information that it is a psychological mystery -nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about a girl any writer who survives abduction by a serial killer. For those who, like me, can't resist suspense (catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it seems that many people do fall into this category, according to crafting an image of the bestseller lists country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at least), doing this is enticement enough. And I was not disappointedwould be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this story offers psychological uncertainty and suspense from start to finishpoint. The narrative alternates between present She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day and into the past, each section lasting just a couple lives of pages. I found this structure tricky at first, although each chapter does offer her characters in a helpful timeline and the chapters are short enough that it's easy to reorient yourself. Once I got used to the choppy style I found way that it did work, feels natural and it worked really welllived-in, reflecting the constant flashbacks and mental turmoil experienced by Tessanever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, the protagonistgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718181336</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tessa McWatt152915118X|title= Higher Ed |rating= 2.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Robin works at a university. Olivia is one of his students. Francine works behind the scenes in admin. Katrin is a waitress in a local café, and Ed has a role in a rather unique bit of local government. This bizarre cast of characters are the stars of ''Higher Ed'', a story which eventually combines all of their lives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925228045</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewPineapple Street|author= Mary Kubica|title= Pretty BabyJenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= On her morning commute to work, Heidi sees something that shakes her. A young girl, barely older than her own pre-teen daughter, huddling in the rain on the platform, clutching a tiny baby. It's a distressing situation and it stays on her mind for the rest of the day. So much so that when she sees the girl again, she feels obligated to help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848453965</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=John Piper|title=La Crème de la Crem|rating=3

|summary=Gala night at Frere Jacques restaurant where ''Pineapple Street'' is the local political story of three women: Sasha, Darley and good gather for a banquetGeorgiana. Everyone Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is looking forward married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a good night and thatStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's what exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'll have, just not quite in d like to move into the way they envisagedPineapple Street property. Indeed it will be a night Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to remember for another property, a long time to comestreet or so away, for all the wrong reasons courtesy which they own. They won't need any of the little something furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in the dessert. Meanwhile young people are going missing on Nominally, they had a scale choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the town of Tresside has never experienced before but Tresside doesngold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 't know the half of it… yet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00G4A2RQ0</amazonuk>GD'.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Katie EversonEmily Critchley|title= DropOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 4|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= Katie Everson’s debut novel84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, ‘Drop,’ but now she is facing a tale of grief move as her son wants to move to another house and healingbring Edie to live with his family, whirlwind romance and brutal honestyas Edie is starting to lose her memory. We follow However, Edie is tormented by the story memory of Carla - straight-A-studenther childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, rule-abiding daughter and somewhat uninteresting friend - who is determined to change her predictable lifethe 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. When After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her absentee mother is offered a job in London, Carla transfers she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet another school and this time as she remembers the past, she is desperate forgetting more and more in her day to not be overlookedday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406356271</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= John NivenMadelaine Lucas|title= The Sunshine Cruise CompanyThirst for Salt|rating= 4.5|genre= HumourLiterary Fiction|summary= Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset town. Friends since school''Love, I'd read, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has was supposed to be a lovely house light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a lengthy marriage to accountant Barryretrospective view, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's homeyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeonOverlaid with later wisdom, it transpires that he has been leading the narrator relives the affair with a hidden life for man twenty years, and his expensive fetishes lead 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 bank moving to take Susan24-year-old narrator's home. Struck by both desperation and a sense of injusticedeepening relationship with her older lover, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bankdepicting its all-consuming nature, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money how it changed her perspective on both romantic and a terminally ill grandson, familial relationships and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of the nursing home longing for adventurehow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paula McGrath0008506337|title= GenerationThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=How can we know the effect 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 our choices may have on Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the next generation? Even a seemingly minor decision has event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the potential Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to create ripples become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and waves of unforeseen repercussions Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the futurefamily home on the Isle of Wight. This fascinating theme is explored in “Generation”, an intelligently-written début novel that approaches Even then the subject doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from multiple perspectives over an eighty-year periodMargo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147361483X</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kerry Hudson1914585402|title= ThirstDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= London – SummerI 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. Alena, It was a young siberian immigrant is caught stealing shoes. Davegripping, the man who catches heremotionally wounding read, is a security guard – surviving and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on a minimal income and with little drive to better his quiet, repetitive life. As Alena and Dave grow closer, Dave finds his life turned upside downit. But will Alena ever let down her guard, and reveal the truth about her past?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099589893</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Lesley PearseLucy Ashe|title= Without a TraceClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=CassieThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's arrival was bound to cause a stir in the sleepy Somerset village of SawbridgeWells. She had flaming red hairBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, a voluptuous figure accentuated by very tight clothing, towering heels, heavy make-up and twins no wedding ringless. But Identical on the thing that really shocked outside but not, we learn, on the locals was the fact inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that she had builds a little mixed-race girl in towdancer. PetalSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, as she was calledattention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', soon melted that don't come from the hearts of the residentsclassroom. A stage presence, but no such courtesy was extended to Cassiea charm, who was dubbed a ''joie de vivre'that red-headed whore' by some. Her only friend was the kind shopkeeper Molly HeywoodThe difference between a hard-worker, who would often visit Cassie and Petal at their isolated stone cottage on the outskirts of the villagea star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024196153X</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eva RiceHeather Fawcett|title=Love Notes for FreddieEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=Marnie Emily Wilde is an innocentexpert academic scholar on faerie lore, mathematical genius schoolgirl whoand she has travelled extensively, unfortunatelyand researched meticulously, gets expelled from to write her fancy boarding schoollife's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Julie Whilst she is her teacherbrilliant at research and speaking to faeries, formerly a dancer, rigorously private about her past. Freddie she is the boy that both of them fall in love not so good withpeople. Revealed through So when she finds herself far, far North in the eyes of two small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the three main charactersvillage matriarch, this she is a slow-movingnot sure what she has done, but rather beautifully told, love storynor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. It has the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets'' Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and it cleverly winds its way through Marniedelight, much to Emily's story in frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the 1960's as well as Julie's past in pre-WW2 New York.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782064486</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kat Gordon1398515388|title= Artificial Anatomy of ParksThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=One morning in 2002First of all, it was the earthquake, twenty-one year old Tallulah Park is woken deep in her depressing bedsit by the phonecall announcing her father's heart attack. From this bleak beginning springs Kat Gordon's gripping debut novel of a dysfunctional upper middle class family with a history of papering over ocean floor, which created the cracks tsunami and ignoring this, in turn, caused the uncomfortable nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and unfittingutter devastation. Tallulah has been doing her fair share of powering on The deaths were uncountable, and pretending things don't exist, but it seems like this might turn out to be the time to stop running awayloss of livelihoods was widespread. With The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the reluctant help list of two aunts, an old family friend and her own imperfect recollections, and with priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a vivid imagining of her late grandmother as dog person but the voice of conscience, Tallulah sets out convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to answer some long-standing questions about her family open his car door and her own pastTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079867</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dido Butterworth and Tim FlanneryChristopher Bowden|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishMr Magenta|rating=34|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Meet Archie Meek. HeChristopher Bowden's about to leave the Venus Islands, where helatest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's lived for the last five yearslife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and return a little bit of indulgence to Sydney, where he'll take his office in the museum a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickled. That's not seems to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his body. But what's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him an obligation to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artworkfind it all out. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate HewittJennifer Mason|title= Rainy Day SistersPartitions of Unity|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary=Amateur artist Lucy Bagshaw isn't exactly living the American dream; she lives in Boston with her overbearing mother and works as a barista in a coffee shopHere at Bookbag Towers, but things are about to get a lot worse. Her motherwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, a famous dominatrix and controversial artistunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], writes an scathing editorial, publicly insulting Lucy's artwork just before her first exhibition. The editorial quickly goes viral when she investigated and unravelled a humiliated Lucy flees the country, unsure series of where her life is headingdisappearances. She runs away where nobody can find her; a sleepy Cumbrian village by the seaIn ''Partitions of Unity'', where she sets her estranged half-sister runs mind to solving a boarding housemurder.. Lucy quickly questions the wisdom of her decision when she receives a frosty welcome from her sister in a village that seems permanently cold, wet and rainy. Should Lucy try and make a new life for herself here, or should she return to Boston and face her demons?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0451475585</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah WinmanWill Carver|title=A Year of Marvellous WaysThe Daves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line.5As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4

|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the landscape 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with her binoculars. She has a feeling something will happen and soon. Elsewhere American Francis Drake state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(he's heard all the jokes!, x) has come home from the war and looks up the girl he left behind with results that are beyond his nightmares but will feature , on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in themGeorgia... Marvellous' and Drakes' lives will cross  This is just a sample of the cast of characters and then – Marvellous is right – something settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will happenbe required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Bourne B0B2N7MVYM|title=Two LivesThe Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=3.5

|summary=One late afternoon It's the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in January 2012context, Emma Elliot and Loretta Davidsonthe Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's lives collide – along with their carsminds. Both are running late and driving too fast along this Surrey road The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. Emma is unharmed and flees But for Joe Marr, it's not the scene. Little does she know missile crisis that this incident will have long-term consequences further down 's at the linefront of his mind. He's been convicted of murder. For Loretta With the current state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the effects are more immediate. A social worker prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in her fortiesHMP Queen's Bench, she has taken a career break to raise her and Martinrelatively new prison. He's beloved son Ethanjust getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, born after an arduous IVF cycle just over four years ago. Ethan is in critical condition after the car accident and dies during surgery. In her grief, Loretta turns learning to Scotch and Valium and drifts away from her husband and their familiesbe wary of the McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>