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= Mike Bullen
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|author=Onyi Nwabineli
|title= Trust
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|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating= 4
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|rating=4.5
|genre= General Fiction
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Greg and Amanda are happy. Unmarried, but together thirteen years and with two young daughters, they are very much in love. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motions, and they're staying together for the sake of their troubled teenage son. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, and turns an unhappy couple into love's young dream. As secrets and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trust
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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 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861546873
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Menna Van Praag
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|isbn=1529153298
|title=The Dress Shop Of Dreams
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|title=The List of Suspicious Things
 +
|author=Jennie Godfrey
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Cambridge is a city of winding streets and cobbled alleyways and in such a street you will find A Stich In Time, a tiny dress shop filled to bursting with dresses that will take your breath awayEtta Sparks spends her days crafting gowns from jewel-coloured velvets and beaded silks that are unlike any dresses you have seen before; once you try one of Etta's creations on - and with a few stitches from her expert and rather magical needle - these incredible, amazing garments have the power to reach within your soul and extract your deepest desire and hidden-away dreams.
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749018720</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1035906708
 +
|title=Diva
 +
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ruth Rendell
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|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Dark Corners
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|title=The Perfect Passion Company
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carl Martin was in the fortunate position of having just had his first novel published and inheriting his late father's house in Maida ValeHis father had accumulated a collection of homeopathic remedies which really should have been thrown out, but Carl had other things on his mind and never got round to itThere was his girlfriend Nicola, work to start on his second novel and he wanted to let the top floor of his house.  Authors are not that well off, you see and he needed some ready money coming inIn addition to being a bit remiss about the contents of the medicine cabinet he should have been a bit more careful about who he took on as a tenant.
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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 charmKatie 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>0091959241</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1846976596
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Dean Koontz
 +
|title=The Bad Weather Friend
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Paranormal
 +
|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad dayHe 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 personA 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 personSpike 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=Julia Franck and Anthea Bell (translator)
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|author=Katherine Howe
|title=West
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|title=A True Account
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Put yourself in the shoes of a young mother to two children, who declares her intention to leave the Communist East Germany for West Berlin, and thus loses her scientist jobWhat would you expect on the other side – shops full of attainable products, pleasant neighbourhoods, nice neighbours, an active and busy new life, where things might feel alien but at least you speak the same language? Well, for Nelly Senff, this is hardly the case.  Once past the depressing Eastern exit procedures she is confronted with more desultory interrogations from those 'welcoming' her to the West, beyond which she and her children (their father, whom she never married, is long assumed dead by the authorities, if nobody else) are practically left in a shared accommodation in a transit campThe shops are full of what is still unobtainable, the children hate their new school – and people still look down on them as being foreign, even if they have only moved across a city.
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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 age.  When 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 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 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>0099554321</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0861547438
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Beverley Hansford
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|isbn=1471180158
|title=The Golden Anklet
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|title=Maybe Tomorrow
|rating=3.5
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|author=Penny Parkes
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jane Carroll is becoming more and more successful as a young journalist on a woman's magazineYet, although her future looks secure, Jane would like to discover more about her pastAs an orphan she was raised in a children's home with no information regarding the identity of her parents apart from what was on her birth certificateTherefore armed with this certificate and the help of her new boyfriend Bob, not to mention genealogist dabbling neighbour Gerald, the search beginsHowever nothing is as straightforward, or indeed as safe, as she thought it would be.
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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 brickJamie'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 spectrumSometimes 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 wrong.  It was going to come to a head.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784624675</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL
|author=Jane L Gibson
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|title=Radio Free Olympia
|title=A Different Reflection
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|author=Jeffrey Dunn
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eternal optimist Kat has always believed in fairytales and happy endings but can't help but wonder where her own life went wrong. Stuck in a dead-end relationship with dull workaholic John, it's hardly the happy-ever-after that she'd always hoped for. Things are about to change, however, when Kat discovers a mysterious house that has been cursed by an enchantment; a handsome Regency beau is trapped within the mirrors and only a declaration of true love can break the spell and release him...
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784622508</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sandy Hogarth
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|author=Sarah Marsh
|title=The Glass Girl
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|title=A Sign of Her Own
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sandy Hogarth's debut novel opens in 1975 with fifteen-year-old Ruth Bishop attending a party with her older sister, Alexis. 'They called me VL, Virgin Lips, because I'd never kissed a boy. Sex wasn't mentioned at home.' That all changes when Alexis tells Ruth to go outside – someone is waiting for her. It's one of Alexis's friends, a notorious bad boy, and he assaults Ruth right there, up against the house. Could Alexis really have intended for this to happen? Ruth soon learns she is pregnant and arranges to move to Australia and live with her friend Lucy's aunt in Melbourne until the birth. She gives her beloved daughter Clare up for adoption, but never stops thinking about her. No one but Lucy knows there ever was a baby.
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|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing.  Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing.  From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785071548</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1035401614
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=John Boyne
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|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=The Boy at the Top of the Mountain
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|title=Good Girls Die
 +
|author=Ayura Ayira
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet PierrotAs a very young child in 1930s Paris he is going to have a very awkward journey through his young life.  His father is a violent drunk, reacting badly to what he saw in WWI, and although married to a French woman, is still staunchly GermanThat woman, Emilie, is going to die, and leave Pierrot an orphan, which will leave him in a home where he is bulliedBut from the reaches of Europe and from the black corners of his family comes an aunt, Beatrix, who will give him a home, of a kind, at a most unusual mountaintop buildingIt's not her home – she just works there and had to ask special permission from someone specialThe place?  The Berghof.
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|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857534521</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happenedShe 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% 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 extension.  She went to his house and he raped herIn shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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|author=Emma Burstall
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{{Frontpage
|title=Tremarnock: The Lives, Loves and Secrets of a Cornish Village
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|isbn=1472263936
|rating=4
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|title=The Figurine
 +
|author=Victoria Hislop
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Welcome to Tremarnock; an idyllic Cornish fishing village with pastel-painted cottages and colourful fishing boats bobbing in the harbour. This picture-postcard setting is home to single-mum Liz and her disabled daughter, Rosie. Liz works hard to make ends meet and relies on the kindness of neighbours for childcare. Thankfully, the community are happy to rally round and provide friendship, support, a listening ear and a cup of tea for hard-working Liz. Soon she will need to rely on them more than ever, as her life takes an unexpected turn that threatens to destroy her happiness.
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781857881</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Leigh Bardugo
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|author=Dean Koontz
|title= Six of Crows
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|title=After Death
|rating= 5
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|rating=3
|genre= Fantasy
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In The Barrel, anything is possible for the right price, and no one knows this better than criminal mastermind, Kaz Brekker. When Kaz is offered a chance at a perilous mission that could turn his poverty-stricken life upside down, he is determined to see the task fulfilled - but he won't be able to do it alone.
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|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1627792120</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662500467
}}
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}}  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Dan Rhodes
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|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH
|title=When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow
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|title=The Grave Listeners
|rating=4.5
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|author=William Frank
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Two people are on a train on their way to, of all things, a WI meeting where the ladies of All Bottoms will be lectured on the non-existence of God. One of the two people is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappie, and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''. The other is Smee, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretary'.  Smee will come to the fore when the weather sets in and the train journey has to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottom.  Instead the pair fetch up at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, and the only option for accommodation is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool non-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wife. This clash of titanic opinions, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for a particularly English kind of farcical comedy, but one with the legs to go as far as any other Good Books have reached in the past…
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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.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709018</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Chandler
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{{Frontpage
|title=Please Don't Leave Me Here
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|isbn=B0BYF82CXT
 +
|title=Semi-Detached
 +
|author=Deborah Stone
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=fiction
 
|summary= If you like unreliable narrators then this is the book for you. In Brigitte, the protagonist of Please Don't Leave Me Here, Tania Chandler has created an unforgettable troubled character whose fractured mental state leads to erratic thought processes, vivid and none too pleasant dreams and an inability, or unwillingness, to recover her memory of her former life. None of which is helped by her drink problem and, as the story progresses, an addiction to prescription medication.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925228258</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Emylia Hall
 
|title=The Sea Between Us
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=To her parents, the move to Cornwall was an escape to a better way of life. For city-girl Robyn, it was wet, remote and miserable and she was counting down the days to University and her return to civilization. Desperate for something to do to entertain herself, Robyn takes a wetsuit and surfboard and makes her way to a secluded cove. An inexperienced surfer, she soon gets into difficulty, but is rescued from the sea by a young local man called Jago. From that moment on, the two lives are intertwined by an invisible bond; a bond that will be tested and stretched during the years that follow.
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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>1472211979</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Anne Barnett
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|author=Shalini Boland
|title=The Largest Baby in Ireland After The Famine
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|title=The Silent Bride
|rating= 4
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|rating=3
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=She was all colour and sway, and as far away as imaginable from the local women. Pale, pale skin and strong dark auburn hair falling free to large wide hips. She wore a purple shawl. That night Felix, a bachelor, aged 43, living in the house he was born in, dreamt of purple. Purple in the shape of a woman.
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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-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.
And just like that, things change. I love this passage. It shows how strong the human pull is. Even when men and women are surrounded by great events - war, political upheaval, famine, depression - individual human desires can change the picture in an instant.
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|isbn=1662507089
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>186151526X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander Cordell
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|isbn=1787636003
|title=The Hosts of Rebecca
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|title=The Girls of Summer
 +
|author=Katie Bishop
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At the end of [[Rape of the Fair Country by Alexander Cordell|Rape of the Fair Country]] Iestyn Mortymer had been sentenced to deportation for seven years because of the part he played in the Chartist rebellion and the Newport Rising of 1839His mother, wife, Marie, younger brother, Jethro, sister, Morfydd and the two children of the family returned to the land, living on a farm owned by Marie's grandfatherThe life was hard and not just for the Mortymers, with poverty breathing over their shoulders and it was made worse by the tollgates installed by landowners, effectively adding a levy to any produce which the farmers attempted to move.
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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 islandRachel 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 himAlistair 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>B0100NC1GM</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
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|author=Amanda Craig
|title=The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine
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|title=Three Graces
|rating=5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Back to Botswana I go, having saved this newest outing in the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series for a delightful weekend read.  I never tire of these characters, and I always look forward to seeing what is happening in their lives.  This time around the story is about holidays, amongst other things, and the tricky plans to persuade Mma Ramostwe to take a holiday. But what is Mma Makutsi up to?  Does she have plans to take over the agency entirely whilst Mma Ramotswe is away?
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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>1408706660</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 140871468X
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author= Aldous Huxley
 
|title= After Many A Summer
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
 
|summary= Like many of us, I suspect, I knew nothing of Huxley other than the "required reading" of ''Brave New World''.  Naturally, on that basis alone, he was pigeon-holed in my head under the heading ''Sci-fi - must check out further''.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784870358</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jill Ciment
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|isbn=152915118X
|title=Heroic Measures
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|title=Pineapple Street
 +
|author=Jenny Jackson
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ruth and Alex Cohen have to move from their beloved New York apartment.  They love it, but it's five floors up and there's no elevatorReluctantly they're having an open day for prospective purchasers - and hoping that they'll be able to buy something not ''too'' far out which has that elusive elevatorIt's not just them, eitherThere's DorothyDorothy ('Dottie' to those who know 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 happenAn unmarked petrol truck  is blocking the city's main tunnel and there's no sign of the driverYou don't even need to have ''long'' memories to worry about terrorists in ManhattanThen Dottie yelps in pain and she can't stand up.
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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 tribeThe 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 ownThey won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight inNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the realityDarley 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>1782271945</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Emily Critchley
 +
|title=One Puzzling Afternoon
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Crime
 +
|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?
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|isbn=1804181250
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Sebastian Faulks
+
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title= Where my Heart Used to Beat
+
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating= 5
+
|rating=5
|genre= General Fiction  
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= In the early 1980’s, on a small island off 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 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 and raises the question is life comprised of events themselves, or the way in which an individual chooses to remember them?
+
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091936837</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
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
+
|isbn=0008506337
|title=The Revolving Door of Life
+
|title=The Garnett Girls
 +
|author=Georgina Moore
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I am always happy to sit back down with old friends, to catch up on what has been happening on Scotland StreetAs in the last episode [[Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith]] there is plenty of Bertie throughout the whole storyBertie is my favourite character by far, so this was very pleasing to me! Our other favourites are there too, however, so there's something to please everyone, from Bruce being, well, Bruce, and dear Angus reciting a poem at the end.
+
|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sidesMargo 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 WightMargo 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>1846973287</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Then Richard left them.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
 
|author= Rachel Elliott
+
{{Frontpage
|title= Whispers Through A Megaphone
+
|isbn=1914585402
|rating= 4.5
+
|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead
|genre= General Fiction
+
|author=David F Ross
|summary= Miriam doesn’t speak.  Well, that’s not strictly true.  She does speak, but nothing above a whisper which makes it hard to have a conversation with her.  Particularly as she hasn’t left her house in three years.  But today is the day.  She’s going to open that door and walk outside.  She really is.  Ralph has finally twigged (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 Media, Ralph hasn’t really had a chance to think about it.  But now he has, it is so shockingly awful that he has decided to run away.  And of all the places he could run away to, he has chosen the same woods that Miriam has picked to be the first place she will visit out-of-doors.  And Sadie?  Well, she’s had enough of reading Tweets and living vicariously through the posts of others.  Sadie is going to have an adventure of her own.  
+
|rating=4.5
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0992918227</amazonuk>
+
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Gregoire Delacourt
+
|author=Lucy Ashe
|title=The First Thing You See
+
|title=Clara and Olivia
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arthur Dreyfuss is a fairly run of the mill young man.  He likes big breasts, cars, Juplier beer and big breasts. He’s also rather keen on big breasts. A good-looking boy, even if he does say so himself
+
|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.
 
+
|isbn=0861544080
''…like Ryan Gosling, only better looking''
 
 
 
we will take him at his word, although one would had thought a better looking Ryan Gosling would have had his fill of Zepplin chested females so as to dilute his desire for them. In any event, I suspect his longings stem from the fact that a young mechanic living a quiet and uneventful life in a tiny village in rural France is unlikely to have a multitude of such femmes crossing his path in search of their daily baguette.  That said, when Arthur one day opens his front door 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 do.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871021</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=John Piper
+
|author=Heather Fawcett
|title=Claude's Journey
+
|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One routine, normally uneventful journey changes Claude's life forever,.  It begins with a chance encounter with a malevolent hen party and carries on with the betrayal of those he thought he could trust sending him into a spiral of captivity and fetishist slavery.  
+
|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 faeriesWhilst 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>B00EJQSLLG</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356519120
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Beth Miller
+
|isbn=1398515388
|title= The Good Neighbour
+
|title=The Boy and the Dog
|rating= 4.5
+
|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|genre= General Fiction
+
|rating=4.5
|summary= Minette has not had the best experience of neighbours. It's hard when you have a new born. They're not known for being quiet as a mouse at all times and occasionally, well, occasionally they scream through the night. So she's glad when the nasty couple move and are replaced by Cath and her two kids. A fellow mother! An ally! Surely she will be more understanding?
+
|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091956331</amazonuk>
+
|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.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
 
|author= Fausto Brizzi
+
{{Frontpage
|title= One Hundred Days of Happiness
+
|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating= 5
+
|title=Mr Magenta
|genre= General Fiction
+
|rating=4
|summary= Sometimes ''Serendipity'' coerces ''Fate'' into making sure you read a particular book.  I picked ''One Hundred Days…'' off the shelf on the back of the blurb from an author of a book I haven't actually read. I confused the title of their book with one I adored.  Make of that what you will, I'm going to call it a happy accident, because this is a book many of us really need to read.
+
|genre=General Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447269012</amazonuk>
+
|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.  
 +
|isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=S E Craythorne
+
|author=Jennifer Mason
|title=How You See Me
+
|title=Partitions of Unity
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Daniel's father is ill after a stroke and so Daniel needs to go home to Norfolk to nurse him.  While there he continues to write letters to his beloved girlfriend Alice, his sister Mab and his boss to keep them up to date. The problems in Daniel's life are a lot closer to home than those he's left behind in his normal life though.  Gradually the reasons why Daniel left Norfolk return to him, increasing in intensity until it's much, much too late.
+
|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>1908434562</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Massey
+
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Last Four Days Of Paddy Buckley
+
|title=The Daves Next Door
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=General Fiction
 +
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
 +
|isbn= 1914585186
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Jennifer Mason
 +
|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher's, a long-established—some say the best—funeral home in Dublin. One night driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending to do the right thing. As he bends over to help the man, he recognizes him. It's Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin. And he's dead. Shocked and scared, Paddy jumps back in his car and drives away before anyone notices what's happened.
+
|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>1594634858</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=James Lovegrove
+
|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM
|title=Sherlock Holmes - The Thinking Engine
+
|title=The Calculations of Rational Men
|rating=4
+
|author=Daniel Godfrey
 +
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In this hyper-connected world, it is not difficult to conceive of machines that can answer perplexing questions in the blink of an eye, communicate over a vast network or even seemingly outsmart humans. Of course, in the year 1895, such a machine would be viewed with deep suspicion and curiosity; hailed as a miracle, or condemned as the work of dark supernatural forces. James Lovegrove put this idea to the test in his latest Sherlock Holmes adventure, ''The Thinking Engine'', which pits man against machine in the ultimate battle of wits.
+
|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>1783295031</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

1846976596.jpg

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

140871468X.jpg

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

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Review of

Clara and Olivia by Lucy Ashe

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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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