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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Louise CandlishOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Swimming PoolAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5

|summary=''The Swimming Pool'' is Anuri spent her childhood on display to the story of a woman world, thanks to her step- Natalie - whose eyes are dazzled by a glamorous couple who live nearby. Natalie and husband Ed have a 13-year-old daughtermother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, Molly, and are the kind where she posted every step of parents youAnuri'd steer clear of at the school gates s childhood for fear of offending their politically correct sensibilitiessponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Molly has a phobia of water. Rather than keep Now Anuri is in her away from rivers twenties and pools, they subject she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to a childhood of therapy. They keep up with changes to Molly's phone code so they can check up on get her messages. They don't believe in private education and they eat nutritionally supplemented pizzas. Louise Candlish pokes delicious fun at this couplelife back, particularly at dull-assuing her step-ditchwater Ed whose moral rectitude stifles poor Natalie, desperate mother to break out of take down the content about her mould. Enter Lara Channing. Lara Anuri is a champion synchronised swimmer battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and former starlet. Her beauty, wealth secretly abusing people online and warmth have a magnetic attraction receiving money from them for Natalie who proves powerless to resist Lara's charmsdoing so. Most importantly, although she is less sure desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of LaraOphelia's enigmatic husband, Milesonline empire. The novel charts Natalie's journey as Can she is enticed away from Ed and into Lara's web, and there is an increasing sense of unease as events unfold. Add to this heady mix a few additional ingredientssave her sister, a heatwave, an outdoor pool and a gaggle of teenagers, perhaps herself and you have a recipe for disaster.her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405927321</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kit de Waal1529153298|title=My Name is LeonThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=Everything that It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is precious to Leon gets taken awayPrime Minister. His Action Man toys(A woman? I mean, his homehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, his mum, and his brotherthough. Women have been disappearing. The world seems utterly unfairWell, and they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so he sneaks 20p here, and 50p there, out of peoplefrightening. Miv's purses, whilst building up a rucksack full of all the things heupset because she's going overheard that her father wants to need when he finds his baby brother, and reunites his move the family'Down South'. Through all his planning he still manages to find enjoyment in small thingsWhen you're from Yorkshire, like Down South is a Curly Wurlyfrightening, foreign place, or riding his bikebest avoided. For Miv, or planting seeds with his new friends on the allotmentsmove would mean leaving her best friend, but how will he cope when he finally faces Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the truth of his new life without his familydangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241207088</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Rufi Thorpe1035906708|title= Dear Fang, With LoveDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= After seventeen year-old Vera's mental breakdownWe 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 Lucas takes 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 on voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a trip to the tiny Lithuanian town mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of Vilnius to recover and reconnect with their family historyher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472152158</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Simon BillAlexander McCall Smith|title= Artist in ResidenceThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5

|summary= The nameless protagonist of artist Simon Bill's first novel Perfect Passion Company is almost instantly dislikeable. He's a slob with dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alcohol problem whose endeavours 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 art world appear lackadaisical 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 who seems so jumps at the chance to have behaved questionably come home to his ex-girlfriend SusanEdinburgh. In his antihero And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, Bill gives himself bringing us to an uphill struggle Edinburgh we already love, thanks to keep 44 Scotland Street and the reader turning pagesIsabel Dalhousie novels, let alone engage their sympathybut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. And yet, Artist Katie has no experience in Residence is running a funnybusiness, thoughtor in match-provokingmaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, informative read which is all the more enjoyable for the mental and emotional demands it places on the reader.there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908745576</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paul CornellDean Koontz|title= Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?The Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= Fantasy Paranormal|summary=The Great Detecitve's ghost has walked London's streets for an ageBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, given shape by people's memoriesand his house gets trashed. Now Oh, and someone's put has delivered a ceremonial dagger throug really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his chest. But whathome, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the motive? And who - or what - could kill a ghost? When policing London's supernatural underworldthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, eliminating Benny is the impossible very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is not an optiona nice person. DI James Quill and his detectives have learnt this the hard way A really nice person. Gifted with So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the Sightdelivery to his house is a new friend, they'll pursue a criminial genius - bad weather friend called Spike, who'll lure them into has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a Sherlockian maze good person. Spike is going to take care of clues Benny, and evidence. The team also have thier own demons to fight. Theywill certainly take care of Benny've been to Hell s enemies, if he, Benny, and back Harper (literallya waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) but now the unit is falling apart..can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447273265</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Veronica HenryKatherine Howe|title=How A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|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 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.|isbn=0861547438}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to Find Love 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 Book Shophead.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=It 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 heavy heart that Emilia Nightingale returns home to journey through the forest, broadcasting the pretty Cotswold town strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of PeasebrookHer Own|rating=3. Her beloved father Julius has just passed away; his legacy, 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a well-loved bookshop that serves bout of scarlet fever as a beating heart to the communitychild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Julius was loved by all: he always had time to listen to his customers and share Suddenly plunged into a recuperative cuppa in times world of needsilence, everything about her life changes. However, his finances were another matter entirely and Emilia wonders how she can keep Living in a time when the bookshop open with an ever-mounting pile use of debt. Greedy property developer Ian Mendip would be sign language was seen as something only ''too'' happy savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to help outlip read, but can Emilia really give 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 her father's dream?other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140914688X</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy KoomsonB0BC3YTCMR|title=When I Was InvisibleGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Veronika Harper met Veronica Harper aged 8''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, form the start both deciding theya bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It'd stay firm friendss not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. Nika 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 Roni Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did everything together including their beloved ballet… until something goes terribly wrongat church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. This leads In shock, she even allowed him to give her a series of events lift home.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that donHelena 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't just tear their friendship but also 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 lives they family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would otherwise leadbe the first of several annual visits. They wish for invisibility She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and choose different ways frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to accomplish it for the sake of their survival; physical as well as emotionalJunta 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>1780893361</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithDean Koontz|title=My Italian BulldozerAfter 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 Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor.5It'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. }} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=Semi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4

|summary=I do love to sit down with ''Bill and Amanda are living in a new book by AMSsemi-detached house, and the excitement was doubled on this occasion since stuck in a new standalone story meant lots depressing rut of brand new characters to meetboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and also the book has a very intriguingly bizarre title! In this story we get to meet Paulmuch in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, a food writer who, after a rather upsetting break-up with his girlfriend, heads the couples befriend each other and life appears to Tuscany to finish writing his bookimprove for both pairs. So farBut all is not what it seems, so normal, but of course things soon get a little unusual, beginning with Paul’s arrest on his arrival in Italy and moving swiftly on to the point where instead of a hire car he finds himself with a hired bulldozer…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973554</amazonuk>their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Grady HendrixShalini Boland|title= My Best Friend's ExorcismThe Silent Bride|rating= 53|genre= HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=1988Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, Charlestonclever, South Carolina. High school sophomores Abby funny; total and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinnyutter husband-dipping goes disatrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...differentmaterial. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries - 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 time their story reaches its terrifying conclusionmuch-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the fate of Abby aisle by her father, beaming with pride and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friendship enough friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to beat face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the devil?altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1594748624</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frederic Dard and David Bellos (translator)1787636003|title=Bird in a CageThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=A man returns to It was the flat he grew up in summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and where his mother died without his knowledge, Caroline went backpacking around Greece and finds it too desolate for arrived on the time of year it is – Christmas Eveisland. Bursting for more lifeRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, despite being a solitary characterperhaps, he goes to a restaurantnaive, and finds a connection with a mother with her daughter. They dine, then go so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to the cinema, and sit together, and things happen from there – take an interest in a gentleher, no-pressure, no-names-no-packdrill wayshe was flattered rather than wary. If this isn't It was quite a reasonable start while before he made any sort of physical approach to a novella, consider the tag it has as a noir classicher and by that time she was obsessed by him. And consider Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the fact island and in particular in the strange woman is bar where all the spitting image of the man's dead wife…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271996</amazonuk>girls either worked or partied.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer DonnellyAmanda Craig|title=These Shallow GravesThree Graces|rating=34.5|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=Jennifer Donnelly wrote one Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of my all-time favourite books, 'the-nation novel. There'A Gathering Light'', s something so I was very excited to read her latest novel utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and see how capture it, crafting an image of the country as it comparedstands in one particular moment. Like To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she''A Gathering Light'', ''These Shallow Graves'' is a historical novel s practically synonymous with a murder mystery the genre of contemporary social fiction at its heart and this point. She has such a feisty heroine who challenges gift for weaving the standards ongoing issues of the dayinto 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. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471405176</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Virginia Ironside152915118X|title=No, Thanks! I'm Quite Happy Standing!: Marie Sharp 4Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=Retired art teacher Marie Sharp ''Pineapple Street'' is wondering whether it's time the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to move house to be nearer her son Jack and grandson Genetheir brother Cord. The wondering doesnThey're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't take up all her time thoughreadily accepted into the tribe. For a start thereThe problem's exacerbated when the newclan matriarch, new-age lodger Robin Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda andChip have renovated and downsized to another property, talking about mena street or so away, Marie is getting on really well with her ex-husband Davidwhich they own. This single life They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in which . Nominally, they dib into each otherhad a choice but that wasn's worlds on a regular basis seems t the perfect way forwardreality. However not all is rosy: friend PennyDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's drinking too much plus a holiday living in India has unexpected conclusion''their'' family home. Oh and thereThey use it so often that they abbreviate it to 's the burglaries tooGD'. Who says that retirement is relaxing and uneventful?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782069321</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>1782069321</amazonus>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= William ThackerEmily Critchley|title= Lingua FrancaOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 2.54|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= Clichéd 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as it may soundher son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, language finds itself at as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the very core memory of human existence her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and experience. On the one hand, it defines individual cognition and thoughts and serves as worry that there was a way secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of communicating these thoughts to others; on what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the otherhigh street, it defines just as she was the social spherelast time she saw her, giving social values she starts to things, reflecting historyfind pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and constructing a common identitymore in her day to day life. It is also what William Thacker Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's second noveldisappearance before her move, ''Lingua Franca'', revolves around.and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079743</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice AdamsMadelaine Lucas|title=Invincible SummerThirst for Salt|rating=3.5

|summary=As Alice Adams's debut novel opens in the summer of 1995, four university friends are lounging on Bristol's Brandon HillLove, drinking and contemplating what the future holds. ThereI's Eva Andrewsd read, raised in Sussex by was supposed to be a single father; siblings Sylvie light and Lucien Marchantweightless feeling, neglected by their alcoholic mother; and Benedict Waverleybut I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a rich kid whose parents have young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a holiday home on Corfuman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Eva has a crush 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 Lucien, while Benedict is besotted with Evaboth romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1509814701</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Banner0008506337|title=The House at the Edge of NightGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=''The House at the Edge of Nightlove affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'' is an epic family sagaLeary was all-consuming, spanning some 95 years and several generationsapparently on both sides. The story begins Margo was just sixteen when Amedeo Esposito arrives at the isolated Sicilian island of Castellamare to serve as the first doctor they fell in the islandlove. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's historymother as 'an older man'. He is immediately captivated by this strange little community; Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a heady mix of traditionglittering career. In the event, superstition they eloped and ritualRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. An island so small is naturally Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a hotbed of gossip, with 'overheard' confessions being dutifully relayed across the fivewell-mile island within minutes of being heardrespected journalist. The benevolent Saint Agata watches over her people couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and bestows holidays were spent at Sandcove, the odd miracle upon family home on the fortunateIsle of Wight. This is Even then the place that Amedeo chooses doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to make his home and together with his resourceful wife Pina, they slowly restore the leave him in charge'cursed' House at the Edge of Night to its former glory as a bar and meeting place for the locals.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959322</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck Palahniuk1914585402|title=Make Something UpDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories General Fiction|summary=What are we to make of that subtitle-seeming writing on the front cover – I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'stories you cans Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There't unread''? Does that not apply to all good fiction? Clearly it is here due to the reputation s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of the author, years back and the baggage his name brings to the page. We'd expect a dramatic approach from anything Palahniuk writes, remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and an added frisson, an extra layer, from which we might be forced to shrink backaffecting it was. But It was a lot of the contents don't quite go that far. Yes, things are dramatic, when society starts attaching defibrillators to itself, to create the perfectgripping, simple, care- (''The Price is Right''-emotionally wounding read, and Kardashian-) free happiness. A man buys a horse for his daughter – but boy is it the wrong horse to buy. A man falls in love – yes, sometimes the plot summaries of these stories really are better off for being short (speaking rereading my review of which, don't turn to the three-page entrant here as a taster, it'll put you off by dint of being, almost uniquely here, a nothing story). A call centre worker can't convince people he's my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on the level and even in their country – until someone starts riffing back to himit. A housing estate report conveys bad regulation violations, but not as bad as the happenings at a 'Burning Man'-styled festival, in a very clever couple of tales. But many too are the instances where that extra step has been taken.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099587688</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick BantockLucy Ashe|title=Griffin Clara and Sabine 25th Anniversary Edition: An Extraordinary CorrespondenceOlivia|rating=4|genre=General Fiction |summary=Oh Griffin and Sabine, where have you been all my life? I've loved epistolary novels and ones that take the narrative two-and-fro of letters and bring us closer to the sender than any omniscient narrator can hope to do. I've still got the childlike love of picking at an envelope stuck in a book to pull out a sheet of something else – not only is there the wonder at the handmade construction of something so bluntly and undeservedly called 'a book', but there is the frisson of being the first person to see this artefact ever. So how have I never seen this book before, and its cycle of sequels, concerning the correspondence between two completely different people?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>145215595X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lisa Jewell|title=The Girls|rating=45

|summary=When Clare takes her two tween daughters Pip The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Grace to live in leafy Virginia TerraceOlivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, she is hoping for anonymityon the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a blank slate and lot that builds a fresh startdancer. Not so long agoSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, her story was in all of attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the newspapers when her paranoid-schizophrenic husband burned down the family homeclassroom. Her new house seems A stage presence, a world away from her previous lifecharm, a ''joie de vivre''. The crescent has difference between a communal garden at its hearthard-worker, where friendly neighbours socialise and children can run freea star. But does this new freedom come with a price?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099599473</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell MardellHeather Fawcett|title=Cold CallingEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=Five years Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar onfaerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, Ray still canto write her life't get over s work, the loss very first encyclopaedia of his girlfriendfaeries. Five years Whilst she is a long, long time to pine brilliant at research and mourn but Ray just doesn't seem speaking to be able to get off the treadmill of it all. The only meaningful relationships he has are faeries, she is not so good with his therapist and best friend Dannypeople. And it's not as though his job provides much So when she finds herself far, far North in the way small village of escape - Ray works 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 an insurance company as a cold callerher book back on the right track. This is how Enter Wendell Bambleby, one dayher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, he comes all charm and delight, much to speak to AnyaEmily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785891219</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenni Fagan1398515388|title=The Sunlight PilgrimsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Dylan walks away from First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this family's small London indie cinema , in 2020 to live on a Scottish caravan siteturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. His new neighbours Constance The deaths were uncountable, and her transgender 12 year old Stella have troubles the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their own, owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the odd British winter isntsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't helping. As a dog person but the country faces true Arctic temperatures life goes on… or at least it tries convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa toopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023302</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>0434023302</amazonus>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tarjei Vesaas, Torbjorn Stoverud and Michael Barnes (translators)Christopher Bowden|title=The BirdsMr Magenta|rating=4.5

|summary=WeChristopher Bowden're somewhere in rural Scandinavia, on the shores s latest novel is a patient untangling of a large lake, but in a community relying on the farmland that is scattered in amongst the woods. Our chief concerns are brother and sister – Mattis and Hege. He, Mattis, is what the other villagers call 'simpleseemingly ordinary woman' – sure, he knows a few things about s life, and what makes carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a clever person safe harbour and what makes a well-turned phrase, and how little bit of indulgence to talk to girls a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and when to not stare at them, but he is definitely not quite as the others would wish. Those others include his sister, who is seeing her life waste away in listening it seems to his chatter, knitting jumpers him an obligation to make ends meet, and regretting in her own small way what has got her to middle-age in this situation. But from this galling introduction, you should take away the bigger picture – even if there is no way find it all out, the life in this countryside is brilliantly conveyed, full of sun as well as shade, of labour and of idleness, and wit and charm as much as hardship. I defy you to read this and think this corner of Scandinavia bleak.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0914671200</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Diney CosteloeJennifer Mason|title= The Girl With No NamePartitions of Unity|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction |summary= Thirteen year old Lisa escapes from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and arrives unintentional detective in England in August 1939. She can't speak [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a word series of English and her only belongings are crammed into a small suitcasedisappearances. Among them is one precious photograph In ''Partitions of the family she has left behind in Germany. Lonely and homesickUnity'', not knowing if she will ever see sets her family again, Lisa is adopted by mind to solving a childless couple, and then bullied at school for being Germanmurder. But worse is to come when the Blitz blows her new home apart, and she wakes up in hospital with no memory of who she is, or where she came from. The authorities give her a new name and despatch her to a children's home. With the war in full swing, what will become of Lisa now?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784970050</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phaedra PatrickWill Carver|title=The Curious Charms of Arthur PepperDaves Next Door|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary=On 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 first anniversary of his wife Miriam's deathstory is told in backwards order, Arthur Pepper feels he might finally be leading up to the task of clearing out her wardrobefateful moment. He hasn|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary='t got far when he stumbles across '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 gold charm bracelet he doesnwomen't recognise. If he hadn't been feeling so out of sorts because s track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of -the anniversary he would never have rung the phone number he found engraved -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on the golden elephant. That would have been a shamecheap oil painting, because then he would never have set out on his peculiar quest to find out who his wife used to be before she met himan erotic art dealer in Georgia... From York to London, Paris and beyond, Arthur pursues Miriam's past ' This is just a sample of the cast of characters and learns things about his wifesettings in Preposterous. As you can see, his children and himself that he never imaginedsome keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848454368</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonas Jonasson and Rachel Willson-Broyles (translator)B0B2N7MVYM|title=Hitman Anders and the Meaning The Calculations of It AllRational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=35

|summary=ThereIt's feeling on edgethe 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, and therethe Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's feeling on edgeminds. Per is The world has barely had a hotel receptionist partly because his father and grandfather didn't give him a better destiny, and partly because he was working there when it was a shoddy knocking jointchance to breathe out. He's feeling on edge because someone has decided to live there, in room sevenBut for Joe Marr, and proudly announced that it's about not the first place hemissile crisis that's had as an adult to live in that isn't a prison – at the man, Hitman Anders, has killed three people in separate fits front of ragehis mind. And now Per is feeling even more on edge because Johanna, a woman in a dog-collar has turned up, tried to blag twenty kronor for a badly-worded prayer in Per's favour (even though sheHe's been sacked as a priest and is in fact a rampant atheist), and has now colluded to jointly with Per become Hitman Anders' criminal hit-job agents. But could anything make a newly rich Per – and Johanna – feel more on edge, than Hitman Anders gaining a conscience…?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008152071</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Esther Gerritsen and Michele Hutchison (translator)|title= Roxy|rating= 3|genre= General Fiction|summary= I liked the premise for this novel: a young wife (Roxy) is told at the beginning convicted of the book that her much older husband has been killed in a car accidentmurder. To add to With the shock current state of thismedical knowledge, the revelation it's hard to think otherwise than that he died in the arms of prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his (naked) lover first few days in the car, on the hard shoulderHMP Queen's Bench, is a further blow to Roxyrelatively new prison. I found this an interesting set-up for a story, and wondered how this was going to go. As the blurb on the back of the novel tells us, ''she is looking for revenge'', I thought the book would be a development of the character of Roxy into a self-motivating, strong character. But this wasn't the case.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380643</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Eva Holland|title= The DaughterHe's Secret|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Six years agojust getting used to his roommate, Stephanie and Nate ran away together. She was 15Mervyn, and he was her geography teacher. Awkward. We pick up the story with Ros, Steph's mother, as she learns that Nate is about learning to be released from prison, earlier than planned in just 11 days for now. The book takes place over those 11 days leading up to Mr Temperley's release as Ros struggles to break wary of the news to her daughterMcArthur brothers. She's bound to be devastated by it…isn't she?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409157040</amazonuk>