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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|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- Remove -->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?|isbn=0861546873}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carys Bray1529153298|title=The Museum List of YouSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary= It 's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is summerPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, school is outthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, the days are longthey've been murdered, the bumblebees are big and blousy and the allotment where Clover helps but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her dad with father wants to move the vegetables needs weeding and wateringfamily 'Down South'. She likes the allotment; it helps her thinkWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. This summerFor Miv, Clover is going to unravel the mystery of move would mean leaving her motherbest friend, Sharon, Becky Brookfield and work out what makes her father so sadshe'll do anything to prevent that. All the time. ItShe's hard to be a kid with a dead mother, but Clover thinks itnot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's even harder stopped talking - to be dad with a dead wifeanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959608</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Simon Van Booy1035906708|title= Father's DayDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=When devastating news shatters the life We tend to think of six year old HarveyMaria Callas as Greek, but she finds herself was born to Greek parents in the care of a veteran social workerManhattan, WandaNew York, in December 1923 and alone 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 world save for one relative States. When she has never met was back in Athens - a disabled exsupposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -con, haunted she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a violent past he can't escape. Moving between past mother who mercilessly exploited her and present, Father's Day weaves together the story made no secret of Harvey's childhood on Long Islandher preference for her elder sister, and her life as a young woman in ParisJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780749694</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angela LambertAlexander McCall Smith|title=Kiss and KinThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=It's six months since The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the death of Harriet Capel's husband George. Looking back she's concluded that she was fond of, but probably not ''online apps in love''providing a more personal, with himtailored service. They had two sons Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and it's look after the elder of thesebusiness, Roderick who's married as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to Jenniferget away for a while. They have three childrenKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, but there's been a rather silly feud between and so jumps at the Capels and Jennifer's familychance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, the Gauntsbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, which dates back thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the couple's weddingIsabel Dalhousie novels, when Clarissa Gaunt, Jennifer's mother said something unpleasant in the church which dropped into one of those silences which always occur when you say something which you really shouldn'tbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Honours (Katie has no experience in running a business, or should it be ''dishonours''?) were even when George Capel later said something crass in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and vulgar about the bridethere's mother always her very helpful (and was overheard.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1861514301</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Liz FenwickDean Koontz|title= Under a Cornish SkyThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 34.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary=''Under a Cornish Sky'' Benny is the story of two very different women who are forced to work together to complete having a common goalterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Their personalities couldn't be more different Oh, so expect fireworks along the way! Shy Demi is as timid as a mouse and although she is someone has delivered a skilled architectreally weird, she is never able disturbing coffin-sized object to succeed in her career because others take credit for her work. In relationshipshis home, she is easily manipulated into doing things she doesnand it't always feel comfortable with; a fact s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is not lost on her sleazy current boyfriend, Matt. Lady-of-the-Manor Victoriathing that has trashed his house! The thing is, on Benny is the other hand, simply oozes self confidencevery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Although she So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is in her sixtiesa new friend, she has the body of a much younger woman and bad weather friend called Spike, who has no trouble getting men been sent to do exactly what she wantshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Despite a long list Spike is going to take care of younger lovers providing a pleasurable distractionBenny, her one true love is the family home and will certainly take care of BoscawenBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a glorious estate set in the picturesque Cornish countryside, not far from the seawaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409148289</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alison UmmingerKatherine Howe|title= My Favourite Manson GirlA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Fifteen year old Anna has had an excruciating yearHannah Masury is living in Boston, topped off having been sent to live with new stepparents and a new school. So she ''borrows'' her family's credit cardwho run an inn, and runs away being made to LA work there from a young age. When she hears there is to crash with her sister. But Hollywood isn't be a hanging of some pirates in the escape town, she needsdecides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, and it soon dawns on her: sheHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's trapped in a town full death at the hands of lost souls two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and wannabeskill her too, with no friendsand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, no cash dressing as a boy and no return ticket. When her sisterjoining the notorious Ned Low's obsessive ex offers her pirate ship as a job researching the murderous Manson girls for his next indie film, she accepts – albeit reluctantlycabin boy. This is not quite the summer Anna had She soon finds herself in mind; but the more she learns about the girls thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her fate, rip roaring tale of life on the more she comes to understand her family – and herselfocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472150848</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author= Louise CandlishPenny 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 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.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=The Swimming PoolRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=''The Swimming Pool'' Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the story of a woman - Natalie - whose eyes are dazzled by a glamorous couple who live nearby. Natalie and husband Ed have a 13-year-old daughterstrange, Mollyreclusive Bear, and are the kind of parents you'd steer clear of at the school gates for fear of offending their politically correct sensibilities. Molly has a phobia of water. Rather than keep her away he is brought up far from rivers bustling cities and poolsbusy human society, they subject her to a childhood in the forests of therapy. They keep up with changes to MollyWashington's phone code so they can check up on her messagesOlympic Peninsula. They don't believe in private education After Bear dies and they eat nutritionally supplemented pizzas. Louise Candlish pokes delicious fun at this couple, particularly at dull-as-ditchwater Ed whose moral rectitude stifles poor Natalie, desperate to break out of her mould. Enter Lara Channing. Lara is a champion synchronised swimmer and former starlet. Her beautybrief sojourn in human company, wealth and warmth have armed with only a magnetic attraction for Natalie who proves powerless to resist Lara's charmspirate radio transmitter, although she is less sure of Lara's enigmatic husband, Miles. The novel charts Natalie's Petr goes on a journey as she is enticed away from Ed and into Lara's webthrough the forest, and there is an increasing sense of unease as events unfold. Add to this heady mix a few additional ingredients, a heatwave, an outdoor pool and a gaggle of teenagersbroadcasting the strange, wild and you have a recipe for disasterrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405927321</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kit de WaalSarah Marsh|title=My Name A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life 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.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is Leonnot 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.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=Everything It was in 1968 that is precious Helena McCloud made her first trip to Leon gets taken awayGreece. His Action Man toysShe was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, his had left the family home, his mum, and his brother. The world seems utterly unfairrefused to return, but Mary and so he sneaks 20p here, and 50p there, out of peopleHamish (Helena's purses, whilst building 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 a rucksack full -market Kolonaki would be the first of all several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the things hefamily's going to need when he finds his baby brothermaid, Dina, but was wary - and reunites his familyfrightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Through all He was proud of his planning he still manages close connections to find enjoyment in small things, like a Curly Wurly, or riding the Junta and expected his bike, or planting seeds with family to uphold his new friends on the allotments, values but how will he cope when he finally faces the truth of his new life without his familysaw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241207088</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rufi ThorpeDean Koontz|title= Dear Fang, With LoveAfter Death|rating= 43|genre= General Fiction|summary= After seventeen yearMichael 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-old Vera's mental breakdownhazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, her father Lucas takes her on he has a trip sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the tiny Lithuanian town shrouded bodies of Vilnius to recover his dead friends and reconnect with their family historyformer 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|amazonukauthor=<amazonuk>1472152158</amazonuk>William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|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.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Simon BillB0BYF82CXT|title= Artist in ResidenceSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 54

|summary= The nameless protagonist of artist Simon Bill's first novel is almost instantly dislikeable. He's Bill and Amanda are living in a slob with an alcohol problem whose endeavours semi-detached house, stuck in the art world appear lackadaisical a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and who seems to have behaved questionably to his ex-girlfriend Susanvery much in love – move in next door. In his antiheroDespite their different outlooks on life, Bill gives himself an uphill struggle the couples befriend each other and life appears to keep the reader turning pages, let alone engage their sympathyimprove for both pairs. And yet, Artist in Residence But all is a funnynot what it seems, thought-provoking, informative read which is all the more enjoyable and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for the mental and emotional demands it places on the readertragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745576</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paul CornellShalini Boland|title= Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?The Silent Bride|rating= 4.53|genre= Fantasy General Fiction|summary=The Great Detecitve's ghost Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has walked London's streets been searching for an age; handsome, given shape by people's memoriesaccomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. Now someone's put a ceremonial dagger throug his chest. But what's the motive? And who - or what - She is all he could kill possibly want in a ghost? When policing London's supernatural underworldwife; beautiful, successful, eliminating confident… and so the impossible inevitable proposal is not an option. DI James Quill eagerly accepted by Alice and his detectives have learnt this the hard waywedding is planned and set. Gifted When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the Sightcongregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, theyAlice'll pursue a criminial genius - s world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who'll lure them into a Sherlockian maze of clues and evidence. The team also have thier own demons to fight. They've been to Hell and back (literally) but now the unit man at the altar is, who is falling apart..waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447273265</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Veronica Henry1787636003|title=How to Find Love in a Book ShopThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45

|summary=It is with a heavy heart was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that Emilia Nightingale returns home to she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the pretty Cotswold town of Peasebrookisland. Her beloved father Julius has just passed away; his legacy Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, a wellso when thirty-four-year-loved bookshop that serves as a beating heart old Alistair Wright started to the communitytake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. Julius It was loved by all: quite a while before he always had time made any sort of physical approach to listen to his customers her and share a recuperative cuppa in times of needby that time she was obsessed by him. However Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his finances were another matter entirely interests on the island and Emilia wonders how she can keep in particular in the bar where all the bookshop open with an ever-mounting pile of debtgirls either worked or partied. Greedy property developer Ian Mendip would be only ''too'' happy to help out, but can Emilia really give up on her father's dream?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140914688X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dorothy KoomsonAmanda Craig|title=When I Was InvisibleThree Graces

|summary=Veronika Harper met Veronica Harper aged 8, form Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the start both deciding they-nation novel. There'd stay firm friends. Nika s something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and Roni did everything together including their beloved ballet… until something goes terribly wrongcapture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. This leads to a series of events To say that donAmanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she't just tear their friendship but also s practically synonymous with the lives they would otherwise leadgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. They wish She has such a gift for invisibility weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and choose different ways to accomplish it lived-in, never making them ciphers for the sake of their survival; physical as well as emotionalsocial commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780893361</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith152915118X|title=My Italian BulldozerPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=I do love to sit down with a new book by AMS, and ''Pineapple Street'' is the excitement was doubled on this occasion since a new standalone story meant lots of brand new characters to meetthree women: Sasha, Darley and also the book has a very intriguingly bizarre title! Georgiana. In this story we get Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to meet Paultheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a food writer whoStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, after a rather upsetting break-up with his girlfriendTilda, heads asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to Tuscany to finish writing his bookmove into the Pineapple Street property. So farTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so normalaway, but which they own. They won't need any of course things soon get a little unusualthe furniture from Pineapple Street, beginning with Paul’s arrest on his arrival so Sasha and Cord can move straight in Italy . Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and moving swiftly on Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the point where instead of a hire car he finds himself with a hired bulldozer…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973554</amazonuk>gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Grady HendrixEmily Critchley|title= My Best Friend's ExorcismOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 54|genre= HorrorCrime|summary=198884 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, Charlestonbut now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, South Carolinaas Edie is starting to lose her memory. High school sophomores Abby However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of skinny-dipping goes disatrously wrong, Gretchen begins to actwhat happened all that time ago...different. She After 's moody. Sheseeing's irritableLucy 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 bizarre incidents keep happening whenever yet as she's nearbyremembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Abby Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's investigation leads disappearance before her to some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusionmove, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship enough to beat the devilbefore her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1594748624</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frederic Dard and David Bellos (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=Bird in a CageThirst for Salt

|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=A man returns ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to the flat he grew up in be a light and where his mother died without his knowledgeweightless feeling, and finds it too desolate but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the time of year it is – Christmas Eve-long relationship that once defined her. Bursting for more lifeOverlaid with later wisdom, despite being a solitary character, he goes to a restaurant, and finds a connection the narrator relives the affair with a mother with man twenty years her daughter. They dine, then go to senior from its inception – the cinema, and sit together, and things happen from there summer after finishing university – in a gentle, no-pressure, no-names-no-packdrill way. If this isn't a reasonable start to a novella, consider its sorrowful end the tag it has as a noir classicsummer after. And consider the fact the strange woman is Set against the spitting image backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the man24-year-old narrator's dead wife…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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271996</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Donnelly0008506337|title=These Shallow GravesThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=Jennifer Donnelly wrote one of my The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-time favourite booksconsuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'A Gathering Lightan 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, so I Imogen and Sasha. Life was very excited to read her latest novel lived in London and see how it comparedholidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Like Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo'A Gathering Lights mind: '', ''These Shallow Gravesshe would never be able to leave him in charge'' is a historical novel with a murder mystery at its heart and a feisty heroine who challenges the standards of the day. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471405176</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Virginia Ironside1914585402|title=No, Thanks! I'm Quite Happy Standing!: Marie Sharp 4Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5

|summary=Retired art teacher Marie Sharp is wondering whether itI reviewed David F Ross's time to move house to be nearer her son Jack and grandson Gene. The wondering doesn't take up all her time though. For a start therebook [[There's the new, new-age lodger Robin and, talking about men, Marie is getting on really well with her ex-husband Only One Danny Garvey by David. This single life in which they dib into each otherF Ross|There's worlds on Only One Danny Garvey]] a regular basis seems the perfect way forwardcouple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. However not all is rosy: friend Penny's drinking too much plus It was a holiday in India has unexpected conclusion. Oh gripping, emotionally wounding read, and there's the burglaries toorereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it. Who says that retirement is relaxing and uneventful?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782069321</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>1782069321</amazonus>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= William ThackerLucy Ashe|title= Lingua FrancaClara and Olivia|rating= 24.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Clichéd as it may soundThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, language finds itself at the very core of human existence and experiencetwins no less. On Identical on the one handoutside but not, we learn, it defines individual cognition and thoughts and serves as a way of communicating these thoughts to others; on the otherinside. And not on stage, it defines the social sphereeither. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, giving social values attention to detail – and some things, reflecting historythat ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, and constructing a common identity. It is also what William Thacker's second novelcharm, a ''Lingua Francajoie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, revolves aroundand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079743</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice AdamsHeather Fawcett|title=Invincible SummerEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=As Alice AdamsEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's debut novel opens 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 summer small village of 1995Hrafvsnik, four university friends are lounging on Bristol's Brandon Hillhaving somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, drinking nor how to redeem herself and contemplating what put her final investigations for her book back on the future holdsright track. There's Eva Andrews Enter Wendell Bambleby, raised in Sussex by a single father; siblings Sylvie her dashingly handsome and Lucien Marchantinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, neglected by their alcoholic mother; all charm and Benedict Waverleydelight, a rich kid whose parents have a holiday home on Corfumuch to Emily's frustration. Eva has a crush But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on Lucien, while Benedict is besotted with Eva.the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1509814701</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Banner1398515388|title=The House at Boy and the Edge of NightDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5

|summary=''The House at First of all, it was the Edge of Night'' is an epic family sagaearthquake, spanning some 95 years and several generations. The story begins when Amedeo Esposito arrives at deep in the isolated Sicilian island of Castellamare to serve as ocean floor, which created the first doctor tsunami and this, in turn, caused the island's historynuclear meltdown. He is immediately captivated by this strange little community; a heady mix of tradition, superstition The result was complete and ritualutter devastation. An island so small is naturally a hotbed of gossip The deaths were uncountable, with 'overheard' confessions being dutifully relayed across and the five-mile island within minutes loss of being heardlivelihoods was widespread. The benevolent Saint Agata watches over her people and bestows fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the odd miracle upon list of priorities but - six months after the fortunatetsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. This is He wasn't a dog person but the place convenience store owner's comment that Amedeo chooses he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to make open his home car door and together with his resourceful wife Pina, they slowly restore Tamon the 'cursed' House at the Edge of Night to its former glory as a bar and meeting place for the localsdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959322</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Chuck Palahniuk|title=Make Something Up|rating=5|genre=Short Stories |summary=What are we to make of that subtitle-seeming writing on the front cover – ''stories you can't unread''? Does that not apply to all good fiction? Clearly it is here due to the reputation of the author, and the baggage his name brings to the page. We'd expect a dramatic approach from anything Palahniuk writes, and an added frisson, an extra layer, from which we might be forced to shrink back. But 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 perfect, simple, care- (''The Price is Right''-, 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 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 on the level and even in their country – until someone starts riffing back to him. 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 BantockChristopher Bowden|title=Griffin and Sabine 25th Anniversary Edition: An Extraordinary CorrespondenceMr Magenta

|genre=General Fiction |summary=Oh Griffin and Sabine, where have you been all my life? IChristopher Bowden've loved epistolary novels and ones that take the narrative two-and-fro s latest novel is a patient untangling of letters and bring us closer to the sender than any omniscient narrator can hope to do. Ia seemingly ordinary woman've still got the childlike love of picking at an envelope stuck in a book to pull s life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a sheet of something else – not only is there the wonder at the handmade construction of something so bluntly safe harbour and undeservedly called 'a book', but there is the frisson little bit of being the first person indulgence to see this artefact a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had everrealised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. So how have I never seen this book before, and its cycle of sequels, concerning the correspondence between two completely different people?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>145215595X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa JewellJennifer Mason|title=The GirlsPartitions of Unity

|summary=When Clare takes her two tween daughters Pip Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and Grace to live unintentional detective in leafy Virginia Terrace[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she is hoping for anonymity, a blank slate investigated and unravelled a fresh startseries of disappearances. Not so long agoIn ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her story was in all of the newspapers when her paranoid-schizophrenic husband burned down the family homemind to solving a murder. Her new house seems a world away from her previous life. The crescent has a communal garden at its heart, where friendly neighbours socialise and children can run free. But does this new freedom come with a price?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099599473</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell MardellWill Carver|title=Cold CallingThe Daves Next Door

|summary=Five years on, Ray still can't get over the loss of his girlfriend. Five years is strangers come together in one moment as a long, long time to pine and mourn but Ray just doesn't seem suicide bomber prepares to be able to get off the treadmill of it all. The only meaningful relationships he has are with detonate his therapist and best friend Dannyvest on a London tube line. And it's not as though his job provides much in As their fates overlap, the way of escape - Ray works for an insurance company as a cold caller. This story is how, one daytold in backwards order, he comes leading up to speak to Anyathe fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785891219</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenni FaganJennifer Mason|title=The Sunlight PilgrimsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5

|summary=Dylan walks away from this family''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 small London indie cinema 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 2020 to live Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a Scottish caravan sitecheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia. His new neighbours Constance and her transgender 12 year old Stella have troubles ..'' This is just a sample of their own, but the odd British winter isn't helpingcast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As the country faces true Arctic temperatures life you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes on… or at least it tries tolike this...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023302</amazonuk>|amazonusisbn=<amazonus>0434023302</amazonus>B09STS96HS

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tarjei Vesaas, Torbjorn Stoverud and Michael Barnes (translators)B0B2N7MVYM|title=The BirdsCalculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel Godfrey|rating=4.5

|summary=WeIt're somewhere in rural Scandinavia, on s the shores 10th of a large lakeDecember 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in context, but in a community relying on the farmland that Cuban missile crisis is scattered still very fresh in amongst the woodspeople's minds. Our chief concerns are brother and sister – Mattis and HegeThe world has barely had a chance to breathe out. HeBut for Joe Marr, Mattis, is what it's not the other villagers call missile crisis that'simple' – sure, he knows a few things about life, and what makes a clever person and what makes a well-turned phrase, and how to talk to girls and when to not stare s at them, but he is definitely not quite as the others would wishfront of his mind. Those others include his sister, who is seeing her life waste away in listening to his chatter, knitting jumpers to make ends meet, and regretting in her own small way what has got her to middle-age in this situationHe's been convicted of murder. But from this galling introduction, you should take away With the bigger picture – even if there is no way outcurrent state of medical knowledge, it's hard to think otherwise than that the life prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in this countryside is brilliantly conveyedHMP Queen's Bench, full of sun as well as shadea relatively new prison. He's just getting used to his roommate, of labour and of idlenessMervyn, and wit and charm as much as hardship. I defy you learning to read this and think this corner be wary of Scandinavia bleakthe McArthur brothers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0914671200</amazonuk>