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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= William ThackerJenny Lecoat|title= Love and Lies: And Why You Can’t Have One Without the OtherBeyond Summerland|rating= 2.54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Clichéd as it may sound, language finds itself at Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the very core end of human existence and experiencethe occupation. On During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one handnight, it defines individual cognition and thoughts leaving Jean and serves as a way her mother waiting for years for news of communicating these thoughts to others; on him. As the British finally free the other, it defines Channel islands from the social sphere, giving social values to things, reflecting historyNazis, and constructing a common identity. It the war is also finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what William Thacker's second novelbecame of him. But will the truth come as a relief, ''Lingua Franca'', revolves or will it raise further questions around.what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079743</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice AdamsOnyi Nwabineli|title=Invincible SummerAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=As Alice Adams's debut novel opens in Anuri spent her childhood on display to the summer of 1995world, four university friends are lounging on Bristolthanks to her step-mother Ophelia's Brandon Hillincreasingly popular presence on social media, drinking and contemplating what the future holds. Therewhere she posted every step of Anuri's Eva Andrewschildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, raised basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in Sussex by a single father; siblings Sylvie her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and Lucien Marchantto get her life back, neglected by their alcoholic suing her step-mother; to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and Benedict Waverleysecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, a rich kid whose parents have a holiday home on Corfushe is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Eva has a crush on Lucien Can she save her sister, while Benedict is besotted and perhaps herself and her relationship with Eva.her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1509814701</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine Banner1529153298|title=The House at the Edge List of NightSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'The House at 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 Edge of Nightfamily 'Down South'. When you' re from Yorkshire, Down South is an epic family sagaa frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, spanning some 95 years and several generationsshe'll do anything to prevent that. The story begins when Amedeo Esposito arrives at She's not worried about the isolated Sicilian island dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Castellamare 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 serve as make it more manageable in the first doctor States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the island's history. He is immediately captivated Nazi occupation by this strange little community; a heady mix mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of traditionher preference for her elder sister, superstition and ritualJackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4. An island so small 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is naturally a hotbed of gossipdating agency in Edinburgh, with 'overheard' confessions being dutifully relayed across run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the five-mile island within minutes of being heardonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. The benevolent Saint Agata watches over Ness has asked her people younger cousin Katie if she could come and bestows look after the odd miracle upon the fortunatebusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. This Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the place that Amedeo chooses chance to make his 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 together 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…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his resourceful wife Pinahome, they slowly restore and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the 'cursed' House at thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the Edge of Night very last person to its former glory as deserve all this bad luck. He is a bar and meeting place nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the localsdelivery 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959322</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukKatherine Howe|title=Make Something UpA True Account|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories General Fiction|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 Hannah Masury is here due to the reputation of the authorliving in Boston, and the baggage his name brings having been sent to the page. We'd expect live with a dramatic approach from anything Palahniuk writesfamily who run an inn, and an added frisson, an extra layer, being made to work there from which we might be forced to shrink backa young age. But When she hears there is to be a lot hanging of some pirates in the contents don't quite go that far. Yestown, things are dramatic, when society starts attaching defibrillators she decides to itself, to create the perfect, simple, care- (''The Price is Right''-, go and Kardashian-) free happinesswatch. A man buys Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a horse for his daughter – but young boy is it 's death at the wrong horse to buyhands of two vicious pirates. A man falls in love – yes, sometimes the plot summaries of these stories really are better off for being short (speaking of which She hides away, so that they don't turn find and kill her too, and then to the three-page entrant here escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a taster, itboy and joining the notorious Ned Low'll put you off by dint of being, almost uniquely here, s pirate ship as a nothing story)cabin boy. A call centre worker can't convince people he's on the level and even She soon finds herself 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 thick of things when there is a 'Burning Man'-styled festivalmutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in a very clever couple her rip roaring tale of tales. But many too are life on the instances where that extra step has been takenocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587688</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Bantock1471180158|title=Griffin and Sabine 25th Anniversary Edition: An Extraordinary CorrespondenceMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Oh Griffin and SabineJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, where have you been for a man who's a control freak with all my life? the subtlety of a half brick. IJamie've loved epistolary novels s son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and ones 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 narrative two-local A&E and-fro of letters and bring us closer sometimes Bo's not fit enough to the sender than any omniscient narrator can hope go to doschool. I've still got Missed shifts or the childlike love of picking at an envelope stuck in a book need to be away on time to pull out a sheet of something else – not only is there the wonder at the handmade construction of something so bluntly pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and undeservedly called 'a book', but there is put in the frisson of being the first person wrong. It was going to come to see this artefact evera head. 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>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lisa JewellB0CKD1L5JL|title=The GirlsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=When Clare takes her two tween daughters Pip and Grace to live in leafy Virginia TerracePetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, she he is hoping for anonymitybrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a blank slate brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a fresh start. Not so long agopirate radio transmitter, her story was in all of Petr goes on a journey through the newspapers when her paranoid-schizophrenic husband burned down forest, broadcasting the family home. Her new house seems a world away from her previous life. The crescent has a communal garden at its heartstrange, where friendly neighbours socialise wild and children can run freerarely heard voices he encounters. But does this new freedom come with a price?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099599473</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell MardellSarah Marsh|title=Cold CallingA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5

|summary=Five years onAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ray still can't get over the loss Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of his girlfriendsilence, everything about her life changes. Five years is Living in a long, long time to pine and mourn but Ray just doesn't seem to be able to get off when the treadmill use of it all. The sign language was seen as something only meaningful relationships he has are with his therapist and best friend Dannysavages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. And it's not as though his job provides much From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the way of escape - Ray works for an insurance company as deaf and using a cold callersystem called Visible Speech. This At the same time, Bell is howworking on other inventions and ideas, one day, he comes to speak to Anyaand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785891219</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenni FaganB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Sunlight PilgrimsGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Dylan walks away ''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 this familyvitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's small London indie cinema in 2020 to live on not easy being a Scottish caravan siteblack girl whose skin is 84% white. His new neighbours Constance and her transgender 12 She had a crush on seventeen-year -old Stella have troubles of their own, Reggie Anderson but the odd British winter isn't helpingnever thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. As the country faces true Arctic temperatures life goes on… or She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at least it tries church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him togive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023302</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>0434023302</amazonus>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tarjei Vesaas, Torbjorn Stoverud and Michael Barnes (translators)1472263936|title=The BirdsFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5

|summary=We're somewhere It was in rural Scandinavia1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, on Greek by birth, had left the shores of a large lakefamily home and refused to return, but in Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a community relying on pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the farmland that is scattered family apartment in amongst up-market Kolonaki would be the woodsfirst of several annual visits. Our chief concerns are brother She grew to love her grandmother and sister – Mattis and Hege. He, Mattis, is what the other villagers call 'simplefamily' – sures maid, he knows a few things about lifeDina, but was wary - and what makes a clever person and what makes a wellfrightened -turned phraseof her grandfather, and how to talk to girls and when to not stare at them, but he is definitely not quite as the others would wishretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Those others include He was proud of his sister, who is seeing her life waste away in listening close connections to the Junta and expected his chatter, knitting jumpers family to make ends meet, and regretting in her own small way what has got her uphold his values but saw no reason to middle-age in this situationaccommodate them. But His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from this galling introduction, you should take away the bigger picture – even if there is no way 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 bleakher father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0914671200</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Diney CosteloeDean Koontz|title= The Girl With No NameAfter Death|rating= 43|genre= General Fiction |summary= Thirteen year old Lisa escapes from Nazi Germany on 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 Kindertransport shrouded bodies of his dead friends and arrives in England in August 1939former colleagues. She As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't speak ''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. It's surrounded by a word of English Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and her only belongings are crammed into a small suitcaseits blossom provides herbal medicines. Among them is one precious photograph The black wood of the family she has left behind in Germany. Lonely forest provides heat and homesickwarmth, not knowing if she will ever see her family againroofs on homes, Lisa is adopted by a childless coupleand even gallows, and then bullied at school for if needed. The fear of being German. But worse buried alive is to come when an existential superstition in the Blitz blows her new home apart, village and she wakes up in hospital with no memory of who she that isthe reason Volushka, or where she came from. The authorities give her a new name and despatch her to drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a children's homeman is tolerated. With the war in full swing, what will become of Lisa now?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784970050</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Phaedra PatrickB0BYF82CXT|title=The Curious Charms of Arthur PepperSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary=On the first anniversary of his wife Miriam's death'Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, Arthur Pepper feels he might finally be up to the task stuck in a depressing rut of clearing out her wardrobe. He hasn't got far boredom and disappointment, when he stumbles across a gold charm bracelet he doesn't recogniseTerry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. If he hadn't been feeling so out of sorts because of the anniversary he would never have rung the phone number he found engraved Despite their different outlooks on life, the golden elephant. That would have been a shame, because then he would never have set out on his peculiar quest couples befriend each other and life appears to find out who his wife used to be before she met himimprove for both pairs. From York to LondonBut all is not what it seems, Paris and beyond, Arthur pursues Miriamtheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''s past and learns things about his wife, his children and himself that he never imagined.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848454368</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonas Jonasson and Rachel Willson-Broyles (translator)Shalini Boland|title=Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It AllThe Silent Bride

|summary=There's feeling on edge, Alice and there's feeling on edge. Per is Seth are 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 jointmatch made in heaven. He's feeling on edge because someone is everything she has decided to live therebeen searching for; handsome, accomplished, in room sevenclever, funny; total and proudly announced that it's about the first place utter husband-material. She is all he's had as an adult to live could possibly want in that isn't a prison – the manwife; beautiful, Hitman Anderssuccessful, has killed three people in separate fits of rageconfident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. And now Per When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is feeling even more on edge because Johannawalked down the aisle by her father, a woman in a dog-collar has turned upbeaming 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, tried to blag twenty kronor for a badly-worded prayer in PerAlice's favour (even though world implodes because she's been sacked as a priest and has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is in fact a rampant atheist), and has now colluded who is waiting for her to jointly with Per become Hitman Anders' criminal hit-job agentshis wife. But could anything make a newly rich Per – and Johanna – feel more on edge, than Hitman Anders gaining a conscience…?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008152071</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Esther Gerritsen and Michele Hutchison (translator)1787636003|title= RoxyThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 35|genre= General Fiction|summary= I liked It was the premise for this novel: a young wife (Roxy) is told at the beginning of summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the book that her much older husband has been killed in a car accidentisland. To add to the shock of thisRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, the revelation that he died in the arms of his (naked) lover in the carperhaps, on the hard shouldernaive, is a further blow so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to Roxytake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. I found this an interesting set-up for It was quite a story, while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and wondered how this by that time she was going to goobsessed by him. As the blurb on the back of the novel tells usAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, ''she is looking for revenge'', I thought after his interests on the book would be a development of island and in particular in the character of Roxy into a self-motivating, strong character. But this wasn't bar where all the casegirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380643</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Eva HollandAmanda Craig|title= The Daughter's SecretThree Graces|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Six years ago, Stephanie and Nate ran away together. She was 15, and he was her geography teacher. Awkward. We pick up the story with Ros, Steph's mother, as she learns that Nate is about 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 the news to her daughter. She's bound to be devastated by it…isn't she?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409157040</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Hazel McHaffie|title=Inside of Me|rating=4

|summary=ItFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's never specifically said that India Grayson losing her father when she was eight was something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the cause day and capture it, crafting an image of her anorexia when the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she was fifteen, but you see, ''losing'' is s practically synonymous with the best description genre of what happenedcontemporary social fiction at this point. He was She has such a strong swimmer, but even he might have got into difficulties and what other explanation was there gift for weaving the pile ongoing issues of his clothes on the beach? Only India never quite believed day into the lives of her characters in a way that he was dead feels natural and his body had lived-in, never been foundmaking them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves. Had it been something about her that forced him away?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>099262312X</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Monica Wood152915118X|title=The One-in-a-Million BoyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=I do love it when I read a book that stays with me after I've finished reading'Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. This was one of those booksDarley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, rootling its way only Sasha isn't a little more Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into my heart each time I picked it up to readthe tribe. ItThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the storyPineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, mostly which they own. They won't need any of Miss Ona Vitkusthe furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a one hundred choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and four 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'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old lady who Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a young boy scout come over move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to help lose her with jobs and how he ultimately ends up changing memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her lifechildhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and not at 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 way you might imagine since before we even begin high street, just as she was the story last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the boy past, she is deadforgetting 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472228359</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Reif LarsenMadelaine Lucas|title= I Am RadarThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= Racial tensions''Love, identityI'd read, parental responsibilitywas supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a child's best interestretrospective view, lovea young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, science, war the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – Reif Larsento its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town 's 'Thirst for Salt'I Am Radar'details the 24-year-old narrator' falls nothing short of having rich thematic content. Its cornucopia of thematic explorations is interwoven into a complex web of storiess deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, taking the reader how it changed her perspective on a journey, both literal romantic and figurative, from suburban New Jersey to an Arctic no man's land to Congo familial relationships and the Bosnian warzonehow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593645</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stefan Mohamed0008506337|title= Ace of SpidersThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Stanly is frustratedThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Having set himself up Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as London's protector, hean older man's finding . Her parents worried that the everyday practicalities of superheroism are challenging at best, and downright tedious at worst. So itRichard's almost a relief when an attempt is made on his life influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and Stanly finds himself rushing headlong into having a twisted adventureglittering career. In the event, with enemies new they eloped and old coming out Richard took her away from the Isle of the woodworkWight. However, even with his friends Margo did go to Oxford and his everwent on to become a well-increasing power behind himrespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, he may have bitten off more than he can chew this timeImogen and Sasha. The monsters are coming… Life was lived in London and nothing will ever 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 the same!able to leave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630675</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hannah Rothschild1914585402|title=The Improbability of LoveDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5

|summary=ItI reviewed David F Ross's set to be the sale of the century: Russian oligarchs, Arab sheikhs, rappers and heiresses are all lined up to bid for book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'The Improbability of Love'', a small Antoine Watteau oil painting depicting s Only One Danny Garvey]] a courting couple overlooked of years back and remember being absolutely floored by a clownhow powerful and affecting it was. The painting It was missing until six months ago, when Annie McDee bought it from a junk shop for £75 as a birthday present for an incompatible fellow she met through Internet dating. When he didn't show for dinner and the junk shop mysteriously burnt down so that she couldn't ask for a refund, the painting became hers. Thirty-year-old Annie had been in a rut: after a painful break-up from Desmondgripping, with whom she ran a cheese shop and café in Devonemotionally wounding read, she moved to London and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was working as a PA to randy Italian film director Carlo Spinettithat I might not have lavished enough praise on it. She also acquired an unwanted roommate: her alcoholic mother, Evie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408862476</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca ThorntonLucy Ashe|title=The Exclusives: No One Can Hurt You More Than a FriendClara and Olivia

|summary=Josephine The year is a successful archaeologist on a dig in Amman when she gets the email she never expected: Freya wants to meet up with her1933. The reason isn’t such a surprise thoughplace? Sadler's Wells. In 1996 Freya Ballerinas Clara and Josephine were best friends at boarding school till Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the aftermath of outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a night out clubbingdancer. Freya desperately wants Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to talk to Jo about the events detail – and some things, that ripped their friendship apart''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the events that Josephine has avoided speaking or thinking about in more than classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a decadestar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785770128</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miroslav PenkovHeather Fawcett|title=Stork MountainEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=A young manEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, his grandfather and a stork with a broken wing are the she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life''company of rebels'' at s work, the heart very first encyclopaedia of this lively tale set in Bulgaria's Strandja Mountainsfaeries. The storks that return Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to the mountains each spring are migrantsfaeries, like she is not so many of the good with people that have passed through . So when she finds herself far, far North in the region over small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the centuries. The young narrator village matriarch, she is also in transitnot sure what she has done, born in Bulgaria, but raised nor how to redeem herself and educated in Americaput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. The story opens with his return Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Bulgaria in search of his grandfather who has broken off contact with his family in AmericaEmily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the young man's motives are not as clear cut as first appears.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473622182</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elisa Albert1398515388|title= After BirthThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= This book is definitely not for anyone who has a rosy picture First of new motherhood. In factall, I would probably avoid it if you are contemplating giving birth was the earthquake, deep in the near future. For any woman who has ever struggled through ocean floor, which created the first few months of motherhoodtsunami and this, howeverin turn, or a partner of somebody who is going through it, it is an astounding caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and revelatory readutter devastation. Never before have I read a more searingThe deaths were uncountable, honest and open discussion 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 emotional upheaval tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a woman often goes through after giving birthdog 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009959014X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pascal Garnier and Emily Boyce (translator)Christopher Bowden|title=Too Close to the EdgeMr Magenta

|summary=Meet Pascal Garnier. Normally, in starting a review that way, IChristopher Bowden'm on about the main character of the book, but it could be said the biggest character of any Pascal Garnier book s latest novel is Pascal Garnier, not that that's a flaw. Over patient untangling of a half-dozen titles I've come to know the pattern of his output, and itseemingly ordinary woman's fair to say this example fits it very well. Againlife, not a faultcarried out by her nephew after she has died. His thrillers have The aunt who always provided a small cast list of characters, trapped somehow in a small community, cut off by weather, season or remoteness. Here we are with Eliette, safe harbour and just a handful of others, and watching her as she celebrates the return little bit of spring indulgence to her remote home, an ex-silk farm in southern France. All characters have a darkness about them, including Eliette – she young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had wanted ever realised and it seems to retire him an obligation to the place with her loving, long-term husband, but he died of cancer months before retirementfind it all out. And the final piece of the Garnier pattern is that that darkness, the black surrounding the night stars to use one of the more memorable lines here, is that things – said situation, other people, life itself – cause people to do some equally black and stupid acts…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477257</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carol DrinkwaterJennifer Mason|title=The Forgotten SummerPartitions of Unity

|summary=It is time for the annual grape harvest Here at ''Les CigalesBookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell,'' dominatrix and Jane is preparing herself for a busy day, overseeing the work. At this moment unintentional detective in time[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Jane's life seems as perfect as it gets: living in a stunning location with a husband who adores her when she investigated and unravelled a job that allows her the freedom to travelseries of disappearances. There is, howeverIn ''Partitions of Unity'', a significant cloud hanging over Jane's perfect world: a vindictive mother in law who despises she sets her and is determined mind to make her as miserable as possiblesolving a murder.. Clarrisse Cambon is a woman with an axe to grind and poor Jane is the unwilling recipient of her vitriol.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718183088</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yann MartelWill Carver|title=The High Mountains of PortugalDaves Next Door

|summary=Tomas is being thrust into the twentieth Century, and he doesn't like it. He has given himself the job of seeking something out Five strangers come together in the High Mountains of Portugal, based on an ancient religious diary he found working in an archive, and one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to do so he needs the use of detonate his uncle's brand new car to get him there and back in timevest on a London tube line. His jaw drops when he learns he will have to do the driving himselfAs their fates overlap, for he cannot make head nor tail of what anything on the infernal machine does and why. It story is of course a certain kind of progresstold in backwards order, a looking forward, which has become quite anathema leading up to him – for ever since he lost his beloved wife, beloved child and father, all in the space of a week, he has walked everywhere backwards – shielding himself from what really is ahead with a padded behind, and never letting sight of what he has lostfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782114696</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antonio Moresco and Richard Dixon (translator)Jennifer Mason|title=Distant LightPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5

|summary=Our unnamed narrator might as well be the only person alive. He knows he's not – he still goes down to the nearest inhabited village to buy things to eat and other necessities'A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and he sees planes spreading their contrails over -pop mobile diner in the remote area he lives in – but he might as well be. A lot of his thoughts are about lifeNorthern California redwoods, howevera 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for he has little to do except notice the nature around himbullwhips, from the smell of lilies burgeoning a billionaire with nobody else to see them in this deserted village, to the swallows darting across the ravines a state-of -the countryside. Life – and the nature of -art S&M dungeon, a light that he sees spring into activity every night at what he thought was man serving a totally lifelesslife sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), empty forest area on land separated from his lookout post a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in his back garden by Georgia...'' This is just a deepsample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, wooded gorge…some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0914671421</amazonuk>B09STS96HS