Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Laila Lalami
|title=Secret Son
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Secret Son'' is the story of Youssef El-Mekki, the slum-dwelling teenage son of single mother Rachida. Youssef has always been told that his father is dead, so when he finds out his mother has lied to conceal the fact that he was born out of wedlock, he plunges headlong into an identity crisis. He tracks down his real father, a wealthy businessman called Nabil Amrani who is surprisingly enthusiastic about his illegitimate son's arrival. Nabil has recently fallen out with his daughter and he seizes this opportunity to mould Youssef into the obedient son he has always wanted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918296</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=I've been meaning to get around to reading some or all of Harlan Coben's work, because if the reviews are to be believed and you are a fan of the 'Bloody Knife /Blunt Instrument' thriller, the man is quite simply not capable of turning out a duff novel. But you know how it is, what with one thing and another and a bulging pile of books to be read and reviewed, I just somehow hadn't managed to give him my full attention. Until now.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409117022</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Sylvie Nickels
|title=Another Kind of Loving
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mike Hennessy was a journalist whose speciality was the war-torn parts of the world and October 1992 found him in Sarajevo visiting a children's home to get a story. The orphanage was on the right side of town – away from the main barrage – but it had few other advantages. There was no heat and little food or water, but it was here that he found Jasminka, part Serb, part Bosniak and eleven or twelve years old. In a phone call to his wife Mike suggested that perhaps Jasminka could come and stay with them for a while.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905200129</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=rashbre
|title=The Triangle
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Brian's trip to the art gallery was a treat, courtesy of a private ticket from a friend and the white room was much better than the last gallery he'd visited. It was, though, to be his last such visit as he was silently knifed by a professional hit man. His friends were stunned, not just at his death, but at the way in which it had come about. What could Brian have been doing to attract ''that'' sort of attention? Jake had given him the ticket and it dawned on him that he had been the target rather than Brian. Some recent events clicked into place…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1425171893</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Laura Solomon
|title=An Imitation of Life
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are introduced to the baby girl, Celia with a detailed, blow-by-blow account of her dreadful physical condition, from her unusual eyes, her even more unusual teeth, her lumpy body and the ever-growing hump on her shoulder. Forget the Elephant Man, here we have elephant baby. Everything is stacked against her. She is abandoned by her mother, her father is unknown. And as if all that wasn't enough to make you weep, she is unceremoniously dumped on a doorstep - to die. But she doesn't. She lives. And what an extra-ordinary life Laura Solomon has mapped out for her.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529437</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tamsin Reeves
|title=A Place of Safety
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There are lots of reasons to take in a lodger for your spare room, but for Martha one of the best is to get one up on her recently departed scoundrel of an ex-husband. And it's not like her financial situation is looking too rosy since he left her for another woman – a woman who is also pregnant with his child. The fact that her lodger is a He, and that he's a Foreigner (and from Afghanistan, no less) is just the icing on the cake. Colin's going to be furious, and Martha can't wait.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849231370</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Comfort of Saturdays (Isabel Dalhousie 5)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As always with Alexander McCall Smith, this fifth book in the Sunday Philosophy series benefits from being read in sequence with the previous titles. One of the beautiful aspects of his writing is that his characters develop slowly, gently, over the series so although you could probably dive in here and get a fair idea of his style you really should start at the beginning to thoroughly enjoy the pleasure of an AMS read. In this episode Isabel is busy taking care of her son, Charlie, looking after her niece Cat's delicatessen, editing the review and struggling with her own personal fears over her relationship with Jamie. And she wouldn't be Isabel if she didn't, somehow, get entangled in someone else's problems, someone else's life, and here she finds herself trapped into investigating the case of a doctor whose career has been ruined.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349120552</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Matt Hilton
|title=Dead Men's Dust
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Joe Hunter helps people. That's what he does. He's been around the block and to say that he has learned a trick or two along the way might be something of an understatement. No-one really knows much about Joe Hunter and certainly his past is not something that many would be brave enough to poke around in.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340978236</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Imogen Parker
|title=This Little World
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I haven't read the first two books in the trilogy but that didn't spoil my enjoyment of ''This Little World''. They all stand alone as individual novels in their own right. Those readers who have already enjoyed the first two books will know most of the characters and will be keen to find out - what happens next.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552151548</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Keith Donohue
|title=Angels of Destruction
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In an opening chapter reminiscent of Cathy's ghostly appearance at the window in [[Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte|Wuthering Heights]], widowed Margaret Quinn opens her front door in the middle of a wintry night to a half-frozen, waif-like child, Norah, who appears to have arrived out of nowhere. Lonely and withdrawn in the wake of her daughter Erica's disappearance many years earlier, Margaret takes in apparently-orphaned Norah, passing her off as her granddaughter. But Norah is no ordinary child…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086138</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Walter Moers
|title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Naseem Rakha
|title=The Crying Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Irene Stanley had lived in Illinois all her life, on a farm which had been in her family for generations and where the boundary of the property was the Mississippi river. She had friends, family and her church in the area and it came as a shock when Nate came home one day and said that he was considering taking a job as a Deputy Sheriff in Oregon (that's pronounced ''Organ'' – only tourists say ''Or-ee-gon''). It wasn't long before they and their children, Shep and Bliss, made the long overland journey to their new home. Shep was a quiet boy, a talented musician but against his mother's expectations he settled into his new life well. Irene wasn't totally convinced, but accepted that life wasn't too bad for the family. That all changed when she was called home from work to find that Shep had been murdered.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230740847</amazonuk>
}}