Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Diana Evans
|title=The Wonder
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lucas and Denise have been brought up by their grandmother on a canal boat in west London, after the death of their parents. Now they are in their 20s, and their grandmother Toreth is gone. Denise is a practical and responsible young woman, getting on with her job as a florist, but her younger brother Lucas is a dreamer, still trying to establish what he wants to do with his life, and increasingly distracted by trying to find out more about his identity, about who his parents were, especially his father.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099479052</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Margaret Henderson Smith
|summary=The main character in this novel is Frank Allcroft. Husband, father, son and also a bit of a minor celebrity as he's beamed into the region's television screens nightly, presenting the local news. Make that minor with a small 'm'. He comes across as a likeable, middle-aged man, content with his lot and with his home life. But he does have some personal issues to attend to. In particular, his grumpy, sometimes forgetful, elderly mother who is now living in a retirement home. Mother and son give each other lots of grief on a regular basis.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918555</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Mario Puzo
|title=Six Graves to Munich
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the dying days of the Second World War Michael Rogan, an American Intelligence officer was captured and tortured by a group of seven men, most of whom were senior Gestapo officers trying to obtain the secrets which Rogan could give them. His wife was in another room and he could hear her screams. Ten years later, when he had recovered from the appalling injuries he suffered he made up his mind that he would avenge the death of his wife at the hands of the seven men. It's no easy task as he doesn't even know who they are.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916276X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Kishwar Desai
|title=Witness the Night
|rating=2.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens on a disturbing dream sequence (or is it a memory?) that sets up the murder which is to be at the centre of this book. Durga, a young girl living in Julundur, is instructed by a mysterious male character to return to the house from which she has just fled, the house in which her whole family lies dead- poisoned, stabbed and partly scorched. There Durga is tied up, having been attacked and raped.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636857</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Chioma Okereke
|title=Bitter Leaf
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jericho, (who's female by the way), is a beautiful young woman. She's curious about the outside world so like many before her, she's taken the brave step of sampling life in a big, bustling city. She returns to her home village with some rather pretentious airs ... and a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jericho's mother had attended an interview in her past at her daughter's new boyfriend's family home. A veritable mansion with ' ... sweeping rooms that took longer than a river to cross.' What a lovely way of describing
luxury in an essentially poor area of Africa. Everyone thinks the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Keith Colquhoun
|title=Five Deadly Words
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Five Deadly Words follows the story of charismatic former dictator Lucas, as he charms and 'collects' people during his exile in London. The story is seen mostly from the point of view of Helen Berlin, the bright young Detective Constable who is put in charge of Lucas' safety. Helen finds herself caught up in matters which become increasingly out of her depth as she falls further into the former dictator's world.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529496</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Don Boyd
|title=Margot's Secrets
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Margot is a psychologist who specialises in sexual disorders and obsessions. She lives and works for herself in Barcelona amongst the ex-pat community, and although she only has a dozen or so clients at any one time, spends much of her week living at her office. Her clients, both male and female, are bewildering and fascinating in equal portions, and the description of the therapy sessions make fascinating and revealing reading.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955405149</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Steven Carroll
|title=The Art of the Engine Driver
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carroll has chosen a bygone era in the 1950s and also a bygone but much treasured mode of transport, whether it's Australia or the UK. Immediately I'm drawn in to the story. Both the title and book's front cover are arresting and original. The novel centres on one evening in this suburban neighbourhood when all its residents are invited to a celebration party. Carroll see-saws back and forth as he shares the individual lives with us. It is an engaging style.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537273</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Patrick Woodhead
|title=The Forbidden Temple
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Luca, a mountaineer trying to escape from his disappointingly unsupportive parents and a past accident, witnesses something strange in the distance, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped like a perfect pyramid, circled by other peaks he's never seen before. Back in England nobody else seems to have seen them either, but colleagues mention mysterious Shangri-La style Buddhist sanctuaries - could this be the prime one, hidden from prying eyes for centuries? Nobody wants to declare it actually exists at all. Meanwhile, Himalayan natives are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personage.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ken McClure
|title=Dust to Dust (Steven Dunbar)
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=John Motram is a cell biologist. He's a promising and well-though of academic and his pet subject is - Black Death. Intrigue is high on the agenda right from the beginning. Motram is invited to a meeting along with other high-fliers in their respective fields. This meeting is top secret. Motram is, however, mystified. The situation appears pretty straightforward, so why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, he wonders. And why has everyone to refer to the patient only as 'Patient X?'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971268</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Robert Ryan
|title=Signal Red
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ryan has certainly researched thoroughly for this novel - and it shows. Straight away the blurb on the back cover tells us there's an 'afterword' by Bruce Reynolds, no less than the ringmaster/leader of the Great Train Robbery gang. Notice how it's always given capital letters. Even all these decades down the line, those readers of a certain age remember it and perhaps shake their head in amazement. And there's also a very useful 'aftermath' section as Ryan painstakingly sets out all the robbers' names and what's happened since that date in the summer of 1963. Perhaps, like others, I also assumed the leader, the top man if you like, was Ronnie Biggs. No so, apparently. I also remember television footage of his release from prison on compassionate grounds only a year or so ago. The crime seems to have achieved almost mythical proportions - some would say it's up there with what were you doing when JFK was assassinated?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075535818X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Giles Milton
|title=According to Arnold: A Novel of Love and Mushrooms
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arnold Trevellyan’s ordinary life as a charismatic auctioneer is about to change in ways he could never have imagined. Encouraged by his wife Flora to take a sabbatical, the two head to a remote region of France to indulge Arnold’s passion for mushrooms. Whilst out in the forest hunting for rare mushrooms Arnold stumbles across a secret hidden for centuries. This secret makes him abandon Flora and their life together for the island of Tuva in the South Pacific where he soon finds himself married to Lola, its queen.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330452517</amazonuk>
}}