Newest General Fiction Reviews
General fiction
The Hive by Gill Hornby
There's an old joke that, for parents, there are only two good days in the school holidays - the first and the last, but in St Ambrose the real work begins when the children go back to school at the start of the new school year. There's a new head at the school (and he'll have to be knocked into shape) but the real power is Beatrice - 'Bea' to those whom she elects to call friends for the time being - who rules the parents, decides who is in or out and what status they should have in the community. And how does she do it? Well, she's the queen. Full review...
A Bright Moon For Fools by Jasper Gibson
Jasper Gibson’s debut novel, A Bright Moon For Fools, tells the story of Harry Christmas and his drunken escapades in Caracas and the small villages of Venezuela. Harry Christmas is nowhere near as jolly as his name suggests, in fact Harry is drunken conman. He has pushed his luck too far and is forced to fly to Venezuela to evade William Slade, the irate son of a woman Harry fleeced out of £27,000. Harry’s life is defined by booze and where to get the next drink; he is having a major breakdown. Slade is no better off and is also having his own mental crisis: unfortunately for Harry, Slade’s breakdown is of a much more psychotic nature. Full review...
Come Home by Lisa Scottoline
You divorce a partner, not a child, so although Jill and William’s split meant she was no longer legal step mum to his daughter Abby, in some ways she never stopped seeing her as a daughter. Now, years after they last met up, Abby shows up on Jill’s doorstep with some devastating news about Jill’s ex-husband. News that will unsettle both their lives, and the lives of Jill’s new fiancé Sam, and of her own biological daughter. While Abby wants to pull her into untangling a mystery, Sam is reluctant to encourage this investigation, and the family reunion it will bring, leaving Jill torn between her new family and her old one. Full review...
The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain
The milliners' advertising used to say 'to get ahead, get a hat'. They would very much approve of this book. Daniel Mercier is a Mr Average - or perhaps a Monsieur Mediocre. He's a lowly accountant until one evening he finds himself dining next to French President, François Mitterrand, who leaves the restaurant without his hat. When Daniel decides to keep it, his life starts to change and he feels somehow more confident. In other strands of the story, Fanny Marquant is having an affair with an older man who clearly has no intention of leaving his wife while celebrated perfumer Pierre Aslan has lost his ability to detect smells and to create perfumes. Bernard Lavallière, meanwhile is struggling to live up to the right wing standards of his wife's friends and starts to read the more left wing papers. At some point, all will come into contact with the President's hat and it will have an impact on all of them. Full review...
The Dark Road by Ma Jian
One of my many lovable traits, according to my beloved, is my ability to absolutely insist I haven't read a book before (when he catches me reading it again). This has the huge benefit of my getting to discover it all over again – and the massive downside that I will never get to the end of my reading list, which must exist in some kind of Möbius loop. Full review...
Dear Lucy by Julie Sarkissian
Dear Lucy. Dear, sweet Lucy. Lucy lives on a farm with Mister and Missus, but the only person who is truly kind to her is Samantha, who lives there with them. Lucy finds it difficult, sometimes. She doesn’t always have the words she needs. She tries very hard to be good but sometimes her helping is more of a hindrance. But she knows more that people think. She knows that although Mum Mum sent her to live on the farm, she will come back for her one day. That is why Lucy must never leave the farm, otherwise Mum Mum won’t know where to find her. Full review...
Snapper by Brian Kimberling
There's little doubt that Brian Kimberling's debut novel, Snapper is a slightly unusual book. The publishers describe it as a coming of age story, and it is after a fashion, but it's more in the vein of an adult looking back on his young adult self than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at things. The narrator, Nathan, shares many of the traits of his creator. Like Kimberling, he is brought up in Indiana and is involved in research of songbirds in that state; effectively a paid bird watcher. The title of the book though comes not from any type of bird, but from the snapping turtle that lives in the state. It's a broadly affectionate and wry look at the people of Indiana, known as 'Hoosiers'. Full review...
Grace and Mary by Melvyn Bragg
Grace and Mary is a tender and moving account spanning three generations of the same family. In the first chapter, we are introduced to ninety-two year old Mary and her doting son, John. Mary is in a nursing home and has dementia, hovering in a limbo-world, precariously balanced between the present and the past. John delights when he catches the occasional glimpse of the real Mary, and they find a meeting place, of sorts in their shared world of memories and songs. Full review...
The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke
Kate is as sensible, focused and down to earth as her sister Mia is reckless and unsettled, so it’s no surprise that it’s Mia who leaves London behind to go traveling. With dreams of seeing the USA, Australia and beyond, Mia sets off excitedly with her best friend Finn, but this once in a lifetime trip tragically becomes just that as some months later Mia is found dead in Bali, an apparent suicide plunge. With her life thrown into turmoil and unable to get past the things they said, and didn’t say, to each other when Mia was alive, Kate makes a rather Mia-like decision to leave it all behind too. Armed with Mia’s travel journey, she sets off to retrace her sister’s steps, stop by stop, to try and work out what Mia was going through, and what ultimately lead to her death. Full review...
Briefs Encountered by Julian Clary
Choosing this book from Julian Clary was irresistible. Normally, I try not to review books where I’m already familiar with author. But I didn’t feel that seeing him live several times or watching him regularly on TV counted, as I hadn’t read either of his two previous novels. Full review...
The Safest Place by Suzanne Bugler
Jane and David Berry have always lived and worked in London. However, since their children have come along, the house has felt too cramped and Jane has often dreamed of moving away. When their son Sam fails to get a place at his chosen secondary school, that is the catalyst she needs to start making her dream a reality. The only problem is that the rest of the family are not quite as enthusiastic about moving as she would have hoped. David will have to commute every day to London and the children are anxious about starting a new school, particularly Sam who finds it difficult to make friends. Even Jane starts to wonder if it was a good idea, isolated in a house miles from anywhere, finding it difficult to get to know the local community. Full review...
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Much like the missing question mark in the title it would seem, Bernadette has disappeared. Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette works as both a physical and emotional question. Bernadette Fox is the wife of Elgie Branch, a star at Microsoft in Seattle, and mother of 15 year old, Bee. The narrative begins with Bee wondering where her mother had gone, but then quickly moves to an epistolary format told in e-mails, notes and messages between the major players, including some rather obnoxious mothers at Bee's school, one of whom also works at Microsoft with Elgie. We are taken back a few weeks to when Bernadette was around and a seemingly somewhat angry mother prior to her mysterious disappearance. One of the delights about the book, which along with being very funny on issues like helicopter parenting, corporate life and, er, Canadians, is that it emerges that Bernadette is more than a wife and mother but has a past career of her own as a talented architect which she has sacrificed for one reason or another. Thus, in many ways she disappeared long before her physical disappearance. Full review...
The Ottoman Motel by Christopher Currie
Simon Sawyer is 11 years old, forced on a road-trip with his parents to visit his grandmother, Iris. Iris is living in some backwater town hemmed in on three sides by corn fields, and on the fourth by the sea. The town is called Reception in a heavy-handed attempt at irony, as we learn the town actually has no reception for mobile phones and is pretty much isolated from the rest of the world but for a few dirt tracks leading out. Full review...
Homecoming by Susie Steiner
Ann and Joe Hartle are approaching their sixties and hoping to slow down a little. Their sheep farming life is starting to take its toll and it’s an enticing thought that they may be able to pass the farm on to their son Max. The only problem is that the farm is hardly making any profit and Max is not the most capable person in the world. Added to that, Max’s wife Primrose is expecting a baby and that is not without its difficulties. The Hartle’s other son, Bartholomew, is far away in London trying to run his own business and also scared about committing to his girlfriend, Ruby. The family has started to fall apart over the years but when things go badly wrong on the farm including a barn fire and a virus that spreads through the sheep and newborn lambs, there is the opportunity to pull together and start anew. Is this something that the family can do or will they fall apart even more? Full review...
The Song the Waves Sing by Val Harris
Some time has passed since we last saw the Moon family. Charlie Moon has been released from prison. His sister Olivia is in New York but Jenna is still in Cornwall, where she's turned the family home into a B&B. Their father Brendan is a reformed character and he's moved to Looe, where he's a partner in an art gallery. But everyone's life has its ups and downs: Olivia is made redundant and the only logical move is back to the UK. Then Brendan overhears a conversation and realises that his business partner is deep in an art fraud. Full review...
The Spark by O H Robsson
Kristoffer lives in a house on the edge of a lake in Western Norway with his dog and occasional company from his friend Mats. By profession he’s a photographer and enough business comes his way to keep him the way he wishes to live. He’s relaxed - too much so at times when you’re relying on him (always a mistake) to be punctual. There has been the occasional girlfriend - some of them pretty stunning - but none of them ever came up to Eva whom he met when they were both in their teens and working in the local hotel to earn some money. His grandfather has a summer cabin up in the mountains and Kristoffer’s happy to go up to spend time with him and take him his supplies. You might think that’s pretty idyllic - and it is. Full review...
The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd
Teenager Juliet Moreau has had a hard life since her father was vilified by Victorian society. Thinking him long dead, she scrapes a living as best she can – but a chance discovery at a macabre event leads to her to learn that he is alive and her life is cast into chaos. Full review...
May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes
May We Be Forgiven is not an easy book to summarise. The book is narrated by Harold, a fairly pedestrian academic teacher and aspiring writer of history and particularly the Nixon era. We don't have to wait long for the catalyst that changes his life fundamentally over the course of a year. His high flying, younger brother, George, is involved in a car accident shortly after Thanksgiving and an adulterous encounter will change the lives of Harold and George forever. AM Homes offers a biting satire of the American Dream, taking swipes at materialism, families that are more nuclear fallout than nuclear, Internet sex sites and the dependence on drugs and psychiatrists to keep people on the straight and narrow. Full review...
Heading Out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick
Charlie Beale returned from the war in Europe and 1948 found him in Brownsburg, Virginia. He'd been driving around looking for somewhere to settle and all he had with him were two suitcases. One contained an excellent set of butchers' knives - and the other was full of money. Brownsburg seemed like a fine place to stay and before long he had a job with Will Haislett and the Haislett family became his family. He'd never hankered after children but their five-year-old son, Sam found a place in his heart. Life might have been good if it had continued in this vein, but Charlie Beale met Sylvan Glass.s Full review...
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
Inside Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a bitter-sweet love story disguised as a self help book. It's a well structured concept and works nicely. Each chapter is presented in the format of those common to the self help genre, with advice like 'Move to the City', 'Get an Education' etc., although the chapter entitled 'Be Prepared to Use Violence' is a notable omission from most business tomes and self help books. After some general chatty comments in the self help book style, the attention turns to two people who are named only 'the boy' and 'the pretty girl', charting their rise and fall from rural poverty in an unnamed Asian country (although it certainly feels like Pakistan) to business success and wealth in the city. The two are not a couple, but their lives cross at frequent times and he, in particular, remains infatuated with his childhood acquaintance. Full review...
The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore
In Plainview, Indiana there are three women who have been friends since their teens. Forty years after they first met they're still known as the Supremes, the name given to them by Big Earl at his All-You-Can-Eat diner. The diner's now run by his son, Little Earl, but you'll find the Supremes at the table in the window every Sunday, after church, along with their families. Odette tells us her own story, from the time she was born in a sycamore tree, which made her the fearless soul she is. But now she's up against something which even she might not be able to face down. Clarice was always the well-brought-up young lady as well as being a musician of some considerable merit, but her husband is causing her problems. Even serial philanderers would be in awe of what Richmond gets up to. Full review...
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
Eleanor Henderson's debut novel Ten Thousand Saints is set in late 1980s Vermont and, more memorably, New York. Opening in 1987 we discover in the second sentence that one of the two boys hiding under the stands to the Vermont school football field on match day will die that night. It's a powerful opening. From then on, the book deals first with Teddy's death and then with the life he has left behind in the form of his friend Jude, Jude's sort of step sister Eliza and Teddy's older brother Johnny. It's a world of broken homes and the trinity of sex and drugs and rock and roll, or more specifically punk. Henderson is particularly good at evoking the underground scene in New York at the time before the unlikely combination of AIDS and mayoral intervention combined to clean up the city. Full review...
The Schism by Robert Dickinson
Patrick Farrell works for a company that reclaims credit cards from those in debt. He doesn't particularly enjoy the work, but it gives him plenty of opportunity to visit his schizophrenic brother, Mike, which he does regularly. Mike used to be a fairly decent boxer, but now his only fight is against the paranoid delusion that there are people watching him all the time. Full review...
