Dear Reader by Paul Fournel and David Bellos (translator)
Robert Dubois is a publisher of the old school: the books matter - of course they do - but then so does the food and the drink which accompanies the profession. He's had a long career of paper manuscripts, authors and lunches and he fully expects that life will continue in this way until he finally retires, whenever that might be. Then one day an intern presents him with an ereader and nothing will ever be quite the same again, not least his briefcase, which is used to accommodating vast quantities of paper. He's not a Luddite - but getting used to this gizmo is not going to be easy. Full review...
Waiting for Doggo by Mark B Mills
Daniel didn't quite acquire Doggo by accident. His girlfriend got him from Battersea Dogs' Home but when Clara walked out on him without any notice (well - just a letter...) she told him to take Doggo back. He was, she said 'just a dog. A small ugly dog'. And Daniel was all set to do just that until he discovered that Doggo would quickly be separated from what Dan considered to be a couple of important parts of his anatomy. After a rethink Daniel had a new job as an advertising copywriter which allowed him to take Doggo to work with him and Doggo's career as a 'mental health companion dog' was born. Full review...
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
To understand Lydia’s death, we need to understand Lydia, and to understand Lydia we need to understand Lydia’s parents. Marilyn, who wanted more from her life than to play the dutiful housewife, who goes to college to study and realise her dreams, not to meet a man (her own mother’s dream for her), goes ahead and, well, she meets a man. That man is James, whose credentials for teaching American history are up for debate, but who nonetheless manages to overcome his background to secure a role doing just that. They settle down and have Nath, then Lydia, then a little while later, Hannah. An unusual family for 1970s Ohio, but a happy one. The children are bright, the home is cosy. Full review...
The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss
Deep below the University, the ancient home of magic and learning, a young girl lives amongst the caves, tunnels, and abandoned rooms. In Seven days, her friend will be visiting - one of her few friends, and someone who Auri cannot wait to see. Those seven days are filled with Auri's preparations - her hunt amongst the tunnels and caves for a proper gift, and her thoughts as she goes about her business. Full review...
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
Jason Fitger (Jay) is a Professor of creative writing and literature at a small university in the American mid-west. He is also a frustrated novelist with a colourful personal history, much of which bleeds into his professional life, with interesting results. Full review...
Fives and Twenty-Fives by Michael Pitre
In Iraq any soldier within 5 metres of a roadside bomb explosion will die as even an armoured truck will be torn to pieces. Being within 25 metres of a roadside explosion would be fatal to foot soldiers. Lieutenant Pete Donovan and his US marine unit know this better than anyone. Their job in Iraq is to repair the roads but it's not as simple as it sounds. Every pothole (yes, every pothole) contains a bomb; even the kerbstones could be dummies filled with explosives. That's why every serviceman and woman has it drilled into them: no matter what, no matter where, always watch your fives and twenty-fives. Full review...
The Tower by Alessandro Gallenzi
Amman, Jordan, and even while the world's tallest building is still being constructed, Biblia are hard at work inside. The global Internet conglomerate is undergoing its efforts to digitise the entire world's knowledge, including a priceless archive held by a local dignitary, when one of the workers involved - on behalf of the Vatican - vanishes, along with some unknown quantities of the works. Enter Peter Simms from England, and a classy Italian colleague, to help relocate whatever it was that was missing - in the face of threats from elsewhere in the Muslim kingdom... Full review...
Emma by Alexander McCall Smith
When I read about the plan to re-imagine Jane Austen's novels through contemporary, bestselling authors I wasn't entirely sure this was a good thing. Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope? Really? But then, of course, my eyes lit upon the magic author's name, Alexander McCall Smith! Not only had been asked to be involved, but the book he was going to work on was my most favourite Austen book, Emma. What could possibly go wrong? Full review...
Lucy by Alan Kennedy
Lucy is a painter. Hiding away in Dundee on VE Day, she returns from a disaster of an exhibition to a letter from a figure from her past. Uncle Albert, still in France, wants to sort out his affairs - who will get what after he's dead. The letter sends Lucy on a voyage of discovery - about a past full of art, lost love, found love, grief, war and about what could possibly come next. Set in pre-war London, pre-war and wartime France and windy, rainy Dundee, Lucy is a love story, but it's also a kind of coming-home. Full review...
If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go by Judy Chicurel
Katie and her friends in Elephant Beach, Long Island are going to make the most of summer 1972. High school is behind them, there's booze to be drunk and weed to be smoked. There's also a lot to contend with. This is a working class community, ignored and disenfranchised by those with the money and influence to help. Also the Vietnam War rages on, producing local heroes like Luke and Mitch. For some of the young people the future is a blank canvas, for others their future is foreseen or foreshortened. As for Katie's hopes and dreams, they all revolve around the hope of a date with Luke. Full review...
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce
Rachel Joyce envisions The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy not as a prequel or sequel to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry but as a companion volume. Giving Queenie's side of the story through an extended letter she is writing to Harold from St Bernadine's hospice as she awaits his arrival, Joyce gives readers a new perspective on her character's unrequited love for Harold, a surprising friendship she kept up with his son David until his suicide, and her sudden move from Devon to Northumbria, where she lived in a quaint beachside cottage and maintained her sea garden until she became ill with cancer. Full review...
The Bear by Claire Cameron
Canadian Claire Cameron was working as a counsellor at Algonquin Park in the early 90's, when a bear attacked and killed two campers. Here, Cameron revisits and re imagines the attack, but gives the campers two children, and tells the story from the perspective of the daughter, Anna. Full review...
Night after Night by Phil Rickman
It's no surprise that when it comes to reality television, broadcasters are fighting amongst themselves for the next big thing, no matter how tasteless, base, or exploitative it may be. That's the starting point for Phil Rickman's creepy new thriller, as tv producer Leo Defford decides to launch a reality show in a mansion formerly owned by tragically deceased movie star Trinity Ansell, and perhaps haunted by Henry VIII's last wife, Katherine Parr. Full review...
The Green Door by Christopher Bowden
Clare Mallory is a promising junior barrister working from a prestigious chambers. Life is pretty good. She's not the type to be taken in by psychics but when cards advertising the services of one Madame Pavonia start arriving in the post, her interest is piqued, first by the rainbow spectrum pattern and then by... well, something else. Tempted to visit the fortune-teller at a local fair, Clare is taken aback at Madame Pavonia's reaction to her and rushes out of the tent. Full review...
Twist by Tom Grass
Twist doesn't know his family. Homeless and on the run from the police, he is swiftly caught up in the world of Dodge, Fagin, Sikes, and Red. As they involve Twist in the dangerous world of Art theft, his skills are pushed to the limits, and his morals are tested by both the murky underworld and the beauty of Red. Full review...
Ashes In The Wind by Christopher Bland
John Burke and Tomas Sullivan may go to the same primary school in Kerry but even in 1908 they're on two sides of a great divide. John is Anglo Irish protestant and comfortably off, being the heir to Derriquin Castle whereas Tomas is Irish Catholic, living in poverty and raised to feel the resentment of the oppressed. The fact that John has been brought up to believe in Home Rule tragically makes no difference as John, Tomas and their future generations live with the consequences of a centuries old struggle. Full review...
Return to Fourwinds by Elisabeth Gifford
Two families gather at Fourwinds for the wedding of Nicky and Sarah. Alice and Ralph are as proud of their son as Patricia and Peter are of their daughter. However there are secrets festering behind the celebratory facades and there's nothing like pre-wedding jitters to bring such things bubbling to the surface. Full review...
The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - The Nearly Definitive Edition by Douglas Adams
There are few series that have garnered such a cult following as 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Whether the fans have come from the radio series, the (impossibly hard) computer game, or the (well intentioned but not particularly good) film, they are everywhere. Ask a room of people what the meaning of life is, and you can be pretty sure a good few will pipe up with '42' as the answer. Full review...
Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk
The central character, Madison, is a strangely unlikeable narrator who has been murdered. She finds herself in hell but is able to return to Earth to observe the dramatic goings-on of her celebrity parents, who fit the stereotype of the Brangelina couple - socially responsible, universally famous and obscenely rich. Without giving too much away, Madison is a pawn in Satan’s plan to destroy the earth and ensure everyone goes to hell. This being Palahniuk, the focus is on the comedic possibilities of this scenario rather than the moralistic. Full review...
The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop
Savvas has everything he needs here in Cyprus: money, a beautiful wife from a rich Greek Cypriot family and a hotel to develop into beacon accommodation for the well-heeled. It's not everything he wants though. There's always another hotel to buy and deals to be done while Aphroditi, his intelligent wife, becomes more aware of her position as an ornament rather than a partner. On the other hand, the Turkish Ozkans and Greek Georgious have less materially but are, on the whole, happy. Traditionally they should be enemies but Famagusta is a tolerant town and a good place to live. All this changes in 1974: Turkish soldiers land on the island and slowly move down through the north, an underground resistance emerges and life becomes dangerously cheap. The citizens of Famagusta flee to the south, but two families can’t get out in time: the Ozkans and the Georgious. Full review...
The Winter Horses by Philip Kerr
It’s the winter of 1941 and we are in the Ukraine. A fourteen year old girl is hiding in a wood on the vast and bitter-cold steppe. Her name is Katinka, a name from folk song and fairy tale, and she has been befriended by two of the wild Przelowski’s horses. Full review...
Where Love Lies by Julie Cohen
Let's start with the basics. Felicity, a children's book author and illustrator, has been married to the lovely Quinn for just a short time. They live in a sweet cottage, in a wonderful village, with Quinn's family nearby. Quinn is the perfect husband, in every way, and surely Felicity's life can't get any better than this? You might well guess that anyone starting out in a book in this way is heading for trouble. Felicity's trouble comes in rather an unusual form however. She begins to experience intense emotions, seemingly preceded by smelling a scent that she recognises from a long time ago in her life. But are the emotions real, or is her imagination playing tricks on her? And are these episodes worthy of a trip to the doctor, or will he dismiss her olfactory experiences as the random ramblings of a confused woman? Full review...
Rooms by Lauren Oliver
Alice and Sandra are dead. Ghosts trapped in the house they lived and died in, they have bickered and squabbled for years. Distraction for them comes in the form of a real, live family - Caroline, her daughter Minna, son Trenton, and Minna's daughter Amy. Arriving to mourn and sort affairs following the death of Minna and Trenton's father, arguments and old wounds soon open up. Full review...
Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short Stories by Chuck Palahniuk, Dennis Widmyer and Richard Thomas
Saying certain things out loud just don’t sound right. Some things are so disturbing or politically incorrect that you are best off leaving them inside your head, or better yet not thinking of them at all. When these words are spoken they could lead to the sensation of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what you said was wrong. Are you prepared to enter the world of Transgressive Fiction that aims to disturb, alienate, disgust and question? Full review...
Us by David Nicholls
Douglas Petersen is a mild-mannered, middle-aged biochemist. He and Connie have been married for about two decades. Their son, Albie, is your average sullen teenager with a messy room and bohemian affectations. He and Douglas argue about everything, but especially about Albie's chosen career path: he hopes to be a photographer, taking after his artist mother, but Douglas wants him to study something more practical and rigorous at uni. Still, Douglas thinks things are going pretty well for his family – until one night Connie sits up in bed and tells him she thinks she wants to leave him. Full review...
Delicious! by Ruth Reichl
Billie is interning at a foodie magazine with a long history. It’s been based in the same building for many decades, so you can imagine the secrets hidden within the walls. Every recipe they've ever published, for example, is archived, so if you want the special brioche bread and butter pudding you first tasted in winter 1991, you can contact them and ask for the details. That’s part of Billie’s job, and she quite enjoys it, but then something even better comes out of the archives. A series of letters written during the war that send Billie on a mad mystery tour throughout the building and beyond. With a dash of ingenuity, a pinch of spunk and a big ol’ dollop of enthusiasm, will she be able to get to the bottom of the story? Full review...