Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search

Newest Literary Fiction Reviews (view source)

Revision as of 08:27, 17 July 2020

3,590 bytes removed ,  08:27, 17 July 2020
no edit summary
[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!{{Frontpage|author= Tahi Saihate|title= Astral Season, Beastly Season|rating= 3.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long for our past even though it is a place to which we can never return. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel ''Astral Season, Beastly Season'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lie. Her novel is a meditation on youth and how the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often life- Remove -->altering.|isbn= 1916277101}}
{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingauthor=Laura Imai Messina|title=The Phone Box at the End of the World|rating=5|genre="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->Literary FictionIa Pendilly lives |summary= In the northeast of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his garden. ''Inside there is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the wind.'' It is a caravan on real place, a necessary place, and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to her story, that the coast place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need it.|isbn=178658039X}}{{Frontpage|author=Amin Maalouf|title=The Disoriented|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of Cornwall – him a woman former-friend, perhaps not as raw harsh as the landscape an ex-friend, or maybe. The falling out was a long time ago, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing that surrounds herhe'll regret not doing so. Living with Bran Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants to, or simply because he was asked, her abusive cousin he's on the next plane. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY}}{{Frontpage|author=Joanne M Harris|title=A Pocketful of Crows|rating=5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and common law husbandbefore you get to graphic sex & violence, shethere is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. ''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's never yet had name to differentiate from her own babyadult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy tale. Discovering This is no different. It is an utter delight.|isbn=1473222184}}{{Frontpage|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=A Life Without End|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a waif washed up birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on shorethe horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, Ia rescues I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the girl extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is also rescued by at least a way of continuing the girl – given life of his genes, and a new found strength motive to keep on going. But how can he get to escape not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670}}{{Frontpage|author= Maryse Condé|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and to embark on Ivana|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live in a new journeypost- world: post-colonialism, post-modernism, post truth. The journey takes list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her deep into new novel, ''The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe, a troubled society French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and through move overseas, the ravages of a damagedpost-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequences.|isbn=1642860697}}{{Frontpage|author= Ukamaka Olisakwe|title= Ogadinma Or, hurting world – finding family Everything Will Be All Right|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at the trauma and memories long hidden will break Iaheartache of being a woman in 1980s Nigeria. The title is ''Ogadinma Or, remake Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine of the story.. We are with her in every scene and perhaps give it is her narrative voice that leads the elusive story, although Olisakwe writes in third person. This provides a sense of freedom detachment for the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where sheis married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.|isbn=1911648160}}{{Frontpage|author=Elliot Reed|title=A Key to Treehouse Living|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story.|isbn=1911545418}}{{Frontpage|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)|title= It Would Be Night in Caracas|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuela. It begins with the death of Adelaida Falcon's been seekingmother and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape it.Danger stalks the shadows and, in a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? |isbn=0062936867}}
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15"<!-- Bonnefoy Caroline Scott -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:19104775241471186393.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/19104775241471186393/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[Black Sugar Photographer of the Lost by Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)Caroline Scott]]===
[[image:4star4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Miguel Bonnefoy's ''Black Sugar'' is May 1921. Edie receives a sensual epic chronicling three generations of photograph through the Otero familypost. The tale begins There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the disappearance back of Captain Henry Morgan's treasure and then illustrates the power this treasure holds over peoplephotograph. It is a picture of her husband, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Multiple people become obsessed with finding this fabled treasure Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that has become an urban legend in a young widow can believe. She hangs on the town in which word 'missing', disbelieving the story is setword killed. [[Black Sugar Photographer of the Lost by Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)Caroline Scott|Full Review]]
<!-- Ruby Ann Patchett -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:14555651801526614960.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/14555651801526614960/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[The Zero and the One Dutch House by Ryan RubyAnn Patchett]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they''re both living at The Zero Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the One'former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It' s a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is an incredibly well written distant and well crafted book. We meet our narrator, Owen, on the plane closest Danny seems to come to New York for him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the funeral of his best friendfamily owns. He Elna Conroy is still reeling after recent eventsloving, a suicide pact in which his friend died but he lived, and he is going through absent increasingly often until the motions of point comes when the funeral and consoling family whilst still trying to get to grips with his own feelings of grief and guilt. So far, so simplechildren are told that she will not be returning. But In other circumstances this is where the talent of Ryan Ruby steps in might have affected Maeve and slowlyDanny deeply, so slowly, he reveals little tantalising clues that all but their primary relationship is not what it seems, with each other. It's a throw-away comment here, a mis-step there, and it becomes clear that Owen is not a reliable narratorbond which only death will break. [[The Zero and the One Dutch House by Ryan RubyAnn Patchett|Full Review]]
<!-- Miles Tove Jansson -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:05534475800954899520.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/05534475800954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[Anatomy of a Miracle A Winter Book by Jonathan MilesTove Jansson]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]
Look closely at the cover of Jonathan MilesTove Jansson's third novel and you'll see worldwide fame lasts on the central drama depicted: white wheelchair tracks snake up from Moomin books, written in the bottom 1940s and stop three-quarters later becoming television characters of the way from the topsimplicity, where they are replaced by footprintsnaivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. On 23 August 2014Simple drawings, wheelchair-bound veteran Cameron Harris stands up and walks outside the Biz-E-Bee convenience store in Biloxisimple stories, Mississippisimple goodness. In the rest What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the novel we find out how he got to this point natural world and what others – ranging from his doctor to representatives the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the Roman Catholic Church – will make of his recoveryworld might be. Was it a miracle, or an explainable medical phenomenon? [[Anatomy of a Miracle A Winter Book by Jonathan MilesTove Jansson|Full Review]]
<!-- Mcneil Jansson -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Mcneil Fire0954221710.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17850789920954221710/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[Fire on the Mountain The Summer Book by Jean McNeilTove Jansson]]===
[[image:4star5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
This Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an unusual bookafternoon this Summer, in style it feels like a novel by E M Forster; with a deep study at the minutiae of life and thought, yet the plot take yourself and content is thoroughly modern. The bulk of the story is told through the perspective of NickSummer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and we see his point of view on life around him. The main characters sound of the book, however, are Pieter and Riaansea, as it is these characters who fascinate Nick settle back and are the focus of his contemplation and crisisprepare to be transported. [[Fire on the Mountain The Summer Book by Jean McNeilTove Jansson|Full Review]]
<!-- Morrall Sedgwick -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Morrall_Last1788542347.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/ISBN1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall]]===
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
 
Down in hidden railway carriages, deep behind foliage and further down Long Meadow Road than most care to go, live the Greenwood Brothers. They haven't spoken to each other in years, but one morning a letter arrives on their doorstep - a letter from a sister long thought dead...As the brothers are forced to confront painful memories of a past that both tried to keep buried, the post-woman who delivered the letter struggles with secrets of her own... [[The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall|Full Review]]
 
<!-- Rawi -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Rawi_Baghdad.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073226/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[The Baghdad Clock Snowflake, AZ by Shahad Al RawiMarcus Sedgwick]]===
[[image:23.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] ''The Baghdad Clock'' is a tale of two friends growing up during the first and second Iraqi war. Shahad Al Rawi uses magic realism to illustrate the displacement felt by a young girl and her neighbourhood. The novel introduces us to the various characters surrounding the protagonist. They are full of life and yet never seem to add anything to the central narrative. Rawi, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi|Full Review]] <!-- Clements -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472204271/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Maybe you've heard about Scarcross Hall? Hidden on the old coffin path that winds from the village to the moor top, the villagers only speak of it in hushed tones - of how it's a foreboding place filled with evil. Mercy Booth has lived there since birth, and she's always loved the grand house and its isolation, but a recurrence of strange events begins to unsettle her. From objects disappearing through to a shadowy presence sensed in the house, mysteries come to light that can only be solved by Mercy unearthing long-buried secrets. And will a dark stranger help Mercy protect everything she has come to love or tear it from her grasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]] <!-- Durrenmatt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Durrenmatt_Justice.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782273875?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1782273875]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It's 1957, and we're somewhere in Switzerland, and there's just one case on everyone's lips – the simple fact that a politician has gone into the crowded room of one of those 'the place to go' restaurants, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have known, and ferried a British companion to the airport in his chauffeur-driven Rolls before handing himself in to face the murder rap. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. He's certainly of much interest, not only to our narrator, a young lawyer called Spaet – even if he rarely gets to frequent such establishments with such people, he is eager to know more, especially once he is actually tasked by the man in hand to look into things a second time. But what's this, where he opens his testimony about the affair with the conclusion, that he himself will need to turn killer to redress the balance? [[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Cercas -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Cercas_Impostor.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857056506?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0857056506]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
Enric Marco This is without doubt an extraordinary a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man. A veteran named Ash in the process of joining a community of sick people in the Spanish Civil Warcuriously named town of Snowflake, honoured for his bravery on the battlefieldArizona. A political prisoner These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of two fascist regimes. A survivor of Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is to stay in the town away from the Nazi concentration campsreal world. A prominent figure in the clandestine resistance against FrancoThough it's tyranny. A tireless warrior for social justice and about a real place, the defence of human rights. A national heropeople in it are fictional. But the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco is this: that he is It really none of these things. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets out a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are even required to tell his story – the true story of Spain's most notorious liardecontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[The Impostor Snowflake, AZ by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]]
<!-- Badoe Hewitt -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Badoe_Jigsaw1509896465.jpg|left|link=httpshttp://www.amazon.co.uk/gpdp/product1509896465/1786695480ref=nosim?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786695480]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe]]===
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]]
 
Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on she's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante is to tell their story and her own. [[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe|Full Review]]
 
<!-- Batalha -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Batalha_Invisible.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178607298X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=178607298X]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao Nightjar by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)Deborah Hewitt]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
On the surface''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it allfast. A nice-enoughFrom that very moment, parent-pleasing husband her life is flooded with a steady banking jobmagic, two young children upon whom to doteloss, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever wantexpectation and particularly, isn't it? Not Euridicebetrayal. She has an inexplicable ache inside As everything around her for something moreshifts, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projectsall that she knows, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry in her living roomall that she thinks she knows, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenormust change. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself, whose only domains are her house and her family. ? [[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao Nightjar by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]]
<!-- Hodgkinson Mulligan -->
|-
| style="''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"''|[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17822738241784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"''|===[[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North Train Man by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)Andrew Mulligan]]===
[[image:3star2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:AnthologiesGeneral Fiction|AnthologiesGeneral Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]
A compilation like I came to this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short worksbook thinking I knew just what to expect, even though itis [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the author's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot ]] debut in time, as some were written the year of publication and some in adult novel market (hence the 1960smore mature name – he used to be an Andy). It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys I thought it simple to sum up, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenland. That is tale of a world that's changing – as the Greenlandmiddle-born author now living aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testifymost pleasant way. It I hadn's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes t opened it seems to be even the characterswhen I' species… d shelved it alongside [[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat :Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)[[:Category:David Nicholls|Full ReviewDavid Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness.
<!-- Hesselholdt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hesselholdt_Companions.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.coMore fool me.uk/dp/1910695335/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Companions Train Man by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]]===
[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''Companions'' is written as a series of monologues, where six middle-aged friends take it in turns to narrate scenes from their lives, charting the intimate details of their holidays, dinner parties, families, marriages, affairs and work lives in a style that mixes honesty and openness with fantasy and evasion. The charm of the novel lies in the way the friends' voices bicker with one another among the pages, as we discover that there are always several sides to the same story. We learn most about the characters not through what they say about themselves but through what the others say about them. Along the way, there is heartbreak and grief, but this is always offset by an abundance of humour and a writing style that never fails to be refreshingly light-hearted. [[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- BERGEN -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bergen_Stranger.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0715652419/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Stranger by David Bergen]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''Stranger'' tells the story of Íso, a young Guatemalan woman, and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him to return to the States, she is left pregnant and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter is abducted, and taken to live with the doctor and his wife. What followed - tales of the journey Íso embarked upon in the hope of finding her baby - was an amazing story of the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her child. [[Stranger by David Bergen|Full Review]] <!-- Chonghaile Anstruther -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Chonghaile_Rain1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17850790181784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[Rain Falls On Everyone A Perfect Explanation by Clar Ni ChonghaileEleanor Anstruther]]===
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]]
It's Enid Campbell was a cliché that woman who, on the Irish have a picturesque turn face of phraseit, but clichés only exist because they're truehad everything. Roddy Doyle put it differently in a recent interview with ''Writing'' magazineLeading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, when he said that glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enid''With Irishs life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, there's another language bubbling under the English''untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. However you express itAfter losing custody of her children, that art Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of expression is woven into every other line greed, or an act of Clár's prose. Pick a page at random and you'll find something like ''desperation? Exploring the sickness that had come to roost in true story of her home like a cursed owl'' or ''like he was Godown grandmother, Jesus and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or ''a low sobbingEleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, slow moving and inevitable as rain on a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawares, or tear at your heart in their mundane sadness. Or sometimes bothbeautifully well written debut. [[Rain Falls On Everyone A Perfect Explanation by Clar Ni ChonghaileEleanor Anstruther|Full Review]]
<!-- Mete Laguna -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Mete_Sinful191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1524682527191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[Sinful Words The Choke by Hesene MeteSofie Laguna]]===
[[image:4star2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]
When we meet himThere's a dull, Behram is a student at the school dispiriting pang of theology. He disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves God with a passion and has a determination to live a life dedicated to God and to live by His rulesfind out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. He rents a property from Lulu Khan and his wife, Lady Geshtina and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visitA new Netflix series. It's a delightful place and the wealth of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtina's late father is buried in what amounts to a mausoleumBooks are like that, but it's not all this which enchants Behram. The couple have twin children and Behram is taken, enthralled by the daughter, Naginadoubly so. [[Sinful Words The Choke by Hesene MeteSofie Laguna|Full Review]]
<!-- Laurel Varenne -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Laurel_Gurugu0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/19082769400857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[The Gurugu Pledge Equator by Juan-Tomas Avila LaurelAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]
Juan-Tomas Avila LaurelIt strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, one who bristles at the indignity of Equatorial Guineawhite man against Native 's best-known dissident writersIndian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, is an author and who deserves to be read hates the world over. With The Gurugu Pledgeway man – and woman, he's captured an angry and incredibly urgent slice of course – can turn against fellow man at the migrant experience – a snapshot bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the dangers faced by those crossing 1870s USA, and the African continent in search attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the barbed wire fences at Melilla- Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the Spanish enclave on ground to counter the North Eastern tip anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Morocco. Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[The Gurugu Pledge Equator by Juan-Tomas Avila LaurelAntonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]]
<!-- Smith Kan -->
|-
| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|
[[image:Smith_Waking1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/09956541581911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|
===[[The Waking Nights of the Creaking Bed by Matthew SmithToni Kan]]===
[[image:5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Isabel Sykes, 23, recounts the recent attempt she made to come to terms with the loss of her mother, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykes. Marianne died in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was ten. Inspired by the appearance of Imogen Taylor, an enchanting young woman who wants to write a PhD on her mother's work, Isabel plunges into the depths of her past and an intense new friendship. After discovering that Imogen is not who she seems to be, Isabel must face the darkest moments from her childhood in order to protect her family from more tragedy. She receives unexpected help from beyond the grave: in the strange, glittering fragments of her mother's last, unfinished work, 'Midnightsong'. [[The Waking by Matthew Smith:Category:Short Stories|Full ReviewShort Stories]]
''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan|Full Review]]
<!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->
|}
 
{{newreview
|author= Ali Smith
|title= Autumn
|rating= 5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= The first part in Ali Smith's four part 'Seasonal' series, Autumn is the story of Daniel Gluck and Elisabeth Demand, unexpected friends who used to be neighbours when Elisabeth was a little girl. In a series of memories and dreams, we discover their friendship from Daniel babysitting Elisabeth through to her visits with him now that he is in a home and drawing towards the end of his extremely long and fascinating life. Along the way, we get a wonderfully written insight into time, memories, and the fleeting nature of life itself.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241973317</amazonuk>
}}
Retrieved from "http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/Special:MobileDiff/144073...155564"

Navigation menu