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|author= Tahi SaihateJennifer Saint|title= Astral SeasonElektra|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, Beastly Seasonand Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies.|isbn=1913097854}}{{Frontpage|isbn=8409290103|title=If Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating= 34.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for our past his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even though before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Red is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it 's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B098FFFBH9|title=Snowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a place competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we can never return'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.}}{{Frontpage|author=Yancey Williams|title=Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4. Tahi Saihate5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in -trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0008421714|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her debut novel first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?''Astral Season She mentioned that Johanna, Beastly Seasonthe principal character had 'her mannerisms'' illustrates how these rose. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes -tinted glasses often lie''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.''}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B005FM76AA|title=The Duke's Children|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The story opens to probably the worst news of all: Lady Glencora Palliser is dead. Her novel husband, Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, is a meditation on youth nearly paralysed by grief and how struggling - at the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important same time - to adjust to no longer being prime minister, or even in office. He seeks to protect and guide his three adult children, which is easier said than done when none of them wishes to ''be'' guided. Silverbridge (his elder son, actually called Plantagenet, but always known by his title) and Gerald are destined to be sent down from Oxford and Cambridge respectively and to run up gambling debts, occasionally in eye-watering sums. Lady Helen has fallen in love with - and often lifewishes to marry -alteringFrank Tregear, the penniless son of a poor squire, which the Duke cannot countenance, not least because he sees echos of what might have happened when he married Lady Glencora. He's about to learn that parents do not always get their way.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= 1916277101B004O37B6A|title=The Prime Minister|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, is the prime minister of a coalition government but he's privately enraged at the seemingly unstoppable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. Lopex is exotic - some describe him as Jewish, others as Portuguese but the truth is that no one knows and Lopez is not going to explain. The ladies of society, even Palliser's own wife, Lady Glencora, are supporters but after Lopez makes an advantageous marriage Palliser is placed in the position of having to support his wife's actions when Lopez loses a by-election. The Duke's payment of Lopez' election expenses in an attempt to stem gossip about his wife will come back to haunt him.

|authorisbn=Laura Imai MessinaB00474HVX4|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldPhineas Redux|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5

|summary= In the northeast of Japan, It's some time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]]. Having succeeded in Inwate Prefecture parliament and achieved a man installed paying position he fell out with those who provided his income and returned to Ireland where he married Mary, his childhood sweetheart. He was fortunate to get a telephone box job in his gardenCork (or Dublin - recollections may vary) and seemed settled into a life of domesticity. ''Inside there is an old blackTo bring Finn back, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the wind.'' It is Trollope had to kill off poor Mary and Phineas emerges in London as a real place, childless widower with a necessary place, and I am pleased legacy from an aunt who died at just the right time to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that allow the author attaches move to her story, that the place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need itpossible.|isbn=178658039X

|author=Amin MaaloufJessie Greengrass|title=The DisorientedHigh House

|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back Charles Darwin taught that all living matter evolved to his homeland for 25 yearspass on its genetic material with the implied belief that your progeny will then pass on theirs. An old friend However, that train of thought is dying…or as Adam prefers slowly seems to think have fallen out of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend, or maybefavour. The falling out was a long time ago, and AdamToday's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing young generation are discovering that hetheir parents and their parents'll regret parents did not doing soseem to think that far ahead. Not knowing whether heOr they did think that far ahead and thought "it's going because he needs not my problem" or wants to, or simply because he was asked, he"there's nothing I can do". Raising a child and living in a world on the next planeprecipice of catastrophe is what drives ''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrass. This is not a science-fiction novel. This is our reality. This is the life our children and their children will have to live. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1800750072

|author=Joanne M HarrisCharlie Carroll|title=A Pocketful of CrowsThe Lip

|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violence, there 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 CrowsMelody Janie Rowe'' even the name is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use evocative of…probably of the middle initial in the authorwhatever we want it to be, and maybe that's name to differentiate from her adult offersthe point. Ignore To me the name sings of English folk music, but even in my use of that if you have loved anything from word English, I know I''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy talem putting an emmet take on things. This And Melody Janie Rowe is no different. It is an utter delightanti-emmet.|isbn=14732221841529334179

|isbn=B003UH99X4|title=The Eustace Diamonds|author=Frederic Beigbeder Anthony Trollope|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It was generally thought that Sir Florian Eustace had come to regret his marriage but he didn't live long enough for this to become a problem. After his death, his wife, Lizzie - still only in her late teens - was in possession of a very valuable diamond necklace and Frank Wynne (translator)was determined that she would not hand it over to her husband's executors. She was adamant that Sir Florian had given it to her absolutely, although the precise circumstances of the giving varied from telling to telling. Lady Eustace was not a woman to whom truth meant a great deal. All that was important to her now, she maintained, was her son. And, of course, her diamonds.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B003L7TDMU|title=A Life Without EndPhineas Finn|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5

|summary=I looked at Phineas Finn is the calendar the other weekson of Dr Malachi Finn, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I knowsuccessful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, yet another onewho sent his son to London to train as a lawyer. It wonPhineas't be s interest is more in making influential friends than in becoming a lawyer and one of the major numbersthem, Barrington Erle, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on suggests that he runs for Parliament in the horizonforthcoming election. And then a few His father is not entirely in favour of the big 0-numbers, this as members are not remunerated and if all goes it would be up to him to provide financial support for his son as well, I'll be an OBEas funding his election. (Which One of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if thatthe doctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the extent borough 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, Loughshane and they end up with a childby this stroke of luck Finn is, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his geneseventually, and elected by a motive to keep on goingsmall margin. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670

|authorisbn= Maryse CondéB003A6W0FO|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaCan You Forgive Her?|author=Anthony Trollope|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live in a post- worldOn the surface ''Can You Forgive Her?'' looks deceptively simple: post-colonialismit's the story of one woman and two men who are vying with each other for her love. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousin, post-modernism, post truthGeorge Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and later became engaged to John Grey. The list goes When we first meet Alice she's on. There are numerous works that utilise an extended tour of the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condécontinent with George Vavasor and his sister Kate. In her new novel, It's obvious that there'The Wondrous s still a great deal of chemistry between John and Tragic Life of Ivan Alice - and Ivana'', Condé writes with fervour about Kate is all for encouraging the scars left by colonialism on the countries relationship as it would tie Alice to which her. George wants Alice but it latched itself. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe, 's a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration for each anyone otherthan himself and the original engagement had fallen through because of his infidelity and deceitfulness. As they grow up and move overseas, This thread is the ravages story of a post-colonial society drive them apart very complicated love affair and a woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement. You might not like Alice to start with tragic consequencesbut you will warm to her.|isbn=1642860697

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweLucy Holland|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightSistersong|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe Sistersong is part of a look at genre I particularly enjoy, the trauma modern retelling of folk and heartache fairy tales. These stories, for most of being us, are a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a woman in 1980s Nigeriafresh perspective. The title is ''Ogadinma OrIf handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, fleshing out characters, Everything Will Be All Right''examining relationships and re-evaluating the role of women. Ogadinma Sistersong is the eponymous heroine a perfect example of a modern retelling done well, the story.. We are plot is handled with her care, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to life, to feel real and human, most importantly they feel relatable in every scene and it is her narrative voice that leads a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the story, although Olisakwe writes pre-Saxon age they live in third person. This provides is a sense masterpiece of detachment for the reader storytelling and highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled I was captivated from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness beginning to escapeend.|isbn=19116481601529039037

|authorisbn=Elliot ReedB002SQCYWQ|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingThe Complete Barchester Chronicles|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This is the story of a young boyWhen I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, William TyceEmma, who is being raised Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by his uncle after Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] for the death of his mother second time on the trot she had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and his father's abandonment. However, it isn't told they were in my inbox in the usual narrative way. Instead, the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way matter of describing certain events, situations and emotionsminutes. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking They're not ''quite'what on earth?!' as well known as the Austen books but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in Williamthey's storyre an excellent follow on.|isbn=1911545418

|authorisbn=B077K6BQFD|title= Karina Sainz Borgo The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)Persuasion |titleauthor= It Would Be Night in CaracasJane Austen|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= Yes - that''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates s over eighty-one hours of listening for the everyday horrors purchase of modern day Venezuelaone audio book. It begins with the death of Adelaida Falcon's mother All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin and chronicles Adelaidathey's coming to terms with her new solitude re presented in this world and her attempts to escape it. Danger stalks the shadows and, order in a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? |isbn=0062936867which they were published.}}

|isbnauthor=1471186393Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title=Photographer If You Kept a Record of the Lost|author=Caroline ScottSins

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921This was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. Edie receives We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a photograph through narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the postfollowing day. The mother was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. There And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=1939810965}}{{Frontpage|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Kokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is no letter or note with why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. There is nothing written I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the back of the photograph20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It is intrigued with the subterranean voice a picture man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of her husbandit mentioned, Francistoo. Francis has been missing for four years. TechnicallyBut you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, he has been "missingand can tell that if love was on these pages, believed killed" but that is it was not something that a young widow can believeactually caused by them. She hangs on the word 'missing', disbelieving the word killed.So what happened?|isbn=1529402697

{{Frontpage|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingisbn="15"0571362672|title=Snow|author=John Banville|rating=5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=''Well, at least you're a Wexford man.''

<!-- Ann Patchett -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1526614960.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526614960/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, theySo said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. ItSinjun's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems ) Strafford to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family ownsBallyglass House just before Christmas 1957. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when Osborne was master of the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve Keelmore Hounds and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is had done something memorable with each otherthe Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk. It's a bond which only death will break. [[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]] <!-- Tove Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954899520.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. 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 niceties had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Jansson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954221710.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954221710/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]] 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 afternoon this Summer, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in the process of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard 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 real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictional. It really is a place apart, quite literally cut off from the outside world – people are established even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Hewitt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1509896465.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509896465/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds when there was a box Catholic priest dead on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded the library floor with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must change. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came to this book thinking I knew just what to expect, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the author's]] debut in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, the tale some precious bits of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant wayanatomy missing. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsythis, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Anstruther along with his good-but->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]shabby suit, [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face marked him out as of it, had everything. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only EnidOsborne's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close to her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving class and beautifully well written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]] <!-- Laguna -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191070962X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.coobviously Protestant.uk/dp/191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Choke by Sofie Laguna]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] There's a dulldead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstown, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like that, but doubly so. [[The Choke by Sofie Laguna|Full Review]] <!who -despite the different religions - Varenne -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0857058738.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin 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]] It 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, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, habit of course – can turn against fellow man spending time at the bat of an eyelidBallyglass House. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and His horse was stabled there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short 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]]