Changes

|author= Tahi SaihateJennifer Saint|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonElektra|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-altering.|isbn= 1916277101}}{{Frontpage|author=Laura Imai Messina|title=The Phone Box at the End of the World|rating=54

|summary= In 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the northeast story of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box three women who live in his garden. ''Inside there is an old black, telephone, disconnected, that carries voices into the windheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece.'' It is a real placeCassandra, a necessary placeClytemnestra, and I am pleased to see Elektra are all bit players in the story of the IMPORTANT NOTE Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the author attaches to her story, that most compelling stories and the place is not a tourist destination, it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need itmost extreme furies.|isbn=178658039X1913097854

|authorisbn=Amin Maalouf8409290103|title=The DisorientedIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for yearsTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, speaks French more easily than cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back accountant, Mr Patrick, to his homeland for 25 years. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to think of send him a formermonthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence -friend, perhaps not as harsh as an exof sorts -friend, or maybesprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. The falling out was a long time ago It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, and Adam's partner has no idea what it was about, even so she urges him to go knowing that hedidn'll regret not doing sot care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. Not knowing whether he's going because he needs or wants The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to, or simply because he was asked, he's get the young man on the next planehis way. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY

|author=Joanne M HarrisAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=A Pocketful of CrowsRed is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction |summary= I [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been of the mind black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that once you're above picture-book level more accurately – this one was, and before you get to graphic sex & violenceis, there is no difference between books for children black and white and books for adultsred. There are good books Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, 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 authorI think it's name possible to differentiate from her adult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress say not one page lacks the influence of the modern fairy tale. This is no different. It is an utter delightsome striking visual ideas.|isbn=14732221841913547183

|authorisbn=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)B098FFFBH9|title=A Life Without EndSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and disappointedly realised I have her friend are producing a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of competition entry to highlight the major numbers, but way in which human beings exploit the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizonanimal world. And then She gets a few great deal of the big 0-numberssupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, and if all goes wella lecturer at Imperial College, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisisLondon, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrasemother Kate and her twin, but he might be said to be living oneNick. 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 Kate runs the first geneticist he interviewsfamily business, and they end up with a childtoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is at least a way where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on goinginformation: five soft toys. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670

|author= Maryse CondéYancey Williams|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life Crosshairs of Ivan and Ivanathe Devil|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in a postyears and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - world: postor imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view -colonialismin room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, post-modernismwith only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, post truthfor palatable company. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix postNothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock- in their categorisation-trade of writing though, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelhere, 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 Wondrous and Tragic Life problem began just after the publication of Ivan and IvanaGeorge March'', Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism s most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the countries last page) seemed to which either be reading it latched itselfor had already done so. Ivan and Ivana are twins born in Guadeloupe 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 French overseas departmentcharacter on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, the ravages fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|isbn=1642860697''

|authorisbn= Ukamaka OlisakweB005FM76AA|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightThe Duke's Children|author=Anthony Trollope|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel story opens to probably the worst news of all: Lady Glencora Palliser is dead. Her husband, Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, is nearly paralysed by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look grief and struggling - at the trauma and heartache of same time - to adjust to no longer being a woman prime minister, or even in 1980s Nigeriaoffice. The title He seeks to protect and guide his three adult children, which is easier said than done when none of them wishes to ''Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Rightbe''guided. Ogadinma is the eponymous heroine of the story.. We Silverbridge (his elder son, actually called Plantagenet, but always known by his title) and Gerald are with her in every scene destined to be sent down from Oxford and Cambridge respectively and it is her narrative voice that leads the storyto run up gambling debts, although Olisakwe writes occasionally in third personeye-watering sums. This provides Lady Helen has fallen in love with - and wishes to marry - Frank Tregear, the penniless son of a sense of detachment for poor squire, which the reader and highlights the isolation Duke cannot countenance, not least because he sees echos of Ogadinmawhat might have happened when he married Lady Glencora. She is exiled from her father He's home and sent about to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobelearn that parents do not always get their way. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escape.|isbn=1911648160

|authorisbn=Elliot ReedB004O37B6A|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingThe Prime Minister|author=Anthony Trollope

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This is Plantagenet Palliser, the story Duke of a young boy, William TyceOmnium, who is being raised by his uncle after the death prime minister of his mother and his fathera coalition government but he's abandonment. However, it isn't told in privately enraged at the usual narrative wayseemingly unstoppable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. InsteadLopex is exotic - some describe him as Jewish, others as Portuguese but the book truth is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as a way of describing certain events, situations that no one knows and emotionsLopez is not going to explain. It runs alphabeticallyThe ladies of society, even Palliser's own wife, starting with ABSENCELady Glencora, then moving are supporters but after Lopez makes an advantageous marriage Palliser is placed in the position of having to ALPHABETICAL ORDERsupport his wife's actions when Lopez loses a by-election. As I began to read I did find myself thinking The Duke'what on earth?!s payment of Lopez' but I soon grew used election expenses in an attempt to stem gossip about his wife will come back to the style, and was instead caught up in William's storyhaunt him.|isbn=1911545418

|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 mother 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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1471186393B00474HVX4|title=Photographer of the LostPhineas Redux|author=Caroline ScottAnthony Trollope

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921It's some time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]]. Edie receives Having succeeded in parliament and achieved a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note paying position he fell out with itthose who provided his income and returned to Ireland where he married Mary, his childhood sweetheart. There is nothing written on the back of the photograph. It is He was fortunate to get a job in Cork (or Dublin - recollections may vary) and seemed settled into a picture life of her husband, Francisdomesticity. Francis has been missing for four years. TechnicallyTo bring Finn back, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that Trollope had to kill off poor Mary and Phineas emerges in London as a childless widower with a young widow can believe. She hangs on legacy from an aunt who died at just the word 'missing', disbelieving right time to allow the word killedmove to be possible.

|isbnauthor=1509896465Jessie Greengrass|title=The Nightjar|author=Deborah HewittHigh House

|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Charles Darwin taught that all living matter evolved to pass on its genetic material with the implied belief that your progeny will then pass on theirs. However, that train of thought is slowly seems to have fallen out of favour. Today's young generation are discovering that their parents and their parents'The Nightjarparents did not seem to think that far ahead. Or they did think that far ahead and thought "it's not my problem" or "there' is an unusual and exciting storys nothing I can do". Alice Wyndham lives Raising a normal life child and living in London until she finds a box world on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fastthe precipice of catastrophe is what drives ''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrass. From that very moment, her life This is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayalnot a science-fiction novel. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must changeThis is our reality. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who This is the life our children and their children will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself?have to live.|isbn=1800750072

|isbnauthor=0857058738Charlie Carroll|title=Equator|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)The Lip|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=It strikes me that nobody can speak well of ''Melody Janie Rowe'' even the Wild West outside the walls name is evocative of…probably of a theme park. Our agent whatever we want it to see how bad it was here is Pete Fergusonbe, who bristles at the indignity of the white man against Native and maybe that'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at s the bat of an eyelidpoint. But this book is about so much more than To me the 1870s USAname sings of English folk music, and the attendant problems with gold rushesbut even in my use of that word English, pioneer spirits and racial genocideI know I'm putting an emmet take on things. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything And Melody Janie Rowe 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 betteremmet. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… |isbn=1529334179

|isbn=1526614960B003UH99X4|title=The Dutch HouseEustace Diamonds|author=Ann PatchettAnthony Trollope

|summary=When we first meet Danny and 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 elder sisterdeath, Maeve Conroyhis wife, theyLizzie - still only in her late teens - was in possession of a very valuable diamond necklace and was determined that she would not hand it over to her husband're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under s executors. She was adamant that Sir Florian had given it to her absolutely, although the gaze precise circumstances of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the wallsgiving varied from telling to telling. It's Lady Eustace was not a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems to come woman to him is when he goes out with him on whom truth meant a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family ownsgreat deal. Elna Conroy is lovingAll that was important to her now, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returningmaintained, was her son. In other circumstancesAnd, this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeplyof course, but their primary relationship is with each other. It's a bond which only death will breakher diamonds.

|isbn=0954899520B003L7TDMU|title=A Winter BookPhineas Finn|author=Tove JanssonAnthony Trollope|rating=4.5

|summary=Tove JanssonPhineas Finn is the son of Dr Malachi Finn, a successful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyer. Phineas's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written interest is more in making influential friends than in the 1940s becoming a lawyer and later becoming television characters one of the simplicitythem, Barrington Erle, naivety and sheer 'goodness' suggests that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodnesshe runs for Parliament in the forthcoming election. What His father is often forgotten outside not entirely in favour of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote this as members are not remunerated and it would be up to him to provide financial support for adults his son as well as children…and that she had a feeling for funding his election. One of the doctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the natural world borough of Loughshane and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy by this stroke of how the world might beluck Finn is, eventually, elected by a small margin.

|isbn=0954221710B003A6W0FO|title=The Summer BookCan You Forgive Her?|author=Tove JanssonAnthony Trollope|rating=4.5

|summary=Tove JanssonOn the surface ''Can You Forgive Her?'' looks deceptively simple: it's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from the Moomintrolls she is most famous story of one woman and two men who are vying with each other for outside her native Scandinavialove. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousin, George Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and later became engaged to John Grey. Book yourself When we first meet Alice she's on an afternoon this Summer, extended tour of the continent with George Vavasor and his sister Kate. It's obvious that there's still a great deal of chemistry between John and take yourself Alice - and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight Kate is all for encouraging the relationship as it would tie Alice to her. George wants Alice but it's a matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration for anyone other than himself and sound the original engagement had fallen through because of his infidelity and deceitfulness. This thread is the sea, settle back story of a very complicated love affair and prepare a woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement. You might not like Alice to be transportedstart with but you will warm to her.

|isbnauthor=1788542347Lucy Holland|title=Snowflake, AZ|author=Marcus SedgwickSistersong|rating=3.5

|summary=This Sistersong is part of a deepgenre I particularly enjoy, 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 modern retelling of joining a community folk and fairy tales. These stories, for most of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflakeus, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard cornerstone ofchildhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and fabricsoutdated, pesticides, static electricityfleshing out characters, examining relationships and radiation – and their only ''cure'' re-evaluating the role of women. Sistersong is to stay in a perfect example of a modern retelling done well, the town away from plot is handled with 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 a modern world. Though it's about a real place, whilst still feeling appropriate for the people pre-Saxon age they live in it are fictional. It really This is a place apart, quite literally cut off masterpiece of storytelling and I was captivated from the outside world – people are even required beginning to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integratedend.|isbn=1529039037

|isbn=1784742716B002SQCYWQ|title=Train ManThe Complete Barchester Chronicles|author=Andrew MulliganAnthony Trollope|rating=2.5

|summary=When I came to this book thinking told my daughter that I knew just didn't know what to expect, even though it is listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels:Category:Andy MulliganSense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|the author'sThe Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] debut in for the adult novel market (hence second time on the more mature name – he used to be an Andy). I thought it simple to sum up, trot she had the tale perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in my inbox in a matter of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant wayminutes. I hadnThey're not ''quite''t opened it when Ias well known as the Austen books but they'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool mere an excellent follow on.

|isbn=1784631647B077K6BQFD|title=A Perfect ExplanationThe Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion |author=Eleanor AnstrutherJane Austen

|summary=Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face Yes - that's over eighty-one hours of it, had everything. Leading listening for the life purchase of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectationsone audio book. Only Enid's life has been plagued All six major novels are read by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated conmedienne Alison Larkin 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 they're presented in the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well-written debutorder in which they were published.

|isbnauthor=191070962XAndrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title=The Choke|author=Sofie LagunaIf You Kept a Record of Sins|rating=24.5

|summary=ThereThis was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a little conflicted. 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 dullnarration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into itcarted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following day. CoffeeThe 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. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like thatAnd so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, but doubly somoderately current) Bucharest, to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=1939810965

|isbnauthor=1911115847Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Nights of the Creaking Bed|author=Toni KanKokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5

|summary=''Nights of Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the Creaking Bed'' get-go, which is a collection why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of short stories by Toni Kanit. The series of stories tell of I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in and around Lagosthe 20, Nigeria. Nigeria000s, in this collectionletters used as narrative form, is imbued and so on. It intrigued with its very own heart the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of darknessit mentioned, too. Danger stalks But you've seen the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes star rating that comes with a vitality this review, and passion can tell that allows if love was on these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hopepages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|isbn=1529402697