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|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)Jennifer Saint|title=Kokoschka's DollElektra|rating=2.54

|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any story of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section three women who live in the middle on darker stock paperheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative formClytemnestra, and so on. It intrigued with Elektra are all bit players in the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew story of it mentioned, toothe Trojan War. But you've seen Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the star rating that comes with this review, most compelling stories and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by themthe most extreme furies. So what happened?|isbn=15294026971913097854

|isbn=05713626728409290103|title=SnowIf Only|author=John BanvilleMatthew Tree|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=''WellTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, at least you're a Wexford man.'' So said Colonel Osborne when cotton-broker AO Lowry: he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957. Osborne was master of ensure that the young man got on board the Keelmore Hounds boat and had done something memorable with the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk. The niceties had thereafter Patrick was to be established even when there was send him a Catholic priest dead on the library floor with some precious bits of his anatomy missingmonthly allowance. Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody Patrick sent the money regularly and this, along with his gooda correspondence -butof sorts -shabby suitsprang 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 his son, marked it was that he didn't care to have him out as of Osborne's class in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and obviously Protestantother children. The dead priest alcohol problem was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstown, who - despite obvious even before Patrick managed to get the different religions - was in the habit of spending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled thereyoung man on his way.

|author= Tahi SaihateAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonRed is My Heart|rating= 3.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long for our past even though it is a place to which we can never return[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. Tahi SaihateAnd so was this one, in her debut novel ''Astral Seasonalthough I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, Beastly Season'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lieblack and white and red. Her novel is a meditation Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on youth this piece, and how I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often life-alteringinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn= 19162771011913547183

|authorisbn=Laura Imai MessinaB098FFFBH9|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary= In Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the northeast of Japan, way in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his gardenwhich human beings exploit the animal world. ''Inside there is an old black, telephone, disconnectedShe gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, that carries voices into the wind.'' It is a real placelecturer at Imperial College, a necessary placeLondon, mother Kate and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to her storytwin, that Nick. Kate runs the place is not family business, a tourist destinationtoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, it which is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need itwhere we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|isbn=178658039X

|author=Amin MaaloufYancey Williams|title=The DisorientedCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|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

|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasnThe problem began just after the publication of George March't been back s most successful novel to his homeland for 25 yearsdate. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to think of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friend, either be reading it or maybehad already done so. The falling out Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was a long wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time ago, and Adamhe's partner has no idea what it was aboutbased a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, even so she urges him to go knowing that hethe principal character had 'her mannerisms''ll regret not doing so. Not knowing whether hePerhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''s going because he needs or wants toa weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, or simply because he was askedunloved, heunloveable wretch.''s on the next plane. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY

|authorisbn=Joanne M HarrisB005FM76AA|title=A Pocketful of CrowsThe Duke's Children|author=Anthony Trollope|rating=4.5|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= I have always been The 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 grief and struggling - at the mind that once you're above picturesame time -book level and before you get to graphic sex & violenceadjust to no longer being prime minister, there is no difference between books for children and books for adultsor even in office. There are good books He seeks to protect and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. guide his three adult children, which is easier said than done when none of them wishes to ''A Pocketful of Crowsbe'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's name guided. Silverbridge (his elder son, actually called Plantagenet, but always known by his title) and Gerald are destined to differentiate be sent down from her adult offersOxford and Cambridge respectively and to run up gambling debts, occasionally in eye-watering sums. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress Lady Helen has fallen in love with - and wishes to marry - Frank Tregear, the penniless son of a poor squire, which the modern fairy taleDuke cannot countenance, not least because he sees echos of what might have happened when he married Lady Glencora. This is no different. It is an utter delightHe's about to learn that parents do not always get their way.|isbn=1473222184

|authorisbn=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)B004O37B6A|title=A Life Without EndThe Prime Minister|author=Anthony Trollope

|summary=I looked at Plantagenet Palliser, the calendar Duke of Omnium, is the other week, and disappointedly realised I have prime minister of a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It woncoalition government but he't be one s privately enraged at the seemingly unstoppable rise of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizonFerdinand Lopez. And then a few of the big 0Lopex is exotic -numberssome describe him as Jewish, others as Portuguese but the truth is that no one knows and if all goes well, I'll be an OBELopez is not going to explain. (Which The ladies of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if thatsociety, even Palliser's the extent of my mid-life crisisown wife, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phraseLady Glencora, are supporters 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 after Lopez makes an advantageous marriage Palliser is at least a way of continuing placed in the life position of having to support his genes, and wife's actions when Lopez loses a motive to keep on goingby-election. But how can he get to not flick the The Duke'final way outs payment of Lopez' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670election expenses in an attempt to stem gossip about his wife will come back to haunt him.

|authorisbn= Maryse CondéB00474HVX4|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaPhineas Redux|author=Anthony Trollope|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live It's some time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]]. Having succeeded in parliament and achieved a post- world: post-colonialism, post-modernismpaying position he fell out with those who provided his income and returned to Ireland where he married Mary, post truthhis childhood sweetheart. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post He was fortunate to get a job in Cork (or Dublin - in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novel, ''The Wondrous recollections may vary) and Tragic Life seemed settled into a life of Ivan and Ivana''domesticity. To bring Finn back, Condé writes with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries Trollope had to which it latched itself. Ivan kill off poor Mary and Ivana are twins born Phineas emerges in Guadeloupe, London as a French overseas department. They grow up childless widower with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and a legacy from an aunt who died at just the right time to allow the move overseas, the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesto be possible.|isbn=1642860697

|author= Ukamaka OlisakweJessie Greengrass|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightThe High House|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe 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 a look at the trauma and heartache slowly seems to have fallen out of being a woman in 1980s Nigeriafavour. The title is Today's young generation are discovering that their parents and their parents'Ogadinma parents did not seem to think that far ahead. Or, Everything Will Be All Rightthey did think that far ahead and thought "it's not my problem" or "there's nothing I can do". Ogadinma is Raising a child and living in a world on the eponymous heroine precipice of the story.. We are with her in every scene and it catastrophe is her narrative voice that leads the story, although Olisakwe writes in third personwhat drives ''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrass. This provides is not a sense of detachment for the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinmascience-fiction novel. She This is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she our reality. This is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities the life our children and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness their children will have to escapelive.|isbn=19116481601800750072

|author=Elliot ReedCharlie Carroll|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingThe Lip|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This ''Melody Janie Rowe'' even the name is the story evocative of…probably of a young boywhatever we want it to be, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after the death of his mother and his fathermaybe that's abandonment. However, it isn't told in the usual narrative waypoint. Instead, To me the book is made up name sings of glossary entriesEnglish folk music, written by William, as a way but even in my use of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCEthat word English, then moving to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read know I did find myself thinking 'what m putting an emmet take on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's storythings. And Melody Janie Rowe is anti-emmet.|isbn=19115454181529334179

|authorisbn= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)B003UH99X4|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasThe Eustace Diamonds|author=Anthony Trollope|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''It Would Be Night in Caracaswas generally thought that Sir Florian Eustace had come to regret his marriage but he didn'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuelat live long enough for this to become a problem. It begins with the After his death , his wife, Lizzie - still only in her late teens - was in possession of Adelaida Falcon's mother a very valuable diamond necklace and chronicles Adelaidawas determined that she would not hand it over to her husband's coming 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 terms with her new solitude in this world and now, she maintained, was her attempts to escape itson. Danger stalks the shadows and And, in a society where the establishment is crumblingof course, who can you turn to? |isbn=0062936867her diamonds.}}

|isbn=1471186393B003L7TDMU|title=Photographer of the LostPhineas Finn|author=Caroline ScottAnthony Trollope

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921. Edie receives a photograph through the post. There Phineas Finn is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on the back son of the photographDr Malachi Finn, a successful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyer. It Phineas's interest is more in making influential friends than in becoming a picture lawyer and one of her husbandthem, Barrington Erle, Francis. Francis has been missing suggests that he runs for four yearsParliament in the forthcoming election. Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that His father is not something that a young widow can believeentirely in favour of this as members are not remunerated and it would be up to him to provide financial support for his son as well as funding his election. She hangs on One of the word 'missingdoctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the borough of Loughshane and by this stroke of luck Finn is, eventually, disbelieving the word killedelected by a small margin.

|isbn=1509896465B003A6W0FO|title=The NightjarCan You Forgive Her?|author=Deborah HewittAnthony Trollope

|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=On the surface ''The NightjarCan You Forgive Her?'' is an unusual looks deceptively simple: it'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, George Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and exciting storylater became engaged to John Grey. When we first meet Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box 's on her doorstep one morning an extended tour of the continent with George Vavasor and her life begins to unravel, fasthis sister Kate. From It's obvious that very moment, there's still a great deal of chemistry between John and Alice - and Kate is all for encouraging the relationship as it would tie Alice to her life . George wants Alice but it's a matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration for anyone other than himself and the original engagement had fallen through because of his infidelity and deceitfulness. This thread is flooded with magic, loss, expectation the story of a very complicated love affair and particularly, betrayala woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement. As everything around You might not like Alice to start with but you will warm to 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?

|isbn=0857058738|title=Equator|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=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 the 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, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. 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 there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1526614960Lucy Holland|title=The Dutch House|author=Ann PatchettSistersong

|summary=When we first meet Danny Sistersong is part of a genre I particularly enjoy, the modern retelling of folk and his elder sisterfairy tales. These stories, Maeve Conroyfor most of us, they're both living at The Dutch House are a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with their parents fresh eyes and under a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, fleshing out characters, examining relationships and re-evaluating the gaze role of the portraits women. Sistersong is a perfect example of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and modern retelling done well, the closest Danny seems to come to him plot is when he goes out handled with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family owns. Elna Conroy is lovingcare, keeping its archaic historical feel but absent increasingly often until allowing the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstancescharacters to come to life, this might have affected Maeve to feel real and Danny deeplyhuman, but their primary relationship most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. This is with each other. It's a bond which only death will breakmasterpiece of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning to end.|isbn=1529039037

|isbn=0954899520B002SQCYWQ|title=A Winter BookThe Complete Barchester Chronicles|author=Tove JanssonAnthony Trollope

|summary=Tove JanssonWhen I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that I's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin booksd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, written in the 1940s Pride and later becoming television characters of the simplicityPrejudice, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawingsMansfield Park, simple storiesEmma, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of her native Finland is that Jane Austen]] for the second time on the trot she was had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in my inbox in a serious writer…that she wrote for adults matter of minutes. They're not ''quite'' as well known as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls Austen books but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might bethey're an excellent follow on.

|isbn=0954221710B077K6BQFD|title=The Summer BookComplete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion |author=Tove JanssonJane Austen

|summary=Tove JanssonYes - that's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from over eighty-one hours of listening for the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside her native Scandinaviapurchase of one audio book. Book yourself an afternoon this Summer, All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of they're presented in the sea, settle back and prepare to be transportedorder in which they were published.

|isbnauthor=1788542347Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)|title=Snowflake, AZ|author=Marcus SedgwickIf You Kept a Record of Sins|rating=34.5

|summary=This is was an incredibly readable novella, but one that left me a deeplittle conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, interesting read, unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The noveland before we even know his gender or the nature of the person he's story follows a young man named Ash addressing in the process his second person monologue of joining a community of sick people in the curiously named town of Snowflakenarration, Arizona. These people are sick, but itwe see him picked up by his mother's not a sickness you've heard of. Insteadchauffeur, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – and their only ''cure'' is carted off to stay in do all the town away from necessary introductions before said mother is buried the real worldfollowing day. Though it's about The mother was a real placebusinesswoman, the people who clearly left northern Italy and settled in it Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are fictionalstill strong. It really is a place apartAnd so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, quite literally cut off from to the outside world – people are even required lad's childhood, and see just what he has to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integratedtell her as a private farewell address.|isbn=1939810965

|isbnauthor=1784742716Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Train Man|author=Andrew MulliganKokoschka's Doll

|summary=I came to Well, this looked very much like a book thinking I knew just what to expectcould love from the get-go, even though which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the author's]] debut middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he 20,000s, letters used to be an Andy)as narrative form, and so on. I thought it simple to sum up, It intrigued with the tale of subterranean voice a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around hears in the most pleasant way. wartorn Dresden that what little I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved knew of it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]]mentioned, and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]too. I expected some whimsyBut you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, some warmth and some affirmative lovelinesscan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened? More fool me.|isbn=1529402697

|isbn=17846316470571362672|title=A Perfect ExplanationSnow|author=Eleanor AnstrutherJohn Banville

|genre=Literary FictionCrime (Historical)|summary=Enid Campbell ''Well, at least you're a Wexford man.'' So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957. Osborne was master of the Keelmore Hounds and had done something memorable with the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk. The niceties had to be established even when there was a woman who, Catholic priest dead on the face library floor with some precious bits of it, had everythinghis anatomy missing. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and splendourthis, along with his good-but-shabby suit, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only Enidmarked him out as of Osborne's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid class and those close to herobviously Protestant. After losing custody of her childrenThe dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstown, Enid sells her son to her sister for £500 – but is this an act of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring who - despite the different religions - was in the true story habit of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving and beautifully well-written debutspending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled there.