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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice HoffmanMatthew Tree|title= Faithful|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to a life in New York City, Shelby remains damaged by the loss of her best friend, stumbling through life blindly and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at all. But, as she grows, she discovers emotion, survival and happiness, bundled up with dogs, food, books and men sheWe's probably best avoiding… Deep in New York City she find a circle of lost and found souls, and the angel who's been watching over her since that fateful night all those years ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471157717</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)|title=Octavio's Journey|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Octavio. He's a large lunk, a gentle giant, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetingly, had fame, fashion and success through a minor miracle, but has none any longer. Octavio, it seems, has some unusual habits – here he is, marching off to the chemist's with a table across his back, for it was all the doctor had at the time to write a prescription on. Now we never learn exactly what the cause of the prescription was, but we soon find out what the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot read, and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow the wound to let him escape the need to write. Until, that is, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read and write, and to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there is a whole host of other things he can put his mind to, both for good, and for bad…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Spring Gardenll Never Know

|genre=General Literary Fiction |summary=MurakamiTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and (long before the film) Endo's ''Silence''. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writing. But now there's Tomoka Shibasaki, chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her noted work ''Spring Garden''who had endless crises of self confidence. Which, make no mistake, is definitely Japanese. For instance, if I told you it starts with a man looking up So Tim applied himself to watch his female neighbour on her balconystudies, and concerns obsession, you could well think it was cultivated his abilities rather than his about her. But no – perhaps only in the west is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers here, daydreams and it – and the novel – concern a singular houseset himself high but achievable ambitions. And the very singular country it lives in, and the changes it is going through…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura KayeB0C47LV1PC|title= English AnimalsFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= When Mirka gets Can you make a job in a country house in rural England''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, she has no idea of is the struggle she faces to question should you make sense of a very English coupleit? Or is the question if you did, and a way of life would it land? The catch is that is entirely alien to herthe answer for both could well be.... Richard and Sophie are chaotic, drunken, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous and kind to Mirka, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriageno. Mirka  ''Fragility'' is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money-making enterpriseset as the city of Portland, taxidermyOregon, and soon surpasses him in skill. After a traumatic break two years ago with her family in Slovakia, Mirka finds cautiously begins to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hall. But when she tells Sophie that she is gay, everything she values is put in danger and she must learn emerge from the restrictions imposed during the hard way what she really believes in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140870823X</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles D BlanchardMosby Woods|title=Kingdom's EndA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=The rats made their massive colony inside West isn't the ruins dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of an abandoned motion picture palaceaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, where a push for thirty long dark years, an aged blind leader ruled over themclimate action there. A beloved figure held feeling that nobody is in high regardactual charge. Imagine then, he rules there was a man with patience, understanding, justice and loveprecognition. When Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a young upstart challenges all he has built, ruling with harsh punishments and rash decisionsman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the rats must decide how best to protect their colony most valuable asset in order to preserve all that they have built togetherhistory. As the rats clash amongst themselvesImagine then, some fail to notice the ever growing threats and dangers that the outside world provides - who will come out on top in this very literal rat raceman loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148344936X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sebastian Barry0571379559|title=Days Without EndThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=It''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the mid nineteenth century house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and Thomas McNulty has left his home in Sligofloods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his family dead from faminevegetables, to make a new life complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in a new nationsufficient money. He teams up with prairie fairy They have twin boys - a dancer in drag - John Cole Sonny and together they sign up for Max, the US Armyrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Their journey will take them through the American Indian wars and eventually to the Civil WarMax takes after his father. Along the way People don't believe that they're related, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona much less twins and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennessee. Itthere's the story of perhaps the most violent birth of a nation in history but itan assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's also a convention-defying love storyhis nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose TremainClaire North|title=The Gustav SonataHouse of Odysseus

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Gustav Perle grew ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up in a small town in neutral Switzerland: to the horrors of the Second World War seemed distant, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense of those who would seek refuge in the country. Gustavexcellent ''Ithaca''s father died in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his mother, Emilie, she was cold and indifferent to him. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was picks up a lonely child with just one toy, a tin train, but he and Anton met at kindergarten few months after where it fell to Gustav to look after the nervous boywe left off. Anton is Jewish and he's a talented pianist, but he lacks In the confidence to perform in public. Throughout much palace of his life he relies on Gustav's supportOdysseus, but fails with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to appreciate just how importantrule without her husband, how necessary it is who sailed to his wellbeingwar at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tom Tomaszewski|title=The Eleventh Letter|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the end throne of the working day, Christopher is looking over the ghosts of his occupancy of some rooms on Harley Street, before moving up Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the road chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to different chambers, and pastures new. HeIthaca's half impelled and half reluctant to revisit a pair of audio cassettesshores, Queen Penelope is on which are interviews by him and someone else the brink of a woman called Louisefragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, who was arrested in Italy in the 1980s for the double murder King of two close friendsMycenae, Kate and John. Hardly aware he's being snowed in by a London blizzard and the usual British response to any bad weatherhis sister Elektra, he spontaneously provides shelter to a flame-haired beauty, Kay, who provokes him into playing the tapes. It's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at the therapist's couch. Indeed, the closer he gets to Kay, the closer he gets to the voice of the victim from decades agoseeking refuge. What on earth could be the connection?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steinunn Sigurdardottir and Philip Roughton (translator)Kay Chronister|title=The Good LoverDesert Creatures|rating=2.54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Karl With a world that is a global example of the Icelandic speciesbecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, with more than one home abroad and post-apocalyptic fiction can become an amanuensis-cum-assistant to do his scheduling and arrange housework while he's going here and there being almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a businessman. He has robotic takeover, a string world devoid of lovers that has stretched into three figureswater or a nuclear holocaust, partly because with one exception three this genre is the limit of liaisons he'll have with each. But he's also got a heart devoted way for humans to Una, his teenaged love whom he adores, despite her splitting with him decades agocathartically experience their most existential fears. On a whim he leaves ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a beach holiday to go back to one new work of the icy limbs post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of Iceland, witnesses the changes wrought by fifteen years on her – and then ends up staying the night with the woman next doorfears that exist for humanity today. This It is purely platonic, but what with his host knowing everything about the situation, an ever-present taxi driver, and an ex on the line in America, is there a way he can snatch his love from her marriage and shocking novel that still manages to find happiness?hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9462380139</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|authorisbn=Eric Beck Rubin|title=School of Velocity|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jan's head is dropping him in it. He's a trained concert pianist, but is having difficulty performing, with a horrendous problem, in that he can hear any discordant music, or just in fact horrid noise, when in the wings waiting to perform, and never the score he is due to follow. The devil's tinnitus, you might call it. With another failure behind him, but dignity somewhat intact, Jan decides he has to work back through his life to tell us the cause – and we're likewise dropped into an extended flashback, to his formative years at art school, with a pretentious drama student, Dirk. The book is a fast-moving exploration of what Jan finds of note (pun intended) through his life, and all that might have caused his mental problem. But is cognisance of what might lie behind it going to help?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993506275</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1803363002|author=Gerard ReveEric LaRocca|title=The Evenings: A Winter's Tale|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Evenings'' was voted the best Dutch novel of all time by the Society of Dutch Literature, and its author, Gerard Reve (1923–2006), was the first openly gay writer in the Netherlands. It's a historic book for its native country, but will it have the same impact in English translation? Contemporary Dutch novelist Herman Koch compares ''The Evenings'' to the works of Kerouac and Salinger, and Trees Grew Because I can see how it could have achieved cult status for a certain generation, but plot-wise I found it more tedious than revelatory.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271783</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Henrietta Rose-Innes|title= NinevehBled There

|genre= General FictionHorror|summary= Henritetta Rose-Inne's Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''NinevehBig Bad'' instantly reassures you , whether that you are in the presence of is a confident and talented writer. The story of Katya Grubbshome invader, a second generation pest exterminator who specialises in relocating the bugs monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and rodents that ruin middle-class garden parties, Rose-Inne writes with by the enviable ability end of describing both the intricacies of Katyastory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's job and ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the feeling horrors of it simultaneouslyillness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709166</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara Stridsberg and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=The Gravity of LoveThirst for Salt|rating=4.5

|summary=Particularly literate cover… Setting of a real-life mental hospital – in Sweden… Mature themes… Opening with an emotion- and closure-laden death… Yes''Love, I'd read, this book has more than its share of things was supposed to put the potential reader off. Which, in this instance, is quite be a large shame indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054767</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carys Bray light and others|title=How Much the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Loveweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This Sceptre collection does not have as simple Told from a retrospective view, a remit as it might appear; these are no straightforward love storiesyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. InsteadOverlaid with later wisdom, they each take one aspect of love the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – often one of the ancient Greek classifications summer after finishing university – and provide a whole new way to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of thinking about it. After an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, the heart holds a lot of metaphorical weighthow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Salley VickersMichael Grothaus|title= CousinsBeautiful Shining People

|summary=''We donBut fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I't know our own limits so how can we judge the limits m willing to bet most of others? And what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it is easy to forget is that they were so young. Too young to bear all those horribly complicated family strains.''

Salley Vickers' intense family odyssey 'Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around one devastating accident in 1994. Reminiscent of the past, Will Tye's accident has a powerful effect on three generations question of the Tye family, revealing long forgotten truths identity and close kept secretsacceptance. ''Cousins'' pieces together the events leading up to the event from three different close relatives perspectives, in an attempt to understand Of what exactly happened and why it happened that dark nightmeans to be human. His sister, grandmother Of what is real and aunt all recount Will's childhood and growth into an adultwhat is artificial, highlighting both his successes and mistakes whilst reflecting on their own pasts. From whether the outbreak development of the Second World War right up until the present day, the family's mysteries are laid out for all to see. Family loyalties are tested and the lengths you will go to for those you love are questioned. At its heart, ''Cousins'' technology is a love story between two cousins, Will and Cece, littered with complications, potential and realism as well as the struggle to determine your worth when you're youngexciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241187710</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BeattyJennifer Saint|title=The SelloutAtalanta

|summary=''This may be hard to believeI was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, coming from a black manI vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, but I've never stolen anythingtoo.Atalanta''

Our black hero and narrator, surname MeAbandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, first name unknown, was born in Atalanta is raised under the southern Los Angeles suburb protective eye of Dickens the goddess Athemis and subjected fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to an isolated upbringing dominated by his father's extreme views on racejoin the Argonauts, supposedly the subject a fierce band of a psychological memoir which will solve their financial problemswarriors, but cruel and unnatural descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to anyone with an ounce of humanity. To add insult to injury Me discovered after his fatherfight in Artemis's death (a racially provoked shooting) that there was no memoirname and carve out her own legendary place in history. A drive-by shooting produces nothing more substantial than What follows is a bill for a drive-whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through funeralit, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, but it starts Me on the path which will end in the Supreme Court, the subject of a race trial: ''Me v the United States of America''be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070154</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nir BaramAmanthi Harris|title=Good PeopleBeautiful Place|rating=45

|summary=Thomas Heiselberg's self-focus pays off when he attracts Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the best clientele to Villa Hibiscus on the American advertising firm he helps establish across Europe from his German southern coast of her homecountry. Meanwhile in Russia Sasha Weissberg This is struggling with being in a literary, free-thinking family that doesn't go down too well with Stalin's regimeplace she spent her formative years. As World War II arrivesIt is not a place she was born into, both but the one she thinks of their worlds are shakenas home. As a result both decide How she came to become collaborators rather than resistance fighters for different reasons and with far reaching effects.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911231006</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ian McEwan|title=Nutshell|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Trudy. Successfully living in a large and valuable London be at the Villa, how it became her home, she is heavily pregnant, and in between two men – the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she has swapped first arrived there provide the homeowner, poet and publisher John, ''score'' for someone completely different, namely Claude, a nasty, brutish this gentle and short type. Some people cannot work out why on earth she has made that decision, including our narratoryet subtly violent novel. Oh, and he himself, our narrator, is the child she Padma's pregnant with. He is a very alert young thing, with nothing else present fails to do but kick here escape her past and theremuch like the musical score of a film, and practice what you might well call mindfulness, and listen in on Claude and Trudy, as they calmly talk their that strand weaves its way to plotting and carrying out murder…through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911214330</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Matt Wilven178563335X|title=The Blackbird Singularity|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Thirty-something writer Vince Watergate sees his partner's pregnancy as a fresh start. He stops taking his lithium and the new clarity of mind lets him start writing his best work in ages. He befriends a blackbird in the garden with the help of a bag of sultanas, and begins preparing the baby's room. For a short while, everything seems full of peace and hope. But Vince and Lyd's first child, despite having died a couple of years earlier, might not have completely left them and the blackbird might not be as friendly as Vince first thought. Lithium withdrawal, stress, and the pressure of appearing 'normal' push Vince into a frightening, irrational place. Can he fight his way through it and return to his family?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079689</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSea Defences|author=Carolyn Parkhurst|title=HarmonyHilary Taylor

|summary=Josh and Alexandra Hammond have two daughters. Iris is eleven years old and neurotypical: her brain works in the same way as most peopleWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she'sa trainee vicar, but her elder sister, Tilly, is thirteen sitting in on a PCC meeting and on wondering why they're held when you need to pick the autistic spectrumchildren up. Her parents are finding it difficulthusband, if not impossibleChristopher, to cope with collects six-year-old Hannah and her. Even her special and rather expensive school has indicated that they can't continueelder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. SheThelma's subject to mood swings and unpredictable and inappropriate behaviourdaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Josh Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is lucky - he goes to work - a lovely place, but Alexandra Rachel is stuck struggling to develop a real bond with the problem, which is why Scott Bean, educator parish - and expert she's in parentingawe of the vicar, Gail, appeals to herbut then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. The name came to her attention Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on a couple of occasions: she subscribed to his newsletter, heard him speak and the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what he had to say rang a bellthey needed. Before long he was coming to the house for private consultations And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340978171</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Ryan1398515388|title=The Constant SoldierBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Paul Brandt returns home to his village without First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the arm he left at ocean floor, which created the Russian Front tsunami and this, in defence of Germanyturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The village looks pretty much the same as he left itdeaths were uncountable, with and the exception loss of the lack of young men and a new buildinglivelihoods was widespread. His home now boasts an SS rest hut, providing officers with entertainment and respite breaks The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the fightingtsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. As Paul passes He wasn't a dog person but the hut for the first time, convenience store owner's comment that he sees something… or rather someone… that will make him return would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to work for those he despises. The subject of open his decision? A girl he once got into trouble with under different circumstances – before she wore car door and Tamon the stripes of a concentration camp prisonerdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447255011</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pamela Johnson0989715337|title=Taking in WaterPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=Pamela Johnson's third novel is set in 2002 but has its roots in a real'Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-life tragedy from nearly 50 years earlier: deep in 1953 a storm surge hit the Norfolk coastfragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, destroying Lydia Hutton's grandmother's home and sweeping her whole family out to seasticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Seven-year-old Lydia was Two of the only one to survive, clinging to dogs leaned over the wreckage opening and singing hymns to herself to survive. It's a dark part barked down at the strange noise of her past she's never told anyone except Luc, the half-French lover whose iconic performance art piece, buckets as he filled them.''Taking  How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in Water''the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, she participated in during turning on a spell in New York City in sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the 1960smost wonderful turn of phrase, when she was known starts as 'Layla' and hung around with the likes of Andy Warholhe means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1534627243</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A N WilsonDaisy Hildyard|title=ResolutionEmergency

|summary=In 1772 Reinhold Forster and his son George were hired as shipThe summary of this book doesn's naturalists for the ''Resolution'', the vessel Captain James Cook piloted t come close to New Zealand and back on a three-year voyage of discovery. Once a Lutheran pastor near Danzig, Reinhold seemed unable to settle to one line of work and had a higher opinion of himself than was prudent. In Wilson's vision of life on the ''Resolution'', Reinhold seems fussy, argumentative and rather heartless, as when he offers George's dog up as fresh meat when the captain explaining what is desperately ill. George, just 18 when he joins done with the expedition, is a self-taught illustrator and botanist with a keen ear for languages. Though precociously intelligent, he is emotionally immature and cannot keep a handle on his masturbation habit or deal with their servant Nally's crush on himpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782398279</amazonuk>1913097811}}{{newreview|author= Michael Hughes|title= The Countenance Divine|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=In 1999, a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can't shake the sense he's been chosen for something. In 1888, five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master. In 1777, an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns.

And {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in 1666size and volume. Her GP, poet diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries laterother patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself. |isbn= 086154112X }} But where does the feeling come {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from that Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the world first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is about perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to end?be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636507</amazonuk>0861541901

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emily BittoJennifer Saint|title= The StraysElektra|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Lily comes from an ordinary suburban family, but on her first day at a new school she meets Eva: 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the super-confident middle daughter heavily male dominated world of artist Evan TrenthamAncient Greece. The girls fast become firm friendsCassandra, Clytemnestra, to and Elektra are all bit players in the exclusion story of all those ar ound them the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and it isn't long before Lily is spending more time at the Trentham's than she does at home. Why wouldn't she? Their life is everything her family's isn'tmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079514</amazonuk>1472273915

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eowyn Ivey8409290103|title=To the Bright Edge of the WorldIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=If you're going to go pioneering across unexplored landsTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, at least be prepared to accept what you seek – namelycotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, what you've never seen before. That lesson seems quite obviousMr Patrick, but back in the time of 1885 Allen Forrester is a little too naïve to heed it. A career soldier, he is tasked with scouring the potential of the Wolverine River ensure that threads south to the shores of Alaska, even though young man got on board the Russians (who of course used boat and thereafter Patrick was to own send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the Territory) have had all manner of lethal encounters with those already living there, money regularly and even though a major stretch correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the river two although we hear more about what Lowry has to be traversed in winter when entirely frozen over, as the cliffs either side are too impenetrablesay than Patrick. Allen leaves a much younger It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, new bride behind – and right from the get-go his journals force it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to pen words about strange happenings, strange encounters his wife and things of legend coming other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to lifeget the young man on his way. Like I say, what he's never seen before…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472208609</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Talulah RileyAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title= Acts of LoveRed is My Heart|rating= 43.5|genre= Women's Literary Fiction |summary= Bernadette St John presents herself as the very face of contemporary feminine independence. She is strong, career-driven, beautiful…and definitely holds the attention of the public. For Bernadette is the ''Man Whisperer'', winning herself fame with her ability to coax secrets from the richest [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and most powerful men of the world, exposing them with controversial distaste read in her articlesmy house. Hidden behind such a conniving and judgemental personaAnd so was this one, howeveralthough I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is a deep insecurity, black and a desperate longing to be loved by the perfect manwhite and red. She Yes, he has already decided that the newly engaged Tim Bazier is the only candidate for such a position in her heartan artistic collaborator on this piece, and will stop at nothing to win him back from his all-too-lovely fiancé. Yet what is perfect is a subject for discussion, and charismatic entrepreneur Radley BlakeI think it's unwavering attention has also fallen upon possible to say not one page lacks the feisty journalist. It is a weaving tale influence of ''will-they-wont-they'' that Riley spins here, one that I found myself unable to put downsome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473637902</amazonuk>1913547183

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jesse BallB098FFFBH9|title=How to Set a Fire and WhySnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=Lucia Stanton is a sarcastic 14Fourteen-year-old misfit who lives with Rachel is her elderly Aunt Lucy school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in a garage they rent from an evil landlord at which human beings exploit the bottom of his large gardenanimal world. She never comes right out and explains why she's there, but if you read between the lines you work out that gets a great deal of support from her family: father is dead Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her mother is twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in a mental hospital – presumably for his murder. Aunt Lucy Putney, which is dignified and principled – where we'll meet Rachel'Don't do things you aren't proud s main (if unsuspected) source of'' is her motto – even though they are undeniably poorinformation: Lucia only has one set of clothes and mostly lives off of liquorice and Aunt Lucy's terrible homemade breadfive soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925355470</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthYancey Williams|title=FellCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Now her parents have diedAward-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, Annette returns despite his strenuous objections and thanks to sell her old childhood his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home but there, 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 do date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the decrepit building firstlast page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. As she wanders around and tries Every day Mrs March went to make some order of the overgrown shambleslocal patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as shewas wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's watched by based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the ghost of principal character had 'her mother, Netty; a spirit with regretsmannerisms''. Netty reminisces about Annette's childhood and Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the turning point their lives reached when fact that Johanna is the mysterious healer Timothy Richardson came to stay. It was whore of Nantes - ''a time that promised so much but one for which Netty now needs to make amendsweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, even if she is beyond the graveunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473630606</amazonuk>''