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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Polly ClarkMatthew Tree|title= Larchfield|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, sheWe's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of self, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in London. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fears.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)|title=The Longest Nightll Never Know|rating=34.5

|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let the dead rest, and love the living''. The problem with thatTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, as a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, drunk and so while the love remains she will go through her memories, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events chronic underachiever whose dreams of her life. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husband, who gets snatched from her being exceptional at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peace, any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and wait for him in vain, moving to Holland and finding new love, and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts who had endless crises of war, from rationing right up self confidence. So Tim applied himself to exilehis studies, death cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and survivalset himself high but achievable ambitions. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Marisa SilverB0C47LV1PC|title= Little Nothing|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=In an unnamed country at the beginning of the last century, a peasant couple longs for a child. In despair they turn to gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptions, and one cold wintery night, the couple's wish comes true. But the silence that follows the birth forewarns of darker days to come. Strangers look on askance and fall speechless in the child's presence, and villagers protectively hush their children as they pass on narrow market lanes. Pavla is no ordinary child, but then this is no ordinary tale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786071274</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFragility|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)|title=The Yellow HouseMosby Woods|rating=34

|summary=If Can you were make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the needy kind, would question should you really join in make it? Or is the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would question if you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountaindid, would it land? The main character in this novel does. But he has something catch is that will really get him noted, the answer for both could well-thought-of, includedbe.... no. He has come to  ''Fragility'' is set as the south city of France to set up an artists' collectivePortland, where he can live and work alongside his counterpartsOregon, who can inspire each other and best each other cautiously begins to create wonderful art. In fact a much-respected guest is on his way now, so surely he can find kinship? The guest's name is, after all, Gauguin. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer DownMosby Woods|title=Our Magic HourA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5

|summary=There had always been KatyThe West isn't the 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 action. Governments are flailing. A war here, Audrey and Adama push for climate action there. They've been friends since school and nowA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, along there was a man with Audrey's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionalsprecognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. ThenThat man would be valuable, one day, Katy kills herselfright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. No warningImagine then, no reason just no Katythat this man loses this ability. The four are suddenly three trying What would governments do to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure get it out.back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ayobami Adebayo0571379559|title= Stay With Me|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= I have a ''thing'' about blurbs which give away far too much The House of the stories. Not this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if the burden is too much and stays too long even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does break.'' ''But even when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love…'' That is the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read in a long time – and it sums up this story. This is a story about love not being enough…but still being love. I hope this becomes a classic, not just in its native Nigeria but around the world. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewBroken Bricks|author= Michael Farris Smith|title= Desperation RoadFiona Williams|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Maben is on the run. For a long while it's not clear whether she's running from something or towards something, or simply back to where it all started. She's got her small daughter with her, and they've been walking for a very long time. It's hard on the child, but it's also clear that if it wasn't for the child Maben would stop running, and it's clear that that would not be a good thing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843449870</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)|title=Fever Dream|rating=4

|summary=Meet Carla''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. SheTess Hembry's a glamorous older womanroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, with poise and beautybut instead, and someone who still looks a treat she lives in a golden bikinithe house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. But insideInsubstantial as it might look, sheit's different. The biggest issue she seems to bear relates to an event a few years ago, when her horse breeder husband had stood the drama passage of both a hired, valuable stalliontime, storms and their son, being poisonedfloods. Away from the right medical treatmentHer husband, Richard, Carla took David struggles to a woman who said the only hope was a 'migration' – basicallygrow his vegetables, to farm out part of David's spirit complete the delivery rounds - and swap it with someone else's, to dilute the toxinbring in sufficient money. This was a success, as David seems to They have survivedtwin boys - Sonny and Max, although Carla is sure it was the wrong decision – she now sees David as at least part monsterrainbow twins. But another odd thing about this tale is that it isnSonny't being narrated by Carla, but by her neighbour, another s colouring reflects his mother called Amanda, who is renting a holiday home nearby's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. And the further odd thing People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is to whom out with his mother that she is narrating this story – it's to David…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>his nanny.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shanthi SekaranClaire North|title=Lucky BoyHouse of Odysseus

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Solimar wants ''What could matter more from her life than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her Mexican husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home can offer . As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and now shephysical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's 18shores, she can go find it. Her target Queen Penelope is to get to on the USA, brink of a target so blinding fragile peace. One that she doesn't realise what reaching out for it will cost. Meanwhile Kavya is living shatters however with the American dream. She's rich in friendshipreturn of Orestes, familyKing of Mycenae, a loving husband and life prospects and yet Kavya has a baby-shaped hole in her worldhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge. The problem is that there's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassKay Chronister|title= For a Little WhileDesert Creatures

|genre= Short StoriesDystopian Fiction|summary=With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''For a Little WhileDesert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a collection new work of twentypost-five short stories from Rick Bassapocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was It is a wonderful introduction to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped back, simple fables featuring often mundane situations, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters in each tale are beautifully crafted and the stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death shocking novel that still manages to choices made and chances takenfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Dorthe NorsEric LaRocca|title=MirrorThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= 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 ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, Shoulderby the end of the story, Signalbeatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=3.5

|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novels''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a novella light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a story collection. The protagonist of her latest novelretrospective view, fortya young woman unravels the year-something Sonjalong relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, has the narrator relives the affair with a problem with balance man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – literallyto its sorrowful end the summer after. Due to Set against the backdrop of an inner ear condition, if she bends over sheisolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt's crippled by dizziness. It's inconvenient given that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. Shedetails the 24-year-old narrator's already doing poorly – deepening relationship with her angryolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, sweary instructor Jytte doesn't trust her enough to change gears so does how it all for changed her – perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and so can't have them finding out that she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is how it altered her instructor, but he's an odious lecher. She really can't winirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273123</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice HoffmanMichael Grothaus|title= FaithfulBeautiful Shining People|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 she'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 Garden|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Murakami, and (long before the film) Endo's ''Silence''. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writing. But now there's Tomoka Shibasaki, and her noted work ''Spring Garden''. Which, make no mistake, is definitely Japanese. For instance, if I told you it starts with a man looking up to watch his female neighbour on her balcony, and concerns obsession, you could well think it was his about her. But no – perhaps only in the west is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers here, and it – and the novel – concern a singular house. And the very singular country it lives in, and the changes it is going through…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Laura Kaye|title= English Animals|rating= 5

|summary= When Mirka gets a job in a country house in rural England, she has no idea of the struggle she faces ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to make sense bet most of a very English couplewhat we fear will never happen, and a way of life that is entirely alien or we can take steps to herchange it. Richard '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and Sophie are chaotic, drunken, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous and kind acceptance. Of what it means to Mirka, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriagebe human. Mirka Of what is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money-making enterprise, taxidermy, real and soon surpasses him in skill. After a traumatic break two years ago with her family in Slovakia, Mirka finds to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hall. But when she tells Sophie that she what is gayartificial, everything she values is put in danger and she must learn whether the hard way what she really believes indevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140870823X</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles D BlanchardJennifer Saint|title=Kingdom's EndAtalanta|rating=45

|summary=The rats made their massive colony inside the ruins ''I was as worthy as any one of an abandoned motion picture palace, where for thirty long dark years, an aged blind leader ruled over them. A beloved figure held in high regardI would get on board that ship, he rules with patienceI vowed. I would take my place, understandingnot just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, justice and lovetoo. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. When  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a young upstart challenges all he has builtson, ruling with harsh punishments Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and rash decisionsfashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the rats must decide how best opportunity comes – to protect their colony in order to preserve all that they have built together. As join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the rats clash amongst Gods themselves, some fail – Atalanta seizes the chance to notice the ever growing threats fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and dangers through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that the outside world provides - who if she marries, it will come out on top in this very literal rat race?be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148344936X</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian BarryAmanthi Harris|title=Days Without EndBeautiful Place

|summary=It's the mid nineteenth century and Thomas McNulty has left his home in SligoPadma, his family dead from faminea young Sri Lankan, has returned to make a new life in the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a new nationplace she spent her formative years. He teams up with prairie fairy - It is not a dancer in drag - John Cole and together they sign up for place she was born into, but the US Armyone she thinks of as home. Their journey will take them through How she came to be at the American Indian wars Villa, how it became her home, and eventually to the Civil War. Along machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the way, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona ''score'' for this gentle and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennesseeyet subtly violent novel. It Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the story musical score of perhaps a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the most violent birth of a nation in history but it's also a convention-defying love storyVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rose Tremain178563335X|title=The Gustav SonataSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Gustav Perle grew up When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a small town in neutral Switzerland: PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the horrors of the Second World War seemed distantchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense of those who would seek refuge in the countrywhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. GustavThelma's father died daughter-in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his mother, Emilie, she was cold and indifferent to him-law won't let her see her grandson. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was a lonely child with just one toyHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a tin trainlovely place, but he and Anton met at kindergarten where it fell Rachel is struggling to Gustav to look after develop a real bond with the nervous boy. Anton is Jewish parish - and heshe's a talented pianistin awe of the vicar, Gail, but he lacks then she's been doing the confidence to perform in publicjob for more than thirty years. Throughout much of his life he relies Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on Gustav's support, the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but fails to appreciate just how important, how necessary it is to his wellbeingwas probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Tom TomaszewskiSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0989715337|title=The Eleventh LetterPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=34

|summary=At ''Some frogs had gotten into the end of well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the working dayfragrant water, Christopher is looking over the ghosts of naked except for his occupancy beaten leather hat. Long strands of some rooms on Harley Streettheir eggs wove around him, before moving up sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the road to different chambers, opening and pastures newbarked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them. He's half impelled and half reluctant to revisit a pair of audio cassettes, on which are interviews by him and someone else ' How is that for an opening? The style of a woman called Louise, who was arrested in Italy this novel in the 1980s for the double murder form of two close friends, Kate interconnected short stories goes from succinct and John. Hardly aware he's being snowed in by a London blizzard laconic to wistful and the usual British response to any bad weathermusing, he spontaneously provides shelter to turning on a flame-haired beauty, Kaysixpence. And author Marco North, who provokes him into playing has the tapes. It's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at the therapist's couch. Indeedmost wonderful turn of phrase, the closer starts as he gets means to Kay, the closer he gets to the voice of the victim from decades agogo on. What on earth could be the connection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steinunn Sigurdardottir and Philip Roughton (translator)Daisy Hildyard|title=The Good LoverEmergency|rating=2.54

|summary=Karl The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is a global example of done with the Icelandic species, with more than one home abroad and an amanuensis-cum-assistant to do his scheduling and arrange housework while he's going here and there being a businessmanpremise. He has a string |isbn=1913097811}}  {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of lovers that has stretched into three figures, partly because with one exception three Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the limit death of liaisons he'll have with each. But he's also got a heart devoted her sister, she awakes to Unafind strange, his teenaged love whom he adores, despite her splitting with him decades ago. On a whim he leaves a beach holiday to go back to one of thick black hairs sprouting from the icy limbs bones of Iceland, witnesses the changes wrought by fifteen years on her – spine which steadily increase in size and then ends up staying the night with the woman next doorvolume. This is purely platonicHer GP, but what with his host knowing everything about diagnosing the situationodd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, an ever-present taxi driverrecommends she go to stay at Nede, and an ex on the line experimental new treatment centre in America, Wales. Yet something strange is there happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a way he can snatch his love kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from her marriage this cycle of memory and find happiness?pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9462380139</amazonuk>086154112X }}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eric Beck RubinNatalia Garcia Freire|title=School of VelocityThis World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=4.5

|summary=Jan's head Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is dropping him in it. Heno understatement – but 's a trained concert pianist, but delight' is having difficulty performing, with perhaps using the expression in 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 devilway I's tinnitus, you might call itm not familiar with. With another failure behind him, but dignity somewhat intact, Jan decides he has I have to work back through his life to tell us confess my ignorance of the cause – and we're likewise dropped into an extended flashback, to his formative years at art school, with a pretentious drama student, DirkSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. The book is a fast-moving exploration of what Jan finds of note From the little I have read (pun intendedin translation, I don't read Spanish) through his life, and all that might have caused his mental problemthere does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. But is cognisance of what might lie behind it going to help?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993506275</amazonuk>0861541901

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gerard ReveJennifer Saint|title=The Evenings: A Winter's TaleElektra|rating=3.54

|summary='Elektra'The Evenings'' was voted by Jennifer Saint tells the best Dutch novel story of all time by three women who live in the Society heavily male dominated world of Dutch LiteratureAncient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and its author, Gerard Reve (1923–2006), was Elektra are all bit players in the first openly gay writer in story of the NetherlandsTrojan War. It's a historic book for its native country, but will it Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the same impact in English translation? Contemporary Dutch novelist Herman Koch compares ''The Evenings'' to most compelling stories and the works of Kerouac and Salinger, and I can see how it could have achieved cult status for a certain generation, but plot-wise I found it more tedious than revelatorymost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271783</amazonuk>1472273915

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henrietta Rose-Innes8409290103|title= Nineveh|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Henritetta Rose-Inne's ''Nineveh'' instantly reassures you that you are in the presence of a confident and talented writer. The story of Katya Grubbs, a second generation pest exterminator who specialises in relocating the bugs and rodents that ruin middle-class garden parties, Rose-Inne writes with the enviable ability of describing both the intricacies of Katya's job and the feeling of it simultaneously. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709166</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewIf Only|author=Sara Stridsberg and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)|title=The Gravity of LoveMatthew Tree

|summary=Particularly literate cover… Setting of a realTwenty-one-life mental hospital – in Sweden… Mature themes… Opening with an emotionyear- and closureold Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-laden death… Yesbroker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, this book has more than its share of things to put ensure that the potential reader offyoung man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. WhichPatrick 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 his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this instance, is quite country where he might be a large shame indeeddanger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054767</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carys Bray Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and othersJane Aitken (translator)|title=How Much the Red is My Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Love

|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction |summary=This Sceptre collection does not [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have as simple a remit as it might appear; these are no straightforward love storiesalways been black and white and read in my house. InsteadAnd so was this one, they each take one aspect of love although I could have spelled that more accurately – often this one of the ancient Greek classifications – was, and is, black and white and provide a whole new way of thinking about itred. After allYes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the heart holds a lot influence of metaphorical weightsome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>1913547183

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Salley VickersB098FFFBH9|title= Cousins|rating=4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=''We don't know our own limits so how can we judge the limits of others? And what 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 revolves around one devastating accident in 1994. Reminiscent of the past, Will Tye's accident has a powerful effect on three generations of the Tye family, revealing long forgotten truths and close kept secrets. ''Cousins'' pieces together the events leading up to the event from three different close relatives perspectives, in an attempt to understand what exactly happened and why it happened that dark night. His sister, grandmother and aunt all recount Will's childhood and growth into an adult, highlighting both his successes and mistakes whilst reflecting on their own pasts. From the outbreak 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'' 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 young. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241187710</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSnowcub|author=Paul Beatty|title=The SelloutGraham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school''This may be hard s animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to believe, coming from highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a black man, but I've never stolen anything.'' Isn't that one of the great opening lines deal of literature? Our black hero and narratorsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, surname Mea lecturer at Imperial College, first name unknownLondon, was born in the southern Los Angeles suburb of Dickens mother Kate and subjected to an isolated upbringing dominated by his father's extreme views on raceher twin, supposedly Nick. Kate runs the subject of family business, a psychological memoir toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which will solve their financial problems, but cruel and unnatural to anyone with an ounce of humanity. To add insult to injury Me discovered after his fatheris where we'll meet Rachel's death main (a racially provoked shootingif unsuspected) that there was no memoir. A drive-by shooting produces nothing more substantial than a bill for a drive-through funeral, but it starts Me on the path which will end in the Supreme Court, the subject source of a race trialinformation: ''Me v the United States of America''five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786070154</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nir BaramYancey Williams|title=Good PeopleCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5

|summary=Thomas HeiselbergAward-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 selfpoint of view -focus pays off when he attracts in room 315 of the best clientele to the American advertising firm he helps establish across Europe from his German Garden of Eden nursing home. Meanwhile in Russia Sasha Weissberg is struggling , with being in only a literarytrusty nursing aide, free-thinking family that doesn't go down too well with Stalin's regime. As World War II arrivesJenkins, both of their worlds are shakenfor palatable company. As a result both decide Nothing is going to become collaborators rather than resistance fighters keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for different reasons and with far reaching effectshis readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911231006</amazonuk>0986031658}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian McEwan0008421714|title=NutshellMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet TrudyThe problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Successfully living in a large and valuable London homeEveryone but Mrs March (we know her 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, she is heavily pregnantPatricia asked, and in between two men – as she has swapped was wrapping the homeowner, poet and publisher John, for someone completely different, namely Claudebread, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a nasty, brutish and short type. character on you?'' Some people cannot work out why on earth she has made She mentioned that decisionJohanna, including our narratorthe principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Oh, and he himself, our narratorPerhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the child shewhore of Nantes - ''s pregnant with. He is a very alert young thingweak, plain, with nothing else to do but kick here and theredetestable, and practice what you might well call mindfulnesspathetic, and listen in on Claude and Trudyunloved, as they calmly talk their way to plotting and carrying out murder…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911214330</amazonuk>unloveable wretch.''