Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PitoniakMatthew Tree|title=The FuturesWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=When we first meet Evan PeckCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, he has just started at Yale College, where he plays ice hockey. Like lots of is the question should you make it? Or is the other playersquestion if you did, he would it land? The catch is actually Canadian, from small-town British Columbiathat the answer for both could well be.... One night after a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm and they go out for pizzano. She technically has a boyfriend from her Boston boarding school days ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, but they soon break up and before long Julia and Evan have become inseparableOregon, as they will remain for cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the rest of their college years.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stephan CollishawMosby Woods|title= The Song of the StorkA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved The 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, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a rare feat – man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a novel man who can tell you what will happen given any set amidst the horrors of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from human sufferingcircumstances. That man would be valuable, but does not drown right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it either. back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sabrina Mahfouz0571379559|title= The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women WriteHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating= 5|genre= AnthologiesLiterary Fiction|summary= What does it mean to be British and Muslim? This ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is a question these writers tackle with stunning claritythe story of four people. Modern day British society has a varied sense Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of cultural heritage; broken bricks. Insubstantial as it is a society that is changing and moving forward as might look, it adds more 's stood the passage of time, storms and more voices floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the populationdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, but is also one the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that has they're related, much less twins and there's an undercurrent of anxiety and fear towards those assumption when Max is out with his mother that are minoritiesshe's his nanny. So this collection displays how all that fear is received; it comes in the form of stereotypical labels and racial prejudice, which are themes eloquently reproduced here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0863561462</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David SzalayClaire North|title= All That Man IsHouse of Odysseus|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Two teenage boys on an Inter Rail trip around Europe find themselves staying with a frustrated housewife on the outskirts of Prague, a driftless young Frenchman discovers sexual fulfilment on a package holiday in Cyprus, a lovestruck Hungarian minder is embroiled in a prostitution racket at an upmarket London hotel, a Belgian academic is forced to confront his egotism when his partner becomes pregnant, a Danish tabloid journalist exposes a high-ranking politician's 'What could matter more than love affair, a property developer inspects a new project in the French alps, a Scot living in Croatia fails in love and business, a Russian millionaire confronts divorce, an elderly English politician survives a road accident in Italy. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593696</amazonuk>}}?''{{newreview|author= Elizabeth Hay|title= His Whole Life|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= If you think that ''unThe follow-put-down-able'' is up to the greatest accolade for a book, think again. excellent ''Put-down-ableIthaca'' can be stronger praise: ''His Whole Life'' is put-down-ablepicks up a few months after where we left off. It encourages you In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to put it downrule without her husband, who sailed to wrap yourself in war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the slow-moving story, Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the exquisite writingchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the subtleties brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the charactersreturn of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and just walk around for a while with them slowly sinking in; it encourages you to come back to it again and again; mostly it encourages you to put it down, to read it slowlyhis sister Elektra, because you don't want it to endseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857055445</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phillip LewisKay Chronister|title= The BarrowfieldsDesert Creatures

|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= Just before Henry Aster's birthWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, his fatherpost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a frustrated novelist and lawyerworld devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, reluctantly returns this genre is a way for humans to the remote North Carolina mountains in which he was improbably raised and installs his young family in a gothic mansion - nicknamed cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'the vulture house' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post- worthy apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of his hero Edgar Allan Poe. There, Henry grows up under the desk of this fierce and brilliant manfears that exist for humanity today. But when a death in the family tips his father toward It is a fearsome unravelling, what was once a young son's reverence is poisoned, and Henry flees, not shocking novel that still manages to return until years later when he, too, must go home againfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636825</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Paula CocozzaEric LaRocca|title= How to Be HumanThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary FictionHorror|summary= When Mary arrives home from work one day Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to find reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a magnificent fox on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention and every hair bristling with his power to surprise - it ''Big Bad'', whether that is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at leasta home invader, Mary imagines they are gifts)a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and gradually makes himself at home. And as he listens to Mary, Mary listens back. She begins to hear herself for by the first time in years. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on end of the fringes of her lifestory, would be appalledbeatable. So would the neighbours with a new baby. They only Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like wildlife that fits with . It is a collection of short stories more interested in the decorhorrors of illness, grief and humiliation. But inside Mary a wildness is growing Horrors that will not be tamedlinger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786330334</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreMadelaine Lucas|title=Birdcage WalkThirst for Salt

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith of his life's work: building a terrace of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorge. In a time of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolution'Love, BritainI'd read, including Diner, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in was supposed to be a difficult position since her mother light and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism weightless feeling, but I had always longed for and to allgravity'' Told from a retrospective view, including womena young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. In other wordsOverlaid with later wisdom, they think nothing of spreading ideas of the sort that fanned narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the French flamessummer after. However, thatSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''s not LizzieThirst for Salt's only problem… there is a darkness in her husband's past of which shedetails the 24-year-old narrator's unawaredeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma HendersonMichael Grothaus|title= The Valentine HouseBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4

|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants But fearing something and picked, having it is believedcome to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to ensure they donchange it.'t catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is  ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the start question of a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farmingidentity and acceptance. Except she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks aboutOf what it means to be human. It will be decades - disrupted by warOf what is real and what is artificial, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers whether the key to the mystery. And in 1976, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use itdevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hannah TintiJennifer Saint|title=The Twelve Lives of Samuel HawleyAtalanta|rating=45

|summary=When she turns twelve''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, Samuel Hawley teaches his daughterI vowed. I would take my place, Loo (short not just in the name of the goddess. It was for Louise)the sake of my name, how to use her grandfathertoo. Atalanta''s rifle Princess. Shooting Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a gun and hotwiring a car prove to be useful skills for this daughter of rather than a fugitive. Hawley son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a lawless modern cowboy formidable huntress, one who's had many close shaves over his years on the run longs for committing robberies and making dodgy dealsadventure. He and his young daughter form When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a cosy unit fierce band of their warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own; they live off legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of Chinese food challenges and vending machine snacks in motel rooms discovery and move on every six months or so to avoid the consequences of his criminal activities. But when they get to Olympusthrough it, MassachusettsAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, Hawley decides it's time to settle down. He buys a house by the water – with cash – and becomes a clean-living fishermanwill be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472234367</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nicole Dennis-Benn Amanthi Harris|title= Here Comes the Sun Beautiful Place|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= You have to assume the team behind the cover sleeve for Nicole Dennis-Benn's debut novel Here Come's the Sun have a keen sense of irony. Either that or none of them read beyond the first page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178607124X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Polly Clark|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, she'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 Night|rating=3.5

|summary=Emma Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has a philosophy – ''let returned to the dead rest, and love Villa Hibiscus on the living''southern coast of her home country. The problem with that, as This is a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while the love remains place she will go through spent her memories, taking formative years. It is not a woozyplace she was born into, diaphanous path through all but the major events one she thinks of her lifeas home. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husband How she came to be at the Villa, who gets snatched from how it became her at workhome, fleeing to another place to wait and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for peace, this gentle and wait for him in vain, moving yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to Holland and finding new love, escape her past and so on – this wispy journey will show all much like the impacts musical score of wara film, from rationing right up to exile, death and survivalthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa. 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>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Marisa Silver178563335X|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>}}{{newreviewSea Defences|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)|title=The Yellow HouseHilary Taylor|rating=35

|summary=If you were the needy kindWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, would you really join sitting in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get on a feeling of belonging just because PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel doesneed to pick the children up. But he has something that will really get him notedHer husband, Christopher, wellcollects six-thoughtyear-ofold Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, includedwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. He has come to Holthorpe, on the south of France to set up an artists' collectiveNorfolk coast, where he can live and work alongside his counterpartsis a lovely place, who can inspire each other and best each other but Rachel is struggling to create wonderful art. In fact develop a muchreal bond with the parish -respected guest is on his way now, so surely he can find kinship? The guestand she's name isin awe of the vicar, after allGail, Gauguinbut then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>And then Hannah went missing.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Down1398515388|title=Our Magic HourThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=There ''Some frogs had always been Katy, Audrey and Adamgotten into the well. They've been friends since school and now, along with Audrey's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionals. Then, one day, Katy kills herself. No warning, no reason just no Katy. The four are suddenly three trying to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure it out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ayobami Adebayo|title= Stay With Me|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= I have a ''thing'' about blurbs which give away far too much of the stories. Not this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if Walter stood waist-deep in the burden is too much and stays too long even love bendsfragrant water, cracks, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does breaknaked except for his beaten leather hat.'' ''But even when it's in a thousand pieces Long strands of their eggs wove around your feethim, that doesn't mean it's no longer love…'' That is sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read in a long time – opening 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 barked down at the strange noise of the worldbuckets as he filled them. ''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Michael Farris Smith|title= Desperation Road|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Maben How is on that for an opening? The style of this novel in the run. For a long while it's not clear whether she's running form of interconnected short stories goes from something or towards something, or simply back succinct and laconic to where it all started. She's got her small daughter with herwistful and musing, and they've been walking for turning on a very long timesixpence. It's hard on the childAnd author Marco North, but it's also clear that if it wasn't for who has the child Maben would stop runningmost wonderful turn of phrase, and it's clear that that would not be a good thingstarts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843449870</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)Daisy Hildyard|title=Fever DreamEmergency

|summary=Meet Carla. SheThe summary of this book doesn's a glamorous older woman, t come close to explaining what is done with poise and beauty, and someone who still looks a treat in a golden bikinithe premise.|isbn=1913097811}}  {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. But insideTraumatised after the death of her sister, she's different. The biggest issue she seems awakes to bear relates to an event a few years agofind strange, when her horse breeder husband had thick black hairs sprouting from the drama bones of both a hired, valuable stallion, her spine which steadily increase in size and their son, being poisonedvolume. Away from the right medical treatmentHer GP, Carla took David to a woman who said diagnosing the only hope was odd phenomenon as a 'migration' – basicallyphysical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to farm out part of David's spirit and swap it with someone else'sstay at Nede, to dilute the toxinan experimental new treatment centre in Wales. This was a success, as David seems Yet something strange is happening to have survived, although Carla is sure it was Marianne and the wrong decision – she now sees David as other patients at least part monsterNede: a metamorphosis of a kind. But another odd thing about this tale is that it isnAs Marianne't being narrated by Carlas memories threaten to overwhelm her, but by Nede offers her neighbour, another mother called Amanda, who is renting release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a holiday home nearbyterrible price: that of identity itself. And the further odd thing is to whom she is narrating this story – it's to David…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>086154112X }}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shanthi SekaranNatalia Garcia Freire|title=Lucky BoyThis World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=Solimar wants more Early comments on this debut novel from her life than her Mexican home can offer and now she's 18Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, she can go find ita delight. Her target I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is to get to perhaps using the USA, expression in a target so blinding that she doesnway I't realise what reaching out for it will costm not familiar with. Meanwhile Kavya is living I have to confess my ignorance of the American dreamSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. She's rich From the little I have read (in friendship, familytranslation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a loving husband and life prospects and yet Kavya has a baby-shaped hole in her worldtendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. The problem is that there's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>0861541901

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassJennifer Saint|title= For a Little WhileElektra|rating= 4|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary='Elektra'For a Little While'' is a collection by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of twenty-five short stories from Rick BassAncient Greece. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was a wonderful introduction to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped backCassandra, simple fables featuring often mundane situationsClytemnestra, mysterious characters and magical experiencesElektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. The characters in each tale are beautifully crafted and Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death to choices made and chances takenthe most extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>1472273915

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe Nors8409290103|title=Mirror, Shoulder, SignalIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=34.5

|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novelsTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a novella monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a story collection. The protagonist correspondence - of her latest novel, fortysorts -something Sonja, sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has a problem with balance – literally. Due to an inner ear condition, if she bends over she's crippled by dizzinesssay than Patrick. Itwasn's inconvenient given t that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. SheLowry senior didn's already doing poorly – her angryt care for his son, sweary instructor Jytte doesn't trust her enough to change gears so does it all for her – and so can't have them finding out was that she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is her instructor, but he's an odious lecher. She really candidn't win.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782273123</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Alice Hoffman|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 care to have him 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 this country where he might be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement danger to a life in New York City, Shelby remains damaged by the loss of her best friend, stumbling through life blindly his wife and fighting desperately other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to become connected to anything at allget the young man on his way. 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>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miguel Bonnefoy Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Emily Boyce Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Octavio's JourneyRed is My Heart

|summary=Meet Octavio[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. He's a large lunkAnd so was this one, a gentle giant, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town although I could have spelled that more accurately – a town which oncethis one was, fleetinglyand is, had fame, fashion black and white and success through a minor miraclered. Yes, but he has none any longer. Octavioan artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think 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 possible to write a prescription on. Now we never learn exactly what say not one page lacks the cause influence 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 writesome striking visual ideas. 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>1913547183

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)B098FFFBH9|title=Spring GardenSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=The rats made their massive colony inside 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 ruins way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of an abandoned motion picture palacesupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, where for thirty long dark years, an aged blind leader ruled over them. A beloved figure held in high regarda lecturer at Imperial College, he rules with patienceLondon, understanding, justice mother Kate and love. When a young upstart challenges all he has builther twin, ruling with harsh punishments and rash decisions, the rats must decide how best to protect their colony in order to preserve all that they have built togetherNick. As Kate runs the rats clash amongst themselvesfamily business, some fail to notice the ever growing threats and dangers that the outside world provides - who will come out on top a toy shop called Cornucopia in this very literal rat race?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>148344936X</amazonuk>Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian BarryYancey Williams|title=Days Without EndCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5

|summary=It's the mid nineteenth century Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and Thomas McNulty has left , despite his home in Sligo, strenuous objections and thanks to his family dead from faminedaughter, to make a new life in a new nation. He teams up with prairie fairy finds himself living - a dancer in drag - John Cole and together they sign up for the US Army. Their journey will take them through the American Indian wars and eventually to the Civil War. Along the wayor imprisoned, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennessee. ItEddie's the story point of perhaps the most violent birth of a nation in history but it's also a conventionview -defying love story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Rose Tremain|title=The Gustav Sonata|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Gustav Perle grew up in a small town in neutral Switzerland: the horrors room 315 of the Second World War seemed distant, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense Garden of those who would seek refuge in the country. Gustav's father died in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his motherEden nursing home, Emilie, she was cold and indifferent to him. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was with only a lonely child with just one toytrusty nursing aide, a tin trainJenkins, but he and Anton met at kindergarten where it fell to Gustav to look after the nervous boyfor palatable company. Anton Nothing is Jewish and he's a talented pianist, but he lacks the confidence going to perform keep Eddie from his stock-in public. Throughout much -trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life he relies on Gustav's support, but fails to appreciate just how important, how necessary it is to his wellbeingwork.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>0986031658}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Tomaszewski0008421714|title=The Eleventh LetterMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=34.5

|summary=At The problem began just after the end publication of the working day, Christopher is looking over the ghosts of his occupancy of some rooms George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on Harley Street, before moving up the road last page) seemed to different chambers, and pastures neweither be reading it or had already done so. He's half impelled and half reluctant Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to revisit a pair of audio cassettesbuy olive bread but on that particular morning, on which are interviews by him and someone else of a woman called LouisePatricia asked, who as she was arrested in Italy in wrapping the 1980s for bread, ''but isn't this the double murder of two close friends, Kate and John. Hardly aware first time he's being snowed in by based a London blizzard and the usual British response to any bad weather, he spontaneously provides shelter to a flame-haired beautycharacter on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, Kay, who provokes him into playing the tapes. Itprincipal character had 'her mannerisms's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at the therapist's couch. IndeedPerhaps this would not have mattered, except for the closer he gets to Kay, fact that Johanna is the closer he gets to the voice whore of the victim from decades agoNantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch. What on earth could be the connection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>''