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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna WalshMatthew Tree|title=Worlds from the Word's End|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]. I myself missed out, but that seemed to be vignettes from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and a host more, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent before. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] series, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection of shorts. Was it the ideal calling card? Let's face it, the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or two, as we see here. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Raja Alem, Katharine Halls (translator) and Adam Talib (translator)|title= The Dove's Necklace|rating= 3|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I always hated Lit-Crit at school, so it came as something as a surprise that I ended up reviewing books, for fun. Now I understand. Finally, I see why literary critics get so up-in-arms about lowly book reviewers. There is a difference. This book explains it all. The author is ''the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic fiction'' for this book. The book also the LiBerator prize for ''the best book translated into German'' in 2014. I suspect it's not done yet. ''The Times'' tells us that it ''exemplifies everything that is currently shaking the foundations of Arab society.'' I am sure that not only will more plaudits fall upon the author and the book, but also that it will become a classic, spoken of in the same breath as the international classics: Proust, Márquez, Joyce, Rushdie, Nabokov…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715651757</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Daniel Kehlmann and Ross Benjamin (translator)|title=You Should Have Leftll Never Know

|genre=General Literary Fiction |summary=Our narrator is a screenwriter, tasked with coming up with a sequel Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his hit movie ''Besties'' – father, a film which helped pay for a house, but which his actress wife keeps letting him know, isn't ''art''. To concentrate, the family – he, the wife, drunk and their four year old daughter – have rented a large, modern house chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at the end any of a horrid, hairpin bend-filled road, in a charming alpine landscape. But things aren't right. The couple are at loggerheads too much, things keep unsettling our narrator, his artistic passions all failed miserably and the sole shopkeeper for miles around is ready with the Hammer Horror styled warnings who had endless crises of strange eventsself confidence. Quickly we see the book's title in all its galling clarity – but it isn't too late So Tim applied himself to get out… is it? And out of whathis studies, exactly?cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786484048</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tove JanssonB0C47LV1PC|title= Letters From Klara|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Famed in the UK for her creation of the Moomin family, Jansson is rather belatedly beginning to gather the richly deserved esteem for her adult writings. For that I offer my heart-felt thanks to publishers ''Sort of books'' and Thomas Teal, who has been responsible for most of the translations. Receiving this one, two things strike: firstly I somehow seem to have missed one of the series, and secondly there'll come a time sooner rather than later when there'll be no more to be had. The former will be rectified, the latter is a sad thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745614</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFragility|author=Tom Malmquist and Henning Koch (translator)|title=In Every Moment We Are Still AliveMosby Woods|rating=4.5

|summary=Tom Malmquist is Can you make a poet from Sweden. Originally published in Swedish in 2015, this is his first work of prose. While it's being marketed as a novel, it reads more like a stylized memoir. Similar to Karl Ove Knausgaard's booksYo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it features ? Or is the author as the central character and narratorquestion if you did, and the story of grief would it tells land? The catch is a highly personal onethat the answer for both could well be....|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473640008</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Michel Deon|title= Your Father's Room|rating= 4no.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I don't feel altogether qualified to review Michel Déon's 2004 fictionalised memoir Fragility''Your Father's Room'', translated here into English for is set as the first time. I hadn't heard city of Déon before receiving my copyPortland, let alone read any of his books, published over a 70 year period to much acclaim in his homeland. But it's part of the pleasure of book reviewing to read with no prior knowledge or prejudiceOregon, all the more so if you discover an absolute gem.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477346</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Naomi Alderman|title= The Power|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=It started with the girls and spread. From younger woman cautiously begins to older woman, it was awoken and everything changed. Womankind now has the power of electricity in their fingertips and, slowly at first, the balance of power in the world starts shifting. We follow the stories of different people, in different walks of life, who see this emerge from the very beginning and hurtle towards 'restrictions imposed during the event'. One thing in this startling new development is certain, patriarchal archetypes and chauvinist thinkers are in for the shock of their lives. Literally. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919969</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PitoniakMosby Woods|title=The FuturesA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck, he has just started at Yale College, where he plays ice hockeyThe West isn't the dominant force it once was. Like lots Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of the other playersaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, he a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is actually Canadianin actual charge. Imagine then, from small-town British Columbiathere was a man with precognition. One night after Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm and they go out for pizzaman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. She technically has a boyfriend from her Boston boarding school daysThat man would be valuable, but they soon break up and before long Julia and Evan have become inseparableright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, as they will remain for the rest of their college yearsthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Stephan Collishaw0571379559|title= The Song House of the StorkBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved a rare feat – a novel set amidst ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the horrors story of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from human sufferingfour people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but does not drown instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it eithermight look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sabrina MahfouzClaire North|title= The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women WriteHouse of Odysseus|rating= 5|genre= AnthologiesLiterary Fiction |summary= ''What does it mean could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to be British and Muslim? This is the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a question these writers tackle few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with stunning claritydelicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. Modern day British society has a varied sense As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of cultural heritage; it is a society the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that is changing and moving forward as it adds more and more voices Clytemnestra brought to the populationIthaca's shores, but Queen Penelope is also one that has an undercurrent on the brink of anxiety and fear towards those that are minoritiesa fragile peace. So this collection displays how all One that fear is received; it comes in shatters however with the form return of stereotypical labels Orestes, King of Mycenae, and racial prejudicehis sister Elektra, which are themes eloquently reproduced hereseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863561462</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David SzalayKay Chronister|title= All That Man IsDesert Creatures|rating= 54|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= Two teenage boys on With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an Inter Rail trip around Europe find themselves staying with almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a frustrated housewife on the outskirts of Praguerobotic takeover, a driftless young Frenchman discovers sexual fulfilment on world devoid of water or a package holiday in Cyprusnuclear holocaust, a lovestruck Hungarian minder this genre is embroiled in a prostitution racket at an upmarket London hotel, a Belgian academic is forced way for humans to confront his egotism when his partner becomes pregnant, a Danish tabloid journalist exposes a high-ranking politiciancathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures''s love affair, a property developer inspects by Kay Chronister is a new project in work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the French alps, fears that exist for humanity today. It is a Scot living in Croatia fails in love and business, a Russian millionaire confronts divorce, an elderly English politician survives a road accident in Italyshocking novel that still manages to find hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593696</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Elizabeth HayEric LaRocca|title= His Whole LifeThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There

|genre= Literary FictionHorror|summary= If you think that 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 ''un-put-down-ableBig Bad'' , whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the greatest accolade for a bookend of the story, think againbeatable. Eric LaRocca's 'Put-down-able'' can be stronger praise: ''His Whole LifeThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is put-down-ablenot like that. It encourages you to put it down, to wrap yourself is a collection of short stories more interested in the slow-moving story, the exquisite writing, the subtleties horrors of the charactersillness, grief and just walk around for a while with them slowly sinking in; it encourages you to come back to it again humiliation. Horrors that linger and again; mostly it encourages you are harder to put it down, to read it slowly, because you dondefeat than any ''Big Bad''t want it to end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857055445</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phillip LewisMadelaine Lucas|title= The BarrowfieldsThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Just before Henry Aster's birth'Love, his fatherI'd read, was supposed to be a frustrated novelist light and lawyerweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, reluctantly returns to the remote North Carolina mountains in which he was improbably raised and installs his a young family in a gothic mansion - nicknamed 'woman unravels the vulture house' year- worthy of his hero Edgar Allan Poelong relationship that once defined her. ThereOverlaid with later wisdom, Henry grows up under the desk of this fierce and brilliant narrator relives the affair with a mantwenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. But when a death in Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the family tips his father toward a fearsome unravelling, what was once a young son24-year-old narrator's reverence is poisoneddeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home againfamilial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636825</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paula CocozzaMichael Grothaus|title= How to Be HumanBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4.5

|summary= When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention ''But fearing something and every hair bristling with his power having it come to surprise - it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they pass are gifts), and gradually makes himself at hometwo different things. And as he listens I'm willing to Marybet most of what we fear will never happen, Mary listens back. She begins or we can take steps to hear herself for the first time in yearschange it. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the fringes question of her life, would identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be appalledhuman. So would Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the neighbours with a new baby. They only like wildlife that fits with the decor. But inside Mary a wildness development of technology is growing that will not be tamedexciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786330334</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreJennifer Saint|title=Birdcage WalkAtalanta

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached I would take my place, not just in the zenith of his life's work: building a terrace name of prestigious houses overlooking the Avon Gorgegoddess. In a time of turbulence as France reaches It was for the dawn sake of revolutionmy name, Britain, including Diner, fears it may spreadtoo. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. This puts Lizzie in  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a difficult position since her mother and step-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of egalitarianism for the goddess Athemis and to allfashioned into a formidable huntress, including womenone who longs for adventure. In other wordsWhen the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, they think nothing of spreading ideas a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the sort that fanned Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the French flameschance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. However, that's not Lizzie's only problem… there What follows is a darkness in her husbandwhirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis's past of which fatal warning: that if she's unawaremarries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma HendersonAmanthi Harris|title= The Valentine HouseBeautiful Place|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony ValentinePadma, a keen mountaineeryoung Sri Lankan, arrives with his family has returned to spend the summer in their chalet, high in Villa Hibiscus on the French Alpssouthern coast of her home country. There, for the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and picked, it This is believed, to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eyea place she spent her formative years. For Mathilde it It is the start of not a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting peopleplace she was born into, far removed from but the hard grind one she thinks of farmingas home. Except How she soon finds came to be at the Valentines are less carefree than they appearVilla, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by warhow it became her home, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key to machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the mystery''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. And in 1976, the year Sir Anthony Padma's great-great grandson comes present fails to visitescape her past and much like the musical score of a film, she must decide whether to use itthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hannah Tinti178563335X|title=The Twelve Lives of Samuel HawleySea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=45

|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she turns twelve, Samuel Hawley teaches his daughter, Loo (short for Louise), how to use her grandfather's rifle. Shooting a gun trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and hotwiring a car prove wondering why they're held when you need to be useful skills for this daughter of pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a fugitivesobbing parishioner. Hawley is a lawless modern cowboy who Thelma's had many close shaves over his years daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the run for committing robberies and making dodgy deals. He and his young daughter form Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a cosy unit of their own; they live off of Chinese food real bond with the parish - and vending machine snacks she's in motel rooms and move on every six months or so to avoid awe of the consequences of his criminal activities. But when they get to Olympusvicar, MassachusettsGail, Hawley decides itbut then she's time to settle downbeen doing the job for more than thirty years. He buys Rachel and Christopher hoped that a house by walk on the water – with cash – and becomes a cleanbeach would do them some good -living fishermanit was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472234367</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Nicole Dennis-Benn 1398515388|title= Here Comes The Boy and the Sun Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction |summary= You have to assume 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 team behind list of priorities but - six months after the cover sleeve for Nicole Dennistsunami -BennKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn's debut novel Here Comet a dog person but the convenience store owner's the Sun have a keen sense of irony. Either comment that or none of them read beyond he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the first pagedog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178607124X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Polly Clark0989715337|title= LarchfieldPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when a young poet'Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, Dora Fieldingnaked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, moves to Helensburgh on sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the west coast of Scotland opening and her hopes are first challenged. Newly married, pregnant, she's excited by barked down at the prospect strange noise of a life that combines family and creativitythe buckets as he filled them. She thinks she knows what being a person, a wife, a mother, means. She '' How is soon shown that she is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense an opening? The style of self, Dora comes to find this novel in the realities form of small town life suffocating, interconnected short stories goes from succinct and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way laconic to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant wistful and awkward at 24, with his first book of poetry publishedmusing, should be embarking turning on success and society in Londona sixpence. InsteadAnd author Marco North, 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 - who has the most wonderful turn of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first timephrase, even starts as he fights his deepest fearsmeans to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)Daisy Hildyard|title=Emergency|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.|isbn=1913097811}}  {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Longest NightWeight of Loss |rating=34 |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 size and volume.Her GP, 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 the other 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 }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=5

|summary=Emma has Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a philosophy delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight'let is perhaps using the dead rest, and love the living'expression in a way I'm not familiar with. The problem with that, as a 96-yearI have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-old, is that there are too few living left, and language literary tradition so while the love remains she will go through her memories, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events of her lifeforgive my generalisation here. Starting From the little I have read (in wartime Berlin with one husbandtranslation, who gets snatched from her at work, fleeing I don't read Spanish) there does seem to another place to wait for peace, and wait for him in vain, moving to Holland and finding new love, and so on be a tendency towards the fantastical – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of war, from rationing right up to exile, death and survivalmystical realism. 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>0861541901

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marisa SilverJennifer Saint|title= Little NothingElektra|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>}}{{newreview|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)|title=The Yellow House|rating=34

|summary=If you were 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the needy kind, would you really join story of three women who live in the drumming-out heavily male dominated world of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel doesAncient Greece. But he has something that will really get him notedCassandra, Clytemnestra, well-thought-and Elektra are all bit players in the story of, includedthe Trojan War. He has come to Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the south of France to set up an artists' collective, where he can live silent women have the most compelling stories and work alongside his counterparts, who can inspire each other and best each other to create wonderful artthe most extreme furies. 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>1472273915

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Down8409290103|title=Our Magic HourIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=There Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had always been Katysent abroad by his father, Audrey and Adam. They've been friends since school and nowcotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, along with Audrey's partner NickMr Patrick, they remain inseparable as to ensure that the young professionalsman got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Then, one day, Katy kills herselfPatrick 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. No warning It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, no reason just no Katyit was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The four are suddenly three trying alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure it outget the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ayobami AdebayoAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title= Stay With MeRed is My Heart|rating= 3.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= I [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have a ''thing'' about blurbs which give away far too much of the storiesalways been black and white and read in my house. Not And so was this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if the burden is too much and stays too long even love bendsone, cracksalthough I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, comes close to breakingand is, black and white and sometimes does breakred.'' ''But even when it's in a thousand pieces around your feetYes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, that doesn't mean and I think 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, possible to say not just in its native Nigeria but around one page lacks the worldinfluence of some striking visual ideas. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>1913547183

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Michael Farris SmithB098FFFBH9|title= Desperation Road|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>}}{{newreviewSnowcub|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)|title=Fever DreamGraham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=Meet Carla. SheFourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's a glamorous older woman, with poise animal rights project leader and beauty, she and someone who still looks her friend are producing a treat competition entry to highlight the way in a golden bikiniwhich human beings exploit the animal world. But inside, she's different. The biggest issue she seems to bear relates to an event She gets a few years agogreat deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, when her horse breeder husband had the drama of both a hiredlecturer at Imperial College, valuable stallionLondon, mother Kate and their sonher twin, being poisonedNick. Away from Kate runs the right medical treatmentfamily business, Carla took David to a woman who said the only hope was a 'migration' – basicallytoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, to farm out part of Davidwhich is where we's spirit and swap it with someone elsell meet Rachel's, to dilute the toxin. This was a success, as David seems to have survived, although Carla is sure it was the wrong decision – she now sees David as at least part monster. But another odd thing about this tale is that it isn't being narrated by Carla, but by her neighbour, another mother called Amanda, who is renting a holiday home nearbymain (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys. And the further odd thing is to whom she is narrating this story – it's to David…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shanthi SekaranYancey Williams|title=Lucky BoyCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5

|summary=Solimar wants more from her life than her Mexican home can offer Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and now she's 18, she can go find it. Her target is despite his strenuous objections and thanks to get to the USAhis daughter, a target so blinding that she doesn't realise what reaching out for it will cost. Meanwhile Kavya is finds himself living the American dream. She- or imprisoned, from Eddie's rich in friendship, family, a loving husband and life prospects and yet Kavya has a babypoint of view -shaped hole in her world. The problem is that there's only one baby for both room 315 of them… Lucky boy!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Rick Bass|title= For a Little While|rating= 4|genre= Short Stories|summary=''For a Little While'' is a collection the Garden of twenty-five short stories from Rick Bass. As someone previously unacquainted Eden nursing home, with Bass' work this new collection was only a wonderful introduction trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his quirkystock-in-trade of writing though, unusual style which focuses on stripped backso here, simple fables featuring often mundane situationsfor his readers, 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 to choices made and chances takenhis wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>0986031658}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorthe Nors0008421714|title=Mirror, Shoulder, SignalMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=34.5

|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novels, a novella and a story collection. The protagonist problem began just after the publication of her latest George March's most successful novel, forty-something Sonja, has a problem with balance – literally. Due to an inner ear condition, if she bends over she's crippled by dizzinessdate. It's inconvenient given that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. She's already doing poorly – Everyone but Mrs March (we know her angry, sweary instructor Jytte doesn't trust her enough first name only on the last page) seemed to change gears so does either be reading it all for her – and or had already done so can't have them finding out . Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is her instructorwas wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's an odious lecher. based a character on you?'' She really canmentioned that Johanna, the principal character had '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 fatemannerisms''. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident Perhaps this would not have mattered, while Shelby walks away with except for the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love fact that Johanna is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to whore of Nantes - ''a life in New York Cityweak, Shelby remains damaged by the loss of her best friendplain, stumbling through life blindly and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at all. Butdetestable, as she growspathetic, she discovers emotionunloved, survival and happiness, bundled up with dogs, food, books and men sheunloveable wretch.'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>