Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ {{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'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|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingtitle="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->A Whirly Man Loses His Turn<!-- Vodolazkin -->|rating=4|-genre=Literary Fiction| stylesummary="width: 10%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 man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction[[image:1786072718.jpg|linksummary=http''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica://wwwtemperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might 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.amazon They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins.co Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage.uk/dp/1786072718/refMax 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.}}{{Frontpage|author=nosimClaire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?tag=thebookbag-21]]''

| style="verticalTold from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-align: top; textold narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-align: left;"consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|author=Michael Grothaus|title=Beautiful Shining People|rating=[[The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin and Lisa Hayden (Translator)]]=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''But fearing something and having it come 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 change it.''

[[image:4star''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance.jpgOf what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|linkisbn=Category:{191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:=5|genre=Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''

Innokenty Petrovich Platonov wakes up in a hospital bed with no recollection of who he is or how he got therePrincess. He is tended by a single doctor, Doctor Geiger, who gives him a pencil and notebook and encourages him to write down his observations and memoriesWarrior. The notebook is thick, like a novelLover. How can Innokenty fill it if he cannot remember anything? But slowly the memories start to return, memories of childhood holidays at the beach, of life in the dacha, of the airfield and the aviatorsHero...and the island...it seems like some memories may be better left buried. He remembers that he is the same age as the century, born in 1900. But if that is the case, how is he still a young man when the pills by his bedside are dated 1999? [[The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin and Lisa Hayden (Translator)|Full Review]]

<!Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year- Houm old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in->law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but 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. And then Hannah went missing.}}{{Frontpage|-isbn=1398515388| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)[[image:1782273778|rating=4.jpg5|linkgenre=http://wwwGeneral 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.amazon The result was complete and utter devastation.co The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread.uk/dp/1782273778/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami -21]]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.}}

| style="vertical''Walter stood waist-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Gradual Disappearance deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm the dogs leaned over the opening and Anna Paterson (translator)]]===barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.''

[[image:4How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence.5starAnd author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.jpg}}{{Frontpage|author=Daisy Hildyard|linktitle=Category:{{{Emergency|rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction=4|General Fiction]], [[:Category:genre=Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary=The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.|isbn=1913097811}}

Jane Ashland {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in 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 dyinghappening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. ThatAs Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a description terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a very early scene delight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here . From the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – but alsothe mystical realism. |isbn=0861541901}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Elektra|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the story of coursethe Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies.|isbn=1472273915}}{{Frontpage|isbn=8409290103|title=If Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, a platitude Mr Patrick, to ensure that can apply the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to all send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of ussorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. Jane It wasn't that Lowry senior didn's lifet care for his son, if anythingit 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 alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Red is going up My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and down read in levels of pleasuremy house. And so was this one, energy although I could have spelled that more accurately – sobriety – in these pagesthis one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, but we soon learn that and I think it recently found 's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B098FFFBH9|title=Snowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a very deeply dark down placecompetition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. Here then She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, scattered through a timeline-bending narrativelecturer at Imperial College, London, we have mother Kate and her days finding twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, a Lincolnesque lover as a student toy shop called Cornucopia in New YorkPutney, glimpses which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of therapyinformation: five soft toys.}}{{Frontpage|author=Yancey Williams|title=Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, a drive despite his strenuous objections and thanks to find her ancestors that takes her his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from rural America to Norway – and a trip there Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a newtrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-found friend trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0008421714|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone 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 watch buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the musk oxenbread, of all things''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. And nowhere in sight Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is anything like the whore of Nantes - ''a platitude… [[The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator)|Full Review]]weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.''}}

<!-- Bonnefoy -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1910477524.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910477524/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Miguel Bonnefoy's ''Black Sugar'' is a sensual epic chronicling three generations of the Otero family. The tale begins with the disappearance of Captain Henry Morgan's treasure and then illustrates the power this treasure holds over people. Multiple people become obsessed with finding this fabled treasure that has become an urban legend in the town in which the story is set. [[Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Ruby -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1455565180.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1455565180/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Zero and the One by Ryan Ruby]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Zero and the One'' is an incredibly well written and well crafted book. We meet our narrator, Owen, on the plane to New York for the funeral of his best friend. He is still reeling after recent events, a suicide pact in which his friend died but he lived, and he is going through the motions of the funeral and consoling family whilst still trying to get to grips with his own feelings of grief and guilt. So far, so simple. But this is where the talent of Ryan Ruby steps in and slowly, so slowly, he reveals little tantalising clues that all is not what it seems, a throw-away comment here, a mis-step there, and it becomes clear that Owen is not a reliable narrator. [[The Zero and the One by Ryan Ruby|Full Review]] <!-- Miles -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0553447580.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0553447580/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Look closely at the cover of Jonathan Miles's third novel and you'll see the central drama depicted: white wheelchair tracks snake up from the bottom and stop three-quarters of the way from the top, where they are replaced by footprints. On 23 August 2014, wheelchair-bound veteran Cameron Harris stands up and walks outside the Biz-E-Bee convenience store in Biloxi, Mississippi. In the rest of the novel we find out how he got to this point and what others – ranging from his doctor to representatives of the Roman Catholic Church – will make of his recovery. Was it a miracle, or an explainable medical phenomenon? [[Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles|Full Review]] <!-- Mcneil -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mcneil Fire.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785078992/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fire on the Mountain by Jean McNeil]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is an unusual book, in style it feels like a novel by E M Forster; with a deep study at the minutiae of life and thought, yet the plot and content is thoroughly modern. The bulk of the story is told through the perspective of Nick, and we see his point of view on life around him. The main characters of the book, however, are Pieter and Riaan, as it is these characters who fascinate Nick and are the focus of his contemplation and crisis. [[Fire on the Mountain by Jean McNeil|Full Review]] <!-- Morrall -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Morrall_Last.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/ISBN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Down in hidden railway carriages, deep behind foliage and further down Long Meadow Road than most care to go, live the Greenwood Brothers. They haven't spoken to each other in years, but one morning a letter arrives Move on their doorstep - a letter from a sister long thought dead...As the brothers are forced to confront painful memories of a past that both tried to keep buried, the post-woman who delivered the letter struggles with secrets of her own... [[The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall|Full Review]] <!-- Rawi -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Rawi_Baghdad.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073226/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] ''The Baghdad Clock'' is a tale of two friends growing up during the first and second Iraqi war. Shahad Al Rawi uses magic realism to illustrate the displacement felt by a young girl and her neighbourhood. The novel introduces us to the various characters surrounding the protagonist. They are full of life and yet never seem to add anything to the central narrative. Rawi, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi|Full Review]] <!-- Clements -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472204271/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Newest Paranormal Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Maybe you've heard about Scarcross Hall? Hidden on the old coffin path that winds from the village to the moor top, the villagers only speak of it in hushed tones - of how it's a foreboding place filled with evil. Mercy Booth has lived there since birth, and she's always loved the grand house and its isolation, but a recurrence of strange events begins to unsettle her. From objects disappearing through to a shadowy presence sensed in the house, mysteries come to light that can only be solved by Mercy unearthing long-buried secrets. And will a dark stranger help Mercy protect everything she has come to love or tear it from her grasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]] <!-- Durrenmatt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Durrenmatt_Justice.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782273875?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1782273875]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It's 1957, and we're somewhere in Switzerland, and there's just one case on everyone's lips – the simple fact that a politician has gone into the crowded room of one of those 'the place to go' restaurants, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have known, and ferried a British companion to the airport in his chauffeur-driven Rolls before handing himself in to face the murder rap. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. He's certainly of much interest, not only to our narrator, a young lawyer called Spaet – even if he rarely gets to frequent such establishments with such people, he is eager to know more, especially once he is actually tasked by the man in hand to look into things a second time. But what's this, where he opens his testimony about the affair with the conclusion, that he himself will need to turn killer to redress the balance? [[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Cercas -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Cercas_Impostor.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857056506?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0857056506]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Enric Marco is without doubt an extraordinary man. A veteran of the Spanish Civil War, honoured for his bravery on the battlefield. A political prisoner of two fascist regimes. A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. A prominent figure in the clandestine resistance against Franco's tyranny. A tireless warrior for social justice and the defence of human rights. A national hero. But the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco is this: that he is really none of these things. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets out to tell his story – the true story of Spain's most notorious liar. [[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Badoe -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Badoe_Jigsaw.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786695480?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786695480]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]] Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on she's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante is to tell their story and her own. [[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe|Full Review]] <!-- Batalha -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Batalha_Invisible.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178607298X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=178607298X]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] On the surface, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it all. A nice-enough, parent-pleasing husband with a steady banking job, two young children upon whom to dote, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever want, isn't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside her for something more, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projects, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenor. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house and her family. [[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Hodgkinson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273824/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, it's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year of publication and some in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testify. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species… [[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|Full Review]] <!-- Hesselholdt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hesselholdt_Companions.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910695335/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''Companions'' is written as a series of monologues, where six middle-aged friends take it in turns to narrate scenes from their lives, charting the intimate details of their holidays, dinner parties, families, marriages, affairs and work lives in a style that mixes honesty and openness with fantasy and evasion. The charm of the novel lies in the way the friends' voices bicker with one another among the pages, as we discover that there are always several sides to the same story. We learn most about the characters not through what they say about themselves but through what the others say about them. Along the way, there is heartbreak and grief, but this is always offset by an abundance of humour and a writing style that never fails to be refreshingly light-hearted. [[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- BERGEN -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bergen_Stranger.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0715652419/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Stranger by David Bergen]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''Stranger'' tells the story of Íso, a young Guatemalan woman, and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him to return to the States, she is left pregnant and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter is abducted, and taken to live with the doctor and his wife. What followed - tales of the journey Íso embarked upon in the hope of finding her baby - was an amazing story of the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her child. [[Stranger by David Bergen|Full Review]] <!-- Chonghaile -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Chonghaile_Rain.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785079018/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Rain Falls On Everyone by Clar Ni Chonghaile]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] It's a cliché that the Irish have a picturesque turn of phrase, but clichés only exist because they're true. Roddy Doyle put it differently in a recent interview with ''Writing'' magazine, when he said that ''With Irish, there's another language bubbling under the English''. However you express it, that art of expression is woven into every other line of Clár's prose. Pick a page at random and you'll find something like ''the sickness that had come to roost in her home like a cursed owl'' or ''like he was God, Jesus and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or ''a low sobbing, slow and inevitable as rain on a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawares, or tear at your heart in their mundane sadness. Or sometimes both. [[Rain Falls On Everyone by Clar Ni Chonghaile|Full Review]] <!-- Mete -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mete_Sinful.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1524682527/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Sinful Words by Hesene Mete]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we meet him, Behram is a student at the school of theology. He loves God with a passion and has a determination to live a life dedicated to God and to live by His rules. He rents a property from Lulu Khan and his wife, Lady Geshtina and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visit. It's a delightful place and the wealth of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtina's late father is buried in what amounts to a mausoleum, but it's not all this which enchants Behram. The couple have twin children and Behram is taken, enthralled by the daughter, Nagina. [[Sinful Words by Hesene Mete|Full Review]] <!-- Laurel -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Laurel_Gurugu.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1908276940/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Gurugu Pledge by Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel, one of Equatorial Guinea's best-known dissident writers, is an author who deserves to be read the world over. With The Gurugu Pledge, he's captured an angry and incredibly urgent slice of the migrant experience – a snapshot of the dangers faced by those crossing the African continent in search of the barbed wire fences at Melilla- the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Morocco. [[The Gurugu Pledge by Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|}