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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B003L7TDMUMatthew Tree|title=Phineas Finn|author=Anthony TrollopeWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Phineas Finn is the son of Dr Malachi Finn, a successful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyer. Phineas's interest is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more in making influential friends than in becoming to be different from his father, a lawyer drunk and one chronic underachiever whose dreams of them, Barrington Erle, suggests that he runs for Parliament in the forthcoming election. His father is not entirely in favour being exceptional at any of this as members are not remunerated his artistic passions all failed miserably and it would be up who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to him to provide financial support for his son as well as funding studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his election. One of the doctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the borough of Loughshane daydreams and by this stroke of luck Finn is, eventually, elected by a small marginset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003A6W0FOB0C47LV1PC|title=Can You Forgive Her?Fragility|author=Anthony TrollopeMosby Woods|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=On the surface Can you make a ''Can You Forgive Her?Yo birthing person'' looks deceptively simple: joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it's land? The catch is that the story of one woman and two men who are vying with each other answer for her loveboth could well be.. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousin, George Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and later became engaged to John Grey. When we first meet Alice she's on an extended tour of the continent with George Vavasor and his sister Kate. It's obvious that there's still a great deal of chemistry between John and Alice - and Kate is all for encouraging the relationship as it would tie Alice to herno. George wants Alice but it's a matter of  ''amour propreFragility'' rather than love: he has little consideration for anyone other than himself and the original engagement had fallen through because of his infidelity and deceitfulness. This thread is set as the story city of a very complicated love affair and a woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement. You might not like Alice Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to start with but you will warm to her.emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HollandMosby Woods|title=SistersongA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sistersong 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 part of a genre I particularly enjoy, the modern retelling best course of folk and fairy talesaction. Governments are flailing. These storiesA war here, a push for most of usclimate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, are there was a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold man with fresh eyes and a fresh perspectiveprecognition. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdated, fleshing out characters, examining relationships and re-evaluating Imagine the role strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of womencircumstances. Sistersong is a perfect example of a modern retelling done wellThat man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the plot is handled with care, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to life, to feel real and human, most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live valuable asset inhistory. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. This is a masterpiece of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning What would governments do to end.get it back?|isbn=1529039037B0C9SNG8R1
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B002SQCYWQ0571379559|title=The Complete Barchester ChroniclesHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Anthony TrollopeFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete NovelsHouse of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: Sense and Sensibilitytemperamentally she might be happier there, Pride and Prejudicebut instead, Mansfield Parkshe lives in the house on the riverbank, Emmabuilt of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels it's stood the passage of Jane Austen]] for the second time on the trot she had , storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles delivery rounds - and they were to bring in my inbox in a matter of minutessufficient money. Theyhave twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny're not s colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don'quite'' as well known as the Austen books but t believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an excellent follow onassumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B077K6BQFDClaire North|title=The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion |author=Jane AustenHouse of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Yes ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow- thatup to the excellent ''Ithaca''s over eighty-one hours picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of listening Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the purchase throne of one audio bookthe Western Isles. All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin Having survived – politically and theyphysical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca're presented in s shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the order in which they were publishedreturn of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)Kay Chronister|title=If You Kept a Record of SinsDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=This was With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an incredibly readable novellaalmost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender world devoid of water or the nature of the person he's addressing in his second person monologue of a narrationnuclear holocaust, we see him picked up this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother Kay Chronister is buried a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the following dayfears that exist for humanity today. The mother was It is a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are shocking novel that still strong. And so we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, manages to the lad's childhood, and see just what he has to tell her as a private farewell addressfind hope.|isbn=19398109651803364998
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{{Frontpagefrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)Eric LaRocca|title=Kokoschka's DollThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=2.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Well, this looked very much like 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 book I could love from the get-go''Big Bad'', which whether that is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paperhome invader, a chapter whose number was in the 20monster or a ghost,000sit usually something tangible and, letters used as narrative formby the end of the story, and so onbeatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It intrigued with the subterranean voice is a man hears collection of short stories more interested in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew the horrors of it mentionedillness, toogrief and humiliation. But you've seen the star rating Horrors that comes with this review, linger and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by themare harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''. So what happened?|isbn=1529402697
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571362672Madelaine Lucas|title=Snow|author=John BanvilleThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=''WellLove, at least youI're d read, was supposed to be a Wexford man.light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Osborne was master of Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the Keelmore Hounds and had done something memorable affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirksummer after. The niceties had to be established even when there was a Catholic priest dead on Set against the library floor with some precious bits backdrop of his anatomy missing. Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and this, along with his goodan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-butyear-shabby suit, marked him out as of Osborneold narrator's class and obviously Protestant. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstowndeepening relationship with her older lover, who depicting its all- despite the different religions - was in the habit of spending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled thereconsuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490
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{{Frontpage
|author= Tahi SaihateMichael Grothaus|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonBeautiful Shining People|rating= 3.54
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= We long for our past even though ''But fearing something and having it is a place come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to which bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can never returntake steps to change it. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel ''Astral Season, Beastly Season ''Beautiful Shining People'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lierevolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Her novel Of what is real and what is a meditation on youth artificial, and how whether the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often life-alteringdevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn= 1916277101191458564X
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{{Frontpage
|author=Laura Imai MessinaJennifer Saint|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= In the northeast ''I was as worthy as any one of Japanthem. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his gardenthe name of the goddess. ''Inside there is an old black, telephoneIt was for the sake of my name, disconnected, that carries voices into the windtoo.Atalanta'' It  Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. 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 real placeformidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a necessary placefierce band of warriors, and I am pleased to see descendent from the IMPORTANT NOTE that Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the author attaches chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her story, that the own legendary place in history. What follows is not a tourist destination, whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it is a sacred place, a place Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that must if she marries, it will be left to those who really need ither undoing.|isbn=178658039X1472292154
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{{Frontpage
|author=Amin MaaloufAmanthi Harris|title=The DisorientedBeautiful Place|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Adam Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabicreturned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. In fact he hasn't been back to his homeland for 25 This is a place she spent her formative years. An old friend It is dying…or as Adam prefers to think of him not a former-friendplace she was born into, perhaps not as harsh but the one she thinks of as an ex-friend, or maybehome. The falling out was a long time ago How she came to be at the Villa, and Adam's partner has no idea what how it was aboutbecame her home, even so and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she urges him to go knowing that hefirst arrived there provide the ''score''ll regret not doing sofor this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Not knowing whether he Padma's going because he needs or wants present fails toescape her past and much like the musical score of a film, or simply because he was asked, he's on that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the next planeVilla. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY1784631930
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joanne M Harris178563335X|title=A Pocketful of CrowsSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= I have always been of the mind that once youWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're above picture-book level and before held when you get need to graphic sex & violence, there is no difference between books for pick the children and books for adultsup. There are good books Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and poor onesher elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones. ''A Pocketful of CrowsThelma's daughter-in-law won' t let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is clearly aimed at struggling to develop a real bond with the younger readers as witness the use parish - and she's in awe of the middle initial in the authorvicar, Gail, but then she's name to differentiate from her adult offersbeen doing the job for more than thirty years. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know Rachel and Christopher hoped that Harris is mistress of a walk on the modern fairy talebeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. This is no different. It is an utter delightAnd then Hannah went missing.|isbn=1473222184
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Frederic Beigbeder Seishu Hase and Frank Wynne Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0989715337|title=A Life Without EndPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I looked at ''Some frogs had gotten into the calendar well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the other weekfragrant water, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I knownaked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, yet another onesticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. It won't be one Two of the major numbers, but the time when I have dogs leaned over the same number as Heinz varieties looms on opening and barked down at the horizon. And then a few strange noise of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBEbuckets as he filled them. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use  How is that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with an opening? The style of this novel in the assistant form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to the first geneticist he interviewswistful and musing, and they end up with turning on a childsixpence. And author Marco North, which is at least a way of continuing who has the life most wonderful turn of his genesphrase, and a motive starts as he means to keep go on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=1642860670
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{{Frontpage
|author= Maryse CondéDaisy 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 Wondrous and Tragic Life Weight of Ivan and IvanaLoss |rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live 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 post- world: post-colonialismphysical reaction to her grief, post-modernismrecommends she go to stay at Nede, post truthan experimental new treatment centre in Wales. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the prefix post- in their categorisation, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condéother patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. In As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her new novel, ''The Wondrous Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and Tragic Life pain—but only at a terrible price: that of Ivan and Ivana''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, Condé writes a delight. I will agree with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the countries expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to which it latched itselfconfess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Ivan and Ivana are twins born From the little I have read (in Guadeloupetranslation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings for each other. As they grow up and move overseas, tendency towards the fantastical – the ravages of a post-colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesmystical realism.|isbn=16428606970861541901
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{{Frontpage
|author= Ukamaka OlisakweJennifer Saint|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightElektra|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The new novel 'Elektra' by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at Jennifer Saint tells the trauma and heartache story of being a woman three women who live in 1980s Nigeriathe heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. The title is ''Ogadinma OrCassandra, Clytemnestra, Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is and Elektra are all bit players in the eponymous heroine story of the storyTrojan War.. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that leads often the story, although Olisakwe writes in third person. This provides a sense of detachment for silent women have the reader most compelling stories and highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her father's home and sent to Lagos where she is married to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapemost extreme furies.|isbn=19116481601472273915
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Elliot Reed8409290103|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This is the story of a young boy, William Tyce, who is being raised Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his uncle after the death of father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his mother and his father's abandonment. Howeveraccountant, Mr Patrick, it isn't told in to ensure that the young man got on board the usual narrative wayboat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Instead, Patrick sent the book is made up of glossary entries, written by William, as money regularly and a way correspondence - of describing certain events, situations and emotionssorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It runs alphabeticallywasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, starting with ABSENCE, then moving it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to ALPHABETICAL ORDERhis wife and other children. As I began The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to read I did find myself thinking 'what get the young man on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's storyhis way.|isbn=1911545418
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{{Frontpage
|author= Karina Sainz Borgo Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Elizabeth Bryer Jane Aitken (translator)|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasRed is My Heart|rating= 43.5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''It Would Be Night [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in Caracas'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuelamy house. It begins with the death of Adelaida Falcon's mother And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world white and her attempts to escape itred. Danger stalks the shadows andYes, in a society where the establishment is crumblinghe has an artistic collaborator on this piece, who can you turn and I think it's possible to? say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=00629368671913547183}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1471186393B098FFFBH9|title=Photographer of the LostSnowcub|author=Caroline ScottGraham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921. Edie receives Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a photograph through the post. There is no letter or note with it. There is nothing written on competition entry to highlight the back of way in which human beings exploit the photographanimal world. It is She gets a picture great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her husbandtwin, FrancisNick. Francis has been missing for four years. TechnicallyKate runs the family business, he has been "missinga toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, believed killed" but that which is not something that a young widow can believe. She hangs on the word where we'missingll meet Rachel', disbelieving the word killeds main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1509896465Yancey Williams|title=The Nightjar|author=Deborah HewittCrosshairs of the Devil
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=''The Nightjar'' Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is an unusual getting on in years and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning , despite his strenuous objections and her life begins thanks to unravelhis daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, fast. From that very momentfrom Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, her life is flooded with magic, lossonly a trusty nursing aide, expectation and particularlyJenkins, betrayalfor palatable company. As everything around her shiftsNothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, all that she knowsso here, all that she thinks she knowsfor his readers, must changeare his wanderings through his life's work. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself?|isbn=0986031658}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08570587380008421714|title=EquatorMrs March|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Virginia Feito|rating=34.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside The problem began just after the walls publication of a theme parkGeorge March's most successful novel to date. Our agent Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to see how bad either be reading it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the indignity of the white man against Native 'Indian'local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo huntPatricia asked, and who hates as she was wrapping the way man – and womanbread, of course – can turn against fellow man at ''but isn't this the bat of an eyelid. first time he's based a character on you?'' But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USAShe mentioned that Johanna, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocideprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. He finds himself trying to find Perhaps this book's version of Utopiawould not have mattered, namely except for the Equator, where everything fact that Johanna is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the antiwhore of Nantes -gravity''a weak, and whereplain, who knowsdetestable, things might actually be betterpathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… '
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