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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{Frontpage
|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)Matthew Tree|title=Red is My HeartWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more accurately – this one wasthan to be different from his father, a drunk and is, black chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and white and redwho had endless crises of self confidence. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this pieceSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideasset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1913547183B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B098FFFBH9B0C47LV1PC|title=SnowcubFragility|author=Graham FulbrightMosby Woods|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the animal worldanswer for both could well be. She gets a great deal ... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of support from her family: father Pip HarrisonPortland, a lecturer at Imperial CollegeOregon, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Kate runs cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|author=Yancey WilliamsMosby Woods|title=Crosshairs of the DevilA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks quite sure how to his daughter, finds himself living - mend this or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of even if mending it is the Garden best course of Eden nursing homeaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, push for palatable companyclimate action there. Nothing A feeling that nobody is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of writing thoughcircumstances. That man would be valuable, so here, for his readersright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, are his wanderings through his life's workthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=0986031658B0C9SNG8R1}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084217140571379559|title=Mrs MarchThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Virginia FeitoFiona Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''The problem began just after House of Broken Bricks'' is the publication story of George Marchfour people. Tess Hembry's most successful novel to date. Everyone roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but Mrs March (we know her first name only instead, she lives in the house on the last page) seemed to either be reading riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it or had already done so's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Every day Mrs March went Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the local patisserie delivery rounds - and to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia askedbring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, as she was wrapping the bread, rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'but isns Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't this the first time hebelieve that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's based a character on youhis nanny.}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' She mentioned that Johanna,  The follow-up to the principal character had excellent 'her mannerisms'Ithaca''picks up a few months after where we left off. Perhaps this would not have matteredIn the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, except who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the fact throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Johanna Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the whore brink of Nantes - ''a weakfragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, plainKing of Mycenae, detestableand his sister Elektra, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchseeking refuge.''|isbn=0356516075
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B005FM76AAKay Chronister|title=The Duke's Children|author=Anthony TrollopeDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=The story opens to probably the worst news of all: Lady Glencora Palliser With a world that is deadbecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Her husbandWhether it is a robotic takeover, Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke a world devoid of Omniumwater or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is nearly paralysed a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by grief and struggling Kay Chronister is a new work of post- at apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the same time - fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to adjust to no longer being prime minister, or even in officefind hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. He seeks It is used as a way to protect reflect our darkest emotions and guide his three adult children, which is easier said than done when none of how we as humans react and process them wishes to . Most horror fiction feature a ''beBig Bad'' guided. Silverbridge (his elder son, actually called Plantagenetwhether that is a home invader, but always known by his title) and Gerald are destined to be sent down from Oxford and Cambridge respectively and to run up gambling debtsa monster or a ghost, occasionally in eye-watering sums. Lady Helen has fallen in love with - it usually something tangible and wishes to marry - Frank Tregear, by the penniless son end of a poor squire, which the Duke cannot countenancestory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not least because he sees echos like that. It is a collection of what might have happened when he married Lady Glencorashort stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. HeHorrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''s about to learn that parents do not always get their way.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B004O37B6AMadelaine Lucas|title=The Prime Minister|author=Anthony TrollopeThirst for Salt|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Plantagenet Palliser''Love, the Duke of OmniumI'd read, is the prime minister of was supposed to be a coalition government light and weightless feeling, but heI had always longed for gravity''s privately enraged at  Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the seemingly unstoppable rise of Ferdinand Lopezyear-long relationship that once defined her. Lopex is exotic - some describe him as JewishOverlaid with later wisdom, others as Portuguese but the truth is that no one knows and Lopez is not going narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to explainits sorrowful end the summer after. The ladies Set against the backdrop of society, even Palliseran isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''s own wife, Lady Glencora, are supporters but after Lopez makes an advantageous marriage Palliser is placed in details the position of having to support his wife24-year-old narrator's actions when Lopez loses a bydeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-election. The Duke's payment of Lopez' election expenses in an attempt to stem gossip about his wife will come back to haunt himconsuming 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
|isbnauthor=B00474HVX4Michael Grothaus|title=Phineas Redux|author=Anthony TrollopeBeautiful Shining People|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It's some time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]]. Having succeeded in parliament 'But fearing something and achieved a paying position he fell out with those who provided his income and returned having it come to Ireland where he married Mary, his childhood sweetheartpass are two different things. He was fortunate And I'm willing to get a job in Cork (bet most of what we fear will never happen, or Dublin - recollections may vary) we can take steps to change it.'' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and seemed settled into a life of domesticityacceptance. Of what it means to be human. To bring Finn backOf what is real and what is artificial, Trollope had to kill off poor Mary and Phineas emerges in London as a childless widower with a legacy from an aunt who died at just whether the right time to allow the move to be possibledevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jessie GreengrassJennifer Saint|title=The High HouseAtalanta|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Charles Darwin taught that all living matter evolved to pass ''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on its genetic material with the implied belief board that your progeny will then pass on theirsship, I vowed. HoweverI would take my place, that train not just in the name of thought is slowly seems to have fallen out the goddess. It was for the sake of favourmy name, too. TodayAtalanta's young generation are discovering that their parents and their parents' parents did not seem to think that far ahead Princess. Warrior. Lover. Or they did think that far ahead and thought "it's not my problem" or "there's nothing I can do"Hero. Raising  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a child son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and living in fashioned into a world on formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the precipice Argonauts, a fierce band of catastrophe is what drives warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrassname and carve out her own legendary place in history. This What follows is not a science-fiction novel. This is our reality. This is the life our children whirlwind of challenges and discovery and their children through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will have to livebe her undoing.|isbn=18007500721472292154
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{{Frontpage
|author=Charlie CarrollAmanthi Harris|title=The LipBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Melody Janie Rowe'' 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. even It is not a place she was born into, but the name is evocative of…probably one she thinks of whatever we want it as home. How she came to beat the Villa, how it became her home, and maybe the machinations thathave 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 point. To me the name sings musical score of English folk musica film, but even in my use of that word English, I know I'm putting an emmet take on things. And Melody Janie Rowe is anti-emmetstrand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa. |isbn=15293341791784631930
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003UH99X4178563335X|title=The Eustace DiamondsSea Defences|author=Anthony TrollopeHilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It was generally thought that Sir Florian Eustace had come to regret his marriage but he didnWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they't live long enough for this re held when you need to become a problempick the children up. After his deathHer husband, his wifeChristopher, Lizzie collects six- still only in her late teens year- was in possession of a very valuable diamond necklace old Hannah and was determined that she would not hand it over to her husbandelder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's executorsdaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. She was adamant that Sir Florian had given it to her absolutelyHolthorpe, although on the precise circumstances of the giving varied from telling to telling. Lady Eustace was not Norfolk coast, is a woman lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to whom truth meant develop a great dealreal 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. All Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was important to her now, she maintained, stormy but it was her sonprobably what they needed. And, of course, her diamondsthen Hannah went missing.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003L7TDMU1398515388|title=Phineas FinnThe Boy and the Dog|author=Anthony TrollopeSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Phineas Finn is First of all, it was the son of Dr Malachi Finnearthquake, a successful doctor deep in Killaloe the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in County Clareturn, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyercaused the nuclear meltdown. Phineas's interest is more in making influential friends than in becoming a lawyer The result was complete and one of themutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, Barrington Erle, suggests that he runs for Parliament in and the forthcoming electionloss of livelihoods was widespread. His father is not entirely in favour The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of this as members are not remunerated and it would be up to him to provide financial support for his son as well as funding his electionpriorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. One of He wasn't a dog person but the doctorconvenience store owner's patients is Lord Tulla who controls comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the borough of Loughshane and by this stroke of luck Finn is, eventually, elected by a small margindog jumped in.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B003A6W0FO0989715337|title=Can You Forgive Her?Papa on the Moon|author=Anthony TrollopeMarco North|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=On ''Some frogs had gotten into the surface 'well.'Can You Forgive Her?' ' looks deceptively simple: it's Walter stood waist-deep in the story of one woman and two men who are vying with each other fragrant water, naked except for her lovehis beaten leather hat. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousinLong strands of their eggs wove around him, George Vavasor but she broke off that engagement and later became engaged to John Greysticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. When we first meet Alice she's on an extended tour Two of the continent with George Vavasor dogs leaned over the opening and his sister Kate. It's obvious that there's still a great deal barked down at the strange noise of chemistry between John and Alice - and Kate is all for encouraging the relationship buckets as it would tie Alice to herhe filled them. George wants Alice but it's a matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration  How is that for anyone other than himself and an opening? The style of this novel in the original engagement had fallen through because form of his infidelity interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and deceitfulnessmusing, turning on a sixpence. This thread is And author Marco North, who has the story most wonderful turn of a very complicated love affair and a woman who lacks confidence in her own judgement. You might not like Alice phrase, starts as he means to start with but you will warm to hergo on.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HollandDaisy Hildyard|title=SistersongEmergency|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Sistersong The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is part done with the premise.|isbn=1913097811}}  {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of a Loss |rating=4 |genre I particularly enjoy=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the modern retelling bones of folk her spine which steadily increase in size and fairy talesvolume. These storiesHer GP, for most of us, are a cornerstone of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new life and new meaning physical reaction to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow and outdatedher grief, fleshing out charactersrecommends she go to stay at Nede, examining relationships an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and re-evaluating the role of women. Sistersong is other patients at Nede: a perfect example metamorphosis of a modern retelling done well, the plot is handled with care, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to come to lifeoverwhelm her, to feel real Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and human, most importantly they feel relatable in pain—but only at a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. This is a masterpiece terrible price: that of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning to endidentity itself.|isbn=1529039037086154112X }}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B002SQCYWQNatalia Garcia Freire|title=The Complete Barchester Chronicles|author=Anthony TrollopeThis World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I told my daughter that will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I didn't know what m not familiar with. I have to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels confess my ignorance of Jane Austen]] for the second time on the trot she had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my inbox in a matter of minutesgeneralisation here. TheyFrom the little I have read (in translation, I don're not ''quite'' as well known as t read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the Austen books but they're an excellent follow onmystical realism.|isbn=0861541901
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B077K6BQFDJennifer Saint|title=The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion |author=Jane AustenElektra|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Yes - that's over eighty-one hours Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of listening for three women who live in the purchase heavily male dominated world of one audio bookAncient Greece. All six major novels Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and they're presented in the order in which they were publishedmost extreme furies.|isbn=1472273915
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)8409290103|title=If You Kept a Record of SinsOnly|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This was an incredibly readable novella, but Twenty-one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, and before we even know his gender or the nature of the person cotton-broker AO Lowry: he's addressing in asked his second person monologue of a narrationaccountant, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeurMr Patrick, and carted off to do all ensure that the necessary introductions before said mother is buried young man got on board the following day. The mother boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and settled in Romania with her (nighta correspondence -time and business) partner, and feelings of abandonment are still strong. And so sorts - sprang up between the two although we flit from current (well, this came out in the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, hear more about what Lowry has to the ladsay than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn's childhoodt care for his son, and see just what it was that he has didn't care to tell her as have him in this country where he might be a private farewell addressdanger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|isbn=1939810965
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{{Frontpage
|author=Afonso Cruz Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Rahul Bery Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Kokoschka's DollRed is My Heart|rating=23.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Well[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, this looked very much like a book although I could love from the get-go, which 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 have spelled that more accurately a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number this one was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative formand is, black and white and so onred. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentionedYes, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with he has an artistic collaborator on this reviewpiece, and can tell that if love was on these pages, I think it was 's possible to say not actually caused by themone page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas. So what happened?|isbn=15294026971913547183
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571362672B098FFFBH9|title=SnowSnowcub|author=John BanvilleGraham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school''Well, at least you're s animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a Wexford man.'' So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford competition entry to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957. Osborne was master of highlight the Keelmore Hounds and had done something memorable with way in which human beings exploit the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirkanimal world. The niceties had to be established even when there was She gets a Catholic priest dead on the library floor with some precious bits great deal of his anatomy missing. Strafford was support from Roslea her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Bunclody and thisImperial College, along with his good-but-shabby suitLondon, marked him out as of Osborne's class mother Kate and obviously Protestanther twin, Nick. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstown Kate runs the family business, who - despite the different religions - was a toy shop called Cornucopia in the habit Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of spending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled thereinformation: five soft toys.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Tahi SaihateYancey Williams|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonCrosshairs of the Devil|rating= 34.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long for our past even though it Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is a place getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to which we can never return. Tahi Saihatehis daughter, in her debut novel ''Astral Seasonfinds himself living - or imprisoned, Beastly Season'from Eddie' illustrates how these roses point of view -tinted glasses often liein room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Her novel Nothing is a meditation on youth and how the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life-altering's work.|isbn= 19162771010986031658}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Laura Imai Messina0008421714|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= In The problem began just after the northeast publication of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his gardenGeorge 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. ''Inside there is an old blackEvery day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, telephonePatricia asked, disconnectedas she was wrapping the bread, that carries voices into ''but isn't this the wind.first time he's based a character on you?'' It is a real place She mentioned that Johanna, a necessary place, and I am pleased to see the IMPORTANT NOTE that the author attaches to principal character had 'her storymannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the place is not whore of Nantes - ''a tourist destinationweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, it is a sacred placeunloved, a place that must be left to those who really need itunloveable wretch.|isbn=178658039X''
}}
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