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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Joshua Ferris |title=The Unnamed|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tim Farnsworth seemed to have it all. He loved his wife Jane and daughter Becka and his job as a partner in prestigious law firm was enjoyable, fulfilling and financially rewarding. The fly in the ointment was that sometimes he was overtaken by a compulsion to walk. The time of day, the weather or the occasion did not matter – when the compulsion came he had to walk until he was physically exhausted and fell asleep immediately after calling his wife to come and collect him. There seemed to be no medical explanation for what was happening – and Tim and Jane had tried every source they could find – but Tim was still reluctant to accept that this was a mental rather than a physical illness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917702</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Treasure|title=Besotted|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It is late August 1982, the day when O level results come out. Michael Cartwright already knows he has failed his exams and is dreading his parents finding out. He, his twin brother Kieran (who has done very well) and their younger sisters are on the family holiday, staying with their mother's parents in Kilross, County Cork. To escape boredom and his parents' anger, he wanders round the village, where he meets Fergal Noonan, training to be a priest, and lively Peggy O'Connor. He has his first kiss and a bit more with Peggy. The family soon goes home to Cheltenham, but their brief visit to Ireland will have far reaching significance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330511726</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laila Lalami Matthew Tree|title=Secret Son|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Secret SonWe'' is the story of Youssef El-Mekki, the slum-dwelling teenage son of single mother Rachida. Youssef has always been told that his father is dead, so when he finds out his mother has lied to conceal the fact that he was born out of wedlock, he plunges headlong into an identity crisis. He tracks down his real father, a wealthy businessman called Nabil Amrani who is surprisingly enthusiastic about his illegitimate son's arrival. Nabil has recently fallen out with his daughter and he seizes this opportunity to mould Youssef into the obedient son he has always wanted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918296</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aravind Adiga|title=The White Tigerll Never Know

|summary=Balram Halwai, a Bangalore entrepreneur (of sorts) and a natural philosopher, hears that there is a planned visit from the Chinese leader Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to India to learn the source of Indian entrepreneurial talent. Balram knows that the story he will be told by the Indian leader will be a long way different from the true story of modern Indian lifehis father, a drunk and so resolves, over the course chronic underachiever whose dreams of seven nights, to write to the Chinese premier with the story being exceptional at any of his life artistic passions all failed miserably and his own journey from a poor son who had endless crises of a rickshaw driver self confidence. So Tim applied himself to the head of his own businessstudies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843547228</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew CondonB0C47LV1PC|title=The Trout OperaFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=Judges Carrington and Thorpe recline in leather armchairs on Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the verandah of Buckley's Crossing hotel and watch in silence as a giant trout shuffles across question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the bridgeanswer for both could well be.... no.

The Judges''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, despite their initial prominence and convincing back-story giving them a valid reason for being in Buckley's CrossingOregon, will not really concern us. They are there cautiously begins to represent a type: a visitor to small town Australia, a fisherman emerge from the city, a seeker after something in the Snowy that probably isn't fish.  We shall, however, be concerned with restrictions imposed during the giant trout.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561506X</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clare MorrallMosby Woods|title=The A Whirly Man Who DisappearedLoses His Turn

|summary=I The West isn't the dominant force it once was drawn to this book straight away. Firstly, Nobody in the jacket cover West is lovely. The subliminal message quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is read me, please read methe best course of action. We Governments are introduced to the Kendall family; mother, father and three childrenflailing. All leading unremarkableA war here, rather ordinary lives. The father, Felix, works hard to provide a push for his familyclimate action there. He loves them all dearlyA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. They all love him backImagine then, there was a man with precognition. It is Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a secure family unitman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. Until - completely out of That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the blue - he simply disappearsmost valuable asset in history. His family is distraught and mystified. We all know Imagine then, that a person cannot simply disappearthis man loses this ability. But Felix Kendall has taken himself off the radar. WhyWhat would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340994274</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christopher Isherwood0571379559|title=A Single ManThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45

|summary=If you've ever wanted to know what goes on inside someone'The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's mind you'll love this short novelroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, first published back she lives in 1964the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. We join George Falconer just at Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the moment he awakes from sleep passage of time, storms and witness floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his innermost thoughts as he goes about a typical dayvegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. It all sounds pretty dull They have twin boys - Sonny and monotonous but what makes this exciting is Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that George isnthey't just any old professor living the American Dreamre related, oh no, hemuch less twins and there's so detached from the banal normality of the world an assumption when Max is out with his mother that heshe's almost outside of his own body at timesnanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548828</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Angelica Garnett|title=The Unspoken Truth|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I would not normally start follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a review with few months after where we left off. In the biography palace of the authorOdysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, but The Unspoken Truth is presented as autobiographical fiction who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by a child suitors vying for the throne of the Bloomsbury Group Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – in fact the subtitle is chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca'A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories'. The blurb on the inside cover even identifies which character s shores, Queen Penelope is based on the author in each brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the four storiesreturn of Orestes, King of Mycenae, just in case we are not sureand his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701184353</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amos OzKay Chronister|title=Rhyming Life and DeathDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Rhyming Love and Death With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a kind robotic takeover, a world devoid of philosophical love letter to literaturewater or a nuclear holocaust, or perhaps more so this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fictionthat aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a book about how to write, about the compulsion shocking novel that still manages to write, and about the strange world that the writer of fiction must live infind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099521024</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Paul MurrayEric LaRocca|title=Skippy DiesThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Life in Seabrook College Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a messway to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Some Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the staff are young enough to remember their own school days therestory, but many are certainly too old for beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. A lot It is a collection of short stories more interested in the boys are victims horrors of ragging and bullying for being too chunkyillness, or too smart - but some are so chunky grief and smart there's a certain kudos to themhumiliation. The female of the species is a thing only spied from their own school next door, Horrors that linger and only met by selling them ritalin as a weight-control pill, or meeting them at the very rare combined school discoare harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241141826</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WolfeMadelaine Lucas|title=The Bonfire of the VanitiesThirst for Salt

|summary=In his own mind''Love, I'd read, bond trader Sherman McCoy is was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'Master of the Universe'. He has  Told from a pleasant wiferetrospective view, a beautiful mistress, and a sweet six young woman unravels the year old daughter-long relationship that once defined her. Henry Lamb is Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a black student man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the projectssummer after. Under normal circumstances, itSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''s clear that McCoyThirst for Salt's world and Lamb's world would never overlap. But when McCoy and his mistress Maria Ruskin end up lost in details the Bronx, and an accident leads to Lamb being hit by McCoy24-year-old narrator's Mercedesdeepening relationship with her older lover, a chain of events start which will lead to his downfalldepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548798</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreview|author=Kate Cole-Adams|title=Walking to the Moon|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We meet the main character Jessica, or Jess as she is usually called, deep in an emotional black hole. She can see no light at ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the end question of the tunnelidentity and acceptance. And right from the start, right from page one, we have a sense of the beautiful and poetic language of Cole-AdamsOf what it means to be human. 'Time Of what is real and I have a new arrangement. We leave each other alone.' And indeed time what is not important in this novel. We have all artificial, and whether the time in the world would probably be the motto development of the medical staff - if they had onetechnology is exciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161348</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ru FreemanJennifer Saint|title=A Disobedient GirlAtalanta

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''A Disobedient Girl'' follows two women struggling to retain control of their lives in the face I was as worthy as any one of servitudethem. Latha is a servant girl to the affluent Vithanage familyI would get on board that ship, whose daughter, Thara, is Latha's ageI vowed. As childrenI would take my place, not just in the girls are the best name of friends, but they are destined to be separated by class, which is made painfully obvious when boys come into the picturegoddess. MeanwhileIt was for the sake of my name, Biso serves a cruel and drunken husband who beats her and terrorises her children, one of whom is another man's love childtoo. BisoAtalanta's husband murdered her lover in a hateful rage when he uncovered her affair and she realises that she must escape his house if she and her children are to live. Latha too seeks escape, but she finds it in the arms of Thara's boyfriend and this sets off a chain of events that will echo far into her future.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917958</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Simon Robson|title=Catch|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Catharine's husband Tom is away on business in Birmingham, and so Catharine awakes alone for the first time in their little cottage at the end of their lanePrincess. They moved there a few months previously, and since then Catharine has spent her days quietly awaiting her husband's return from workWarrior. She is sure that she will figure out, some day, what her purpose in life isLover. She thought it might be to have a baby, but they have been trying for some time and it hasn't happened as yetHero. Meanwhile she waits, and thinks, and waits. In the lounge stands her piano, a stark reminder of the life she didn't manage to realise because although she studied music she found, quite quickly, that in spite of being passionate she lacked any kind of talent for it whatsoever. So, on this day, alone at home, Catharine finds herself tormented by the piano's presence and over-thinking every second of the day. She worries away at who she is, and what her life is, as her loneliness and the day itself unravel around her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090232</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Joe Meno|title=The Great Perhaps|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jonathan Casper faints when he sees clouds. His wife Madeline worries about everythingAbandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, not least Atalanta is raised under the way protective eye of the pigeons that she is studying are murdering each othergoddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. Their seventeen year old daughter Amelia wants When the opportunity comes – to overthrow join the evil empire Argonauts, a fierce band of capitalism warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and is making carve out her own bomb, while fourteen year old Thisbe legendary place in history. What follows is looking for God a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and praying to him. Jonathanthrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis's fatherfatal warning: that if she marries, seventy six year old Henry, is planning his disappearance. Jonathan and Madeline may it will be on the verge of splitting up, to the dismay of both daughtersher undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330512471</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth KostovaAmanthi Harris|title=The Swan ThievesBeautiful Place|rating=25

|summary=1999 – A renowned painterPadma, Robert Oliver, goes mad, attacking a painting with a knife. He's arrestedyoung Sri Lankan, and sent has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a psychiatrist who place she spent her formative years. It is also an artistnot a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. The psychiatrist How she came to be at the Villa, Andrew Marlowehow it became her home, canand the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score''t get his patient to talk to him, but tries to investigate what drove him to for this by talking to his wife gentle and his girlfriend, and reading some letters Oliver seems obsessed withyet subtly violent novel. 1879 – Beatrice de Clerval, aspiring artist, corresponds with Padma's present fails to escape her uncle-by-marriage Olivier Vignot, past and much like the musical score of a more experienced painter. Their letters will be found by Robert Oliver, 120 years laterfilm, and will lead to his loss of sanitythat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442404</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Atiq Rahimi178563335X|title=The Patience StoneSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Set in Afghanistan, ''The Patience Stone'When we first meet Rachel Bird she' is s a partly allegorical tale of trainee vicar, sitting in on a Muslim wife tending PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her comatose soldier husband who has been shot elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in the neck-law won't let her see her grandson. As she cares for him Holthorpe, for on the first time ever she Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is able struggling to speak to him without fear develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of censorship and he becomesthe vicar, for herGail, like but then she's been doing the mythical Patience Stone to which you tell your troubles job for more than thirty years. Rachel and when Christopher hoped that a walk on the stone finally bursts, you are free from your tormentsbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. But also this might mean the Apocalypse And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184167</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joyce Carol Oates1398515388|title=A Fair MaidenThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=I've recently read First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the terrific short story collection ''nuclear meltdown. The Female Of The Species'' also by Oates result was complete and couldn't wait to start her latest bookutter devastation. I felt sure that I was in for a literary treat - The deaths were uncountable, and I the loss of livelihoods waswidespread. Firstly, The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the book itself, tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a hardback with dog outside a beautifully nostalgic cover is convenience store. He wasn't a book loverdog person but the convenience store owner's delightcomment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847248586</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dai Sijie 0989715337|title=Once Papa on a Moonless Nightthe Moon|author=Marco North|rating=3.54

|summary=A French female scholar, studying in China, finds herself caught up in ''Some frogs had gotten into the search for a lost, sacred text that was inscribed on an ancient scrollwell. The scroll was torn in two by Emperor Puyi years ago, and was lost. After falling in love with a young grocer called Tumchooq the young woman becomes caught up in tales within tales, as she finds that Tumchooq's father found and translated half of the missing scroll and became obsessed with finding the other half, and soon Tumchooq too becomes embroiled in the search.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099521326</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Thomas Trofimuk |title=Waiting for Columbus|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I was hooked instantly by ''Walter stood waist-deep in the title. Originalfragrant water, thought-provoking, quirkynaked except for his beaten leather hat. The book revolves Long strands of their eggs wove around a youngish man who has been admitted to an insane asylum (these two words alone make me want to shiver) in modern-day Spainhim, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. The staff have their work cut outTwo of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them. He doesn't remember his name or anything at all about his past. He's sporadically violent - and he says he is Christopher Columbus! As the Americans would say, go figure. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330518844</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Su Tong|title=How is that for an opening? The Boat style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to Redemption|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ku Dongliang wistful and his fathermusing, Ku Wenxuan, are forced to live turning on a barge on the river following Ku Wenxuan's fall from gracesixpence. Originally believed to be And author Marco North, who has the son most wonderful turn of a revolutionary martyr, it is eventually proved that Mr Ku was not so - as a resultphrase, his position in society takes a nose-dive. Dongliang suffers starts as a result of this, finding it hard he means to make friends within the barge community and go on shore. Then an orphaned girl moves onto the barges and finds a place in Dongliang's apparently cold heart. Will she be able to take him out of himself? Or will she, too, turn her back on him?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>038561344X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain BanksDaisy Hildyard|title=The Steep Approach to GarbadaleEmergency

|summary=It took me a while to realise that Iain Banks is, most The summary of all, a teller of tales - I would call him a story-teller had this term not became a compliment-cum-invective usually reserved for the Jeffrey Archers and Dan Browns of the modern publishing world. This ability book doesn't come close to tell stories - not to plot as much as to weave a yarn - combines explaining what is done with a penchant for creating appealing contexts for Banks' narratives to unfold in (this gets magnificently realised in the world building of his [[:Category:Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]] alter-ego) and populating them with memorable, larger than life but usually short of caricature, characterspremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349119287</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Mary McCarthy Sally Oliver |title=The GroupWeight of Loss |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='Given Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the attention paid death of her sister, she awakes to relations between find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the sexes, it would be tempting to call The Group a forerunner bones of today's chick lither spine which steadily increase in size and volume. It's not.' So writes Candace BushnellHer GP, diagnosing the writer behind the TV series Sex and the Cityodd 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 introduction to this new Virago Modern Classics edition other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of The Group by Mary McCarthya kind. First published in 1963As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this novel is about the lives cycle of memory and pain—but only at a group terrible price: that of young women after leaving college in 1933, including careers, relationships, sex, babies, parents, and moneyidentity itself. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844085937</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janice GallowayNatalia Garcia Freire|title=Collected StoriesThis World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=Meet WindischEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. A miller I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the expression in a small village, he trudges through there, and through his neighbours, and through his life, counting his days and hours, for reasons that are way I'm not initially clearfamiliar with. But he does want something I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish- he is waiting for a passport language literary tradition so he can leave for other climesforgive my generalisation here. The perks of his job are From the bags of flour he leaves by the mayorlittle I have read (in translation, I don's house with regularity, as an open bribe, but t read Spanish) there might does seem to be a bigger sacrifice to have to maketendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1852421398</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonSaint|title=Truth or FictionElektra

|summary=Caroline Wallace is not a happy woman'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. She has waited ten years for her lover to propose to herCassandra, and now just as he finally doesClytemnestra, she has to go to Dublin to interview faded literary star Desmond Fitzmaurice. Desmond promises his tale will be brimful of 'sex and violence', but Caroline has no idea Elektra are all bit players in the story of the mystery Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that lies at often the silent women have the heart of his storymost compelling stories and the most extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755330544</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julian Barnes8409290103|title=Staring at the SunIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5

|summary=Jean's first Incident involved Uncle LeslieTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, hyacinths and golf tees. It's perhaps best forgottenMr Patrick, but Jean doesn't forget. Uncle Leslie figures large in her life - mostly to ensure that the young man got on board the golf course - until the War comes boat and he runs away thereafter Patrick was to Americasend him a monthly allowance. He's replaced by Tommy Prosser, a grounded pilot who once saw Patrick sent the sun rise twice in one day money regularly and excites as many questions in Jean as he ever answers. Tommy is replaced by Michael, a policeman, whom Jean eventually marriescorrespondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. He doesn It wasn't know why minks are excessively tenacious of life and he doesnthat Lowry senior didn't much care. But Jean does. She cares much less for the Dutch cap his son, it was that Michael sent her off he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to obtain his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the wedding and much less again for their rather disastrous adventures in the bedroomyoung man on his way. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099540096</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell Celyn JonesAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) Red is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in a post-climate change Walesmy house. Life And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is different in many ways - there's a new-but-old social order built , black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on feudalism this piece, and horsepower is the main means of transport. But in many ways I think it's much possible to say not one page lacks the same - people still fight one another, towns still have sink estates, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their livesinfluence of some striking visual ideas. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Owen SheersB098FFFBH9|title=White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion)Snowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=In the Fourteen-year-old tale, Branwen Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the sister of Bendigeidfran - way in which human beings exploit the giant King of Britainanimal world. She marries the King gets a great deal of Irelandsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, who doesn't treat her well. She manages to send Bendigeidfran a message via a tamed starling and war lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and killings ensue. In this new tale, a young girl has just walked away from her brothers whotwin, in the wake of Nick. Kate runs the devastating foot and mouth outbreakfamily business, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her a story involving the superstitions about the ravens toy shop called Cornucopia in the Tower Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of London, propaganda work during World War II, and an equally doomed love affairinformation: five soft toys. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonYancey Williams|title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleCrosshairs of the Devil

|summary=Mary Katherine Blackwood, also known as Merricat, Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance getting on in the family home where 'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws the reader into her world by a series of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister years and death cap mushrooms, despite his strenuous objections and everyone else in her family is dead. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world'thanks to his daughter, shutting out other peoplefinds himself living - or imprisoned, and they live near a village. Merricat believes that from Eddie'The people s point of the village have always hated us', and tells us that she hates them too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Deborah Gregory|title=Dancing With The Dead|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead'', because I'm interested view - in family history. The blurb on the back room 315 of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine Garden of the piece – was moving from Bristol (my current Eden nursing home) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt , with all these linksonly a trusty nursing aide, the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the case.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many Magpies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Becoming a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your life. Suddenly you see the danger in every situationJenkins, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companionsfor palatable company. In this novella, we meet a young mother who Nothing is married to a logical scientist. They attempt going to control their children's futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects keep Eddie from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger our young mother begins to struggle as he introduces ideas his stock-in-trade of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with him, begins to let things slip at home and with the childrenwriting though, yet finds she is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present danger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Katherine May|title=Burning Out|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Violet has it all – a well-paid jobso here, and a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything is catered for; her mealshis readers, her clothes, and her health are all how she would like them to be. But the his wanderings through his life she is leading is beginning to take its toll. On the verge of snapping, a drained and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home town. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girl, full of life. Only this isn't a ghost, but a girl living the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself and is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girls work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tove Jansson0008421714|title=The True Deceiver|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Most people of my age will have come across Jansson's work unwittingly, via the televised renditions of the Moomin tales. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about the translation into English, first of The Summer Book and then of a collection of short stories which were published as 'A Winter Book'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMrs March|author=Daniel Kehlmann |title=Me and KaminskiVirginia Feito

|summary=After reviewing several long books, itThe problem began just after the publication of George March's been refreshing most successful novel to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski and Me'date. In Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it, Sebastian Zollner, or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the obnoxious main character, shoves himself forward in a desperate attempt local patisserie to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art critic. Kaminskibuy olive bread but on that particular morning, the proposed subjectPatricia asked, as she was a fashionable painter long agowrapping the bread, ''but nowisn't this the first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivionthe principal character had 'her mannerisms''. So Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the secondfact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes -rate writer is on ''a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details to hook the art world and general publicweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>''

{{newreview|author=Hilary Dixon|title=When Rooks Speak of Love|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Arthur Transcombe is a middle-aged, grey-haired, self-effacing poet. Unremarkable really - Move on the outside. He has, however, managed to achieve some success with his poems. (Being a guest speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival is no mean feat). He is also a babe magnet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529429</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Malouf |title=Ransom|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Taking his theme from a small part of Homer's Iliad, Malouf tells the story of the king of Troy, Priam's grief-stricken voyage into the Greek camp to ransom Troy's wealth for the body of his fallen son, Hector, killed by the equally grief-stricken Achilles whose great friend Hector had killed in battle before Achilles took his cruel revenge. Malouf tells the story in sparse, yet lyrical and poetic fashion suggesting the personal stories behind the epic themes that Homer related. It is an exquisitely written piece managing to be both deeply moving as well as a great piece of story telling.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184159</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Vann |title=Legend of a Suicide|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Some books defy categorisation and that's the case with ''Legend of a Suicide''. Is it Literary Fiction? Is it a series of short stories linked by a common theme, or a novella with supporting pieces? Is it fiction with a strong autobiographical thread running through it? The simple answer to all these questions is ''yes'' – for the book is all that and more. It's also a compelling page-turner – I began reading at ten o'clock last night and finished it at three thirty this morning, resenting every moment away from the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141043784</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]