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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary fictionFiction|summary=Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=B0CVFXPGP8__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=DO DoddB0C47LV1PC|title=JewFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=A man regains consciousness to find himself stifled. Pushing and pulling at Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the weight on top of himquestion if you did, he gradually realises would it land? The catch is that the horrific truth. He's in a mass grave and he's covered with bodies. He has no memory of who he is or how he came to answer for both could well be there. He struggles out. He finds a uniform and he puts it on. He takes a gun and he buckles on its holster. He finds a man and a woman, naked on a bed. He shoots the man. He gets into a car and he drives into town, where he's greeted as the man in chargeno. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842433512</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Maria Edgeworth|title=Helen|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Sweet-tempered Helen Stanley has been left penniless and homeless after her uncle's death. Soon her best friend Cecilia writes to encourage Helen to come and live with her and her new husband, General Clarendon at Clarendon Park. Helen soon finds herself settled in to Clarendon Park and reacquaints herself with Cecilia and more importantly with Cecilia's mother, Lady DavenantFragility'' is set as the city of Portland, who considers Helen a daughterOregon, and even prefers her cautiously begins to Cecilia.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003893</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zachary MasonMosby Woods|title=The Lost Books of the OdysseyA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=Zachary Mason suggests that Homer's ''Odyssey'The West isn' t the dominant force it once was merely one particular ordering of . Nobody in the events of Odysseus' return West is quite sure how to Ithaca after mend this or even if mending it is the Trojan Warbest course of action. 'Echoes of other Odysseys', he suggests existGovernments are flailing. A war here, including a forty four-episode variation push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a 'pre-Ptolomeic papyrus excavated from the desiccated rubbish mounds of Oxyrhnchus' and this is what is 'translated' hereman with precognition. So we are presented with these forty four often very short stories that reconstruct elements of Imagine the Odyssey strategic advantage in this asset; a kind of alternate reality, asking 'man who can tell you what if it were slightly different', and what emerges is a non-linear, mosaic will happen given any set of storiescircumstances. If Homer had decided to present his book in DVD format, these That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in the 'extras' of alternative 'takes' on thingshistory. The result is like a jazz riff on the original storiesImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224090224</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Smith0571379559|title=TaurusThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=As ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the bull goes from paddock to stall story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the searing heat of house on the farmriverbank, he feels strangely disembodied - and yet all he feels is his body: his huge bulk; the angles at which he must hold up his heavy head to see what he needs to see; the strange latency that fills himbuilt of broken bricks. He watches Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the skittish grey horsepassage of time, transfixed storms and yet repulsed by its grace and fluidityfloods. He observes Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his captorsvegetables, to complete the girl delivery rounds - and boy siblings to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and their Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and he allows their goadings to gradually wake him from stuporous apathythere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089978</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Juan Gabriel Vasquez|title=The Secret History of Costaguana|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In 1904 Polishfollow-born British novelist Joseph Conrad wrote his novel about a self-publicising Italian expatriate by up to the name of excellent ''NostromoIthaca'', set in picks up a few months after where we left off. In the fictitious South American republic palace of Costaguana. Columbian writerOdysseus, Juan Gabriel Vásquez imagines that the fictitious José Altamirano has assisted Conrad in his research by telling him his own storywith delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, only who sailed to find that war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the British novelist has subsequently inexcusably omitted him from his bookWestern Isles. NowHaving survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, he Queen Penelope is seeking to set on the record straight by telling brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the readerreturn of Orestes, who he imagines in the role King of a juryMycenae, and his sister Elektra, as well as someone named Eloísa (who we later find out about) the same story to pass judgement on if this was fairseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800187</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kenzaburo OeKay Chronister|title=The ChangelingDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=The novel starts at the end. Therefore we know With a world that one of the two principal charactersis becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, namely Goro, appears to have committed suicidepost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. The question Whether it is why. And the whole novel is an attempt to provide that elusive answer. Goro was an extremely successful film director a robotic takeover, a world devoid of international repute. He was based in his native Japan but travelled extensively with his work. And you have to ask yourself why would water or a man such as nuclear holocaust, this decide to end his life?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843547341</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Miguel Syjuco|title=Ilustrado|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When the dead body of Filipino writer Crispin Salvador is found floating in the Hudson River, apparently having committed suicide, his student and fellow Filipino, Miguel is suspicious that darker forces may have been behind his death, particularly when there is no sign of Salvador's latest manuscript that threatens a way for humans to dish the dirt on the sleaze and corruption of the rich and powerful in his native Philippinescathartically experience their most existential fears. In order to investigate further, Miguel decides to write ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a biography new work of his teacher and mentor. That's the premise post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of this book, but it tells you almost nothing about the experience of reading itfears that exist for humanity today. This It is no straightforward narrative of a regular crime fiction. It's a kaleidoscope of sometimes apparently disjointed writing that gradually comes together to create a story shocking novel that only starts still manages to come into focus about half way through, but it's not until the final pages where the true picture is brilliantly revealedfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330510002</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Ian MackenzieEric LaRocca|title=City of StrangersThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=CrimeHorror|summary=Paul Metzger – mid thirtiesHorror 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 ''Big Bad'', with whether that is a failed marriagehome invader, a broken relationship with his brother (who converted to Judaism)monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and a dying father (who is an ex-Nazi). Straight away there are obvious flaws with his family dynamic. As his writing career fails to take off he's left to churn out thousands of words for articles that have no meaning to him, by the dregs end of the publishing worldstory, beatable. His life isnEric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There''t quite as high flying as he hopedis not like that. But then Paul gets offered It is a lucrative book deal; collection of short stories more interested in the one thing he has wanted for yearshorrors of illness, grief and humiliation. The only catch is he has Horrors that linger and are harder to write about his fatherdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531852</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew YorkeMadelaine Lucas|title=Pictures of LilyThirst for Salt

|summary=As soon as Georgia Myers turns eighteen''Love, I'd read, she is going was supposed to find her biological parents. And she has lots of questions for them too; like where else might she have lived if she had not been given up and does she have any brothers be a light and sisters? Mostlyweightless feeling, however, Georgia just wants to ask ''why?but I had always longed for gravity''. Why was she given up for adoption? Why her?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014124</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Joseph O'Connor|title=Ghost Light|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=An unknown voice introduces the reader to actress Molly. She doesn't know it but she will be dead fairly soon. It's almost as if she's talking to herself throughout the introduction pages. The language is Irish vernacular so there's lots of good old Irish put-downsTold from a retrospective view, classic descriptions and call-ayoung woman unravels the year-spade-a-shovel languagelong relationship that once defined her. This richness and unmistakable lilt gives Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the reader affair with a sense of place. Albeit, old Molly is almost living by man twenty years her wits (which are varied and considerable) in senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the poorer areas of Londonsummer after. Her conversations with Set against the local people, whether itbackdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''s details the inn24-keeper or the local bobby on the beat are absolutely wonderful. She is one fine actress. I could not keep the smile from my face when reading these conversational gems. For example, Molly is trying to have a polite conversation with the innyear-keeper Mr Ballantine when they are rudely interrupted old narrator'Men barrel in and out s deepening relationship with their swearing and gruffness ... Why can they never sit easyher older lover, must they always emit noises, and must the noises be deafening vowels?' Brilliant. The sheer beauty in depicting its all of this is that Molly-consuming nature, in how it changed her own private thoughts, in perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her own head, is giving off the most foul language of the lot of them. These conversations are also bitter-sweet. O'Connor's descriptions - especially of people are superlative. He doesn't try too hard (which is a gift in itself) but gets his message over to the readerirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0436205718</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreview|author=Jane Bowles|title=Two Serious Ladies|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=First published in 1943, this is the story of Christina Goering and Frieda Copperfield who are two strained and constrained women who want to break free, although it is not entirely clear what it is they want to break free from. Society? The conventions of heterosexuality? The boredom of their female lives? Anyway, Christina is a wealthy spinster who takes a companion, Miss Gamelon, into her home where they settle into a routine of being catty to each other. Soon Christina's male friend, Arnold, moves in with them too, and later when they all move to a falling-down house on an island they are joined there by Arnold's father who has walked out on his wife. Christina leaves the house, trying to improve herself in some manner perhaps, but becoming a sort of prostitute, falling into relationships as a 'kept woman'. Mrs Copperfield, meanwhile, takes a trip to Panama with her husband. The couple drift apart as Frieda finds herself attracted to the seedy underworld of prostitution, drinking in bars and brothels, falling for a prostitute named Pacifica and leaving her husband to move in with her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003850</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna KavennaMichael Grothaus|title=The Birth of LoveBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Birth ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of Love has four interwoven storylines about characters in different timeswhat we fear will never happen, past, present and future. The common theme is birthor we can take steps to change it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124517X</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Tishani Doshi|title=The Pleasure Seekers|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Essentially this is a love story between two people - Babo from Madras ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and Sian from small-town Walesacceptance. You could argue that two more disparate cultures would Of what it means to be hard to imaginehuman. Factor in that the novel opens in Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the heady, free love days development of the 1960s and a very entertaining story starts to unfoldtechnology is exciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747590923</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yasmina KhadraJennifer Saint|title=What the Day Owes the NightAtalanta

|summary=Nine year old Algerian Muslim Younes is devastated when his father's farm is destroyed and his family have to move to the slum 'I was as worthy as any one of Jenane Jatothem. However, while the rest of his family struggle, this turns out to be something of a blessing in disguise for Younes,who is rescued by his wealthy uncleI would get on board that ship, a pharmacistI vowed. Renamed JonasI would take my place, he moves to live with his uncle and aunt not just in the vibrant European district name of Rio Saladothe goddess. There, he meets new friends Jean-Christophe, Simon, and Fabrice. But what seems to be an unbreakable friendship is tested to its limits by the return to It was for the area sake of the beautiful Emiliemy name, and the boystoo. Atalanta'' problems increase as Algeria fights for its independence from France. The book is narrated by Jonas at a much older age, lookingback at his life, although the epilogue brings us to the present day as he visits a grave.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019933</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Barbara Trapido|title=Sex and Stravinsky|rating=4Princess.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Josh and Caroline and their daughter Zoe live on an old red bus in Oxford, even though both have quite well paid jobs as an academic and headteacherWarrior. Caroline has spent her adult life deferring her plans for the future in order to support her widowed mother who lives in a house nearbyLover. Josh’s job in the drama department of Bristol University does offer him some opportunities to escape abroad though, this time to a conference in his native South AfricaHero.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802325</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Samantha Hunt|title=The Seas|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Seas'' follows the story of Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a nameless nineteen-year old girl who son, Atalanta is lonely and adrift in a cruel coastal town so far to raised under the north protective eye of the USA that the roads only run south. She misses her father, an absent alcoholic sailor, while her silence-loving mothergoddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who grew up on an isolated island with deaf parents, worries deeply about herlongs for adventure. Early on in When the story we get opportunity comes – to join the distinct impression that our narrator is not deemed 'normal' by her peersArgonauts, who call her all sorts a fierce band of unflattering things. With nothing warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to do fight in Artemis' name and carve out her small town, own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and no one to do through it with, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she spends her time pining for a local alcoholic called Jude who is fifteen years her seniormarries, and who refuses her amorous advances on the grounds that it would will be wrong. As the story unfolds, Jude and the girl's relationship grows and changes, sometimes in unexpected waysher undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849013934</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lionel ShriverAmanthi Harris|title=We Need To Talk About KevinBeautiful Place

|summary=Politicians continue Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to argue that the solution to social issues lies with Villa Hibiscus on the family, so it is timely that at the heart southern coast of Lionel Shriver's 2005 Orange Prize winning novel her home country. This is the issue of nature vs nurture - what makes a person like he or place she spent her formative years. It is? Is not a place she was born into, but the eponymous Kevin born evil or is he influenced by his mother's coldness towards himone she thinks of as home. There are no clear answers How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and 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 what gives this brave bookpresent fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, which tackles that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the taboos that some mothers don't bond with their children, such powerVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687349</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben Okri178563335X|title=Tales of FreedomSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Tales of Freedom When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a book of two halveslovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with a short story entitled Comic Destiny taking up the majority parish - and she's in awe of the bookvicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Comic Destiny is made up of Rachel and Christopher hoped that a series of short pieces that follow walk on from each other and are the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably best described as being closer to prose poetry than anything elsewhat they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041597</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fernando Pessoa1398515388|title=The Book of DisquietBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=If you try to read 'The Book First of Disquiet' from cover to coverall, it is almost oppressively melancholic. Nothing much happenswas the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and what we have is a collection of reveries this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and thoughts - almost a diary, but not quite - of existential musings about lifeutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, loneliness and the human conditionloss of livelihoods was widespread. It's so introspective The fact that after a while many pets were separated from their owners came far down the monotony list of priorities but - six months after the writertsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn's mundane existence starts to wear on t a dog person but the reader. convenience store owner'''But''' I s comment that he would urge you not call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to read this book like that. Rather, dip into it at random open his car door and you will find a work of undeniable genius. It's quite simply a masterpiece of modernist writingTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687357</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeanne Peterson0989715337|title=Falling to HeavenPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4.5

|summary=Emma and Gerald Kittredge are either very brave or very naive. They've made 'Some frogs had gotten into the long journey from America to Tibetwell. Hardly on the tourist trail and they're not missionaries, so why are they there? This novel is a serious and sweeping narrative trying to answer that very question - and many more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>185168736X</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Carsten Jensen|title=We''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the Drowned|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In 1848, Laurids Madsen opening and other men of barked down at the smalltown strange noise of Marstal go to war to fight the Germans, and an explosionflings him up to heaven, as far as anyone can tell. But Lauridsreturns, claiming his sea boots were too heavy for him to stay upthere – only to be lost to Marstal anyway, buckets as he abandons his familyto sail the high seasfilled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846550963</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Matthew Hooton|title=Deloume Road|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A tiny, rural community with a handful of characters How is at the heart that for an opening? The style of this novel. And in the thing that binds them all together is Deloume Road. Hooton gives over every chapter (form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and some are very short) laconic to one of his characters - Irenewistful and musing, Andyturning on a sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the butcher. Each is very different from the othermost wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087657</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Trevor ByrneDaisy Hildyard|title=Ghosts and LightningEmergency

|summary=Denny comes home The summary of this book doesn't come close to Dublin from Wales after his mum dies suddenly, and hangs around drinking and taking drugs with his sister, her girlfriend and some of their mates, while he wonders explaining what to do is done with himself. There are some practical matters to sort out too, such as the nasty older brother who owns their house and wants his siblings outpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847673309</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Helen DunmoreSally Oliver |title=The BetrayalWeight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=Andrei is a perceptive and deeply conscientious doctorEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a young rheumatologist and paediatrician working in delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a Leningrad hospital just after the terrible siege, during delight' is perhaps using the last days of Stalin’s dictatorship. He is as quick to notice symptoms expression in his colleagues as in his young patients. When he is approached by Russov, a fellow physician, he registers his confrere’s pervading smell of fearway I'm not familiar with. This is all part I have to confess my ignorance of the pathology of Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the times; life as it is lived under a tyrannical dictatorship. A dictatorship determined little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to pursue be a purge tendency towards the fantastical – a vendetta directed against doctors, particularly Jewish doctors. The sweating Russov manages to inveigle Andrei Aleksayev into treating a very sick child, Gorya, the son of Volkhov, who is a tyrannical and high ranking secret police officer. Therapeutic failure, in all probability, could result in vengeance, arrest and devastating effects on Andrei’s loving wife Anna and her young adolescent brother, Kolyamystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490593</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mari StrachanJennifer Saint|title=The Earth Hums in B FlatElektra|rating=54|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Choosing a child as 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the viewpoint character story of a novel requires confidence and imagination. To succeed is to convince three women who live in the reader heavily male dominated world of events at two levels – the child's world within the adult world surrounding herAncient Greece. The very best novels about childhoodCassandra, like say Harper Lee's classicClytemnestra, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', also reflect a wider cultural truth. In 'The Earth Hums and Elektra are all bit players in B Flat', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with their family secretsstory of the Trojan War. If Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that sounds a bit tacky, fear not, because often the silent women have the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet most compelling stories and sharp cornersthe most extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Sington8409290103|title=The Einstein GirlIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=The two central characters are (and we've come across it many times before) a psychiatrist (in this case Kirsch) and Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his patient (known as accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the Einstein Girl) and hence young man got on board the novel's title. The case of this girl is intriguing, not least because both doctor boat and patient had accidentally met prior to her admission thereafter Patrick was to hospital. Kirsch appears immediately smitten - which may be send him a problemmonthly allowance. He's already spoken for. In Patrick sent the money regularly and a nutshell, correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the Einstein Girl two although we hear more about what Lowry has lost her memoryto say than Patrick. Kirsch finds more and more of It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his professional time given over son, it was that he didn't care to her recovery, back have him in this country where he might be a danger to mental well-beinghis wife and other children. It becomes a long and complicated journey, for both of themThe alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535793</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David MitchellAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de ZoetRed is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The belly craves food, the tongue craves water, the heart craves love, [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and the mind craves stories.'  This is the book to satisfy that last craving. It is rich read in stories from the graphic opening chapter to the poignant closing linesmy house. Everyone has a tale to tell and even minor characters are fleshed out with histories And so was this one, although I could have spelled that amusemore accurately – this one was, horrify or enthral. Their stories made me think about how sometimes what at the time seems to be an insignificant choice can define the course of a life. Here the characters’ choices unleash a cascade of consequences. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340921560</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michelle Lovric|title=The Book of Human Skin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=''Ye can't take the slither out ovva snake.'' So says Gianniand is, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian householdblack and white and red. The master, a merchant, divides his time between Italy and PeruYes, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo is. On the night has an earthquake ripped through Peru artistic collaborator on this piece, and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent in Arequipa, Minguillo was born - a serpent in his familyI think it's midst. His own mother couldn't bear possible to nurse him and his father went into denial, making more and more frequent trips to a South American home free say not one page lacks the influence of sociopathic progenysome striking visual ideas. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elif ShafakB098FFFBH9|title=The Forty Rules of LoveSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=This Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a sixth novel competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support from best-selling Turkish authorher family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, Elif Shafak. Set in twelfth century Anatoliamother Kate and her twin, two famous characters from Islamic history meet in a gorgeously real worldNick. A delicate contemporary US love story is wrapped around Kate runs the richfamily business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, meaty historical fictionwhich is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys. Don't be misled by the dodgy-sounding title!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca GoldsteinYancey Williams|title=36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work Crosshairs of Fiction |rating=2|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='Atheist with a Soul' Cass Seltzer has achieved sudden celebrity thanks to his new bestselling book. This has led to a job offer from Harvard, and he waits for his girlfriend to return, while thinking back on past experiences. Most of these experiences involved his old mentor Professor Klapper, an ex-lover, Roz Margolis, and a six year old genius mathematician Azarya. The characters frustrate and amuse in roughly equal measure, while the plot meanders towards a sort-of-conclusion as Cass debates the existence of God with Nobel laureate Felix Fidley.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871538</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lorrie Moore|title=A Gate At The StairsDevil|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Bass-playing, 20 year-old Tassie Keltjin is studying an eclectic range of subjects (Geology, British Literature, Sufism, Soundtracks to War Movies and Wine Tasting) in post 9/11 USA when she lands a job as a child minder for chef, Sarah Bink who is adopting an African-American baby. A Gate at the Stairs is at times a very funny and at others a sad reflection of growing up in modern America.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057119530X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Eleanor Catton|title=The Rehearsal|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you are the type of person who wants their novels to start at the beginning, build character and plot before coming to a satisfying 'they all lived happily ever after' ending, then avoid this book at all costs. You will hate it. But I cannot remember when I last enjoyed a first time novel as much as this one. It is ambitious, daring and complex, and yet it works beautifully.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847081398</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Barbara Kingsolver|title=The Lacuna|rating=5

|summary=Ten Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years agoand, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, Barbara Kingsolverfrom Eddie's [[The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver|Poisonwood Bible]] revealed the grim politics point of view - in room 315 of the Congo. The Lacuna has Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a similarly political themetrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, this time turning her focus on Mexico and the USA for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in the 1940s and 1950s-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057125263X</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Eagleman0008421714|title=Sum: Tales from the AfterlivesMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|summary=For some reason I find myself unable The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to start this reviewdate. So I'll mention this book starts with the end, and see where Everyone but Mrs March (we go from there. Of course, that's know her first name only on the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen last page) seemed to either be reading this) and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafter, in the hereafterit or had already done so. It's not so much 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, 'Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=M J Hyland|title=This Is How|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Things werenbut isn't going too badly for Patrick Oxtoby. He's intelligent and did well at school. Then his Gran died. He started getting pains in his shoulder and things rapidly went downhill from there. He drops out of university to become a mechanic. By this the first time we meet him as a 23-year-old, he's become based a loner who cannot communicate his feelings and who cannot seem to fit himself into society. Now his fiancee has left him (and character on you can see ?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her point) and he finds himself in mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a seaside boarding house in an unnamed English townweak, hoping to start a new life. Thenplain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, one night he commits an act of violence (you can see it coming) and his life goes from bad to awfulunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184767383X</amazonuk>''

{{newreview|author=John Buchan|title=Sick Heart River|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This was a surprise for me. It’s rare for a book to come to my attention from the reviewing gods that’s a rerelease of a 1930s novel, and one that surfaced a couple of years ago now. But when it strikes me as startlingly Conradian, updated for the times, and perfectly able Move on to stand alongside one of literature’s greats, then it’s just a sign those reviewing gods are on the ball.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697030X</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]