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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter MatthiessenMatthew Tree|title=Shadow Country|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This is a big book by anyone's standards. Think of your average blockbuster in terms of pages - then double it. Due to its sheer breadth of narrative I think it best if I break it down into manageable book-sized chunks (the novel itself is sub-divided into a trilogy generally known as The Watson Trilogy). First off, there's an explanatory authorWe's note at the beginning to ease the reader in gently, perhaps. I took a deep breath and dived in ...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085705015X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alberto Barrera Tyszka|title=The Sicknessll Never Know

|summary=This literary novel is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a slow burnerdrunk 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. But the very first page gives an insight into the beautiful language used throughout such as 'Medical people rarely used adjectives. They don't need So Tim applied himself to.' And later on there's another lovely sentence loaded with meaning and originality - 'Blood is a terrible gossiphis studies, it tells everything, as any laboratory technician knows.' The opening chapter is located in a consulting room where a cultivated his abilities rather tense conversation is taking place. The answer is extremely important to one manthan his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694508</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maureen GibbonB0C47LV1PC|title=ThiefFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=It’s summerCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, and school teacher Suzanne is renting a cabin by a lake. Spending her days reading and swimmingthe question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, she also finds time to engage in some old fashioned letter writing with a stranger who responded to a personal ad she placedwould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be. He’s currently an inmate at the state penitentiary, but Suzanne’s not one to judge, and agrees to give their correspondence a shot. Then she finds out what he’s in for – and it’s not pretty. Breville is a convicted thief and rapist, and Suzanne herself was raped as a teenager, by a friend’s brother. That should be the end of it: any sensible person would cut off all communication and turn their back on the situationno. But Suzanne  ''Fragility'' is different and though she’s acknowledges that it might not be set as the healthiest city of relationshipsPortland, she maintains Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the back and forth with Breville.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871821</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia FranckMosby Woods|title=The Blind Side of the HeartA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=When I read 'The West isn't the international bestseller'' on dominant force it once was. Nobody in the front cover, as in West is quite sure how to mend this novel, my expectations are raised a notch or two. So, would this book meet those expectations? Franck gives the reader a short prologue and we see Helene, even if mending it is the main character best course of the novelaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, living in her middle-years. We know she has a husband who is carrying out some very important and crucial work push for his country; his beloved Germanyclimate action there. The book is set in 1945 and Germany A feeling that nobody is in chaosactual charge. And Helen's young son has seen sights no 7 year old should witnessImagine then, there was a man with precognition. It's Imagine the stuff strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of nightmarescircumstances. Their lives are also That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in chaos not history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to mention extreme danger and as a single parent who's at her wit's end she makes a monumental decision.get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099524236</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Irene Nemirovsky0571379559|title=JezebelThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=Gladys Eysenach stands in ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the dock accused story of murdering her young loverfour people. She apparently took a gun from her handbag and shot him Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the early hours house on the riverbank, built of Christmas Day in her own homebroken bricks. What happened is clear – Gladys makes no attempt to deny Insubstantial as it – but why might look, it happened is less obvious's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and Gladys doesn't seem inclined to offer much bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the way of explanationrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. But graduallyPeople don't believe that they're related, oh so teasingly, we find much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out what really happened and whywith his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099520389</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Louise Doughty|title=Whatever You Love|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Two police officers knock on LauraThe follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca''s doorpicks up a few months after where we left off. They break In the news palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her that her 9 year old daughter Betty has been run over husband, who sailed to war at Troy and killedthen by divine intervention never returned home. BettyAs ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's friend Willow shores, Queen Penelope is in hospitalon the brink of a fragile peace. ImmediatelyOne that shatters however with the return of Orestes, I was drawn into this story King of a mother's worst nightmare coming trueMycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571254756</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=DO DoddKay Chronister|title=JewDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=A man regains consciousness to find himself stifled. Pushing and pulling at the weight on top of him, he gradually realises the horrific truth. He's in With a mass grave and he's covered with bodies. He has no memory of who he world that is or how he came to be there. He struggles outbecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. He finds a uniform and he puts Whether it on. He takes is a gun and he buckles on its holster. He finds robotic takeover, a man and world devoid of water or a womannuclear holocaust, naked on this genre is a bedway for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. He shoots ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the manfears that exist for humanity today. He gets into It is a car and he drives into town, where he's greeted as the man in chargeshocking novel that still manages to find hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842433512</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Maria EdgeworthEric LaRocca|title=HelenThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Sweet-tempered Helen Stanley has been left penniless and homeless after her uncle's deathHorror taps into something primeval within us. Soon her best friend Cecilia writes to encourage Helen It is used as a way to come reflect our darkest emotions and live with her how we as humans react and her new husband, General Clarendon at Clarendon Parkprocess them. Helen soon finds herself settled in to Clarendon Park and reacquaints herself with Cecilia and more importantly with CeciliaMost horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad''s mother, Lady Davenantwhether that is a home invader, who considers Helen a daughtermonster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and even prefers her to Cecilia.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956003893</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Zachary Mason|title=The Lost Books , by the end of the Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Zachary Mason suggests that Homerstory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''OdysseyThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' was merely one particular ordering of the events of Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the Trojan Waris not like that. 'Echoes of other Odysseys', he suggests exist, including a forty four-episode variation in It is a 'pre-Ptolomeic papyrus excavated from the desiccated rubbish mounds collection of Oxyrhnchus' and this is what is 'translated' here. So we are presented with these forty four often very short stories that reconstruct elements of more interested in the Odyssey in a kind horrors of alternate reality, asking 'what if it were slightly different'illness, grief and what emerges is a non-linear, mosaic of storieshumiliation. If Homer had decided Horrors that linger and are harder to present his book in DVD format, these would be in the defeat than any 'extras' of alternative Big Bad'takes' on things. The result is like a jazz riff on the original stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090224</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph SmithMadelaine Lucas|title=TaurusThirst for Salt

|summary=As the bull goes from paddock to stall in the searing heat of the farm''Love, I'd read, 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 was supposed to see; the strange latency that fills him. He watches the skittish grey horse, transfixed be a light and yet repulsed by its grace and fluidity. He observes his captorsweightless feeling, the girl and boy siblings and their father, and he allows their goadings to gradually wake him from stuporous apathy. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089978</amazonuk>}}but I had always longed for gravity''

{{newreview|author=Juan Gabriel Vasquez|title=The Secret History of Costaguana|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In 1904 Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad wrote his novel about Told from a self-publicising Italian expatriate by the name of ''Nostromo''retrospective view, set in a young woman unravels the fictitious South American republic of Costaguanayear-long relationship that once defined her. Columbian writerOverlaid with later wisdom, Juan Gabriel Vásquez imagines that the fictitious José Altamirano has assisted Conrad in his research by telling him his own story, only narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to find that its sorrowful end the British novelist has subsequently inexcusably omitted him from his booksummer after. Now, he is seeking to set Set against the record straight by telling backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the reader24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, who he imagines in the role of a jurydepicting its all-consuming nature, as well as someone named Eloísa (who we later find out about) the same story to pass judgement how it changed her perspective on if this was fairboth romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800187</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreview|author=Kenzaburo Oe|title=The Changeling|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The novel starts at the end. Therefore we know that one of the two principal characters, namely Goro, appears to have committed suicide. The question is why. And the whole novel is an attempt to provide that elusive answer. Goro was an extremely successful film director of international repute. He was based in his native Japan but travelled extensively with his work. And you have to ask yourself why would a man such as 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 to dish the dirt on the sleaze and corruption of the rich and powerful in his native Philippines. In order to investigate further, Miguel decides to write a biography of his teacher and mentor. That's the premise of this book, but it tells you almost nothing about the experience of reading it. This 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 that only starts to come into focus about half way through, but it's not until the final pages where the true picture is brilliantly revealed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510002</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian MackenzieMichael Grothaus|title=City of StrangersBeautiful Shining People

|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Paul Metzger – mid thirties, with a failed marriage, a broken relationship with his brother (who converted ''But fearing something and having it come to Judaism), and a dying father (who is an ex-Nazi). Straight away there pass are obvious flaws with his family dynamictwo different things. As his writing career fails to take off heAnd I's left m willing to churn out thousands bet most of words for articles that have no meaning what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to him, the dregs of the publishing worldchange it. His life isn't quite as high flying as he hoped. But then Paul gets offered a lucrative book deal; the one thing he has wanted for years. The only catch is he has to write about his father.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531852</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Matthew Yorke|title=Pictures ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of Lily|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As soon as Georgia Myers turns eighteen, she is going identity and acceptance. Of what it means to find her biological parentsbe human. And she has lots of questions for them too; like where else might she have lived if she had not been given up Of what is real and does she have any brothers what is artificial, and sisters? Mostly, however, Georgia just wants to ask ''why?''whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening. Why was she given up for adoption? Why her?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849014124</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joseph O'ConnorJennifer Saint|title=Ghost LightAtalanta

|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 I was as if she's talking to herself throughout the introduction pagesworthy as any one of them. The language is Irish vernacular so there's lots of good old Irish put-downsI would get on board that ship, classic descriptions and call-a-spade-a-shovel languageI vowed. This richness and unmistakable lilt gives the reader a sense of I would take my place. Albeit, old Molly is almost living by her wits (which are varied and considerable) not just in the poorer areas name of London. Her conversations with the local people, whether it's the inn-keeper or the local bobby on the beat are absolutely wonderfulgoddess. She is one fine actress. I could not keep It was for the smile from sake of my face when reading these conversational gems. For examplename, Molly is trying to have a polite conversation with the inn-keeper Mr Ballantine when they are rudely interrupted 'Men barrel in and out with their swearing and gruffness ..too. Why can they never sit easy, must they always emit noises, and must the noises be deafening vowels?Atalanta' Brilliant. The sheer beauty in all of this is that Molly, in her own private thoughts, in 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 reader.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0436205718</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jane Bowles|title=Two Serious Ladies|rating=3Princess.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 fromWarrior. 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 otherLover. 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 wifeHero. 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>}}

{{newreview|author=Joanna Kavenna|title=The Birth Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of Love|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Birth the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of Love has four interwoven storylines about characters warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in different times, past, present Artemis' name and futurecarve out her own legendary place in history. The common theme What follows is birtha whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057124517X</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tishani DoshiAmanthi Harris|title=The Pleasure SeekersBeautiful Place|rating=45

|summary=Essentially this Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a love story between two people - Babo from Madras and Sian from small-town Walesplace she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. You could argue that two more disparate cultures would How she came to be hard to imagine. Factor in at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel opens in . Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the headymusical score of a film, free love days of that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the 1960s and a very entertaining story starts to unfoldVilla. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747590923</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yasmina Khadra178563335X|title=What the Day Owes the NightSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Nine year old Algerian Muslim Younes is devastated when his fatherWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's farm is destroyed a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and his family have to move wondering why they're held when you need to pick the slum of Jenane Jatochildren up. However Her husband, while the rest of his family struggleChristopher, this turns out to be something of a blessing in disguise for Younescollects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother,who is rescued by his wealthy uncleJamie, whilst Rachel holds a pharmacistsobbing parishioner. Renamed Jonas, he moves to live with his uncle and aunt Thelma's daughter-in the vibrant European district of Rio Salado-law won't let her see her grandson. There Holthorpe, he meets new friends Jean-Christopheon the Norfolk coast, Simonis a lovely place, and Fabrice. But what seems to be an unbreakable friendship but Rachel is tested struggling to its limits by develop a real bond with the return to the area parish - and she's in awe of the beautiful Emilievicar, and Gail, but then she's been doing the boys' problems increase as Algeria fights job for its independence from Francemore than thirty years. The book is narrated by Jonas at Rachel and Christopher hoped that a much older age, lookingback at his life, although walk on the epilogue brings us to the present day as he visits a gravebeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019933</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Trapido1398515388|title=Sex The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and StravinskyAlison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Josh First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and Caroline this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and their daughter Zoe live on an old red bus in Oxfordutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, even though both have quite well paid jobs as an academic and headteacherthe loss of livelihoods was widespread. Caroline has spent her adult life deferring her plans for The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the future in order to support her widowed mother who lives in tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a house nearbyconvenience store. Josh’s job in He wasn't a dog person but the drama department of Bristol University does offer him some opportunities convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to escape abroad though, this time to a conference open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in his native South Africa.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802325</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Samantha Hunt0989715337|title=The SeasPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=''The Seas'' follows the story of a nameless nineteen-year old girl who is lonely and adrift in a cruel coastal town so far to Some frogs had gotten into the north of the USA that the roads only run southwell. She misses her father, an absent alcoholic sailor, while her silence-loving mother, who grew up on an isolated island with deaf parents, worries deeply about her. Early on in the story we get the distinct impression that our narrator is not deemed 'normal' by her peers, who call her all sorts of unflattering things. With nothing to do in her small town, and no one to do it with, she spends her time pining for a local alcoholic called Jude who is fifteen years her senior, and who refuses her amorous advances on the grounds that it would be wrong. As the story unfolds, Jude and the girl's relationship grows and changes, sometimes in unexpected ways.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013934</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lionel Shriver|title=We Need To Talk About Kevin|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Politicians continue to argue that the solution to social issues lies with the family, so it is timely that at the heart of Lionel Shriver's 2005 Orange Prize winning novel is the issue of nature vs nurture - what makes a person like he or she is? Is the eponymous Kevin born evil or is he influenced by his mother's coldness towards him. There are no clear answers and that's what gives this brave book, which tackles the taboos that some mothers don't bond with their children, such power.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687349</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Ben Okri|title=Tales ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of Freedom|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Tales of Freedom is a book of two halvestheir eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with a short story entitled Comic Destiny taking up tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the majority strange noise of the book. Comic Destiny is made up of a series of short pieces that follow on from each other and are probably best described buckets as being closer to prose poetry than anything elsehe filled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846041597</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Fernando Pessoa|title=How is that for an opening? The Book style of Disquiet|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you try to read 'The Book this novel in the form of Disquiet' interconnected short stories goes from cover succinct and laconic to coverwistful and musing, it is almost oppressively melancholicturning on a sixpence. Nothing much happensAnd author Marco North, and what we have is a collection of reveries and thoughts - almost a diary, but not quite - who has the most wonderful turn of existential musings about lifephrase, loneliness and the human condition. It's so introspective that after a while the monotony of the writer's mundane existence starts as he means to wear go on the reader. '''But''' I would urge you not to read this book like that. Rather, dip into it at random and you will find a work of undeniable genius. It's quite simply a masterpiece of modernist writing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687357</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanne PetersonDaisy Hildyard|title=Falling to HeavenEmergency|rating=4.5

|summary=Emma and Gerald Kittredge are either very brave or very naive. TheyThe summary of this book doesn've made the long journey from America t come close to Tibet. Hardly on explaining what is done with 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 morepremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>185168736X</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Carsten JensenSally Oliver |title=WeThe Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the Drownedother 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=In 1848Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, Laurids Madsen and other men of a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the smalltown expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of Marstal go to war to fight the Germans, and an explosionflings him up to heaven, as far as anyone can tellSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. But Lauridsreturns From the little I have read (in translation, claiming his sea boots were too heavy for him to stay upI don't read Spanish) there – only does seem to be lost to Marstal anyway, as he abandons his familyto sail a tendency towards the fantastical – the high seasmystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846550963</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matthew HootonJennifer Saint|title=Deloume RoadElektra

|summary=A tiny, rural community with a handful 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of characters is at three women who live in the heart heavily male dominated world of this novelAncient Greece. And the thing that binds them all together is Deloume Road. Hooton gives over every chapter (Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and some Elektra are very short) to one all bit players in the story of his characters - Irene, Andy, the butcherTrojan War. Each is very different from Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and the othermost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087657</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Trevor Byrne8409290103|title=Ghosts and LightningIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5

|summary=Denny comes home to Dublin from Wales after Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his mum dies suddenlyfather, and hangs around drinking and taking drugs with cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his sisteraccountant, her girlfriend Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and some a correspondence - of their matessorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, while it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he wonders what might be a danger to do with himselfhis wife and other children. There are some practical matters The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to sort out too, such as get the nasty older brother who owns their house and wants young man on his siblings outway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673309</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The BetrayalRed is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Andrei is a perceptive [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and deeply conscientious doctor, a young rheumatologist white and paediatrician working read in a Leningrad hospital just after the terrible siege, during the last days of Stalin’s dictatorshipmy house. He is as quick to notice symptoms in his colleagues as in his young patients. When he is approached by RussovAnd so was this one, a fellow physicianalthough I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, he registers his confrere’s pervading smell of fear. This and is all part of the pathology of the times; life as it is lived under a tyrannical dictatorship. A dictatorship determined to pursue a purge – 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 black and white and high ranking secret police officerred. Therapeutic failureYes, in all probability, could result in vengeance, arrest and devastating effects he has an artistic collaborator on Andrei’s loving wife Anna and her young adolescent brotherthis piece, Kolya.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490593</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mari Strachan|title=The Earth Hums in B Flat|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Choosing a child as the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence and imagination. To succeed is to convince the reader of events at two levels – the childI think it's world within the adult world surrounding her. The very best novels about childhood, like possible to say Harper Lee's classic, 'To Kill a Mockingbird', also reflect a wider cultural truth. In 'The Earth Hums in B Flat', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with their family secrets. If that sounds a bit tacky, fear not, because one page lacks the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet and sharp cornersinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip SingtonB098FFFBH9|title=The Einstein GirlSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=The two central characters Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are (and we've come across it many times before) producing a psychiatrist (competition entry to highlight the way in this case Kirsch) and his patient (known as the Einstein Girl) and hence which human beings exploit the novel's titleanimal world. The case She gets a great deal of this girl is intriguingsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, not least because both doctor and patient had accidentally met prior to her admission to hospital. Kirsch appears immediately smitten - which may be a problem. He's already spoken for. In a nutshelllecturer at Imperial College, London, the Einstein Girl has lost her memory. Kirsch finds more mother Kate and more of his professional time given over to her recoverytwin, back to mental well-beingNick. It becomes Kate runs the family business, a long and complicated journeytoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, for both which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of theminformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535793</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David MitchellYancey Williams|title=The Thousand Autumns Crosshairs of Jacob de Zoet|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The belly craves food, the tongue craves water, the heart craves love, and the mind craves stories.'  This is the book to satisfy that last craving. It is rich in stories from the graphic opening chapter to the poignant closing lines. Everyone has a tale to tell and even minor characters are fleshed out with histories that amuse, 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 Gianni, valet in a wealthy eighteenth century Venetian household. The master, a merchant, divides his time between Italy and Peru, where he deals in silver. But the merchant isn't the serpent - his son Minguillo is. On the night an earthquake ripped through Peru and deposited fanatical nun Sor Loreta at the convent in Arequipa, Minguillo was born - a serpent in his family's midst. His own mother couldn't bear to nurse him and his father went into denial, making more and more frequent trips to a South American home free of sociopathic progeny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>140880588X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elif Shafak|title=The Forty Rules of LoveDevil

|summary=This Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is a sixth novel from best-selling Turkish author, Elif Shafak. Set getting on in twelfth century Anatoliayears and, two famous characters from Islamic history meet in a gorgeously real world. A delicate contemporary US love story is wrapped around the rich, meaty historical fiction. Don't be misled by the dodgy-sounding title!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918733</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rebecca Goldstein|title=36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction |rating=2|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='Atheist with a Soul' Cass Seltzer has achieved sudden celebrity despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his new bestselling book. This has led to a job offer from Harvarddaughter, and he waits for his girlfriend to returnfinds himself living - or imprisoned, while thinking back on past experiences. Most from Eddie's point of these experiences involved his old mentor Professor Klapper, an exview -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-room 315 of-conclusion as Cass debates the existence Garden of God Eden nursing home, with Nobel laureate Felix Fidleyonly a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871538</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lorrie Moore|title=A Gate At The Stairs|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=BassNothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-playing, 20 yearin-old Tassie Keltjin is studying an eclectic range trade of subjects (Geology, British Literaturewriting though, Sufismso here, Soundtracks to War Movies and Wine Tasting) in post 9/11 USA when she lands a job as a child minder for chefhis readers, 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 his wanderings through his life'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 beautifullys work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847081398</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barbara Kingsolver0008421714|title=The Lacuna|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ten years ago, Barbara Kingsolver's [[The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver|Poisonwood Bible]] revealed the grim politics in the Congo. The Lacuna has a similarly political theme, this time turning her focus on Mexico and the USA in the 1940s and 1950s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057125263X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMrs March|author=David Eagleman|title=Sum: Tales from the AfterlivesVirginia 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]]