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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=Alan WarnerB0C47LV1PC|title=The Stars in the Bright SkyFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=In 1999, Alan Warner introduced us to Can you make a wonderful set of characters in ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The Sopranos' when a school choir from a backwater town in Scotland went on a trip to catch is that the big cityanswer for both could well be.... Much debauchery ensuedno.  ''Fragility'The Stars in ' is set as the Bright Sky' once again reunites most city of the original gang and there is no need Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to have read emerge from the first book to pick up on restrictions imposed during the diverse characters. Now though, they've grown up (or at least got older!) and are gathered at Gatwick Airport to set off on a girls' holiday.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009946182X</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elia Barcelo and David Frye (Translator)Mosby Woods|title=The Goldsmith's SecretA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=3.54

|summary='The GoldsmithWest isn's Secret' has a wonderfully romantic beginning; alone on a snowy night t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in New York, the craftsman West is puzzling over quite sure how to tell his storymend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, and how to separate reality from the overwhelming memories a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in his mindactual charge. The romance continues as the story unfoldsImagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the goldsmith taking us back to the town and time strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of his youthcircumstances. That man would be valuable, and right? Perhaps the chance meeting that led him to find the love of his lifemost valuable asset in history. Telling the tale of romance from many perspectivesImagine then, we learn the town of Villasanta has labelled his love, the mysterious Celia, as 'a marked woman' and the 'black widow'that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050052</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Salmon0571379559|title=The Coffee StoryHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=Teddy Everett, head ''The House of Everett and Sons Coffee Broken Bricks'' is dyingthe story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, slowly and painfullybut instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of cancerbroken bricks. The Coffee Story is his storyInsubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, told in his own (very descriptive) wordsstorms and floods. It goes from (although not necessarily in this order) Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his childhood in Englandvegetables, his adolescence to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in Ethiopia sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and then his life in Max, the USA and Cubarainbow twins. ItSonny's colouring reflects his time in Cuba which has put him where he is now – in prisonmother's Jamaican heritage. For Max takes after his crimes he would normally have suffered the death penalty, but his sentence was commuted because of his illness and now the doctors try to save himfather. Or perhaps itPeople don's t believe that they're trying to persuade Teddy related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that theyshe're trying to save him – whether he wants to be saved or nots his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724703</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Andrew Miller|title=Pure|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I've read MillerThe follow-up to the excellent 's 'Ithaca'Oxygen'' and ''The Optimists'' so I was looking forward to reading this novelpicks up a few months after where we left off. The story opens in In the opulence palace of the Palace of VersaillesOdysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. We are given vivid descriptions of both As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the scale throne of the palace Western Isles. Having survived – politically and its grandeur. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, physical – the young engineerchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, seems completely over-awed by Queen Penelope is on the whole occasionbrink of a fragile peace. Even although he's not entirely sure what is expected One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of him in ParisMycenae, he accepts. He needs to eatand his sister Elektra, after allseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444724258</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne EnrightKay Chronister|title=The Forgotten WaltzDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Anne Enright's 2007 Booker prize winning [[The Gathering by Anne Enright|The Gathering]] addressed the gloomy subjects With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of the three D's; deathwater or a nuclear holocaust, depression and dysfunctional familiesthis genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Her latest book, ''The Forgotten WaltzDesert Creatures'', set in Dublin in 2009, sees her turning her attentions to by Kay Chronister is a love affair. A more uplifting subject you might think. Well only up to a point. The affair in question you see is new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of her narrator, Gina, who is already married to the generally good, if undynamic, Connor, while on the other end, the subject of the affair fears that exist for humanity today. It is the older, Seán, also married and neighbour of Gina's sister. In case your moral compass isn't stretched quite enough by this, Seán and his wife Aileen, also have a young daughter who suffers from epilepsyshocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>022408903X</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Leila AboulelaEric LaRocca|title=Lyrics AlleyThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=The front cover photograph Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is eye-catching used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and lovely how we as humans react and has the appeal of saying to potential readers - read meprocess them. The bookMost horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad''s title , whether that is both poetic a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and enigmatic, by the end of the story, beatable. I was keen to get reading but before I could, IEric LaRocca'm faced with a page listing the s ''Principal CharactersThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' and another page setting out the Abuzeid family treeis not like that. It did put me off slightly, I have to admit. I tend to think that with is a modern, average-paged work collection of fiction a list short stories more interested in the horrors of characters is wellillness, a list too fargrief and humiliation. So, yes, for the first couple of chapters I was constantly flicking back Horrors that linger and forth are harder to remind myself who everyone was. Not so good for those lazy readers out there, Idefeat than any ''Big Bad''m thinking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297860097</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shehan KarunatilakaMadelaine Lucas|title=ChinamanThirst for Salt

|summary=After the 1996 World Cup, dying sports journalist WG Karunasena decides that the world needs 'a half decent documentary on Sri Lankan cricket'. He sets out to make the said documentaryLove, focusing on the mysterious Pradeep MathewI'd read, the 1980's spin bowler he considers to have been his country's greatest ever player. But Mathew disappeared some time ago and everywhere Karunasena turns he is faced with more complications as he tries to find out more on what happened was supposed to him…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409145X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tessa Hadley|title=The London Train|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Part one focuses on Paul - be a rather self obsessed light and aimless character, who is less than honest with his family, using various friends to cover up his movements. He has several daughters, and on learning that one is having problems, goes to visit her in London - and ends up staying with herweightless feeling, but I had always longed for several weeks, leaving both his (second) wife, and the mother of this daughter (first wife), completely in the dark as to what is happening. Initially we feel that he is acting in a protective manner towards his daughter, who is struggling to come to terms with her pregnancy - but in fact his motives are far less altruistic, thereby alienating the reader from his tale. The squalor in which her daughter is living, would appal most parents - yet he seems to take it all in his stride, and attempts to join the hippy-style commune - yet more irritation with this deeply flawed character therefore emerges.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090976</amazonuk>}}gravity''

{{newreview|author=Emma Henderson|title=Grace Williams Says it Loud|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=GraceTold from a retrospective view, aged elevena young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, is sent to the Briar Mental Institute as her parents can no longer cope narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her care. She is befriended there by a young boy, Daniel, who is epileptic and also has no arms senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after a terrible accident. Together we see Set against the horrors backdrop of life in an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the Briar24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and also their slowly growing love affair with each otherfamilial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144470401X</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roma TearneMichael Grothaus|title=The SwimmerBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ria, solitary, middle-aged poet, was idly watching the river one night when she saw a swimmer. It wasn't just the time of day which was unusual, but the river was hardly clean – 'But fearing something and then she heard a noise downstairshaving it come to pass are two different things. In this remote part of Suffolk it wasnAnd I't unusual m willing to leave doors unlocked and the following morning she realised that a loaf bet most of bread had been stolen. It was strange that she didn't really feel what we fearwill never happen, but when the visits and minor thefts continued she waited up or we can take steps to catch the swimmer, who stole small amounts of food – and played the piano like an angelchange it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007301596</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Tea Obreht|title=The Tiger's Wife|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Téa Obreht's Beautiful Shining People'The Tiger's Wife' comes with a fair degree revolves around the question of hype from the US, identity and largely acceptance. Of what it lives up means to it, which is no small achievementbe human. The main story Of what is set in Yugoslavia real and explores a young doctor, Natalia, seeking for the truth about her grandfather's death, while on a mission to deliver much needed medical aid to an orphanage in the war-ravaged Balkans. But what sets this book apart is the intricate weaving of reality with the myths artificial, and stories of the region. In particular there are two myths that represent a good chunk of the page count: the story of a tiger who has escaped from captivity after whether the World War two bombing development of Belgrade and who has settled near a remote mountain village where Natalia's grandfather technology is growing up, and who develops a strange relationship with a deaf-mute girl who becomes known as 'the tiger's wife'; and a mysterious story of the 'Deathless Man' whom the grandfather encounters at various points in his life who appears to have the power to foresee others' death without being able to die himselfexciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297859013</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham SwiftJennifer Saint|title=Wish You Were HereAtalanta

|summary=''I cannot tell you exactly how long after was as worthy as any one of them. I finished this book would get on board that ship, I sat, holding itvowed. I would take my place, not just in stunned silence the name of the goddess. It was for - but it was light when I finished it and dark when I put it down. Some books can do that to you. This is one the sake of themmy name, too.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330535838</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''

{{newreview|author=John Burnside|title=The Summer of Drowning|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The story is narrated in the first person by the daughter a decade or so after the tragedyPrincess. So, she has a healthy dose of hindsight which shows itself time and time again with sentiments such as Warrior.Lover.Hero. if only I'd have known back then ... and ...I thought it was a bit strange at the time ... if you get my drift. Burnside takes his time to set the scene (spartan) and his characters (a mere handful). His chosen location is the arresting emptiness of somewhere deep in the Arctic Circle so straight away he's caught my imagination - with his.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022406178X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Edward St Aubyn|title=At Last|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In ''At Last''Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Edward St Aubyn returns to Atalanta is raised under the Melrose family, protective eye of the subject of both ''Some Hope'' goddess Athemis and of his Booker-shortlisted [[Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn|Mother's Milk]]fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. I confess that I have still not got around When the opportunity comes – to reading join the first Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the trilogy, but loved ''Mother's Milk'Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and found that I wasn't greatly disadvantaged by not having read the previous bookcarve out her own legendary place in history. ''At Last'' could also be read as What follows is a stand-alone bookwhirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, but I wouldnAtalanta must remember Artemis't advise this approach. You will miss out on so much fatal warning: that if you are planning on reading itshe marries, you really should read at least ''Mother's Milk'' first. This isn't much of an inconvenience as it's a terrific bookwill be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330435906</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah Kay DaviesAmanthi Harris|title=True Things About MeBeautiful Place|rating=4.5

|summary=Take one benefit office worker; boredPadma, listlessa young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a walking study in destructive human behaviourplace she spent her formative years. Add It is not a recently releasedplace she was born into, jobless ex-con with a glint in his eye and taste for masochismbut the one she thinks of as home. Throw all caution How she came to be at the wind and collide these two ingredients by means of visceralVilla, how it became her home, brutal and almost wordless sex in an underground car park and you the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the opening chapters of Deborah Kay Davies''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's debut novelpresent fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847678319</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Geraldine Brooks178563335X|title=Caleb's Crossing|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Let's start, as Geraldine Brooks has, with a fact: in 1665 the first Native American, Caleb Cheeshateaumauk, graduated from Harvard College. Around this, Brooks has created a wholly fictional story (the known facts are so few that this is largely unavoidable). The stroke of genius here is to put the story into the words of the entirely fictitious Bethia Mayfield, the daughter of an English minister on what we now call Martha's Vinyard, where Caleb lived in the Wampanoag tribe. At various points in her life, Bethia sets down events concerning her early secret friendship with Caleb on the island, to accompanying him and her brother to Harvard and the subsequent events.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007333536</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=David Lodge|title=Ginger, You're BarmyHilary Taylor|rating=4.5

|summary=Jonathan is When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a few days away from completing his National ServicePCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Within the week he will dash off to Majorca with his girlfriendHer husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and who knowsher elder brother, Jamie, he might even do more than chastely cup whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her breast under see her clothinggrandson. But it's Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a bittersweet week for Jonathanlovely place, as he looks back on but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the beginnings parish - and she's in awe of his two years spent most reluctantly in the armyvicar, and especially the time spent with his best companionGail, and his girlfriendbut then she's ex, Mikebeen doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554135</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Lodge1398515388|title=A Man of PartsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=The man First of parts all, it was the earthquake, deep in question here is HG Wells the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in this fictionalised biographyturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. He The result was indeed a man of many talents complete and interestsutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, although and the parts that most exercise the interest loss of David Lodge are the great author's private partslivelihoods was widespread. You see, not only was HG a prolific writer of fiction The fact that incorporated a staggering amount many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of visionary ideas (tanks, airborne warfare and atomic bombs) priorities but - although admittedly some of his ideas have yet to come to pass such as time machines and Martian invasion six months after the tsunami - but he was also something of Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a political philosopher and idealist, being dog outside a central figure for convenience store. He wasn't a while in dog person but the Fabian movement, convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and an ardent practitioner of Tamon the concept of free lovedog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554969</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=George Makana Clark0989715337|title=The Raw ManPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=The Prologue opens bang up to date: 2011. The language is poetic, lilting, evocative but tinged with sadness and sets the tone for ''Some frogs had gotten into the rest of the bookwell. Lots of unanswered questions hang in the air throughout. The location is South Africa and section headings such as 'The Earthworks of the Universe' and 'The Story-Ghost' give a flavour of its contents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090461</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Delphine de Vigan|title=Underground Time|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mathilde is unhappy at work. More than just unhappy actually''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, because after expressing an opinion different to her boss he has frozen her out of the team and bullied her mentally and emotionally naked except for monthshis beaten leather hat. Mathilde is a woman on the edge Long strands of breaking pointtheir eggs wove around him, feeling increasingly brow-beaten by both sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the demands of city life opening and her awful boss. Meanwhile Thibault is an emergency on-call doctor, racing from one district to another through barked down at the nightmares strange noise of Parisian traffic, unhappy in his relationship and also struggling, mentally, to survivethe buckets as he filled them. Will today be the day that changes everything?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408811111</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Siri Hustvedt|title=How is that for an opening? The Summer Without Men|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Sometime after Mia's husband style of this novel in the form of thirty years, Boris, suggests a marriage 'pause', Mia interconnected short stories goes mad and finds herself in a psychiatric hospital. Although this Brief Psychotic Disorder does not last long, she remains fragile from succinct and retreats laconic to the town in Minnesota where she was brought up wistful and where her elderly mother still lives. While Boris cavorts with the Pausemusing, she struggles through the summer, learning to live without himturning on a sixpence. She builds relationships with her mother's friendsAnd author Marco North, with her neighbours and with a group of teenage girls who form her creative writing class. Written in has the first personmost wonderful turn of phrase, the book catalogues her progress using these friendships, her past, her reading and her shrink, Dr Sstarts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444710524</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edward DocxDaisy Hildyard|title=The Devil's GardenEmergency|rating=3.54

|summary=Set on a research station in an unnamed Amazonian country (although by the indigenous tribes mentioned, The summary of this is probably Peru), this first person narrative story is told by Dr Forle, who has book doesn't come close to the area to study ants - specifically the strange phenomenon of a type of ant that appear to destroy their own environment. It's sort of ants on the deck in the jungle, if you like. However the scientific study explaining what is interrupted by the arrival of an army colonel and a judge, who at least on the surface of things is there to organize the registration of the local tribes. However when the doctor witnesses a clear act of violence by the soldiers accompanying the colonel, he becomes more engaged done with the local goings onpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330463500</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Mary HorlockSally Oliver |title=The Book Weight of LiesLoss |rating=34 |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|rating=5

|summary=Catherine Rozier is fifteen years old and she has Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a secretdelight.  Secrets are a big thing on Guernsey, I will agree with the small Channel Isle that first – tremendous is only three miles across at one point with no understatement – but 'a population delight' is perhaps using the expression in a little over 65,000 i.e. somewhat more than Hereford, considerably less than Lincoln, or about half that of Norwich or Prestonway I'm not familiar with. Unlike any I have to confess my ignorance of those towns, Guernsey is an island. It is selfthe Spanish-containedlanguage literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. It isnFrom the little I have read (in translation, I don't just that everyone knows everyone else; they're almost certainly, quite closely, relatedread Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847678858</amazonuk>0861541901

  {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexi ZentnerJennifer Saint|title=TouchElektra|rating=3.54

|summary=Stephen, an Anglican priest is writing a 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three generations, a haunting tale of his childhood set in Sawgamet, an isolated clearing women who live in the snowy forest expanse heavily male dominated world of North West Canada. It is the evening before his mother's funeralAncient Greece. One loss brings up earlier losses; relating this deeply poignant tale he relates the disastrous event of his father's attempts to rescue his sisterCassandra, MarieClytemnestra, when on a skating expedition she falls through a dark hole and Elektra are all bit players in the thin ice at story of the turbulent confluence of two riversTrojan War. His terrified sister looks towards her father who plunges into Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the water and both perish in a catastrophe. Consequently, Stephen is to struggle with for many years to in some way to come to terms with this severe trauma. His grandfather, Jeannot, a resilient settler is a stalwart figure who keeps returning protectively into Stephen's life in order to resurrect his own lost love, Martine from silent women have the hereafter. This love between Jeannot and Stephen's grandmother, Martine, and also that between Jeannot's brother most compelling stories and future wife blossom through magical events involving the metamorphosis of gold, trees and mountains which move, and malevolent 'qualuplillumits' ogres from a richly various panoply of magical realismmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701185465</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Yoko Ogawa8409290103|title=Hotel IrisIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5

|summary=When I read [[The Housekeeper and the Professor Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by Yoko Ogawa|The Housekeeper and his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the Professor]] by Ogawa I fell completely in love with young man got on board the bookboat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. It was gentle, Patrick sent the money regularly and beautifully writtena correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn'Hotel Iris't care for his son, it was that he didn' is very, very different and really ought t care to have him in this country where he might be a warning label on the cover for those who simply recognise the author's name danger to his wife and pick it up hoping for more! other children. This is The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the story of a seventeen year old girl who is seduced by an old young man in a sadistic, distressing manneron his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548992</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin AmisAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Pregnant WidowRed is My Heart

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The bulk of ''The Pregnant Widow'' is set [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in the summer of 1970 in a beautiful Italian castle where the almost 21 year old Keith Nearingmy house. And so was this one, an English Literature studentalthough I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, has come to spend the summer with his on/off girlfriend Lily and her more physically attractive best friend Scheherazade. Amongst the other attendees are a gay coupleis, a short Italian suitor to the ample chested Scheherezade who is waiting for the arrival of her boyfriend black and, critically for the story the ample bottomed Gloria white and eventually her rich boyfriendred. If this all sounds like one of those enviously indulgentYes, middle class, sex filled summer of love stories, then partly it is, but he has an artistic collaborator on this being Martin Amispiece, there's a lot more depth and sadness attached to the story. ItI think it's an investigation into the changing roles of females and particularly their attitudes possible to sex, and for Keith in particular, say not one page lacks the long term implications influence of this idyllic vacation are not going to be happy and Amis provides a 'what happened next' to bring each of his characters up to present daysome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099488736</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louise WelshB098FFFBH9|title=Naming the BonesSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=Murray Watson Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a Doctor of English Literature embarking on a year-long sabbatical competition entry to pursue his long-held dream of writing highlight the way in which human beings exploit the definitive biography animal world. She gets a great deal of Archie Lunan support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate andher twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, as a specifically intended by-producttoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, restore Lunanwhich is where we'll meet Rachel's poetry to its rightful place in the high canon main (if unsuspected) source of Scots creativityinformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847672566</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicole KraussYancey Williams|title=Great HouseCrosshairs of the Devil

|summary=''Great House'' Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is unashamedly literary getting on in style years and while undoubtedly not everyone's cup of tea, it's hard not despite his strenuous objections and thanks to admire the cleverness of Krauss. It also covers such broad issues that ithis daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's not the easiest point of books to sum up view - in a few words. Certainly, to enjoy this book you will need to have a tolerance for cerebral fiction. You will also need to appreciate the role room 315 of the book in commenting on aspects Garden of the human condition rather than just telling Eden nursing home, with only a good story. This is most certainly not a plot driven book. You should also be prepared that the stories told are unremittingly darktrusty nursing aide, sadJenkins, and almost oppressively depressingfor palatable company. But while all of this sounds negative, the payoff Nothing is a book going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of exceptional cleverness and shot through with lovely and often beautifully observed writing about the human condition and in particular about memory. It would be wrong to say that it's cerebral with no heart: there's plenty of emotional heart though, so here, but unless you buy into the cerebral gamefor his readers, then itare his wanderings through his life's a book that will infuriate you before you reach itwork.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670919322</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruta Sepetys0008421714|title=Between Shades of Gray|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The central character, a teenage girl called Lina: her younger brother and mother are being forced from their home. All is confusion, suspicion and fear but they obey orders anyway. To disobey would be to lose their lives. Torture or murder - or both. Unthinkable. The small family unit of three mix with many other families caught up in this situation. They collect in the streets and are rounded up - like sheep. It will be some time before any of them feel remotely like human beings. Their names are on some sort of 'list'. Even a young mother who has just given birth, is manhandled on to the waiting transport.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141335882</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMrs March|author=Gail Jones|title=Five BellsVirginia Feito|rating=4.5

|summary=It is a lovely sunny The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day in Circular QuayMrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, a tourist hotspot in SydneyPatricia asked, Australia. This novel is about as she was wrapping the thoughts and memories of four peoplebread, three women and ''but isn't this the first time he's based a man who visit character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the place that dayprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. None are locals. Ellie and James were teenage lovers in Western Australia Perhaps this would not have mattered, and are meeting up again after not seeing each other except for years. Catherine has recently come to the city from Ireland. Pei Xing fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a Chinese immigrantweak, plain, now settled in Sydney. The novel is full of descriptive visual imagery from the first page onwardsdetestable, pathetic, unloved, and it is significant that three of the four characters are seeing Circular Quay for the first timeunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554020</amazonuk>''

{{newreview|author=Philippe Claudel and Euan Cameron|title=Monsieur Linh and His Child|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=From a war-ravaged country a bit like a Vietnam or a Cambodia an old man carries the fragile frame of his granddaughter aboard a refugee's ship, staring at the receding horizon all the weeks it takes Move on to arrive at a city a bit like a Seattle or a New York. He and she are given the basics of a new life together but it's up to him, Monsieur Linh, to find friendship, which he does, accepting uncomprehendingly the chatty company of a fellow mourner called Bark.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694990</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kathleen Winter|title=Annabel|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The back cover blurb has praise for this debut novel from two of my favourite authors: [[:Category:Joseph O'Connor|Joseph O'Connor]] and [[:Category:A L Kennedy|A L KennedyNewest Paranormal Reviews]] so things were definitely off to a good start. The front cover is rather unsettling (as it's meant to be) - some may say disturbing: it's of an adolescent, but neither male nor female but rather a fusion of the two sexes. And the question is right up there before I've even opened the book - how would such an individual (and family members and society as a whole) deal and interact with such a person. It's not an easy question to answer, if I'm honest.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091271</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Karen Russell|title=Swamplandia!|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ava Bigtree is a teenage alligator wrestler. Her older sister Ossie is in love with a ghost. They have grown up on a Florida island theme park with their parents, their grandfather and their big brother Kiwi. Now though, all they have known is threatened. Their mother Hilola was the star attraction, but she died a few months before, not in the jaws of an alligator but of ovarian cancer. As well as being the glamorous figure on billboards who everyone came to see, she ran the show and did all the jobs that needed to be done, and the family is lost without her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118602X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Allen Ginsberg|title=Howl: A Graphic Novel|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=I first came across Howl as a short film animating one of Ginsberg's own recordings of it. If memory serves, it was a scratchy, jazzy piece, full of spiky, spunky shapes and movements, and low on colour. Now for 2011 and for Penguin Modern Classics' first ever 'graphic novel' comes a very different animation. OK, the real moving animation is only to be seen in the movie Howl, but to call this merely an illustrated companion to the film is to be very unflattering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141195703</amazonuk>}}