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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carlos AlbaMatthew Tree|title=The Songs of Manolo EscobarWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5

|summary=Antonio is the second-born son to Spanish parents, living in Glasgow. He's embarrassed Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be anything other than Scottishdifferent from his father, a drunk and he tries everything to hide his family background from friends chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at school, refusing to speak Spanish with any of his parents artistic passions all failed miserably and struggling to forge his own identity in life. In his middle age, he suddenly finds his life falling apart around him as his marriage begins to fail and his increasingly frail father becomes obsessed with the proper burial who had endless crises of his parents back in Spainself confidence. Antonio continues So Tim applied himself to play a rather emotionally distant part in his parents' livesstudies, but then finds himself drawn further and further into the truth about cultivated his father's past which, ultimately, leads him to question abilities rather than his own past daydreams and the path his future might takeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184697173X</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ann PatchettB0C47LV1PC|title=State of WonderFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54

|summary=Anders Eckman Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is dead. The news has been delivered in the form an aerogram – remember those blue paper-cum-envelope things we used to use to write to foreign pen-pals when question should you make it? Or is the notion of befriending a person question if you'd never met in a foreign country still seemed exoticdid, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.

This flimsy piece of paper was delivered to Eckman's employers. After all it was them that had sent him down to 'Fragility'' is set as the Brazilian Amazon city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to find the enigmatic and evasive Dr Annik Swenson, and more precisely find out exactly how she was getting on with developing emerge from the drug that was costing restrictions imposed during the firm so much of their research budget.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408818590</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean RhysMosby Woods|title=Wide Sargasso SeaA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=54

|summary=In The West isn't the late eighteen thirties dominant force it once was. Nobody in the father of an English gentleman conspires West is quite sure how to marry him off to a landed Jamaican Creole as a means mend this or even if mending it is the best course of giving his second son an estate and stopping him being action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a burden on the familypush for climate action there. Written A feeling that nobody is in the nineteen sixtiesactual charge. Imagine then, 'Wide Sargasso Sea' there was inspired by Rochester's first wife a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in ''Jane Eyre'', and is an impressionistic, hallucinatory account this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of that woman's alienation and subsequent descent into madness that can circumstances. That man would be read as a prequel to valuable, right? Perhaps the Bronte novelmost valuable asset in history. The book covers Antoinette's childhood in Jamaica and her honeymoon on a small Caribbean island with her new husband and their domestic servantsImagine then, and the point of view shifts between Antoinette and her husbandthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241951550</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Kennedy0571379559|title=The MomentHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=After I'd read 'The House of Broken Bricks'' is the blurb story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the back cover I gave a bit riverbank, built of a shrug broken bricks. Insubstantial as if to sayit might look, well, Iit've read quite a number s stood the passage of books recently where undying love has been found in war-torn Europetime, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, so was this book going struggles to be differentgrow his vegetables, or better? Thomas Nesbitt, middleto complete the delivery rounds -aged, disillusioned with love and more than a tad world-weary is trying to move on bring in his lifesufficient money. His marriage of more than twenty years is dissolving before his very eyesThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. But rather than being upset, heSonny's colouring reflects his mother's feeling as if a weight has been lifted from Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his shouldersfather. He and his wife were never really ''in lovePeople don't believe that they' in the true sense of the phrasere related, despite having a daughter together. And much less twins and there's a very good reason as to why Thomas an assumption when Max is like this and the rest of the book tells us why, warts and allout with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091795842</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aminatta FornaClaire North|title=The Memory House of LoveOdysseus

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The setting for this story is a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, soon after the government has declared an end to an 11 year civil war. How can people come to terms with the terrible things that have happened''What could matter more than love? Actually, can they come to terms with those things?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809656</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Jenn Ashworth|title=Cold Light|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The follow-up to the excellent ''Cold LightIthaca'' is picks up a few months after where we left off. In the story palace of three teenage girls Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who become involved in a predatory adult worldsailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the story opens we're looking back on what happened from a decade later and we know that one throne of the girls, Chloë, died in a Valentine's Day suicide pactWestern Isles. The town council has finally decided on a memorial Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Chloë – itIthaca's to be shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a summerhouse at fragile peace. One that shatters however with the side return of the pond where she drownedOrestes, although it's difficult to understand quite why anyone would want to sit there. The ground-breaking ceremony is being televised when it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But LolaKing of Mycenae, our narratorand his sister Elektra, knows that they've found a body. She also knows who it isseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444721445</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alain MabanckouKay Chronister|title=Broken GlassDesert Creatures|rating=3.54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=In the Congolese bar of Credit Gone WestWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, the owner Stubborn Snail wants a record of the lives of those who drink therepost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. The man he chooses to write Whether it? Disgraced schoolteacher Broken Glassis a robotic takeover, who fills up a notebook with the stories world devoid of the bar’s patrons – water or at least a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their versions most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of those talespost-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668675X</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=David BezmozgisEric LaRocca|title=The Free WorldTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Horror taps into something primeval within us. Itis 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's the late 1970's , whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and a family , by the end of Latvian Jews, the Krasnanskysstory, are emigrating from the Soviet Unionbeatable. TheyEric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There''re made to stay in Rome whilst they apply to live is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the States horrors of illness, grief and they find themselves trapped in a strange migratory limbo, belonging nowhere humiliation. Horrors that linger and tied are harder to no-one but each otherdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920053</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer EganMadelaine Lucas|title=A Visit From the Goon SquadThirst for Salt

|summary=Apparently there's a saying that 'time's a goon' - noLove, I'd never heard of it and read, was supposed to be faira light and weightless feeling, neither but I had the first character to whom it is said in Jennifer Eganalways longed for gravity's 'A Visit  Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the Goon Squad'year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, but together the narrator relives the affair with a pair of epigraphs man twenty years her senior from Proust, it's clear that time is very definitely what is being explored hereits inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Egan's subject area is all loosely based around Set against the music world. Her central character, if one can be said to exist, is Bennie Salazar, a music mogul who we encounter both directly and tangentially at various stages backdrop of his up and down career. an isolated Australian coastal town ''Goon SquadThirst for Salt'' is also details the title of an Elvis Costello track24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, continuing the music theme as Egan uses the music industry as a lens to examine timehow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849010331</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren LiebenbergMichael Grothaus|title=The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing ClubBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Best friends Tommy and Chris are 12 years old. It is 1958 ''But fearing something and they are growing up in a small mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa. They are learning having it come to box and to dance to rock and roll music.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084892</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James Frey|title=The Final Testament of the Holy Bible|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Rabbis say that all the signs pass are there from the birth of Ben Zion Avrohom that he is the Messiahtwo different things. That's a lot of anyone to cope with and, like Jesus, there's much of BenAnd I's early life that is untold here. When he is involved in an horrific accident on a building site that he miraculously survives, albeit with terrible scaring, the prophecies appear m willing to be true. He develops a form bet most of epilepsy during which he appears to speak to God. He is fluent in ancient languages despite what we fear will never learning themhappen, knows all the Holy books by heart and yet distains all forms of religion, instead spreading his message of love or we can take steps to all who meet him in modern day New Yorkchange it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543174</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Mirza Waheed|title=The Collaborator|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Collaborator ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of the title identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is our narratorartificial, a sensitive bookish young man. He is the son of the headman of a small village in a side valley of and whether the Kashmir. The heritage development of the people technology is that of nomads. The village has been settled for less than a generation. Everything they have has been built by the sheer hard graft of the people themselves… including the recently completed mosqueexciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918954</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan WarnerJennifer Saint|title=The Stars in the Bright SkyAtalanta|rating=45

|summary=In 1999, Alan Warner introduced us to a wonderful set of characters in 'The Sopranos' when a school choir from a backwater town in Scotland went I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on a trip to the big cityboard that ship, I vowed. Much debauchery ensued. 'The Stars I would take my place, not just in the Bright Sky' once again reunites most name of the original gang and there is no need to have read goddess. It was for the first book to pick up on the diverse characterssake of my name, too. Now though, theyAtalanta'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>}}

{{newreview|author=Elia Barcelo and David Frye (Translator)|title=The Goldsmith's Secret|rating=3Princess.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The Goldsmith's Secret' has a wonderfully romantic beginning; alone on a snowy night in New York, the craftsman is puzzling over how to tell his story, and how to separate reality from the overwhelming memories in his mindWarrior. Lover. Hero.

The romance continues as the story unfoldsAbandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, with Atalanta is raised under the goldsmith taking us back to protective eye of the town goddess Athemis and time of his youthfashioned into a formidable huntress, and one who longs for adventure. When the chance meeting that led him opportunity comes – to find join the love Argonauts, a fierce band of his life. Telling the tale of romance warriors, descendent from many perspectives, we learn the town of Villasanta has labelled his love, Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the mysterious Celia, as chance to fight in Artemis'name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a marked woman' whirlwind of challenges and discovery and the 'black widowthrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis'fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050052</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter SalmonAmanthi Harris|title=The Coffee StoryBeautiful Place

|summary=Teddy EverettPadma, head of Everett and Sons Coffee is dying, slowly and painfullya young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of cancerher home country. The Coffee Story This is his story, told in his own (very descriptive) wordsa place she spent her formative years. It goes from (although is not necessarily in this order) his childhood in Englanda place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, his adolescence in Ethiopia and then his the machinations that have flowed through her life in ever since she first arrived there provide the USA ''score'' for this gentle and Cubayet subtly violent novel. It Padma's his time in Cuba which has put him where he is now – in prison. For his crimes he would normally have suffered present fails to escape her past and much like the death penaltymusical score of a film, but his sentence was commuted because of his illness and now the doctors try to save him. Or perhaps it's that they're trying to persuade Teddy strand weaves its way through everything that they're trying to save him – whether he wants to be saved or nothappens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444724703</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Miller178563335X|title=PureSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=45

|summary=I've read MillerWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's ''Oxygen'' a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they''The Optimists'' so I was looking forward re held when you need to reading this novel. The story opens in the opulence of pick the Palace of Versailleschildren up. We are given vivid descriptions of both the scale of the palace Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and its grandeurher elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. JeanThelma's daughter-in-Baptiste Barattelaw won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the young engineerNorfolk coast, is a lovely place, seems completely overbut Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish -awed by and she's in awe of the whole occasionvicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Even although he's not entirely sure Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what is expected of him in Paris, he acceptsthey needed. He needs to eat, after allAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724258</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Enright1398515388|title=The Forgotten WaltzBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Anne Enright's 2007 Booker prize winning [[The Gathering by Anne Enright|The Gathering]] addressed First of all, it was the gloomy subjects of earthquake, deep in the three D's; deathocean floor, depression which created the tsunami and dysfunctional families. Her latest bookthis, ''The Forgotten Waltz'', set in Dublin in 2009turn, sees her turning her attentions to a love affaircaused the nuclear meltdown. A more uplifting subject you might think The result was complete and utter devastation. Well only up to a point The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The affair in question you see is fact that of her narrator, Gina, who is already married to many pets were separated from their owners came far down the generally good, if undynamic, Connor, while on the other end, the subject list of priorities but - six months after the affair is tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the older, Seán, also married and neighbour of Ginaconvenience store owner's sister. In case your moral compass isn't stretched quite enough by this, Seán comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and his wife Aileen, also have a young daughter who suffers from epilepsyTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408903X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leila Aboulela0989715337|title=Lyrics AlleyPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=The front cover photograph is eye-catching and lovely and has the appeal of saying to potential readers - read me. The book's title is both poetic and enigmatic. I was keen to get reading but before I could, I'm faced with a page listing the ''Principal Characters'' and another page setting out Some frogs had gotten into the Abuzeid family tree. It did put me off slightly, I have to admit. I tend to think that with a modern, average-paged work of fiction a list of characters is well, a list too far. So, yes, for the first couple of chapters I was constantly flicking back and forth to remind myself who everyone was. Not so good for those lazy readers out there, I'm thinking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297860097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shehan Karunatilaka|title=Chinaman|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|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 documentary, focusing on the mysterious Pradeep Mathew, 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 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 ''Walter stood waist- a rather self obsessed and aimless characterdeep in the fragrant water, who is less than honest with his family, using various friends to cover up naked except for his movementsbeaten leather hat. He has several daughters, and on learning that one is having problemsLong strands of their eggs wove around him, goes to visit her in London - and ends up staying sticky gray pearls with her, for several weeks, leaving both his (second) wife, tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the mother strange noise of this daughter (first wife), completely in the dark buckets 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 emergesfilled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090976</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Emma Henderson|title=Grace Williams Says it Loud|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Grace, aged eleven, How is sent that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to the Briar Mental Institute as her parents can no longer cope with her carewistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. She is befriended there by a young boy, DanielAnd author Marco North, who is epileptic and also has no arms after a terrible accident. Together we see the horrors most wonderful turn of life in the Briarphrase, and also their slowly growing love affair with each otherstarts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144470401X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roma TearneDaisy Hildyard|title=The SwimmerEmergency

|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 – and then she heard a noise downstairs. In this remote part of Suffolk it wasn't unusual to leave doors unlocked and the following morning she realised that a loaf of bread had been stolen. It was strange that she didn't really feel fear, but when the visits and minor thefts continued she waited up to catch the swimmer, who stole small amounts of food – and played the piano like an angel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007301596</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tea Obreht|title=The Tiger's Wife|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Téa Obreht's 'The Tiger's Wife' comes with a fair degree of hype from the US, and largely it lives up to it, which is no small achievement. The main story is set in Yugoslavia and explores a young doctor, Natalia, seeking for the truth about her grandfatherthis book doesn's death, while on a mission to deliver much needed medical aid t come close to an orphanage in the war-ravaged Balkans. But explaining what sets this book apart is the intricate weaving of reality done with the myths 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 the World War two bombing of Belgrade and who has settled near a remote mountain village where Natalia's grandfather 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 himselfpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297859013</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Graham SwiftSally Oliver |title=Wish You Were HereThe 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 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=I cannot tell you exactly how long after I finished Early comments on this book that I satdebut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, holding it, in stunned silence for - but it was light when a delight. I finished it and dark when I put it down. Some books can do that to you. This is one of them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330535838</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Burnside|title=The Summer of Drowning|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The story is narrated in will agree with the first person by the daughter – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a decade or so after delight' is perhaps using the tragedy. So, she has expression in a healthy dose of hindsight which shows itself time and time again way I'm not familiar with sentiments such as ... if only I'd have known back then ... and ...I thought it was a bit strange at to confess my ignorance of the time ... if you get Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my driftgeneralisation here. Burnside takes his time to set From the scene little I have read (spartanin translation, I don't read Spanish) and his characters (there does seem to be a mere handful). His chosen location is tendency towards the arresting emptiness of somewhere deep in fantastical – the Arctic Circle so straight away he's caught my imagination - with hismystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>022406178X</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Edward St AubynJennifer Saint|title=At LastElektra

|summary=In 'Elektra'At Last'', Edward St Aubyn returns to by Jennifer Saint tells the Melrose family, story of three women who live in the subject heavily male dominated world of both ''Some Hope'' Ancient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the story of his Booker-shortlisted [[Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn|Mother's Milk]]the Trojan War. I confess Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that I often the silent women have still not got around to reading the first of the trilogy, but loved ''Mother's Milk'' most compelling stories and found that I wasn't greatly disadvantaged by not having read the previous book. ''At Last'' could also be read as a stand-alone book, but I wouldn't advise this approach. You will miss out on so much that if you are planning on reading it, you really should read at least ''Mother's Milk'' first. This isn't much of an inconvenience as it's a terrific bookmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330435906</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Kay Davies8409290103|title=True Things About MeIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=Take Twenty-one benefit office worker; bored-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, listlessMr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a walking study in destructive human behaviourmonthly allowance. Add Patrick sent the money regularly and a recently releasedcorrespondence - 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't care for his son, jobless ex-con with it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a glint in danger to his eye wife and taste for masochismother children. Throw all caution The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the wind and collide these two ingredients by means of visceral, brutal and almost wordless sex in an underground car park and you have the opening chapters of Deborah Kay Davies's debut novelyoung man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678319</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine BrooksAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Caleb's CrossingRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Let's start, as Geraldine Brooks has, with a fact[[:Category: Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in 1665 the first Native American, Caleb Cheeshateaumauk, graduated from Harvard Collegemy house. Around And so was thisone, Brooks has created a wholly fictional story (the known facts are so few although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and 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 black and her brother to Harvard white and the subsequent eventsred.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007333536</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Lodge|title=GingerYes, You're Barmy|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jonathan is a few days away from completing his National Service. Within the week he will dash off to Majorca with his girlfriendhas an artistic collaborator on this piece, and who knows, he might even do more than chastely cup her breast under her clothing. But I think it's a bittersweet week for Jonathan, as he looks back on possible to say not one page lacks the beginnings influence of his two years spent most reluctantly in the army, and especially the time spent with his best companion, and his girlfriend's ex, Mikesome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554135</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David LodgeB098FFFBH9|title=A Man of PartsSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=The man of parts in question here Fourteen-year-old Rachel is HG Wells in this fictionalised biography. He was indeed her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a man of many talents and interests, although competition entry to highlight the parts that most exercise way in which human beings exploit the interest of David Lodge are the great author's private partsanimal world. You see, not only was HG She gets a prolific writer great deal of fiction that incorporated a staggering amount of visionary ideas (tankssupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, airborne warfare and atomic bombs) - although admittedly some of his ideas have yet to come to pass such as time machines and Martian invasion - but he was also something of a political philosopher and idealistlecturer at Imperial College, being a central figure for a while in the Fabian movementLondon, mother Kate and an ardent practitioner of the concept of free love.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554969</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=George Makana Clark|title=The Raw Man|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Prologue opens bang up to date: 2011her twin, Nick. The language is poeticKate runs the family business, liltinga toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, evocative but tinged with sadness and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Lots of unanswered questions hang in the air throughout. The location which is South Africa and section headings such as where we'The Earthworks of the Universell meet Rachel' and 'The Story-Ghost' give a flavour s main (if unsuspected) source of its contentsinformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090461</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Delphine de ViganYancey Williams|title=Underground TimeCrosshairs of the Devil

|summary=Mathilde Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is unhappy at work. More than just unhappy actuallygetting on in years and, because after expressing an opinion different despite his strenuous objections and thanks to her boss he has frozen her out his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the team and bullied her mentally and emotionally Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for monthspalatable company. Mathilde Nothing is a woman on the edge of breaking point, feeling increasingly browgoing to keep Eddie from his stock-in-beaten by both the demands trade of city life and her awful boss. Meanwhile Thibault is an emergency on-call doctorwriting though, racing from one district to another through the nightmares of Parisian trafficso here, unhappy in for his relationship and also strugglingreaders, mentally, to surviveare his wanderings through his life's work. Will today be the day that changes everything?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408811111</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Siri Hustvedt0008421714|title=The Summer Without MenMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|summary=Sometime The problem began just after Miathe publication of George March's husband of thirty years, Boris, suggests a marriage 'pause', Mia goes mad and finds herself in a psychiatric hospitalmost successful novel to date. Although this Brief Psychotic Disorder does not Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last long, she remains fragile and retreats page) seemed to the town in Minnesota where she was brought up and where her elderly mother still liveseither be reading it or had already done so. While Boris cavorts with Every day Mrs March went to the Pauselocal patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she struggles through was wrapping the summerbread, learning to live without him. She builds relationships with her mother''but isn't this the first time he's friends, with her neighbours and with based a group of teenage girls who form her creative writing class. character on you?'' Written in the first personShe mentioned that Johanna, the book catalogues principal character had 'her progress using these friendships, her past, her reading and her shrink, Dr S.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444710524</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edward Docx|title=The Devilmannerisms''s Garden|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Set on a research station in an unnamed Amazonian country (although by the indigenous tribes mentioned, Perhaps this is probably Peru), this first person narrative story is told by Dr Forlewould not have mattered, who has come to except for the area to study ants - specifically the strange phenomenon of a type of ant fact 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 Johanna is interrupted by the arrival whore 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 with the local goings on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330463500</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary Horlock|title=The Book of Lies|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Catherine Rozier is fifteen years old and she has a secret.  Secrets are Nantes - ''a big thing on Guernseyweak, the small Channel Isle that is only three miles across at one point with a population a little over 65plain,000 i.e. somewhat more than Hereforddetestable, considerably less than Lincolnpathetic, or about half that of Norwich or Preston. Unlike any of those townsunloved, Guernsey is an islandunloveable wretch. It is self-contained. It isn't just that everyone knows everyone else; they're almost certainly, quite closely, related.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678858</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Alexi Zentner|title=Touch|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Stephen, an Anglican priest is writing a story of three generations, a haunting tale of his childhood set in Sawgamet, an isolated clearing in the snowy forest expanse of North West Canada. It is the evening before his mother's funeral. One loss brings up earlier losses; relating this deeply poignant tale he relates the disastrous event of his father's attempts to rescue his sister, Marie, when Move on a skating expedition she falls through a dark hole in the thin ice at the turbulent confluence of two rivers. His terrified sister looks towards her father who plunges into 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 the hereafter. This love between Jeannot and Stephen's grandmother, Martine, and also that between Jeannot's brother 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 realism.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185465</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]