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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alistair MacLeodMatthew Tree|title=No Great MischiefWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5

|summary=No Great Mischief is a novel which captures the essence of belonging and the need Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a part of one's history. This is the story of a small part of Clann Calum Ruadh, the people of Red Calum, emigrants to Canada. It sweeps from contemporary Toronto to evoke Cape Breton in the fifties and back to the clearances of Scottish history. MacLeod tells the tale with the dignity drunk and stature chronic underachiever whose dreams of an ancient myth, holding up to our gaze what it means to be a part being exceptional at any of a race, a family and a place. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099283921</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Giraldi|title=Busy Monsters|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian. He's proved it to us, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat instead. But lo artistic passions all failed miserably and behold, she's declared she's off to discover the real love who had endless crises of her life - the giant squidself confidence. Failing So Tim applied himself to stop thishis studies, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessive, then goes on a hunt of cultivated his own - for Bigfoot, all the while, chapter by chapter, sending abilities rather than his narrative of the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columnsdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Colson WhiteheadB0C47LV1PC|title=Zone OneFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=This beautiful, slim volume has won no less than six literary prizes. Murgia paints an early and evocative picture of the young central characterCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, Maria as she makes mud tarts. But this innocent activity is about to come to an abrupt halt. Her birth mother struggles to feed and clothe all her children (Maria is the fourth child and question should you make it? Or is really a nuisance) so when an opportunity arises which 'solves the problem of Maria' question if you likedid, then she grabs would it with land? The catch is that the answer for both handscould well be. Maria is quickly and rather unceremoniously adopted by an older woman who just happens to be a widow. She has no children of her own and seems to lead a rather lonely, insular life. She is old enough to be a grandmother, let alone a mother. Will she be able to cope with a noisy youngster under her roof? You wonder why she'd want to take in a raggedy child, or any child for that matter, in the first placeno. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050451</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Khaled Hosseini|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A confession. If there's one book I'm not likely to read, itFragility''s that which everyone else is reading. If it turns into a hugely popular film for all set as the left-wing chattering classes to rave overcity of Portland, Oregon, then that's just more grist cautiously begins to my mill – I'll always have a chance to catch up on it later on, even if I never take that opportunity. I'm not alone in acting like this – see a friend and colleague's similar admission when reviewing [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith]]. But at least, through the medium of emerge from the graphic novel, restrictions imposed during the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I'm missing, with this adaptation, by Italian artists, of a hugely successful – and therefore delayable – novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815257</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonMosby Woods|title=Lord of MisruleA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=The West Virginia, 1970. Weisn're at a rundown race track, of t the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living dominant force it once was. Nobody in, with the occasional race West is quite sure how to interrupt mend this or even if mending it is the boredombest course of action. Into things comes a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeingGovernments are flailing. His girlfriend is A war here too to help out, and naively eager a push for success and knowledgeclimate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all beforethere was a man with precognition. Also Imagine the strategic advantage in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing this asset; a man who is doing can tell you what and how races are going to will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be run and wonvaluable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joan Leegant0571379559|title=Wherever You GoThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45

|summary=Religion kicks off this book''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, even before she lives in the first pagehouse on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. The title is from a Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage from the Book of Ruthtime, storms and floods. The only female central characterHer husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, Yona is travelling from her home to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in America to visit her sister sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and large familyMax, the rainbow twins. SheSonny's not really looking forward to it. Shecolouring reflects his mother's nervousJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. The two sisters live very different lives People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and haventhere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she't seen each other for a decade. Leegant tells us all about the massive rift in their relationships his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393339890</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Charles Frazier|title=Nightwoods|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you have read Charles FrazierThe follow-up to the excellent ''s Ithaca'Cold Mountain'picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, or indeed seen the filmwith delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then you'll have a fair idea what to expect from his latest offering - 'Nightwoods'by divine intervention never returned home. As with 'Cold Mountain', ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the landscape throne of the Appalachians is Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the dominant characterchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, this time set in Queen Penelope is on the 1950sbrink of a fragile peace. He even manages to get his requisite bear into One that shatters however with the story although thankfully it fares rather better than the unfortunate beast in his first book. The darkreturn of Orestes, oppressing majesty and beauty King of the mountains Mycenae, and woods pervades the whole storyhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444731246</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shuichi YoshidaKay Chronister|title=VillainDesert Creatures|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=WellWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, I suppose I'd better begin with the bad which was there were moments at the start of this novel when I thought I couldn't possibly read post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it right to the end. It's written in such is a stiltedrobotic takeover, factual style with details about the road networks a world devoid of the local area and exactly how much anyone pays for anything they eat water or buy or rent! Faceda nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for example, with the paragraph humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures''cars setting out from Nagasaki by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that take aligns many of the pass road to save money take the Nagasaki Expressway from Nagasaki to Omura, then to Higashi-Sonogi and Takeo, and get off at the Saga Yamato interchangefears that exist for humanity today. Intersecting this east-west Nagasaki Expressway at the interchange It is Route 263'' I thought I'd never manage a shocking novel that still manages to read more than a couple of lines before falling asleep! Still, I persisted and actually, I'm glad I didfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099526654</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Mike FrenchEric LaRocca|title=The Ascent of Isaac StewardTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=35|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Isaac Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is married used as a way to Rebekahreflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. They have sonsMost horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', Esau whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and Jacob, naturallyby the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There '' is not like that. It is a half-brother Ishmael and a back-story collection of marital betrayal and short stories more interested in the out-casting horrors of sonsillness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956881017</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=A PortsmouthMadelaine Lucas|title=The Beautiful Torment of a DreamThirst for Salt|rating=35

|summary=This is a beautifully presented book with its enigmatic front cover and equally enigmatic title. After reading the blurb on the back cover ''Love, I 'd read, was left with supposed to be a light and weightless feeling of wishy-washiness however, as regards the storyline. Unfortunately, the contents confirmed this but I had always longed for me.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956493602</amazonuk>}}gravity''

{{newreview|author=Kevin Wilson|title=The Family Fang|rating=4Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang and Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to this - her film actress career is on its sorrowful end the rocks with summer after. Set against the kind backdrop of selfan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he year- well, heold narrator's here because of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at homedeepening relationship with her older lover, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents depicting its all- without much planningconsuming nature, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed to enact a point of life or just cause havochow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreview|author=Philip Roth|title=Nemesis|rating=4''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=1944, Newark, New JerseyOf what it means to be human. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, Of what is gym teacher real and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there isartificial, and nobody knows what whether the development of technology is causing itexciting or frightening. Is it flies? Is it a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom WolfeJennifer Saint|title=A Man in FullAtalanta

|summary=I'll hold my hands up right now and say that no, 'I haven't read Wolfe's much-acclaimed [[The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe|The Bonfire was as worthy as any one of the Vanities]]them. I've heard a lot about itwould get on board that ship, over the years, in newspapers etc that I almost feel that I ''have'' read it, mind youvowed. So I'm really pleased to have the chance to read this much-awaited novel. At a stonking 700+ pages most of which are packed tight with Wolfe's particular style of prose, It's a veritable feast for readers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554771</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=J M Coetzee|title=Scenes From Provincial Life|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='Scenes from Provincial Life' is a compilation of JM Coetzee's three fictionalised memoirs: 'Boyhood' first published in 1997would take my place, 'Youth' published in 2002 and [[Summertime by J M Coetzee|Summertime]] published not just in 2009. In one sense they clearly belong together in this single edition and yet they were initially published separately. What strikes the reader name of this compilation is the change in style and focus of the third book in goddess. It was for the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554853</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Henning Mankell|title=Daniel|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A young Hans Bengler has decided to leave his homeland sake of Sweden and make an expedition across the inhospitable Kalahari Desert. Brave - or extremely foolish. I'm sticking with the latter. My reasons are that Bengler is portrayed by Mankell as a rather dullmy name, insular and unimaginative young man. He doesn't really get along with his family (such as they are) nor does he seem to have many friendstoo. ItAtalanta's also plain that he's desperate to leave his cold Sweden for warmer climes. But at what cost?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009948143X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Mohammed Hanif|title=Our Lady of Alice Bhatti|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Alice is nervousPrincess. She's being interviewed for a job at the local hospitalWarrior. Even although her nursing skills are far from ideal, she believes she's in with a shoutLover. She presents herself at her charming best and it seems to workHero. She's now employed and earning some much-needed money. She knows she'll have to work really hard and probably long hours too. The hospital in question is in downtown Karachi: a seething mass of patients many of whom have no choice but to lie in corridors etc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224082051</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Evelio Rosero|title=Good Offices|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Here is a church in Bogota nobody seems to want to leave. In part one it is a large group of the elderly, given a weekly, tasteless meal from the charitable funds, but bitterly refusing to quit the place, making our main character Tancredo fear for his passivity. In part two it is the congregation, as a rare need for a stand-in priest seems to be a blessing. And in part three it is that priest himself, stuck among the household of Tancredo, the girl who loves him, and chorus of three weird old women.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050672</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Barry Unsworth|title=The Quality of Mercy|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The Quality of Mercy' picks up Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the story protective eye of the author's Booker Prize-winning 'Sacred Hunger' although if you haven't read the first bookgoddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, you won't be greatly disadvantaged as one who longs for adventure. When the relevant story lines are explained. What you might miss out on is some of opportunity comes – to join the feeling for Argonauts, a few fierce band of the main characterswarriors, most notably the Irish fiddler, Sullivan who, when this book picks up in spring 1767, has just escaped descendent from prison where the remaining shipmates of the slave ship, Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis'Liverpool Merchant' await their trial of piracyname and carve out her own legendary place in history. Slavery and abolition thereof remains What follows is a central theme whirlwind of this sequelchallenges and discovery and through it, but the book draws some poignant similarities with those in bondage due to povertyAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, and particularly those working in the coal mines of County Durhamit will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091937124</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zadie SmithAmanthi Harris|title=White TeethBeautiful Place

|summary=Some books sneak up Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on youthe southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. Others are thrown at you from every corner It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of the media as home. How she came to be at the extent that you almost make a conscious decision NOT to read themVilla, or at leasthow it became her home, not and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yetsubtly violent novel. Let Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the furore die down. If they're still around in musical score of a few yearsfilm, your subconscious whispers, maybe we'll go see what all that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the fuss was aboutVilla. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241954576</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Ondaatje178563335X|title=The Cat's TableSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=For When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the first half or so of this bookchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, which sees an 11 collects six-year -old boy called Michael (or Mynah to his friends) leave his home of Ceylon to travel to school in EnglandHannah and her elder brother, Jamie, I wasn't really sure if it even had whilst Rachel holds a plotsobbing parishioner. Focusing on his journey in the 1950 Thelma's aboard the ship to England, although occasionally leaping forward to his later life where he gives us tantalising glimpses as to what happened to his fellow passengers after the voyage, this originally seems to be nothing more than a series of incredibly welldaughter-in-drawn character sketcheslaw won't let her see her grandson. In fairness Holthorpe, I should say that ''nothing more'' is rather harsh in this case – on the menNorfolk coast, women and children Ondaatje creates, from a supposedly cursed rich man seeking is a curelovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a friendly thief, to Michaelreal bond with the parish - and she's beautiful cousin Emilyin awe of the vicar, are so beautifully conjured that I could have lived without a plot perfectly happily. HoweverGail, we eventually realise therebut then she's a little been doing the job for more to this narrative, than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that this skilful author has been foreshadowing a walk on the events at the novel's climax all alongbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093614</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick McGuinness1398515388|title=The Last Hundred DaysBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary='The Last Hundred Days' First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in question here are the final days of Ceausescu's Romania ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in late 1989. Narrated by an unnamed young British expat who has a job offer from the English department of Bucharest Universityturn, despite never having interviewed for caused the jobnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, we get an insight into and the life under communist rule as Eastern bloc countries all around start to open up after loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the fall list of priorities but - six months after the Berlin Walltsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. We are told He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that McGuinness lived in Romania in the years leading up he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the revolution, and this is no surprise as there is an authenticity here that could only have come from some level of inside knowledgedog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1854115413</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Rogers0989715337|title=The Testament of Jessie LambPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=3.54

|summary=The subject matter of 'The Testament of Jessie Lamb' ensures that this is not a comfortable readSome frogs had gotten into the well. Set '' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the near futurefragrant water, Rogers has imagined a truly terrifying virus that affects pregnant women, known as Maternal Death Syndrome or MDSnaked except for his beaten leather hat. Everyone carries this illness but the effects, a cross between AIDS and CJDLong strands of their eggs wove around him, ensure that all pregnant mothers will die - without exceptionsticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Scientists have found a way to save some Two of the unborn children, but only by placing their mothers in a chemically induced coma from which they won't recover. Now though, dogs leaned over the scientists have also discovered a way of immunising frozen, pre-MDS embryos which, if they can be placed in a willing volunteer, may ultimately allow opening and barked down at the survival strange noise of the human racebuckets as he filled them. However, the volunteers need to be under 16½ or the likely success rates are too low. Step forward one Jessie Lamb.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905207581</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Sebastian Barry|title=On Canaan's Side|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Each chapter of 'On Cannan's Side' represents a day after the death of the narrator, Lilly Bere's, grandson, Bill. Initially the reader How is bombarded by a stream that for an opening? The style of half thoughts but soon Lilly begins to outline her own life story from being the daughter of a police officer this novel in Ireland at the end form of the First World War, her subsequent flight interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to the USAwistful and musing, to ultimately living in retirement as a domestic cook to turning on a wealthy Americansixpence. It's a remarkable storyAnd author Marco North, full who has the most wonderful turn of tragic eventsphrase, but for all its hardships, Lilly is from a time when such things are starts as he means to be endured rather than dwelt go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571226531</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukDaisy Hildyard|title=DamnedEmergency

|summary=At the risk The summary of sounding trite, a story set in 1938 Czechoslovakia on the eve of Nazi occupation, centred on a Jewish family is always going to put the reader through an emotional journey. Add in a young child and itthis book doesn's almost certain that you are going t come close to be reaching for the Kleenex at some point. But Alison Pick makes some interesting creative choices that add more layers to this story. Some will surprise the reader but the overall impact explaining what is a wonderfully moving story done with wholly believable charactersthe premise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755379411</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Madeline MillerSally Oliver |title=The Song Weight of AchillesLoss |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Before I started Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the bookdeath of her sister, I looked out my copy she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of Homer's ''The Iliad'' her spine which steadily increase in size and skim-read its one page introduction (yes, yet another book in my 'must-read' pile but it's been on it for about ahem, ten years)volume. Having said thatHer GP, it is rather dry and scholarly which didn't really inspire me to get on with this book diagnosing the odd phenomenon as I wasn't really looking for a 'heavy' readphysical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, especially on a nice summer's day. Onwards ..an experimental new treatment centre in Wales.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408816032</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tiziano Scarpa|title=Stabat Mater|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Translated by Shaun Whiteside from Scarpa's 2008 Italian original, 'Stabat Mater' Yet something strange is set in a Venetian orphanage for girls run by nuns in what would have been around happening to Marianne and the 1700s. The girls other patients at the 'Ospedale' are trained as musicians and singers who play from Nede: a hidden gallery in the adjoining church for the patrons metamorphosis of the Instituto della Pietàa kind. HoweverAs Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this is a highly stylised little book, bordering on the almost poetic, narrated from the point cycle of view of one of the orphans, memory and pain—but only at a young violinist named Cecilia who goes on to tell terrible price: that of the impact of the appointment of a new in-house composer, one Don Antonio, or Vivaldi as most of us know himidentity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687691</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christien GholsonNatalia Garcia Freire|title=A Fish Trapped Inside the WindThis World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=35

|summary=The front cover is lovely with its blue and turquoise suggesting languid watersEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. The author of 'The Jane Austen Book Club' (which Iwill agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 've read incidentally) a delight'fell is perhaps using the expression in love with this novel.' High praise indeed. a way I'm hoping to do the samenot familiar with. Everything about this book stinks (and I use have to confess my ignorance of the word explicitly)Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. All of From the chapters little I have the word read (in translation, I don'fish' somewhere or other and t read Spanish) there's does seem to be a quote right at tendency towards the beginning which gives fantastical – the book its quirky and unusual title. (As I'm a fishy Piscean does that bode well for a good or sympathetic review, I wonder)mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906998906</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick deWittJennifer Saint|title=The Sisters BrothersElektra

|summary=Invariably, the Booker Prize longlist contains one book that is more on the side of light reading than the more worthy and overtly literary fare that it is usually associated with. 'The Sisters BrothersElektra' is by Jennifer Saint tells the 2011 choice. Set story of three women who live in the US in 1851heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Cassandra, it details the adventures of two brothersClytemnestra, Eli and Charlie Sisters, who Elektra are hired hands for a mysterious boss known only as all bit players in the Commodorestory of the Trojan War. Narrated by Eli, who has slightly more of a conscience than his older brother, Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the story starts with most compelling stories and the Commodore ordering a hit, for reasons unknown, on a certain Hermann Kermit Warmmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847083188</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Hollinghurst8409290103|title=The Stranger's ChildIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=Alan Hollinghurst's BookerTwenty-one-nominated and longyear-awaited 'The Stranger's Child' is without doubtold Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, as one might expect from this writer, beautifully written. Almost every page offers something to smile about either in terms of the comments of cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his characters oraccountant, more oftenMr Patrick, to ensure that the wry descriptions that young man got on board the author offersboat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. The structure Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of the book is episodic, split into five parts covering presorts -World War One, sprang up between the 1920s, the 1960s, the 1980s and finally the early 2000stwo although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It offers a thoughtful and well observed picture of changes in society and culture over this period and in particular of attitudes to homosexual relationshipswasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, although admittedly Hollinghurstit was that he didn's subjects tend t care to fall into have him in this country where he might be a narrow band of well educated, artistic danger to his wife and often aristocratic members of societyother children. Writers, poets and artists are the subject matter rather than The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on the street. His male characters are invariably homosexual while his females mostly either remain unmarried or have dysfunctional marriagesway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330483242</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa See|title=Dreams of Joy|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the late 1950sAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and America's teenagers Jane Aitken (the very idea a brand new concepttranslator) are beginning to live the all-American dream. For some of them however it isn't all 'Happy Days' diners and rock'n'roll. For the second generation Chinese immigrants there's an alternative: back 'home' there's a brave new world being forged, a world where 'we'd work in the fields and sing songs. We'd do exercises in the park. We'd help clean the neighbourhood and share meals. We wouldn't be poor and we wouldn't be rich. We'd all be equal.' |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408822296</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christine Dwyer Hickey|title=The Cold Eye of HeavenRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I reviewed Hickey's [[Last Train From Liguria by Christine Dwyer Hickey:Category:Antoine Laurain| Last Train From LiguriaAntoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was keen to see if this one, although I'd enjoy could have spelled that more accurately – this book too. The front cover says that Farley ''unravels the warp one was, and weft of his life'' which is a great phrase - wish I'd though of it. Hickey lives in Dublin so I'm kind of expecting good characterization (as the book's location is Dublin) , black and white and a nice line in put-me-down witred. But will I get it? Time to find out ...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857890301</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Leon Jenner|title=Bricks|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Let me start Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on a positive: this slim volume is exquisitely presented piece, and has a lovely 'traditional' feel about I think it. Very covetable for book lovers. The front cover is also a bit of a paradox - what with the workmanlike one-word title ''Bricks'' and the almost mystical/biblical-esque graphics. Will this all help s possible to draw say not one page lacks the reader in, well, I'm not too sureinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444706284</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David AlmondB098FFFBH9|title=The True Tale of the Monster Billy DeanSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school''This tale is told by 1 that died at birth by 1 that came into s animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the world way in days of endles war & at which human beings exploit the moment of disasteranimal world... I am not cleva, so forgiv my folts and my mistayks. I am Billy Dean. This is the truth. This is my tale.'' The Monster Billy Dean tells the story She gets a great deal of Billysupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, a boy born into the dystopia of a war-torn town and the product of an illicit liaison between a young woman lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her priesttwin, Nick. His birth coincided with an apocalyptic bombing and his parents have hidden him away from Kate runs the ruins and the catastrophe family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in a single roomPutney, both out which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of shame and in the belief that his coming into the world and surviving at such a violent moment signifies a sacred futureinformation: five soft toys. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919055</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew KaufmanYancey Williams|title=The Tiny WifeCrosshairs of the Devil

|summary=It all begins with a bank robbery. Only this isn't your typical sort of bank robbery since the robber demands not money but instead each person Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in the bank must give him the item of most sentimental value that they have with them. These range from photographs and a key through to a calculator...years and on taking these items he says he is also taking fifty percent of their souls, despite his strenuous objections and it is up thanks to the victims to find the way to get their souls backhis daughter, finds himself living - or to die trying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007429258</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yvvette Edwards|title=A Cupboard Full of Coats|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''He just knockedimprisoned, that was all, knocked and the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since Ifrom Eddie'd killed my mother hadn't happened...'' Jinx is cold and she knows it. She cleans obsessively s point of view - a largely pointless task, since there is little mess to clean since her husband and young son, tired in room 315 of her frigidity, moved out. She cooks beautifully balanced meals that look aesthetic on the plate. But her food offers sustenance, not comfort. In factGarden of Eden nursing home, Jinx feels most at home amongst the dead people she works with as only a funeral home cosmetologisttrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688382</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Claudie Gallay|title=The Breakers|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The book Nothing is in the first person, told by a woman who is a relative newcomer going to this tiny village, no more than a cluster of homes and a few basic amenities. The story opens keep Eddie from his stock-in the lead-up to a horrendous storm. The narrator has seen nothing like it before and is both afraid and excited. The locals take it all in their stride. They're a hardy bunch trade of disparate individuals and we get to know more themwriting though, so here, one by onefor his readers, as the story developsare his wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694710</amazonuk>0986031658

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan Hill0008421714|title=The Woman in Black|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Arthur Kipps is a young solicitor working in a fog-bound London and soon to be married. All looks rosy for Arthur until one day he is called into his boss' office where he is tasked with the affairs of the deceased recluse Alice Drablow. Alice Drablow had lived in the melancholy village of Crythin Gifford in an isolated house on the remote Eel Marsh, a house only accessible by a strange causeway when the tide is out. It is here Arthur must travel to firstly represent his firm at her funeral and then to sift through Mrs Drablow's house to ensure all her legal paperwork is in order. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685621</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMarch|author=Julian Barnes|title=The Sense of an EndingVirginia Feito

|summary='The Sense of an Ending' is almost more problem began just after the publication of a novella - itGeorge March's a slim volume most successful novel to date. Everyone but exquisitely written, as you might expect from Julian BarnesMrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. It starts off describing Every day Mrs March went to the relationships between four friends at schoollocal patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, narrated by one of as she was wrapping the friends, Tony Websterbread, ''but quickly it becomes clear that isn't this is written many years later. Barnes has long been the first time he's based a terrific observer of character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the English middle classes and his style invariably contains satire and dry humourprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. And Perhaps this being Barneswould not have mattered, this school clique except for the fact that Johanna is intellectual in interestthe whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, as the narrator recalls English and History teachers and student philosophisingunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224094157</amazonuk>''

{{newreview|author=Adam Levin|title=The Instructions|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Now, I know that size isn't everything, but the first thing that strikes you about 'The Instructions' is that it is a brick of a book. It comes in at a wrist-challenging 1030 pages that almost encourages me Move on to invest in an e-reader. It's also hugely ambitious for a first time writer not least that the book's action takes place over just a few days and the narrator is a ten year old child. While it starts encouragingly, it too rapidly becomes repetitive and dull and I found it a slog to get through. There are some great passages but these get too easily lost in this huge tome.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857861360</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]