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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Grace McCleenMatthew Tree|title=The Land of Decoration|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Grace McCleen's debut novel, We''The Land of Decoration'' paints an original, unsettling, sometimes dark and generally rather wonderful picture. Narrated by ten year old Judith, raised by her father who is a fundamental religious follower of the end of the world is nigh variety, it looks at bullying, both at school and in more general society, faith and the possible rejection thereof and the strength of childhood imagination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118681X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Dasa Drndic and Ellen Elias-Bursac (translator)|title=Trieste|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Haya Tedeschi, an 82 year old woman, sits alone in Italy, waiting. She waits for the adult son she hasn't seen since he was a baby. As Haya waits, she goes through her red basket of photographs and memorabilia, hanging ''out her life on an imaginary washing line''. She then takes the reader back in time, back to her life as a Catholicised Jew, before, during and after World War II in an area called Trieste.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050222</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Dickens|title=The Mystery of Edwin Droodll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you have never come across 'Drood' beforeTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, there are certain significant factors which make this a 'must read'. It is Dickens' last work, drunk and he died without completing it. Given that this is a detective story, one chronic underachiever whose dreams of the very first in that tradition, it is doubly intriguing, because although we are clearly being fed clues exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and hints throughout, at the point where the text ends we aren't even fully sure even if a crime has been committedwho had endless crises of self confidence. So as the basis for endless speculation about what really happens this novel could hardly be bettered. We certainly have potential villains Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and victims, but we also have a number of likely red herrings; complex threads of romantic interest, set himself high but again it is by no means clear exactly which way these will resolve; and a shadowy detective figure, whose speculations certainly have no sense of conclusionachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849904278</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander MacLeodB0C47LV1PC|title=Light Lifting|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=Short stories may not be everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes, particularly with first time authors, there is an annoying tendency to be overly experimental. Not so with Alexander MacLeod's stunningly assured debut. True he has genetic 'form' in that he is the son of novelist and short story writer [[:Category:Alistair MacLeod|Alistair MacLeod]], but even so, the quality of this collection, is remarkable. The collection of seven stories is not overly themed, although certain issues and concerns do reappear, but what binds the stories together is a very human approach to adversity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093940</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFragility|author=Terri Armstrong|title=Standing WaterMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Dom has made the long flight from London to Australia and heCan you make a ''s shattered, physically and emotionally. HeYo birthing person's been busy getting on with his shiny new life in cosmopolitan London and has barely spared a thought for the folks back home. He's not relishing meeting up again with his brother Neal. Neal took over the family farm and land when their father died. The two brothers are like chalk and cheese. They had nothing in common as young boys growing up and when Dom left for Europejoke? And if you could, Neal was relieved. But there is still an unsolved issue between them and the question should you make it's a biggy. Now that they're older and hopefully wiser? Or is the question if you did, will they manage to talk about would it and even resolve it. Time will tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908136006</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrea Gillies|title=land? The White Lie|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=One scorching hot summer's afternoon Ursula Salter hurls herself into the drawing room of her parents' house and delivers the devastating news catch is that she's killed her nephew, Michael, and that he's in the loch. But is this what's happened? Ursula might be in her late twenties but she has the mind and understanding of a child and – crucially – there's no body to answer for both could well be found. There are contradictions and inconsistencies in what Ursula says – and evidence from someone else who might have this own agenda – all of which allows the Salters to close ranks and construct a version of what happened designed to protect Ursula and allow themselves to avoid the truth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780720394</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Flanery|title=Absolution|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If Patrick Flanery's South African-set debut novel ''Absolution'' is anything to go by, he could well be one of the next big names in literary fiction. It's complex and at times challenging, but ultimately an extremely rewarding reading experienceno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857892002</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicky HarlowMosby Woods|title=Amelia and the Virgin|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=Amelia is 13 years old and lives with her mother, brother and extended family in 1980s Liverpool. Con, her great-uncle, is a psychiatrist with prestigious patients and a bit of a drink problem, Great-Aunt Edith is a devout Catholic with an inclination towards eccentricity and her brother, Julian, is a junky. Amelia's mother tries to hold everyone together but becomes slightly distracted when she inherits a convent in Ireland, complete with nuns. Amelia has her own problems, though. She sees visions of the Goddess Irena and is pregnant with the next Messiah. (A girl this time as the original male Messiah didn't have much luck.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095600539X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Dunmore|title=The GreatcoatWhirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The clue West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is in the Christopher Brookmyre-styled titlebest course of action. If the events, characters and circumstances in these stories Governments are known to you, then you have my sympathiesflailing. A man causes an embarrassment trying to watch his daughter's first school nativity play. Another has a phobia of eggs containing an avian foetus when he puts knife and fork to them. There's a car crash war here - and there, a drowning, some arson, some theftpush for climate action there.A feeling that nobody is in actual charge.. and Imagine then, there was a lot of clues that point to some national disasterman with precognition. Take all those clues as one and you eventually see Imagine the strategic advantage in this is more than just asset; a collection man who can tell you what will happen given any set of disparate short storiescircumstances. That man would be valuable, but a very fracturedright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, obfuscated novelthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408809265</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wendy Jones0571379559|title=The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's Spring 1924 in South Wales, and young undertaker Wilfred is going to learn the hard way how serious the trivial can be. Fascinated by a girl's dress - worn very seductively by Grace, who he has met but twice as an adult - he blurts out a marriage proposal. As much as wants to take it back, she won't let him. He tries to move on, leaving her disappointed, especially when he falls for the daughter of a man he buries, but... There are things dangerously spoken, dangerously left unsaid, and a complex web House of divided loyalties and enforced connections, in this brilliant debut novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330561</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBroken Bricks|author=Fadi Azzam and Adam Talib (Translator)|title=SarmadaFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='Sarmada'The House of Broken Bricks'' is small and remote village in the Northern hills story of Syria, close to the Turkish borderfour people. And for much of Azzam Tess Hembry's novel it seems a forgotten villageroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, lost she lives in the rituals and mysticism of ancient Druze belief and folk tales that inform house on the collective consciousness riverbank, built of the placebroken bricks. For the novel weaves Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the tales passage of three Syrian women time, storms and their relationships with each otherfloods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the men of their lives delivery rounds - and the fabric of a life almost caught to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the timeless past of the Middle Eastrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906697345</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ali ShawClaire North|title=The Man Who RainedHouse of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Do you remember being a child who had only just learned how to read? Do you remember the very first time you read a fairy story that no-one had told you before? Can you recapture the joy of entering a truly magical land and (for a time) believing it was real''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eric-Emmanuel SchmittKay Chronister|title=Noah's ChildDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Joseph, With a young Belgian Jewworld that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, is sent away by his parents when they grow nervous about the treatment of Jews during World War Twopost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. He Whether it is taken in by a village priestrobotic takeover, Father Ponsa world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, and given this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new identity and a place in Father Pons' school along with an assortment work of other children, some post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of whom are genuine pupils and others who are, like Joseph, seeking sanctuarythe fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848874189</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Susan HillEric LaRocca|title=A Kind ManThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionHorror|summary=Meet Eve, Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and her husband, the title character, Tommyprocess them. SheMost horror fiction feature a 's at 'Big Bad'', whether that is a bit of home invader, a sticky wicket in life, for however much they want monster or a babyghost, her sister it usually something tangible and his feckless husband churn out son after son after son, and go no lengths at all to love themby the end of the story, beatable. So when Eve and Tommy do at last have a child, itEric LaRocca's a tragedy for it to die when only three years old. But in this plot, which you'll thank me for 'The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not going into further, there will be like that. It is a lot collection of short stories more swings and roundabouts, interested in the horrors of torment and ecstasyillness, doldrums grief and delights, hell humiliation. Horrors that linger and heaven, are harder to comedefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555441</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WomersleyMadelaine Lucas|title=BereftThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Quinn Walker''Love, a young Australian man fresh from fighting on the European front in World War OneI'd read, returns to the very town he was drummed out of ten years before, after being accused of raping and killing his own younger sister. Two things have beaten him supposed to the small settlement - one, the global flu pandemic; two be a telegram saying he died bravely in action earlier in the war. And the less you know of what he meets light and does back in Flint the betterweightless feeling, the more to keep this fresh and brilliant bookbut I had always longed for gravity''s many intrigues as secret as they were for me.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386549</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mahmoud DowlatabadiMichael Grothaus|title=The ColonelBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The novel opens at dead of night in a house in Rasht in Gilan province, Iran. It is pouring with rain ''But fearing something and the colonel of the title is in the grip of extreme melancholia. Two policemen having it come to pass are knocking on the doortwo different things. They are bringing news And I'm willing to bet most of his youngest daughter. This triggers a night of misery in which the colonel recalls his own pastwhat we fear will never happen, and the tragic lives of his five childrenor we can take steps to change it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906598894</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Louisa YoungJennifer Saint|title=My Dear I Wanted to Tell YouAtalanta|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It takes a while for the full power of Louisa Young's remarkable ''My Dear I Wanted To Tell You'' to become apparent, but when it does, it can hardly fail to move youwas as worthy as any one of them. Set just before and during World War OneI would get on board that ship, it's a story of love and human spirit against the oddsI vowed. The impact of the book is in what happens to the characters, so I don't want to give too much awaywould take my place, but it's worth pointing out that it's not for just in the overly squeamish reader particularly in some name of the descriptions of surgical procedures, which have clearly been meticulously researched by Younggoddess. The title itself it taken from It was for the opening words sake of the standard letters that the wounded were given to send to loved ones back homemy name, too. The wounded were required to fill in the blanks.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007361432</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick LakeAmanthi Harris|title=In DarknessBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''A Summer Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of Drowning'' her home country. This is a book in which for much of the time place she spent her formative years. It is not a lot happens - place she was born into, but always spookily. Set on the Norwegian island one she thinks of Kvaløya in as home. How she came to be at the Arctic CircleVilla, how it became her home, and the story is narrated by Liv who is now 28 but who recalls events of a summer when machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she was 18first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Liv resides with Padma's present fails to escape her artist mother in, if not isolation, then certainly seclusion. The book makes past and much like the musical score of the midsummer madness a film, that 24 hour daylight induces and in strand weaves its way through everything that respect it is wholly successful. It aims for a dream-like and timeless quality which it largely achieveshappens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>022406178X</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Eckstein178563335X|title=InterpretersSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Julia Rosenthal whilst visiting her childhood hauntsWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, is invited sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to go around what used to be her family homepick the children up. As she wanders around the roomsHer husband, Christopher, she relives her past collects six-year-old Hannah and seeks to understand why her parents (particularly her mother) were as they wereelder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Julia also desperately seeks reassurance that she has not, Thelma's daughter-in turn, damaged -law won't let her see her own daughter, Susannagrandson. Meanwhile Holthorpe, on the reader Norfolk coast, is given the privilege of knowledge unavailable a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to Julia. Via transcriptions of discussions develop a real bond with counsellor, the reader learns about Juliaparish - and she's mother first hand. Slowly, in alternating chaptersawe of the vicar, whilst Julia goes over her far from normal 1970s upbringingGail, her mother haltingly but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and touchingly reveals Christopher hoped that a walk on the secret life which almost destroyed herbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956559964</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer Johnston1398515388|title=ShadowstoryThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Polly grows up First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in an Anglo-Irish family the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the years following World War IInuclear meltdown. Her father died in The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the wartsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Her mother sends her off He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to spend school holidays with her grandparents at Kildarragh, a great house open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in the countryside, far away from Dublin.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755383478</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fabrice Humbert0989715337|title=The Origin of ViolencePapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fabrice Humbert's French Orange Prize winning 'The Origin of Violence' has a young French teacher as a narrator who, while leading a school trip to Buchenwald concentration camp, sees a photograph of a Jewish prisoner taken in 1941 and is struck by Some frogs had gotten into the similarity in appearance of the man to his own fatherwell. However, he discovers that not only does the man in the photo have a different name to his, but the man died in 1942. Clearly there are dark family secrets afoot that he sets about discovering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687500</amazonuk>}}''
}}
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The life summary of Arthur Rimbaud must be one of the most outrageous in literary history, more scandalous than Wilde, more self-destructive than Malcolm Lowery, Rimbaud was the boy poet and iconoclast who took on the literary establishment at end of the nineteenth century and won. So Duffy's fictional account, based closely around the actual facts of Rimbaud's life, was bound to be an exciting and furious, and he this book doesn't disappoint. This come close to explaining what is a difficult book to put downdone with the premise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685273</amazonuk>1913097811}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Kevin BrophySally Oliver |title=The Berlin CrossingWeight 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|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=ItEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight's is perhaps using the 1990s and Herr Doktor Ritter - expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to give Michael his full title confess my ignorance of the Spanish- is about to lose his teaching joblanguage literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Although a German nationalFrom the little I have read (in translation, he teaches English. Apparently the Social Review Committee has been doing some 'reviewing' lately and it doesnI don't look good for Michaelread Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755380851</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=German SadulaevJennifer Saint|title=I Am A Chechen!Elektra
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=That exclamation mark 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the title says a lotheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. It says thatCassandra, in spite of everythingClytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in spite the story of Sadulaev leaving his homeland, it still tugs at his heartstrings - and will probably do so throughout the rest of his lifeTrojan War. The short author's note at Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the beginning ends with silent women have the arresting sentence - ''Sadulaev's work has unleashed heated debate in Russia.'' And I'm thinking, brave author indeed and I also couldn't wait to find out what all the fuss was about.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532352</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mark Mustian|title=The Gendarme|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=There are times when you will want to shut 'The Gendarme' most compelling stories and just walk away from the despair and disgust that this account of genocide engenders. Don't. Ultimately this tale of an old Turk revisiting his terrible past is both touching and important - an exploration of memory and forgiveness that shouldn't be missedmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851688390</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Otto de Kat8409290103|title=JuliaIf Only|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Chris as an elderly Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man who is nearing got on board the end of his lifeboat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Turn Patrick sent the money regularly and a page or correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two and he is, in fact, dead. Suicide apparentlyalthough we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. Itwasn's all very sad. He lived alone and a paid employee, t that Lowry senior didn't care for his young driverson, found it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his studywife and other children. 'Suicide for The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the posh' young man on his driver thinks looking at the corpse. But we have to travel back down the decades to find out whyway. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050559</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Howard J Booth Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (editortranslator)|title=The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard KiplingRed is My Heart
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Rudyard Kipling[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, born in India in 1865although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is still the youngest ever Nobel literature laureate, black and white and red. He was a prolific author Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and at the turn of the century up I think it's possible to the first World War an immensely popular say not one. Even now he remains the most frequently quoted of all English authors (with page lacks the possible exception of Shakespeare) – albeit often taken out influence of contextsome striking visual ideas. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521136636</amazonuk>1913547183
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Padgett PowellB098FFFBH9|title=You and ISnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=IFourteen-year-old Rachel is her school've often wondered how men s animal rights project leader and she and women of letters can pack it all her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way inwhich human beings exploit the animal world. People churn out She gets a career great deal of fictionsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, as well as reading all the classicsa lecturer at Imperial College, and offering pages and pages of diaries and letters on their death. Padgett Powell can get to be a professor of booksLondon, mother Kate and therefore I assume is duty-bound to read and write lots, but still find time to knock out novelsher twin, however shortNick. It was only Kate runs the family business, a few months ago I was reading ''The Interrogative Mood'' for a review elsewheretoy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, and here which is another new release from him. Serpentwhere we's Tail will cheat in 2012 by giving the British audience Powellll meet Rachel's debut novel, almost two decades oldmain (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688167</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Art SpiegelmanYancey Williams|title=MetaMAUS|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Before the Holocaust was turned into [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|a child-like near-fable for all]], and before it was the focus of superb history books such as [[Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder|this]], it became a family saga of a father relating his experiences to a son, who then drew it all - featuring animals not humans - [[Maus by Art Spiegelman|Maus]]. To celebrate the twenty-five years since then, we have this brilliant look back at the creation Crosshairs of an equally brilliant volume.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916838</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Javier Marias|title=While the Women are SleepingDevil
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=At the heart of the very black comedy that Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossariangetting on in years and, a World War II American bombardier, who wants to survive the war. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining despite his sanity, strenuous objections and surely a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks thanks to be groundedhis daughter, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety. If he is sanefinds himself living - or imprisoned, he canfrom Eddie't be grounded. Thiss point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, his doctor tells him, is catch 22.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Thomas E Kennedy|title=Falling Sideways|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Kennedywith only a trusty nursing aide, although a New YorkerJenkins, has lived in Copenhagen for over twenty years so he'll have a good feel for the European slant on the novel, I would thinkpalatable company. It Nothing is one of four called the Copenhagen Quartet. The top brass, the movers and the shakers at the 'Tank' are introduced going to the reader one by one and have a whole chapter devoted to their individual lives, both professional and private. So we get a very good idea indeed keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of their homeswriting though, their neighbourhoodsso here, their families and perhaps more importantlyfor his readers, their thoughts on the Tank and of their colleaguesare his wanderings through his life's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408812398</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hari Kunzru0008421714|title=Gods Without MenMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Quite literally at The problem began just after the heart publication of Hari KunzruGeorge March's latest most successful novel stands not a person, to date. Everyone but strange geographical feature in Mrs March (we know her first name only on the California desert - three large rocks known as 'The Pinnacles'. If you've ever looked at a feature of the landscape and wonder what last page) seemed to either be reading it has meant to those who have gone before, then you will find a similar stance hereor had already done so. Kunzru's episodic narrative takes in various points in time from 1775 Every day Mrs March went to 2009 all of which centre around this rock structure which has had different meanings for different generations. There are echoes of the past in each new version, local patisserie to buy olive bread but no more than on that.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024114311X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alice Hoffman|title=The Dovekeepers|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Set in the last desperate days before the Roman siege on Masada (70CE)particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the lives of four women collide and merge. They are Yaelbread, ''but isn't this the daughter of first time he's based a Sicarii assassin; Revkacharacter on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the wife of a gentle baker who witnessed principal character had 'her daughtersmannerisms'' rape and murder; Aziza, raised as a boy with the skills of a great warrior and Shirah, born in Alexandria to a mother well versed in ancient magic. All four Perhaps this would not have crossed mattered, except for the heartless desert on separate journeys to arrive at fact that Johanna is the last outpost against the Roman Legionwhore of Nantes - ''a weak, where 900 Jews held out for manyplain, many months. Here they have little power and less hopedetestable, but each refuses to be a victim. All are harbouring deep secrets about their pastspathetic, as they become the Masada's dovekeepers. With supplies dwindling and certain death drawing nearunloved, their uneasy bonds to each other strengthen as their truths are unveiledunloveable wretch. They find an uneasy comfort that becomes true loyalty and empowerment. While few in their company survive to recount the tale, their story has lived on to haunt the deepest of memories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857205420</amazonuk>''
}}