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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carolyn Jess-CookeMatthew Tree|title=The Boy Who Could See Demons|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Alex can see demons. He's been able to ever since his dad left when he was five years old. Some demons are hideous, some are frightening, and some just lurk in corners doing not much at all. One is called Ruen, and heWe's Alex's best friend.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749953136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jess Richards|title=Snake Ropesll Never Know

|summary=It's the time for the tall mainland men Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to come to the island to tradebe different from his father, so 16 year old Mary prepares. She brings out her handmade 'broideries' a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and hides Barney, her little brother, in a cupboard. This is a necessary preparation born who had endless crises of fear, for the island boys have been vanishing, taken by the tradersself confidence. On this particular day Mary's broideries goSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but so does Barneyachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>144473783X</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ginny BailyB0C47LV1PC|title=Africa JunctionFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4.5

|summary=Adele has made Can you make a mess of her life and she knows ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it. Working with ? Or is the stresses of being a teacher as well as a single mother and having shrugged off a disastrous relationshipquestion if you did, her life seems to be set on self-destruct. Part of the problem would it land? The catch is that the past won't leave her aloneanswer for both could well be... Adele is haunted by the memory of Ellena, a friend from her childhood in Senegal, Africa. With one unthinking, childish action, Adele inadvertently devastated Ellena's family so, in order to go forward, Adele must go back to the continent where it all beganno. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552728</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Laszlo Krasznahorkai|title=Satantango|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A small community in rural Hungary ''Fragility'' is unsettled. One man has too much control over set as the place, with too much influence on the work done therecity of Portland, and over all the lives lived there. His effect is still feltOregon, even though he has been dead for over a year. So whether you are the man itching cautiously begins to finish a swindle and leave with the proceedings, or emerge from the doctor, confined by will to a chair at his window, making restrictions imposed during the most personal, immaculate notes about the whole existence of the community, or the housewife whose loins still mourn the influence of said man, you are unsettled - especially when the dead man is said to be returning... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848877641</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter CareyMosby Woods|title=The Chemistry of TearsA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=As he has done before on several occasions, Peter Carey offers us two parallel stories in his intriguingly titled 'The Chemistry of TearsWest isn't the dominant force it once was. The two elements of Nobody in the title reflect that West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a book about griefpush for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, but also about science. It's also there was a book about human's relationship man with machines and dependence that we have grown to have on them, and the ugliness of life and the beauty of, at least some, machinesprecognition. In one strand of Imagine the story, Catherine is a modern day horologist working strategic advantage in this asset; a London museum whose world is shattered by the death man who can tell you what will happen given any set of a married colleague with whom she was having an affaircircumstances. Put to work on restoring a mysterious clockwork birdThat man would be valuable, she discovers right? Perhaps the journals of Henry Brandlingmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, the nineteenth century wealthy that this man who commissioned the construction of the toy for his consumptive sonloses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057127997X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laurent Binet0571379559|title=HHhHThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=First, the title. ''HHhHThe House of Broken Bricks'' is short for ''Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich'' - Himmlerthe story of four people. Tess Hembry's brain was called Heydrichroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. In other wordsInsubstantial as it might look, it's not a case stood the passage of 'behind every great Nazi there's a greater woman'time, but behind Hitler's own deputy was a major strength to the partystorms and floods. Reinhard Heydrich was the ruler of what practically corresponds Her husband, Richard, struggles to the Czech Republicgrow his vegetables, led to complete the SS delivery rounds - and more, and bossed the workings of the Final Solutionto bring in sufficient money. Any good biography of this compelling character in those interesting times They have twin boys - given too Sonny and Max, the subplot of those who would assassinate him - is bound to be an excellent history bookrainbow twins. But, despite this getting a high rating, this isnSonny's colouring reflects his mother't ones Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. Why not? The author says soPeople 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>1846554799</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Anne Tyler|title=Breathing Lessons|rating=4The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This Pulitzer Prize winning novel revolves around 24 hours in In the lives palace of Maggie and Ira Moran as they attend a friend's funeral Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and make a detour on the way then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the couple spend throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the day together they share events from their past chaotic storm that put their present in context. I know this seems a somewhat sparse structure for Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a story but don't be put offfragile peace. Somewhere between [[:Category:Anne Tyler|Anne Tyler's]] idea One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and its executionhis sister Elektra, something very good happensseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099201410</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacques ChessexKay Chronister|title=The TyrantDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Jean Calmet, teacher of Latin in With a lycee of the 1960s in Switzerlandworld that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, is confronting his father's deathpost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. He can hardly be said to be coming to terms with Whether itis a robotic takeover, for Calmet pere was and remains a crushing force in Jean's lifeworld devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, and although the death would in many similar novels be this genre is a release, here his fatherway for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures''s cremation serves to batter Jean into by Kay Chronister is a beaten state. His relations with his new work, his lover, his students are all suffused with not a sense of loss but a sense post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of continuing and growing dominance by the ghost of his fatherfears that exist for humanity today. The authoritian presence seems It is a shocking novel that still manages to grow as a spectre rather than diminish through his deathfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190473894X</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Kitty AldridgeEric LaRocca|title=A Trick The Trees Grew Because I Learned from Dead MenBled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Kitty AldridgeHorror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a 's ''A Trick I Learned from Dead MenBig Bad'' , whether that is a touchingly writtenhome invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, quirky story set in by the world end of funeral homesthe story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The narrator Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is twenty-something Lee Hartnot like that. He's not the sharpest tool It is a collection of short stories more interested in the box, but his life has been tough. His father left when he was young and his mother has recently died horrors of cancer leaving himillness, his step-father, a sofa-bound television make-over show addict grief and his deaf and wayward younger brother, Ned to fend for themselveshumiliation. Lee lands a job as a trainee at the local funeral home helping Derek prepare the dead for burial or cremation. Far from being a dead end job though, it is here Horrors that he learns, ironically, about life linger and love, in the form of the delivery girl from the local floristsare harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096435</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roland VernonMadelaine Lucas|title=The Good Wife's CastleThirst for Salt

|summary=Charlotte Rogan's debut novel ''The Lifeboat'' takes an unexpected look at life on a lifeboat of a sunken linerLove, midway between the sinking of the ''Titanic'' and the I''Lusitania''. In many waysd read, was supposed to be a lifeboat presents an ideal situation for a novelist. You have a set number of characters light and clear boundaries. But there's only so much interest in 'we were scared' and 'ohweightless feeling, look here comes another big wavebut I had always longed for gravity'. Her solution is to take the story as one of moral and ethical choices rather than an out and out adventure. As her narrator, Grace Winter, concludes 'it was not the sea that was cruel, but the people'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844087522</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Zoya Pirzad|title=Things We Left Unsaid|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Life in Iran is good for Armenian Clarice Ayvazian. She lives comfortably in an oil company townTold from a retrospective view, devoting her middle class life to a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her engineer husband, teenage son and young twin daughters. Her mother and sisterOverlaid with later wisdom, Alice, drop in the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from time its inception – the summer after finishing university – to time during its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the course backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the day, but are perfectly manageable for 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her (in small doses). Howeverolder lover, when an elderly womandepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her middle-aged son perspective on both romantic and his tween-age daughter move in across the road they bring turmoil in their wake familial relationships and Clarice's perception of how it altered her happiness is torn apartirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851689257</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreview|author=Mark Haddon|title=The Red House|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Richard and Angela - brother ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and sister - are reunited at their mother's funeralacceptance. Richard is well-Of what it means to-do and recently remarried with a teenage stepdaughterbe human. Angela Of what is the main breadwinner in her family as her husband scrapes a wage by working in Waterstones and somehow they real and their three children get by. Richard what is aware that he hasn't much left in the way of family artificial, and tries to build some bridges with Angela by way of offering that whether the eight development of them should have a week's holiday in a cottage on the Welsh borders. So, there's four adults, four children and a lot of emotional baggage. Oh, and there's Karen - Angela's stillborn daughter who would have been eighteen that weektechnology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096400</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Knud Romer and John Mason (translator)Jennifer Saint|title=Nothing But FearAtalanta

|summary=The Danish writer/actor Knud Romer has a gallery ''I was as worthy as any one of fascinating relatives which collectively feature them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''Nothing But Fear'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. This biographical novel  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a collection of memories from his grandparents' eraformidable huntress, moving forwardone who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, to that a fierce band of his parentswarriors, including World War II descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and his carve out her own childhood legendary place in 1960s history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and 70s small town Denmark. The vignettes arendiscovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis't in chronological order but fatal warning: that's because memories normally aren't. The stories are narrated almost as if they're fresh from the mind, ensuring a natural flow. The interesting thing is that no matter how fascinating his other relatives are my mind's eye always seemed to return to one: his mothershe marries, Hildegardit will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687144</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gwendoline RileyAmanthi Harris|title=Opposed PositionsBeautiful Place|rating=3.5

|summary=There is Padma, a reason why Gwendoline Riley young Sri Lankan, has something returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a cult followingplace she spent her formative years. She It is technically innovative and very good at what not a place she doeswas born into, but the subject matter is invariably dark and downbeat which prevents mass market appeal. In that respect Opposed Positions is very much business one she thinks of as usual thenhome. The subject matter most evident here is misogyny and the damaging impact it has both directly and indirectly on people. It's painful How she came to read be at times; it feels as if the narratorVilla, an occasional novelisthow it became her home, Aislinn Kelly, is picking at and the scab of machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her family in past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that feels shocking and, for all happens at the wry observations, remains uncomfortable to readVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224094238</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Evelyn Eaton178563335X|title=Go Ask the RiverSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=In ninth century ChinaWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, Hung Tu was almost unique as sitting in on a woman breaking into PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the restricted male preserve of educationchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, particularly the fields of poetry collects six-year-old Hannah and calligraphyher elder brother, and becoming Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a highly respected and renowned writersobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Eaton constructs Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a fascinating narrative around her poemslovely place, imagining Hung Tu’s idyllic childhood which turns but Rachel is struggling to potential chaos as develop a real bond with the parish - and she is sold into prostitution's in awe of the vicar, Gail, followed by her rise to Official Hostess but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the Governorbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|amazonuktitle=<amazonuk>1848190921</amazonuk>The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. 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 tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruno Portier0989715337|title=This Flawless Place BetweenPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=If you fancy reading something a bit different, writer and filmmaker Bruno Portier may have written just ''Some frogs had gotten into the bookwell.''

Americans Anne and her partner''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, Evannaked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, leave Anne's small daughter sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the grandparents so that opening and barked down at the couple can go on a 3 week motorbike tour strange noise of Tibetthe buckets as he filled them. Whilst away, things go awry for the two holidaymakers and so ''The Flawless Place Between'' traces their respective onward journeys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688501</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Naomi Benaron|title=Running How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the Rift|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jean Patrick Nkumba has a sheltered, comparatively privileged upbringing in Rwanda. Although far form of interconnected short stories goes from opulent, life in the school compound where his father is headmaster is safe and Jean Patrick is loved succinct and encouraged by his family laconic to aim high both at school wistful and in his passion for runningmusing, turning on a sixpence. Despite being of the Tutsi tribeAnd author Marco North, he who has also been encouraged to think the most wonderful turn of himself phrase, starts as Rwandan first, a nationality and ethos encompassing the rival Hutus. However not all feel the same and a series of tragic events lead he means to world news and personal hell. For this is the land where, in 1994, 800,000 people would be killed during a mere 100 daysgo on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851689214</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexandra SingerDaisy Hildyard|title=Tea at the Grand TaziEmergency|rating=3.54

|summary=Seeking solitude, peace to paint, and solace from a failed relationship, Maia finds a job assisting the Historian, a shadowy academic, in return for life in the centre The summary of Marrakesh. And with her duties light, she sets off to explore her surroundings, attempting this book doesn't come close to examine the women in this culture. But as a European female she explaining what is treated as an item of sexual prey by the men, and ostracised by done with the women, so she finds herself isolated and alonepremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248238</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=M L StedmanSally Oliver |title=The Light Between OceansWeight 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=Thomas Sherbourne returns to Australia after World War I. Internally scarred like many of his generationEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, he chooses the solitary life of a lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock to escape delight. I will agree with the world and its conflict. However, he soon learns that there first – tremendous is one part of the world he canno understatement – but 'a delight't live without – is perhaps using the sassy, beautiful Izzy Graysmark, expression in a local from way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of the nearest port and country town of PartagueseSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. They From the little I have a happy marriage read (in all respects apart from one: theytranslation, I don're haunted by their inability t read Spanish) there does seem to have children. Therefore, one day, when be a boat washes up onto Janus bearing a dead man and a crying baby, apparent salvation arrives tootendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857521004</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ali SmithJennifer Saint|title=There but for theElektra

|summary=If you are 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the type story of reader three women who thinks that live in the mark heavily male dominated world of a good book is a plotAncient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, then step away from this book: you'll hate it. Ali Smith's intricately clever and often funny ''There but for Elektra are all bit players in the'' is very much at the literary end story of the fiction spectrumTrojan War. Not in terms of Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the language used though - Smith uses simple language, and a '''LOT''' of puns, and if anything, as the title suggests, she's more interested in silent women have the little words. It's playful most compelling stories and strangely affecting, while at the same time a little affected and often slightly irritatingly free flowingmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241143403</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ros Barber8409290103|title=The Marlowe PapersIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=''Stop. Pay attention. Hear a dead man speak''  These are the attention grabbing words 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 Ros Barber addresses to the reader at young man got on board the start of this unique tale. Marlowe boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a playwright with a reputation not only for his plays but also for his lifestylemonthly allowance. His gory death from a stab wound through Patrick sent the eye is one of the many contentious points in a brief but very lively life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444737384</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Erin Kelly|title=The Sick Rose|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Paul had the passion money regularly and academic grades to become a teacher. However, his plans started correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the slow slide away from his grasp after his father died and he and his mother were forced two although we hear more about what Lowry has to move to the rough, Grays Reach Estate and an even rougher schoolsay than Patrick. It seemed wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his days as bully's target had ended when Daniel, illiterate and street-wiseson, stepped in as protector. All Paul had to do it was cover for Danielthat he didn's disability t care to have him in classthis country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children... at least that The alcohol problem was all he needed obvious even before Patrick managed to do at firstget the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444703854</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer EganAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=The Invisible CircusRed is My Heart

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Set in 1978, 18-year old Phoebe is living with her mother [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in San Franciscomy house. Her father died some years agoAnd so was this one, before her elder sisteralthough I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, Faithand is, a charismatic idealist black and true child of the 1960s left for Europe where she died in 1970white and red. Faith was always her father's favouriteYes, While Phoebe's older brotherhe has an artistic collaborator on this piece, Barry, is now a computer millionaire, on leaving high school Phoebe decides on a whim to follow her sisterand I think it's path possible to Europe in say not one page lacks the hope influence of finding what happened in Italy and to finally understand her beloved sister's actionssome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780331223</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lauren GroffB098FFFBH9|title=ArcadiaSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=Back Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the seventies animal world. She gets a group great deal of idealists (wellsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, hippies) founded a commune in lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Kate runs the grounds of Arcadia Housefamily business, a decaying mansion toy shop called Cornucopia in western New York State. In the early days the renovation of the house and the funding of the commune was hopefulPutney, which is where we'll meet Rachel'energising'' - the American dream encapsulated in bricks, crops and hard work - but as with many, s main (if not most, such enterprises it was not to last. Power corrupted, personalities changed and commitment waivered. We see the commune and the people who made it through the early, hard-working days to its precarious peak and into its inevitable declineunsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019623</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francesca KayYancey Williams|title=The Translation Crosshairs of the BonesDevil

|summary=''The Translation of the Bones'' revolves around four women, all connected with the Church of the Sacred Heart, Battersea. Mary Margaret, not the sharpest knife in the box, lives between two poles. When she isn't in church, she's caring for her flatAward-bound, morbidly obese mother, Fidelma. Alice Armitage, happily married to Larry, counts the days until their son will be home from a tour of duty winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in Afghanistan. The fourth woman, Stella, lives in a loveless marriage to MP Rufus and spends her time wishing the days away till she can collect her 10 year old son from boarding school. Father Diamond ministers to these women years and the church community in general, but whilst worrying about despite his own adequacy strenuous objections and faith. However, their problems thus far are nothing compared to the devastation thanks to come.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297865080</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Noah Hawley|title=The Good Father|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=Dr Paul Allen is more than happy with his life. His second wife, Fran, is efficient, a good manager, a good mother to their young twins and not overly emotional as Ellen (Wife No. 1) was. In fact you could say that his life runs like clockwork, which is just how he likes it. Paul hates chaos and the unexpecteddaughter, but he's about to be visited by both. As the Allens sit in horror watching news footage of the charismatic presidential frontfinds himself living -runner being gunned downor imprisoned, there's a knock at the door. Their real horror is beginning; the FBI believes the son he had with Ellen is the guy who pulled the trigger.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444730363</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen May|title=Life! Death! Prizes!|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Billyfrom Eddie's mum is dead. Billy is 19 years old when his mum resists a mugger; this is the last thing she ever does, leaving Billy with 6 year old Oscar to face life together. They'll be fine. For a start, their life isn't as bad as the 'Life! Death! Prizes!' type magazines at supermarket check-outs. Billy has a job at the local history museum, Oscar's doing ok at school, so, despite their Aunt Toni, despite Oscar's recently reappearing father, despite the PTA mothers at the school gates... and social services... and the fact that the mugger is a local lad that Billy sees around... yep, they'll be fine.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408819139</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Susan Hill|title=In the Springtime of the Year|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ben and Ruth had been married for just a year when he was killed in a tragic accident. One point of the other foresters came to tell Ruth about what had happened, but in truth she had known before he arrived. From feeling deliriously happy she had descended within moments into the depths of despair and felt so ill that she could barely move. The confirmation was just that view - and Ruth was bereft. She couldn't share her feelings with Ben's family. It's politic to say that they were dealing with their grief in their own way but more truthful to admit that they had never liked her and were disinclined to extend more than the socially-required gestures now that Ben was dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099570483</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Roopa Farooki|title=The Flying Man|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Flying Man'' opens with the now elderly Maqil Karam writing a letter in his budget hotel in the South room 315 of France and facing death. His story takes in many locations, from his native Punjab, to New York, Cairo, London, Paris and Hong Kong. In each location, Maqil adopts a different name, including Mike Cram, Mehmet Kahn, Miguel Caram and Mikhail Lee. Often he acquires a different wife as well, Carine, Samira and Bernadette, although he doesn't go to the bother Garden of divorcing themEden nursing home, he just simply walks away. He is a chancer and with only a gamblertrusty nursing aide, avoiding attachmentJenkins, responsibility and commitment throughout his lifefor palatable company.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755383389</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cynthia Ozick|title=Foreign Bodies|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Bea Nightingale's brother Marvin wants her - Nothing is haranguing her - going to retrieve keep Eddie from his errant son Julian from poststock-war Paris, to where he has decamped in an effort to escape parental control. Bea-trade of writing though, a New York high school teacherso here, is an unlikely candidate for the role of rescuer - she and her brother have been estranged for the best part of twenty years. But she capitulates to his demands and sets off on a journey in which her presence will affect not only Julianreaders, but are his sister who also runs off to Paris, wanderings through his girlfriend, a displaced Eastern European Jew, his mother (also escaping Marvin, but this time in a psychiatric facility) and Bealife's own ex-husband Leowork. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848877366</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreview|author=Jane Harris|title=Gillespie and I|rating=5Frontpage|genreisbn=Literary Fiction0008421714|summary=The 'I' in the title of Jane Harris's ''Gillespie and I'' is Harriet Baxter. Now elderly and residing in London in 1933, she is finally telling her events of what happened in the early 1880s in Glasgow and her relationship with the Gillespie family. At the time, a spinster of independent means, she arrived in Glasgow to visit the International Exhibition and became a champion of and friend to a young Scottish painter, Ned Gillespie and his young family. We know from early on that tragedy struck the Gillespie family leading to Ned destroying his career, but Harriet wants to set the record straight with regard to her involvement in events. You may or may not believe her story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571238300</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMrs March|author=Anna Stothard|title=The Pink HotelVirginia Feito

|summary=The phone call came when she was 17. Her mother had died; problem began just after the mother who had just been a flimsy memory of a touch, an impression and a faded photograph. Not satisfied with her father and grandma's biased recollections publication of 'the slut', she steals her step-motherGeorge March's credit card and catches a flight most successful novel to the funeral in Los Angelesdate. Unfortunately she arrives too late for the funeral, Everyone but finding the pink hotel Mrs March (we know her mother owned, she walks in first name only on the wakelast page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Rooms full of drunkenEvery day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, drug-sodden eyes stare at her whilst as she makes her way through was wrapping the building to what must have been her motherbread, ''but isn's bedroom. Itt this the first time he's then she decides, as her step-father lies, semi-consciousness, based a character on the bed. you?'' She takes some of mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mothermannerisms''s clothes, shoes and letters. Once she has a chance to read themPerhaps this would not have mattered, she realises theyexcept for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''re cards and love letters from men who may be able to build her a picture of the woman who gave her life but not a lot elseweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846881757</amazonuk>''

{{newreview|author=Karin Altenberg|title=Island of Wings|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Rev Neil MacKenzie has been assigned to the Hebridian island of St Kilda. His mission is to bring the locals back to the Victorian idea of God and propriety. He and his pregnant wife Lizzie not only have to fight the elements but also centuries of superstition that have trickled into the islanders' Christian faith. Life is made harder for Neil by a secret guilt emanating from the death of a friend years ago. However, the going becomes harder still for Lizzie, isolated by an inability to speak the local language and the burgeoning fear engendered by Neil's behaviour and attitudes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382322</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Georgina Harding|title=Painter of Silence|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=A young, anonymous, vagrant collapses Move on the steps of a hospital in Romania. He doesn't speak and remains a mystery to the staff that tries to treat his obvious symptoms but can't seem to reach the silent person beneath. However, Safta, a nurse, suggests that he may be deaf and produces drawing materials. Coincidentally, the man is able to draw beautifully, but this is no coincidence to Safta. There are reasons why she can't disclose it, but she knows this man. They grew up together in pre-war Romania, a whole world away when the country had a king, beautiful cities untouched by bombing and being able to read a foreign language wasn't punishable by imprisonment in work camps... or worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408821125</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]