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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marie N'Diaye and John Fletcher (translator)Matthew Tree|title=Three Strong WomenWe'll Never Know

|summary=As it says on the tinTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, this powerful novel revolves around three women, connected by their strength and two countries and diverse cultures (France a drunk and Africa) but also other, more subtle factors. (More chronic underachiever whose dreams of that later.) First there's lawyer, Norah, returning to Africa being exceptional at the behest any of her estranged father. There has never been love lost between them, mainly because her father prefers to ignore his female offspring; therefore his reason for the summons is a mystery, until... The second story is that artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of African teacher, Fanta, forced by an event beyond her control to leave Africa and settle in France with her husband Rudyself confidence. Then the final section belongs So Tim applied himself to Khadyhis studies, widowed after three years of marriage cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and sent to France by her Cinderella-esque mother-in-law. As Khady's status as a childless widow is financially unattractive, it has been deemed that she would be of more use sending money back from Europe... once she has entered France as an illegal immigrantset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050567</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marcello FoisB0C47LV1PC|title=Memory of the AbyssFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=3.54

|summary=We are on SardiniaCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, over a hundred years ago. It is a the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land of legend, where storytellers can see a different nature to the moon each night and convey ? The catch is that in their earthly stories. It's a world of wonder, where sheep can fall from the skies answer for more than one reason. It's a poor land, where lads are expected to both could well be responsible shepherds by the time they are ten. As a result people look after each other - except, while returning from a Christening Samuele and his father are refused basic hospitality. Later when the boy runs away one night the land falls away beneath him - yet he finds a girl to ground him to this earth. Which is most relevant when he goes to war, and particularly when he comes back and finds himself a wronged man, and in need of vengeance..no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Kim Thuy and Sheila Fischman (translator)|title=Ru|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Everyone of a certain age will remember ''Fragility'' is set as the American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. This was the answer to years of student protests and the prayers city of many US parents who saw sons like theirs drafted to war only to return in body bags. As far as the west was concernedPortland, the suffering was over. HoweverOregon, for the Vietnamese people, the suffering continued as cautiously begins to emerge from the Khmer Rouge and then restrictions imposed during the invading Cambodians killed, tortured and destroyed people who were just trying to survive. ''Ru'' is written by and about one such person.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685486</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Belinda SeawardMosby Woods|title=The Beautiful TruthA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5

|summary=There are two parallel story lines in Belinda Seaward's ''The Beautiful TruthWest isn'': one set t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the present day and one 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 push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in wartime Polandactual charge. Both involve love stories and personal strugglesImagine then, and there are repeating themes such as horses and was a man with precognition. Imagine the stars that effectively provide links between strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the two most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this clearly well-researched and engrossing narrativeability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0719521114</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Noble0571379559|title=Tears The House of a Phoenix|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It was almost inevitable that Jed Johnson would follow his brothers into crime. The slippery slope from care to young offenders' institute to an eventual life sentence was almost predictable despite his mother's attempts to raise him for responsibility. However, once serving the life sentence, Jed has time to think and, aided by Elisabeth, a prison service psychologist, he assesses his past and decides how he'd like his future to look. Decision doesn't guarantee fulfilment though, and Jed has a long way to go before he knows how his story will end. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846949882</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBroken Bricks|author=Kathleen MacMahon|title=This Is How It EndsFiona Williams

|summary=This ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is an incredibly gentle (and gently funny) love the story set in the winter of 2008 when the Irish economy was booming and the US were about to elect their first black presidentfour people. Hugh (a deliciously grumpy surgeon) and his currently unemployed architect daughter Addie lived happily in an Irish seaside town. Ok, he'd broken both his wrists tripping over Addie Tess Hembry's dog and Addie found it hard not to cry sometimesroots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but they were alright. Then one dayinstead, out of she lives in the house on the blueriverbank, they receive a voicemail message from Brunobuilt of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, a distant American relative whoit's just popped over stood the ocean passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to say 'Hi!' Remembering complete the last US relative who came to visit (it didn't go well), Addie delivery rounds - and Hugh decide to ignore the phone..bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the front doorrainbow 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 the occupant of the bench seat across the road... Hethere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's bound to go home eventuallyhis nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847445462</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carolyn Jess-CookeClaire North|title=The Boy Who Could See DemonsHouse of Odysseus

|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction |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 he's AlexWhat could matter more than love?''s best friend.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749953136</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jess Richards|title=Snake Ropes|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It's the time for the tall mainland men to come The follow-up to the island to trade, so 16 year old Mary prepares. She brings out her handmade excellent ''Ithaca'broideries' and hides Barney, her little brother, in picks up a cupboardfew months after where we left off. This is a necessary preparation born In the palace of fearOdysseus, for the island boys have been vanishingwith delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, taken who sailed to war at Troy and then by the traders. On this particular day Mary's broideries go, but so does Barney.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144473783X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ginny Baily|title=Africa Junction|rating=4divine intervention never returned home.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Adele has made a mess of her life and As ever she knows it. Working with remains surrounded by suitors vying for the stresses throne of being a teacher as well as a single mother the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and having shrugged off a disastrous relationship, her life seems to be set on self-destruct. Part of physical – the problem is chaotic storm that the past wonClytemnestra brought to Ithaca't leave her alone. Adele s shores, Queen Penelope is haunted by on the memory brink of Ellena, a friend from her childhood in Senegal, Africafragile peace. With one unthinkingOne that shatters however with the return of Orestes, childish actionKing of Mycenae, Adele inadvertently devastated Ellena's family so, in order to go forwardand his sister Elektra, Adele must go back to the continent where it all beganseeking refuge. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552728</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laszlo KrasznahorkaiKay Chronister|title=SatantangoDesert Creatures|rating=34|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=A small community in rural Hungary With a world that is unsettled. One man has too much control over the placebecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, with too much influence on the work done there, and over all the lives lived therepost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. His effect Whether it is still felta robotic takeover, even though he has been dead for over a year. So whether you are the man itching to finish world devoid of water or a swindle and leave with the proceedingsnuclear holocaust, or the doctor, confined this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by will to Kay Chronister is a chair at his window, making the most personal, immaculate notes about the whole existence new work of the community, or the housewife whose loins still mourn the influence post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of said man, you are unsettled - especially when the dead man fears that exist for humanity today. It is said a shocking novel that still manages to be returning..find hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848877641</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Peter CareyEric LaRocca|title=The Chemistry of TearsTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=As he has done before on several occasions, Peter Carey offers Horror taps into something primeval within us two parallel stories in his intriguingly titled . 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 ''Big Bad'The Chemistry of Tears'. The two elements of the title reflect , whether that this is a book about griefhome invader, but also about science. It's also a book about human's relationship with machines monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and dependence that we have grown to have on them, and by the ugliness end of life and the beauty ofstory, at least some, machinesbeatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. In one strand of the story, Catherine It is a modern day horologist working collection of short stories more interested in a London museum whose world is shattered by the death horrors of a married colleague with whom she was having an affairillness, grief and humiliation. Put Horrors that linger and are harder to work on restoring a mysterious clockwork bird, she discovers the journals of Henry Brandling, the nineteenth century wealthy man who commissioned the construction of the toy for his consumptive sondefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057127997X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurent BinetMadelaine Lucas|title=HHhHThirst for Salt

|summary=First, the title. ''HHhH'' is short for ''Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich'' - Himmler's brain was called Heydrich. In other wordsLove, it's not a case of 'behind every great Nazi there's a greater womanI'd read, but behind Hitler's own deputy was a major strength to the party. Reinhard Heydrich was the ruler of what practically corresponds to the Czech Republic, led the SS and more, and bossed the workings of the Final Solution. Any good biography of this compelling character in those interesting times - given too the subplot of those who would assassinate him - is bound supposed to be an excellent history book. But, despite this getting a high ratinglight and weightless feeling, this isnbut I had always longed for gravity''t one. Why not? The author says so.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554799</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Anne Tyler|title=Breathing Lessons|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This Pulitzer Prize winning novel revolves around 24 hours in the lives of Maggie and Ira Moran as they attend Told from a friend's funeral and make retrospective view, a detour on young woman unravels the way homeyear-long relationship that once defined her. As Overlaid with later wisdom, the couple spend narrator relives the day together they share events affair with a man twenty years her senior from their past that put their present in contextits inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. I know this seems a somewhat sparse structure Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for a story but donSalt''t be put off. Somewhere between [[:Category:Anne Tyler|Anne Tylerdetails the 24-year-old narrator's]] idea and deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its executionall-consuming nature, something very good happenshow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099201410</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacques ChessexMichael Grothaus|title=The TyrantBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jean Calmet, teacher of Latin in a lycee of the 1960s in Switzerland, is confronting his father's death. He can hardly be said to be coming to terms with it, for Calmet pere was and remains a crushing force in Jean's life, But fearing something and although the death would in many similar novels be a release, here his fatherhaving it come to pass are two different things. And I's cremation serves m willing to batter Jean into a beaten state. His relations with his workbet most of what we fear will never happen, his lover, his students are all suffused with not a sense of loss but a sense of continuing and growing dominance by the ghost of his father. The authoritian presence seems or we can take steps to grow as a spectre rather than diminish through his deathchange it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190473894X</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Kitty Aldridge|title=A Trick I Learned from Dead Men|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Kitty Aldridge's ''A Trick I Learned from Dead MenBeautiful Shining People'' is a touchingly written, quirky story set in revolves around the world question of funeral homesidentity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. The narrator Of what is twenty-something Lee Hart. He's not the sharpest tool in the box, but his life has been tough. His father left when he was young and his mother has recently died of cancer leaving him, his step-father, a sofa-bound television make-over show addict and his deaf real and wayward younger brother, Ned to fend for themselves. 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 what is here that he learns, ironicallyartificial, about life and love, in whether the form development of the delivery girl from the local floriststechnology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096435</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roland VernonJennifer Saint|title=The Good Wife's CastleAtalanta

|summary=Charlotte Rogan's debut novel ''The Lifeboat'' takes an unexpected look at life I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on a lifeboat of a sunken linerboard that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, midway between not just in the sinking name of the ''Titanic'' and the ''Lusitania''goddess. In many ways, a lifeboat presents an ideal situation It was for a novelist. You have a set number the sake of characters and clear boundaries. But there's only so much interest in 'we were scared' and 'ohmy name, look here comes another big wave'. Her solution is to take the story as one of moral and ethical choices rather than an out and out adventuretoo. As her narrator, Grace Winter, concludes Atalanta'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=4Princess.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Life in Iran is good for Armenian Clarice AyvazianWarrior. She lives comfortably in an oil company town, devoting her middle class life to her engineer husband, teenage son and young twin daughtersLover. Her mother and sister, Alice, drop in from time to time during the course of the day, but are perfectly manageable for her (in small doses)Hero. However, when an elderly woman, her middle-aged son and his tween-age daughter move in across the road they bring turmoil in their wake and Clarice's perception of her happiness is torn apart.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851689257</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Mark Haddon|title=The Red House|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Richard and Angela - brother and sister - are reunited Abandoned at their mother's funeral. Richard is well-to-do and recently remarried with birth for being born a daughter rather than a teenage stepdaughter. Angela son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the main breadwinner in her family as her husband scrapes goddess Athemis and fashioned into a wage by working in Waterstones and somehow they and their three children get byformidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. Richard is aware that he hasn't much left in When the way of family and tries opportunity comes – to build some bridges with Angela by way join the Argonauts, a fierce band of offering that warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the eight of them should have a weekchance to fight in Artemis's holiday name and carve out her own legendary place in a cottage on the Welsh bordershistory. So, there's four adults, four children and What follows is a lot whirlwind of emotional baggage. Ohchallenges and discovery and through it, and thereAtalanta must remember Artemis's Karen - Angela's stillborn daughter who would have been eighteen fatal warning: that weekif she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096400</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Knud Romer and John Mason (translator)Amanthi Harris|title=Nothing But FearBeautiful Place

|summary=The Danish writer/actor Knud Romer Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has a gallery returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of fascinating relatives which collectively feature in ''Nothing But Fear''her home country. This biographical novel is a collection place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of memories from his grandparents' eraas home. How she came to be at the Villa, moving forwardhow it became her home, to and the machinations that of his parents, including World War II and his own childhood in 1960s and 70s small town Denmark. The vignettes arenhave flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the 't in chronological order but that's because memories normally arenscore't. The stories are narrated almost as if they're fresh from the mind, ensuring a natural flowfor this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. The interesting thing is that no matter how fascinating his other relatives are my mind Padma's eye always seemed present fails to return to one: his motherescape her past and much like the musical score of a film, Hildegardthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687144</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gwendoline Riley178563335X|title=Opposed PositionsSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=3.5

|summary=There is When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a reason PCC meeting and wondering why Gwendoline Riley has something of they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a cult followingsobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. She Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is technically innovative and very good at what she doesa lovely place, but the subject matter Rachel is invariably dark and downbeat which prevents mass market appeal. In that respect Opposed Positions is very much business as usual then. The subject matter most evident here is misogyny and struggling to develop a real bond with the damaging impact it has both directly parish - and indirectly on people. Itshe's painful to read at times; it feels as if in awe of the narratorvicar, an occasional novelistGail, Aislinn Kelly, is picking at but then she's been doing the scab of her life job for more than thirty years. Rachel and her family in Christopher hoped that a way that feels shocking and, for all walk on the wry observations, remains uncomfortable to readbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224094238</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Evelyn Eaton1398515388|title=Go Ask The Boy and the RiverDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In ninth century ChinaFirst of all, Hung Tu it was almost unique as a woman breaking into the restricted male preserve of educationearthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, particularly caused the fields of poetry nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and calligraphyutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and becoming 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 highly respected and renowned writerconvenience store. Eaton constructs He wasn't a fascinating narrative around her poems, imagining Hung Tu’s idyllic childhood which turns dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to potential chaos as she is sold into prostitution, followed by her rise to Official Hostess for open his car door and Tamon the Governordog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848190921</amazonuk>

{{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=''StopTwenty-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 got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. Pay attention Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. Hear a dead man speak It wasn't that Lowry senior didn'  These are the attention grabbing words t care for his son, it was that Ros Barber addresses he didn't care to the reader at the start of have him in this unique tale. Marlowe was country where he might be a playwright with a reputation not only for his plays but also for danger to his lifestylewife and other children. His gory death from a stab wound through The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the eye is one of the many contentious points in a brief but very lively lifeyoung man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444737384</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erin Kelly|title=The Sick Rose|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Paul had the passion and academic grades to become a teacher. HoweverAntoine Laurain, his plans started the slow slide away from his grasp after his father died and he Le Sonneur and his mother were forced to move to the rough, Grays Reach Estate and an even rougher school. It seemed that his days as bully's target had ended when Daniel, illiterate and street-wise, stepped in as protector. All Paul had to do was cover for Daniel's disability in class... at least that was all he needed to do at first.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444703854</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jennifer EganJane 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 publication of a touch, an impression and a faded photograph. Not satisfied with her father and grandmaGeorge March's biased recollections of 'the slut', she steals her step-mother'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 them, she realises they'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 else.|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 Perhaps this would not only have to fight mattered, except for the elements but also centuries of superstition fact that have trickled into the islanders' Christian faith. Life Johanna is made harder for Neil by a secret guilt emanating from the death whore of Nantes - ''a friend years ago. Howeverweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, the going becomes harder still for Lizzieunloved, isolated by an inability to speak the local language and the burgeoning fear engendered by Neilunloveable wretch.''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]]