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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Austin RatnerMatthew Tree|title=The Jump ArtistWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5

|summary=Austin Ratner's debut novel, ''The Jump Artist'', first published in the US in 2009Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, is a fictionalised account drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of the extraordinary life being exceptional at any of celebrated photographer, Philippe Halsmanhis artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. Born a Latvian Jew, as a young man in 1928 he was walking in the Austrian mountains when he saw his father fall So Tim applied himself to his death. This would be traumatic for anyonestudies, but the issues were compounded when he was accused of murder by the Austrian courts in what was probably anti-semitic and certainly xenophobic in explanation. Philippe's second trial, the first failing potentially because cultivated his abilities rather than his mother had engaged a Jewish lawyer, details the fundamental lack of evidence daydreams and shoddy police work behind the accusationset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin AmisB0C47LV1PC|title=Lionel AsboFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=3.54

|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nasty, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. HeCan you make a 's violent, uncouth and ignorant. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His Yo birthing person'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block with his nephewjoke? And if you could, Des, who in fact is the central character in question should you make it? Or is the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent and kind, that is question if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmotherdid, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk'', Billy and what would it land? The catch is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from that the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistsanswer for both could well be. The US army, keen to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite the fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next week. The majority of the book takes place on the last day of this tour when Billy is in his home-state of Texas, where the Bush link makes it even more pro-war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American of PR events, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. Accompanying the troop is a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised the soldiers that he can sell their story to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simpleno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=L R Fredericks|title=Farundell|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=American Paul Asher is damaged by memories and dreams originating from World War I, or at least he thinks that's where they're from. Once the war Fragility'' is over and, set as he's estranged from his father in the UScity of Portland, Paul decides to remain in the UK to find work. Work comes to him as he's asked to assist Lord Percy Damory at FarundellOregon, the Damory ancestral home. Paul's job is straightforward: Sir Percy needs someone to whom he can dictate memoirs of a well-travelled life among distant tribes. However Paul's life at Farundell will be anything but straightforward thanks cautiously begins to emerge from the Damorys' apparent eccentricities, an ancestor from restrictions imposed during the 18th century who refuses to be labelled as a ghost and, of course, there's Sylvie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854328X</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreview|author=L R Fredericks|title=Fate|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's the 18th century and 11 year old Francis Damory is spoken to by great great grandfather, Tobias. Nothing odd except that Tobias is dead and speaks via a portrait in Farundell, the family's Oxfordshire home. Hence begins the obsession that will take the adult Sir Francis across the world and through a lifetime of adventures to track Tobias down. The longer Francis looks, the more he realises that Great Great Grandfather isn't dead and that, therefore, Francis wants whatever he's on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854331X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)|title=Every Day, Every Hour|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friends. In normal situations one might add ''and a whole lot more'' to that sentence, but Dora and Luka are in Kindergarten, which makes their intense relationship hard to define. As they grow into adults, however, it becomes obvious that there is something between them and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight this it is there and is not going to fade away. Dora’s parents move her across the continent, careers develop and flourish, out of nowhere they are enveloped by family lives, but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back to one another.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alissa Walser and Jamie Bulloch (translator)Mosby Woods|title=MesmerizedA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=A BBC film crew is sent to India to make a documentary about an Indian prison with a differenceThe West isn't the dominant force it once was. There are no walls, Nobody in the prisoners hold down jobs and their families live with them as a condition of acceptance. In fact, West is quite sure how to all intents and purposes, mend this or even if mending it seems like an ordinary village which is all the more unusual when you consider that they all share the same crime category; all the prisoners have been convicted best course of murderaction. The programme makers (20-something British-born, Indian director Ray, ruthless producer Serena and ex-convict-turned-presenter, Nathan) Governments are expecting an eventful shoot andflailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in returnactual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the inhabitants are expecting strategic advantage in this asset; a film unit exhibiting man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the standards for which the BBC has become world famousmost valuable asset in history. Both parties will be sorely disappointedImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917087</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lionel Shriver0571379559|title=The New RepublicHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=35

|summary=Lionel Shriver adds a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in The New Republic and immediately has the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it fighting for independencemight look, taking a wry look at terrorism as well as it's stood the ethics passage of the international press corpstime, storms and floods. After a series of international terrorism acts Her husband, Richard, the Os Soldados Ousados De Barbastruggles to grow his vegetables, or to complete the SOB for shortdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, have gone quiet at the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a tracerainbow twins. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barrington Sonny's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killerscolouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, as it weremuch less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Anne Sward|title=Breathless|rating=3The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are those who say thatIn the palace of Odysseus, on an individual levelwith delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate itwho sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. Oh, if only it were so easyAs ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. ''Breathless'Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca' s shores, Queen Penelope is one on the brink of those a fragile peace. One that I neither love nor hateshatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and yet am not totally uninspired by eitherhis sister Elektra, seeking refuge. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary MantelKay Chronister|title=Bring up the BodiesDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Historical Dystopian Fiction|summary=Thomas Cromwell With a world that is now very far from his humble beginningsbecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. He Whether it is Henry VIII's chief minister. Katherine a robotic takeover, a world devoid of Aragorn is no longer Queen. The Princess Mary has been disinherited. Anne Boleyn wears the crown and has produced water or a daughternuclear holocaust, Elizabeth. But there this genre is no sign of a son and Henry is beginning way for humans to regret his secession from Romecathartically experience their most existential fears. We pick up from Wolf Hall during the royal progress ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of 1535 and from there, we chart the destruction post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the new Queenfears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007315090</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Martin KohanEric LaRocca|title=School for PatriotsThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=There's Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a fair chance that if you pick up way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a South American novel, it's going to score quite highly on the 'seriously oddBig Bad' scale. Martín Kohan's School for Patriots, translated by Nick Caistor, doesn't disappoint in whether that regard. The main characteris a home invader, María Teresaa monster or a ghost, is an innocentit usually something tangible and, shy teaching assistant at a Buenos Aires school that is run on military academy style discipline. The running by the end of the school is itself something of a surprise but thatstory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's not what makes this strange. What ramps up the 'odd' factor here The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that she spends vast amounts . It is a collection of this short novel hiding stories more interested in the boys' loohorrors of illness, ostensibly grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to catch young boys smoking despite there being no evidence that defeat than any student has contravened this rule in this location. One might say she has nothing to go on. Then again, best not in the circumstances''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687438</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alonso Cueto and Frank Wynne (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=The Blue HourThirst for Salt

|summary=Adrian Ormache''Love, middle class Peruvian lawyerI'd read, has was supposed to be a beautiful wife, two daughters of the sort to make any parent proud light and a comfortable lifestyle. His parents divorced when he was small soweightless feeling, as he lived with his mother, he has fragmented memories of a gruff, distant dad. Despite his father's aloof, dictatorial manner, Adrian has but I had always comforted himself with the fact he played a useful role as a land-bound naval officer, fighting Senderista terrorists longed for the good of Peru. After the death of his mother everything changes. Adrian finds documents that lead him away from his beliefs, towards a truth that will shatter more than his fathergravity''s image.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019410</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Fannie Flagg|title=I Still Dream About You|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the age of 60year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, Maggie Fortenbury's glory days seem the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to have passed her byits sorrowful end the summer after. An ex-Miss Alabama, she headed for Set against the fame she dreamt backdrop of in an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the Big Apple24-year-old narrator' and endeds deepening relationship with her older lover, insteaddepicting its all-consuming nature, making disastrous life choices that took how it changed her along a different route. However she had made one good decision: to work for the diminutive Hazel Whisenkott, midget and founder of Red Mountain Realty. Now, as Hazel is dead, perspective on both romantic and despite her friendship with her colleagues (obese, optimistic Brenda familial relationships and moaning Ethel), suicide seems the next logical step. It has to be done correctly as Maggie comes from an era when you wouldn't want to let anyone down or any commitment unfulfilled. Therefore picking how it altered her final day becomes increasingly difficult when other things get in the way, including a troupe of Whirling Dervishesirrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555484</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fiona McGregorMichael Grothaus|title=Indelible InkBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Once wealthy, middle class Australian suburbanite Marie King never thought she'd be starting a new life at 59 but here she is, divorced 'But fearing something and having it come to sell the marital homepass are two different things. Unfortunately, attached to the marital home is the marital garden into which Marie didnAnd I't only give life but also pour her own life. However, Marie tries m willing to be positive and decides that if she's going to be a new personbet most of what we fear will never happen, she may as well go the whole way. This means tattoos (much or we can take steps to her offsprings' horror) and an unlikely friendship with tattooist Rhyschange it. With that comes the realisation that the privileged suburb of Mossman isn't all there is to Sydney. There's much more to the city, and indeed herself, than she first thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857894129</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jude Morgan|title=The Secret Life of William Shakespeare|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Books about Shakespeare vary hugely both in terms ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of approach identity and qualityacceptance. Some focus on historical fact, while others play rather more loosely with the romance of his lifeOf what it means to be human. Fortunately for readers, Jude Morgan's books are rather more reliably excellent. What's more, he has a track record of fiction that concerns great writersOf what is real and what is artificial, having previously tackled the Brontës (''The Taste of Sorrow'') and whether the romantic poets (''Passion''). So my expectations were already quite high coming into his ''The Secret Life development of William Shakespeare'' - expectations that he has again surpassedtechnology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755358228</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David VannJennifer Saint|title=DirtAtalanta|rating=4.5

|summary=We're back in the mid-nineteen-eighties in a suburb 'I was as worthy as any one of Sacramento and Galen lives with his mother them. I would get on the family walnut farmboard that ship, I vowed. The farm's I would take my place, not what it was, largely having been left to its own devices since just in the death name of Galen's abusive grandfather some years beforethe goddess. Galen's ''father'' is something of an unknown quantity - his mother won't even discuss who he It was or tell Galen anything about him, but then she's able to shut her mind to most things which she finds unpleasant. ''Her'' mother has been moved from the farm to a nursing home - she's still quite active but her memory is going. Suzie-Q's sister, Helen is determined to get her hands on the family money for the benefit sake of her seventeen-year-old daughtermy name, Jennifertoo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021962</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''

{{newreview|author=Chuck Palahniuk|title=Invisible Monsters Remix|rating=4Princess.5|genre=General Fiction|summary='Don't expect this to be the kind of story that goes: and then, and then, and thenWarrior.' And yetLover.Hero.. Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk books, upon his first, ''Fight Club''-inspired flush of British success, and never got round to reading them. And then the book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk|Pygmy]], [[Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruse. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then he revised Invisible Monsters, his second-written and third-published novel, and I got to look at it after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Marie N'Diaye and John Fletcher (translator)|title=Three Strong Women|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As it says on Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the tin, this powerful novel revolves around three women, connected by their strength goddess Athemis and two countries and diverse cultures (France and Africa) but also otherfashioned into a formidable huntress, more subtle factorsone who longs for adventure. (More of that later.) First there's lawyer, Norah, returning When the opportunity comes – to Africa at join the behest of her estranged father. There has never been love lost between themArgonauts, 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 fierce band of African teacherwarriors, Fanta, forced by an event beyond her control descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to leave Africa and settle fight in France with her husband Rudy. Then the final section belongs to Khady, widowed after three years of marriage Artemis' name and sent to France by carve out her Cinderella-esque mother-own legendary place in-lawhistory. As Khady's status as What follows is a childless widow is financially unattractivewhirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, it has been deemed Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she would marries, it will be of more use sending money back from Europe... once she has entered France as an illegal immigranther undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050567</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcello FoisAmanthi Harris|title=Memory of the AbyssBeautiful Place|rating=3.5

|summary=We are on SardiniaPadma, over a hundred years agoyoung Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. It This is a land of legend, where storytellers can see a different nature to the moon each night and convey that in their earthly storiesplace she spent her formative years. It's is not a world of wonderplace she was born into, where sheep can fall from but the skies for more than one reasonshe thinks of as home. It's a poor land, where lads are expected How she came to be responsible shepherds by at the time they are ten. As a result people look after each other - exceptVilla, how it became her home, while returning from a Christening Samuele and his father are refused basic hospitality. Later when the boy runs away one night machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the land falls away beneath him - ''score'' for this gentle and yet he finds a girl to ground him to this earthsubtly violent novel. Which is most relevant when he goes Padma's present fails to war, escape her past and particularly when he comes back and finds himself much like the musical score of a wronged manfilm, and in need of vengeance..that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Thuy and Sheila Fischman (translator)178563335X|title=RuSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=4.5

|summary=Everyone of When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a certain age will remember PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975children up. This was the answer to years of student protests Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and the prayers of many US parents who saw sons like theirs drafted to war only to return her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in body bags-law won't let her see her grandson. As far as the west was concernedHolthorpe, on the suffering was over. HoweverNorfolk coast, for the Vietnamese peopleis a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the suffering continued as parish - and she's in awe of the Khmer Rouge and vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the invading Cambodians killed, tortured job for more than thirty years. Rachel and destroyed people who were just trying to surviveChristopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. ''Ru'' is written by and about one such personAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685486</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Belinda Seaward1398515388|title=The Beautiful TruthBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=There are two parallel story lines in Belinda Seaward's ''The Beautiful Truth'': one set First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the present day ocean floor, which created the tsunami and one this, in wartime Polandturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Both involve love stories The result was complete and personal strugglesutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and there are repeating themes such as horses and the stars loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that effectively provide links between many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the two in this clearly welltsunami -researched 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 engrossing narrativeTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719521114</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Noble0989715337|title=Tears 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 Papa on 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>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Kathleen MacMahon|title=This Is How It EndsMarco North|rating=54

|summary=This is an incredibly gentle (and gently funny) love story set in the winter of 2008 when the Irish economy was booming and the US were about to elect their first black president. 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's dog and Addie found it hard not to cry sometimes, but they were alright. Then one day, out of the blue, they receive a voicemail message from Bruno, a distant American relative who's just popped over the ocean to say 'Hi!' Remembering Some frogs had gotten into the last US relative who came to visit (it didn't go well), Addie and Hugh decide to ignore the phone... and the front door... and the occupant of the bench seat across the road... He's bound to go home eventually. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847445462</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Carolyn Jess''Walter stood waist-Cooke|title=The Boy Who Could See Demons|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Alex can see demons. He's been able to ever since deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his dad left when he was five years oldbeaten leather hat. Some demons are hideous, some are frighteningLong strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and some just lurk in corners doing not much barked down at allthe strange noise of the buckets as he filled them. One is called Ruen, and he's Alex'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 How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the tall mainland men to come form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to the island to trade, so 16 year old Mary prepares. She brings out her handmade 'broideries' wistful and hides Barneymusing, her little brother, in turning on a cupboardsixpence. This is a necessary preparation born of fearAnd author Marco North, for who has the island boys have been vanishingmost wonderful turn of phrase, taken by the traders. On this particular day Mary's broideries starts as he means to go, but so does Barneyon.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144473783X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ginny BailyDaisy Hildyard|title=Africa JunctionEmergency|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Adele has made a mess of her life and she knows it. Working with the stresses of being a teacher as well as a single mother and having shrugged off a disastrous relationship, her life seems to be set on self-destruct. Part of the problem is that the past won't leave her alone. 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 began. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552728</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laszlo Krasznahorkai|title=Satantango|rating=3

A small community in rural Hungary The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is unsettled. One man has too much control over the place, with too much influence on the work done there, and over all the lives lived there. His effect is still felt, even though he has been dead for over a year. So whether you are the man itching to finish a swindle and leave with the proceedings, or the doctor, confined by will to a chair at his window, making 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..premise. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848877641</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Peter CareySally Oliver |title=The Chemistry Weight of TearsLoss |rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=As he has done before on several occasions, Peter Carey offers us two parallel stories in his intriguingly titled 'The Chemistry of Tears'Marianne is grieving. The two elements Traumatised after the death of the title reflect that this is a book about griefher sister, but also about science. It's also a book about human's relationship with machines and dependence that we have grown she awakes to have on themfind strange, and thick black hairs sprouting from the ugliness bones of life her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the beauty ofodd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at least someNede, machinesan experimental new treatment centre in Wales. In one strand of Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the story, Catherine is other patients at Nede: a modern day horologist working in a London museum whose world is shattered by the death metamorphosis of a married colleague with whom she was having an affairkind. Put As Marianne's memories threaten to work on restoring a mysterious clockwork birdoverwhelm her, she discovers the journals Nede offers her release from this cycle of Henry Brandling, the nineteenth century wealthy man who commissioned the construction memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of the toy for his consumptive sonidentity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057127997X</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurent BinetNatalia Garcia Freire|title=HHhHThis World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=FirstEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the title. ''HHhH'' first – tremendous is short for no understatement – but ''Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich'' - Himmler's brain was called Heydrich. In other words, it's not a case of delight'behind every great Nazi there's is perhaps using the expression in a greater womanway I', but behind Hitler's own deputy was a major strength to the partym not familiar with. Reinhard Heydrich was the ruler of what practically corresponds I have to the Czech Republic, led the SS and more, and bossed the workings confess my ignorance of the Final SolutionSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Any good biography of this compelling character From the little I have read (in those interesting times - given too the subplot of those who would assassinate him - is bound translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be an excellent history book. But, despite this getting a high rating, this isn't one. Why not? The author says sotendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846554799</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{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 a friend's funeral and make a detour on the way home. As the couple spend the day together they share events from their past that put their present in context. I know this seems a somewhat sparse structure for a story but don't be put off. Somewhere between [[:Category:Anne Tyler|Anne Tyler's]] idea and its execution, something very good happens.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099201410</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacques ChessexJennifer Saint|title=The TyrantElektra

|summary=Jean Calmet, teacher 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of Latin three women who live in a lycee the heavily male dominated world of the 1960s in Switzerland, is confronting his father's deathAncient Greece. He can hardly be said to be coming to terms with itCassandra, for Calmet pere was and remains a crushing force in Jean's lifeClytemnestra, and although the death would in many similar novels be a release, here his father's cremation serves to batter Jean into a beaten state. His relations with his work, his lover, his students Elektra are all suffused with not a sense bit players in the story of loss but a sense of continuing the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and growing dominance by the ghost of his father. The authoritian presence seems to grow as a spectre rather than diminish through his deathmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190473894X</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kitty Aldridge8409290103|title=A Trick I Learned from Dead MenIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=Kitty Aldridge's ''A Trick I Learned from Dead Men'' is a touchingly written, quirky story set in the world of funeral homes. The narrator is twentyTwenty-one-year-something Lee Hart. He's not the sharpest tool in the box, but old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his life has been tough. His father left when , cotton-broker AO Lowry: he was asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and his mother has recently died of cancer leaving thereafter Patrick was to send him, his step-father, a sofamonthly allowance. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence -bound television makeof sorts -over show addict and sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his deaf and wayward younger brotherson, Ned it was that he didn't care to fend for themselveshave him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. Lee lands a job as a trainee at The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the local funeral home helping Derek prepare the dead for burial or cremationyoung man on his way. Far from being a dead end job though}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, it Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Red is here My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that he learnsmore accurately – this one was, ironicallyand is, about life black and white and lovered. Yes, in he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the form influence of the delivery girl from the local floristssome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096435</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roland VernonB098FFFBH9|title=The Good Wife's Castle|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=We start with a father's suicide, a child watching as he steps of the chair in the milking room with the noose around his neck. A father who died for shame.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552775533</amazonuk>}}  {{newreviewSnowcub|author=Charlotte Rogan|title=The LifeboatGraham Fulbright

|summary=Charlotte RoganFourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's debut novel ''The Lifeboat'' takes an unexpected look at life on animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a lifeboat of a sunken liner, midway between competition entry to highlight the sinking of the ''Titanic'' and way in which human beings exploit the ''Lusitania''animal world. In many ways She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lifeboat presents an ideal situation for a novelist. You have a set number of characters lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and clear boundaries. But there's only so much interest in 'we were scared' and 'ohher twin, look here comes another big wave'Nick. Her solution is to take Kate runs the story as one of moral and ethical choices rather than an out and out adventure. As her narratorfamily business, Grace Wintera toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, concludes which is where we'it was not the sea that was cruel, but the peoplell meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844087522</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zoya PirzadYancey Williams|title=Things We Left UnsaidCrosshairs of the Devil

|summary=Life in Iran Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is good for Armenian Clarice Ayvazian. She lives comfortably getting on in an oil company townyears and, devoting her middle class life despite his strenuous objections and thanks to her engineer husbandhis daughter, teenage son and young twin daughters. Her mother and sisterfinds himself living - or imprisoned, Alice, drop from Eddie's point of view - in from time to time during room 315 of the course Garden of the dayEden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, but are perfectly manageable for her (palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in small doses). However-trade of writing though, so here, when an elderly womanfor his readers, her middle-aged son and are his wanderings through his tween-age daughter move in across the road they bring turmoil in their wake and Claricelife's perception of her happiness is torn apartwork.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851689257</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Haddon0008421714|title=The Red HouseMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|summary=Richard and Angela - brother and sister - are reunited at their motherThe problem began just after the publication of George March's funeralmost successful novel to date. Richard is well-Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to-do and recently remarried with a teenage stepdaughtereither be reading it or had already done so. Angela is Every day Mrs March went to the main breadwinner in her family local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as her husband scrapes a wage by working in Waterstones and somehow they and their three children get by. Richard is aware that he hasnshe was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't much left in this the way of family and tries to build some bridges with Angela by way of offering that the eight of them should have a weekfirst time he's holiday in based a cottage character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the Welsh bordersprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. SoPerhaps this would not have mattered, thereexcept for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - 's four adults'a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, four children and a lot of emotional baggageunloveable wretch. Oh, and there's Karen - Angela's stillborn daughter who would have been eighteen that week.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096400</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Knud Romer and John Mason (translator)|title=Nothing But Fear|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Danish writer/actor Knud Romer has a gallery of fascinating relatives which collectively feature in ''Nothing But Fear''. This biographical novel is a collection of memories from his grandparents' era, moving forward, to that of his parents, including World War II and his own childhood in 1960s and 70s small town Denmark. The vignettes aren't in chronological order but 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 mother, Hildegard.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687144</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gwendoline Riley|title=Opposed Positions|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There is a reason why Gwendoline Riley has something of a cult following. She is technically innovative and very good at what she does, but the subject matter 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 the damaging impact it has both directly and indirectly Move on people. It's painful to read at times; it feels as if the narrator, an occasional novelist, Aislinn Kelly, is picking at the scab of her life and her family in a way that feels shocking and, for all the wry observations, remains uncomfortable to read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224094238</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]