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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin PowersMatthew Tree|title=The Yellow Birds|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Daniel Murphy ('MurphWe') is 18, in the American army and about to embark on his first tour of duty in Iraq. By his side is John Bartle, three years older and more experienced in the army. However neither of them has any notion of the sort of life or job they will face when they get there. The fighting is dirty, unpredictable and not set out in any text book. Their commanding officer, Sergeant Sterling, is sadistic and without any apparent humanity. But everything will be alright: Bartle has made a promise to Murph's mother, a promise that will ricochet from the US to Iraq and back again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444756125</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian McEwan|title=Sweet Toothll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ian McEwan's ''Sweet Tooth'' is part spy novel but Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more a love story and a tale of deception and half truths. It's also, more subtlythan to be different from his father, a book about the power, role drunk and importance chronic underachiever whose dreams of fiction. Set in the 1970s, with frequent musical and political references to the UK being exceptional at that time, Serena Frome is a beautiful, Cambridge-educated daughter any of an Anglican bishop with a taste for unsuitable romances. From an early affair with a man his artistic passions all failed miserably and who turns out to be homosexual, to an affair with an older lecturer she moves on to a surprise job at MI5 where she had a crush on one endless crises of her bosses, again and awkward, repressed and unattractive individual before encountering talented author Tom Haley as part of her job with whom she once again falls in loveself confidence. Few of these men are what they seemSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and neither for that matter is Serena when she has to hide her job from Haleyset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224097377</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeet ThayilB0C47LV1PC|title=NarcopolisFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Novels about narcotic substances are notoriously hard to pull off. The challenge is to Can you make the induced events interesting and meaningful to the, presumably, non-induced reader. In a ''NarcopolisYo birthing person''joke? And if you could, Jeet Thayil pulls this off surprisingly well for meis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, although would it's fair to say that it won't be everyone's taste. It's not a book land? The catch is that the Bombay/Mumbai tourist office will answer for both could well be keen to promote. A cover quotation links the book to a similar vein (OK, that's a poor choice of words in the circumstances) to ''Trainspotting'' and that's not far from the mark.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571275761</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Zadie Smith|title=NW|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Fans of Zadie Smith have had a seven year wait since her last book ''On Beauty''. In ''NW'', Smith returns to more of the issues addressed in her brilliant debut novel [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith|White Teeth]]. Set in parts of London that should be obvious from the title, the book takes the lives of four people who grew up on a rough estate and looks at how they have moved on - or not. All four still live nearby the estate where they grew up. There's multi-cultural tension and the have and have nots of power and money and Smith looks at how much individuals are in control of their destiny and ability to rise out of their upbringing, and how chance encounters can bring you back to your past with a bumpno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144140</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Fuminori Nakamura|title=The Thief|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=The Thief ''Fragility'' is content roaming set as the streets city of TokyoPortland, living on the contents of its wealthier citizens' pockets untilOregon, his original partner in crime (literally) introduces him cautiously begins to Kizaki, a local shady big shot. Kizaki wants the Thief's help on a straightforward job. He will just be one of a team tasked with breaking into a rich speculator's home, scaring him a little, taking the contents of his safe and departing. No rough stuff and emerge from the financial settlement Kizaki offers will more than compensate restrictions imposed during the pickpocket for his time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780339135</amazonuk>covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=A N WilsonMosby Woods|title=The Potter's Hand|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The man of clay that A N Wilson throws onto his storytelling wheel in ''The Potter's Hand'' is the great Josiah Wedgwood, but this is much more than a historic telling of his life. Indeed, Josiah already has a thriving business at the start of the book. What Wilson does particularly impressively is to put Wedgwood's achievement and works into the context of the politics and social philosophy of the times, sandwiched between the two great revolutions in America and France. In order to do this, Wilson has to play slightly loose with artistic licence by altering dates and time lines a bit, but it works well. He also balances the real historic figures with several key figures of his own invention and where the historic figures don't quite fit with his narrative, he alters their ages and invents 'facts' to the benefit of the fictional narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879512</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jake Arnott|title=The House of RumourWhirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jake Arnott sees The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to be one mend this or even if mending it is the best course of those authors - like [[:Category:Will Self|Will Self]] whom you'll love or loatheaction. Governments are flailing. OccasionallyA war here, you'll swing from one extreme to the other and I'll confess to being a little nervous when I opened the bookpush for climate action there. We really weren't ''A feeling that'' keen when we read [[The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott|The Devil's Paintbrush]]. Using the deck of Tarot cards as the structure of the book we look at the twentieth century through the life of Larry Zagorskinobody is in actual charge. Imagine history being gently folded together like then, there was a cake mixture man with episodes sliding against each other, flavouring that which they touchprecognition. Imagine the real - Aleister Crowley (reprising his appearance strategic advantage in ''The Devil's Paintbrush''), Rudolf Hess, Ian Fleming, Cyril Connolly, Jim Jones and L Ron Hubbard blended with this asset; a transexual prostituteman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, a British pop singer and Larryright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, who writes pulp science fictionthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340922729</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alison Moore0571379559|title=The LighthouseHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Futh he's on a North Sea ferry on his way to a walking holiday in Germany'The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. ThereTess Hembry's no sense of enthusiasm or anticipationroots are in Jamaica: Futh's middle aged and recently separatedtemperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, seemingly without friends or family. He always wanted a dogshe lives in the house on the riverbank, but keeps stick insectsbuilt of broken bricks. The holiday seems to be something whichInsubstantial as it might look, when it is over's stood the passage of time, he will have done it storms and will then return floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his new flatvegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. It begins They have twin boys - Sonny and will end at HellhausMax, a guesthouse run by Bernard and the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his wife Estermother's Jamaican heritage. He gets on well enough with Ester but is at a loss to understand a rather hostile encounter with BernardMax takes after his father. He sets out the following morning for a week of walkingPeople don't believe that they're related, thinking much less twins and remembering. Meanwhile Ester - untouched by her meeting there's an assumption when Max is out with Futh - continues her lonely life punctuated by the occasional casual sexual encounter which his mother that she barely hides from Bernard's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773177</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
{{newreview|author=Nicola Barker|title=The Yips|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Stuart Ransom is a golfing hasfollow-been and heup to the excellent ''Ithaca''s picks up a few months after where we left off. In the only one palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who doesn't realise itsailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. If his recollections are anything to go As ever she remains surrounded by (and who can tell?) he was on a par with suitors vying for the best. Times have changed though; throne of the handicap isn't what it once was and age and alcohol have taken their tollWestern Isles. However, hope springs eternal Having survived – politically and therephysical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's always one more matchshores, so perhaps this Queen Penelope is iton the brink of a fragile peace. Meanwhile Gene, who splits his time between working at One that shatters however with the hotel in which Stuart is staying and reading electricity metersreturn of Orestes, encounters an agoraphobicKing of Mycenae, exotic tattooist. Valentine is a woman struggling with an unhealthily precocious 2 year-old, a brother flirting with criminality and a brain-injured mother who has become more than a little eccentric. Add Gene's wife Rev Sheila and her personal crisis into the mix and it becomes a recipe for disasterhis sister Elektra, it's just a case of waiting for it to eruptseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007476655</amazonuk>0356516075
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain BroomeKay Chronister|title=A is for AngelicaDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=General Dystopian Fiction|summary=Gordon and Georgina Kingdom spent years being like many other couples. They had jobs, friends, holidays, With a springer spaniel named Kipling and a life together. Then Georgina became ill and Gordon took early retirement to nurse her better. He treats retirement with the same methodical efficiency he employed at work. He records Georgina's careworld that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, her progress and shares her waking moments, feeding her and sitting with herpost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. HoweverWhether it is a robotic takeover, as she spends a lot world devoid of time asleepwater or a nuclear holocaust, Gordon this genre is left a way for humans to entertain himself and so, the same man who led the local Neighbourhood Watch, watches his neighbours, noting points of interest and visible activities in alphabetically filed dossierscathartically experience their most existential fears. They're all there: Don across the road who borrows garden tools on 'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a more permanent basis than Gordon would like, art award winner young Benny who paints with his eyes shut, the lady next door who throws footballs over the fence and the new woman across work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the road, Angelicafears that exist for humanity today. Except, when Angelica moves into the street, Gordon's interest becomes more focused than usualIt is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190877598X</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Will SelfEric LaRocca|title=UmbrellaThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=2.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Will Self's Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''UmbrellaBig Bad'' spans a century taking three interwoven strands. One features Audrey Dearth, who in 1918 whether that is a munitions worker who falls ill with encephalitis lethargicahome invader, a brain disease that spread over Europe after the Great War rendering many of its victims speechless monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and motionless. She is incarcerated in Friern hospital where, in by the early 1970s a psychiatrist, Zach Busner wakes her from her stupor using a new drug. In end of the final threadstory, in 2010 the asylum has closed and the now retired Busner travels across north London seeking the truth about his encounter with his former patientbeatable. While Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that sounds like . It is a fascinating story collection of short stories more interested in its own rightthe horrors of illness, be warnedgrief and humiliation. SelfHorrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad's approach is ambitiously modernistic making this a very heavy going tome even by Self's standards.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408820145</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=JR CrookMadelaine Lucas|title=Sleeping PatternsThirst for Salt|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Anneli Strandli lives with insomniacally introverted Berry Walker''Love, among others but not in I'd read, was supposed to be a romantically co-habiting way. They all share student accommodation complete with attendant noise light and comings and goings. Berry isn’t the most forthcoming of people but Anneli discovers a manuscript in his desk and so, sneaking into his room to read itweightless feeling, she hopes to discover from his writings the essence of Berry that his private nature hides. Meanwhile Berry is falling in love but has difficulty communicating it to the person concerned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908775521</amazonuk>}}I had always longed for gravity''
{{newreview|author=Peter Heller|title=The Dog Stars|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We are in North America in Told from a retrospective view, a near but postyoung woman unravels the year-Apocalyptic futurelong relationship that once defined her. Those few humans to survive Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a pandemic have man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to be treated as carriers, and/or armed and desperate, and so are particularly its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of note to militaryan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-minded survivalist Bangley. And climate and ecoyear-problems have killed off many common species, something closer to old narrator Hig's heartdeepening relationship with her older lover, as he's a more placid, huntin', shootin' and fishin' guy. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnership, but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has his watchdepicting its all-towerconsuming nature, while Hig takes off in his Cessna to get away from how it all, changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and his flights act as a first line of defensehow it altered her irrevocably. But is it all life could be, for Hig and his dog and Bangley? What is Hig still to make of the last inviting contact he heard on his plane's radio - even if that was three years ago? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755392590</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mette JakobsenMichael Grothaus|title=The Vanishing ActBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Minou lives on a sparsely occupied, temperate island. In fact the only occupants apart from Minou ''But fearing something and her Papa having it come to pass are Priest (the Priest), Boxman (a maker of magical boxes) and a dog called No Nametwo different things. Minou’s mother used And I'm willing to live there too. She arrived on a boat with a bowl containing a peacock (a real live one called… yes… Peacock). But then one day Mama disappeared completely apart from one shoe. Minou misses her and the way that she encouraged Minou’s imaginationbet most of what we fear will never happen, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlook. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come backor we can take steps to change it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572478</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Ned Beauman|title=The Teleportation Accident|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's hard to know where to start in reviewing Ned Beauman's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation AccidentBeautiful Shining People''. Reading it, you feel like revolves around the parent question of an ADHD-suffering childidentity and acceptance. At times Of what it means to be human. Of what is lovable, brilliant real and entertainingwhat is artificial, at others you just want to reach for the Ritalin and tell it to sit in a corner quietly while it composes itself. A clue to both whether the brilliance and frustration development of Beauman technology is in the vast range of writers to whom he has been compared in both this and his first novel [[Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman|Boxer, Beetle]]. There are hints of people as wide ranging as [[:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]], [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P G Wodehouse]], [[:Category:Douglas Adams|Douglas Adams]], Raymond Chandler even [[:Category:Angela Carter|Angela Carter]] to name just a few. Beauman takes a huge range of styles and genres and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be a challenge keeping up with him at timesexciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998423</amazonuk>191458564X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer Saint
|title=Atalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of 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''
{{newreview|author=Deborah Levy|title=Swimming Home|rating=4Princess.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Joe, a poet and Isabel, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent a luxurious villa in the South of France and invite their friends Laura and Mitchell to join themWarrior. On their first day there Nina finds what appears to be a naked body floating in the swimming pool, but it's Kitty FinchLover. She pleads a mix-up over booking dates and when told that all the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers her the use of the spare bedroom at the villaHero. There's no obvious reason for why she does this, but what does become clear is that Kitty suffers from depression - and she's stopped taking her medication.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276029</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Manu Joseph|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other People|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog family''. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinking, and by him Abandoned at birth for being born a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problemsdaughter rather than a son, their younger son Atalanta is fixated on raised under the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is a ''cartoonist hottie'' - a handsome prodigy protective eye of the comic strip world - or he was until he took goddess Athemis and fashioned into a nosedive off their roof three years agoformidable huntress, aged 17one who longs for adventure. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying When the opportunity comes – to seek join the cause Argonauts, a fierce band of this suicidewarriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and what we have here carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is the journey a whirlwind of the family as he struggles towards the truthchallenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi AldermanAmanthi Harris|title=The Liars' GospelBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In ''The Liars' Gospel''Padma, a young Sri Lankan, Naomi Alderman gives has returned to the perspective of four people Villa Hibiscus on the recent death southern coast of her home country. This is a Jewish man named Yehoshuah, who place she spent her formative years. It is more commonly known these days by the anglicized name of Jesus. These perspectives include Miryam (Mary)not a place she was born into, but the teacher's mother, Iehuda of Qeriot (Judas Iscariot), a one time follower she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the manVilla, Caiaphashow it became her home, and the High Priest of machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the great Temple in Jerusalem ''score'' for this gentle and finally Bar-Avo, Barabbas, a rebel who is determined yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to bring down escape her past and much like the occupying Roman presence. What makes this such musical score of a remarkable book is the sheer visceral nature of the story telling. Each story is vividly toldfilm, and Alderman evokes the time and place to such a level that you half expect to have developed a sun tan while reading strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the bookVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091990X</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pat Barker178563335X|title=Toby's RoomSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Elinor Brooke When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother Toby had always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than is acceptable. The trick then, as Toby saidJamie, was to get back to how their relationship was beforewhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Toby concentrated on calling her Thelma'siss daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, whilst Elinor was never quite certain how they could turn on the clock back Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a time when they were more innocent. But looking back, real bond with the summer parish - and she's in awe of 1912 would seem idyllic: in 1917 Toby was reported 'Missingthe vicar, Gail, Believed Killedbut then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died Rachel and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was Christopher hoped that a fellow student of hers at walk on the Slade School of Art and who beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was in the fox hole when Toby met his fateprobably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144574</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeanette Winterson1398515388|title=The Daylight GateBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=1610s LancashireFirst of all, and Alice Nutter is it was the best landowner you could wish for. Singleearthquake, rich and connected, she takes no sides deep in the religious schisms James I has inheritedocean floor, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress which created the poor, putting them up tsunami and feeding them when no-one else will. But those poor are seen as sinful by others - amoralthis, dirty in mindturn, body caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and spiritutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and in league with the devilloss of livelihoods was widespread. And people are beginning to question Alice's attitudes, choice The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of company priorities but - and ageless beautysix months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. This, then, is He wasn't a dog person but the based-on-truth story of how Alice Nutter got convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to be one of open his car door and Tamon the accused dog jumped in the Pendle Witch trials.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099561859</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tupelo Hassman0989715337|title=GirlchildPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rory Dawn Hendrix (RD for short) lives with her mother in ''Some frogs had gotten into the ironically named Calle de las Flores or Street of Flowers; a pretty name masking a less than idyllic settingwell. For Calle is a trailer park for those living a life sentence of poverty, the inhabitants being as upwardly mobile as their static, seedy homes. RD has half brothers but they live with their father, leaving RD to live alone with her mother and nearby grandmother, a father being a luxury that Rory Dawn has learnt to live without. Rory Dawn is also a Girl Scout and has a handbook to prove it but she's in a troop of one, alone with the ideals of an organisation that she only glimpses through disadvantage and in the same way that she glimpses the materialistic world beyond her means. However, her mother wants more for her than the teen pregnancies that seem to have become their family heirloom and there is hope as RD is highly intelligent; but can this be enough?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178087104X</amazonuk>}}'
{{newreview|author=Anita Desai|title=The Artist of Disappearance|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist of Disappearance'' is a collection of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set Walter stood waist-deep in modern day Indiathe fragrant water, all involve some looking back in time and all three involve some consideration of the creative art - who it is naked except for, what happens to it once it leaves the artist's control and who 'owns' ithis beaten leather hat. Most Long strands of all, each one is beautifully writtentheir eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with strong characters tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and evocative descriptions of personal loss. In terms barked down at the strange noise of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in the story just buckets as much as if you had read a novel of more conventional lengthhe filled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=James Kelman|title=Mo Said She Was Quirky|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mo may have said How is that Helen was quirky - neurotic might have been a more accurate assessment for an opening? The style of his partner though. Although not a first person narrative, James Kelman's latest is another dramatic monologue, although this novel in the first time he has placed a female as his main character. Helen is a single motherform of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, working nights as turning on a croupier in a London casinosixpence. Mo is her Asian boyfriend. In fairness to HelenAnd author Marco North, she who has a lot to worry about - a damaged upbringing that has seen her older brother leave home without trace, a failed marriage, and a life the most wonderful turn of constant struggle. As usual with Kelmanphrase, his approach is tender, yet gritty and often gently amusing. He's always sympathetic starts as he means to his main characters. However, if you are new to Kelman, be warned that he is a writer that is heavy go on a distinctive style more than plot per se.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144566</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonDaisy Hildyard|title=The Book Lover's TaleEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failed, and so he had to join his wife in interior design, where he can use his love of books to arrange - at a cost - the contents, design and most importantly the colours, of upper class people's home libraries for them. He'll concede that it's a good way to get into the houses, and beds, of rich women, such as his latest flame, Claudia. But why is this, his confession, talking of murder?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John Banville
|title=Ancient Light
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The narrator in John Banville's ''Ancient Light'' is Alex Cleave, a stage actor in the curtain call of his career. For reasons that become clearer towards the end summary of the this book, he doesn't come close to explaining what is recalling his first relationship, when as a teenager in 1950s Ireland, he had a passionate affair done with the mother of his best friend. However, his past is also blighted by recollections of his own daughter's suicide ten years previouslypremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670920614</amazonuk>1913097811}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=David RainSally Oliver |title=The Heat Weight 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 Sunbones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=David Rain is far too young to be writing Early comments on this exquisitelydebut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. That I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight's all is perhaps using the expression in a way I'm going not familiar with. I have to sayconfess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation hereOh From the little I have read (in translation, you need me I don't read Spanish) there does seem to justify that comment? be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857892037</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersJennifer Saint|title=The Vintage and the GleaningElektra|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Smithy, a retired sheep shearer, now works on a vineyard in 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the countryside story of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire and too ill from the after effects of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to three women who live in the physically arduous heavily male dominated world of shearingAncient Greece. Cassandra, Clytemnestra, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and daughter-Elektra are all bit players in-law. Meanwhile rumours abound about the deeds story of local thug, Brett Clayton and, whether true or not, he's definitely someone to be avoidedthe Trojan War. However, when Brett's wife Charlotte leaves him Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without a second thoughtthe most extreme furies. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him to remember his own past and dreams. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timeri N Murari8409290103|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubIf Only|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=We all knowTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, or think we knowcotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, how oppressive life to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowance. 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. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for Afghanshis son, particularly Afghan women, under the Taliban regime, but when you read it was that he didn't care to have him in this novel, boy do you get country where he might be a sense of how tough it really danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem wasobvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Red is 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 more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alix OhlinB098FFFBH9|title=InsideSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Grace, a therapist, stumbles upon a young man in the woods who has attempted to commit suicide, Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her vocational interests friend are immediately engaged. The novel takes us through their complex relationship, both its surface routines and day producing a competition entry to day moments but also Grace's eventually successful search for highlight the way in which human beings exploit the reasons behind Tug's desperationanimal world. Ohlin interlaces with this the story She gets a great deal of Mitchsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, Grace's ex-husbandLondon, mother Kate and of Annieher twin, one of her clientsNick. Kate runs the family business, chronicling both their relationship with Gracea toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, but also their network which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of families and friends, acquaintances and colleaguesinformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michel HouellebecqYancey Williams|title=The Map and Crosshairs of the TerritoryDevil|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jed Martin, initially a photographer Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and later painter, has a singular take on the world despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his craft. This novel takes him daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from obscurity as a reclusive student to fame as the doyenne Eddie's point of the contemporary art scene and view - in this journey we see exposed both the underlying values but in many ways room 315 of the essential emptiness Garden of the art worldEden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. He Nothing is 'taken up', feted and courted by critics and patronsgoing to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, by those who know nothing but monetary valueso here, and Houellebecq doesn't let any opportunity for a sharp gibe at gallerieshis readers, art critics and agents go past. The key to Jedare his wanderings through his life's fame is ironically his complete anonymity, and Houellebecq’s creation of the catarrh dribbling agent Marylin who manages Jed’s ‘outing’ is one of the classics of modern satirework. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554577</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jose Saramago0008421714|title=CainMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Death is The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the beginning, last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so some say. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, and as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first death of one human at the hands of another - Caintime he's slaying of Abel with what always seemed an unlikely murder weapon - is the start of this excoriating drive through what Cain felt when set against the god based a character on you?'' She mentioned that both snubbed his sacrifices and allowed, despite alleged omnipotenceJohanna, the murder in the first placeprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. Riding a donkey, Perhaps this Cain takes up life as personal guard and lover to Lilithwould not have mattered, but also leaves except for the fact that Johanna is the Land whore of Nod for diverse Old Testament locationsNantes - ''a weak, plain, where he sees the stories of the golden calfdetestable, the tower of Babelpathetic, Sodom and Gomorrah and more at first hand. All they ever do is make him realise the gulf between what god is supposed to benevolently embodyunloved, and how he actsunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552248</amazonuk>''
}}
 
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