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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary fictionFiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.__NOTOC__''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah ButlerMosby Woods|title=Ten Things IA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn've Learnt About Lovet the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the 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 actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the 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 most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Alice returns home to spend time with her dying father''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. SheTess Hembry's been travelling roots are in MongoliaJamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, finding temporary escape from the issues that had haunted her life in London but nowinstead, she lives in the house on her returnthe riverbank, events bring the pain she thought was behind her into sharp focusbuilt of broken bricks. Meanwhile Daniel is an elderly vagrant who calls Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the streets passage of London hometime, storms and floods. He seeks Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his lost childvegetables, leaving a trail of random items across to complete the city delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the hope of reunion like someone occupying a verse of rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother'Eleanor Rigbys Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they'. Disparate livesre related, seeking love much less twins and acceptance in a world there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that seems to exclude itshe's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447222490</amazonuk>

The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yan LiankeKay Chronister|title=LeninDesert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= 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 ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's Kisses''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=4.5

|summary=Yan Lianke's 2004 novel'Love, I''Lenin's Kisses''d read, newly and beautifully translated by Carlos Rojas, is was supposed to be a rare light and fascinating exampleweightless feeling, not just of Chinese fiction but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a writer living and working in Chinaretrospective view, but also a book young woman unravels the year-long relationship that has won literary awards (once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the prestigious Chinese backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Lao She Literary AwardThirst for Salt''), now available in English. In many respects, details the fact that this book won such a literary prize is somewhat surprising 24- not I hasten to add because of any lack of quality year- but because Lianke, who has previously sailed too close to the political wind for Chinese censors, here presents a not altogether flattering view of Chinese politics. Itold narrator's a book that is literary deepening relationship with a capital Lher older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and while the core of the plot is relatively simple, what makes this book so interesting is the structure familial relationships and way the story is toldhow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701188073</amazonuk>0861546490

''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=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'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=JanHilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=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-Philipp Sendkeryear-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Art of Hearing HeartbeatsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Sendker is German-born (Hamburg 1960) and worked as American correspondent for ''SternSome frogs had gotten into the well.'' (1990 to 95) and then as its Asian correspondent from  '95 to '99. He now lives Walter stood waist-deep in Berlinthe fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. This probably gives Long strands of their eggs wove around him enough global insight to write about a US-born high flyer , sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.'' How is that for an Asian heritage heading off to Burma to find out opening? The style of this novel in the truth form of her father's disappearanceinterconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. It probably also gives him And author Marco North, who has the language skills to do it in English without recourse most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to a translatorgo on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697240X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=George Bernard ShawSally Oliver |title=Cashel ByronThe 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 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 Professionmemories 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=35

|summary=Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but ''Cashel Byron’s Profession'a delight' is perhaps using the fourth of five expression in a way I'Novels of My Nonage',written by George Bernard Shaw in 1882m not familiar with. In the preface I have to confess my ignorance of the book, Shaw heavily criticises these early works, which were rejected by Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the publishing houses of the time, blaming his immaturity and lack of experience little I have read (in life. He was clearly unhappy about the way he had written some of his characterstranslation, stating that: I don'...he has not in his nonage t read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the satisfaction of knowing that his guesses at life are truemystical realism.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848547471</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WomersleyJennifer Saint|title=The Low RoadElektra

|summary=Wild is a man on 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the runstory of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. In a slowCassandra, underhand and underwhelming way he is leaving behind dangerClytemnestra, mistakes and unhappiness in his past, and has fetched up in a nondescript motel. However this is only the beginning, for he is quickly ordered to put his medical training to good use Elektra are all bit players in the case story of Lee, when the latter is dumped into his care with a gunshot woundTrojan War. Lee, too, is a man on Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the run - from danger, mistakes most compelling stories and unhappiness in his future. But this pairing are not the only people running in this pitch black thrillermost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780870574</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Claudie Gallay8409290103|title=In the Gold of TimeIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=A young father (I'm not sure we ever know his name) leaves his Montreuil apartment and takes his wife and their sevenTwenty-one-year-old twin daughters 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 annual holiday boat and thereafter Patrick was to the coastsend him a monthly allowance. They have a house, La Téméraire, overlooking Patrick sent the sea money regularly and a few kilometres south correspondence - of Dieppesorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. They It wasn't that Lowry senior didn'd bought the house just after the girls were born and go there every summert care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and maybe for a weekend or two in the Springother children. Never in winterThe alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051261</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=Philippe ClaudelB098FFFBH9|title=The InvestigationSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=And you think you had it badFourteen-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 animal world. Our hero She gets off a train at the right station, but doesn't get collected by those he's working on behalf great deal ofsupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, can't have his order a lecturer at the bar fulfilledImperial College, cannot get to the place of work on timeLondon, then cannot find the hotel almost opposite without a major trek through a snowymother Kate and her twin, unsavoury but completely empty cityNick. And when he gets to Kate runs the hotel - well that and the other people he meets there are family business, a whole new category toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of oddinformation: five soft toys. Is this how things are supposed to be - is this limbo, a nightmare or just a novel our hero is trapped in?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051547</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage|author=Yancey Williams|title=Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenn Ashworth0008421714|title=The Friday GospelsMrs March|author=Virginia Feito|rating=4.5

|summary=There are five in The problem began just after the Leeke familypublication of George March's most successful novel to date. Martin is Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the father and he works in the mail sorting officelast page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. ThereEvery day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, 's not a lot of ''pleasure'' in Martin's life, but if you were making a list youisn'd put Bovril at t this the top of it. Shefirst time he's based a labrador and Martincharacter on you?'s obsessed with her training. Well, he's partly obsessed with the training and the training is partly an excuse for his other obsession. Nina owns two labradors and Martin sees them (he and NinaShe mentioned that Johanna, that is - not he and the labs) as having a future together. It would be easy to be critical, but Martinprincipal character had 'her mannerisms's wife is in a wheelchair. Pauline's been unwell since the birth of their youngest child. She's Perhaps this would not quite doubly incontinenthave mattered, but accidents are frequent and embarrassing. She's also got a penchant except for spending on home improvements - despite the fact that there Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''really'a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.' isn't the money for them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444707728</amazonuk>