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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A N Wilson295967572X|title=The Potter's HandPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=The man of clay that A N Wilson throws onto his storytelling wheel in ''The Potter's Hand'' Our unnamed narrator is the great Josiah Wedgwood, but this is much more than about to begin a historic telling of train journey with his life. Indeed, Josiah already has a thriving business at the start of the bookcompanion Django. What Wilson does particularly impressively is to put WedgwoodWhere they's achievement re going and works into what the context purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the politics and social philosophy of tickets ''on the times, sandwiched between the two great revolutions in America floor somewhere'' and France. In order to do this, Wilson has persuaded our narrator to play slightly loose with artistic licence by altering dates and time lines a bit, accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but it works well. He also balances we are probably in the real historic figures with several key figures of his own invention and where past as the historic figures don't quite fit with his narrative, he alters their ages and invents 'facts' pair travel to the benefit of station by coach and the fictional narrativetrain is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879512</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jake ArnottMakenna Goodman|title=The House Helen of RumourNowhere|rating=4.5

|summary=Jake Arnott sees to It could be one argued that the pervading theme of those authors this book is malaise - like [[:Category:Will Self|Will Self]] whom you'll love or loathea hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. OccasionallyThe protagonist, you'll swing from one extreme to a disgraced professor on the other brink of losing both his career and I'll confess to being his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a little nervous when I opened the bookforce which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. We really weren't ''that'' keen when we read [[The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott|The Devil's Paintbrush]]connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. Using As the deck former owner of Tarot cards as the structure of the book we look at the twentieth century through the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life of Larry Zagorski. Imagine history being gently folded together like a cake mixture with episodes sliding against each other, flavouring that which they touchher past tied to his potential fresh start. Imagine The realtor who shows the protagonist around the real - Aleister Crowley (reprising his appearance in house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''The Devilan entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form's Paintbrush''). Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Rudolf Hess, Ian Fleming, Cyril Connolly, Jim Jones and L Ron Hubbard blended with a transexual prostitute, a British pop singer and Larry, who writes pulp science fictionHelen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340922729</amazonuk>1804272205

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MooreOlga Tokarczuk|title=The LighthouseHouse of Day, House of Night

|summary=When we first meet Futh he''What's on the good of a North Sea ferry world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on his way to a walking holiday calmly living in Germany. Thereit?'s no sense of enthusiasm or anticipation: Futh's middle aged and recently separated, seemingly without friends or family. He always wanted a dog, but keeps stick insects. The holiday seems to be something which, when it is over, he will have done it and will then return to his new flat. It begins and will end at Hellhaus, a guesthouse run by Bernard and his wife Ester. He gets on well enough with Ester but is at a loss to understand a rather hostile encounter with Bernard. He sets out the following morning for a week of walking, thinking and remembering. Meanwhile Ester - untouched by her meeting with Futh - continues her lonely life punctuated by the occasional casual sexual encounter which she barely hides from Bernard.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773177</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Nicola Barker|The title=The Yips|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Stuart Ransom is a golfing has-been and heof this spellbinding work, 's the only one who doesn't realise it. If his recollections are anything to go by (and who can tell?) he was on a par with the best. Times have changed though; the handicap isnHouse of Day, House of Night't what it once was and age and alcohol have taken their toll. However, hope springs eternal and there's always one more match, so perhaps somewhat reflects this is it. Meanwhile Genenotion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, who splits his time between working at like the hotel in which Stuart is staying and reading electricity metersshift from day to night, encounters an agoraphobichowever quotidian, exotic tattooistcausing chaos. Valentine But, the constant in that image is a woman struggling with an unhealthily precocious 2 year-oldthe house, 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 stoic against the mix and ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it becomes a recipe for disaster, it's just a case of waiting for it to eruptis perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007476655</amazonuk>1804271918

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain BroomeThea Lenarduzzi|title=A is for AngelicaThe Tower

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Gordon and Georgina Kingdom spent years being like many other couples. They had jobs, friends, holidays, 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 ''How unctuous are the same methodical efficiency he employed at work. He records Georginafats of another's care, her progress and shares her waking moments, feeding her and sitting with her. However, as she spends a lot of time asleeplife, Gordon is left to entertain himself and so, the same man who led the local Neighbourhood Watch, watches his neighbours, noting points of interest and visible activities how dizzying their sugars in alphabetically filed dossiers. Theyour bloodstream're all there: Don across the road who borrows garden tools on 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 the road, Angelica. Except, when Angelica moves into the street, Gordon's interest becomes more focused than usual.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190877598X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Will Self|title=Umbrella|rating=2In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Will SelfJust as T's ''Umbrella'' spans a century taking three interwoven strands. One features Audrey Dearth, who in 1918 story is a munitions worker who falls ill with encephalitis lethargicabeing told, a brain disease that spread over Europe after the Great War rendering many story of its victims speechless and motionless. She a second protagonist is incarcerated in Friern hospital whereunveiled: Annie, in the early 1970s daughter of a psychiatrist, Zach Busner wakes her from her stupor using a new drug. In wealthy family in the final thread19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in 2010 the asylum has closed and the now retired Busner travels across north London seeking the truth about his encounter with his former patient. While that sounds like a fascinating story in its own righttower, be warnedcaptures T's imagination. SelfAnnie's approach fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is ambitiously modernistic making this a very heavy going tome even by Self's standardsstory which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408820145</amazonuk>1804271799

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=JR CrookJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Sleeping PatternsVaim

|summary=Anneli Strandli lives with insomniacally introverted Berry Walker, among others but not in a romantically co-habiting way''All was strange''.. They all share student accommodation complete with attendant noise and comings and goings. Berry isn’t This haunting phrase encapsulates the most forthcoming pervading sense of people but Anneli discovers otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a manuscript fictional fishing village in his desk Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and soEline, sneaking into his room to read it, she hopes to discover from his writings two of the essence of Berry that his private nature hides. Meanwhile Berry is falling protagonists caught in love but has difficulty communicating it to the person concernedits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908775521</amazonuk>1804271829

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter HellerClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Dog StarsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=We are Everything in North America this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in a near but post-Apocalyptic futureanguish and distortion. Those few humans to survive Even a pandemic have to be treated as carrierskiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and/or armed and desperatecloseness, and so are particularly becomes evidence of note to military-minded survivalist Bangleylove lost. And climate and eco-problems have killed off many common species, something closer to When the narrator Hig's heartcries out internally, as he's a more placid, huntin'come over here and kiss me, shootin' and fishin' guyit is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnershipThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has his watchher ex-towerpartner, while Hig takes off in his Cessna a ghost she conjures to get away from it all, and his flights act as a first line of defensetest her detachment. 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>1804271934

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mette JakobsenHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Vanishing ActLili is Crying|rating=4.5

|summary=Minou lives on First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a sparsely occupied, temperate island. In fact timeless text which wrenches the only occupants apart from Minou and her Papa are Priest (the Priest), Boxman (a maker hearts of magical boxes) its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and a dog called No Name. Minou’s mother used to live there too. She arrived sentences from their proper position 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 the page and the way that she encouraged Minou’s imaginationpositions them elsewhere, disjointed, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlooktruncated. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried Like the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come backlives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099572478</amazonuk>1804271675

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanJonathan Buckley|title=The Teleportation AccidentOne Boat

|summary=Joe''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a poet contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and Isabelprotagonist, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a luxurious villa in small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the South magic of France and invite their friends Laura its setting and Mitchell its power to join themprovoke profound introspection. On their first day there Nina finds what appears to be a naked body floating in Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the swimming pool, but reason she has visited it's Kitty Finchafter the death of both her parents. She pleads a mixPrompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-up over booking dates and when told that all aware, inviting the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers reader into her the use labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of the spare bedroom at the villa. There's no obvious reason for why she does thisthought, but what does become clear since its narrative structure is that Kitty suffers from depression - fragmentary and she's stopped taking her medicationironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276029</amazonuk>1804271764

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manu JosephEowyn Ivey|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other PeopleBlack Woods Blue Sky

|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog familyBlack Woods Blue Sky''. Tamil immigrants to Madrastells the story of Birdie, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinkingyoung mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, and by him being a failed writer setting which enables her bad habits and mediocre journalisther accidental neglect of Emaleen. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is Described as a ''cartoonist hottiewild card'' , she feels stuck in her day- a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world to- or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years agoday life, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying yearns to seek cross the cause Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of this suicidea simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and what we have here is the journey of the family as solitary man, who says he struggles towards the truthhas a cabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>1472279042

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi AldermanSally Rooney|title=The Liars' GospelIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In ''The Liars' Gospel'', Naomi Alderman gives Sally Rooney has studied the perspective chessboard of four people on the recent death life and is something of a Jewish man named Yehoshuahgrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, who is more commonly known these days by as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the anglicized name of Jesus. These perspectives include Miryam (Mary)many relationships woven into this story, the teacher's mother, Iehuda of Qeriot (Judas Iscariot), a central one time follower of for readers to unravel is the manfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, Caiaphas, the High Priest of the great Temple in Jerusalem and finally Bar-Avoa socially awkward chess prodigy, Barabbascontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a rebel who is determined to bring down the occupying Roman presencesuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. What makes this such Following their father's passing after a remarkable book is the sheer visceral nature of the story telling. Each story is vividly toldlong battle with cancer, and Alderman evokes the time and place to such a level that you half expect to have developed a sun tan while reading the bookbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091990X</amazonuk>0571365469

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pat BarkerFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=Toby's RoomWhite Nights

|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=Elinor Brooke and her brother Toby had As always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than in Dostoyevsky, the character work is acceptablesublime. The trick then, as Toby said, was to get back to how their relationship was before. Toby concentrated on calling her 'sis', whilst Elinor was One is never quite certain how they could turn the clock back to left wondering what a time when they were more innocent. But looking back, the summer of 1912 would seem idyllic: in 1917 Toby was reported 'Missing, Believed Killed'. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was a fellow student of hers at the Slade School of Art character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and who was in the fox hole when Toby met his fatetemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144574</amazonuk>0241619785

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonJames Baldwin|title=The Daylight GateGiovanni's Room

|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction |summary=1610s Lancashire, and Alice Nutter is ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the best landowner you could wish for. Singlenarrator David, rich and connected, she takes no sides an American man living in the religious schisms James I has inheritedParis, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress the pooras he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, putting them up and feeding them when no-one else willan Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. But those poor are seen as sinful by others - amoralWhile David is engaged to Hella, dirty who is travelling in mindSpain, body and spirit, and the real tension in league with the devilnovel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. And people are beginning to question AliceIt is David's attitudes, choice crippling shame and denial of company - and ageless beautyhis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. |isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Alba de Cespedes |title=Forbidden Notebook|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This, then, is the based-on-truth story Italian work of how Alice Nutter got to be one feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the accused moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the Pendle Witch trialsmost intimate and revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099561859</amazonuk>1782278222

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tupelo HassmanOttessa Moshfegh|title=GirlchildMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=53

|summary=Rory Dawn Hendrix (RD for short) lives with her mother in At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the ironically named Calle de las Flores or Street fragility of Flowershuman relationships; a pretty name masking a less than idyllic setting. For Calle at worst, it is a trailer park for those living a life sentence of poverty, the inhabitants being as upwardly mobile as their staticcynical, seedy homespredictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. RD has half brothers but they live with their fatherThis unlikely heroine, a slim, leaving RD to live alone attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with her mother and nearby grandmotherthe world, a father being a luxury that Rory Dawn has learnt but resolves not to live without. Rory Dawn is also a Girl Scout and has a handbook to prove lose sleep over it but she's : in a troop of onefact, alone with the ideals of an organisation that she only glimpses through disadvantage and her solution lies in the same way that she glimpses the materialistic world beyond her meanshibernation. 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178087104X</amazonuk>1784707422

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita DesaiMatthew Tree|title=The Artist of DisappearanceWe'll Never Know

|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of Disappearance'' is a collection being exceptional at any of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set in modern day India, his artistic passions all involve some looking back in time failed miserably and all three involve some consideration who had endless crises of the creative art - who it is for, what happens self confidence. So Tim applied himself to it once it leaves the artist's control and who 'owns' it. Most of allhis studies, each one is beautifully written, with strong characters cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and evocative descriptions of personal loss. In terms of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - set himself high but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in the story just as much as if you had read a novel of more conventional lengthachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB0C47LV1PC|title=Mo Said She Was QuirkyFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=Mo may have said that Helen was quirky - neurotic might have been Can you make a more accurate assessment of his partner though. Although not a first ''Yo birthing person narrative'' joke? And if you could, James Kelman's latest is another dramatic monologuethe question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, although would it land? The catch is that the first time he has placed a female as his main characteranswer for both could well be.. Helen is a single mother, working nights as a croupier in a London casino. Mo is her Asian boyfriend. In fairness to Helen, she 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 of constant struggleno. As usual with Kelman, his approach  ''Fragility'' is tenderset as the city of Portland, yet gritty and often gently amusing. He's always sympathetic to his main characters. HoweverOregon, if you are new cautiously begins to Kelman, be warned that he is a writer that is heavy on a distinctive style more than plot per se.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144566</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonMosby Woods|title=The Book Lover's TaleA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failed, and so he had to join his wife The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in interior design, where he can use his love of books the West is quite sure how to arrange - at a cost - mend this or even if mending it is the contentsbest course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, design and most importantly the colours, of upper class people's home libraries a push for themclimate action there. He'll concede A feeling that it's nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a good way to get into man with precognition. Imagine the houses, and beds, strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of rich womencircumstances. That man would be valuable, such as his latest flameright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, Claudiathat this man loses this ability. But why is this, his confession, talking of murderWhat would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Banville0571379559|title=Ancient LightThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=The narrator in John Banville's 'The House of Broken Bricks'Ancient Light'is the story of four people. Tess Hembry' is Alex Cleaves roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, a stage actor she lives in the curtain call house on the riverbank, built of his careerbroken bricks. For reasons that become clearer towards Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the end passage of the booktime, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, he is recalling struggles to grow his first relationshipvegetables, when as a teenager to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in 1950s Irelandsufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, he had a passionate affair with the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother of 's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his best friendfather. However People don't believe that they're related, his past much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is also blighted by recollections of out with his own daughtermother that she's suicide ten years previouslyhis nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920614</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David RainClaire North|title=The Heat House of the SunOdysseus

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=David Rain is far too young to be writing this exquisitely. That's all I'm going to say.What could matter more than love?''

OhThe follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, you need me with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to justify 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 comment? 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857892037</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersKay Chronister|title=The Vintage and the GleaningDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=SmithyWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a retired sheep shearerrobotic takeover, now works on a vineyard in the countryside of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire and too ill from the after effects of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to the physically arduous world devoid of shearing, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and daughter-in-law. Meanwhile rumours abound about the deeds of local thug, Brett Clayton and, whether true water or nota nuclear holocaust, he's definitely someone this genre is a way for humans to be avoidedcathartically experience their most existential fears. However, when Brett's wife Charlotte leaves him and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without 'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a second thoughtnew work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him It is a shocking novel that still manages to remember his own past and dreamsfind hope. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Timeri N MurariEric LaRocca|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=We all knowHorror 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 think we knowa ghost, how oppressive life was for Afghansit usually something tangible and, particularly Afghan women, under by the end of the Taliban regimestory, but when you read this novel, boy do you get beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a sense collection of how tough it really wasshort stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alix OhlinMadelaine Lucas|title=InsideThirst for Salt

|summary=Grace''Love, a therapistI'd read, stumbles upon was supposed to be a young man in the woods who has attempted to commit suicide, light and her vocational interests are immediately engaged. The novel takes us through their complex relationshipweightless feeling, both its surface routines and day to day moments but also Grace's eventually successful search I had always longed for the reasons behind Tuggravity's desperation. Ohlin interlaces with this the story of Mitch, Grace's ex-husband, and of Annie, one of her clients, chronicling both their relationship with Grace, but also their network of families and friends, acquaintances and colleagues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Michel Houellebecq|title=The Map and the Territory|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jed MartinTold from a retrospective view, initially a photographer and young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later painterwisdom, has the narrator relives the affair with a singular take on man twenty years her senior from its inception – the world and his craft. This novel takes him from obscurity as a reclusive student summer after finishing university – to fame as its sorrowful end the doyenne of the contemporary art scene and in this journey we see exposed both the underlying values but in many ways summer after. Set against the essential emptiness backdrop of the art world. He is an isolated Australian coastal town ''taken upThirst for Salt', feted and courted by critics and patrons, by those who know nothing but monetary value, and Houellebecq doesn't let any opportunity for a sharp gibe at galleries, art critics and agents go past. The key to Jeddetails the 24-year-old narrator's fame is ironically his complete anonymitydeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and Houellebecq’s creation of the catarrh dribbling agent Marylin who manages Jed’s ‘outing’ is one of the classics of modern satirehow it altered her irrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554577</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreview|author=Jose Saramago|title=Cain|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Death is only the beginning, or so some say, and the first death of one human at the hands of another - Cain's slaying of Abel with what always seemed an unlikely murder weapon - is 'Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the start question of this excoriating drive through what Cain felt when set against the god that both snubbed his sacrifices identity and allowed, despite alleged omnipotence, the murder in the first placeacceptance. Riding a donkey, this Cain takes up life as personal guard and lover Of what it means to Lilith, but also leaves the Land of Nod for diverse Old Testament locations, where he sees the stories of the golden calf, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah and more at first handbe human. All they ever do Of what is make him realise the gulf between real and what god is supposed to benevolently embodyartificial, and how he actswhether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099552248</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah QuigleyJennifer Saint|title=The ConductorAtalanta

|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Composer Dmitri Shostakovich can block anything out whilst he's writing music: his wife Nina's voice, his children arguing, even the side effects I was as worthy as any one of living in Stalinist Leningradthem. HoweverI would get on board that ship, life is about to become more than an annoying distraction from music as Germany declares war on Russia and gradually initiates what history will come to know as the Siege of LeningradI vowed. Shostakovich then realisesI would take my place, not just as gradually, that his music may serve a purpose to sustain his compatriots in the absence name of sufficient food and hope. His Seventh Symphony becomes a protest against oppression, but he needs an orchestra to play it and the top musicians have been evacuated to save the country's cultural heritage. He therefore turns to Karl Eliasberg, the aspiring but third rate conductor of a cobbled together orchestragoddess. Music can create miracles but, It was for Eliasberg and his musicians, being able to play it will be the biggest miracle sake of all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190880002X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Umberto Eco|title=The Prague Cemetery|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=If the popular press is to be believedmy name, then those of us who write book reviews do so to show off our own (non-existent) talents as writers whilst trying to condemn the abilities of far greater worthtoo.Atalanta''

Well, not quitePrincess. I would not pretend to have a tiny iota-fragment of the talent that Umberto Eco hasWarrior. Nor would I seek to decry his latest opusLover. Hero.

On Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the other handgoddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, I am an ordinary reader one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – one moreover that enjoyed The Name to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Rose immensely Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and I really struggled with ''The Prague Cemetery''carve out her own legendary place in history. I didn't struggle to get What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it. It is actually quite an easy read, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if you just read the surface of it. I did struggle to see the point of she marries, it. It may well just will be me. I put my hands upher undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555972</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam ThompsonAmanthi Harris|title=Communion TownBeautiful Place

|summary=Communion Town – one city but it may as well be many as each person's perception Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of it her home country. This is coloured by their experiences within ita place she spent her formative years. Each chapter introduces us to It is not a different storyplace she was born into, a different viewpoint and therefore, practically a different citybut the one she thinks of as home. Starting with How she came to be at the ominousVilla, creepy story of Nicolashow it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through stories encapsulating such themes as recaptured friendship, murder 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 an enigmatic take on much like the life musical score of a private investigatorfilm, we start to piece together that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the nature of Communion Town..Villa. or do we?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007454767</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Austin Ratner178563335X|title=The Jump ArtistSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=45

|summary=Austin RatnerWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's debut novela 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, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma'The Jump Artist's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, first published in on the US in 2009Norfolk coast, is a fictionalised account of the extraordinary life of celebrated photographerlovely place, Philippe Halsman. Born but Rachel is struggling to develop a Latvian Jew, as a young man in 1928 he was walking in the Austrian mountains when he saw his father fall to his death. This would be traumatic for anyone, but the issues were compounded when he was accused of murder by real bond with the Austrian courts in what was probably antiparish -semitic and certainly xenophobic in explanation. Philippeshe's second trialin awe of the vicar, the first failing potentially because his mother had engaged a Jewish lawyerGail, details but then she's been doing the fundamental lack of evidence job for more than thirty years. Rachel and shoddy police work behind Christopher hoped that a walk on the accusationbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921599</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Amis1398515388|title=Lionel Asbo|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nasty, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads The Boy and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. He's violent, uncouth and ignorant. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in a tower block with his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character in the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent and kind, that is if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Ben Fountain|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk''First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, Billy which created the tsunami and what is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from this, in turn, caused the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistsnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The US armydeaths were uncountable, keen to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next week. The majority of many pets were separated from their owners came far down the book takes place on the last day list of this tour when Billy is in his homepriorities but -state of Texas, where six months after the Bush link makes it even more protsunami -war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American of PR events, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadiumKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Accompanying the troop is He wasn't a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised dog person but the soldiers convenience store owner's comment that he can sell their story would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simpleopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L R Fredericks0989715337|title=FarundellPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=3.54|genre=Historical Literary 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 is over and, as he's estranged from his father in the US, Paul decides to remain in the UK to find work. Work comes to him as he's asked to assist Lord Percy Damory at Farundell, Some frogs had gotten into 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 to the Damorys' apparent eccentricities, an ancestor from the 18th century who refuses to be labelled as a ghost and, of course, there's Sylvie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854328X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=L R Fredericks|title=Fate|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's 'Walter stood waist-deep in the 18th century and 11 year old Francis Damory is spoken to by great great grandfatherfragrant water, Tobiasnaked except for his beaten leather hat. Nothing odd except that Tobias is dead and speaks via a portrait in FarundellLong strands of their eggs wove around him, the family's Oxfordshire homesticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Hence begins Two of the obsession that will take dogs leaned over the adult Sir Francis across opening and barked down at the world and through a lifetime strange noise of adventures to track Tobias down. The longer Francis looks, the more buckets as he realises that Great Great Grandfather isnfilled them.'t dead and that, therefore, Francis wants whatever he's on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184854331X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Natasa Dragnic How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct 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'' laconic to that sentence, but Dora wistful and Luka are in Kindergartenmusing, which makes their intense relationship hard to defineturning on a sixpence. As they grow into adults, however, it becomes obvious that there is something between them and no matter how much theyAnd author Marco North, or their circumstances, try to fight this it is there and is not going to fade away. Dora’s parents move her across who has the continent, careers develop and flourish, out most wonderful turn of nowhere they are enveloped by family livesphrase, but still there is an invisible bond that draws them back starts as he means to one anothergo on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Alissa Walser and Jamie Bulloch (translator)|title=Mesmerized|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Celebrated scientist (at least in his own mind) Franz Anton Mesmer is called upon Move on to cure the blindness of 18 year old piano virtuoso and courtier's daughter Marie Theresia Paradis. Despite the unease of her parents, Mesmer installs Marie into his 'magnetic hospital' where, alongside his other patients, she settles in to a regime of treatment, including free access to Mesmer's beloved piano. Mesmer is the Paradis' last resort and so they're happy to pay for success but they come to realise that the final cost may not be entirely financial and he realises that the result may not be beneficial to all parties.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051008</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]