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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove --> {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jess RichardsB0FK5LHKD9|title= City The Colour of CirclesMemory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating= 4|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary= Danu is It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a tightrope walker who is mourning her parentsnew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, after there's a disease has ravaged mystery at the circus where she grew upheart of ''The Colour of Money''. Her mother has entrusted her with We like this running theme in an author's work - take a locket that hides a secretmystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time. Over }}{{Frontpage|author=Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Hunchback|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I was in the years, Danu pushes away her grief and develops elaborate and successful highmiddle of a self-imposed book-wire acts with Morrie, a charismatic hunchback who wants to marry herbuying ban when I made an exception for this one. When What first drew me in was the circus returns to Danubook's birthplacebold fuchsia cover, Matryoshka, Danu followed by its striking title: ''Hunchback''. This is enchanted by the templesa word I recognised to be loaded with historical and cultural baggage, spice mistsoften used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and pleasure seekers within turned to the intoxicating outer circle districtback inside cover. HereThere, she finally gains I discovered the courage to open her mother's locketauthor: Saou Ichikawa, and discovers the name of a stranger who lives behind the locked gate of the Inner Circle. Fated to remain woman diagnosed in Matryoshkachildhood with congenital myopathy, Danu attempts to resolve this mystery. Will she a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and Morrie ever be reunited, or will something far more unexpected be waiting for touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in the mysterious heart light of the city?her biography. I had to read it.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473656680</amazonuk>0241700787

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pascal Garnier and Melanie Florence (translator)Jen Beagin|title=Low HeightsBig Swiss

|genre=General Fiction Humour |summary=Edouard is an exemplary example I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of a crotchety old man – changing his mindHudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and blaming anything and everything – even that decision – on other peoplefears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. HeSure, there's physically finea confidentiality agreement, apart from one hand disabled by a strokeas the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but mentallythat just makes it more exciting. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, what with forgetting his pastGreta can exist passively, assuming too many days are Sundays when they're not and buying too many inappropriate thingsplacidly, he needs as a nurse – Therese, who has formed an unlikely and almost unwanted couple with himfly on the wall. For EdouardThat is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the memory safety of his wife who died ten years ago is still a little the wall and buzz far too strongclose to the sun. But The sun in this unusual analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'familyBig Swiss' is about to be upset by an unexpected arrival, and who will stir , like the emotions sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and life of their remote house no end…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477427</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Dina Nayeri|title= Refuge|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Sinking boats in stormy seasirresistible to Greta. Suddenly, national borders boosted with barbed wirethe confidentiality agreement, and overcrowded shelters – the media's portrayal ethics of seeking asylum focuses on the process in its darkesther professional position, her loyalties to Om, most dangerous form. What happens after tumultuous journeys and temporary shelter is not news; and life after decades in fly out of the new country is rarely headline material eitherwindow. But in Dina NayeriShe's ''Refuge'', it is the life after that takes centre stagein too deep. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0735219389</amazonuk>0571378579

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hawa L Crickmore1784745758|title=Across the OceanThree Days in June|author=Anne Tyler

|summary=A young cage fighter, Martin GrandsonThe day before your daughter's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. First, it was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, preferably from a siblingher job as assistant head at the local school. Only recently heThere was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the subject of 'people skills'd and before she knew what was happening Gail had been a fit young mansacked or resigned, depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (in the prime middle of life, but now he the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was suffering from there with a rare type of bone cancer: without the transplant cat. He thinks that he would 'll be paralysed for life staying and might that Gail will be dead within adopting the next twelve weeks if he didn't receive the transplant within the next fourteen dayscat. Unfortunately MartinAnd that's parents had died in a car crash and there were no siblings or other close relatives. His girlfriend, Celia, was not a matchbefore Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524666971</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elif ShafakSamantha Harvey|title= Three Daughters of EveOrbital|rating=4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Set in Istanbul in 2016In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Three Daughters of EveOrbital'' centres on Peri, a Turkish woman who finds herself thinking back to her years at Oxford University to distract herself from compact yet profound work that unfolds over a boring dinner party. Her reminiscing is triggered when she finds an old polaroid single day in the lives of herself, her friends Mona and Shirin, and the rebellious Professor Azur. Much a group of her thoughts revolve around astronauts aboard the scandal that prevented her from graduating from her dream universityInternational Space Station. More of Through a commentary on religion than a story, narrative lens that mirrors the novel asks many questions about faith - in particularastronauts' orbital perspective, Islam - and whether its customs and traditions can be adapted Harvey invites readers to suit modern lifesee our planet in a wholly new light.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241978882</amazonuk>1529922933

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Andre AlexisHan Kang|title= The Hidden KeysVegetarian|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Tancred Palmieri is a talented thief thrown into the path of Willow Azarian an eccentricThis novel, unpredictable heroin addict. She is also part winner of the Azarian dynasty, bequeathed almost a million dollars upon her father's death. Each of International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Azarian children were also gifted a deeply personal memento moriNobel Prize for Literature this year, which Willow is convinced make as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up an intricate treasure hunt. She enlists the help of Tancred to steal each item, solve the mystery and prove she is not blindly following a baseless fantasyacclaim. Tancred must use all his skills to infiltrate the homes of each of Willow's siblingsThe story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, uncover the clues hidden in each item and fight off the rival interests of competing criminals and the policeelusive souls.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781258422</amazonuk>1803510056

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alison Jean LesterSally Rooney|title= Yuki Means HappinessIntermezzo|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= High-tech Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and high-rise, kimonos, and big-eyed visuals – through is something of a dynamic juxtaposition of the ultra modern grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and the traditionalso brilliantly frustrating, Japan has succeeded in branding itself both as an intriguing travel destination that does not cease to surpriseher characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, but at the same time defies being ever wholly full understood by outsiders. All of this has come central one for readers to be encapsulated unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and reinforced Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Sofia CoppolaDublin. Following their father's cult classic 'passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers'Lost in Translation'': the iconic still of Scarlett Johansson standing at the scramble crossing in Shibuya has come to represent Japan in pop culture as much as the more traditional cherry blossom imageryalready strained relationship faces new trials. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549628</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= S V BerlinB0DGDJRHYD|title= The FavouriteNowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Siblings Edward and Isobel Vernon haven't spoken in years and live on opposite sides of the Atlantic. When their mother Mary dies unexpectedlyIn a quiet suburban house, they are thrown together to sort through the family homePatrick is making his final plans. With Edward's diffident but devoted girlfriendA meticulous man, Julie, making an awkward threesome, each stumbles through the practicalities he makes sure of funeral every preparation and house clearing, trying down to make sense of their emotions and their feelings toward one anotherthe last detail. Isobel makes a disturbing discovery Some last reflections, and her fateful decision has consequences for all of themthen he says goodbye to his wife, challenging their beliefs about the pastworld, hopes for the future and understanding of Maryhis life. It's role horribly sad. At work in keeping them at once apart her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her ageing and togetherailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993563384</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1739526910|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Julia Claiborne JohnsonGlen Sibley|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Lecoat|title=Be Frank with MeBeyond Summerland

|summary=In June 2009 Isaac Vargas sends his assistant, twenty-four-year-old Alice Whitley, to Bel Air, California to help Mimi Gillespie produce Jean lives on Jersey with her long-awaited second novel. Under mother where they are celebrating the end of the name M.Moccupation. Banning, Mimi issued a wildly successful novel back in During the 1970s, ''Pitched''war, which quickly became a modern classic on every American adolescent's list of assigned reading for school. SheJean's the sort of figure Harper Lee father was arrested for decades: listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one-hit literary wonder night, leaving Jean and an infamous recluseher mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But there's one key difference here: Mimi has will the truth come as a nine-year-old sonrelief, Frank.or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782399208</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kay LangdaleOnyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The Way Back to UsList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A household revolves around its weakest member and because itwoman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's revolving thereupset because she's always a danger overheard that some people - such as a spouse - will be spun her father wants to move the outsidefamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, whilst other children, loosely attached to the main carer will be at Down South is a distancefrightening, never completely closeforeign place, but never escaping eitherbest avoided. In For Miv, the centre are the carer move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and the person who needs that care, bonded together in such a way that itshe's actually difficult ll do anything to offer help or even friendshipprevent that. So it is with Anna and Teddy, who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA as itShe's generally known. Henot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's five now, confined stopped talking - to a wheelchair or his Whizzybug and not putting on much weight as chewing and swallowing are difficultanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473618363</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Hendrik Groen and Hester Velmans (translator)1035906708|title= The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ years OldDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= As the old adage goesWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to walk a mile Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in someone else's shoes is December 1923 and only moved to gain some understanding of what Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it is to be that person. Admittedly, Hendrik Groen isn't much up for long walks any Callas' to make it more, but he does acquire a swish mobility scooter to zoom around manageable in the States. When she was back in; one Athens - supposedly so that she could say that we get to zoom appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mile in Groen's shoes, mother who mercilessly exploited her and ohmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, what fun shoes he wears!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405924004</amazonuk>Jackie.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah FranklinAlexander McCall Smith|title= ShelterThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Connie Granger The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has escaped asked her bombed-younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out city homeof a break up with a bad boyfriend, finding refuge in and so jumps at the Women's Timber Corpschance to come home to Edinburgh. For her, And so begins this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.<br>Seppenew story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Italian prisoner of warEdinburgh we already love, is haunted by his memories. In thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the forest campIsabel Dalhousie novels, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals but with some new beginningscharacters who quickly begin to charm. But as they are drawn together Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, the world outside their forest haven is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumblingbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and both must now make there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a life-defining choice.<br>What price will they pay for freedom? What will they fight to protect?hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer McVeighDean Koontz|title=Leopard at The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the Doorvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5

|summary=18 year old Rachel Fullsmith returns home Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to Kenya after live with a family who run an inn, and being away at school in England and finds made to work there from a lot can change in 6 yearsyoung age. Of course When she realises her mother's death would alter things but hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she's not prepared for her father's live-decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in 'companion' Sara nor Sara's son Harold sleeping equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in Rachela young boy's old roomdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. Michael the Kikuyu servant She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy she grew up with is still there though and now joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a man with his own ideascabin boy. Meanwhile She soon finds herself in the unrest between the British rulers thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the local Mau Mau fighters is increasing and about to blowocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241247616</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lucy Daniels1471180158|title= Summer at Hope MeadowsMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Animal Ark'' was Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a popular series of childrenman who's books written between 1994 and 2008. The stories focus on a young girl called Mandy Hope, control freak with all the daughter subtlety of two vets who run a practicehalf brick. Jamie's son, Animal ArkBo, in 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the Yorkshire town of Welford. Along with her best friend Jamesmore you read, the children seek to help out creatures in need. The series consisted of 94 books in total and was written by a collection of authors writing under more you'll suspect that he's on the pseudonym Lucy Danielsautistic spectrum. ''Summer Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at Hope Meadowsshort notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo' is s not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the first need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a new series for adult readers, continuing grown-up Mandy's story now that she is a fully qualified vethead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473653878</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)B0CKD1L5JL|title=Madame Bovary of the SuburbsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=2.54

|summary=''It starts with becoming a homeownerPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, then settling inreclusive Bear, then reproducing.'' Wellhe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, it actually starts a lot before then, with a set in the forests of fractured memories of our heroineWashington's childhood – things she recalls her parents and relatives saying both to and about herOlympic Peninsula. It goes through her childhood, After Bear dies and pen letters to a best friend conveying her wishes for her lifebrief sojourn in human company, those wishes being revised and affirmed by the liberty of university years, those wishes being met armed with or denied by married life… Someone archly could point out that you should be careful what you wish foronly a pirate radio transmitter, but not even our wisePetr goes on a journey through the forest, modern woman could not see broadcasting the next step after the reproducing – ''standing disappointed in front of the refrigerator''strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054686</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania HershmanSarah Marsh|title=Some A Sign of Us Glow More Than OthersHer Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|genre=Short Stories General Fiction|summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading 'This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short story collections can be slightly awkwardof her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. Going through from A-ZShe was a very bright student, witnessing a bounty of ideas and characters in short order can bit too nerdy if truth be too muchtold, but do you have the right to pick and choose according suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to what appeals, and what time you have to fill? hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. The sequence has carefully been considered, surelyShe had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Such Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would appear to be the case heretutor him. The last time I read one of She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this author's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty was holding back just an extension. She went to his house and rationing themhe raped her. In shock, but here you not only get she even allowed him to give her a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sectionslift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Jane Johnson1472263936|title= Court of LionsThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating= 5|genre= Historical General Fiction |summary= Kate Fordham arrived It was in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. In the shadow of the Alhambra She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, one of had left the most beautiful places on earthfamily home and refused to return, she works as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends shebut Mary and Hamish (Helena's happy with her new life – but how could she parents) felt that it would be? Kate's alone, afraid and hiding under a false namepity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. And fate is about Her trip to bring her facethe family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to-face with love her greatest fear. Five centuries agograndmother and the family's maid, a message, in a hand few could readDina, but was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap wary - and frightened - of paperher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. The paper He was folded and pressed into one proud of his close connections to the AlhambraJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's walls. There it has lain, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granada, the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers it. Born of love, in a time of danger red hair and desperation, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kategreen eyes - inherited from her father's life foreverScottish ancestors. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julie CohenDean Koontz|title=TogetherAfter Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. }} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=Semi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=This is a love story told backwards, in the most beautiful manner, so that we know from It was the very beginning summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that Emily she and Robert love each other enormously, Caroline went backpacking around Greece and that he is about to break her heart in arrived on the most dreadful way in order to protect a secret that they've lived with for decadesisland. Seeing their love unfold Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in reverse is beautifulher, she was flattered rather than wary. We get It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to know them once they have already gotten to know each other, her and it makes for an unusual and interesting structureby that time she was obsessed by him. The secret they hold is referred to throughoutAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, but it isn't revealed until very late looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bookbar where all the girls either worked or partied. I}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There'm guessing very few readers will figure s something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it out. Even once you know, you want to go back and read crafting an image of the whole story again country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the light ongoing issues of the information you now holdday into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409171744</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kate Mildenhall152915118X|title= SkylarkingPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Kate ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Harriet Georgiana. Darley and George are best friends growing up together on an isolated Australian capesisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. As They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the daughters of tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the lighthouse keepersclan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the two girls share everythingPineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, until a fishermanstreet or so away, McPhailwhich they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, arrives so Sasha and Cord can move straight in their small community. When Kate witnesses Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the desire that flares between him reality. Darley and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longingGeorgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. An innocent moment She's living in McPhail's hut then occurs 'their'' family home. They use it so often that threatens they abbreviate it to tear their peaceful community apart'the GD'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Zoe DuncanEmily Critchley|title= The Shifting PoolsOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating= 2.54|genre= General FictionCrime|summary= Perhaps 84 year old Edie has lived in the most overused phrase in fiction publishing same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is ''life-affirming''facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, closely followed by ''human condition''. The Shifting Pools takes this as Edie is starting to a whole new levellose her memory. Its blurb boasts that it However, Edie is ''charged throughout with tormented by the beautiful urgency memory of life''her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, whatever and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that meansreveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. It isn After 't. And thatseeing's Lucy in the high street, just as she was the problem. This isn't a bad booklast time she saw her, but it sets itself up she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to failher. A cardinal rule of writing And yet as she remembers the past, she is ''focus on the small stuff''. If you set out forgetting more and more in her day to write a ''day life affirming'' novel that answers all . Will she uncover the truth about Lucy''big questions''s disappearance before her move, you'll struggle. And it is this trap that Zoe Duncan falls into. In and before her quest for profundity she loses her way. memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785630369</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah HealyMadelaine Lucas|title= The Sisters ChaseThirst for Salt|rating= 4.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary=Mary and Bunny. That's how it has always been ever since Bunny was born. Two sisters with an unbreakable bond'Love, twisted together so tight that they were two sides of the same coin. Bunny was MaryI's whole world; nothing else really mattered; school...friends...boys...welld read, maybe one boywas supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but he was something altogether extraordinaryI had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. When Overlaid with later wisdom, the unthinkable happened, Mary and Bunny found themselves completely alone in narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the world, and that's when Mary decided summer after finishing university – to take its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an unforgettable road trip, just isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the two of them24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, across the United Statesdepicting its all-consuming nature, in search of a place where they could belonghow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0544960076</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Joy RhoadesGeorgina Moore|rating=5|titlegenre=General Fiction|summary=The Woolgrowerlove affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's Companionmind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. Then Richard left them.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5

|summary=1945: The war is in its dying days I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and creating problems far from the different frontsaffecting it was. For instanceIt was a gripping, in Australiaemotionally wounding read, what can be done with the Italian POWs brought into the country? The solution seems to be their use as cheap labour. In this way Kate Dowd's father agrees to take two onto his sheep farm in drought-ridden New South Wales. Kate is initially wary and rereading my review of the two men – Vittorio and Luca – but gradually she realises it my main takeaway was that I might not all dangers come from outside her community. Life have lavished enough praise on a sheep station may be harsh but for Kate it's going to get a lot worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784741345</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jonathan LeviLucy Ashe|title= SeptimaniaClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= First The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and foremost a tale of loveOlivia are sisters, Septimania delivers twins no less. Identical on the frustrations and agony of two people who find each other and then lose each otheroutside but not, we learn, all on the same dayinside. But what And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a momentous day! Life takes Malory and Louisa off in totally different directions but strangely their paths cross again and againdancer. MalorySome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, searching attention to uncover his pastdetail – and some things, moves to Rome and discovers great and incredible facts about his ancestrythat ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. LouisaA stage presence, a brilliant mathematiciancharm, is head hunted for a ''secretjoie de vivre' work and is signed up by her father for a life time's contract with the American Government. She completely disappears from Malory's life The difference between a hard-worker, and he has no way of knowing how to find her again. They are both trapped in their separate livesa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>071565196X</amazonuk>0861544080