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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!{{Frontpage|isbn= B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work -- Remove -->take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Henrietta Rose-InnesSaou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title= Green LionHunchback|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= The opening I was in the middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in was the book's bold fuchsia cover, followed by its striking title: ''Green LionHunchback'' . This is an apparently simple premise; a young South African manword I recognised to be loaded with historical and cultural baggage, Conoften used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, is tasked I leaned over the display table and turned to the back inside cover. There, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with picking up congenital myopathy, a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. I had to read it.|isbn=0241700787}}{{Frontpage|author=Jen Beagin|title=Big Swiss|rating=4.5|genre=Humour |summary=I found the belongings premise of an old friendthis book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, MarkNew York's darkest secrets, who their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How? Her job is lying in to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a coma in hospitalconfidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just makes it more exciting. Mark worked Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a small zoo with a rare blackfly on the wall. That is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-maned lionessfeet from the safety of the wall and buzz far too close to the sun. The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who mauled him Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and caused who, like the comasun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to Greta. HoweverSuddenly, the confidentiality agreement, as the story unfoldsethics of her professional position, Rose-Innes reveals an unflinching embrace her loyalties to Om, fly out of the messiness window. She's in too deep.|isbn=0571378579}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784745758|title=Three Days in June|author=Anne Tyler|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The day before your daughter's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. First, it was her job as assistant head at the local school. There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the subject of human 'people skills' and animal lifebefore she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (in the middle of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there with a cat. He thinks that he'll be staying and their troubled interactionsthat Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709255</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithSamantha Harvey|title=A Time of Love and TartanOrbital|rating=4.5

|summary=Here we areIn 2024, back on Scotland StreetSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', eager to see what everyone (especially Bertie…) has been up to! This is now a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the twelfth book in lives of a group of astronauts aboard the Scotland Street series which is remarkableInternational Space Station. That Through a serial novel has such momentum, and narrative lens that mirrors the characters within have become so very familiar to AMSastronauts's loyal orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers, is a testament to his skills as a writer. This time around see our nerves are on edge as Pat ventures back towards planet in a relationship with the dreadful Bruce! Surely she'll see sense..wholly new light.won't she?! Matthew, of all people, is in trouble with the police, Irene is busy planning a PhD, and Bertie? Could there be a happy ending for Bertie in the air?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973821</amazonuk>1529922933

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jess RichardsHan Kang|title= City of CirclesThe Vegetarian|rating= 4.5|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary= Danu is a tightrope walker who is mourning her parentsThis novel, after a disease has ravaged winner of the circus where she grew up. Her mother has entrusted her with a locket that hides a secret. Over the years, Danu pushes away her grief International Booker Prize in 2016 and develops elaborate and successful high-wire acts with Morrie, a charismatic hunchback penned by an author who wants to marry her. When received the circus returns to Danu's birthplace, MatryoshkaNobel Prize for Literature this year, Danu is enchanted by the temples, spice mists, and pleasure seekers within the intoxicating outer circle districtas close to unputdownable as it gets. Here, she finally gains the courage It more than lives up to open her mother's locket, and discovers the name of a stranger who lives behind the locked gate of the Inner Circleacclaim. Fated to remain in MatryoshkaThe story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, Danu attempts to resolve this mysteryelusive souls. Will she and Morrie ever be reunited, or will something far more unexpected be waiting for her in the mysterious heart of the city?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473656680</amazonuk>1803510056

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pascal Garnier and Melanie Florence (translator)Sally Rooney|title=Low HeightsIntermezzo

|summary=Edouard Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is an exemplary example something of a crotchety old man – changing his mindgrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and blaming anything and everything – even that decision – on other peoplePeter Koubek. He's physically fineIvan, apart from one hand disabled by a strokesocially awkward chess prodigy, but mentally, what contrasts sharply with forgetting his pastolder brother Peter, assuming too many days are Sundays when theya successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father're not and buying too many inappropriate things, he needs s passing after a nurse – Therese, who has formed an unlikely and almost unwanted couple long battle with him. For Edouardcancer, the memory of his wife who died ten years ago is still a little too strongbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. But this unusual 'family' is about to be upset by an unexpected arrival, who will stir the emotions and life of their remote house no end…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477427</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dina NayeriB0DGDJRHYD|title= RefugeNowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Sinking boats in stormy seasIn a quiet suburban house, national borders boosted with barbed wirePatrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, and overcrowded shelters – the media's portrayal he makes sure of seeking asylum focuses on every preparation, down to the process in its darkestlast detail. Some last reflections, most dangerous form. What happens after tumultuous journeys and temporary shelter is not news; then he says goodbye to his wife, the world, and his life after decades in the new country is rarely headline material either. But in Dina NayeriIt's ''Refuge''horribly sad. At work in her shop, it his wife Diana is the life after that takes centre stagefending off yet another phone call about her ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0735219389</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hawa L Crickmore1739526910|title=Across the OceanWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=4.5

|summary=A young cage fighter, Martin Grandson, was diagnosed with ''One year after a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplantsuicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, preferably from a sibling. Only recently he'd been a fit young man, arrives in the prime of lifean unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, but now he was suffering from a rare type dreams of bone cancer: without the transplant reconnecting with everything he would be paralysed for life and might be dead within the next twelve weeks if has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he didn't receive the transplant within the next fourteen days. Unfortunately Martin's parents had died becomes swept up in a car crash local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and there were no siblings or other close relativessurprising romantic possibilities. His girlfriend, Celia, was not a match.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524666971</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elif ShafakJenny Lecoat|title= Three Daughters of EveBeyond Summerland

|genre= General Fiction|summary=Set in Istanbul in 2016Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean''Three Daughters of Eve'' centres on Peris father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, a Turkish woman who finds herself thinking back to leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years at Oxford University to distract herself for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from a boring dinner party. Her reminiscing is triggered when she finds an old polaroid of herselfthe Nazis, her friends Mona and Shirinthe war is finally over, and the rebellious Professor Azur. Much their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of her thoughts revolve around the scandal that prevented her from graduating from her dream universityhim. More of a commentary on religion than But will the truth come as a storyrelief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the novel asks many questions Nazis about faith - in particular, Islam - and whether its customs and traditions can be adapted to suit modern life.the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241978882</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Andre AlexisOnyi Nwabineli|title= The Hidden KeysAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Tancred Palmieri is a talented thief thrown into Anuri spent her childhood on display to the path world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Willow Azarian an eccentricAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, unpredictable heroin addictmonetary gain. She Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is also part of slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the Azarian dynasty, bequeathed almost a million dollars upon content about her father's death. Each of the Azarian children were also gifted a deeply personal memento mori Anuri is battling alcoholism, which Willow is convinced make up an intricate treasure hunt. She enlists the help of Tancred failing to steal each itemstart her PhD, solve the mystery undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and prove receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is not blindly following a baseless fantasy. Tancred must use all his skills to infiltrate desperately worried about her little sister, who is the homes of each new focus of WillowOphelia's siblingsonline empire. Can she save her sister, uncover the clues hidden in each item and fight off the rival interests of competing criminals perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the police.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781258422</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alison Jean Lester1529153298|title= Yuki Means HappinessThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 35|genre= General Fiction|summary= High-tech It's 1979 and high-riseMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, kimonoshonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, and big-eyed visuals – through a dynamic juxtaposition of the ultra modern and the traditionalthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, Japan has succeeded in branding itself both as an intriguing travel destination that does not cease to surprisethey've been murdered, but at the same time defies being ever wholly full understood by outsidersto have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. All of this has come to be encapsulated and reinforced in Sofia Coppola Miv's cult classic upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Lost in TranslationDown South'. When you': re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the iconic still of Scarlett Johansson standing at move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the scramble crossing in Shibuya has come dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to represent Japan in pop culture as much as the more traditional cherry blossom imageryanyone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549628</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= S V Berlin1035906708|title= The FavouriteDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Siblings Edward and Isobel Vernon haven't spoken in years and live on opposite sides We tend to think of the Atlantic. When their mother Mary dies unexpectedlyMaria Callas as Greek, they are thrown together but she was born to sort through the family home. With Edward's diffident but devoted girlfriendGreek parents in Manhattan, JulieNew York, making an awkward threesome, each stumbles through the practicalities of funeral preparation in December 1923 and house clearing, trying only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make sense of their emotions and their feelings toward one anotherit more manageable in the States. Isobel makes When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a disturbing discovery mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her fateful decision has consequences preference for all of them, challenging their beliefs about the pasther elder sister, hopes for the future and understanding of Mary's role in keeping them at once apart and togetherJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993563384</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia Claiborne JohnsonAlexander McCall Smith|title=Be Frank The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=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 asked her 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 of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=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 very 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|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with Mea family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. 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 and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the 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 ocean waves.|isbn=0861547438}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the 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 head.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=In June 2009 Isaac Vargas sends his assistantPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, twenty-four-year-old Alice Whitleyreclusive Bear, to Bel Airhe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, California to help Mimi Gillespie produce her long-awaited second novel. Under in the name Mforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.M. Banning, Mimi issued After Bear dies and a wildly successful novel back brief sojourn in the 1970shuman company, ''Pitched''and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, which quickly became Petr goes on a modern classic on every American adolescent's list of assigned reading for school. She's journey through the forest, broadcasting the sort of figure Harper Lee was for decades: a one-hit literary wonder strange, wild and an infamous recluse. But there's one key difference here: Mimi has a nine-year-old son, Frankrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782399208</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kay LangdaleSarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her 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|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Way Back Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to Ushug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=A household revolves around its weakest member It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and because itHamish (Helena's revolving there's always a danger parents) felt that some people - such as it would be a spouse pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up- will market Kolonaki would be spun the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the outsidefamily's maid, Dina, whilst other childrenbut was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, loosely attached retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the main carer will be Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a distancetop secret biological research facility, never completely close, but never escaping eitheris among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. In the centre are the carer and the person who needs that careFinding himself in a makeshift mortuary, bonded together covered in such plastic, he has a way sense that it's actually difficult something very, very bad has happened to offer help or even friendshiphim – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. So it As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is with Anna and Teddy, who suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA as itsomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s generally known. HeMichael 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 five now, confined to surrounded by a wheelchair or his Whizzybug 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 not putting warmth, roofs on much weight as chewing homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and swallowing are difficultthat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473618363</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Hendrik Groen and Hester Velmans (translator)B0BYF82CXT|title= The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ years OldSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= As the old adage goes''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, to walk stuck in a mile in someone else's shoes is to gain some understanding depressing rut of what it is to be that person. Admittedlyboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, Hendrik Groen isn't successful and very much up for long walks any more, but he does acquire a swish mobility scooter to zoom around in; one could say that we get to zoom a mile love – move in Groen's shoesnext door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and ohlife appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, what fun shoes he wears!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405924004</amazonuk>and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sarah FranklinShalini Boland|title= ShelterThe Silent Bride|rating= 53|genre= Historical General Fiction|summary=Connie Granger Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has escaped her bombedbeen searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-out city home, finding refuge material. She is all he could possibly want in the Women's Timber Corps. For her, this remote community must now serve a secret purpose.<br>Seppewife; beautiful, an Italian prisoner of warsuccessful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is haunted eagerly accepted by his memoriesAlice and the wedding is planned and set. In When the forest campmuch-anticipated day arrives, he finds a strange kind of freedom.Their meeting signals new beginnings. But Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as they are drawn togethershe 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 world outside their forest haven man at the altar is being torn apart. Old certainties are crumbling, and both must now make a life-defining choice.<br>What price will they pay who is waiting for freedom? What will they fight her to protect?become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785762990</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer McVeigh1787636003|title=Leopard at the DoorThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=18 year old It was the summer when Rachel Fullsmith returns home to Kenya after being away at school in England Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and finds a lot can change in 6 yearsarrived on the island. Of course she realises her motherRachel wasn's death would alter things t exactly innocent but she's not prepared for her father's livewas, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in 'companion' Sara nor Sara's son Harold sleeping in Rachel's old roomher, she was flattered rather than wary. Michael the Kikuyu servant boy It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she grew up with is still there though and now a man with his own ideaswas obsessed by him. Meanwhile Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the unrest between island and in particular in the British rulers and bar where all the local Mau Mau fighters is increasing and about to blowgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241247616</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Lucy DanielsAmanda Craig|title= Summer at Hope MeadowsThree Graces|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=''Animal Ark'' was a popular series Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of children-the-nation novel. There's books written between 1994 something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and 2008. The stories focus on a young girl called Mandy Hopecapture it, crafting an image of the daughter of two vets who run a practice, Animal Ark, country as it stands in the Yorkshire town of Welfordone particular moment. Along To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with her best friend James, the children seek to help out creatures in needgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. The series consisted of 94 books in total and was written by She has such a collection gift for weaving the ongoing issues of authors writing under the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. ''Summer at Hope Meadows'' is day into the first lives of her characters in a new series way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for adult readerssocial commentary but instead fully realised people, continuing grown-up Mandy's story now that she is a fully qualified vetgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473653878</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)152915118X|title=Madame Bovary of the SuburbsPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=24.5

|summary=''It starts with becoming a homeownerPineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, then settling inDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, then reproducing.only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. WellThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, it actually starts a lot before thenTilda, with a set of fractured memories of our heroineasks Cord and Sasha if they's childhood – things she recalls her parents and relatives saying both d like to and about hermove into the Pineapple Street property. It goes through her childhood, Tilda and Chip have renovated and pen letters downsized to another property, a best friend conveying her wishes for her lifestreet or so away, those wishes being revised and affirmed by which they own. They won't need any of the liberty of university yearsfurniture from Pineapple Street, those wishes being met with or denied by married life… so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Someone archly could point out that you should be careful what you wish forNominally, they had a choice but not even our wise, modern woman could not see that wasn't the next step after reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the reproducing – gold digger'. She'standing disappointed s living in front of ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the refrigerator'GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054686</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania HershmanEmily Critchley|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories Crime|summary=I won't be alone 84 year old Edie has lived in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardthe same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. Going through from A-ZHowever, witnessing Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a bounty secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of ideas and characters what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in short order can be too muchthe high street, but do you have just as she was the right last time she saw her, she starts to pick and choose according find pockets of memories coming back to what appealsher. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and what time you have more in her day to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surelyday life. Such would appear to be Will she uncover the case here. The last time I read one of this authortruth about Lucy's collectionsdisappearance before her move, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they before her memories are also spread into sections.gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jane JohnsonMadelaine Lucas|title= Court of LionsThirst for Salt|rating= 5|genre= Historical Literary Fiction |summary= Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a year ago. In the shadow of the Alhambra''Love, one of the most beautiful places on earthI'd read, she works as was supposed to be a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends shelight and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity's happy with her new life – but how could she be? Kate's alone Told from a retrospective view, afraid and hiding under a false name. And fate is about to bring her faceyoung woman unravels the year-to-face with long relationship that once defined her greatest fear. Five centuries agoOverlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a message, in a hand few could read, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of paperman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. The paper was folded and pressed into one Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the Alhambra24-year-old narrator's walls. There it has laindeepening relationship with her older lover, undisturbed by the tides of history – the Fall of Granadadepicting its all-consuming nature, the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers how it. Born of love, in a time of danger changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and desperation, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Kate's life foreverhow it altered her irrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Cohen0008506337|title=TogetherThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=This is a The love story told backwardsaffair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the most beautiful manner, so that we know from the very beginning that Emily and Robert love each other enormously, . Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that he is about to break Richard's influence would take her heart in the most dreadful way in order away from what they felt she could achieve - going to protect Oxford and having a secret that they've lived with for decadesglittering career. Seeing their love unfold in reverse is beautifulIn the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. We get Margo did go to know them once they have already gotten Oxford and went on to know each otherbecome a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and it makes for an unusual and interesting structureSasha. The secret they hold is referred to throughoutLife was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, but it isn't revealed until very late in the bookfamily home on the Isle of Wight. IEven then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo'm guessing very few readers will figure it out. Even once you know, you want s mind: ''she would never be able to go back and read the whole story again leave him in the light of the information you now holdcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409171744</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kate Mildenhall1914585402|title= SkylarkingDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Kate 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 Harriet are best friends growing up together on an isolated Australian caperemember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. As the daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything, until It was a fishermangripping, McPhailemotionally wounding read, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings rereading my review of envy and longing. An innocent moment in McPhail's hut then occurs it my main takeaway was that threatens to tear their peaceful community apartI might not have lavished enough praise on it. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Zoe DuncanLucy Ashe|title= The Shifting PoolsClara and Olivia|rating= 24.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Perhaps the most overused phrase in fiction publishing The year is 1933. The place? Sadler''life-affirming''s Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, closely followed by ''human condition'either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. The Shifting Pools takes this Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to a whole new level. Its blurb boasts detail – and some things, that it is ''charged throughout with the beautiful urgency of lifeje ne sais quoi'', whatever that means. It isndon't. And that's come from the problemclassroom. This isn't A stage presence, a bad bookcharm, but it sets itself up to fail. A cardinal rule of writing is ''focus on the small stuff''. If you set out to write a ''life affirmingjoie de vivre'' novel that answers all the ''big questions'', you'll struggle. And it is this trap that Zoe Duncan falls into. In her quest for profundity she loses her way. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785630369</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sarah Healy|title= The Sisters Chase|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Mary and Bunny. That's how it has always been ever since Bunny was born. Two sisters with an unbreakable bond, twisted together so tight that they were two sides of the same coin. Bunny was Mary's whole world; nothing else really mattered; school...friends...boys...well, maybe one boy, but he was something altogether extraordinary. When the unthinkable happeneddifference between a hard-worker, Mary and Bunny found themselves completely alone in the world, and that's when Mary decided to take an unforgettable road trip, just the two of them, across the United States, in search of a place where they could belongstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0544960076</amazonuk>0861544080