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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susi OsborneB0FK5LHKD9|title=Angelica StoneThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden

|summary=I'd say that Angelica Stone was known as Angel to her friends, but sheIt's not big on friends. She has the sort of background you dread hearing about: sexually abused as been three years since we last reviewed a childbook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, grabbed by the care system and didn't so much fall through the cracks as escaped its clutches and then had we were very glad to learn how to copesee a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. SheLike all Bowden's been told that she's taintedstories, that she ruins every relationship without intending to and that shethere's best staying away from a mystery at the heart of 'decent' people. One The Colour of her jobs is working in a supermarket and itMoney's there that she meets Lola Moriarty and ''she. We like this running theme in an author's'' work - take a completely mystery but give it different kettle of fishflavour and atmosphere each time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911320947</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Virginia MacgregorSaou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title= Before I Was YoursHunchback|rating= 54|genre= General Fiction|summary= Rosie can see clearly her future family I was in her mindthe middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. And when that doesnWhat first drew me in was the book't happens bold fuchsia cover, she adapts. So maybe she wonfollowed by its striking title: ''Hunchback''t carry the baby inside her, but that lovely blonde girl at the adoption event could be their new daughter. Yes, she looks like she belongs to them already. It's meant This is a word I recognised to be. Except it's not. Rosie loaded with historical and Sam don't get cultural baggage, often used to have a genetic child of their owndehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and they don't get turned to adopt the perfect blonde girlback inside cover. They end up with There, I discovered the exact oppositeauthor: Saou Ichikawa, a boy from Kenya woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a peculiar back story condition that causes severe muscular weakness and an ardent wish not to be adoptedtouches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. As optimistic as Rosie and Sam try I had to be, this isn't quite what they pictured or hoped forread it. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751565229</amazonuk>0241700787

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Gabrielle ZevinJen Beagin|title= Young Jane YoungBig Swiss|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionHumour |summary=Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida, makes I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the life-changing mistake population of having an affair with her boss - who is belovedHudson, admiredNew York's darkest secrets, successfultheir intimate lives, their fetishes and very married - and blogging about itfears. When the affair comes How? Her job is to lighttranscribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, the Congressman doesnthere't take s a confidentiality agreement, as the fallsex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but Aviva does, and her life is over before that just makes it hardly beginsmore exciting. She becomes a late-night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamedLike we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, labelled as fat and ugly, and considered a blight fly on politics in generalthe wall.How does one go on after this? In Aviva's caseThat is, she sees no way out but until Greta decides to change unglue her name fly-feet from the safety of the wall and move buzz far too close to a remote town the sun. The sun in Maine. She starts over as a wedding plannerthis analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, tries to be smarter about her lifewho Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident.But whenwho, at like the urging of otherssun, she decides to run for public office herselfis bright, that longblonde and beautiful -ago mistake trails her via the Internet like a scarlet Aand irresistible to Greta. These daysSuddenly, Google guarantees that the past is neverconfidentiality agreement, everthe ethics of her professional position, truly pasther loyalties to Om, that everything you've done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternityfly out of the window. And itShe's only a matter of time until Aviva/Jane's daughter, Ruby, finds out who her mother was, and is, and must decide whether she can still respect herin too deep.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408709805</amazonuk>0571378579

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Henrietta Rose-Innes1784745758|title= Green LionThree Days in June|author=Anne Tyler|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= The opening 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 'people skills'Green Lion'' is an apparently simple premise; a young South African manand before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, Con, is tasked with picking up depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (in the belongings middle of an old friend, Mark, the day: who is lying in would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there with a coma in hospitalcat. Mark worked at a small zoo with a rare black-maned lioness, who mauled him He thinks that he'll be staying and caused that Gail will be adopting the comacat. However, as And that's before Gail discovers that the story unfolds, Rose-Innes reveals an unflinching embrace of the messiness of human and animal groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life, and their troubled interactions. |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 thingss passing after a long battle with cancer, he needs the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD|title=Nowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=In a nurse – Theresequiet suburban house, who has formed an unlikely and almost unwanted couple with himPatrick is making his final plans. For EdouardA meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to the memory of last detail. Some last reflections, and then he says goodbye to his wife who died ten years ago is still a little too strong, the world, and his life. But this unusual 'familyIt' s horribly sad. At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about to be upset by an unexpected arrivalher ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will stir the emotions and life of their remote house no end…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477427</amazonuk>be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Dina Nayeri1739526910|title= RefugeWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Sinking boats ''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in stormy seasan unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, national borders boosted he dreams of reconnecting with barbed wireeverything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, and overcrowded shelters – the media's portrayal he becomes swept up in a local world of seeking asylum focuses on the process in its darkestunlikely friendships, most dangerous form. What happens after tumultuous journeys mobile discos and temporary shelter is not news; and life after decades in the new country is rarely headline material eithersurprising romantic possibilities. But in Dina Nayeri's ''Refuge'', it is the life after that takes centre stage. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0735219389</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hawa L CrickmoreJenny Lecoat|title=Across the OceanBeyond Summerland

|summary=A young cage fighter, Martin Grandson, was diagnosed Jean lives on Jersey with a rare genetic disorder which required a bone-marrow transplant, preferably from a siblingher mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. Only recently he'd been a fit young man, in During the prime of lifewar, but now he Jean's father was suffering from arrested for listening to a rare type banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of bone cancer: without him. As the transplant he would be paralysed for life and might be dead within British finally free the next twelve weeks if he didn't receive Channel islands from the transplant within Nazis, and the next fourteen dayswar is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Unfortunately Martin's parents had died in But will the truth come as a car crash and there were no siblings relief, or other close relatives. will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? His girlfriend, Celia, Who was not a match.the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524666971</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elif ShafakOnyi Nwabineli|title= Three Daughters of EveAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Set in Istanbul in 2016Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia''Three Daughters s increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of EveAnuri'' centres on Peris childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, a Turkish woman who finds herself thinking 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 years at Oxford University . Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to distract herself start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from a boring dinner partythem for doing so. Her reminiscing Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is triggered when the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she finds an old polaroid of save her sister, and perhaps herself, and her relationship with her friends Mona father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and ShirinMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, and the rebellious Professor Azurhonestly...) 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. Much of Miv's upset because she's overheard that her thoughts revolve around father wants to move the scandal that prevented her family 'Down South'. When you're from graduating from her dream universityYorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. More of a commentary on religion than a storyFor Miv, the novel asks many questions move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about faith the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in particularManhattan, New York, Islam in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. 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 mother who mercilessly exploited her and whether its customs and traditions can be adapted to suit modern lifemade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241978882</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Andre AlexisAlexander McCall Smith|title= The Hidden KeysPerfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Tancred Palmieri The Perfect Passion Company is a talented thief thrown into dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the path of Willow Azarian an eccentriconline apps in providing a more personal, unpredictable heroin addicttailored service. She is also part of Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the Azarian dynastybusiness, bequeathed almost as Ness is planning to take a million dollars upon her father's deathtrip to Canada to get away for a while. Each Katie is coming out of the Azarian children were also gifted a deeply personal memento moribreak up with a bad boyfriend, which Willow is convinced make up an intricate treasure huntand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. She enlists the help of Tancred And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to steal each iteman Edinburgh we already love, solve thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the mystery and prove she is not blindly following Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a baseless fantasy. Tancred must use all his skills to infiltrate the homes of each of Willow's siblingsbusiness, or in match-making, uncover the clues hidden but Ness has full confidence in each item her abilities, and fight off the rival interests of competing criminals there's always her very helpful (and the police.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781258422</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alison Jean LesterDean Koontz|title= Yuki Means HappinessThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 34.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary= High-tech Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and high-risehis house gets trashed. Oh, kimonosand someone has delivered a really weird, and bigdisturbing coffin-eyed visuals – through a dynamic juxtaposition of the ultra modern sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the traditionalthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Japan has succeeded in branding itself both as an intriguing travel destination 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 does not cease the delivery to surprisehis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, but at the same time defies who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being ever wholly full understood by outsidersa good person. All Spike is going to take care of this has come to be encapsulated Benny, and reinforced in Sofia Coppolawill certainly take care of Benny's cult classic enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny''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 imagerys wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549628</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= S V BerlinKatherine Howe|title= The FavouriteA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Siblings Edward and Isobel Vernon haven't spoken Hannah Masury is living in years Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and live on opposite sides being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the Atlantic. When their mother Mary dies unexpectedlytown, they are thrown together she decides to sort through the family homego and watch. With Edward Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's diffident but devoted girlfriend, Julie, making an awkward threesome, each stumbles through death at the practicalities hands of funeral preparation two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and house clearingkill her too, trying and then to escape them completely she runs away to make sense of their emotions sea, dressing as a boy and their feelings toward one anotherjoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Isobel makes She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a disturbing discovery mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her fateful decision has consequences for all rip roaring tale of them, challenging their beliefs about the past, hopes for life on the future and understanding of Mary's role in keeping them at once apart and togetherocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993563384</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Julia Claiborne JohnsonPenny 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=Be Frank with MeRadio 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 novelin the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Under After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the name Mforest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.M}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3. Banning5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Mimi issued Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a wildly successful novel back world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the 1970suse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, ''Pitched''Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, which quickly became she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a modern classic system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on every American adolescentother 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='s list of assigned reading 'This story is not for schooleveryone. She's the sort ' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of figure Harper Lee her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was for decades: a onevery bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo -hit literary wonder and an infamous reclusepeople were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. But there It's one key difference here: Mimi has not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a ninecrush on seventeen-year-old sonReggie 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, Frankshe even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782399208</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kay Langdale1472263936|title=The Way Back to UsFigurine|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 love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that we know Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the very beginning that Emily and Robert love each other enormouslyevent, they eloped and that he is about to break Richard took her heart in away from the most dreadful way in order Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to protect become a secret that they've lived with for decadeswell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Seeing their love unfold Life was lived in reverse is beautifulLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. We get Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to know leave him in charge''. Then Richard left them once they have already gotten to know each other.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=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 affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it makes for an unusual my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{Frontpage|author=Lucy Ashe|title=Clara and interesting structureOlivia|rating=4. 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The secret they hold year is referred 1933. The place? Sadler'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, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to throughoutdetail – and some things, but it isnthat ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't revealed until very late in come from the bookclassroom. IA stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''m guessing very few readers will figure it out. Even once you knowThe difference between a hard-worker, you want to go back and read the whole story again in the light of the information you now holda star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409171744</amazonuk>0861544080