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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jem VanstonB0FK5LHKD9|title=A Cat Called Dog 2 - The One with the KittensColour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden

|summary=GeorgeIt's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, Dog the cat and Eric the stray so we were indulging themselves with very glad to see a philosophical discussion when they heard some strange mewingnew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Three kittens had found their way into the garden and told the resident cats that their mother had told them to run away when a two-legs cat catcher came for them Like all. Mother couldnBowden's stories, there't run as she had s a sore paw, but Daisy, Maisie and Boo had run and run and run. Theymystery at the heart of 'd no idea what happened to her - or how to get back home again. George is getting on in years and wouldn't like to upset his two legs, The Lady, by being away from home for too long, so he appoints Dog as leader Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an expedition to reunite the kittens author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and their Motheratmosphere each time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786293390</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susi OsborneSaou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Angelica StoneHunchback

|summary=I'd say that Angelica Stone was known as Angel to her friends, but she's not big on friends. She has in the sort middle of background you dread hearing about: sexually abused as a childself-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in was the book's bold fuchsia cover, grabbed followed by the care system its striking title: ''Hunchback''. This is a word I recognised to be loaded with historical and didn't so much fall through cultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the cracks as escaped its clutches display table and then had turned to learn how to copethe back inside cover. She's been told that she's taintedThere, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that she ruins causes severe muscular weakness and touches every relationship without intending to and that she's best staying away from 'decent' peopleaspect of her life. One The title took on new complexity in light of her jobs is working in a supermarket and biography. I had to read it's there that she meets Lola Moriarty and ''she's'' a completely different kettle of fish.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911320947</amazonuk>0241700787

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Virginia MacgregorJen Beagin|title= Before I Was YoursBig Swiss|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionHumour |summary= Rosie can see clearly her future family in her mindI found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. And when that doesnGreta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York't happens darkest secrets, their intimate lives, she adaptstheir fetishes and fears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. So maybe she wonSure, there't carry s a confidentiality agreement, as the baby inside sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that lovely blonde girl just makes it more exciting. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a fly on the adoption event could be their new daughterwall. YesThat is, she looks like she belongs until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the safety of the wall and buzz far too close to them alreadythe sun. ItThe sun in this analogy is the sex coach's meant to be. Except itnewest patient, who Greta dubs 's not. Rosie and Sam donBig Swiss't get to have a genetic child of their own, and they don't get to adopt who, like the perfect sun, is bright, blonde girl. They end up with the exact opposite: a boy from Kenya with a peculiar back story and an ardent wish not beautiful - and irresistible to be adoptedGreta. As optimistic as Rosie and Sam try Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to beOm, this isnfly out of the window. She't quite what they pictured or hoped fors in too deep. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751565229</amazonuk>0571378579

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Gabrielle Zevin1784745758|title= Young Jane YoungThree Days in June|author=Anne Tyler|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Aviva GrossmanThe day before your daughter's wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. First, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida, makes it was her job as assistant head at the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss - who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married - and blogging about itlocal school. When There was a moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the affair comes to light, discussion moved into the Congressman doesnsubject of 'people skills't take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late-night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamed, labelled as fat and uglyknew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, and considered a blight depending on politics in generalwho was explaining the situation.How does one go on after this? In Aviva's case, When she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town got home (in Maine. She starts over as a wedding planner, tries to be smarter about her life, and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident.But when, at the urging middle of others, she decides to run for public office herself, the day: who would have thought that longcould happen?) her ex-ago mistake trails her via the Internet like husband was there with a scarlet Acat. These days, Google guarantees He thinks that the past is never, ever, truly past, he'll be staying and that everything you've done Gail will live on for everyone to know about for all eternitybe adopting the cat. And itthat's only a matter of time until Aviva/Janebefore Gail discovers that the groom hasn's daughter, Ruby, finds out who her mother was, and is, and must decide whether she can still respect hert been entirely honest about his personal life.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408709805</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Henrietta Rose-InnesSamantha Harvey|title= Green LionOrbital|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= The opening of In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Green LionOrbital'' is an apparently simple premise; , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a young South African man, Con, is tasked with picking up single day in the belongings lives of an old friend, Mark, who is lying in a coma in hospitalgroup of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Mark worked at a small zoo with Through a rare black-maned lioness, who mauled him and caused narrative lens that mirrors the coma. Howeverastronauts' orbital perspective, as the story unfolds, Rose-Innes reveals an unflinching embrace of the messiness of human and animal life, and their troubled interactionsHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910709255</amazonuk>1529922933

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithHan Kang|title=A Time of Love and TartanThe Vegetarian|rating=4.5

|summary=Here we areThis novel, back on Scotland Street, eager to see what everyone (especially Bertie…) has been up to! This is now winner of the twelfth book International Booker Prize in the Scotland Street series which is remarkable. That a serial novel has such momentum, 2016 and that penned by an author who received the characters within have become so very familiar to AMS's loyal readersNobel Prize for Literature this year, is a testament as close to his skills unputdownable as a writerit gets. This time around our nerves are on edge as Pat ventures back towards a relationship with It more than lives up to the dreadful Bruce! Surely she'll see senseacclaim...won't she?! Matthew, of all people, is in trouble The story introduces uncanny characters with the policefragile, Irene is busy planning a PhDvividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, and Bertie? Could there be a happy ending for Bertie in the air?elusive souls.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973821</amazonuk>1803510056

 {{newreview|author= Jess Richards|title= City of Circles|rating= 4|genre= Fantasy|summary= Danu is a tightrope walker who is mourning her parents, after a disease has ravaged 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 and develops elaborate and successful high-wire acts with Morrie, a charismatic hunchback who wants to marry her. When the circus returns to Danu's birthplace, Matryoshka, Danu is enchanted by the temples, spice mists, and pleasure seekers within the intoxicating outer circle district. Here, she finally gains the courage to open her mother's locket, and discovers the name of a stranger who lives behind the locked gate of the Inner Circle. Fated to remain in Matryoshka, Danu attempts to resolve this mystery. Will she and Morrie ever be reunited, or will something far more unexpected be waiting for her in the mysterious heart of the city?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473656680</amazonuk>}}{{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 save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of herselfSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? 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 upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her friends Mona and Shirinbest friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the rebellious Professor Azurdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4. Much 5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her thoughts revolve around father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the scandal States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that prevented she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her from graduating from preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=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 dream universityyounger 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. More Katie is coming out of a commentary on religion than break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new storyfrom Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the novel asks many questions about faith 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 particularher abilities, Islam - and whether its customs there's always her very helpful (and traditions can be adapted rather handsome) neighbour, William, to suit modern life.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241978882</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Andre AlexisDean Koontz|title= The Hidden KeysBad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary= Tancred Palmieri Benny is having a talented thief thrown into the path of Willow Azarian an eccentricterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, unpredictable heroin addictand his house gets trashed. She is also part of the Azarian dynasty Oh, bequeathed almost and someone has delivered a million dollars upon her fatherreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's death. Each of possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the Azarian children were also gifted a deeply personal memento morithing that has trashed his house! The thing is, which Willow Benny is convinced make up an intricate treasure huntthe very last person to deserve all this bad luck. She enlists He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the help of Tancred delivery to steal each itemhis house is a new friend, solve the mystery and prove she a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is not blindly following clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a baseless fantasygood person. Tancred must use all his skills Spike is going to infiltrate the homes take care of each Benny, and will certainly take care of WillowBenny's siblingsenemies, if he, Benny, uncover the clues hidden in each item and fight off the rival interests of competing criminals and the policeHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781258422</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alison Jean LesterKatherine Howe|title= Yuki Means HappinessA True Account|rating= 34.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= High-tech and high-riseHannah Masury is living in Boston, kimonoshaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and big-eyed visuals – through being made to work there from a dynamic juxtaposition young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the ultra modern town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and the traditionalhorrified in equal measure, Japan has succeeded Hannah finds herself embroiled in branding itself both as an intriguing travel destination that does not cease to surprise, but a young boy's death at the same time defies being ever wholly full understood by outsidershands of two vicious pirates. All of this has come She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to be encapsulated sea, dressing as a boy and reinforced in Sofia Coppolajoining the notorious Ned Low's cult classic ''Lost pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in Translation'': the iconic still thick of Scarlett Johansson standing at the scramble crossing things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in Shibuya has come to represent Japan in pop culture as much as her rip roaring tale of life on the more traditional cherry blossom imageryocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549628</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= S V Berlin1471180158|title= The FavouriteMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Siblings Edward and Isobel Vernon haven't spoken Jamie Matson works in years and live on opposite sides of the Atlantic. When their mother Mary dies unexpectedlyan upper-class grocery store, they are thrown together to sort through for a man who's a control freak with all the family homesubtlety of a half brick. With Edward Jamie's diffident but devoted girlfriendson, JulieBo, making an awkward threesome'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, each stumbles through the practicalities of funeral preparation and house clearing, trying more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to make sense of their emotions and their feelings toward one another. Isobel makes take time off at short notice - she's a disturbing discovery and her fateful decision has consequences for all of them, challenging their beliefs about frequent flier in the past, hopes for the future local A&E and understanding of Marysometimes Bo's role 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 keeping them at once apart and togetherthe wrong. It was going to come to a head. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993563384</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia Claiborne JohnsonB0CKD1L5JL|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 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 It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year -old Rachel Fullsmith returns home Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to Kenya her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after being away at school his interests on the island and in England and finds a lot can change particular in 6 yearsthe bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{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. Of course she realises her motherThere's death something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would alter things but be embarrassingly inadequate: she's not prepared practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her fathercharacters 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.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's live-exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in . Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'companionthe gold digger' Sara nor Sara. She's son Harold sleeping living in Rachel's 'their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old room. Michael Edie has lived in the Kikuyu servant boy same small town for almost her whole life, but now she grew up is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is still starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there though and now was a man with his own ideassecret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. Meanwhile After 'seeing' Lucy in the unrest between high street, just as she was the British rulers and last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the local Mau Mau fighters past, she is increasing forgetting more and about more in her day to blowday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241247616</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Lucy DanielsMadelaine Lucas|title= Summer at Hope MeadowsThirst for Salt|rating= 45|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary=''Animal Ark'Love, I' d read, was supposed to be a popular series of childrenlight and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''s books written between 1994 and 2008. The stories focus on  Told from a retrospective view, a young girl called Mandy Hopewoman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the daughter of two vets who run a practice, Animal Ark, in narrator relives the Yorkshire town of Welford. Along affair with a man twenty years her best friend James, senior from its inception – the children seek summer after finishing university – to help out creatures in needits sorrowful end the summer after. The series consisted Set against the backdrop of 94 books in total and was written by a collection of authors writing under the pseudonym Lucy Daniels. an isolated Australian coastal town ''Summer at Hope MeadowsThirst for Salt'' is details the first in a new series for adult readers, continuing grown24-year-up Mandyold narrator's story now that she is a fully qualified vetdeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473653878</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Divry and Alison Anderson (translator)0008506337|title=Madame Bovary of the SuburbsThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=2.5

|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O''It starts with becoming a homeownerLeary was all-consuming, then settling apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in, then reproducinglove. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Well, it actually starts a lot before then, with a set of fractured memories of our heroineHer parents worried that Richard's childhood – things influence would take her away from what they felt she recalls her parents could achieve - going to Oxford and relatives saying both to having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and about Richard took heraway from the Isle of Wight. It goes through her childhood, Margo did go to Oxford and pen letters went on to become a best friend conveying her wishes for her lifewell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, those wishes being revised Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and affirmed by holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the liberty Isle of university years, those wishes being met with or denied by married life… Wight. Someone archly could point out that you should be careful what you wish for, but not even our wise, modern woman could not see Even then the next step after the reproducing – doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''standing disappointed she would never be able to leave him in front of the refrigeratorcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054686</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania Hershman1914585402|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross

|genre=Short Stories General Fiction|summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkward. Going through from A-Z, witnessing a bounty of ideas and characters in short order can be too much, but do you have the right to pick and choose according to what appeals, and what time you have to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surely. Such would appear to be the case here. The last time I read one of this authorreviewed David F Ross's collections, with book [[The White Road There's Only One Danny Garvey by Tania HershmanDavid F Ross|The White RoadThere's Only One Danny Garvey]], the only real difficulty was holding a couple of years back and rationing themremember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, but here you and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sectionshave lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jane JohnsonLucy Ashe|title= Court of LionsClara and Olivia|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical General Fiction |summary= Kate Fordham arrived in the sunlit city of Granada a The year agois 1933. In the shadow of the Alhambra, one of the most beautiful places on earth, she works as a waitress serving tourists in a busy bar. She pretends she's happy with her new life – but how could she beThe place? KateSadler's aloneWells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, afraid and hiding under a false nametwins no less. And fate is about to bring her face-to-face with her greatest fear. Five centuries agoIdentical on the outside but not, a messagewe learn, in a hand few could readon the inside. And not on stage, was inscribed in blood on a stolen scrap of papereither. The paper was folded and pressed into one of the AlhambraBecause there's wallsa lot that builds a dancer. There it has lainSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, undisturbed by the tides of history attention to detail – the Fall of Granadaand some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the expulsion of its last Sultan – until Kate discovers itclassroom. Born of loveA stage presence, in a time of danger and desperationcharm, the fragment will be the catalyst that changes Katea ''joie de vivre''s life forever. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786694336</amazonuk>0861544080