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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage{|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingisbn="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> <!-- Hepworth -->B0FK5LHKD9|-| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|The Colour of Memory[[image:1473674239.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473674239/refauthor=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Christopher Bowden| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|4===[[The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Pleasant Court is a cul-de-sac a few minutes from the beach in Melbourne. Kids play in the street and itsummary=It's the sort of place people aspire been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad tosee a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Certainly thatLike all Bowden's how the families who live there feel and stories, there's a good sense mystery at the heart of community. Ben and Essie are glad that Essie's mother is living next door as Essie had a mental breakdown three years ago when her first daughter was having difficulty sleeping. Mia's come through that stage, but now thereThe Colour of Money's Poppy, who's been the perfect baby for the first six months of her life, but is just starting to be difficult. Ben, We like this running theme in particular, is pleased that he can rely on Barbara to keep an eye on the situation whilst heauthor's out at work- take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time. [[The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth|Full Review]]}}<!-- Walton -->{{Frontpage|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)[[image:Walton_Ask.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788038053/ref=nosim?tagtitle=thebookbag-21]] Hunchback| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Ask For Blues by Malcolm Walton]]===4[[image:3.5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Entertainment|Entertainment]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Malcolm Walton's book is clearly a memoir about his introduction to the Trad Jazz scene of the late 1950's and early 1960's, but he has chosen to write it summary=I was in the form middle of a novel, claiming self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in his prologue that this would give was the book a different approach to the music memoir. His protagonist 'Martin' takes on Malcolm's mantlebold fuchsia cover, and begins with his first discovery of the Salvation Army band with his grandfather. This catapults him into a love of music, initially taking piano lessons, and later delving into his true love – the trumpet. [[Ask For Blues followed by Malcolm Walton|Full Review]]<br><!-- Bala -->|-| style="widthits striking title: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Bala_Boat''Hunchback''.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0385542291/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Boat People by Sharon Bala]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Among the 500 Sri Lankans in This is a rickety boat making its way word I recognised to Vancouver Island are Mahindan be loaded with historical and his six-year-old son Selliancultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. When the boat arrives the Canadian authorities take all the passengers into custodyCurious, placing I leaned over the women display table and children in a separate facility from turned to the menback inside cover. A gruelling series of hearings will decide on There, I discovered the fate of each individual or familyauthor: whether they will be allowed to stay Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in Canadachildhood with congenital myopathy, or deported back to Sri Lankaa condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The government fears that up to half title took on new complexity in light of these asylum-seekers may have links her biography. I had to the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group, so judges are instructed to have a firm handread it. [[The Boat People by Sharon Bala|Full Review]]isbn=0241700787<br>}} <!-- Kidd -->{{Frontpage|-author=Jen Beagin| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Big Swiss[[image:Kidd_Hoarder.jpg|left|linkrating=http://www4.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782118497/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Humour |summary===[[The Hoarder by Jess Kidd]]=== [[image:4starI found the premise of this book totally original and addictive.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Cathal Flood is an oldGreta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, belligerent manNew York's darkest secrets, living in a filthytheir intimate lives, crowded house that was once a family hometheir fetishes and fears. When Maud Drennan – underpaid carer and unintentional psychic How? Her job is employed to look after transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the ancient Cathalsex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, she assumes shebut that just makes it more exciting. Like we'll just be the next ve all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a long line of short-term dogsbodies for fly on the old manwall. InsteadThat is, Maud finds herself drawn into until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the safety of the mysteries concealed within Cathal's once great house – wall and as Maud begins buzz far too close to clean and sort the rooms she uncovers secrets about the old man that awaken long-hidden memories within Maud herselfsun. With The sun in this analogy is the aid of her highly glamourous yet utterly agoraphobic landlady sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and a troop of holy ghostswho, Maud must uncover like the secrets at the heart of the house – sun, is bright, blonde and exactly why they were buried… [[The Hoarder by Jess Kidd|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Makumbi -->|beautiful -| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Makumbu_Kintu.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786073773?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786073773]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] ''Kintu'' opens with unbridled authority and mercilessnessirresistible to Greta. In just a few pages a man has been hunted down by an angry mob in Uganda. He is then brained with a concrete slab; his woman is left in widowhood and has Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the hard task ethics of dealing with her man's debt. Blood flows easilyprofessional position, and quicklyher loyalties to Om, when your familyfly out of the window. She's steps are haunted by a curse that spans generationsin too deep. [[Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi|Full Review]]isbn=0571378579<br>}} <!-- Vaughan -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=1784745758| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Three Days in June[[image:Vaughan Scandal.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1471164993?ie=UTF8&tagauthor=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1471164993]] Anne Tyler| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan]]===4[[image:5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Sophie had been married to James for twelve years and two children: to summary=The day before your daughter's wedding will always be honest she was busy but Gail Baines got far more than a little bit in awe of himshe asked for. James Whitehouse First, it was an MP and junior minister: perhaps most importantly he her job as assistant head at the local school. There was a friend of the prime minister, so moment when he had to admit she hoped that he'd been having an affair he was confident that some contrition, a public admission that he'd been wrong, that he was not perfect, she would soon have his career back on track. And it seemed as though that was be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the way it was going, until a friend subject of the 'other womanpeople skills', parliamentary researcher Olivia Lytton, persuaded her to go to the police. There and before she knew what was no dispute that the relationship happening Gail had been consensualsacked or resigned, but after James had finished depending on who was explaining the affair there was an incident in a lift situation. When she got home (in House of Commons and the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were both middle of the opinion day: who would have thought that this amounted to rapecould happen?) her ex-husband was there with a cat. The prosecuting counsel is Kate Woodcroft He thinks that he'll be staying and shethat Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's very determined before Gail discovers that Whitehouse is going to be brought to bookthe groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life. [[Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan|Full Review]]<br>}} <!-- Dean -->{{Frontpage|-author=Samantha Harvey| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Orbital[[image:Dean Dark.jpg|left|linkrating=https://www.amazon.co4.uk/gp/product/178607253X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=178607253X]] 5| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Dark Pines by Will Dean]]==genre=General Fiction [[image:5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Tuva Moodyson works In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a local paper single day in small town Sweden - there to be near an ailing Mother, but desperate for the big break that will have her moving on to pastures new. Just outside lives of a group of her town, Gavrik, two bodies lie deep in astronauts aboard the forest - brutally murdered and their eyes ripped outInternational Space Station. They bring back dark memories for Through a town narrative lens that has seen this crime before - and Tuva is desperate to find mirrors the killer. At firstastronauts' orbital perspective, she's just out Harvey invites readers to write see our planet in a good story - but as the crimes continue she finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into the forests outside of Gavrik, filled with stranger characters and dark secretswholly new light. Will she find the killer before they find her? [[Dark Pines by Will Dean|Full Review]]isbn=1529922933}}<!-- Banks -->{{Frontpage|-author=Han Kang| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|The Vegetarian[[image:Banks_W.jpg|linkrating=http://www.amazon4.co.uk/dp/ISBN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[W by John Banks]]===General Fiction[[image:4star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] On This novel, winner of the slopes of Mt Hood International Booker Prize in Oregon, 2016 and penned by an 1000-author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year old Viking , is discovered frozen - three thousand miles further west as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than any previously known Viking explorationlives up to the acclaim. Josh Kinninger is inspired by the Viking discovery - three personal catastrophes having left him angryThe story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, unmoored and with his world in turmoil. Beginning a journey westwardvividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, he's filled with a desire to wreak vengeance on the individuals he finds morally corruptelusive souls. [[W by John Banks|Full Review]] <!-- Fry -->|-| styleisbn="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|1803510056[[image:Fry_Mythos.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0718188721/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|}}===[[Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece by Stephen Fry]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionFrontpage|General Fiction]] The Greek Myths are, arguably, the greatest stories ever told. So old and influential they cast a shadow over western tales and traditions, yet remain relatable and readable millennia later. Here comedian, actor, television presenter, actor and author Stephen Fry brings his considerable talent to these special stories and recreates them with a wit, warmth and humanity that brings them into the modern age whilst still giving the honour and respect that such ancient and influential stories deserve. [[Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece by Stephen Fry|Full Review]] <!-- Curtis -->=Sally Rooney|-| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Intermezzo[[image:Curtis_Water.jpg|linkrating=http://www.amazon.co4.uk/dp/0995465754/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] 5| stylegenre="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|General Fiction ===[[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis]]=== [[image:RA|TEstar.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Something Sally Rooney has happened, something very nasty studied the chessboard of life and on a submarine a pregnant elephant is one something of only a handful of animals living below the wavesgrandmaster at putting it into words. We follow Nerissa Crane, a vetHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as she remembers recent events, looks after her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the animals and falls many relationships woven into a world of intrigue. It is difficult to properly review this book without giving too much away. There will be mild spoilers throughout this right from story, the start but I will try central one for readers to avoid unravel is the main onesfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. [[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis|Full Review]] <!-- Hill -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hill_Strange.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/147322117X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Strange Weather by Joe Hill]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]]Ivan, [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] Strange Weather is a collection of four short novels all linked bysocially awkward chess prodigy, unsurprisinglycontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, strange and cataclysmic weathera successful lawyer living in Dublin. Each novel is distinct and showcases HillFollowing their father's restrained yet vivid style which takes everyday events and makes them bitinglypassing after a long battle with cancer, acerbically macabre or blindingly beautiful, often switching from one sentence to the next. As Hill himself says brothers''the beauty of the world and the horror of the world were twined together'', never is this truer than in Strange Weather where moments of abject horror are coupled with raw beautyalready strained relationship faces new trials. [[Strange Weather by Joe Hill|Full Review]]isbn=0571365469 |}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle de KretserB0DGDJRHYD|title=The Life to ComeNowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone|rating=34

|summary=''The Life In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of every preparation, down to Come'' tells the story of several ''interesting'' characters who are all linked by one person: Pippalast detail. The novel is split into five chapters with each one focusing on a different personSome last reflections, from Cassie and her bizarre relationship with Ash then he says goodbye to George who has finished his thesis wife, the world, and is in the process of writing his first novellife. PippaIt's horribly sad. At work in her shop, who his wife Diana is also a writer, appears in each of these chapters, in some cases just as a background character. However, what I found most fascinating fending off yet another phone call about this novel was that de Kretser tells the story of Pippa's life through all these various appearances her ageing and leaves the reader with a real sense of ailing mother, who she is as needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a person and having watched her development as a characterwhile before Diana realises what Patrick has done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760296708</amazonuk>

{{newreview <!-- remove 29/12 -->Frontpage|isbn=1739526910|title=Servants of the UndergroundWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=David SsembajjoGlen Sibley|rating=34.5

|summary=Having experienced ''One year after a terrible famine suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in his own country, Kalamchi leaves an unfamiliar Devon town to travel and learnrecover. He returns Living with a burning desire to feed an unexpected housemate at his people - but not only to feed their stomachs but to feed their mindsformer manager’s holiday home, toohe dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. Kalamchi wants to raise his people's consciousness so that they can fight against the dictator Bamutu - chillingly known But as ''president for life those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and after deathsurprising romantic possibilities.''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848765800</amazonuk>

{{newreview <!-- remove 28/12 -->Frontpage|author=Rob MurphyJenny Lecoat|title=Rotten to the CoreBeyond Summerland

|genre=Thrillers General Fiction|summary=ItJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's 2009father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and Russia look like being awarded her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the football World Cup hosting rights for Nazis, and the oh-so-distant 2018 tournament - that war isfinally over, until England stick their oar inhopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. They But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have solved their hooligan problembeen kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=1846976537}}{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and improved their transport systemshe is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so at last are valid final holders. Watching this Most importantly, she is Francedesperately worried about her little sister, who have to reciprocate is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the Russians who helped them get France 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 Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'98s family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, and 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 planfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. At this stage For Miv, the UEFA European championship of 2016 has not been awardedmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and while France remain favourites she'll do anything to get prevent that. She's not worried about the jobdangers 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 Manhattan, New York, again some upstart idea has poked its head above 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 parapet 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 joint offering from Wales mother who mercilessly exploited her and Scotlandmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4. Yes5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, these two tiny countriesrun by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, separated by 200 miles tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and without look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a brilliant connection 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 one Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the otherIsabel Dalhousie novels, and without but with some vital posh hotels here 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, and with no serious claim to soccer fame when it comes to winning thingslend 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, are unlikely hostsand his house gets trashed. But what if France could persuade the world it was Oh, and someone has delivered a good idea really weird, disturbing coffin- sized object to his home, and let Russian espionage prove it not '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 be so, with deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the while the French around 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 pick up the pieces? All take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of the UK would be damagedBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, meaning England and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'18 would 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 a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be dead a hanging of some pirates in the watertown, she decides to go and Russia would win outwatch. And who Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's to say death at the Britshands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, with their devolution habitsso 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 their first coalition government 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 long timemutiny on board, could not get through without damaging themselves?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|amazonuksummary=<amazonuk>1546282998</amazonuk>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.

{{newreview <!-- remove 28/12 -->Frontpage|authorisbn=Paul StidolphB0CKD1L5JL|title=Forests in the SaharaRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|genre=Thrillers General Fiction|summary=''Everyone I speak to thinks you are going to come to some sort of sticky endPetr is an orphan.'' Those are not Rescued by the most promising words a man can hear strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from his new partnerbustling cities and busy human society, but she doesnin the forests of Washington't lie in this instances Olympic Peninsula. He is Jeffrey Harvey, After Bear dies and a young Cambridge professorbrief sojourn in human company, who has been dabbling and armed with some extra-curricular work, creating GM trees that can keep vast quantities of water purified. Get an iceberg or three worth of H2O near Africa, where clean water is still only a scarce resourcepirate radio transmitter, and the trees can do their bit and the water will advance the place and make Jeffrey Petr goes on a well-respected global entrepreneur. If, that is, he can get round all the problems in his life - fractions in the start-up involved in journey through the projectforest, a finance officer embezzling broadcasting the funds for gambling - ohstrange, wild and a man ready to accuse Jeffrey of murder and theft of research data on a case reaching back several years. It seems the lovely girlfriend was right to see no shortage of possible sticky ends..rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1546282351</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ellen WilesSarah Marsh|title=The Invisible CrowdA Sign of Her Own|rating= 43.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=This novel follows the plight After a bout of Eritrean Yonas Kelati scarlet fever as he tries to make a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life for himself changes. Living in England. He and a good friendtime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Gebre, escape from prison only Ellen is sent to be thrown into captivity again: trafficked in a shellfish factory school where they have to earn their ‘payment’ 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 malicious Aziz for entering deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the UK illegally. When Yonas escapessame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, the story really startsand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008228817</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tony PeakeB0BC3YTCMR|title= North FacingGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=At school in Pretoria in 1962''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, Paul Harvey struggles and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to fit hug her in - desperate to join the popular group no matter what case it may take's contagious. His focus It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on surviving the perils of school so intense, seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. that Then he fails to see the turbulence in both South Africa did: Lavender was very good at math and the larger world - with the arrest of Nelson Mandela and the Cuban Missile Crisis affecting the actions of the adults around Reggie asked if she would tutor him. A new and charismatic teacher decides She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to educate the boys in the unstable situation in the world outside - and a growing awareness of both that his house and his sexuality pushes Paul Harvey into decisions that he later comes to regret - and their weight pushes raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to return to South Africa in the present day - a man in his sixties keen to make sense of give her a troubled and utterly fascinating pastlift home. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0995590028</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fiona Mitchell1472263936|title=The Maid's RoomFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=In some apartments It was in Singapore you1968 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 Hamish (Helena'll find s parents) felt that it would be a bomb shelter - airless and pity if Helena grew up without a windowknowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. It will probably house Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the washing machine first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the other domestic paraphernalia thatfamily's got nowhere else to gomaid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. There'll be a mattress on the floor He was proud of this stifling room, with his close connections to the heat increased by the tumble dryerJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. This is the maidHis prejudices included Helena's room. Itred hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's possibly better than sleeping under the dining room tableScottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, but not by muchis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Back Finding himself in 2009 there were 201a makeshift mortuary,000 female domestic workers covered in Singaporeplastic, many not earning any money for he has a year until theysense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything've repaid 'training. Michael isn't ' and other fees to the agency, many living in 'the maidMichael's room'anymore.|amazonukisbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=<amazonuk>1473659566</amazonuk>4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BYF82CXT|title=Scoop of the YearSemi-Detached|author=Tom ClaverDeborah Stone

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Martin is an ambitious journalist working ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the Financial Reviewcouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. Martin But all is good at his job - accuratenot what it seems, dedicated, hardworking and with a good nose their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a scoop. But Martin is also uninterested match made in the culture that comes with reportingheaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife ; beautiful, successful, confident… and two daughters at home so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and he doesn't want to waste time the wedding is planned and money in set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the pubaisle by her father, talking macho nonsense beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the other hacks. He is a far cry from congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his colleague Tom de Lacyapproaching bride, a charismaticAlice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, silver-spooned charmer with piercing blue eyeswho is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Tom doesn Rachel wasn't just grab the limelight though exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year- old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he also grabs the promotion made any sort of physical approach to industrial correspondenther and by that time she was obsessed by him. And that is Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the job Martin not only wanted, but neededgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1788036220</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithAmanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's 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 be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|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 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 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''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 Edie has lived in the 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. However, 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 secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening 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.|isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Good Pilot Peter WoodhouseGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=If youThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O've never read an Alexander McCall Smith novelLeary was all-consuming, but have always thought you might like to try, one day then this might be the book to start withapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Rather than face the daunting task of leaping into Richard was twenty-one of his now very long-running series, this is a standalone novel, and it gives a good flavour of AMSdescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's style, the way he can write influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to evoke Oxford and having a feeling of time and placeglittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the warm optimism underlying his words that is so very reassuring Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and comforting went on to readbecome a well-respected journalist. It calls itself 'a wartime romance', which it isThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and yet it is much more than that besidesSasha. Focussing mainly on Val, a young woman working as a Land Girl, we see her falling Life was lived in love with an American pilotLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, Mike Rogersthe family home on the Isle of Wight. Thanks to a sheepdog on ValEven then the doubts about Richard's farm (the Peter Woodhouse drinking were never far from the title) their lives become entwined with that of a German soldier, and the book shows us a variety of friendships as they grow and develop over the yearsMargo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846974097</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Krysten Ritter1914585402|title= BonfireDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands.But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the townI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's most high-profile company and economic heart, Abby begins to find strange connections to BarrensOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There' biggest scandal from more than s Only One Danny Garvey]] a decade ago involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell couple of years back and her closest friends--just before Kaycee disappeared for good.Abby knows the key to solving any case lies in the weak spots, the unanswered questions. But as she tries desperately to find out what really happened to Kaycee, troubling memories begin to resurface remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and she begins to doubt her own observationsaffecting it was. And when she unearths an even more disturbing secret--It was a ritual called ''The Gamegripping,'' it will threaten the reputationsemotionally wounding read, and lives, rereading my review of the community and risk exposing a darkness it my main takeaway was that may consume herI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524759848</amazonuk>