Changes

|isbn= B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Colour of Memory|author=Antoine LaurainChristopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, Le Sonneur there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Saou Ichikawa and Jane Aitken Polly Barton (translator)|title=Red is My HeartHunchback|rating=3.54|genre=Literary General Fiction |summary=[[I was in the middle of a self-imposed book-buying ban when I made an exception for this one. What first drew me in was the book's bold fuchsia cover, followed by its striking title:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black ''Hunchback''. This is a word I recognised to be loaded with historical and white cultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and read in my houseturned to the back inside cover. And so was this oneThere, although I could have spelled discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that more accurately – causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. I had to read it.|isbn=0241700787}}{{Frontpage|author=Jen Beagin|title=Big Swiss|rating=4.5|genre=Humour |summary=I found the premise of this one wasbook totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How? Her job isto transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, black and white and redbut that just makes it more exciting. YesLike we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, he has an artistic collaborator as a fly on this piecethe wall. That is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the safety of the wall and I think itbuzz far too close to the sun. The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's possible newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to say not one page lacks Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the influence ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to Om, fly out of some striking visual ideasthe window. She's in too deep.|isbn=19135471830571378579

|authorisbn=Andrew Sharp1784745758|title=The Chef, the Bird and the BlessingThree Days in June|author=Anne Tyler

|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mindThe 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 head chef of local school. There was a safari business catering moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and he puts all of himself head but the discussion moved into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become the head chef subject of a restaurant in London 'people skills' and before she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or a big American cityresigned, depending on who was explaining the situation. Even to win When she got home (in the middle of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there with a Michelin starcat. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, Mr Bin (Ben to you thinks that he'll be staying and me) who incurs Mozzythat Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his allowing of bush animals into the housepersonal life.|isbn=B09926MK8H

|isbnauthor=1901514978Samantha Harvey|title=There's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos AlbaOrbital

|summary=Life is different In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for George Lovelace and he can't really understand why. He's always done everything he ought to: steady workerOrbital'', husband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why is he never quite compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such the lives of a ''good'' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It's almost become group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a cliche these days to suggest narrative lens that someone who is a little different is 'on mirrors the spectrumastronauts'orbital perspective, but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome: high-functioning autismHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933

|author=Freya SampsonHan Kang|title=The Last LibraryVegetarian|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=This novel, winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016 and penned by an author who received the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, is as close to unputdownable as it gets. It more than lives up to the acclaim. The story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, elusive souls.|isbn=1803510056}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster 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 Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0DGDJRHYD|title=Nowhere Man|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=I am always In a little nervous to start a story about a libraryquiet suburban house, since I am a librarianPatrick is making his final plans. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett)A meticulous man, and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didn't immediately throw the book out he makes sure of the window, because I found I was interested in Juneevery preparation, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used down to be a librarian at the village library, but when she got sicklast detail. Some last reflections, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home then he says goodbye to take care of her mumhis wife, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local library. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway mealworld, and still reading her mumhis life. It's old bookshorribly sad. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything At work in her life shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about the changeher ageing and ailing mother, who needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.|isbn=183877369X

|authorisbn=Emily Critchley1739526910|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small FlowersWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=34.5

|summary= The Tiny Gestures ''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something goodreconnecting with everything he has lost. I was intrigued by the plotBut as those tentative plans falter, liked the design he becomes swept up in a local world of the bookunlikely friendships, mobile discos and thought the authorsurprising romantic possibilities.''s work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}}

|isbnauthor=B093VPBL5LJenny Lecoat|title=Cape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker BittickBeyond Summerland

|summary=Meet Bosner, or, to give him his full title, Petty Officer Third Class BosnerJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. We never really find out if he has a first name: there's merely a hint that he had During the nickname 'Secretary' at one point. Hewar, Jean's simply Bosner father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and allher mother waiting for years for news of him. When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of 2008 when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helosAs the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, as their hopes rise that they were called) at a naval establishmentwill finally learn what became of him. The hours could be long and he was often working nights but at But will the age of twenty-onetruth come as a relief, there or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was always a way to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into his day.the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=1846976537

|isbnauthor=B095CY7NBNOnyi Nwabineli|title=Autumn Camp|author=Barry FowlerAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|summary=It was Anuri spent her childhood on display to be Brianthe world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's last campincreasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. He'd founded the organisation some four years ago Now Anuri is in her twenties and had done all the organisation since but he was leaving school she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and the time had come to hand get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the reins content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to someone elsestart her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. The obvious person was GaryMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who'd always been is the fun element new focus of the camps and Brian had said that on this camp, Gary should act as the leader and heOphelia'd just be there to observe. The problem with this was that Gary wasn't really an organiser, an administrator if you likes online empire. He was the entertainerCan she save her sister, the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in perhaps herself and did her relationship with her father at the organising. He handed the camp over - and then took it back. And Gary determined to have his revenge. This should have been ''his'' camp.same time?|isbn=0861546873

|authorisbn=John Boyne1529153298|title=The Echo ChamberList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=Meet George CleverleyIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) He 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 selfa frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking -defined 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 "one 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 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 made no secret of her 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 few television personalities over online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the age business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of fifty without a criminal record"break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He starts this book loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a bit worried when really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his mistress tells him shehome, and it's carrying possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his childhouse! The thing is, but then his author wife Benny is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her withvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. They have three childrenSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who are has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoevergood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a girl waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who hangs around 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 virtue-signallingfamily who run an inn, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to save be a hanging of some pirates in the worldtown, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's homeless with out-death at the hands of-date foodtwo vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a fit young lad doing boy and joining the gay hustle thingnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Add She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a few other characters – therapistsmutiny on board, lawyersand from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|isbn=0861547438}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, random transgender types – that for a man who's a control freak with all have two very different connections to the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his lifeproblems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, and the more you have something 'll suspect that suggests an almost farcical approach he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the modern worldlocal A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. What suggests Missed shifts or the farcical approach even more, however, is need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the fact this is bloody funnywrong. It was going to come to a head.|isbn=0857526219

|isbn=0008444501B0CKD1L5JL|title=The Answer to EverythingRadio Free Olympia|author=Luke KennardJeffrey Dunn

|summary=Life should have been good for EmilyPetr is an orphan. She had a lovely husbandRescued by the strange, Stevenreclusive Bear, who was a speech therapist. We'll pass over the fact that they rarely speak to each other he is brought up far from bustling cities and don't even sleep busy human society, in the same bed. It isn't so much that Emily has left the marital bed as that she's sharing a bed with one forests of her children as itWashington's the only way to get him to sleep during the nightOlympic Peninsula. Arthur After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and Matty are gorgeous but they are armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a handful journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and Emily has rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a job to cope with too - she teaches drama two days bout of scarlet fever as a weekchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. They've not long moved Suddenly plunged into a new home world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in Criterion Gardens: it's a trendy area that 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 gentrified teaching the deaf and it's run on semi-communal linesusing a system called Visible Speech. The residents even share eco-friendly electric cars rather than owning their ownAt 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

|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Louise BeechAyura 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 Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug 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=This Is How We Are HumanThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=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 Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the 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=43

|summary=Veronica Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a devoted single mother to her sonvirus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, Sebastian - but she can't give him everything he wants. Sebastian has decided a sense that it's time for something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him to have sex– as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. But as an autistic 20 year-old As he recovers his senses, he realises thatthere is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''s easier said than done. And it Michael isn't ''Michael's starting to cause them both problems' anymore. |isbn=19131937131662500467

|authorisbn=Ananda DeviB0BVDC2VWH|title=Eve Out of Her RuinsThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=At not even 200 pages, Eve Out of Her Ruins The village is one of the shortest books I've read in a long while, but it's one of the most dramaticisolated and poor. It's also told in surrounded by a way that I can only describe as brutal: it spares nothing 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 pulls very few puncheseven gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the descriptions stark village and unromanticthat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|isbn=0993009344}}  

|authorisbn=C J CareyB0BYF82CXT|title=WidowlandSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, Bill and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved Amanda are living in the leada semi-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know itdetached house, and we are now stuck in a protectorate – well, we share enough depressing rut of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenologyboredom and disappointment, when Terry and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudgesFiona – glamorous, successful and beyond those, right very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on down to the childlesslife, the husbandless couples befriend each other and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature life appears to take all encouragement improve for female emancipation out of it – after both pairs. But all, is not every book can be bannedwhat it seems, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for reprinttragedy. That is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.|isbn=152941198X'

|isbnauthor=0857527231Shalini Boland|title=Dog Days|author=Ericka WallerThe Silent Bride|rating=53

|summary=George Dempsey Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is exceedingly angryeverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. It's eight days since his She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, Ellensuccessful, died confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and it's the first time that she's let him downwedding is planned and set. He's lostWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, bereft without Alice is walked down the aisle by her ( he ''needs his wifefather, like a snail needs its shell''). He misses beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their ordered life friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and rather than bringing him meals when Seth turns to leave on the doorstepface his approaching bride, he'd much rather have a good row with someone. HeAlice's particularly angry about world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the dachshund puppy which Helen brought home just three weeks before she died. She even dared to contradict him when he told her that man at the dog wasn't staying. Now he's lumbered with a dog he doesn't want and a load of busybodies who are trying to interfere in his life. Worst of all altar is Betty, who won't take no for an answer. Betty knits jumpers is waiting for Lucky, her greyhound. Lucky spends a lot of time trying to escape from and destroy thembecome his wife.|isbn=1662507089

|authorisbn=Martin Venning1787636003|title=The Primary ObjectiveGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=25

|summary= Sometimes a book starts off slowly, but eventually draws you in to caring about It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the characters or simply wanting to know what happens nextisland. Sometimes it doesnRachel wasn't. The basic premise is a good one – a clandestine organisationexactly innocent but she was, operating as a charityperhaps, but funded by various governments around the world and partially (maybenaive, I'm not sure) under the auspices of the UNso when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, with the primary objective she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of keeping the peace, physical approach to her and by any means possible. Diplomacy is always the first option and sometimes one that needs to be carried out time she was obsessed by third partieshim. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, but for situations when that looks unlikely to yield results Peace International maintains a call-looking after his interests on list of field operatives, ex-military, medics, scientists or anyone else with a taste for adventure the island and willing to risk their life for in particular in the bar where all the sake of itgirls either worked or partied.|isbn=1800461100

|author=Karen M McManusAmanda Craig|title=The CousinsThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary= The rich and famous Story family led a life Few styles of luxury on Gull Cove Island, until 25 years ago when each contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of -the Story children - Anders, Archer, Adam and Allison - received a mysterious letter from their mother nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and were cut off completely. But nowcapture it, a quarter crafting an image of a century later, their children have been called to return to the island for the summer by their grandmothercountry as it stands in one particular moment. What does To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she want 's practically synonymous with the cousins? Why did she cut off her children all those years ago? Are genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the deaths on Gull Cove Island really what they seem? The dark web lives of twisted lies, secrets her characters in a way that feels natural and tragedy that has held the Story family up lived- and held in, never making them apart - ciphers for a quarter of a century is about to come crashing downsocial commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|isbn=0241376947140871468X

|authorisbn=Ruth Hogan152915118X|title=Madame BurovaPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=This book lets us discover several people in different stages ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of life in the early 1970sthree women: Sasha, all vaguely connectedDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. So we have a bullied half-cast boy (as he would have been called then)They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a girl in a humdrum job wanting to become a singer, and chiefly, Imelda, Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the third generation of Madame Burovaclan matriarch, ''Tarot-ReaderTilda, Palmist asks Cord and ClairvoyantSasha if they'', d like to use her family's sea-front boothmove into the Pineapple Street property. The singerTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, the scryer and the sufferer's mother will all become staff at a revamped holiday campstreet or so away, but just before then we see Imelda fly solo for which they own. They won't need any of the first time furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in the family stall. We also see her on her last day, fifty years laterNominally, in possession of they had a pair of letters choice but that will change everything for a woman called Billiewasn't the reality. Just who is she, Darley and who delivered Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the secrets about her to Imelda, and why did gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it have to remain a secret all this time?|isbn=152937331X'the GD'.

|author=Stephen ClarkeEmily Critchley|title=The Spy Who Inspired MeOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=This 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a spoof spy storymove as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, that isn't about James Bondas Edie is starting to lose her memory. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian LemmingHowever, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who dresses well 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 'likes the ladiesseeing' and who works for Lucy in the secret servicehigh street, but in just as she was the planning side last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of things more than the active servicememories coming back to her. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called MargauxAnd yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and the pair end up stranded more in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission her day to unearth traitors in day life. Will she uncover the resistance networktruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with before her!memories are gone forever?|isbn=29521638551804181250

|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=If You Kept a Record of SinsThirst for Salt|rating=4.5

|summary=This ''Love, I'd read, was an incredibly readable novellasupposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but one I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that left me once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a little conflictedman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airport, and before we even know his gender or Set against the nature backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the person he24-year-old narrator's addressing in his second person monologue of a narrationdeepening relationship with her older lover, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeurdepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother is buried the following dayfamilial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. |isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The mother Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was a businesswomanall-consuming, who clearly left northern Italy apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and settled in Romania with described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her (nightaway from what they felt she could achieve -time going to Oxford and business) partnerhaving a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and feelings Richard took her away from the Isle of abandonment are still strongWight. And so we flit from current ( Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, this came out Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the original Italian in 2007, so moderately current) Bucharest, to Isle of Wight. Even then the laddoubts about Richard's childhood, and see just what he has drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to tell her as a private farewell addressleave him in charge''.|isbn=1939810965Then Richard left them.

|summary= Years ago, 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 a footballing prodigy playing for his local club. Everyone predicted It was a bright future – but his career in professional football never quite worked out. Thirteen years ongripping, convinced to return home by his "uncle" Higgy to visit his dying motheremotionally wounding read, Danny takes over the shambolic and once-great team he used to play for and tries to reform themrereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|isbn= 1913193500}}

|author=Gail HoneymanLucy Ashe|title=Eleanor Oliphant is Completely FineClara and Olivia

|summary= Eleanor Oliphant The year is almost 301933. The place? Sadler's Wells. She lives in GlasgowBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, alonetwins no less. And she likes it that way. She works 9-5Identical on the outside but not, 5 days a weekwe learn, and spends on the weekend inside. And not drunkon stage, but not sobereither. alone. And she likes it that way. She lives by Because there's a routine, and lot that's fine, thankyouverymuch. Nothing is missing from her life. Except everything is. Until one day, at builds a concert she won tickets for in an office raffle, she sees the man she is sure will be her husbanddancer. Eleanor begins a journey to make herself the best version of herself Some things that she canbe taught or learnt – discipline, in order attention to secure this beautiful musician. Thendetail – and some things, as shethat ''je ne sais quoi''s on her way home one Friday, she and the new IT guy at her office see a man collapse in that don't come from the street and stay close to him in hospitalclassroom. ThenA stage presence, before she knows ita charm, her once quiet life becomes a hubbub of social engagements with the man's family and friends, with Raymond from IT and of course her side project of falling in love with Johnnie Lomond. But just as her life seems to be looking up, things take a turn for the worse. Is Johnnie all he's cracked up to be? What secrets does Eleanor have from her childhood? Eleanorjoie de vivre's walls have been broken down and she has to fight her way out of the shadows - but maybe she doesn't have to do it alone.|isbn=0008172145}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has difference between a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water hard- then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left herworker, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the officestar.|isbn=0861544080