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Newest General Fiction Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BYF82CXTB0FK5LHKD9|title=SemiThe Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.}}{{Frontpage|author=Saou Ichikawa and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Hunchback|rating=4|genre=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: ''Hunchback''. This is a word I recognised to be loaded with historical and cultural baggage, often used to dehumanise or reduce. Curious, I leaned over the display table and turned to the back inside cover. There, I discovered the author: Saou Ichikawa, a woman diagnosed in childhood with congenital myopathy, a condition that causes severe muscular weakness and touches every aspect of her life. The title took on new complexity in light of her biography. I had to read it.|isbn=0241700787}}{{Frontpage|author=Jen Beagin|title=Big Swiss|rating=4.5|genre=Humour |summary=I found the premise of this book 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 is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that 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 wall. That is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-Detachedfeet from the safety of the wall and buzz far too close to the sun. The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to Om, fly out of the window. She's in too deep.|isbn=0571378579}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1784745758|title=Three Days in June|author=Deborah StoneAnne Tyler
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The day before your daughter''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached houses wedding will always be busy but Gail Baines got far more than she asked for. First, stuck in it was her job as assistant head at the local school. There was a depressing rut moment when she hoped that she would be promoted to head but the discussion moved into the subject of boredom 'people skills' and disappointmentbefore she knew what was happening Gail had been sacked or resigned, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much depending on who was explaining the situation. When she got home (in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairsmiddle of the day: who would have thought that could happen?) her ex-husband was there with a cat. But all is not what it seems, He thinks that he'll be staying and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedythat Gail will be adopting the cat. And that's before Gail discovers that the groom hasn't been entirely honest about his personal life.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Shalini BolandSamantha Harvey|title=The Silent BrideOrbital|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for; handsome''Orbital'', accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so group of astronauts aboard the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and setInternational Space Station. When Through a narrative lens that mirrors the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Aliceastronauts's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar isorbital perspective, who is waiting for her Harvey invites readers to become his wifesee our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=16625070891529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787636003Han Kang|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie BishopVegetarian|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was This novel, winner of the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she International Booker Prize in 2016 and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on penned by an author who received the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naiveNobel Prize for Literature this year, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started is as close to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than waryunputdownable as it gets. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach more than lives up to her and by that time she was obsessed by himthe acclaim. Alistair worked for Henry TaylorThe story introduces uncanny characters with fragile, vividly tangible bodies yet unknowable, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partiedelusive souls.|isbn=1803510056
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Amanda CraigSally Rooney|title=Three GracesIntermezzo
|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
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Few styles In a quiet suburban house, Patrick is making his final plans. A meticulous man, he makes sure of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-every preparation, down to the-nation novellast detail. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day Some last reflections, and capture itthen he says goodbye to his wife, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular momentworld, and his life. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: sheIt's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this pointhorribly sad. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of At work in her shop, his wife Diana is fending off yet another phone call about her characters in a way that feels natural ageing and lived-inailing mother, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselveswho needs extricating from yet another accident. It will be a while before Diana realises what Patrick has done.|isbn= 140871468X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=152915118X1739526910|title=Pineapple StreetWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Jenny JacksonGlen Sibley
|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 One year after a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problemsuicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's exacerbated when the clan matriarchlife, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to move into the Pineapple Street propertyrecover. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another propertyLiving with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, a street or so away, which they ownhe dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple StreetBut as those tentative plans falter, so Sasha and Cord can move straight he becomes swept up in. Nominallya local world of unlikely friendships, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley mobile discos and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family homesurprising romantic possibilities. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Emily CritchleyJenny Lecoat|title=One Puzzling AfternoonBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|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 Jean lives on Jersey with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memorymother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. However, Edie is tormented by During the memory of her childhood friendwar, LucyJean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, who went missing over 60 leaving Jean and her mother waiting for 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 news of what happened all that time agohim. After 'seeing' Lucy in As the British finally free the Channel islands from the high streetNazis, just as she was and the last time she saw herwar is finally over, she starts to find pockets their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of memories coming back to herhim. And yet But will the truth come as she remembers a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. war? Will she uncover Who was the informer who told the truth Nazis about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone foreverthe radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=18041812501846976537
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine LucasOnyi Nwabineli|title=Thirst for SaltAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=Literary 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'Loves childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, I'd readbasically, was supposed monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to be a light regain her confidence and weightless feelingto get her life back, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels suing her step-mother to take down the year-long relationship that once defined content about her. Overlaid with later wisdom Anuri is battling alcoholism, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years failing to start her senior PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer afterthem for doing so. Set against Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the backdrop new focus of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narratorOphelia's deepening relationship with online empire. Can she save her older lover, depicting its all-consuming naturesister, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships perhaps herself and how it altered her irrevocably.relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=08615464900861546873
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085063371529153298|title=The Garnett GirlsList of Suspicious Things|author=Georgina MooreJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett It's 1979 and poet Richard OMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'Leary was all-consumings not what's worrying Miv's family, apparently on both sidesthough. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in loveWomen have been disappearing. Richard was twenty-one and described by MargoWell, they've been murdered, but to have 's mother as disappeared'an older mandoesn't sound quite so frightening. Her parents worried that RichardMiv's upset because she's influence would take overheard that her away from what they felt she could achieve - going father wants to Oxford and having a glittering careermove the family 'Down South'. In the eventWhen you're from Yorkshire, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become Down South is a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachelfrightening, foreign place, Imogen and Sashabest avoided. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at SandcoveFor Miv, the family home on the Isle of Wightmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. Even then the doubts about RichardShe's drinking were never far from Margonot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's mind: ''she would never be able stopped talking - to leave him in charge''. Then Richard left themanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19145854021035906708|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadDiva|author=David F RossDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[ThereWe 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 father changed it to 's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|ThereCallas's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting to make it more manageable in the States. When she was. It back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a gripping, emotionally wounding read, mother who mercilessly exploited her and rereading my review made no secret of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on ither preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy AsheAlexander McCall Smith|title=Clara and OliviaThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The year Perfect Passion Company is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Olivia are sistersoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, twins no lesstailored service. Identical on Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the outside but notbusiness, we learnas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, on and so jumps at the insidechance to come home to Edinburgh. And not on stageso begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – disciplinebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, attention thanks to detail – 44 Scotland Street and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presenceIsabel Dalhousie novels, a but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between Katie has no experience in running a hardbusiness, or in match-workermaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a star.hand…|isbn=08615440801846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Heather FawcettDean Koontz|title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of FaeriesThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Emily Wilde Benny is an expert academic scholar on faerie lorehaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and she has travelled extensivelyhis house gets trashed. Oh, and researched meticulouslysomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to write her lifehis home, and it's workpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very first encyclopaedia of faerieslast person to deserve all this bad luck. Whilst she He is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with peoplea nice person. A really nice person. So when she finds herself far, far North in fortunately for Benny it turns out that the small village of Hrafvsnikdelivery to his house is a new friend, having somehow offended the village matriarcha bad weather friend called Spike, she is not sure what she who has done, nor how been sent to redeem herself and put her final investigations help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for her book back on the right trackbeing a good person. Enter Wendell BamblebySpike is going to take care of Benny, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedlywill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, all charm and delight, much to EmilyHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's frustrationwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|isbn=03565191201662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398515388Katherine Howe|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)A True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=First of allHannah Masury is living in Boston, it was the earthquakehaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, deep and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the ocean floortown, which created the tsunami she decides to go and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdownwatch. The result was complete Enthralled and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountablehorrified in equal measure, and Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the loss hands of livelihoods was widespreadtwo vicious pirates. The fact She hides away, so that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasnthey don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a dog person but boy and joining the convenience store ownernotorious Ned Low's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and Tamon from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the dog jumped inocean waves.|isbn=0861547438
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Bowden1471180158|title=Mr MagentaMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Christopher BowdenJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's latest novel is a patient untangling control freak with all the subtlety of a seemingly ordinary womanhalf brick. Jamie's lifeson, carried out by her nephew after she Bo, 'has diedhis problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. The aunt who always provided Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a safe harbour frequent flier in the local A&E and a little bit of indulgence sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and it seems put in the wrong. It was going to him an obligation come to find it all outa head. |isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jennifer MasonB0CKD1L5JL|title=Partitions of UnityRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Here at Bookbag TowersPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, we first met Elizabeth Cromwellreclusive Bear, dominatrix he is brought up far from bustling cities and unintentional detective busy human society, in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]]the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, when she investigated and unravelled armed with only a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity''pirate radio transmitter, she sets her mind to solving Petr goes on a murder..journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will CarverSarah Marsh|title=The Daves Next DoorA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Five strangers come together 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 one moment a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a suicide bomber prepares school where she is taught to detonate his vest on 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 London tube linesystem called Visible Speech. As their fates overlap At the same time, the story Bell is told in backwards orderworking on other inventions and ideas, leading and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up to the fateful momentin a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn= 19145851861035401614}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jennifer MasonB0BC3YTCMR|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell MysteryGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen This story is not for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia..everyone.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM1472263936|title=The Calculations of Rational MenFigurine|author=Daniel GodfreyVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's the 10th of December 1962 when we was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first meet Dr Joseph Marrtrip to Greece. Just She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to put what happens in contextreturn, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in peoplebut Mary and Hamish (Helena's mindsparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. The world has barely had a chance Her trip to breathe out. But for Joe Marr, it's not the missile crisis that's at family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the front first of his mindseveral annual visits. HeShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's been convicted maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of murderher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. With the current state He was proud of medical knowledge, it's hard his close connections to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Bench, a relatively new prisonsaw no reason to accommodate them. HeHis prejudices included Helena's just getting used to his roommate, Mervyn, red hair and learning to be wary of the McArthur brothersgreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A C WiseDean Koontz|title=HookedAfter Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense 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''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It’s been twenty two years since Captain Hook, now going The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by just ‘James’, has been in Neverland. Living a new life in London, he has never completely escaped his pastWitching Forest. But now he senses And the edges villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the beast circling around his life in Londonforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and when suddenly he finds himself face to face in the street with Wendyeven gallows, he knows that the line between this world and Neverland is growing thinif needed. The beast fear of being buried alive is finally coming to get him, and an existential superstition in the process will pull Wendy village and her daughter Jane back into their past once againthat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|isbn=1789096839
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09Y451X9KB0BYF82CXT|title= Greetings, aliens!: (do pop in for tea)Semi-Detached|author=Richard F WalkerDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= ''Anything can happen at Bill and Amanda are living in a birthday partysemi-detached house, particularly when the birthday boy is the young Lord stuck in a depressing rut of the Manor. But boredom and disappointment, when an eerie signal is picked up in the early hoursTerry and Fiona – glamorous, George successful and his new girlfriendvery much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the vivacious Lady Antonia, embark on a quest couples befriend each other and life appears to uncover its incredible messageimprove for both pairs. Things get complicated when some total spoilsport lets the cat out of the bag But all is not what it seems, and the world goes into a state of panictheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''}}{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3Could it be? Could it? Have aliens reached out |genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. 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 contacted Earth? George so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and Antonia find themselves lifted out of their privileged lives of parties the wedding is planned and drunken shenanigans set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and catapulted into excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world of advanced scienceimplodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, secret agents.and politicians hungry who is waiting for powerher to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02415424051787636003|title=Meredith AloneThe Girls of Summer|author=Claire AlexanderKatie Bishop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Meredith Maggs it's Wednesday 14 November 2018 It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and she's not left her home for 1,214 daysarrived on the island. SheRachel wasn'd ''like'' to: in factt exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, she so nearly does. Her outdoor clothes are on and she's even considered which shoes when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to wear if she's going to catch take an interest in her train. Then, she can'twas flattered rather than wary. She simply can't force herself It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to leave the safety of her home. She's fortunate and by that time she has a good friend, Sadie, who visits regularly with her two children, James and Matildawas obsessed by him. Sadie's a cardiac nurse and full of sound common sense. In fact it was Sadie who gave Meredith her catAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, Fred. Groceries are online deliveries looking after his interests on the island and there's also an internet-based support group in particular in the bar where you'll find Meredith as JIGSAWGIRL, so you can guess what she does in her spare time. Then Tom McDermott arrives. He's from Holding Hands, a charity which supports people with problems such as Meredith'sall the girls either worked or partied.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ewald Arenz and Rachel Ward (translator)Amanda Craig|title=Tasting SunlightThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sally is a teenager Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who has run away from an anorexia treatment clinic. She just wants space, can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and for people to stop questioning hercapture it, tiptoeing around her, and trying to fix her without ever truly understanding her. She finds herself on some farmland with a woman called Liss who is crafting an image of the country as it stands in her forties and seems to live aloneone particular moment. Liss To say that Amanda Craig is unlike any other adult Sally has ever metskilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She just accepts Sally as she is, giving has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a room to sleep way that feels natural and lived-in, and the space to just be. As they work together on the farm, a closeness develops between never making themciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, becoming a beautiful, powerful friendshipgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|isbn=1914585143140871468X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09NDJ77LM152915118X|title=Me and My ShadowPineapple Street|author=Deborah StoneJenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= ''What happens when someone Pineapple Street'' is pushed too far and they begin to lose their grip on reality? How would you cope if you felt that no one loved you? And how far would you go to be happy? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off the shadows story of her past three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and attempts George are sisters and Sasha is married to repair decades worth of paintheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn' Rachel is in t a current conversation with her psychiatristStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, who pushes her Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to recall her life from very young childhood onwardsmove into the Pineapple Street property. But Rachel is combative with Doctor Blake Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, sometimes even contemptuous which they own. They won't need any of herthe furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. You can see Nominally, they had a choice but that itwasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger's not an easy therapeutic relationship. Rachel She's recall of her life is living in remarkable detail''their'' family home. She remembers each minor slight and each major betrayal in perfect detail with absolute and unforgiving clarityThey use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09MSC981WEmily Critchley|title=The Woke Iliad|author=George BoreasOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Helen 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a popular activistmove 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. Or should we call 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 popular influencer? Or perhaps a popular franchise owner? Anywaysecret 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, Helen is so popular that just as she was the United States government has made last time she saw her its Ambassador , she starts to find pockets of Wokememories coming back to her. Helen runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf of And yet as she remembers the governmentpast, including the Shaming Conference she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the Permissible Entertainment Committee - truth about Lucy''for indoctrinating s disappearance before her move, and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have it''. Ouch!before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008441618Madelaine Lucas|title=Other Parents|author=Sarah StovellThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Women's Literary Fiction|summary=Jo Fairburn knew that she ''Love, I'd read, was under intense pressure as the new head of West Burntridge First School: if she didn't live up supposed to her retired predecessor there could well be a house price slump in 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 part of once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the town. The school had an active Parent Teacher Association and narrator relives the funds which they raised were affair with a considerable benefit man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the schoolsummer after. There was one difficulty, though - they were Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''devastatingly shockableThirst for Salt'', details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with two membersher older lover, in particulardepicting its all-consuming nature, causing problems for the head. Laura Spence how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and Kate Monroe objected to Jo's restrictions on the toys children could bring in on Toy Day but that was just a warm-up act for their real gripe: LGBTQ educationhow it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Giovanna Fletcher0008506337|title=Walking on SunshineThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=MikeThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's wifeLeary was all-consuming, Pia, who he apparently on both sides. Margo was with for seventeen years, has diedjust sixteen when they fell in love. And whilst he is dealing with his grief, so are their best friends, Vicky Richard was twenty-one and Zaza. But Pia left them all some described by Margo's mother as 'rulesan older man' to follow, knowing . Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she was dying could achieve - going to Oxford and that having a glittering career. In the event, they would need help eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to carry Oxford and went on livingto become a well-respected journalist. Whilst some of the rules are around practicalities such as clearing out her wardrobe, another one that Mike discovers one day encourages him to take one of their trips away The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Vicky Sasha. Life was lived in London and Zazaholidays were spent at Sandcove, struggling with their grief and their own life troubles, decide the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to drop everything leave him in their own lives, and go along with himcharge''.|isbn=140593560XThen Richard left them.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)1914585402|title=Red Dashboard Elvis is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, black and white and red. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|isbn=1913547183}}{{FrontpageDead|author=Andrew Sharp|title=The Chef, the Bird and the BlessingDavid F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mind, the head chef 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 a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest years back and dedicated to his task remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American cityaffecting it was. Even to win It was a Michelin star. He is thwarted in this ambition by his bossgripping, Mr Bin (Ben to you and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy waysemotionally wounding read, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - his allowing rereading my review of bush animals into the houseit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|isbn=B09926MK8H
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1901514978Lucy Ashe|title=There's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos AlbaClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life The year is different for George Lovelace 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and he can't really understand whyOlivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. HeBecause there's always done everything he ought a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to: steady workerdetail – and some things, husband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such a that ''goodje ne sais quoi'' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It, that don's almost become t come from the classroom. A stage presence, a cliche these days to suggest that someone who is charm, a little different is 'on the spectrum', but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Aspergerjoie de vivre''s Syndrome: high. The difference between a hard-functioning autismworker, and a star.|isbn=0861544080
}}
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