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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Pitoniak295967572X|title=The FuturesPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45

|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck, he has just started at Yale College, where he plays ice hockeyOur unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Like lots Where they're going and what the purpose of the other playersthis journey is, he is actually Canadian, from small-town British Columbiauncertain. One night after a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and they go out for pizzahas persuaded our narrator to accompany him. She technically has a boyfriend from her Boston boarding school days, Why not? Not much else is clear either - but they soon break up we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and before long Julia and Evan have become inseparable, as they will remain for the rest of their college yearstrain is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stephan CollishawMakenna Goodman|title= The Song Helen of the StorkNowhere|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a rare feat – hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a novel set amidst disgraced professor on the horrors brink of Nazi tyranny losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that does not shy away from human sufferingis pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, but does Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not drown in it eitheraltogether innocuous. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sabrina MahfouzOlga Tokarczuk|title= The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women WriteHouse of Day, House of Night|rating= 5|genre= AnthologiesLiterary Fiction|summary= ''What does it mean to be British and Muslim? This is a question these writers tackle with stunning clarity. Modern day British society has a varied sense 's the good of cultural heritage; it is a society world that is keeps changing and moving forward as like that? How can one go on calmly living in it adds more and more voices ?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to the populationnight, however quotidian, but is also one that has an undercurrent of anxiety and fear towards those that are minoritiescausing chaos. So this collection displays how all But, the constant in that fear image is received; it comes in the form of stereotypical labels and racial prejudicehouse, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which are themes eloquently reproduced herenonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863561462</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David SzalayThea Lenarduzzi|title= All That Man IsThe Tower|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Two teenage boys on an Inter Rail trip around Europe find themselves staying with a frustrated housewife on ''How unctuous are the outskirts fats of Pragueanother's life, a driftless young Frenchman discovers sexual fulfilment on a package holiday how dizzying their sugars in Cyprusour bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, a lovestruck Hungarian minder the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is embroiled in a prostitution racket at an upmarket London hotelbeing told, the story of a Belgian academic second protagonist is forced to confront his egotism when his partner becomes pregnantunveiled: Annie, the daughter of a Danish tabloid journalist exposes wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a high-ranking politiciantower, captures T's love affairimagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a property developer inspects a new project story which she consumes avariciously, both in the French alps, a Scot living in Croatia fails in love quest for truth and businessknowledge, a Russian millionaire confronts divorceand in service of myth, an elderly English politician survives a road accident in Italyfable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593696</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elizabeth HayJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title= His Whole LifeVaim|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= If you think that ''un-put-down-ableAll was strange'' is the greatest accolade for a book, think again. ''Put-down-able'' can be stronger praise: ''His Whole Life'' is put-down-able. It encourages you to put it down, to wrap yourself in . This haunting phrase encapsulates the slow-moving pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this storyset in Vaim, the exquisite writinga fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, the subtleties two of the characters, and just walk around for a while with them slowly sinking protagonists caught in; it encourages you to come back to it again and again; mostly it encourages you to put it down, to read it slowly, because you don't want it to endits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857055445</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Phillip LewisClaire-Louise Bennett|title= The BarrowfieldsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Just before Henry Aster's birthEverything in this book, his fatherhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a frustrated novelist and lawyerkiss, reluctantly returns to the remote North Carolina mountains in which he was improbably raised and installs his young family in usually a gothic mansion - nicknamed 'the vulture house' - worthy symbol of his hero Edgar Allan Poe. Thereintimacy and closeness, Henry grows up under the desk becomes evidence of this fierce and brilliant manlove lost. But when a death in When the family tips his father toward a fearsome unravellingnarrator cries out internally, what was once a young son's reverence is poisoned, 'come over here and Henry fleeskiss me, not '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to return until years later when heconfirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, tooher ex-partner, must go home againa ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636825</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Paula CocozzaHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= How to Be HumanLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= When Mary arrives home First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from work one day to find a magnificent fox their proper position on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention the page and every hair bristling with his power to surprise - it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they are gifts)positions them elsewhere, and gradually makes himself at home. And as he listens to Marydisjointed, Mary listens backtruncated. She begins to hear herself for the first time in years. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on Like the fringes lives of her lifecharacters, would be appalled. So would the neighbours with a new baby. They only like wildlife that fits with the decor. But inside Mary a wildness is growing that will not be tamedthey are often left tragically incomplete. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786330334</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreJonathan Buckley|title=Birdcage WalkOne Boat|rating=54|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant ''One Boat'' is a property developer who has reached deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the zenith of his life's work: building reader into a terrace contemplative realm of prestigious houses overlooking philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the Avon Gorge. In evocative backdrop of a time small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of turbulence its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as France reaches the dawn reason she has visited it after the death of revolution, Britain, including Dinerboth her parents. Prompted by her mourning, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in a difficult position since her mother narrative voice is meditative and stepdeeply self-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and to all, including women. In other wordsaware, they think nothing of spreading ideas of inviting the sort that fanned the French flamesreader into her labyrinthine cogitations. However, It is a book that's not Lizzie's only problem… there requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is a darkness in her husband's past of which she's unawarefragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma HendersonEowyn Ivey|title= The Valentine HouseBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating= 43.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= In June 1914, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family to spend ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the summer in their chaletstory of Birdie, high in the French Alps. Thereyoung mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the first timeAlaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as one of the a ''wild card'uglies' , she feels stuck in her day-to- village girls employed as servants day life, and picked, it is believed, yearns to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eye. For Mathilde it is cross the Wolverine river and live on the start North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life-long entanglement with les anglais - strange, exciting people, far removed from the hard grind of farmingsurrounded by nature. Except When she soon finds the Valentines are less carefree than they appearmeets Arthur Nielson, with a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by warstrange, accidents taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a cruel betrayal cabin over there, she feels called to go - before Mathilde discovers the key to the mysteryand bring Emaleen with her. And in 1976Without realising it, the year Sir Anthonythis calling will transform hers and Emaleen's great-great grandson comes to visit, she must decide whether to use itlives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>1472279042

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hannah TintiSally Rooney|title=The Twelve Lives of Samuel HawleyIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=When she turns twelve, Samuel Hawley teaches his daughter, Loo (short for Louise), how to use her grandfather's rifle. Shooting a gun Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and hotwiring a car prove to be useful skills for this daughter is something of a fugitivegrandmaster at putting it into words. Hawley Her dialogue is a lawless modern cowboy who's had gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many close shaves over his years on relationships woven into this story, the run central one for committing robberies readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and making dodgy dealsPeter Koubek. He and Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his young daughter form older brother Peter, a cosy unit of their own; they live off of Chinese food and vending machine snacks successful lawyer living in motel rooms and move on every six months or so to avoid the consequences of his criminal activitiesDublin. But when they get to Olympus, Massachusetts, Hawley decides itFollowing their father's time to settle down. He buys passing after a house by long battle with cancer, the water – with cash – and becomes a clean-living fishermanbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472234367</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nicole Dennis-Benn Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title= Here Comes the Sun White Nights|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction Short Stories|summary= You have to assume As always in Dostoyevsky, the team behind the cover sleeve for Nicole Dennis-Benn's debut novel Here Come's the Sun have character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a keen sense of irony. Either that character is thinking or none of them read beyond the first pagefeeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178607124X</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Polly ClarkJames Baldwin|title= LarchfieldGiovanni's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It''Giovanni's early summer when a young poet, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh on Room'' follows the west coast of Scotland and her hopes are first challenged. Newly marriednarrator David, pregnantan American man living in Paris, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativity. She thinks she knows what being a personas he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a wife, a mother, meansgay bar. She While David is soon shown that she engaged to Hella, who is wrong. As the battle begins for her very sense of selftravelling in Spain, Dora comes to find the realities of small town life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way to escape reality altogether. Another poet, she discovers, lived real tension in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24, with the novel arises not from his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in Londoninfidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. Instead, in 1930, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he It is mocked for his Englishness David's crippling shame and suspected - rightly - denial of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for the first time, even as he fights his deepest fearssexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Otto Alba de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)Cespedes |title=The Longest NightForbidden Notebook|rating=3.54

|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let the dead rest, This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and love the living''. The problem with that, as a 96-year-old, is that there are too few living left, and so while tension from the love remains she will go through her memoriesmoment our protagonist, taking a woozy, diaphanous path through all the major events of her life. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husbandValeria Cossati, who gets snatched from purchases her at work, fleeing to another place to wait for peaceforbidden notebook, and wait for him learns about herself in vain, moving to Holland and finding new love, and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of war, from rationing right up to exile, death most intimate and survivalrevealing ways. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marisa SilverOttessa Moshfegh|title= Little Nothing|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=In an unnamed country at the beginning My Year of the last century, a peasant couple longs for a child. In despair they turn to gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptions, Rest and one cold wintery night, the couple's wish comes true. But the silence that follows the birth forewarns of darker days to come. Strangers look on askance and fall speechless in the child's presence, and villagers protectively hush their children as they pass on narrow market lanes. Pavla is no ordinary child, but then this is no ordinary tale.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786071274</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jeroen Blokhuis and Asja Novak (translator)|title=The Yellow HouseRelaxation

|summary=If you were the needy kindAt best, would you really join in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel does. But he has something that will really get him noted, well-thought-is a scathing critique of, included. He has come to modern society and reveals the south fragility of France to set up an artists' collectivehuman relationships; at worst, where he can live and work alongside his counterpartsit is the cynical, who can inspire each other predictable and best each other to create wonderful artslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. In fact This unlikely heroine, a much-respected guest is on his way nowslim, so surely he can find kinship? The guest's name attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties isdisillusioned with the world, after allbut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, Gauguinher solution lies in her hibernation. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer DownMatthew Tree|title=Our Magic HourWe'll Never Know

|summary=There had always been KatyTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Audrey a drunk and Adam. They've been friends since school chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and now, along with Audrey's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionalswho had endless crises of self confidence. ThenSo Tim applied himself to his studies, one day, Katy kills herself. No warning, no reason just no Katy. The four are suddenly three trying to make sense of a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses to pause while they figure it outcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Ayobami AdebayoB0C47LV1PC|title= Stay With MeFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= I have Can you make a ''thingYo birthing person'' about blurbs which give away far too much of joke? And if you could, is the stories. Not this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if question should you make it? Or is the burden is too much and stays too long even love bends, cracksquestion if you did, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does break.'' ''But even when would it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, land? The catch is that doesnthe answer for both could well be.... no. 't mean it's no longer love…Fragility'' That is set as the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read in a long time – and it sums up this story. This is a story about love not being enough…but still being love. I hope this becomes a classiccity of Portland, Oregon, not just in its native Nigeria but around cautiously begins to emerge from the world. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Michael Farris SmithMosby Woods|title= Desperation Road|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Maben is on the run. For a long while it's not clear whether she's running from something or towards something, or simply back to where it all started. She's got her small daughter with her, and they've been walking for a very long time. It's hard on the child, but it's also clear that if it wasn't for the child Maben would stop running, and it's clear that that would not be a good thing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843449870</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)|title=Fever DreamA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=Meet CarlaThe West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. She's a glamorous older woman, with poise and beautyA war here, and someone who still looks a treat push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in a golden bikiniactual charge. But insideImagine then, she's different. The biggest issue she seems to bear relates to an event there was a few years ago, when her horse breeder husband had the drama of both a hired, valuable stallion, and their son, being poisonedman with precognition. Away from Imagine the right medical treatment, Carla took David to strategic advantage in this asset; a woman man who said the only hope was a 'migration' – basically, to farm out part can tell you what will happen given any set of David's spirit and swap it with someone else'scircumstances. That man would be valuable, to dilute right? Perhaps the toxinmost valuable asset in history. This was a successImagine then, as David seems to have survived, although Carla is sure it was the wrong decision – she now sees David as at least part monster. But another odd thing about that this man loses this tale is that it isn't being narrated by Carla, but by her neighbour, another mother called Amanda, who is renting a holiday home nearbyability. And the further odd thing is What would governments do to whom she is narrating this story – get it's to David…back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shanthi Sekaran0571379559|title=Lucky BoyThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=Solimar wants more from her life than her Mexican home can offer and now she''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's 18roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she can go find lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her target is husband, Richard, struggles to get grow his vegetables, to complete the USA, a target so blinding that she doesn't realise what reaching out for it will costdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. Meanwhile Kavya is living They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the American dreamrainbow twins. SheSonny's colouring reflects his mother's rich in friendshipJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, family, a loving husband much less twins and life prospects and yet Kavya has a baby-shaped hole in her world. The problem there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that thereshe's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>his nanny.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassClaire North|title= For House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a Little Whilefew months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures

|genre= Short StoriesDystopian Fiction|summary=With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''For a Little WhileDesert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a collection new work of twentypost-five short stories from Rick Bassapocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was It is a wonderful introduction to his quirky, unusual style which focuses on stripped back, simple fables featuring often mundane situations, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters in each tale are beautifully crafted and the stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything from love to death shocking novel that still manages to choices made and chances takenfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Dorthe NorsEric LaRocca|title=MirrorThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, Shoulderby the end of the story, Signalbeatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=3.5

|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novels''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a novella light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a story collection. The protagonist of her latest novelretrospective view, fortya young woman unravels the year-something Sonjalong relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, has the narrator relives the affair with a problem with balance man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – literallyto its sorrowful end the summer after. Due to Set against the backdrop of an inner ear condition, if she bends over sheisolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt's crippled by dizziness. It's inconvenient given that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. Shedetails the 24-year-old narrator's already doing poorly – deepening relationship with her angryolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, sweary instructor Jytte doesn't trust her enough to change gears so does how it all for changed her – perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and so can't have them finding out that she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is how it altered her instructor, but he's an odious lecher. She really can't winirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273123</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice HoffmanMichael Grothaus|title= FaithfulBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend's future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to a life in New York City, Shelby remains damaged by the loss of her best friend, stumbling through life blindly and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at all. But, as she grows, she discovers emotion, survival and happiness, bundled up with dogs, food, books and men she's probably best avoiding… Deep in New York City she find a circle of lost and found souls, and the angel who's been watching over her since that fateful night all those years ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471157717</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)|title=Octavio's Journey|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Octavio. He's a large lunk, a gentle giant, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetingly, had fame, fashion and success through a minor miracle, but has none any longer. Octavio, it seems, has some unusual habits – here he is, marching off to the chemist's with a table across his back, for it was all the doctor had at the time to write a prescription on. Now we never learn exactly what the cause of the prescription was, but we soon find out what the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot read, and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow the wound to let him escape the need to write. Until, that is, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read and write, and to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there is a whole host of other things he can put his mind to, both for good, and for bad…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Spring Garden|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Murakami, and (long before the film) Endo's ''Silence''. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writing. But now there's Tomoka Shibasaki, and her noted work ''Spring Garden''. Which, make no mistake, is definitely Japanese. For instance, if I told you it starts with a man looking up to watch his female neighbour on her balcony, and concerns obsession, you could well think it was his about her. But no – perhaps only in the west is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers here, and it – and the novel – concern a singular house. And the very singular country it lives in, and the changes it is going through…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Laura Kaye|title= English Animals|rating= 5

|summary= When Mirka gets a job in a country house in rural England, she has no idea of the struggle she faces ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to make sense bet most of a very English couplewhat we fear will never happen, and a way of life that is entirely alien or we can take steps to herchange it. Richard '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and Sophie are chaotic, drunken, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous and kind acceptance. Of what it means to Mirka, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriagebe human. Mirka Of what is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money-making enterprise, taxidermy, real and soon surpasses him in skill. After a traumatic break two years ago with her family in Slovakia, Mirka finds to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hall. But when she tells Sophie that she what is gayartificial, everything she values is put in danger and she must learn whether the hard way what she really believes indevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140870823X</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles D BlanchardJennifer Saint|title=Kingdom's EndAtalanta|rating=45

|summary=The rats made their massive colony inside the ruins ''I was as worthy as any one of an abandoned motion picture palace, where for thirty long dark years, an aged blind leader ruled over them. A beloved figure held in high regardI would get on board that ship, he rules with patienceI vowed. I would take my place, understandingnot just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, justice and lovetoo. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. When  Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a young upstart challenges all he has builtson, ruling with harsh punishments Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and rash decisionsfashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the rats must decide how best opportunity comes – to protect their colony in order to preserve all that they have built together. As join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the rats clash amongst Gods themselves, some fail – Atalanta seizes the chance to notice the ever growing threats fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and dangers through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that the outside world provides - who if she marries, it will come out on top in this very literal rat race?be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148344936X</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian BarryAmanthi Harris|title=Days Without EndBeautiful Place

|summary=It's the mid nineteenth century and Thomas McNulty has left his home in SligoPadma, his family dead from faminea young Sri Lankan, has returned to make a new life in the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a new nationplace she spent her formative years. He teams up with prairie fairy - It is not a dancer in drag - John Cole and together they sign up for place she was born into, but the US Armyone she thinks of as home. Their journey will take them through How she came to be at the American Indian wars Villa, how it became her home, and eventually to the Civil War. Along machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the way, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona ''score'' for this gentle and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennesseeyet subtly violent novel. It Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the story musical score of perhaps a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the most violent birth of a nation in history but it's also a convention-defying love storyVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rose Tremain178563335X|title=The Gustav SonataSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Gustav Perle grew up When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a small town in neutral Switzerland: PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the horrors of the Second World War seemed distantchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense of those who would seek refuge in the countrywhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. GustavThelma's father died daughter-in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his mother, Emilie, she was cold and indifferent to him-law won't let her see her grandson. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was a lonely child with just one toyHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a tin trainlovely place, but he and Anton met at kindergarten where it fell Rachel is struggling to Gustav to look after develop a real bond with the nervous boy. Anton is Jewish parish - and heshe's a talented pianistin awe of the vicar, Gail, but he lacks then she's been doing the confidence to perform in publicjob for more than thirty years. Throughout much of his life he relies Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on Gustav's support, the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but fails to appreciate just how important, how necessary it is to his wellbeingwas probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Tom TomaszewskiSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact 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 wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0989715337|title=The Eleventh LetterPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=34

|summary=At ''Some frogs had gotten into the end of well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the working dayfragrant water, Christopher is looking over the ghosts of naked except for his occupancy beaten leather hat. Long strands of some rooms on Harley Streettheir eggs wove around him, before moving up sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the road to different chambers, opening and pastures newbarked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them. He's half impelled and half reluctant to revisit a pair of audio cassettes, on which are interviews by him and someone else ' How is that for an opening? The style of a woman called Louise, who was arrested in Italy this novel in the 1980s for the double murder form of two close friends, Kate interconnected short stories goes from succinct and John. Hardly aware he's being snowed in by a London blizzard laconic to wistful and the usual British response to any bad weathermusing, he spontaneously provides shelter to turning on a flame-haired beauty, Kaysixpence. And author Marco North, who provokes him into playing has the tapes. It's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at the therapist's couch. Indeedmost wonderful turn of phrase, the closer starts as he gets means to Kay, the closer he gets to the voice of the victim from decades agogo on. What on earth could be the connection?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>