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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either -- Remove -->but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|author=Makenna Goodman<!-- Durrenmatt -->|title=Helen of Nowhere*[[image:Durrenmatt_Justice|rating=4.jpg5|leftgenre=Literary Fiction|linksummary=httpsIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving://wwwHelen. 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.amazonThe realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''.coAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.uk/gp/product/1782273875?ie|isbn=UTF8&tag1804272205}}{{Frontpage|author=thebookbag-21&linkCodeOlga Tokarczuk|title=as2&campHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=1634&creative5|genre=6738&creativeASINLiterary Fiction|summary=1782273875]]''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''

===[[The Execution title of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It's 1957, and we're somewhere in Switzerlandthis spellbinding work, and there's just one case on everyone's lips – the simple fact that a politician has gone into the crowded room House of one Day, House of those Night'the place to go' restaurants, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have known, and ferried a British companion to the airport in his chauffeursomewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities -driven Rolls before handing himself in to face the murder rap. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. He's certainly of much interestsmall, not only to subtle changes which govern our narratorlives, a young lawyer called Spaet – even if he rarely gets like the shift from day to frequent such establishments with such peoplenight, he is eager to know morehowever quotidian, especially once he is actually tasked by the man in hand to look into things a second timecausing chaos. But what's this, where he opens his testimony about the affair with constant in that image is the conclusionhouse, that he himself will need to turn killer to redress stoic against the balance? [[ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)Tower|rating=5|Full Review]]genre=Literary Fiction<br>|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.

<!-- Cercas -->*[[image:Cercas_Impostor.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857056506?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0857056506]] ===[[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Enric Marco is without doubt an extraordinary man. A veteran In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of the Spanish Civil WarT, honoured for his bravery on the battlefield. A political prisoner protagonist of two fascist regimesthis tale. A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. A prominent figure in the clandestine resistance against FrancoJust as T's tyranny. A tireless warrior for social justice and story is being told, the defence story of human rights. A national hero. But the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco a second protagonist is thisunveiled: that he is really none of these things. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets out to tell his story – Annie, the true story daughter of Spain's most notorious liar. [[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Badoe -->*[[image:Badoe_Jigsaw.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786695480?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786695480]] ===[[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]] Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore wealthy family in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on shetower, captures T's a member of Mama Roseimagination. Annie's unique and dazzling circus. Butfate is, from their watery graveabove all, the unquiet dead are calling Sante an enticing story to avenge themT. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante It is to tell their a story and her own. [[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Batalha -->*[[image:Batalha_Invisible.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178607298X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=178607298X]] ===[[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] On the surfacewhich she consumes avariciously, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it all. A nice-enough, parent-pleasing husband with both in a steady banking job, two young children upon whom to dote, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever want, isn't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside her quest for something more, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projects, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenor. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house and her family. [[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)|Full Review]]<br> {{newreview|author=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat truth and other stories from the North|rating=3|genre=Anthologies |summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, it's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in timeknowledge, as some were written the year of publication and some in the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set service of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklynmyth, fable and the Iraqi blood on these pages, testifyfantasy. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christina Hesselholdt Jon Fosse and Paul Russell Garrett Damion Searls (translator)|title=CompanionsVaim|rating=34

|summary=''CompanionsAll was strange'' is written as a series ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of monologues, where six middle-aged friends take it otherworldliness which permeates this story set in turns to narrate scenes from their lives, charting the intimate details of their holidaysVaim, dinner parties, families, marriages, affairs and work lives in a style that mixes honesty and openness with fantasy and evasion. The charm of the novel lies fictional fishing village in the way the friends' voices bicker with one another among the pages, as we discover that there are always several sides to the same story. We learn most about the characters Norway which paradoxically could not through what they say about themselves but through what the others say about them. Along the way, there is heartbreak feel more real for Jatgeir and griefEline, but this is always offset by an abundance two of humour and a writing style that never fails to be refreshingly light-heartedthe protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910695335</amazonuk>1804271829

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= David BergenClaire-Louise Bennett|title= StrangerBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=''Stranger'' tells the story of ÍsoEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a young Guatemalan womankiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and her affair with an American doctorcloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. When an accident forces him to return to the Statesnarrator cries out internally, she is left pregnant ''come over here and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter kiss me,'' it is abducted, and taken less an invitation than a desperate attempt to live with the doctor and his wifeconfirm her emotional numbness. What followed - tales The imagined recipient of the journey Íso embarked upon in the hope of finding this plea is Xavier, her baby ex- was an amazing story of the lengths partner, a mother will go to in order ghost she conjures to save test her childdetachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715652419</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Clar Ni ChonghaileHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= Rain Falls On EveryoneLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= It's a cliché that the Irish have a picturesque turn of phraseFirst published in 1953 in French, but clichés only exist because they're true. Roddy Doyle put it differently in this novel is a recent interview with ''Writing'' magazine, when he said that ''With Irish, there's another language bubbling under timeless text which wrenches the English''. However you express it, that art hearts of expression is woven into every other line of Clár's prose. Pick a page at random its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and you'll find something like ''sentences from their proper position on the sickness that had come to roost in her home like a cursed owl'' or ''like he was God, Jesus page and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or ''a low sobbingpositions them elsewhere, slow and inevitable as rain on a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawaresdisjointed, or tear at your heart in their mundane sadnesstruncated. Or sometimes bothLike the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079018</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hesene Mete Jonathan Buckley|title=Sinful WordsOne Boat

|summary=When we meet him, Behram ''One Boat'' is a student at deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the school reader into a contemplative realm of theologyphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. He loves God with Set against the evocative backdrop of a passion small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a determination to live book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=1804271764}}{{Frontpage|author=Eowyn Ivey|title=Black Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life dedicated beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''towild card'' God , she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by His rulesnature. He rents When she meets Arthur Nielson, a property from Lulu Khan strange, taciturn and his wifesolitary man, Lady Geshtina who says he has a cabin over there, she feels called to go - and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visitbring Emaleen with her. It's a delightful place Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and the wealth of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtina's late father is buried in what amounts to a mausoleum, but itEmaleen's not all this which enchants Behram. The couple have twin children and Behram is taken, enthralled by the daughter, Naginalives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524682527</amazonuk>1472279042

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author= Juan-Tomas Avila LaurelSally Rooney|title= The Gurugu PledgeIntermezzo|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= Juan Tomas Avila LaurelSally 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 of Equatorial Guinea's best-known dissident writers, for readers to unravel is an author who deserves to be read the world overfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. With The Gurugu PledgeIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, hecontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's captured passing after a an angry and incredibly urgent slice of long battle with cancer, the migrant experience – a snapshot of the dangers faced by those crossing the African continent brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in search of Dostoyevsky, the barbed wire fences at Melilla- the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Moroccocharacter work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276940</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Matthew SmithJames Baldwin|title= The WakingGiovanni's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Isabel Sykes''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, 23an American man living in Paris, recounts the recent attempt she made to come to terms as he navigates his torturous affair with the loss of her motherGiovanni, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykes. Marianne died an Italian bartender he meets in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was tena gay bar. Inspired by the appearance of Imogen TaylorWhile David is engaged to Hella, an enchanting young woman who wants to write a PhD on her mother's work, Isabel plunges into the depths of her past and an intense new friendship. After discovering that Imogen is not who she seems to betravelling in Spain, Isabel must face the darkest moments from her childhood real tension in order to protect her family the novel arises not from more tragedy. She receives unexpected help his infidelity but from beyond the grave: in the strange, glittering fragments of her motherdeeper conflict within himself. It is David's last, unfinished work, 'Midnightsong'crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0995654158</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ali SmithAlba de Cespedes |title= AutumnForbidden Notebook|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The first part in Ali Smith's four part 'Seasonal' series, Autumn is the story This Italian work of Daniel Gluck and Elisabeth Demand, unexpected friends who used to be neighbours when Elisabeth was a little girl. In a series feminist fiction holds an air of memories suspense and dreams, we discover their friendship tension from Daniel babysitting Elisabeth through to her visits with him now that he is in a home and drawing towards the end of his extremely long and fascinating life. Along the waymoment our protagonist, we get a wonderfully written insight into timeValeria Cossati, memoriespurchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the fleeting nature of life itselfmost intimate and revealing ways. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241973317</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicola Pugliese and Shaun Whiteside (translator)Ottessa Moshfegh|title=MalacquaMy Year of Rest and Relaxation

|summary=We're in Naples, in recent historyAt best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and it's raining. It will in fact rain for four days solid – and seeing as it's October everyone's dressed for all seasons and expecting a bit reveals the fragility of greyhuman relationships; at worst, but this it is taking the proverbialcynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. It's also making the city rather dangerous – when people report This unlikely heroine, a huge sink-hole appearing slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in one street her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=1784707422}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We's soon found that ll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a pair drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of cars went into it, being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and two people have diedwho had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and more passed on with a whole building collapsingset himself high but achievable ambitions. What's more, some strange noises are coming from an abandoned civic palace. Is the city being told something by these strange events, or can a journalist find a logic behind the circumstances?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508067</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Iosi HavilioB0C47LV1PC|title= Petite FleurFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Every now and then Can you read make a book ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that leaves you thinking “well I have the answer for both could well be.... no idea what just happened but I know I enjoyed it”. This  ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how I felt after reading Petite Fleurto mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the fifth novel (perhaps 'long paragraph' strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be more appropriate) from cult Argentinian writer Iosi Haviliovaluable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508040</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tania Hershman0571379559|title=Some The House of Us Glow More Than OthersBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories Literary Fiction|summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading short 'The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story collections can be slightly awkwardof four people. Going through from A-Z, witnessing a bounty of ideas and characters Tess Hembry's roots are in short order can Jamaica: temperamentally she might be too muchhappier there, but do you have instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the right to pick passage of time, storms and choose according floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to what appealsgrow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and what time you have to fill? bring in sufficient money. The sequence has carefully been consideredThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, surelythe rainbow twins. Such would appear to be the case hereSonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. The last time I read one of this authorPeople don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's collections, an assumption when Max is out with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sectionshis mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James KelmanClaire North|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesHouse of Odysseus|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories Literary Fiction |summary=This is ''What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the ninth book of short stories by this author, which means heexcellent ''Ithaca''s presented just as many collections of picks up a few months after where we left off. In the short form as he has novels. You will find it hard to think palace of another author that has been so noted for longer works (what Odysseus, with [[How Late It Wasdelicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, How Late who sailed to war at Troy and then by James Kelman|How Late It Was, How Late]] winning divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the Booker) but who is so generous in presenting shorter pieces for throne of the time-poor, or those like me who see Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the variety in a writerchaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's short or less typical works to be shores, Queen Penelope is on the more interesting places to turnbrink of a fragile peace. Opening these pages, from One that shatters however with the pen return of such an esteemed proOrestes, came with no small sense King of anticipationMycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate MildenhallKay Chronister|title= SkylarkingDesert Creatures

|genre= General Dystopian Fiction |summary= Kate and Harriet are best friends growing up together on With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an isolated Australian capealmost masochistic thrill. As the daughters Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of the lighthouse keeperswater or a nuclear holocaust, the two girls share everything, until this genre is a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in way for humans to cathartically experience their small communitymost existential fears. When Kate witnesses ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the desire fears that flares between him and Harriet, she exist for humanity today. It is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. An innocent moment in McPhail's hut then occurs a shocking novel that threatens still manages to tear their peaceful community apartfind hope. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Joanna WalshEric LaRocca|title=Worlds from the Word's EndThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=Short StoriesHorror|summary=We here at 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, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Bookbag liked this authorTrees Grew Because I Bled There''s fairly recent is not like that. It is a collection of short storiesmore interested in the horrors of illness, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walshgrief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|Vertigo]]. summary= ''Love, I myself missed out'd read, but that seemed was supposed to be vignettes a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and a host moreretrospective view, as well as much less of a young woman unravels the sadness prevalent beforeyear-long relationship that once defined her. Having had Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a brief encounter with this author courtesy of man twenty years her entry into senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] series, I was intrigued by her name being stamped on a selection of shortssummer after. Was it Set against the ideal calling card? Letbackdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town 's face it, 'Thirst for Salt'' details the very short story itself can be a postcard – let24-year-old narrator's saydeepening relationship with her older lover, from a specific hotel or twodepicting its all-consuming nature, as we see here. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing how it changed her perspective on said postcards – both romantic and familial relationships and for the exotic locations from which they came…how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Raja Alem, Katharine Halls (translator) and Adam Talib (translator)Michael Grothaus|title= The Dove's NecklaceBeautiful Shining People|rating= 34

|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I always hated Lit-Crit at school'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, so or we can take steps to change it came .'' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''I was as something worthy as a surprise any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I ended up reviewing booksvowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for funthe sake of my name, too. Now I understandAtalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. FinallyWhen the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, I see why literary critics get so up-descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in-arms about lowly book reviewershistory. There What follows is a differencewhirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This book explains it allis a place she spent her formative years. The author It is ''not a place she was born into, but the first woman one she thinks of as home. How she came to win be at the International Prize for Arabic fiction'' for this book. The book also Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the LiBerator prize for ''the best book translated into Germanscore'' in 2014. I suspect it's not done for this gentle and yetsubtly violent novel. Padma''The Times'' tells us s present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that it ''exemplifies strand weaves its way through everything that is currently shaking happens at the foundations of Arab societyVilla.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they' I am sure that not only will more plaudits fall upon re held when you need to pick the author children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the bookNorfolk coast, is a lovely place, but also that it will become Rachel is struggling to develop a classic, spoken real bond with the parish - and she's in awe of in the same breath as the international classics: Proustvicar, MárquezGail, Joyce, Rushdie, Nabokov…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715651757</amazonuk>but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Daniel Kehlmann Seishu Hase and Ross Benjamin Alison Watts (translator)|title=You Should Have Left

|genre=General Fiction |summary=Our narrator is a screenwriterFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, tasked with coming up with a sequel to his hit movie ''Besties'' – a film which helped pay for a housecreated the tsunami and this, but which his actress wife keeps letting him knowin turn, isn't ''art''caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. To concentrateThe deaths were uncountable, and the family – he, the wife, and loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their four year old daughter – have rented a large, modern house at owners came far down the end list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a horrid, hairpin bend-filled road, in dog outside a charming alpine landscapeconvenience store. But things arenHe wasn't righta 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. The couple are at loggerheads too much}} {{Frontpage|isbn=0989715337|title=Papa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, things keep unsettling our narrator, and the sole shopkeeper naked except for miles his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around is ready him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the Hammer Horror styled warnings strange noise of strange eventsthe buckets as he filled them. Quickly we see the book's title in all its galling clarity – but it isn't too late to get out…  How is itthat for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. And out author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of whatphrase, exactly?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786484048</amazonuk>starts as he means to go on.