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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Zadie Smith295967572X|title=NWPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fans of Zadie Smith have had Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a seven year wait since her last book ''On Beauty''train journey with his companion Django. In Where they''NW'', Smith returns to more of re going and what the issues addressed in her brilliant debut novel [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith|White Teeth]]. Set in parts purpose of London that should be obvious from the titlethis journey is, is uncertain. Django found the book takes the lives of four people who grew up on a rough estate and looks at how they have moved tickets ''on - or not. All four still live nearby the estate where they grew up. Therefloor somewhere''s multi-cultural tension and the have and have nots of power and money and Smith looks at how has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much individuals else is clear either - but we are probably in control of their destiny and ability the past as the pair travel to rise out of their upbringing, the station by coach and how chance encounters can bring you back to your past with the train is a bumpsteam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144140</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fuminori NakamuraMakenna Goodman|title=The Thief|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=The Thief is content roaming the streets Helen of Tokyo, living on the contents of its wealthier citizens' pockets until, his original partner in crime (literally) introduces him to Kizaki, a local shady big shot. Kizaki wants the Thief's help on a straightforward job. He will just be one of a team tasked with breaking into a rich speculator's home, scaring him a little, taking the contents of his safe and departing. No rough stuff and the financial settlement Kizaki offers will more than compensate the pickpocket for his time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780339135</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A N Wilson|title=The Potter's HandNowhere|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The man of clay that A N Wilson throws onto his storytelling wheel in ''The Potter's Hand'' is the great Josiah Wedgwood, but this is much more than a historic telling of his life. Indeed, Josiah already has a thriving business at the start of the book. What Wilson does particularly impressively is to put Wedgwood's achievement and works into the context of the politics and social philosophy of the times, sandwiched between the two great revolutions in America and France. In order to do this, Wilson has to play slightly loose with artistic licence by altering dates and time lines a bit, but it works well. He also balances the real historic figures with several key figures of his own invention and where the historic figures don't quite fit with his narrative, he alters their ages and invents 'facts' to the benefit of the fictional narrative.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879512</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jake Arnott|title=The House of Rumour|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jake Arnott sees to It could be one argued that the pervading theme of those authors this book is malaise - like [[:Category:Will Self|Will Self]] whom you'll love or loathea hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. OccasionallyThe protagonist, you'll swing from one extreme to a disgraced professor on the other brink of losing both his career and I'll confess to being his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a little nervous when I opened the bookforce which is seductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. We really weren't ''that'' keen when we read [[The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott|The Devil's Paintbrush]]connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. Using As the deck former owner of Tarot cards as the structure of the book we look at the twentieth century through the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life of Larry Zagorski. Imagine history being gently folded together like a cake mixture with episodes sliding against each other, flavouring that which they touchher past tied to his potential fresh start. Imagine The realtor who shows the protagonist around the real - Aleister Crowley (reprising his appearance in house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''The Devilan entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form's Paintbrush''). Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Rudolf Hess, Ian Fleming, Cyril Connolly, Jim Jones and L Ron Hubbard blended with a transexual prostitute, a British pop singer and Larry, who writes pulp science fictionHelen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340922729</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MooreOlga Tokarczuk|title=The LighthouseHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Futh he''What's on the good of a North Sea ferry world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on his way to a walking holiday calmly living in Germany. Thereit?'s no sense of enthusiasm or anticipation: Futh's middle aged and recently separated, seemingly without friends or family. He always wanted a dog, but keeps stick insects. The holiday seems to be something which, when it is over, he will have done it and will then return to his new flat. It begins and will end at Hellhaus, a guesthouse run by Bernard and his wife Ester. He gets on well enough with Ester but is at a loss to understand a rather hostile encounter with Bernard. He sets out the following morning for a week of walking, thinking and remembering. Meanwhile Ester - untouched by her meeting with Futh - continues her lonely life punctuated by the occasional casual sexual encounter which she barely hides from Bernard.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773177</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain BroomeThea Lenarduzzi|title=A is for AngelicaThe Tower
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Gordon and Georgina Kingdom spent years being like many other couples. They had jobs, friends, holidays, a springer spaniel named Kipling and a life together. Then Georgina became ill and Gordon took early retirement to nurse her better. He treats retirement with ''How unctuous are the same methodical efficiency he employed at work. He records Georginafats of another's care, her progress and shares her waking moments, feeding her and sitting with her. However, as she spends a lot of time asleeplife, Gordon is left to entertain himself and so, the same man who led the local Neighbourhood Watch, watches his neighbours, noting points of interest and visible activities how dizzying their sugars in alphabetically filed dossiers. Theyour bloodstream're all there: Don across the road who borrows garden tools on a more permanent basis than Gordon would like, art award winner young Benny who paints with his eyes shut, the lady next door who throws footballs over the fence and the new woman across the road, Angelica. Except, when Angelica moves into the street, Gordon's interest becomes more focused than usual.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190877598X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=JR CrookJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Sleeping PatternsVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Anneli Strandli lives with insomniacally introverted Berry Walker, among others but not in a romantically co-habiting way''All was strange''.. They all share student accommodation complete with attendant noise and comings and goings. Berry isn’t This haunting phrase encapsulates the most forthcoming pervading sense of people but Anneli discovers otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a manuscript fictional fishing village in his desk Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and soEline, sneaking into his room to read it, she hopes to discover from his writings two of the essence of Berry that his private nature hides. Meanwhile Berry is falling protagonists caught in love but has difficulty communicating it to the person concernedits melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908775521</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter HellerClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Dog StarsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=We are Everything in North America this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in a near but post-Apocalyptic futureanguish and distortion. Those few humans to survive Even a pandemic have to be treated as carrierskiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and/or armed and desperatecloseness, and so are particularly becomes evidence of note to military-minded survivalist Bangleylove lost. And climate and eco-problems have killed off many common species, something closer to When the narrator Hig's heartcries out internally, as he's a more placid, huntin'come over here and kiss me, shootin' and fishin' guyit is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnershipThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has his watchher ex-towerpartner, while Hig takes off in his Cessna a ghost she conjures to get away from it all, and his flights act as a first line of defensetest her detachment. But is it all life could be, for Hig and his dog and Bangley? What is Hig still to make of the last inviting contact he heard on his plane's radio - even if that was three years ago? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755392590</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mette JakobsenHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Vanishing ActLili is Crying|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Minou lives on First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a sparsely occupied, temperate island. In fact timeless text which wrenches the only occupants apart from Minou and her Papa are Priest (the Priest), Boxman (a maker hearts of magical boxes) its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and a dog called No Name. Minou’s mother used to live there too. She arrived sentences from their proper position on a boat with a bowl containing a peacock (a real live one called… yes… Peacock). But then one day Mama disappeared completely apart from one shoe. Minou misses her the page and the way that she encouraged Minou’s imaginationpositions them elsewhere, disjointed, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlooktruncated. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried Like the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come backlives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099572478</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanJonathan Buckley|title=The Teleportation AccidentOne Boat
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Joe''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a poet contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and Isabelprotagonist, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a luxurious villa in small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the South magic of France and invite their friends Laura its setting and Mitchell its power to join themprovoke profound introspection. On their first day there Nina finds what appears to be a naked body floating in Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the swimming pool, but reason she has visited it's Kitty Finchafter the death of both her parents. She pleads a mixPrompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-up over booking dates and when told that all aware, inviting the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers reader into her the use labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of the spare bedroom at the villa. There's no obvious reason for why she does thisthought, but what does become clear since its narrative structure is that Kitty suffers from depression - fragmentary and she's stopped taking her medicationironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276029</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manu JosephEowyn Ivey|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other PeopleBlack Woods Blue Sky
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog familyBlack Woods Blue Sky''. Tamil immigrants to Madrastells the story of Birdie, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinkingyoung mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, and by him being a failed writer setting which enables her bad habits and mediocre journalisther accidental neglect of Emaleen. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is Described as a ''cartoonist hottiewild card'' , she feels stuck in her day- a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world to- or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years agoday life, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying yearns to seek cross the cause Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of this suicidea simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and what we have here is the journey of the family as solitary man, who says he struggles towards the truthhas a cabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi AldermanSally Rooney|title=The Liars' GospelIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=In ''The Liars' Gospel'', Naomi Alderman gives Sally Rooney has studied the perspective chessboard of four people on the recent death life and is something of a Jewish man named Yehoshuahgrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, who is more commonly known these days by as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the anglicized name of Jesus. These perspectives include Miryam (Mary)many relationships woven into this story, the teacher's mother, Iehuda of Qeriot (Judas Iscariot), a central one time follower of for readers to unravel is the manfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, Caiaphas, the High Priest of the great Temple in Jerusalem and finally Bar-Avoa socially awkward chess prodigy, Barabbascontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a rebel who is determined to bring down the occupying Roman presencesuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. What makes this such Following their father's passing after a remarkable book is the sheer visceral nature of the story telling. Each story is vividly toldlong battle with cancer, and Alderman evokes the time and place to such a level that you half expect to have developed a sun tan while reading the bookbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>067091990X</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pat BarkerFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=Toby's RoomWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=Elinor Brooke and her brother Toby had As always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than in Dostoyevsky, the character work is acceptablesublime. The trick then, as Toby said, was to get back to how their relationship was before. Toby concentrated on calling her 'sis', whilst Elinor was One is never quite certain how they could turn the clock back to left wondering what a time when they were more innocent. But looking back, the summer of 1912 would seem idyllic: in 1917 Toby was reported 'Missing, Believed Killed'. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was a fellow student of hers at the Slade School of Art character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and who was in the fox hole when Toby met his fatetemperaments with remarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144574</amazonuk>0241619785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonJames Baldwin|title=The Daylight GateGiovanni's Room
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction |summary=1610s Lancashire, and Alice Nutter is ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the best landowner you could wish for. Single, rich and connectednarrator David, she takes no sides an American man living in the religious schisms James I has inheritedParis, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress the pooras he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, putting them up and feeding them when no-one else willan Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. But those poor are seen as sinful by others - amoralWhile David is engaged to Hella, dirty who is travelling in mindSpain, body and spirit, and the real tension in league with the devilnovel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. And people are beginning to question AliceIt is David's attitudes, choice of company - crippling shame and ageless beauty. This, then, is the based-on-truth story denial of how Alice Nutter got to be one of the accused in the Pendle Witch trialshis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099561859</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Alba de Cespedes |title=Forbidden Notebook|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.|isbn=1782278222}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tupelo HassmanOttessa Moshfegh|title=GirlchildMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=53
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rory Dawn Hendrix (RD for short) lives with her mother in At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the ironically named Calle de las Flores or Street fragility of Flowershuman relationships; a pretty name masking a less than idyllic setting. For Calle at worst, it is a trailer park for those living a life sentence of poverty, the inhabitants being as upwardly mobile as their staticcynical, seedy homespredictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. RD has half brothers but they live with their fatherThis unlikely heroine, a slim, leaving RD to live alone attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with her mother and nearby grandmotherthe world, a father being a luxury that Rory Dawn has learnt but resolves not to live without. Rory Dawn is also a Girl Scout and has a handbook to prove lose sleep over it but she's : in a troop of onefact, alone with the ideals of an organisation that she only glimpses through disadvantage and her solution lies in the same way that she glimpses the materialistic world beyond her meanshibernation. However, her mother wants more for her than the teen pregnancies that seem to have become their family heirloom and there is hope as RD is highly intelligent; but can this be enough?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178087104X</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita DesaiMatthew Tree|title=The Artist of DisappearanceWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Anita Desai's ''The Artist Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of Disappearance'' is a collection being exceptional at any of three novellas with several satisfying unifying features. All are set in modern day India, his artistic passions all involve some looking back in time failed miserably and all three involve some consideration who had endless crises of the creative art - who it is for, what happens self confidence. So Tim applied himself to it once it leaves the artist's control and who 'owns' it. Most of allhis studies, each one is beautifully written, with strong characters cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and evocative descriptions of personal loss. In terms of length each is relatively short - around 50 pages long - set himself high but after each one you feel that you've been engrossed in the story just as much as if you had read a novel of more conventional lengthachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553953</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James KelmanB0C47LV1PC|title=Mo Said She Was QuirkyFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mo may have said that Helen was quirky - neurotic might have been Can you make a more accurate assessment of his partner though. Although not a first ''Yo birthing person narrative'' joke? And if you could, James Kelman's latest is another dramatic monologuethe question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, although would it land? The catch is that the first time he has placed a female as his main characteranswer for both could well be.. Helen is a single mother, working nights as a croupier in a London casino. Mo is her Asian boyfriend. In fairness to Helen, she has a lot to worry about - a damaged upbringing that has seen her older brother leave home without trace, a failed marriage, and a life of constant struggleno. As usual with Kelman, his approach ''Fragility'' is tenderset as the city of Portland, yet gritty and often gently amusing. He's always sympathetic to his main characters. HoweverOregon, if you are new cautiously begins to Kelman, be warned that he is a writer that is heavy on a distinctive style more than plot per se.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144566</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivo StourtonMosby Woods|title=The Book Lover's TaleA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failed, and so he had to join his wife The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in interior design, where he can use his love of books the West is quite sure how to arrange - at a cost - mend this or even if mending it is the contentsbest course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, design and most importantly the colours, of upper class people's home libraries a push for themclimate action there. He'll concede A feeling that it's nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a good way to get into man with precognition. Imagine the houses, and beds, strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of rich womencircumstances. That man would be valuable, such as his latest flameright? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, Claudiathat this man loses this ability. But why is this, his confession, talking of murderWhat would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Banville0571379559|title=Ancient LightThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The narrator in John Banville's 'The House of Broken Bricks'Ancient Light'is the story of four people. Tess Hembry' is Alex Cleaves roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, a stage actor she lives in the curtain call house on the riverbank, built of his careerbroken bricks. For reasons that become clearer towards Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the end passage of the booktime, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, he is recalling struggles to grow his first relationshipvegetables, when as a teenager to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in 1950s Irelandsufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, he had a passionate affair with the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother of 's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his best friendfather. However People don't believe that they're related, his past much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is also blighted by recollections of out with his own daughtermother that she's suicide ten years previouslyhis nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920614</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=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 few 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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David RainKay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian 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. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title=The Heat 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, by the end of the Sunstory, beatable. 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=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=David Rain is far too young ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be writing this exquisitely. Thata light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity's all I'm going to say.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
''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}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ChambersJennifer Saint|title=The Vintage and the GleaningAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Smithy''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, a retired sheep shearerI vowed. I would take my place, now works on a vineyard not just in the countryside name of Victoria, Australia. Too poor to retire and too ill from the after effects of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to the physically arduous world of shearing, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and daughter-in-lawgoddess. Meanwhile rumours abound about It was for the deeds sake of local thugmy name, Brett Clayton and, whether true or not, he's definitely someone to be avoidedtoo. However, when BrettAtalanta's wife Charlotte leaves him and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without a second thought. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him to remember his own past and dreams. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>}}Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alix OhlinAmanthi Harris|title=InsideBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=GracePadma, a therapistyoung Sri Lankan, stumbles upon has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a young man in place she was born into, but the woods who has attempted one she thinks of as home. How she came to commit suicidebe at the Villa, and how it became her vocational interests are immediately engaged. The novel takes us through their complex relationshiphome, both its surface routines and day to day moments but also Gracethe machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score''s eventually successful search for the reasons behind Tug's desperationthis gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Ohlin interlaces with this the story of Mitch, Grace Padma's ex-husband, present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of Anniea film, one of her clients, chronicling both their relationship with Grace, but also their network of families and friends, acquaintances and colleaguesthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michel Houellebecq178563335X|title=The Map and the TerritorySea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jed MartinWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, initially sitting in on a photographer PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and later painterher elder brother, has Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a singular take sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the world and his craft. This novel takes him from obscurity as Norfolk coast, is a reclusive student lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to fame as develop a real bond with the doyenne parish - and she's in awe of the contemporary art scene vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and in this journey we see exposed both Christopher hoped that a walk on the underlying values beach would do them some good - it was stormy but in many ways it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the essential emptiness Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the art world. He is 'taken up'earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, feted which created the tsunami and courted by critics and patronsthis, by those who know nothing but monetary valuein turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and Houellebecq doesn't let any opportunity for a sharp gibe at galleriesutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, art critics and agents go pastthe loss of livelihoods was widespread. The key to Jedfact 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 fame is ironically comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his complete anonymity, car door and Houellebecq’s creation of Tamon the catarrh dribbling agent Marylin who manages Jed’s ‘outing’ is one of the classics of modern satiredog jumped in. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554577</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jose Saramago0989715337|title=CainPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Death is only ''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the beginningfragrant water, or so some saynaked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the first death strange noise of one human at the hands of another - Cainbuckets as he filled them.''s slaying of Abel with what always seemed How is that for an unlikely murder weapon - is the start opening? The style of this excoriating drive through what Cain felt when set against novel in the god that both snubbed his sacrifices form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and allowedmusing, despite alleged omnipotence, the murder in the first placeturning on a sixpence. Riding a donkey, this Cain takes up life as personal guard and lover to LilithAnd author Marco North, but also leaves who has the Land most wonderful turn of Nod for diverse Old Testament locationsphrase, where starts as he sees the stories of the golden calf, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah and more at first hand. All they ever do is make him realise the gulf between what god is supposed means to benevolently embody, and how he actsgo on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099552248</amazonuk>
}}
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