134,729
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helene Gremillon and Alison Anderson (translator)295967572X|title=The Confidant|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It's 1975 and Camille, having lost her father a while ago, is now coming to terms with the recent death of her mother. After plucking up courage and strength, she goes through the condolence cards but there's one item in the correspondence pile that's out of place. It's addressed to her but from Louis (whom she doesn't know) about Annie (of whom she's never heard). As Louis pours out his story, reminiscing about his youth in wartime France, Camille is convinced it's a mistake; she shouldn't have received it. However the envelope is definitely addressed to her and, what's more, this won't be the last instalment of Louis' sad memoir that comes through the post.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313293</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPale Pieces|author=Elizabeth Hay|title=Alone In The ClassroomG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they'Other children were out picking that morningre going and what the purpose of this journey is, but she passed them by in her light-blue dress is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and sandalshas persuaded our narrator to accompany him... she had an empty kettle Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in each hand the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and was alone, despite having three sisters.' Coming back to Hay's writing the train is like a kind of homecoming. She has such a soft way of words: a gentleness that gathers you up like a story-time school teacher asking if you're sitting comfortablysteam locomotive. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051253</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter TerrinMakenna Goodman|title=The GuardHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Harry and Michel are very good at their job, even if we might think their job It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is not malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that great. They and they alone are responsible for protecting the building they live something inyour life is not quite right. Designed as an impregnable fortress containing many immenseThe protagonist, palatial apartments inhabited by a disgraced professor on the ultra-richbrink of losing both his career and his relationship, the only way in is through the basement carpark, where they reside in their own small patch of territoryembodies this feeling. They are certainly diligent – inspecting their stash of munitions twice a dayHowever, even if nothing could possibly interfere Goodman counteracts his discomfort with their supply of bulletsa force which is seductive, radical and navigating around unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the large expanse of space where each former owner of the forty floors above them has space for three supercars. But while one seems to be dreaming of things countryside house he might not get to witness – promotion to guarding villas in Elysian fields with becoming owner's wivesconsidering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the other seems to be hearing things protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that might is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not actually be there to be heard…altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050877</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard FordOlga Tokarczuk|title=CanadaHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Richard Ford's 'What'Canada'' opens with one s the good of the best opening lines a world that keeps changing like that I? How can one go on calmly living in it?''ve read in a long time:
The title of this spellbinding work, 'First'House of Day, IHouse of Night'll tell about ', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the robbery small, subtle changes which govern our parents committedlives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. Then about But, the murdersconstant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which happened later. The robbery nonetheless controls how it is the most important part'perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747598606</amazonuk>1804271918
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin PowersThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Yellow BirdsTower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Daniel Murphy ('Murph') is 18, in How unctuous are the American army and about to embark on his first tour of duty in Iraq. By his side is John Bartle, three years older and more experienced in the army. However neither of them has any notion of the sort fats of another's life or job they will face when they get there. The fighting is dirty, unpredictable and not set out how dizzying their sugars in any text book. Their commanding officer, Sergeant Sterling, is sadistic and without any apparent humanity. But everything will be alright: Bartle has made a promise to Murphour bloodstream''s mother, a promise that will ricochet from the US to Iraq and back again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444756125</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeet ThayilJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=NarcopolisVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Novels about narcotic substances are notoriously hard to pull off. The challenge is to make the induced events interesting and meaningful to the, presumably, non-induced reader. In ''NarcopolisAll was strange'', Jeet Thayil pulls this off surprisingly well for me, although it's fair to say that it won't be everyone's taste. It's not a book that the Bombay/Mumbai tourist office will be keen to promote. A cover quotation links . This haunting phrase encapsulates the book to a similar vein (OKpervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, that's a poor choice of words fictional fishing village in the circumstances) to ''Trainspotting'' Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and that's not far from Eline, two of the markprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571275761</amazonuk>1804271829
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zadie SmithClaire-Louise Bennett|title=NWBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fans of Zadie Smith have had a seven year wait since her last Everything in this book ''On Beauty''. In ''NW'', Smith returns to more of the issues addressed however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in her brilliant debut novel [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith|White Teeth]]anguish and distortion. Set in parts Even a kiss, usually a symbol of London that should be obvious from the titleintimacy and closeness, the book takes the lives becomes evidence of four people who grew up on a rough estate and looks at how they have moved on - or notlove lost. All four still live nearby When the estate where they grew up. Therenarrator cries out internally, ''s multi-cultural tension come over here and the have and have nots of power and money and Smith looks at how much individuals are in control of their destiny and ability kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to rise out confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of their upbringingthis plea is Xavier, and how chance encounters can bring you back her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to your past with a bumptest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144140</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fuminori NakamuraHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The ThiefLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=The Thief First published in 1953 in French, this novel is content roaming a timeless text which wrenches the streets hearts of Tokyo, living its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the contents of its wealthier citizens' pockets untilpage and positions them elsewhere, his original partner in crime (literally) introduces him to Kizakidisjointed, a local shady big shottruncated. Kizaki wants Like the Thief's help on a straightforward job. He will just be one lives of a team tasked with breaking into a rich speculator's home, scaring him a littleher characters, 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 timethey are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780339135</amazonuk>1804271675
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jake Arnott sees to be one of those authors - like [[:Category:Will Self|Will Self]] whom you'll love or loathe. Occasionally, you'll swing from one extreme to the other and IOne Boat''ll confess to being is a little nervous when I opened deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the bookreader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. We really weren't ''that'' keen when we read [[The Devil's Paintbrush by Jake Arnott|The Devil's Paintbrush]]. Using Set against the deck evocative backdrop of Tarot cards as a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the structure magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the book we look at reason she has visited it after the twentieth century through the life death of Larry Zagorskiboth her parents. Imagine history being gently folded together like a cake mixture with episodes sliding against each otherPrompted by her mourning, flavouring that which they touch. Imagine the real her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self- Aleister Crowley (reprising his appearance in ''The Devil's Paintbrush'')aware, Rudolf Hess, Ian Fleming, Cyril Connolly, Jim Jones and L Ron Hubbard blended with inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a transexual prostitutebook that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, a British pop singer since its narrative structure is fragmentary and Larry, who writes pulp science fictionironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340922729</amazonuk>1804271764
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison MooreEowyn Ivey|title=The LighthouseBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Futh he's on 'Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a North Sea ferry on his way to bar waitress, a walking holiday in Germanysetting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. ThereDescribed as a ''wild card'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 she feels stuck in her day-to be something which, when it is over-day life, he will have done it and will then return yearns to his new flat. It begins cross the Wolverine river and will end at Hellhaus, a guesthouse run by Bernard and his wife Ester. He gets live on well enough with Ester but is at a loss the North Fork to understand fulfil her desires of a rather hostile encounter with Bernardsimple life surrounded by nature. He sets out the following morning for When she meets Arthur Nielson, a week of walkingstrange, thinking taciturn and remembering. Meanwhile Ester solitary man, who says he has a cabin over there, she feels called to go - untouched by her meeting and bring Emaleen with Futh - continues her lonely life punctuated by the occasional casual sexual encounter which she barely hides from Bernard. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907773177</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicola BarkerSally Rooney|title=The YipsIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Stuart Ransom is a golfing Sally Rooney has-been and he's studied the only one who doesn't realise it. If his recollections are anything to go by (chessboard of life and who can tell?) he was on is something of a par with the best. Times have changed though; the handicap isn't what grandmaster at putting it once was and age and alcohol have taken their tollinto words. However, hope springs eternal Her dialogue is gripping and there's always one more matchso brilliantly frustrating, so perhaps as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this is it. Meanwhile Genestory, who splits his time between working at the hotel in which Stuart central one for readers to unravel is staying the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and reading electricity metersPeter Koubek. Ivan, encounters an agoraphobica socially awkward chess prodigy, exotic tattooist. Valentine is a woman struggling contrasts sharply with an unhealthily precocious 2 year-oldhis older brother Peter, a brother flirting with criminality and a brain-injured mother who has become more than a little eccentricsuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. Add GeneFollowing their father's wife Rev Sheila and her personal crisis into the mix and it becomes passing after a recipe for disasterlong battle with cancer, itthe brothers's just a case of waiting for it to eruptalready strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007476655</amazonuk>0571365469
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Iain BroomeFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=A is for AngelicaWhite Nights
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=Gordon and Georgina Kingdom spent years being like many other couplesAs always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. They had jobs, friends, holidays, One is never left wondering what a springer spaniel named Kipling character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and a life togethertemperaments with remarkable clarity. Then Georgina became ill and Gordon took early retirement to nurse her better|isbn=0241619785}}{{Frontpage|author=James Baldwin|title=Giovanni's Room|rating=4. He treats retirement with the same methodical efficiency he employed at work. He records Georgina5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's careRoom'' follows the narrator David, her progress and shares her waking momentsan American man living in Paris, feeding her and sitting as he navigates his torturous affair with her. HoweverGiovanni, as she spends an Italian bartender he meets in a lot of time asleep, Gordon gay bar. While David is left engaged to entertain himself and soHella, the same man who led is travelling in Spain, the local Neighbourhood Watch, watches his neighbours, noting points of interest and visible activities real tension in alphabetically filed dossiers. They'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 novel arises not from his eyes shut, infidelity but from the lady next door who throws footballs over the fence and the new woman across the road, Angelicadeeper conflict within himself. Except, when Angelica moves into the street, GordonIt is David's interest becomes more focused than usualcrippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190877598X</amazonuk>0141186356
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Will SelfAlba de Cespedes |title=UmbrellaForbidden Notebook|rating=2.54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Will Self's ''Umbrella'' spans a century taking three interwoven strands. One features Audrey Dearth, who in 1918 is a munitions worker who falls ill with encephalitis lethargica, a brain disease that spread over Europe after the Great War rendering many This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of its victims speechless suspense and motionless. She is incarcerated in Friern hospital wheretension from the moment our protagonist, in the early 1970s a psychiatristValeria Cossati, Zach Busner wakes purchases her from her stupor using a new drug. In the final threadforbidden notebook, and learns about herself in 2010 the asylum has closed most intimate and the now retired Busner travels across north London seeking the truth about his encounter with his former patient. While that sounds like a fascinating story in its own right, be warned. Self's approach is ambitiously modernistic making this a very heavy going tome even by Self's standardsrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408820145</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=JR CrookOttessa Moshfegh|title=Sleeping PatternsMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Anneli Strandli lives with insomniacally introverted Berry WalkerAt best, among others but not in this novel is a romantically co-habiting way. They all share student accommodation complete with attendant noise and comings scathing critique of modern society and goings. Berry isn’t reveals the most forthcoming fragility of people but Anneli discovers a manuscript in his desk and sohuman relationships; at worst, sneaking into his room to read itis the cynical, she hopes to discover from his writings the essence predictable and slightly trite tale of Berry that his private nature hidesan unlikeable protagonist. Meanwhile Berry This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is falling in love disillusioned with the world, but has difficulty communicating resolves not to lose sleep over it to the person concerned: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908775521</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter HellerMatthew Tree|title=The Dog StarsWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=We are in North America in a near but post-Apocalyptic future. Those few humans to survive a pandemic have Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be treated as carriersdifferent from his father, a drunk and/or armed and desperate, chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and so are particularly who had endless crises of note to military-minded survivalist Bangleyself confidence. And climate and eco-problems have killed off many common species, something closer So Tim applied himself to narrator Hig's heart, as he's a more placidhis studies, huntin', shootin' and fishin' guy. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnership, but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has cultivated his watch-tower, while Hig takes off in abilities rather than his Cessna to get away from it all, daydreams and his flights act as a first line of defenseset himself high but achievable ambitions. 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>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mette JakobsenB0C47LV1PC|title=The Vanishing ActFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Minou lives on Can you make a sparsely occupied''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, temperate island. In fact is the only occupants apart from Minou and her Papa are Priest (question should you make it? Or is the Priest)question if you did, Boxman (a maker of magical boxes) and a dog called No Namewould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.. Minou’s mother used to live there too. She arrived 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 shoeno. Minou misses her and ''Fragility'' is set as the way that she encouraged Minou’s imaginationcity of Portland, Oregon, completely at odds with her father’s logical philosophical outlook. Papa doesn’t believe that Mama will return and so has symbolically buried cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the shoe but Minou thinks differently: Mama will come back.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572478</amazonuk>covid pandemic
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanMosby Woods|title=The Teleportation AccidentA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Joe, a poet and Isabel, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent a luxurious villa The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the South West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of France and invite their friends Laura and Mitchell to join themaction. Governments are flailing. On their first day A war here, a push for climate action there Nina finds what appears to be a naked body floating . A feeling that nobody is in the swimming poolactual charge. Imagine then, but it's Kitty Finchthere was a man with precognition. She pleads Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a mix-up over booking dates and when told that all the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers her the use man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the spare bedroom at the villamost valuable asset in history. There's no obvious reason for why she does thisImagine then, but what does become clear is that Kitty suffers from depression - and she's stopped taking her medicationthis man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276029</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Manu Joseph0571379559|title=The Illicit Happiness House of Other PeopleBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog familyThe House of Broken Bricks''is the story of four people. Tamil immigrants to MadrasTess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, they are below she lives in the house on the breadline due to Ousepriverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's constant drinkingstood the passage of time, storms and by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalistfloods. His wife Mariamma hasHer husband, shall we sayRichard, problemsstruggles to grow his vegetables, their younger son is fixated on to complete the beautiful girl next doordelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. But their other son Unni is a ''cartoonist hottie'' They have twin boys - a handsome prodigy of Sonny and Max, the comic strip world - or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17rainbow twins. Ousep is still tracking through Sonny's colouring reflects his sonmother's friends and output, trying to seek the cause of this suicideJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and what we have here there's an assumption when Max is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truthout with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pat BarkerKay Chronister|title=Toby's RoomDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Elinor Brooke and her brother Toby had always been close but one day their relationship became more intimate than With a world that is acceptablebecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. The trick thenWhether it is a robotic takeover, as Toby saida world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, was this genre is a way for humans to get back to how cathartically experience their relationship was beforemost existential fears. Toby concentrated on calling her 'sis', whilst Elinor was never quite certain how they could turn the clock back to a time when they were more innocent. But looking back, the summer of 1912 would seem idyllic: in 1917 Toby was reported Desert Creatures'Missing, Believed Killed'. Elinor was determined to find out how Toby died and her one route to this knowledge was Kit Neville who was by Kay Chronister is a fellow student new work of hers at the Slade School post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of Art and who was in the fox hole when Toby met his fatefears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144574</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Jeanette WintersonEric LaRocca|title=The Daylight GateTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyHorror|summary=1610s Lancashire, and Alice Nutter Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is the best landowner you could wish for. Single, rich used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and connected, she takes no sides in the religious schisms James I has inherited, and takes no bull from those trying to oppress the poor, putting them up how we as humans react and feeding process them when no-one else will. But those poor are seen as sinful by others - amoralMost horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, dirty in minda monster or a ghost, body it usually something tangible and spirit, and in league with by the end of the devilstory, beatable. And people are beginning to question AliceEric LaRocca's attitudes, choice of company - and ageless beauty''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. This, then, It is a collection of short stories more interested in the based-on-truth story horrors of how Alice Nutter got illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to be one of the accused in the Pendle Witch trialsdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099561859</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tupelo HassmanMadelaine Lucas|title=GirlchildThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rory Dawn Hendrix (RD for short) lives with her mother in the ironically named Calle de las Flores or Street of Flowers; ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a pretty name masking a less than idyllic setting. For Calle is a trailer park light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for those living gravity'' Told from a life sentence of povertyretrospective view, a young woman unravels the inhabitants being as upwardly mobile as their static, seedy homesyear-long relationship that once defined her. RD has half brothers but they live Overlaid with their fatherlater wisdom, leaving RD to live alone the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her mother and nearby grandmother, a father being a luxury that Rory Dawn has learnt senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to live withoutits sorrowful end the summer after. Rory Dawn is also a Girl Scout and has a handbook to prove it but she's in a troop of one, alone with Set against the ideals backdrop of an organisation that she only glimpses through disadvantage and in isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the same way that she glimpses the materialistic world beyond 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her means. Howeverolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her mother wants more for perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered 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?irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178087104X</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{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.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James KelmanJennifer Saint|title=Mo Said She Was QuirkyAtalanta|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mo may have said that Helen ''I was quirky - neurotic might have been a more accurate assessment as worthy as any one of his partner thoughthem. Although not a first person narrativeI would get on board that ship, James Kelman's latest is another dramatic monologue, although the first time he has placed a female as his main characterI vowed. Helen is a single motherI would take my place, working nights as a croupier not just in a London casinothe name of the goddess. 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 It was for the sake of constant struggle. As usual with Kelmanmy name, his approach is tender, yet gritty and often gently amusingtoo. HeAtalanta''s always sympathetic to his main characters. However, if you are new 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>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David RainAmanthi Harris|title=The Heat of the SunBeautiful Place
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=David Rain Padma, a young Sri Lankan, 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 far too young not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be writing at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this exquisitelygentle and yet subtly violent novel. That Padma's all I'm going present fails to say. Ohescape her past and much like the musical score of a film, you need me to justify that comment? strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857892037</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Chambers178563335X|title=The Vintage and the GleaningSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Smithy, When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a retired sheep shearertrainee vicar, now works sitting in on a vineyard in PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the countryside of Victoria, Australiachildren up. Too poor to retire Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and too ill from the after effects of his former alcoholic lifestyle to return to the physically arduous world of shearingher elder brother, Jamie, he exists rather than lives amongst his mates and near his son and whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-lawwon't let her see her grandson. Meanwhile rumours abound about Holthorpe, on the deeds of local thugNorfolk coast, is a lovely place, Brett Clayton but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - andshe's in awe of the vicar, whether true or notGail, hebut then she's definitely someone to be avoidedbeen doing the job for more than thirty years. However, when Brett's wife Charlotte leaves him Rachel and asks Smithy to take her in, he does so without Christopher hoped that a second thoughtwalk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. Sheltered under his roof and protection, Charlotte confides in Smithy, forcing him to remember his own past and dreamsAnd then Hannah went missing. Meanwhile the unspoken question remains: Brett knows where Charlotte is so what's he going to do about it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871635</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timeri N Murari1398515388|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=We First of all know, or think we know, how oppressive life it was for Afghansthe earthquake, particularly Afghan womendeep in the ocean floor, under which created the Taliban regimetsunami and this, in turn, but when you read this novelcaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, boy do you get a sense and the loss of how tough it really livelihoods waswidespread. 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alix Ohlin0989715337|title=InsidePapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Grace, a therapist, stumbles upon a young man in ''Some frogs had gotten into the woods who has attempted to commit suicide, and her vocational interests are immediately engagedwell. The novel takes us through their complex relationship, both its surface routines and day to day moments but also Grace's eventually successful search for the reasons behind Tug's desperation. Ohlin interlaces with this the story of Mitch, Grace ''s exWalter stood waist-husbanddeep in the fragrant water, and naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of Annietheir eggs wove around him, one of her clients, chronicling both their relationship sticky gray pearls with Grace, but also their network tadpoles inside them. Two of families the dogs leaned over the opening and friends, acquaintances and colleaguesbarked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780871104</amazonuk>}}''
}}