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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicola Barker295967572X|title=The Cauliflower®Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Nicola Barker teasingly refers Our unnamed narrator is about to herself as begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this bookjourney is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''s on the floor somewhere'collagist', piecing together diverse documents and has persuaded our narrator to create a picture of Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886), a largely illiterate guru who attracted followers accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to his intense worship of the goddess Kali. His life story station by coach and the train is a sticky mass of contradictions:|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785150669</amazonuk>steam locomotive.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Toni Morrison Makenna Goodman|title= God Help the ChildHelen of Nowhere|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=A truly complex and emotionally raw portrayal, It could be argued that seeks the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to cover issues -place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of racelosing both his career and his relationship, genderembodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and paedophiliaunnerving: Helen. A slim volumeThe 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, yesher past tied to his potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, but one and describes her as ''an entity that is powerful pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in its punchan assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555921</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jesus Carrasco and Margaret Jull Costa (translator)Olga Tokarczuk|title=Out in the OpenHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=35

|summary=Meet ''What's the boy. We never learn his name – in fact we learn very little good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this bookspellbinding work, such as where or when we are, and why. What we do know is that he has left home. We get the feeling his father is too handy with punishment, but that can't be the only reason for him first hiding out in an olive grove overnight'House of Day, then fleeing across the plains surrounding his familyHouse of Night's village. Especially as he's chosen one , somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the most awkwardsmall, subtle changes which govern our lives, attritional times to cross said plains – like the land is in the middle of a horrendous drought. When he tries shift from day to steal his first provisions from an aged goatherdnight, howeverquotidian, he finds some light and liquidcausing chaos. But, but the constant in that image is this substitute father figure ever going to be enough to help the boy flee what he needs to?house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958218X</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip DentThea Lenarduzzi|title=Mutable Passions: Charlotte Bronte: A Disquieting AffairThe Tower|rating=35|genre=Historical Literary Fiction |summary=As ''How unctuous are the 200th anniversary fats of Charlotte Brontëanother's birth approacheslife, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, it is a perfect time for reading about herThea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Philip DentJust as T's story is being told, the story of a second novel chooses protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a lesser known period wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of her life to dramatize. All her siblings are now dead; during tuberculosis after being locked in a hard winter when she is unable to visit her best friend, Ellen Nusseytower, Charlotte spends her time finishing captures T''Villette'', her final novels imagination. The family servant, Tabby, ribs Charlotte about her romantic prospects – including Patrick BrontëAnnie's curatefate is, Arthur Bell Nichollsabove all, an enticing story to T. Charlotte responds with indignation: 'I could no more kiss the lips of It is a man with story which she consumes avariciously, both in a beard as big as rooks' nests than I could yoursquest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, Tabbyfable and fantasy.' |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178589093X</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miroslav PenkovJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Stork MountainVaim

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=A young man, his grandfather and a stork with a broken wing are the ''company of rebelsAll was strange'' at ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the heart pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this lively tale story set in Bulgaria's Strandja Mountains. The storks that return to the mountains each spring are migrantsVaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, like so many two of the people that have passed through the region over the centuriesprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4. The young narrator is also 5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Everything in transitthis book, born however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in Bulgariaanguish and distortion. Even a kiss, but raised usually a symbol of intimacy and educated in America. The story opens with his return to Bulgaria in search closeness, becomes evidence of his grandfather who has broken off contact with his family in Americalove lost. But When the young mannarrator cries out internally, ''s motives are not as clear cut as first appearscome over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473622182</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Elisa AlbertHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= After BirthLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= This book First published in 1953 in French, this novel is definitely not for anyone who has a rosy picture timeless text which wrenches the hearts of new motherhood. In factits readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, I would probably avoid it if you are contemplating giving birth in the near futuretruncated. For any woman who has ever struggled through Like the first few months lives of motherhoodher characters, however, or a partner of somebody who is going through it, it is an astounding and revelatory read. Never before have I read a more searing, honest and open discussion of the emotional upheaval a woman they are often goes through after giving birthleft tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009959014X</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ayelet Gundar-GoshenJonathan Buckley|title= Waking LionsOne Boat|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= If the point of ''literatureOne Boat'' - as opposed to is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the less exalted though just-as-worthwhile forms reader into a contemplative realm of writing - is to force you to think about the real worldphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the political worldevocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the painful life-magic of its setting and its power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities asthe reason she has visited it after the death of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-we-know-it worldaware, whilst catching you up in inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a story about something book that never really happened, not only requires butinspires depth of thought, you know, might well have done so…and if you think that matters, then you must read this booksince its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271562</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yan LiankeEowyn Ivey|title=The Four BooksBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5

|summary=''The Four BooksBlack Woods Blue Sky'' is a difficulttells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, challenging novel and not who longs for a life beyond the feint heartedAlaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, or for someone looking for a page-turnersetting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. It really challenges the readerDescribed as a ''wild card''s perceptions , she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and opens up a gateway yearns to an era that is difficult cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to imagine for anyone brought up in fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a western culturecabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Set in Maoist China Without realising it tells , this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|isbn=1472279042}} {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the story chessboard of four protagonists life and is something of a memorable antagonistgrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. The fourAmong the many relationships woven into this story, found guilty of anti-revolutionary crimes are undergoing re-education in a work camp governed by the childcentral one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. With an Orwellian feelIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers'The Four Books'' will come to be regarded as an undoubted masterpiecealready strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099569493</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Yann MartelFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The High Mountains of PortugalWhite Nights|rating=45|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=Tomas is being thrust into the twentieth Century, and he doesn't like it. He has given himself the job of seeking something out As always in the High Mountains of PortugalDostoyevsky, based on an ancient religious diary he found working in an archive, and to do so he needs the use of his uncle's brand new car to get him there and back in timecharacter work is sublime. His jaw drops when he learns he will have to do the driving himself, for he cannot make head nor tail of One is never left wondering what anything on the infernal machine does and why. It a character is of course a certain kind of progress, a looking forward, which has become quite anathema to him – for ever since he lost his beloved wife, beloved child thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and father, all in the space of a week, he has walked everywhere backwards – shielding himself from what really is ahead temperaments with a padded behind, and never letting sight of what he has lostremarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782114696</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antonio Moresco and Richard Dixon (translator)James Baldwin|title=Distant LightGiovanni's Room

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Our unnamed narrator might as well be the only person alive. He knows he''Giovanni's not – he still goes down to Room'' follows the nearest inhabited village to buy things to eat and other necessitiesnarrator David, and he sees planes spreading their contrails over the remote area he lives an American man living in – but Paris, as he might as well be. A lot of navigates his thoughts are about lifetorturous affair with Giovanni, however, for an Italian bartender he has little meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to do except notice the nature around himHella, from the smell of lilies burgeoning with nobody else to see them who is travelling in this deserted villageSpain, to the swallows darting across real tension in the ravines of novel arises not from his infidelity but from the countrysidedeeper conflict within himself. Life – It is David's crippling shame and the nature denial of a light his sexuality that he sees spring into activity every night at what he thought was a totally lifeless, empty forest area on land separated from ultimately dooms his lookout post in his back garden by a deep, wooded gorge…relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0914671421</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania JamesAlba de Cespedes |title=The Tusk That Did the DamageForbidden Notebook|rating=3.54

|summary=Tania James was a Fulbright Fellow in New Delhi in 2011–12. For this, her second novel after ''Atlas This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of Unknowns'' (shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian literature) suspense and tension from the story collection ''Aerogrammes''moment our protagonist, she clearly draws on Valeria Cossati, purchases her personal knowledge of India forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in all its contradictions, especially when it comes to environmental policy. The novel alternates between three perspectives: a third-person account of an elephant named the Gravedigger and first-person narratives from a poacher most intimate and a documentary filmmakerrevealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784700584</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Anakana SchofieldOttessa Moshfegh|title= Martin John|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I had heard much about this novel before I read it for review, by which I mean I had heard it was profane, strange and had a daring subject matter accompanied by elements My Year of humour. I have to say that whilst I agree it is certainly profane and strange and incredibly innovative, I didn't find much humour in it at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276665</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jon Kalman Stefansson Rest and Philip Roughton (translator)|title=The Heart of ManRelaxation

|summary=What could be better than an existentialist book from rural IcelandAt best, full this novel is a scathing critique of gnomic comments about how close life and death are, that has as its core a journey taken by, amongst others, a naïve and hormonal teenaged lad modern society and a full coffin? Why, I hear you cry, a trilogy concerning reveals the same. Yesfragility of human relationships; at worst, it's is the obvious answercynical, really – why else would we come to this third part, where the survivors predictable and slightly trite tale of the expedition rest upan unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, note the women giving them helpa slim, attractive and see how eminently close the circle of life newly orphaned girl in her twenties is to disillusioned with the figure of a snake swallowing its tail throughworld, among other thingsbut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, dogs rutting her solution lies in a church below the coffin's bier?her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184866236X</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Joanna WalshMatthew Tree|title= Vertigo|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The short stories in Joanna Walsh's collection have the overall effect of disparate streams of consciousness of a woman laying bear her very soul, whilst often going about seemingly mundane activities of the ordinary and every day. The narrative voice appeared to me to be the same woman speaking throughout, playing different roles, though IWe'm not sure this was meant to be the case. The style of the stories is that of short vignettes, mostly written in a modernist, stream of consciousness style. Sometimes, the prose appears almost poetic. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276800</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Kristopher Jansma|title=Why We Came to the Cityll Never Know

|summary='We came Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to the city because we wished to live haphazardlybe different from his father, to reach for only the least realistic a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of our desires, his artistic passions all failed miserably and to see if we could not learn what our failures who had to teach, and not, when we came to live, discover that we had never diedendless crises of self confidence. We wanted So Tim applied himself to dig deep and suck out all the marrow of lifehis studies, to be overworked cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and reduced to our last witset himself high but achievable ambitions.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0525426604</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ernst Haffner and Michael Hofmann (translator)B0C47LV1PC|title=Blood BrothersFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=ItCan you make a 's Berlin, and the Nazis are on their way to power, even 'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if they will never cross these pages themselves. The city – hugeyou could, glamorous, bustling, vicious in is the way question should you make it can swallow people – ? Or is home to a countless hoard of teenagers, but we focus on just a few, most of whom have been in some corrective institution or other before now. They call themselves the Blood Brothersquestion if you did, even if all they share would it land? The catch is that the most unglamorous drudgery of going from one doss-house to another, balancing the cost of a few cigarettes with that of a warm room answer for a few hours or some stale rolls to eatboth could well be.... no. But en route to them is another  ''Fragility'Borstal' escapeeis set as the city of Portland, Oregon, Willi. Surely his fate is going cautiously begins to be nothing if not more of emerge from the restrictions imposed during the same?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099594048</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara TaylorMosby Woods|title=The ShoreA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=The first story we hear from West isn't the Shore, a group of isolated islands off dominant force it once was. Nobody in the coast of Virginia, West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is from Chloe, who's telling her sister about what she overheard in the storebest course of action. She'd been Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there buying chicken necks so . A feeling that they could go crabbingnobody is in actual charge. Normally they used bacon rindsImagine then, but they'd already eaten thosethere was a man with precognition. Cabel Bloxom had been murdered and ''they done cut his thang clean off''. The girls are motherless and Chloe is fiercely protective Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of her little sister Reneecircumstances. She's That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the first of the strong women we'll encounter most valuable asset in these storieshistory. Imagine then, which interlink that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to give a greater picture.get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009959188X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Baron0571379559|title=BlackheathThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Househusband James ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is happy in Blackheaththe story of four people. HeTess Hembry's started doing stand-up again so that he too has an achievement roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in his life to balance wife Alicethe house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's award winning poetry. Children Ida stood the passage of time, storms and Dominic are doing well so all is greatfloods. Elsewhere in the area Amelia is equally happy with her actor Her husband , Richard, her own career struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and children Niamh to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and teenage MichaelMax, the rainbow twins. Sometimes happiness isnSonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't enough though believe that they're related, much less twins and, as the worlds of the two families start to mingle, things start changing for each of themthere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908434902</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian BarnesClaire North|title=The Noise House of TimeOdysseus|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Julian Barnes's first novel since he won '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 Booker Prize for [[The Sense palace of an Ending 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 Julian Barnes]] is a fictionalised biography suitors vying for the throne of Russian composer Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906–75)the Western Isles. Knowing BarnesHaving survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's penchant for stylistic experimentationshores, though, this was never going to be Queen Penelope is on the brink of a straightforward, chronological life storyfragile peace. Instead, as Barnes so often does, he sets up a tripartite structure, focussing on three moments in Shostakovich's life when he has a reckoning One that shatters however with Power (always capitalised here). The title phrase helpfully spells out what the book is all about: 'Art is the whisper return of historyOrestes, heard above the noise King of timeMycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910702609</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Danielle McLaughlinKay Chronister|title=Dinosaurs on Other PlanetsDesert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories Dystopian Fiction|summary=Seeing as this book With a world that is clearly a talented author hitting the ground runningbecoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, I will dispense with any major preamblepost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. We start with Whether it is a tale of robotic takeover, a daughter affected by the emotions of her parents as they separate – and the influence world devoid of water or a certain school-teacher – from the mother's point of view. An ancient input shows how aliennuclear holocaust, and the modern day domesticity how regular, the isolation of this genre is a woman can feel, as events are peppered by minor acts of destruction. But men can be alienated too – especially one, a reluctant guest at a party way for children hosted by someone he once had an affair with – he feels the new form of this influence in the light of another one he has had humans to try and abandoncathartically experience their most existential fears. 'All About Alice' – thatDesert Creatures''s what the title character wants to say but has nobody to speak it to, but by Kay Chronister is it her – mida new work of post-40s and single, living with her father – apocalyptic fiction that is most removed from her dreams or her old friend and now child factory, Marian? And we complete a lap aligns many of the calendar with the wintry tale of fears that exist for humanity today. It is a man unable shocking novel that still manages to tell his work superiors of the problems he faces at home – a new home, recently built like so many one sees while driving round Irelandfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473613701</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Anne EnrightEric LaRocca|title=The Green RoadTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|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 ''The Green RoadBig Bad'' , whether that is the story of a family. If the author was anyone other than Anne Enright it would be stereotypically Irishhome invader, with all the appropriate characters in place: the boy who goes off to be a priestmonster or a ghost, the daughter who likes the bottle far too muchit usually something tangible and, by the son who does good works and end of the woman who stays back where she was born and marries a local manstory, the dead husband who was perhaps just a little bit beneath the wife who plays the beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''grande dameThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' and is perfect at being needy, whilst all the while maintaining not like that she needs nothing. But, It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of courseillness, it grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''isBig Bad'' Anne Enright.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539799</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate AtkinsonMadelaine Lucas|title=A God in RuinsThirst for Salt

|summary=Teddy Todd never really expected ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to survive be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the waryear-long relationship that once defined her. As Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a bomber pilot it wasn't something which you could rely on and he certainly knew man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the statisticssummer after. But - Set against all the odds, he came through it, albeit backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with some time spent as a prisoner of war. On balance he had a good warher older lover, but time will see him married to Nancydepicting its all-consuming nature, father to Viola how it changed her perspective on both romantic and grandfather to Sunny and Bertie - familial relationships and left with the feeling that how it's more difficult to have a good peace than a good waraltered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552776645</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukMichael Grothaus|title=Beautiful YouShining People

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Penny Harrigan''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And letI's hope your introduction m willing to her is more gentle than that bet most of what we have on the first page of this book, where she is being raped in front of a full court house, who – male to the bone – sit back and say nothing, if not whip out their camera phone. Once people take her out on a gurney and recognise herfear will never happen, or we can start from the beginning, where she is a lowly underling at a law firm, having failed too many exams take steps to progress satisfactorilychange it. The company is where the world's richest man is in legal negotiations having left ' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the world's best question of identity and most beautiful actress, and lo and behold he just happens acceptance. Of what it means to pick Penny to replace her with, even if she doesn't think of herself as the most beautiful girl aroundbe human. But Of what exactly is it she real and what is wanted forartificial, and can her apolitical style whether the development of feminism and aspirations be met?technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009958767X</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Helle Helle and Martin Aitken (translator)Jennifer Saint|title=This Should be Written in the Present TenseAtalanta

|summary= This is the first novel ''I was as worthy as any one of Helle Helle'sthem. I would get on board that ship, an award winning Danish authorI vowed. I would take my place, to be translated into Englishnot just in the name of the goddess. It is easy to see from this novel why she is gaining accolades in her Danish homelandwas for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. The rhythmic Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, natural flow Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the narrative is mesmerising goddess Athemis and appears fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to lull you through join the book. It has some lovelyArgonauts, spare sentences a fierce band of description: warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis''There were run-down cottages with open doors name and news on the radio. Gulls flocked around an early harvester carve out her own legendary place in the late sun''history. But mostly, it What follows is written in a modernistwhirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, almost stream of consciousness styleAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, which I found refreshingit will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587475</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice ThompsonAmanthi Harris|title=The Book CollectorBeautiful Place|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet VioletPadma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. Swept off her feet by This is a disarming encounter with a landed gentleman and bookshop owner at a coffee shop, place she immediately falls in love with him, and is quickly married, and almost as quickly with childspent her formative years. When the boy It is not a place she was borninto, however, fairly understandable doubts creep inbut the one she thinks of as home. Is her husband hiding anything behind his assuredness – especially when How she wakes in came to be at the middle of the night alone? What ghost is left by the fact he lost his first wife and baby in childbirth? What should she understand from her own opinions about Villa, how it became her new lifehome, and the machinations that have flowed through her new lifeever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's life, present fails to escape her past and much like the idea musical score of a nanny looking after it? Just what is going on in her new country pile?film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784630438</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sasa Stanisic and Anthea Bell (translator)178563335X|title=Before the FeastSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=2.5

|summary= Deep When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the heart of Germany sits the village of Furstenfeldechildren up. It lies on a spit of land thatHer husband, legend has itChristopher, a giant createdcollects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, between two lakes – the Great LakeJamie, and the Deep Lakewhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. All around is forestThelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. The village is enjoying summerHolthorpe, and we can see the inhabitants as they go about their lazy life on the last hot day and night before the seasons changeNorfolk coast, from the teenage lads fishing and crashing cars or preparing for is a bell-ringing exam, to the girl who wants outlovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the middleparish -aged man who made a pub out and she's in awe of a garage and some curtainsthe vicar, to the older man (a retired soldier) who is watching his last piece of titillating TV before going out to either fetch cigarettes or shoot himselfGail, to but then she's been doing the older still lady painting job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a portrait of walk on the town ready to auction beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it off on the morrowwas probably what they needed. For the morrow is the annual fete, and all those people are, one way or another, reacting to its imminent arrivalAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271295</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andre Alexis1398515388|title=Fifteen DogsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Gods (and brothers) Hermes and Apollo were arguing in a bar about what would happen if animals ''Some frogs had human intelligence and eventually a wager was agreedgotten into the well. Human intelligence would be granted to fifteen dogs staying overnight '' ''Walter stood waist-deep in a veterinary clinic and the wagerfragrant water, suggested by Apollonaked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, was that Hermes would be his servant for a year if the dogs were not more unhappy than they would have been originallysticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. But - if even one Two of the dogs was happy leaned over the opening and barked down at the end strange noise of its life Hermes would winthe buckets as he filled them.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178125558X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Marina Warner|title=Fly Away Home|rating=3|genre=Short Stories|summary=How would you subvert a fairy tale? You know enough of them and enough about them to do it, so think on it. Would you give a mermaid a smartphone? Would you pepper them with pop stars, and perhaps let them be witness to the Schadenfreude caused by a cave is that's sacred to native Canadiansfor an opening? Would you, in the light The style of their characters usually being routine, interchangeable tropes, give them a closely-observed personality – as seen here this novel in a teacher's interior thoughts when faced with a piece of East Anglian lore? Would you take the exoticism form of the east, interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and Egypt in particularmusing, and see it in the light of a musical teacher turning on a zero-hours contract sixpence. And author Marco North, who ends up muttering to himself, directing traffic in has the middle most wonderful turn of the roadphrase, or from the remove of an elderly man with ''swollen feet in orthopaedic sandals'' with a message from the past? Certainly these two are not the standard Arabian Nights-styled pieces…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630381</amazonuk>starts as he means to go on.