Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen DunmoreJeremy Cooper|title=Birdcage WalkDiscord|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Bristol 1792Discord: Lizzie married well. John Diner Tredevant is a property developer who has reached the zenith lack of his life's work: building a terrace agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of prestigious houses overlooking discord within the Avon Gorgenovel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. In a time The two protagonists of turbulence as France reaches the dawn of revolutionnovel, BritainRebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, including Dinerare as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, fears it may spread. This puts Lizzie in a difficult position since her mother traditional and stepno-father both believe in propagating pamphlets and ideas of egalitarianism for and nonsense composer close to allretirement, including women. In other wordswhile Evie is a force of nature, they think nothing of spreading ideas of bounding onto the sort that fanned the French flamesmusical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. HoweverThe two, predictably, thatdon't always see eye to eye, their approaches different and Evie's not Lizzieprogressive views at odds with Rebekah's only problem… there is conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a darkness in her husband's past sort of which she's unawarefragile alliance formed within the clamour.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091959403</amazonuk>1804272264

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma HendersonPolly Barton|title= The Valentine HouseWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= In June 1914Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, Sir Anthony Valentine, a keen mountaineer, arrives with his family newly relocated from London to spend the summer in their chalet, high in the French Alps. ThereBerlin, for works translating video games into Japanese through the first time, fourteen-year-old foundling Mathilde starts work as one process of the 'uglies' - village girls employed as servants and pickedlocalisation, rewriting language until it is believed, feels comfortably familiar to ensure they don't catch Sir Anthony's roving eyea new audience. For Mathilde it is the start of Barton treats this as a life-long entanglement with les anglais - strangeparadoxical act: arguably, in striving for universality, exciting peoplelanguage is endlessly repackaged, far removed from the hard grind its originality at risk of farmingdisappearing altogether. Except she soon finds From this, the Valentines are less carefree than they appear, with novel opens out into a curiously absent daughter no one talks about. It will be decades - disrupted by warwider, accidents and a cruel betrayal - before Mathilde discovers the key resonant question: to the mystery. And what extent do we translate ourselves in 1976order to be understood, the year Sir Anthony's great-great grandson comes to visitaccepted, she must decide whether to use it.or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444704028</amazonuk>1804272175

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hannah TintiMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Twelve Lives of Samuel HawleyDisappearing Act

|summary=When she turns twelve, Samuel Hawley teaches his daughter, Loo (short for Louise)Despite her anonymisation of place names and people, how to use her grandfatherStepanova's riflemessage in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. Shooting a gun and hotwiring a car prove A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to be useful skills the town of F for this daughter of a fugitive. Hawley literary festival she is to be a lawless modern cowboy who's had many close shaves over his years on the run for committing robberies and making dodgy dealsguest speaker at. He Detoured by erratic train schedules and his young daughter form nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a cosy unit of their own; they live off of Chinese food and vending machine snacks traveling circus. Swept up in motel rooms and move on every six months or so to avoid the consequences this series of his criminal activities. But when they get to Olympus, Massachusettsevents, Hawley decides it's time M eventually offers to settle downstep in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. He buys The train functions as a house by motif of transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the water – with cash – reshaping of identity and becomes a clean-living fishermanretreat into fantasy, an impulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472234367</amazonuk>1804272329

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Nicole Dennis-Benn 295967572X|title= Here Comes the Sun Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= You have Our unnamed narrator is about to assume begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the team behind purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the cover sleeve for Nicole Dennis-Benntickets 's debut novel Here Come's on the Sun have a keen sense of ironyfloor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Either that or none of them read beyond Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the first pagetrain is a steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178607124X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Polly ClarkMakenna Goodman|title= LarchfieldHelen of Nowhere|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=I It's early summer when could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a young poethard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, Dora Fielding, moves to Helensburgh a disgraced professor on the west coast brink of Scotland losing both his career and her hopes are first challenged. Newly marriedhis relationship, pregnant, she's excited by the prospect of a life that combines family and creativityembodies this feeling. She thinks she knows what being a personHowever, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a wifeforce which is seductive, a mother, meansradical and unnerving: Helen. She is soon shown that she The connection between Helen and the protagonist is wrongindirect yet intimate. As the battle begins for her very sense former owner of selfthe countryside house he's considering, Dora comes to find the realities of small town Helen represents a volta in his life suffocating, and, eventually, terrifying; until she finds a way her past tied to escape reality altogetherhis potential fresh start. Another poet, she discoversThe realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, lived in Helensburgh once. Wystan H. Auden, brilliant and awkward at 24describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, with his first book of poetry published, should be embarking on success and society in Londonbeyond form''. Instead, Although she lives in 1930an assisted living facility now, fleeing a broken engagement, he takes a teaching post at Larchfield School for boys where he is mocked for his Englishness and suspected - rightly - of homosexuality. Yet in this repressed limbo Wystan will fall in love for Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the first time, even as he fights his deepest fearssense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786481928</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Otto de Kat and Laura Watkinson (translator)Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Longest House of Day, House of Night|rating=3.5

|summary=Emma has a philosophy – ''let the dead rest, and love What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly livingin it?''.  The problem with thattitle of this spellbinding work, as a 96-year-old''House of Day, is that there are too few living leftHouse of Night'', and so while somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the love remains she will go through her memoriessmall, taking a woozysubtle changes which govern our lives, diaphanous path through all like the major events of her life. Starting in wartime Berlin with one husband, who gets snatched shift from her at work, fleeing to another place day to wait for peacenight, and wait for him in vainhowever quotidian, moving to Holland and finding new lovecausing chaos. But, and so on – this wispy journey will show all the impacts of warconstant in that image is the house, from rationing right up to exile, death and survivalstoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived. The memories are coming strongly here and now, as Emma is waiting for at least one of her two sons to visit, and then she will die…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857056085</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Marisa SilverThea Lenarduzzi|title= Little NothingThe Tower|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=In an unnamed country at ''How unctuous are the beginning fats of the last centuryanother's life, a peasant couple longs for a childhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.  In despair they turn to gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptionsthis compelling novel, and one cold wintery nightThea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the coupleprotagonist of this tale. Just as T's wish comes true. But story is being told, the silence that follows story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the birth forewarns daughter of darker days to come. Strangers look on askance and fall speechless a wealthy family in the child19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's presencefate is, above all, and villagers protectively hush their children as they pass on narrow market lanesan enticing story to T. Pavla It is no ordinary childa story which she consumes avariciously, but then this is no ordinary taleboth in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786071274</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeroen Blokhuis Jon Fosse and Asja Novak Damion Searls (translator)|title=The Yellow HouseVaim|rating=34

|summary=If you were the needy kind, would you really join in the drumming-out of town of two people accused of murder purely because of their nationality? Would you get a feeling of belonging just because you were there when someone carried a dead dog down off a mountain? The main character in this novel does''All was strange''.. But he has something that will really get him noted, well-thought-of, included. He has come to This haunting phrase encapsulates the south pervading sense of France to otherworldliness which permeates this story set up an artists' collectivein Vaim, where he can live a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and work alongside his counterpartsEline, who can inspire each other and best each other to create wonderful art. In fact a much-respected guest is on his way now, so surely he can find kinship? The guest's name is, after all, Gauguintwo of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current. The main character is, of course, Vincent van Gogh…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907320563</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer DownClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Our Magic HourBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|summary=There had always been KatyEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, Audrey is steeped in anguish and Adamdistortion. They've been friends since school Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and nowcloseness, along with Audrey's partner Nick, they remain inseparable as young professionalsbecomes evidence of love lost. ThenWhen the narrator cries out internally, one day''come over here and kiss me, Katy kills herself. No warning, no reason just no Katy'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The four are suddenly three trying to make sense imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a moment that leaves so many questions in a world that refuses ghost she conjures to pause while they figure it outtest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925240835</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ayobami AdebayoHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= Stay With MeLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= I have First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a ''thing'' about blurbs timeless text which give away far too much wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the stories. Not this time. This time…''There are things even love can't do…if the burden is too much page and stays too long even love bendspositions them elsewhere, cracksdisjointed, comes close to breaking, and sometimes does breaktruncated.'' ''But even when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love…'' That is Like the most heart-breakingly beautiful truth I've read in a long time – and it sums up this story. This is a story about love not being enough…but still being love. I hope this becomes a classiclives of her characters, not just in its native Nigeria but around the worldthey are often left tragically incomplete. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782119469</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Michael Farris SmithJonathan Buckley|title= Desperation RoadOne Boat|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Maben ''One Boat'' is on a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the run. For reader into a long while it's not clear whether she's running contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from something or towards somethingour narrator and protagonist, or simply back to where it all startedTeresa. She's got her Set against the evocative backdrop of a small daughter with hercoastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and they've been walking for a very long timeits power to provoke profound introspection. It's hard on Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the child, but it's also clear that if reason she has visited it wasn't for after the child Maben would stop runningdeath of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is meditative and it's clear deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that that would not be a good thingonly requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843449870</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samanta Schweblin and Megan McDowell (translator)Eowyn Ivey|title=Fever DreamBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5

|summary=Meet Carla. She's a glamorous older woman'Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, with poise and beautythe young mother of toddler Emaleen, and someone who still looks longs for a treat in life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a golden bikini. But insidebar waitress, she's different. The biggest issue she seems to bear relates to an event a few years ago, when setting which enables her bad habits and her horse breeder husband had the drama accidental neglect of both a hired, valuable stallion, and their son, being poisonedEmaleen. Away from the right medical treatment, Carla took David to a woman who said the only hope was Described as a 'migration' – basically, to farm out part of Davidwild card's spirit and swap it with someone else's, she feels stuck in her day-to dilute the toxin. This was a success-day life, as David seems and yearns to have survived, although Carla is sure it was cross the Wolverine river and live on the wrong decision – North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life surrounded by nature. When she now sees David as at least part monster. But another odd thing about this tale is that it isn't being narrated by Carlameets Arthur Nielson, but by her neighboura strange, another mother called Amandataciturn and solitary man, who is renting says he has a holiday home nearbycabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. And the further odd thing is to whom she is narrating Without realising it, this story – itcalling will transform hers and Emaleen's to David…lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070901</amazonuk>1472279042

 {{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, 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' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shanthi SekaranFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=Lucky BoyWhite Nights

|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=Solimar wants more from her life than her Mexican home can offer and now she's 18As always in Dostoyevsky, she can go find itthe character work is sublime. Her target One is to get to the USA, never left wondering what a target so blinding that she doesn't realise what reaching out for it will cost. Meanwhile Kavya character is living the American dream. She's rich in friendship, family, a loving husband thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and life prospects and yet Kavya has a baby-shaped hole in her worldtemperaments with remarkable clarity. The problem is that there's only one baby for both of them… Lucky boy!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0735212279</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Rick BassJames Baldwin|title= For a Little WhileGiovanni's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Short StoriesLiterary Fiction |summary=''For a Little WhileGiovanni's Room'' is follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a collection of twenty-five short stories from Rick Bassgay bar. As someone previously unacquainted with Bass' work this new collection was a wonderful introduction While David is engaged to his quirkyHella, unusual style which focuses on stripped backwho is travelling in Spain, simple fables featuring often mundane situations, mysterious characters and magical experiences. The characters the real tension in each tale are beautifully crafted and the stories are dreamy, loose narratives covering everything novel arises not from his infidelity but from love to death to choices made the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and chances takendenial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273042</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dorthe NorsAlba de Cespedes |title=Mirror, Shoulder, SignalForbidden Notebook|rating=3.54

|summary=Danish author Dorthe Nors has published four novels, a novella This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and a story collection. The tension from the moment our protagonist of her latest novel, forty-something Sonja, has a problem with balance – literally. Due to an inner ear conditionValeria Cossati, if she bends over she's crippled by dizziness. It's inconvenient given that Sonja is currently taking lessons at Folke Driving School. She's already doing poorly – purchases her angryforbidden notebook, sweary instructor Jytte doesn't trust her enough to change gears so does it all for her – and so can't have them finding out that she gets dizzy. Eventually Sonja switches so Folke himself is her instructor, but he's an odious lecher. She really can't winlearns about herself in the most intimate and revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273123</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Alice HoffmanOttessa Moshfegh|title= FaithfulMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating= 4.53|genre= General Literary Fiction |summary= Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her At best friend's future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt. What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love this novel is something so distant it may as well be a star in scathing critique of modern society and reveals the sky? Moving from a life in her parents basement to a life in New York Cityfragility of human relationships; at worst, Shelby remains damaged by it is the loss of her best friendcynical, stumbling through life blindly predictable and fighting desperately to become connected to anything at allslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. ButThis unlikely heroine, as she grows, she discovers emotiona slim, survival attractive and happiness, bundled up newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with dogsthe world, foodbut resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, books and men she's probably best avoiding… Deep her solution lies in New York City she find a circle of lost and found souls, and the angel who's been watching over her since that fateful night all those years ago…hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471157717</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miguel Bonnefoy and Emily Boyce (translator)Matthew Tree|title=OctavioWe's Journey|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Octavio. He's a large lunk, a gentle giant, living alone in a lowly Venezuelan town – a town which once, fleetingly, had fame, fashion and success through a minor miracle, but has none any longer. Octavio, it seems, has some unusual habits – here he is, marching off to the chemist's with a table across his back, for it was all the doctor had at the time to write a prescription on. Now we never learn exactly what the cause of the prescription was, but we soon find out what the cause of the table is – Octavio cannot read, and has learned nothing beyond cutting into his palm to allow the wound to let him escape the need to write. Until, that is, a woman seems to suggest a way for him to learn to read and write, and to love – but that experience also proves to Octavio that there is a whole host of other things he can put his mind to, both for good, and for bad…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910477311</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator)|title=Spring Gardenll Never Know

|genre=General Literary Fiction |summary=MurakamiTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and (long before the film) Endo's ''Silence''. That's my limit as regards contemporary Japanese writing. But now there's Tomoka Shibasaki, chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and her noted work ''Spring Garden''who had endless crises of self confidence. Which, make no mistake, is definitely Japanese. For instance, if I told you it starts with a man looking up So Tim applied himself to watch his female neighbour on her balconystudies, and concerns obsession, you could well think it was cultivated his abilities rather than his about her. But no – perhaps only in the west is the gaze so male. The obsession is very much hers here, daydreams and it – and the novel – concern a singular houseset himself high but achievable ambitions. And the very singular country it lives in, and the changes it is going through…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782272704</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura KayeB0C47LV1PC|title= English AnimalsFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= When Mirka gets Can you make a job in a country house in rural England''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, she has no idea of is the struggle she faces to question should you make sense of a very English coupleit? Or is the question if you did, and a way of life would it land? The catch is that is entirely alien to herthe answer for both could well be.... Richard and Sophie are chaotic, drunken, frequently outrageous but also warm, generous and kind to Mirka, despite their argumentative and turbulent marriageno. Mirka  ''Fragility'' is swiftly commandeered by Richard for his latest money-making enterpriseset as the city of Portland, taxidermyOregon, and soon surpasses him in skill. After a traumatic break two years ago with her family in Slovakia, Mirka finds cautiously begins to her surprise that she is happy at Fairmont Hall. But when she tells Sophie that she is gay, everything she values is put in danger and she must learn emerge from the restrictions imposed during the hard way what she really believes in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140870823X</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles D BlanchardMosby Woods|title=Kingdom's EndA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=The rats made their massive colony inside West isn't the ruins dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of an abandoned motion picture palaceaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, where a push for thirty long dark years, an aged blind leader ruled over themclimate action there. A beloved figure held feeling that nobody is in high regardactual charge. Imagine then, he rules there was a man with patience, understanding, justice and loveprecognition. When Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a young upstart challenges all he has built, ruling with harsh punishments and rash decisionsman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the rats must decide how best to protect their colony most valuable asset in order to preserve all that they have built togetherhistory. As the rats clash amongst themselvesImagine then, some fail to notice the ever growing threats and dangers that the outside world provides - who will come out on top in this very literal rat raceman loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148344936X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sebastian Barry0571379559|title=Days Without EndThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=It''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the mid nineteenth century house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and Thomas McNulty has left his home in Sligofloods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his family dead from faminevegetables, to make a new life complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in a new nationsufficient money. He teams up with prairie fairy They have twin boys - a dancer in drag - John Cole Sonny and together they sign up for Max, the US Armyrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Their journey will take them through the American Indian wars and eventually to the Civil WarMax takes after his father. Along the way People don't believe that they're related, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona much less twins and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennessee. Itthere's the story of perhaps the most violent birth of a nation in history but itan assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's also a convention-defying love storyhis nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose TremainClaire 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}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay 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 Gustav SonataTrees 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 story, 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

|summary=Gustav Perle grew up in a small town in neutral Switzerland: the horrors of the Second World War seemed distant''Love, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense of those who would seek refuge in the country. GustavI's father died in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his mother, Emilied read, she was cold and indifferent supposed to him. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was be a lonely child with just one toylight and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a tin trainretrospective view, but he and Anton met at kindergarten where it fell to Gustav to look after a young woman unravels the nervous boyyear-long relationship that once defined her. Anton is Jewish and he's Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a talented pianist, but he lacks man twenty years her senior from its inception – the confidence summer after finishing university – to perform in publicits sorrowful end the summer after. Throughout much Set against the backdrop of his life he relies on Gustavan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's supportdeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, but fails to appreciate just how important, it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how necessary it is to his wellbeingaltered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom TomaszewskiMichael Grothaus|title=The Eleventh LetterBeautiful Shining People|rating=34|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At the end of the working day, Christopher is looking over the ghosts of his occupancy of some rooms on Harley Street, before moving up the road to different chambers, and pastures new. He's half impelled 'But fearing something and half reluctant having it come to revisit a pair of audio cassettes, on which pass are interviews by him and someone else of a woman called Louise, who was arrested in Italy in the 1980s for the double murder of two close friends, Kate and Johndifferent things. Hardly aware heAnd I's being snowed in by a London blizzard and the usual British response m willing to any bad weatherbet most of what we fear will never happen, he spontaneously provides shelter or we can take steps to a flame-haired beauty, Kay, who provokes him into playing the tapeschange it. It's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at ' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the therapist's couchquestion of identity and acceptance. Indeed, the closer he gets Of what it means to Kaybe human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the closer he gets to the voice development of the victim from decades agotechnology is exciting or frightening. What on earth could be the connection?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steinunn Sigurdardottir and Philip Roughton (translator)Jennifer Saint|title=The Good LoverAtalanta|rating=2.5

|summary=Karl is a global example ''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the Icelandic speciesgoddess. It was for the sake of my name, with more than one home abroad and an amanuensis-cum-assistant to do his scheduling and arrange housework while hetoo. Atalanta''s going here and there  Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a businessman. He has daughter rather than a string of lovers that has stretched into three figuresson, partly because with one exception three Atalanta is raised under the limit protective eye of liaisons he'll have with each. But he's also got the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a heart devoted to Unaformidable huntress, his teenaged love whom he adores, despite her splitting with him decades agoone who longs for adventure. On a whim he leaves a beach holiday When the opportunity comes – to go back to one of join the icy limbs Argonauts, a fierce band of Icelandwarriors, witnesses descendent from the changes wrought by fifteen years on her Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and then ends up staying the night with the woman next doorcarve out her own legendary place in history. This What follows is purely platonica whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, but what with his host knowing everything about the situationAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, an ever-present taxi driver, and an ex on the line in America, is there a way he can snatch his love from it will be her marriage and find happiness?undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9462380139</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eric Beck RubinAmanthi Harris|title=School of VelocityBeautiful Place|rating=4.5

|summary=Jan's head Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is dropping him in ita place she spent her formative years. He's It is not a trained concert pianistplace she was born into, but is having difficulty performing, with a horrendous problem, in that he can hear any discordant music, or just in fact horrid noise, when in the wings waiting one she thinks of as home. How she came to perform, and never be at the score he is due to follow. The devil's tinnitusVilla, you might call how it. With another failure behind himbecame her home, but dignity somewhat intact, Jan decides he has to work back and the machinations that have flowed through his her life to tell us ever since she first arrived there provide the cause – ''score'' for this gentle and weyet subtly violent novel. Padma're likewise dropped into an extended flashback, s present fails to his formative years at art school, with escape her past and much like the musical score of a pretentious drama studentfilm, Dirk. The book is a fast-moving exploration of what Jan finds of note (pun intended) that strand weaves its way through his life, and all everything that might have caused his mental problemhappens at the Villa. But is cognisance of what might lie behind it going to help?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993506275</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gerard Reve178563335X|title=The Evenings: A Winter's TaleSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=3.5

|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they'The Evenings'' was voted re held when you need to pick the best Dutch novel of all time by the Society of Dutch Literaturechildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and its authorher elder brother, Gerard Reve (1923–2006)Jamie, was the first openly gay writer in the Netherlandswhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. It Thelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a historic book for its native countrylovely place, but will it have Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the same impact parish - and she's in English translation? Contemporary Dutch novelist Herman Koch compares awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she''The Evenings'' to s been doing the works of Kerouac job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Salinger, and I can see how Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it could have achieved cult status for a certain generation, was stormy but plot-wise I found it more tedious than revelatorywas probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271783</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henrietta Rose-Innes1398515388|title= NinevehThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Henritetta Rose-Inne's ''Nineveh'' instantly reassures you that you are First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the presence of a confident ocean floor, which created the tsunami and talented writer. The story of Katya Grubbsthis, a second generation pest exterminator who specialises in relocating turn, caused the bugs nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and rodents that ruin middle-class garden partiesutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, Rose-Inne writes with and the enviable ability loss of describing both livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the intricacies list of Katyapriorities 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 job comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the feeling of it simultaneouslydog jumped in. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709166</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Stridsberg and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)0989715337|title=The Gravity of LovePapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating=4.5

|summary=Particularly literate cover… Setting of a real''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-life mental hospital – deep in Sweden… Mature themes… Opening with an emotion- and closure-laden death… Yesthe fragrant water, this book has more than its share naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of things to put the potential reader off. Whichtheir eggs wove around him, in this instance, is quite a large shame indeedsticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054767</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carys Bray Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and others|title=How Much barked down at the strange noise of the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Love|rating=3buckets as he filled them.5''|genre=Short Stories|summary=This Sceptre collection does not have as simple a remit as it might appear; these are no straightforward love stories. Instead, they each take one aspect How is that for an opening? The style of love – often one this novel in the form of the ancient Greek classifications – interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and provide musing, turning on a whole new way of thinking about itsixpence. After allAnd author Marco North, who has the heart holds a lot most wonderful turn of metaphorical weightphrase, starts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>