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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)Jeremy Cooper|title= The ImpostorDiscord|rating= 3.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Enric Marco is without doubt an extraordinary man. A veteran Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas) The principal example of discord within the Spanish Civil Warnovel, honoured for his bravery on the battlefieldas with most instances of discord, is easily located. A political prisoner of The two fascist regimes. A survivor protagonists of the Nazi concentration camps. A prominent figure in the clandestine resistance against Franco's tyranny. A tireless warrior for social justice novel, Rebekah Rosen and the defence of human rightsEvie Bennet, are as different as they come. A national hero. But the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco Rebekah is this: that he an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is really none a force of these thingsnature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets out The two, predictably, don't always see eye to tell his story – the true story of Spaineye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's most notorious liarconservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857056506</amazonuk>1804272264

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)Polly Barton|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the NorthWhat Am I, A Deer?|rating=34|genre=Anthologies Literary Fiction|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, itPolly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, uses translation as some were written the year of publication both subject and some in the 1960sgoverning metaphor. It's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keysThe narrator, but newly relocated from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban ScandinaviaLondon to Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the Faroes and other island groupsprocess of localisation, or Greenlandrewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new audience. That is Barton treats this as a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living paradoxical act: arguably, in Brooklynstriving for universality, and the Iraqi blood on these pageslanguage is endlessly repackaged, testify. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest its originality at the beginning risk of the story are being surrounded by other life by the enddisappearing altogether. From this, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featurednovel opens out into a wider, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in order to be even the characters' species…understood, accepted, or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>1804272175

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christina Hesselholdt Maria Stepanova and Paul Russell Garrett Sasha Dugdale (translatorTranslator)|title=CompanionsThe Disappearing Act|rating=34

|summary=''Companions'' is written as a series Despite her anonymisation of monologuesplace names and people, where six middle-aged friends take it Stepanova's message in turns this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to narrate scenes from their lives, charting the intimate details town of their holidaysF for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, dinner partiesher journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of events, families, marriages, affairs and work lives M eventually offers to step in for a style that mixes honesty and openness with fantasy and evasioncircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. The charm train functions as a motif of the novel lies in the way the friends' voices bicker with one another among the pagestransience and impermanence, as we discover that there are always several sides to while the same story. We learn most about circus embodies the characters not through what they say about themselves but through what the others say about them. Along the way, there is heartbreak reshaping of identity and griefa retreat into fantasy, but this is always offset by an abundance impulse that lies at the very heart of humour and a writing style that never fails to be refreshingly light-heartedthe novel form itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910695335</amazonuk>1804272329

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Yaba Badoe295967572X|title= A Jigsaw of Fire and StarsPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a sea-chest laden train journey with treasurehis companion Django. It seems she is Where they're going and what the sole survivor purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years tickets ''on shethe floor somewhere's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante has persuaded our narrator to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangleaccompany him. A ripening mango which must Why not fall... if Sante ? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to tell their story the station by coach and her ownthe train is a steam locomotive. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786695480</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)Makenna Goodman|title= The Invisible Life Helen of Euridice GusmaoNowhere|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= On It could be argued that the surface, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it allpervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. A nice-enoughThe protagonist, parent-pleasing husband with a steady banking jobdisgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, two young children upon whom to doteembodies this feeling. However, an immaculate home complete Goodman counteracts his discomfort with maid. That's all anyone could ever wanta force which is seductive, isn't it? Not Euridiceradical and unnerving: Helen. She has an inexplicable ache inside her for something more, like many of usThe connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. Yet each As the former owner of her pet projectsthe countryside house he's considering, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting Helen represents a cottage sewing industry volta in her living roomhis life, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenorpast tied to his potential fresh start. He wants a wife The realtor who doesnshows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form't draw attention to herself'. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, whose only domains Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are her house and her familynot altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178607298X</amazonuk>1804272205

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David BergenOlga Tokarczuk|title= StrangerHouse of Day, House of Night|rating= 45|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=''StrangerWhat's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' tells the story  The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of ÍsoDay, a young Guatemalan womanHouse of Night'', and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him to return to somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the Statessmall, she is left pregnant and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter is abductedsubtle changes which govern our lives, and taken like the shift from day to live with the doctor and his wifenight, however quotidian, causing chaos. What followed - tales of But, the journey Íso embarked upon constant in that image is the hope of finding her baby - was an amazing story of house, stoic against the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her childancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715652419</amazonuk>1804271918

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Clar Ni ChonghaileThea Lenarduzzi|title= Rain Falls On EveryoneThe Tower|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= It's a cliché that 'How unctuous are the Irish have a picturesque turn fats of phraseanother's life, but clichés only exist because they're true. Roddy Doyle put it differently how dizzying their sugars in a recent interview with our bloodstream''Writing'' magazine. In this compelling novel, when he said that ''With IrishThea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, therethe protagonist of this tale. Just as T's another language bubbling under story is being told, the English''. However you express it, that art story of expression a second protagonist is woven into every other line unveiled: Annie, the daughter of Clár's prose. Pick a page at random and you'll find something like ''wealthy family in the sickness that had come to roost 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in her home like a cursed owltower, captures T's imagination. Annie' or ''like he was Gods fate is, above all, Jesus and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or ''an enticing story to T. It is a low sobbingstory which she consumes avariciously, slow both in a quest for truth and inevitable as rain on a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawaresknowledge, or tear at your heart and in their mundane sadness. Or sometimes bothservice of myth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079018</amazonuk>1804271799

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hesene Mete Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Sinful WordsVaim

|summary=When we meet him, Behram is a student at the school of theology. He loves God with a passion and has a determination to live a life dedicated ''toAll was strange'' God and to live by His rules. He rents a property from Lulu Khan and his wife, Lady Geshtina and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visit. It's a delightful place and . This haunting phrase encapsulates the wealth pervading sense of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtina's late father is buried otherworldliness which permeates this story set in what amounts to Vaim, a mausoleum, but it's fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not all this which enchants Behram. The couple have twin children feel more real for Jatgeir and Behram is takenEline, enthralled by two of the daughter, Naginaprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1524682527</amazonuk>1804271829

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= JuanClaire-Tomas Avila LaurelLouise Bennett|title= The Gurugu PledgeBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Juan Tomas Avila LaurelEverything in this book, one of Equatorial Guinea's best-known dissident writershowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is an author who deserves to be read the world oversteeped in anguish and distortion. With The Gurugu PledgeEven a kiss, he's captured usually a an angry symbol of intimacy and incredibly urgent slice closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the migrant experience – narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a snapshot desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of the dangers faced by those crossing the African continent in search of the barbed wire fences at Melillathis plea is Xavier, her ex- the Spanish enclave on the North Eastern tip of Moroccopartner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276940</amazonuk>1804271934

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Matthew SmithHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title= The WakingLili is Crying|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Isabel SykesFirst published in 1953 in French, 23, recounts this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the recent attempt she made to come to terms with the loss hearts of her mother, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykes. Marianne died in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was ten. Inspired by the appearance of Imogen Taylor, an enchanting young woman who wants to write a PhD its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on her mother's work, Isabel plunges into the depths of her past page and an intense new friendship. After discovering that Imogen is not who she seems to bepositions them elsewhere, disjointed, Isabel must face the darkest moments from her childhood in order to protect her family from more tragedytruncated. She receives unexpected help from beyond Like the grave: in the strange, glittering fragments lives of her mother's last, unfinished workcharacters, 'Midnightsong'they are often left tragically incomplete.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0995654158</amazonuk>1804271675

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Ali SmithJonathan Buckley|title= AutumnOne Boat|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= The first part in Ali Smith's four part 'SeasonalOne Boat' series' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, Autumn is drawing the story reader into a contemplative realm of Daniel Gluck philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and Elisabeth Demandprotagonist, unexpected friends who used to be neighbours when Elisabeth was a little girlTeresa. In Set against the evocative backdrop of a series small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of memories its setting and dreamsits power to provoke profound introspection. Teresa herself recognises these qualities as the reason she has visited it after the death of both her parents. Prompted by her mourning, we discover their friendship from Daniel babysitting Elisabeth through to her visits with him now that he narrative voice is in a home meditative and drawing towards deeply self-aware, inviting the end of his extremely long and fascinating lifereader into her labyrinthine cogitations. Along the way, we get It is a wonderfully written insight into time, memoriesbook that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and the fleeting nature of life itselfironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241973317</amazonuk>1804271764

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicola Pugliese and Shaun Whiteside (translator)Eowyn Ivey|title=MalacquaBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5

|summary=We're in Naples, in recent history, and it's raining. It will in fact rain for four days solid – and seeing as itBlack Woods Blue Sky's October everyone's dressed for all seasons and expecting a bit tells the story of greyBirdie, but this is taking the proverbial. It's also making young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the city rather dangerous – when people report Alaskan lodge where she works as a huge sink-hole appearing in one street it's soon found that bar waitress, a pair setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of cars went into itEmaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and two people have died, yearns to cross the Wolverine river and more passed live on with the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a whole building collapsingsimple life surrounded by nature. What's moreWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, some a strange noises are coming from an abandoned civic palace. Is the city being told something by these strange events, or can taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a journalist find a logic behind the circumstances?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508067</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Iosi Havilio|title= Petite Fleur|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Every now cabin over there, she feels called to go - and then you read a book that leaves you thinking “well I have no idea what just happened but I know I enjoyed it”bring Emaleen with her. This is how I felt after reading Petite FleurWithout realising it, the fifth novel (perhaps this calling will transform hers and Emaleen'long paragraph' would be more appropriate) from cult Argentinian writer Iosi Havilios lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508040</amazonuk>1472279042

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania HershmanSally Rooney|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersIntermezzo

|genre=Short Stories General Fiction |summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardSally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Going through from A-ZHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, witnessing a bounty of ideas and as her characters in short order can be too muchnever quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, but do you have the right central one for readers to pick unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and choose according to what appealsPeter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, and what time you have to fill? The sequence has carefully been consideredcontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, surelya successful lawyer living in Dublin. Such would appear to be the case here. The last time I read one of this authorFollowing their father's collections, passing after a long battle with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]]cancer, the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get a whopping forty pieces of writing, they are also spread into sectionsbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>0571365469

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James KelmanFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesWhite Nights|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories |summary=This is the ninth book of short stories by this authorAs always in Dostoyevsky, which means he's presented just as many collections of the short form as he has novelscharacter work is sublime. You will find it hard to think of another author that has been so noted for longer works (One is never left wondering what with [[How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Was, How Late]] winning the Booker) but who a character is so generous in presenting shorter pieces for the time-poor, thinking or those like me who see the variety in a writer's short or less typical works to be the more interesting places to turn. Opening these pages, from the pen of such an esteemed pro, came feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with no small sense of anticipationremarkable clarity.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>0241619785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate MildenhallJames Baldwin|title= SkylarkingGiovanni's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= General Literary Fiction |summary= Kate and Harriet are best friends growing up together on ''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an isolated Australian cape. As the daughters of the lighthouse keepersAmerican man living in Paris, the two girls share everythingas he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, until an Italian bartender he meets in a fishermangay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, McPhailwho is travelling in Spain, arrives the real tension in their small communitythe novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she It is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. An innocent moment in McPhailDavid's hut then occurs crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that threatens to tear their peaceful community apartultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>0141186356

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna WalshAlba de Cespedes |title=Worlds from the Word's EndForbidden Notebook|rating=3.54|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of short stories, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]. I myself missed out, but that seemed to be vignettes suspense and tension from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators and a host morethe moment our protagonist, as well as much less of the sadness prevalent before. Having had a brief encounter with this author courtesy of her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] seriesValeria Cossati, I was intrigued by purchases her name being stamped on a selection of shorts. Was it the ideal calling card? Let's face itforbidden notebook, and learns about herself in the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or two, as we see heremost intimate and revealing ways. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>1782278222

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Raja Alem, Katharine Halls (translator) and Adam Talib (translator)Ottessa Moshfegh|title= The Dove's NecklaceMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating= 3|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I always hated Lit-Crit at schoolAt best, so it came as something as a surprise that I ended up reviewing books, for fun. Now I understand. Finally, I see why literary critics get so up-in-arms about lowly book reviewers. There this novel is a difference. This book explains it all. The author is ''scathing critique of modern society and reveals the first woman to win the International Prize for Arabic fiction'' for this book. The book also the LiBerator prize for ''the best book translated into German'' in 2014. I suspect it's not done yet. ''The Times'' tells us that fragility of human relationships; at worst, it ''exemplifies everything that is currently shaking the foundations cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of Arab societyan unlikeable protagonist.'' I am sure that not only will more plaudits fall upon the author This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the bookworld, but also that resolves not to lose sleep over it will become a classic: in fact, spoken of her solution lies in the same breath as the international classics: Proust, Márquez, Joyce, Rushdie, Nabokov…her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715651757</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel Kehlmann and Ross Benjamin (translator)Matthew Tree|title=You Should Have LeftWe'll Never Know

|genre=General Literary Fiction |summary=Our narrator is a screenwriterTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, tasked with coming up with a sequel drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his hit movie ''Besties'' – a film which helped pay for a housestudies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but which his actress wife keeps letting him know, isnachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a 't 'Yo birthing person'art''. To concentratejoke? And if you could, is the family – he, question should you make it? Or is the wifequestion if you did, and their four year old daughter – have rented a large, modern house at would it land? The catch is that the end of a horrid, hairpin bend-filled road, in a charming alpine landscapeanswer for both could well be... But things aren't right. The couple are at loggerheads too much, things keep unsettling our narrator, and the sole shopkeeper for miles around is ready with the Hammer Horror styled warnings of strange eventsno. Quickly we see the book ''Fragility's title in all its galling clarity – but it isn't too late to get out… is it? And out set as the city of whatPortland, exactly?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786484048</amazonuk>Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Tove JanssonMosby Woods|title= Letters From KlaraA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Famed The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the UK for her creation of the Moomin family, Jansson West is rather belatedly beginning quite sure how to gather mend this or even if mending it is the richly deserved esteem best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for her adult writingsclimate action there. For A feeling that I offer my heart-felt thanks to publishers ''Sort of books'' and Thomas Teal, who has been responsible for most of the translationsnobody is in actual charge. Receiving this one, two things strike: firstly I somehow seem to have missed one of the seriesImagine then, and secondly there'll come was a time sooner rather than later when there'll be no more to be hadman with precognition. The former Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be rectifiedvaluable, right? Perhaps the latter is a sad thoughtmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908745614</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Malmquist and Henning Koch (translator)0571379559|title=In Every Moment We Are Still AliveThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=4.5

|summary=Tom Malmquist ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is a poet from Swedenthe story of four people. Originally published Tess Hembry's roots are in Swedish Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in 2015the house on the riverbank, this is his first work built of prosebroken bricks. While Insubstantial as it might look, it's being marketed as a novelstood the passage of time, it reads more like a stylized memoirstorms and floods. Similar Her husband, Richard, struggles to Karl Ove Knausgaard's booksgrow his vegetables, it features to complete the author as delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the central character and narratorrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and the story of grief it tells there's an assumption when Max is a highly personal oneout with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473640008</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Michel DeonClaire North|title= Your Father's RoomHouse of Odysseus|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I don't feel altogether qualified to review Michel Déon's 2004 fictionalised memoir What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent 'Your Father's RoomIthaca''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, translated here into English who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the first timethrone of the Western Isles. I hadnHaving survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca't heard s shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Déon before receiving my copyOrestes, let alone read any King of Mycenae, and his bookssister Elektra, published over 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 70 year period way for humans to much acclaim in his homelandcathartically experience their most existential fears. But it's part 'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the pleasure of book reviewing fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to read with no prior knowledge or prejudice, all the more so if you discover an absolute gemfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910477346</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Naomi AldermanEric LaRocca|title= The PowerTrees Grew Because I Bled There

|genre= Literary FictionHorror|summary=Horror taps into something primeval within us. It started with the girls is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and spreadprocess them. From younger woman to older womanMost horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it was awoken and everything changed. Womankind now has the power of electricity in their fingertips usually something tangible and, slowly at first, by the balance end of power in the world starts shiftingstory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. We follow the It is a collection of short stories of different people, more interested in different walks the horrors of lifeillness, who see this from the very beginning grief and hurtle towards 'the event'humiliation. One thing in this startling new development is certain, patriarchal archetypes Horrors that linger and chauvinist thinkers are in for the shock of their lives. Literallyharder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919969</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna PitoniakMadelaine Lucas|title=The FuturesThirst for Salt|rating=45

|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck''Love, he has just started at Yale CollegeI'd read, where he plays ice hockey. Like lots of the other playerswas supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, he is actually Canadianbut I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, from smalla young woman unravels the year-town British Columbialong relationship that once defined her. One night Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm and they go out . Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for pizza. She technically has a boyfriend from Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her Boston boarding school daysolder lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, but they soon break up how it changed her perspective on both romantic and before long Julia familial relationships and Evan have become inseparable, as they will remain for the rest of their college yearshow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718184564</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stephan CollishawMichael Grothaus|title= The Song of the StorkBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4.5

|summary= Stephan Collishaw has achieved a rare feat – a novel set amidst ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.'' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the horrors question of Nazi tyranny that does not shy away from identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human suffering. Of what is real and what is artificial, but does not drown in it eitherand whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079190</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Sabrina MahfouzJennifer Saint|title= The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women WriteAtalanta|rating= 5|genre= AnthologiesLiterary Fiction|summary= What does it mean to be British and Muslim? This is a question these writers tackle with stunning clarity''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 goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Modern day British society has  Abandoned at birth for being born a varied sense of cultural heritage; it is daughter rather than a society that son, Atalanta is changing raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and moving forward as it adds more and more voices fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the populationArgonauts, but is also one that has an undercurrent a fierce band of anxiety warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and fear towards those that are minoritiescarve out her own legendary place in history. So this collection displays how all that fear What follows is received; it comes in the form a whirlwind of stereotypical labels challenges and racial prejudicediscovery and through it, which are themes eloquently reproduced hereAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0863561462</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David SzalayAmanthi Harris|title= All That Man IsBeautiful Place|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Two teenage boys on an Inter Rail trip around Europe find themselves staying with Padma, a frustrated housewife young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the outskirts southern coast of Prague, her home country. This is a driftless young Frenchman discovers sexual fulfilment on place she spent her formative years. It is not a package holiday in Cyprusplace she was born into, a lovestruck Hungarian minder is embroiled in a prostitution racket but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at an upmarket London hotelthe Villa, a Belgian academic is forced to confront his egotism when his partner becomes pregnanthow it became her home, a Danish tabloid journalist exposes a high-ranking politicianand the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's love affair, a property developer inspects a new project in the French alps, a Scot living in Croatia present fails in love to escape her past and business, much like the musical score of a Russian millionaire confronts divorcefilm, an elderly English politician survives a road accident in Italythat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099593696</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Elizabeth Hay178563335X|title= His Whole LifeSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= If you think that When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they'unre held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-putyear-down-able'' is the greatest accolade for old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a book, think againsobbing parishioner. Thelma''Puts daughter-downin-ablelaw won'' can be stronger praise: ''His Whole Life'' is put-down-ablet let her see her grandson. It encourages you to put it downHolthorpe, to wrap yourself in on the slow-moving storyNorfolk coast, the exquisite writingis a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the subtleties parish - and she's in awe of the charactersvicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and just Christopher hoped that a walk around for a while with on the beach would do them slowly sinking in; some good - it encourages you to come back to was stormy but it again and again; mostly it encourages you to put it down, to read it slowly, because you don't want it to endwas probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857055445</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Phillip Lewis1398515388|title= The BarrowfieldsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= Just before Henry Aster's birthFirst of all, it was the earthquake, his fatherdeep in the ocean floor, a frustrated novelist which created the tsunami and lawyerthis, reluctantly returns to in turn, caused the remote North Carolina mountains in which he nuclear meltdown. The result was improbably raised complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and installs his young family in a gothic mansion - nicknamed 'the vulture house' - worthy loss of his hero Edgar Allan Poelivelihoods was widespread. There, Henry grows up under The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the desk list of this fierce and brilliant manpriorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. But when He wasn't a death in dog person but the family tips his father toward a fearsome unravelling, what was once a young sonconvenience store owner's reverence is poisoned, comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home againTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473636825</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paula Cocozza0989715337|title= How to Be HumanPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn ''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist- his ears spiked deep in attention and every hair bristling with the fragrant water, naked except for his power to surprise - it is only the beginningbeaten leather hat. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they are gifts)Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and gradually makes himself barked down at home. And the strange noise of the buckets as he listens to Mary, Mary listens backfilled them. She begins to hear herself '' How is that for the first time an opening? The style of this novel in years. Her bullish ex-boyfriend, still lurking on the fringes form of her lifeinterconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, would be appalled. So would the neighbours with turning on a new babysixpence. They only like wildlife that fits with And author Marco North, who has the decor. But inside Mary a wildness is growing that will not be tamedmost wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786330334</amazonuk>