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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]__NOTOC__ <!{{Frontpage|isbn=295967572X|title=Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either -- Remove -->but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.}}{{Frontpage|author=Makenna Goodman<!-- Rawi -->|title=Helen of Nowhere*[[image:Rawi_Baghdad|rating=4.jpg5|leftgenre=Literary Fiction|linksummary=httpIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is seductive, radical and unnerving://wwwHelen.amazonThe connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate.coAs the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start.uk/dp/1786073226/refThe realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. Although she lives in an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205}}{{Frontpage|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=nosim5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?tag=thebookbag-21]] ''

The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=[[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi]]Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.

[[imageIn this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled:2Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T.5starIt is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy.jpg |linkisbn=Category:1804271799}}{{Frontpage|author=Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Vaim|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come 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.|isbn=1804271934}}{{Frontpage|author=Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Lili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:{{Frontpage|author=Jonathan Buckley|title=One Boat|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the reader into a contemplative realm of philosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, Teresa. Set against the evocative backdrop of a small coastal Greek town, this work masterfully captures the magic of its setting and its 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, her narrative voice is meditative and deeply self-aware, inviting the reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that not only requires but inspires depth of thought, since its narrative structure is fragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=1804271764}}{{Frontpage|author=Eowyn Ivey|title=Black Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction]]|summary=''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, [[:Category:Historical Fictionthe young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the North Fork to 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 cabin over there, she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|Historical Fiction]]isbn=1472279042}}

''The Baghdad Clock'' is a tale of two friends growing up during the first and second Iraqi war. Shahad Al Rawi uses magic realism to illustrate the displacement felt by a young girl and her neighbourhood. The novel introduces us to the various characters surrounding the protagonist. They are full of life and yet never seem to add anything to the central narrative. Rawi, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi{{Frontpage|Full Review]]<br>author=Sally Rooney <!-- Clements -->*[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472204271/reftitle=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]Intermezzo ===[[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements]]==|rating= [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary General Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Maybe you've heard about Scarcross Hall? Hidden on the old coffin path that winds from the village to summary=Sally Rooney has studied the moor top, the villagers only speak chessboard of it in hushed tones - life and is something of how a grandmaster at putting it's a foreboding place filled with evilinto words. Mercy Booth has lived there since birth, Her dialogue is gripping and she's always loved the grand house and its isolationso brilliantly frustrating, but a recurrence of strange events begins to unsettle as hercharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. From objects disappearing through to a shadowy presence sensed in Among the housemany relationships woven into this story, mysteries come the central one for readers to light that can only be solved by Mercy unearthing long-buried secrets. And will a dark stranger help Mercy protect everything she has come to love or tear it from her grasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Durrenmatt -->*[[image:Durrenmatt_Justice.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1782273875?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1782273875]] ===[[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and John E Woods (translator)]]=== [[image:2Peter Koubek.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It's 1957Ivan, and we're somewhere in Switzerland, and there's just one case on everyone's lips – the simple fact that a politician has gone into the crowded room of one of those 'the place to go' restaurantssocially awkward chess prodigy, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have knowncontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, and ferried a British companion to the airport successful lawyer living in his chauffeur-driven Rolls before handing himself in to face the murder rapDublin. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. HeFollowing their father's certainly of much interest, not only to our narrator, passing after a young lawyer called Spaet – even if he rarely gets to frequent such establishments long battle with such people, he is eager to know morecancer, especially once he is actually tasked by the man in hand to look into things a second timebrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. But what's this, where he opens his testimony about the affair with the conclusion, that he himself will need to turn killer to redress the balance? [[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)|Full Review]]isbn=0571365469<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Cercas -->|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky*[[image:Cercas_Impostor.jpg|lefttitle=White Nights|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857056506?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camprating=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0857056506]]5 ===[[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)]]==|genre=Short Stories [[image:5star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Enric Marco is without doubt an extraordinary man. A veteran of the Spanish Civil WarAs always in Dostoyevsky, honoured for his bravery on the battlefield. A political prisoner of two fascist regimes. A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. A prominent figure in the clandestine resistance against Franco's tyranny. A tireless warrior for social justice and the defence of human rightscharacter work is sublime. A national hero. But the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco One is this: that he never left wondering what a character is really none of these thingsthinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets out to tell his story – the true story of Spain's most notorious liar. [[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)|Full Review]]isbn=0241619785<br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Badoe -->|author=James Baldwin*[[image:Badoe_Jigsaw.jpg|lefttitle=Giovanni's Room|linkrating=https://www4.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786695480?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786695480]]5|genre===[[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe]]===Literary Fiction [[image:4star.jpg|linksummary=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]]''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]an American man living in Paris, [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]]as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, [[:Category:Teens|Teens]] Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore an Italian bartender he meets in a sea-chest laden with treasuregay bar. It seems she While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the sole survivor of real tension in the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on she's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, novel arises not from his infidelity but from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge themdeeper conflict within himself. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante It is to tell their story David's crippling shame and her owndenial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni. [[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe|Full Review]]isbn=0141186356<br> <br>}}{{Frontpage<!-- Batalha -->|author=Alba de Cespedes *[[image:Batalha_Invisible.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/178607298X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASINtitle=178607298X]]Forbidden Notebook|rating===[[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)]]===4 [[image:4.5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] On summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the surface, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it all. A nice-enough, parent-pleasing husband with a steady banking job, two young children upon whom to dotemoment our protagonist, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever wantValeria Cossati, isn't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside purchases her for something moreforbidden notebook, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projects, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry and learns about herself in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenor. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house the most intimate and her familyrevealing ways. [[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)|Full Review]]<br>isbn=1782278222}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)Ottessa Moshfegh|title=The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat My Year of Rest and other stories from the NorthRelaxation

|genre=Anthologies Literary Fiction|summary=A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's At best short works, it's that of this novel is a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year scathing critique of publication modern society and some in reveals the 1960s. It's not from one tiny patch fragility of author's desk or one set of laptop keyshuman relationships; at worst, but from it is the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinaviacynical, the Faroes predictable and other island groups, or Greenlandslightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pagesThis unlikely heroine, testify. It's a world where new roads and new building works mean a family living on the edge of the forest at the beginning of the story are being surrounded by other life by the endslim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the influence of centuries of folklore featuredworld, a lot more than that changes – sometimes but resolves not to lose sleep over it seems to be even the characters' species…: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782273824</amazonuk>1784707422

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)Matthew Tree|title=CompanionsWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5

|summary=''Companions'' is written as a series of monologues, where six middle-aged friends take it in turns Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to narrate scenes be different from their lives, charting the intimate details of their holidays, dinner parties, families, marriageshis father, affairs and work lives in a style that mixes honesty drunk and openness with fantasy chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and evasionwho had endless crises of self confidence. The charm of the novel lies in the way the friends' voices bicker with one another among the pages, as we discover that there are always several sides So Tim applied himself to the same story. We learn most about the characters not through what they say about themselves but through what the others say about them. Along the wayhis studies, there is heartbreak cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and grief, set himself high but this is always offset by an abundance of humour and a writing style that never fails to be refreshingly light-heartedachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910695335</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreview|author= David Bergen|title= Stranger|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=''StrangerFragility'' tells is set as the story city of ÍsoPortland, a young Guatemalan womanOregon, and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him to return cautiously begins to emerge from the States, she is left pregnant and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter is abducted, and taken to live with restrictions imposed during the doctor and his wife. What followed - tales of the journey Íso embarked upon in the hope of finding her baby - was an amazing story of the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her child.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715652419</amazonuk>covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Clar Ni ChonghaileMosby Woods|title= Rain Falls On EveryoneA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= ItThe West isn's a cliché that t the Irish have a picturesque turn of phrase, but clichés only exist because they're truedominant force it once was. Roddy Doyle put it differently Nobody in a recent interview with ''Writing'' magazine, when he said that ''With Irish, there's another language bubbling under the English''. However you express West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it, that art of expression is woven into every other line the best course of Clár's proseaction. Governments are flailing. Pick A war here, a page at random and you'll find something like ''the sickness push for climate action there. A feeling that had come to roost nobody is in her home like a cursed owl'' or ''like he actual charge. Imagine then, there was God, Jesus and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or ''a low sobbing, slow and inevitable as rain on man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawaresman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, or tear at your heart right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in their mundane sadnesshistory. Or sometimes bothImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079018</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hesene Mete 0571379559|title=Sinful WordsThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45

|summary=When we meet him, Behram ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is a student at the school story of theologyfour people. He loves God with a passion and has a determination to live a life dedicated Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it'to'' God s stood the passage of time, storms and to live by His rulesfloods. He rents a property from Lulu Khan and Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his wifevegetables, Lady Geshtina to complete the delivery rounds - and Khan invites Behram to his own home for a visitbring in sufficient money. It's a delightful place They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the wealth of the couple is obvious as is their standing within the local community: Lady Geshtinarainbow twins. Sonny's late father is buried in what amounts to a mausoleum, but itcolouring reflects his mother's not all this which enchants BehramJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. The couple have twin children People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and Behram there's an assumption when Max is taken, enthralled by the daughter, Naginaout with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524682527</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Juan-Tomas Avila LaurelClaire North|title= The Gurugu PledgeHouse of Odysseus|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Juan Tomas Avila Laurel, one of Equatorial Guinea's best'What could matter more than love?'' The follow-known dissident writers, is an author who deserves up to be read the world over. With The Gurugu Pledge, heexcellent ''Ithaca''s captured picks up a an angry and incredibly urgent slice of few months after where we left off. In the migrant experience – a snapshot palace of the dangers faced 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 those crossing suitors vying for the African continent in search throne of the barbed wire fences at Melilla- Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the Spanish enclave chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the North Eastern tip brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of MoroccoMycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908276940</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Matthew SmithKay Chronister|title= The WakingDesert Creatures|rating= 54|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Isabel SykesWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, 23post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, recounts the recent attempt she made to come to terms with the loss a world devoid of her motherwater or a nuclear holocaust, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykesthis genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Marianne died in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was ten. Inspired ''Desert Creatures'' by the appearance of Imogen Taylor, an enchanting young woman who wants to write Kay Chronister is a PhD on her mother's new work, Isabel plunges into of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the depths of her past and an intense new friendshipfears that exist for humanity today. After discovering It is a shocking novel that Imogen is not who she seems to be, Isabel must face the darkest moments from her childhood in order still manages to protect her family from more tragedy. She receives unexpected help from beyond the grave: in the strange, glittering fragments of her mother's last, unfinished work, 'Midnightsong'find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0995654158</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Ali SmithEric LaRocca|title= AutumnThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There

|genre= Literary FictionHorror|summary= The first part in Ali Smith's four part 'Seasonal' series, Autumn Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is the story of Daniel Gluck and Elisabeth Demand, unexpected friends who used as a way to be neighbours when Elisabeth was a little girlreflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. In Most horror fiction feature a series of memories and dreams''Big Bad'', we discover their friendship from Daniel babysitting Elisabeth through to her visits with him now whether that he is in a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and drawing towards , by the end of his extremely long and fascinating life. Along the waystory, we get beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a wonderfully written insight into time, memoriescollection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and the fleeting nature of life itselfare harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241973317</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicola Pugliese and Shaun Whiteside (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=MalacquaThirst for Salt|rating=35

|summary=We're in Naples'Love, in recent historyI'd read, was supposed to be a light and it's raining. It will in fact rain weightless feeling, but I had always longed for four days solid – and seeing as itgravity's October everyone's dressed for all seasons and expecting  Told from a retrospective view, a bit of greyyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, but this is taking the proverbialnarrator 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. ItSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''s also making details the city rather dangerous – when people report a huge sink24-year-hole appearing in one street itold narrator's soon found that a pair of cars went into deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it, changed her perspective on both romantic and two people have died, familial relationships and more passed on with a whole building collapsing. What's more, some strange noises are coming from an abandoned civic palacehow it altered her irrevocably. Is the city being told something by these strange events, or can a journalist find a logic behind the circumstances?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508067</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Iosi HavilioMichael Grothaus|title= Petite FleurBeautiful Shining People|rating= 4.5

|summary= Every now ''But fearing something and then you read a book that leaves you thinking “well having it come to pass are two different things. And I have no idea 'm willing to bet most of what just happened but we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.'' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I know vowed. I enjoyed it”would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. This It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is how I felt after reading Petite Fleurraised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the fifth novel (perhaps chance to fight in Artemis'long paragraphname and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' would fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be more appropriate) from cult Argentinian writer Iosi Havilioher undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911508040</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tania HershmanAmanthi Harris|title=Some of Us Glow More Than OthersBeautiful Place|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories Literary Fiction|summary=I won't be alone in stating that reading short story collections can be slightly awkwardPadma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. Going through from A-Z, witnessing It is not a bounty of ideas and characters in short order can be too muchplace she was born into, but do you have the right one she thinks of as home. How she came to pick and choose according to what appealsbe at the Villa, how it became her home, and what time you the machinations that have to fill? The sequence has carefully been considered, surely. Such would appear to be flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the case here''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. The last time I read one of this author Padma's collections, with [[The White Road by Tania Hershman|The White Road]], present fails to escape her past and much like the only real difficulty was holding back and rationing them, but here you not only get musical score of a whopping forty pieces of writingfilm, they are also spread into sectionsthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910061484</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Kelman178563335X|title=That Was a Shiver, and Other StoriesSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories Literary Fiction|summary=This is 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 ninth book of short stories by this authorchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, which means hewhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's presented just as many collections of the short form as he has novelsdaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. You will find it hard to think of another author that has been so noted for longer works (what with [[How Late It WasHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, How Late by James Kelman|How Late It Wasis a lovely place, How Late]] winning the Booker) but who Rachel is so generous struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she's in presenting shorter pieces for awe of the time-poorvicar, Gail, or those like me who see the variety in a writerbut then she's short or less typical works to be been doing the job for more interesting places to turnthan thirty years. Opening these pages, from Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the pen of such an esteemed pro, came with no small sense of anticipationbeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786890909</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kate Mildenhall1398515388|title= SkylarkingThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction |summary= Kate and Harriet are best friends growing up together on an isolated Australian cape. As the daughters First of all, it was the lighthouse keepersearthquake, deep in the two girls share everythingocean floor, until a fishermanwhich created the tsunami and this, McPhailin turn, arrives in their small communitycaused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. When Kate witnesses The deaths were uncountable, and the desire loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of envy and longingpriorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. An innocent moment in McPhail He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's hut then occurs comment that threatens he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to tear their peaceful community apartopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079239</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joanna Walsh0989715337|title=Worlds from Papa on the Word's EndMoon|author=Marco North|rating=3.54|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=We here at The Bookbag liked this author's fairly recent collection 'Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of short storiestheir eggs wove around him, [[Vertigo by Joanna Walsh|Vertigo]]sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. I myself missed out, but that seemed to be vignettes from one character's narration – here we get homosexual male narrators Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and a host more, as well as much less barked down at the strange noise of the sadness prevalent beforebuckets as he filled them. Having had a brief encounter with '' How is that for an opening? The style of this author courtesy novel in the form of her entry into the [[Bookshelf (Object Lessons) by Lydia Pyne|Object Lessons]] seriesinterconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, I was intrigued by her name being stamped turning on a selection of shortssixpence. Was it the ideal calling card? Let's face itAnd author Marco North, who has the very short story itself can be a postcard – let's say, from a specific hotel or twomost wonderful turn of phrase, starts as we see herehe means to go on. Perhaps I should have geared myself up, however, for such intricate writing on said postcards – and for the exotic locations from which they came…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911508105</amazonuk>