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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 -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|title=Helen of Nowhere|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - Remove 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: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to his potential fresh start. The 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=5|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?''

{|classThe title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities -"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->Ia Pendilly the small, subtle changes which govern our lives in a caravan on , like the coast of Cornwall – a woman as raw as the landscape that surrounds her. Living with Branshift from day to night, her abusive cousin and common law husbandhowever quotidian, she's never yet had her own babycausing chaos. Discovering a waif washed up on shoreBut, Ia rescues the girl but constant in that image is also rescued by the girl – given a new found strength to escape and to embark on a new journeyhouse, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived. |isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|author=Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The journey takes her deep into a troubled society and through a damaged, hurting world – finding family and memories long hidden will break Ia, remake her and perhaps give her Tower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the elusive sense fats of freedom sheanother's been seekinglife, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.

<!In 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: Annie, 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. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=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- Bonnefoy 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| stylesummary="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless textwhich 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}}{{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-align: center;"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[[image:1910477524|rating=3.jpg5|genre=Literary Fiction|linksummary=http://www''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a 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.amazonWhen 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.coWithout realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.uk/dp/1910477524/ref|isbn=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]1472279042}}

''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods| styletitle="vertical-align: topA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the 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 action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; text-align: left;"a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=[[Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy ''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 house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and Emily Boyce (translator)]]to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow 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 there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=''What could matter more than love?''

[[image:4starThe follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off.jpgIn 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.|linkisbn=Category: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 Trees 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''.}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''

Miguel Bonnefoy's ''Black Sugar'' is Told from a retrospective view, a sensual epic chronicling three generations of young woman unravels the Otero familyyear-long relationship that once defined her. The tale begins Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the disappearance of Captain Henry Morgan's treasure and then illustrates affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the power this treasure holds over peoplesummer after. Multiple people become obsessed with finding this fabled treasure that has become Set against the backdrop of an urban legend in the isolated Australian coastal town in which ''Thirst for Salt'' details the story is set24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. [[Black Sugar by Miguel Bonnefoy |isbn=0861546490}}{{Frontpage|author= Michael Grothaus|title=Beautiful Shining People|rating=4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= ''But fearing something and Emily Boyce (translator)|Full Review]]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.''

<!-- Ruby -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1455565180''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance.jpg|link=http://wwwOf what it means to be human.amazonOf what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.co.uk/dp/1455565180/ref|isbn=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]191458564X}}{{Frontpage| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating===[[The Zero and the One by Ryan Ruby]]===5 [[image:4star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary=''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''

''The Zero and the One'' is an incredibly well written and well crafted bookPrincess. We meet our narrator, Owen, on the plane to New York for the funeral of his best friendWarrior. He is still reeling after recent events, a suicide pact in which his friend died but he lived, and he is going through the motions of the funeral and consoling family whilst still trying to get to grips with his own feelings of grief and guiltLover. So far, so simpleHero. But this is where the talent of Ryan Ruby steps in and slowly, so slowly, he reveals little tantalising clues that all is not what it seems, a throw-away comment here, a mis-step there, and it becomes clear that Owen is not a reliable narrator. [[The Zero and the One by Ryan Ruby|Full Review]]

<!-- Miles -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0553447580.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0553447580/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Look closely Abandoned at the cover of Jonathan Miles's third novel and you'll see the central drama depicted: white wheelchair tracks snake up from the bottom and stop three-quarters of the way from the top, where they are replaced by footprints. On 23 August 2014, wheelchair-bound veteran Cameron Harris stands up and walks outside the Biz-E-Bee convenience store in Biloxi, Mississippi. In the rest of the novel we find out how he got to this point and what others – ranging from his doctor to representatives of the Roman Catholic Church – will make of his recovery. Was it birth for being born a miracle, or an explainable medical phenomenon? [[Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles|Full Review]] <!-- Mcneil -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mcneil Fire.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785078992/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Fire on the Mountain by Jean McNeil]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is an unusual book, in style it feels like daughter rather than a novel by E M Forster; with a deep study at the minutiae of life and thoughtson, yet the plot and content Atalanta is thoroughly modern. The bulk of raised under the story is told through the perspective of Nick, and we see his point of view on life around him. The main characters protective eye of the book, however, are Pieter goddess Athemis and Riaanfashioned into a formidable huntress, as it is these characters who fascinate Nick and are the focus of his contemplation and crisis. [[Fire on the Mountain by Jean McNeil|Full Review]] <!-- Morrall -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Morrall_Last.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/ISBN/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Down in hidden railway carriages, deep behind foliage and further down Long Meadow Road than most care to go, live the Greenwood Brothers. They haven't spoken to each other in years, but one morning a letter arrives on their doorstep - a letter from a sister long thought dead...As the brothers are forced to confront painful memories of a past that both tried to keep buried, the post-woman who delivered the letter struggles with secrets of her ownlongs for adventure... [[The Last of When the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall|Full Review]] <!-- Rawi -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Rawi_Baghdad.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786073226/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] ''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 opportunity comes – to join the central narrative. RawiArgonauts, it would seem, has a problem with telling a story. [[The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi|Full Review]] <!-- Clements -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Clements_Coffin.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1472204271/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary 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 the moor top, the villagers only speak fierce band of it in hushed tones - of how it's a foreboding place filled with evil. Mercy Booth has lived there since birthwarriors, and she's always loved the grand house and its isolation, but a recurrence of strange events begins to unsettle her. From objects disappearing through to a shadowy presence sensed in the house, mysteries come 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 descendent from her grasp? [[The Coffin Path by Katherine Clements|Full Review]] <!-- Durrenmatt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[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]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Execution of Justice by Friedrich Durrenmatt and John E Woods (translator)]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] It's 1957, 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' restaurants, and point blank shot a professor everyone there must have known, and ferried a British companion to the airport in his chauffeur-driven Rolls before handing himself in to face the murder rap. Of course he's found guilty, even if the gun involved has managed to disappear. He's certainly of much interest, not only to our narrator, a young lawyer called Spaet Gods themselves – even if he rarely gets to frequent such establishments with such people, he is eager to know more, especially once he is actually tasked by Atalanta seizes the man in hand chance to look into things a second time. 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]] <!-- Cercas -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Cercas_Impostor.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0857056506?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0857056506]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Impostor by Javier Cercas and Frank Wynne (translator)]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Enric Marco is without doubt an extraordinary man. A veteran of the Spanish Civil War, honoured for his bravery on the battlefield. A political prisoner of two fascist regimes. A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. A prominent figure fight in the clandestine resistance against FrancoArtemis's tyranny. A tireless warrior for social justice name and the defence of human rights. A national hero. But the most extraordinary thing about Enric Marco is this: that he is really none of these things. He is an impostor. And Javier Cercas sets carve 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]] <!-- Badoe -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Badoe_Jigsaw.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786695480?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1786695480]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Teens|Teens]] Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of 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, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante is to tell their story and her own. [[A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe|Full Review]] <!-- Batalha -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[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&creativeASIN=178607298X]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] On 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 dote, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever want, isn't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside her for something more, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projects, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry legendary place in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenorhistory. He wants What follows is a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house and her family. [[The Invisible Life whirlwind of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha challenges and Eric M B Becker (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Hodgkinson -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hodgkinson_Dark.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273824/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat discovery and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] A compilation like this should be nigh on brilliant. It's not one author's best short works, through it's that of a dozen. It's not from one snapshot in time, as some were written the year of publication and some in the 1960s. ItAtalanta must remember Artemis's not from one tiny patch of author's desk or one set of laptop keys, but from the entire Nordic world, whether that be urban Scandinavia, the Faroes and other island groups, or Greenland. That is a world that's changing – as the Greenland-born author now living in Brooklyn, and the Iraqi blood on these pages, 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 end, and with the influence of centuries of folklore featured, a lot more than that changes – sometimes it seems to be even the characters' species… [[The Dark-Blue Winter Overcoat and other stories from the North by Sjon Hodgkinson and Ten Hodgkinson (editors)|Full Review]] <!-- Hesselholdt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Hesselholdt_Companions.jpg|link=httpfatal warning://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1910695335/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)]]=== [[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''Companions'' is written as a series of monologues, where six middle-aged friends take it in turns to narrate scenes from their lives, charting the intimate details of their holidays, dinner parties, families, marriages, affairs and work lives in a style that mixes honesty and openness with fantasy and evasion. 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 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 way, there is heartbreak and grief, but this is always offset by an abundance of humour and a writing style that never fails to be refreshingly light-hearted. [[Companions by Christina Hesselholdt and Paul Russell Garrett (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->|} {{newreview|author= David Bergen|title= Stranger|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary=''Stranger'' tells the story of Íso, a young Guatemalan woman, and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him to return to the States, if she is left pregnant and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter is abductedmarries, and taken to live with 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 it will go to in order to save be her childundoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715652419</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Clar Ni ChonghaileAmanthi Harris|title= Rain Falls On EveryoneBeautiful Place|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= It's Padma, a cliché that young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the Irish have a picturesque turn southern coast of phrase, but clichés only exist because they're trueher home country. Roddy Doyle put it differently in This is a recent interview with ''Writing'' magazine, when he said that ''With Irish, there's another language bubbling under the English''place she spent her formative years. However you express it, that art of expression It is woven not a place she was born into every other line , but the one she thinks of Clár's proseas home. Pick a page How she came to be at random the Villa, how it became her home, and you'll find something like ''the sickness machinations that had come to roost in have flowed through her home like a cursed owllife ever since she first arrived there provide the '' or score''like he was God, Jesus for this gentle and Justin Timberlake rolled into one'' or 'yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a low sobbingfilm, slow and inevitable as rain on a Sunday'': expressions that catch your smile unawares, or tear strand weaves its way through everything that happens at your heart in their mundane sadness. Or sometimes boththe Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079018</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hesene Mete 178563335X|title=Sinful WordsSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=45

|summary=When we first meet himRachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, Behram is a student at the school of theology. He loves God with sitting in on a passion PCC meeting and has a determination to live a life dedicated 'wondering why they're held when you need to'' God and to live by His rulespick the children up. He rents a property from Lulu Khan Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and his wifeher elder brother, Jamie, Lady Geshtina and Khan invites Behram to his own home for whilst Rachel holds a visitsobbing parishioner. ItThelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a delightful lovely place and the wealth of the couple , but Rachel is obvious as is their standing within struggling to develop a real bond with the local community: Lady Geshtinaparish - and she's late father is buried in what amounts to a mausoleumawe of the vicar, Gail, but itthen she's not all this which enchants Behrambeen doing the job for more than thirty years. The couple have twin children Rachel and Behram is taken, enthralled by Christopher hoped that a walk on the daughter, Naginabeach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524682527</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Juan-Tomas Avila Laurel1398515388|title= The Gurugu PledgeBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= Juan Tomas Avila LaurelFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, one of Equatorial Guinea's best-known dissident writerswhich created the tsunami and this, in turn, is an author who deserves to be read caused the world overnuclear meltdown. With The Gurugu Pledgeresult was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, he's captured a an angry and incredibly urgent slice of the migrant experience – a snapshot loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the dangers faced by those crossing the African continent in search list of priorities but - six months after the barbed wire fences at Melillatsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the Spanish enclave on convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the North Eastern tip of Moroccodog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276940</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Matthew Smith0989715337|title= The WakingPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating= 54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Isabel Sykes, 23, recounts ''Some frogs had gotten into the recent attempt she made to come to terms with well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the loss of her motherfragrant water, the acclaimed but psychologically disturbed novelist Marianne Sykesnaked except for his beaten leather hat. Marianne died in an unexplained house fire when Isabel was ten. Inspired by the appearance Long strands of Imogen Taylortheir eggs wove around him, an enchanting young woman who wants to write a PhD on her mother's work, Isabel plunges into the depths sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of her past and an intense new friendship. After discovering that Imogen is not who she seems to be, Isabel must face the darkest moments from her childhood in order to protect her family from more tragedy. She receives unexpected help from beyond dogs leaned over the grave: in opening and barked down at the strange, glittering fragments noise of her mother's last, unfinished work, the buckets as he filled them.'Midnightsong'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0995654158</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ali Smith|title= Autumn|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= How is that for an opening? The first part style of this novel in Ali Smith's four part 'Seasonal' series, Autumn is the story form of Daniel Gluck interconnected short stories goes from succinct and Elisabeth Demand, unexpected friends who used laconic to be neighbours when Elisabeth was a little girl. In a series of memories wistful and dreamsmusing, we discover their friendship from Daniel babysitting Elisabeth through to her visits with him now that he is in turning on a home and drawing towards the end of his extremely long and fascinating lifesixpence. Along the wayAnd author Marco North, we get a wonderfully written insight into time, memories, and who has the fleeting nature most wonderful turn of life itselfphrase, starts as he means to go on. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241973317</amazonuk>