Changes

|isbn=8409290103295967572X|title=If OnlyPale Pieces|author=Matthew TreeG 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

|summary=TwentyIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise -onea hard-yearto-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his fathercareer and his relationship, cotton-broker AO Lowryembodies 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 asked 's considering, Helen represents a volta in his accountant, Mr Patricklife, her past tied to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowancehis potential fresh start. Patrick sent The realtor who shows the money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between protagonist around the two although we hear more house shares stories about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasnHelen, and describes her as ''t an entity that Lowry senior didnis pure consciousness, beyond form't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him . Although she lives in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the young man on his waysense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205

|author=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)Olga Tokarczuk|title=Red is My HeartHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read ''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in my house. And so was it?'' The title of this onespellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', although I could have spelled that more accurately – somewhat reflects this one wasnotion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, and ishowever quotidian, black and white and redcausing chaos. YesBut, he has an artistic collaborator on this piecethe constant in that image is the house, and I think stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideasis perceived.|isbn=19135471831804271918

|isbnauthor=B098FFFBH9Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Snowcub|author=Graham FulbrightThe Tower|rating=4.5

|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend 'How unctuous are producing a competition entry to highlight the way fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in which human beings exploit our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the animal worldprotagonist of this tale. She gets Just as T's story is being told, the story of a great deal second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of support from her a wealthy family: father Pip Harrisonin the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a lecturer at Imperial Collegetower, Londoncaptures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, mother Kate and her twinabove all, Nickan enticing story to T. Kate runs the family businessIt is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a toy shop called Cornucopia quest for truth and knowledge, and in Putneyservice of myth, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toysfable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799

|author=Yancey WilliamsJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Crosshairs of the DevilVaim|rating=4.5

|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point 'All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of view - otherworldliness which permeates this story set in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing homeVaim, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-fictional fishing village in-trade of writing though, so here, Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for his readersJatgeir and Eline, are his wanderings through his life's worktwo of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=09860316581804271829}}

|isbnauthor=0008421714Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoBig Kiss, Bye-Bye

|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it Everything in this book, however sweet or had already done soseemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morningEven a kiss, Patricia askedusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, as she was wrapping becomes evidence of love lost. When the breadnarrator cries out internally, ''but isncome over here and kiss me,'t this the first time he's based it is less an invitation than a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'desperate attempt to confirm her mannerisms''emotional numbness. Perhaps The imagined recipient of this would not have matteredplea is Xavier, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes her ex- ''partner, a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchghost she conjures to test her detachment.''|isbn=1804271934

|isbnauthor=B005FM76AAHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Duke's Children|author=Anthony TrollopeLili is Crying

|summary=The story opens to probably the worst news of all: Lady Glencora Palliser First published in 1953 in French, this novel is dead. Her husband, Plantagenet Palliser, a timeless text which wrenches the Duke hearts of Omnium, is nearly paralysed by grief its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and struggling - at sentences from their proper position on the same time - to adjust to no longer being prime minister, or even in office. He seeks to protect page and guide his three adult children, which is easier said than done when none of positions them wishes to ''be'' guided. Silverbridge (his elder sonelsewhere, actually called Plantagenet, but always known by his title) and Gerald are destined to be sent down from Oxford and Cambridge respectively and to run up gambling debtsdisjointed, occasionally in eye-watering sumstruncated. Lady Helen has fallen in love with - and wishes to marry - Frank Tregear, Like the penniless son lives of a poor squireher characters, which the Duke cannot countenance, not least because he sees echos of what might have happened when he married Lady Glencora. He's about to learn that parents do not always get their waythey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675

|isbnauthor=B004O37B6AJonathan Buckley|title=The Prime Minister|author=Anthony TrollopeOne Boat

|summary=Plantagenet Palliser''One Boat'' is a deeply introspective novella that defies traditional narrative structure, drawing the Duke reader into a contemplative realm of Omniumphilosophical musings and fragmented memories flowing from our narrator and protagonist, is Teresa. Set against the prime minister evocative backdrop of a coalition government but he's privately enraged at 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 seemingly unstoppable rise death of Ferdinand Lopezboth her parents. Lopex Prompted by her mourning, her narrative voice is exotic meditative and deeply self- some describe him as Jewishaware, others as Portuguese but inviting the truth reader into her labyrinthine cogitations. It is a book that no one knows and Lopez is not going to explain. The ladies only requires but inspires depth of society, even Palliser's own wifethought, Lady Glencora, are supporters but after Lopez makes an advantageous marriage Palliser since its narrative structure is placed in the position of having to support his wife's actions when Lopez loses a by-election. The Duke's payment of Lopez' election expenses in an attempt to stem gossip about his wife will come back to haunt himfragmentary and ironically relies on analepsis for its propulsion.|isbn=1804271764

|isbnauthor=B00474HVX4Eowyn Ivey|title=Phineas Redux|author=Anthony TrollopeBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5

|summary=It's some time since we heard from [[Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope|Phineas Finn]]. Having succeeded in parliament and achieved 'Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a paying position he fell out with those who provided his income and returned to Ireland life beyond the Alaskan lodge where he married Maryshe works as a bar waitress, his childhood sweethearta setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. He was fortunate to get Described as a job ''wild card'', she feels stuck in Cork (or Dublin her day-to- recollections may vary) day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and seemed settled into live on the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a simple life of domesticitysurrounded by nature. To bring Finn backWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, a strange, taciturn and solitary man, who says he has a cabin over there, Trollope had she feels called to kill off poor Mary go - and Phineas emerges in London as a childless widower bring Emaleen with a legacy from an aunt who died at just the right time to allow the move to be possibleher. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|isbn=1472279042

|author=Jessie GreengrassSally Rooney|title=The High HouseIntermezzo

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Charles Darwin taught that all living matter evolved to pass on its genetic material with Sally Rooney has studied the implied belief that your progeny will then pass on theirs. However, that train chessboard of thought life and is slowly seems to have fallen out something of favoura grandmaster at putting it into words. Today's young generation are discovering that their parents Her dialogue is gripping and their parents' parents did not seem so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to think that far ahead. Or they did think that far ahead unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and thought "it's not my problem" or "there's nothing I can do"Peter Koubek. Raising Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a child and successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a world on long battle with cancer, the precipice of catastrophe is what drives brothers''The High House'' by Jessie Greengrass. This is not a science-fiction novel. This is our reality. This is the life our children and their children will have to livealready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=18007500720571365469

|author=Charlie CarrollFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=The LipWhite Nights

|summary=''Melody Janie Rowe'' even the name is evocative of…probably This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of whatever we want it to be, suspense and maybe that's tension from the point. To me the name sings of English folk musicmoment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, but even and learns about herself in my use of that word English, I know I'm putting an emmet take on things. And Melody Janie Rowe is anti-emmetthe most intimate and revealing ways. |isbn=15293341791782278222

|isbnauthor=B003UH99X4Ottessa Moshfegh|title=The Eustace Diamonds|author=Anthony TrollopeMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=53

|summary=It was generally thought that Sir Florian Eustace had come to regret his marriage but he didn't live long enough for At best, this to become novel is a problem. After his deathscathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, his wifeit is the cynical, Lizzie - still only in her late teens - was in possession predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a very valuable diamond necklace slim, attractive and was determined that she would not hand it over to newly orphaned girl in her husband's executors. She was adamant that Sir Florian had given it to her absolutelytwenties is disillusioned with the world, although the precise circumstances of the giving varied from telling to telling. Lady Eustace was but resolves not a woman to whom truth meant a great deal. All that was important to her now, she maintainedlose sleep over it: in fact, was her son. And, of course, solution lies in her diamondshibernation.|isbn=1784707422

|isbnauthor=B003L7TDMUMatthew Tree|title=Phineas Finn|author=Anthony TrollopeWe'll Never Know

|summary=Phineas Finn is the son of Dr Malachi Finn, a successful doctor in Killaloe in County Clare, who sent his son to London to train as a lawyer. Phineas's interest is Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more in making influential friends than in becoming to be different from his father, a lawyer drunk and one chronic underachiever whose dreams of them, Barrington Erle, suggests that he runs for Parliament in the forthcoming election. His father is not entirely in favour being exceptional at any of this as members are not remunerated his artistic passions all failed miserably and it would be up who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to him to provide financial support for his son as well as funding studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his election. One of the doctor's patients is Lord Tulla who controls the borough of Loughshane daydreams and by this stroke of luck Finn is, eventually, elected by a small marginset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|isbn=B003A6W0FOB0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Can You Forgive Heryou make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke?And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Anthony TrollopeMosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5

|summary=On The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the surface ''Can You Forgive Her?'' looks deceptively simple: West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it's is the story best course of one woman and two men who action. Governments are vying with each other flailing. A war here, a push for her loveclimate action there. Alice Vavasor was originally engaged to her cousin, George Vavasor but she broke off A feeling that engagement and later became engaged to John Greynobody is in actual charge. When we first meet Alice she's on an extended tour of the continent Imagine then, there was a man with George Vavasor and his sister Kateprecognition. It's obvious that there's still a great deal of chemistry between John and Alice - and Kate is all for encouraging Imagine the relationship as it would tie Alice to her. George wants Alice but it's strategic advantage in this asset; a matter of ''amour propre'' rather than love: he has little consideration for anyone other than himself and the original engagement had fallen through because man who can tell you what will happen given any set of his infidelity and deceitfulnesscircumstances. This thread is That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the story of a very complicated love affair and a woman who lacks confidence most valuable asset in her own judgementhistory. You might not like Alice Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to start with but you will warm to her.get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1

|authorisbn=Lucy Holland0571379559|title=SistersongThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams

|summary=Sistersong ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is part the story of a genre I particularly enjoyfour people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the modern retelling riverbank, built of folk and fairy talesbroken bricks. These stories Insubstantial as it might look, for most it's stood the passage of ustime, are a cornerstone of childhood storms and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and a fresh perspectivefloods. If handled well these retellings give new life Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and new meaning to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and outdatedMax, fleshing out charactersthe rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, examining relationships much less twins and rethere'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?'' The follow-evaluating up to the role of womenexcellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. Sistersong is a perfect example In the palace of a modern retelling done wellOdysseus, the plot is handled with delicate careQueen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing 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 characters chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to come to lifeIthaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, to feel real and humanhis sister Elektra, most importantly they feel relatable in seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for the prehumanity, post-Saxon age they live inapocalyptic 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. This ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a masterpiece new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of storytelling and I was captivated from beginning the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to endfind hope.|isbn=15290390371803364998}}{{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''.

|isbnauthor=B002SQCYWQMadelaine Lucas|title=The Complete Barchester Chronicles|author=Anthony TrollopeThirst for Salt

|summary=When I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that 'Love, I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibilityread, Pride was supposed to be a light and Prejudiceweightless feeling, Mansfield Parkbut I had always longed for gravity'' Told from a retrospective view, Emmaa young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] for the second time on narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the trot she had summer after. Set against the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles and they were in my inbox in a matter backdrop of minutes. Theyan isolated Australian coastal town 're not ''quiteThirst for Salt'' as well known as details the Austen books but they24-year-old narrator're an excellent follow s deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective onboth romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490

|isbnauthor=B077K6BQFDMichael Grothaus|title=The Complete Novels: Sense Beautiful Shining People|rating=4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= ''But fearing something and Sensibilityhaving it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, Pride 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 Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emmawhat is artificial, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage|author=Jane AustenJennifer Saint|title=Atalanta

|summary=Yes - that's over eighty-'I was as worthy as any one hours of listening 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. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the purchase protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one audio bookwho longs for adventure. All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name and theycarve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis're presented in the order in which they were publishedfatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|isbn=1472292154

|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Amanthi Harris (translator)|title=If You Kept a Record of SinsBeautiful Place|rating=4.5

|summary=This was an incredibly readable novellaPadma, but one that left me a little conflicted. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airportyoung Sri Lankan, and before we even know his gender or has returned to the nature of Villa Hibiscus on the person he's addressing in his second person monologue southern coast of her home country. This is a narration, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeur, and carted off to do all the necessary introductions before said mother place she spent her formative years. It is buried the following day. The mother not a place she was a businesswomanborn into, who clearly left northern Italy and settled in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings but the one she thinks of abandonment are still strongas home. And so we flit from current (well, this How she came out in to be at the original Italian in 2007Villa, so moderately current) Bucharesthow it became her home, to and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the lad''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's childhood, and see just what he has present fails to tell escape her as past and much like the musical score of a private farewell addressfilm, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=19398109651784631930

|authorisbn=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)178563335X|title=Kokoschka's DollSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=2.5

|summary=WellWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, this looked very much like sitting in on a book I could love from PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the getchildren up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-goold Hannah and her elder brother, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of itJamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section Thelma's daughter-in -law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the middle on darker stock paperNorfolk coast, is a chapter whose number was in the 20lovely place,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the subterranean voice a man hears parish - and she's in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew awe of it mentionedthe vicar, Gail, toobut then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, Rachel and can tell Christopher hoped that if love a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was on these pages, stormy but it was not actually caused by themprobably what they needed. So what happened?|isbn=1529402697And then Hannah went missing.

|isbn=05713626721398515388|title=SnowThe Boy and the Dog|author=John BanvilleSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=''WellFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, at least you're and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a Wexford manconvenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.}}

|authorisbn= Tahi Saihate0989715337|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating= 3.54|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We long for our past even though it is a place to which we can never return''Some frogs had gotten into the well. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel ''Astral Season, Beastly Season '' illustrates how these roseWalter stood waist-tinted glasses often liedeep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Her Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the strange noise of the buckets as he filled them.'' How is that for an opening? The style of this novel is in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a meditation on youth and how sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the things we do most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as a teenager can seem intensely important and often life-alteringhe means to go on.|isbn= 1916277101