Changes

|author=Lucy HollandEowyn Ivey|title=SistersongBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=3.5

|summary=Sistersong is part ''Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of a genre I particularly enjoyBirdie, the modern retelling young mother of folk and fairy tales. These storiestoddler Emaleen, who longs for most of usa life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, are a cornerstone setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of childhood and I relish seeing them retold with fresh eyes and Emaleen. Described as a fresh perspective. If handled well these retellings give new ''wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to-day life , and new meaning yearns to stories that are now becoming increasingly narrow cross the Wolverine river and outdated, fleshing out characters, examining relationships and re-evaluating live on the role North Fork to fulfil her desires of womena simple life surrounded by nature. Sistersong is When she meets Arthur Nielson, a perfect example of a modern retelling done wellstrange, the plot is handled with caretaciturn and solitary man, keeping its archaic historical feel but allowing the characters to come to lifewho says he has a cabin over there, she feels called to feel real go - and humanbring Emaleen with her. Without realising it, most importantly they feel relatable in a modern world whilst still feeling appropriate for the pre-Saxon age they live in. This is a masterpiece of storytelling this calling will transform hers and I was captivated from beginning to endEmaleen's lives forever.|isbn=15290390371472279042

|isbnauthor=B002SQCYWQSally Rooney|title=The Complete Barchester ChroniclesIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Anthony TrollopeFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights

|summary=When I told my daughter that I didn't know what to listen to now that I'd finished [[The Complete Novels: Sense This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and Sensibilitytension from the moment our protagonist, Pride and PrejudiceValeria Cossati, Mansfield Parkpurchases her forbidden notebook, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion by Jane Austen|The Complete Novels of Jane Austen]] for the second time on learns about herself in the trot she had the perfect answer: The Barchester Chronicles most intimate and they were in my inbox in a matter of minutes. They're not ''quite'' as well known as the Austen books but they're an excellent follow onrevealing ways.|isbn=1782278222

|isbnauthor=B077K6BQFDOttessa Moshfegh|title=The Complete Novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey My Year of Rest and Persuasion |author=Jane AustenRelaxation|rating=53

|summary=Yes - that's over eighty-one hours At best, this novel is a scathing critique of listening for modern society and reveals the purchase fragility of one audio bookhuman relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. All six major novels are read by conmedienne Alison Larkin This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and they're presented newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the order world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in which they were publishedher hibernation.|isbn=1784707422

|author=Andrea Bajani and Elizabeth Harris (translator)Matthew Tree|title=If You Kept a Record of SinsWe'll Never Know

|summary=This was an incredibly readable novellaTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, but one that left me a little conflicteddrunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. We start as our hero arrives at Bucharest airportSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and before we even know his gender or set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the nature of question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the person heanswer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility''s addressing in his second person monologue is set as the city of a narrationPortland, we see him picked up by his mother's chauffeurOregon, and carted off cautiously begins to do all emerge from the necessary introductions before said mother is buried restrictions imposed during the following day. covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The mother West isn't the dominant force it once was a businesswoman, who clearly left northern Italy and settled . Nobody in Romania with her (night-time and business) partner, and feelings the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of abandonment action. Governments are still strongflailing. And so we flit from current (wellA war here, this came out a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the original Italian strategic advantage in 2007this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, so moderately current) Bucharest, to right? Perhaps the lad's childhoodmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, and see just what he has that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to tell her as a private farewell address.get it back?|isbn=1939810965B0C9SNG8R1

|authorisbn=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)0571379559|title=Kokoschka's DollThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=2.5

|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any story of itfour people. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the middle house on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20riverbank,000sbuilt of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, letters used as narrative formit's stood the passage of time, storms and so onfloods. It intrigued with Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the subterranean voice a man hears delivery rounds - and to bring in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentionedsufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, toothe rainbow twins. But youSonny've seen the star rating s colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that comes with this reviewthey're related, much less twins and can tell there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by themshe's his nanny. So what happened?|isbn=1529402697

|isbnauthor=0571362672Claire North|title=Snow|author=John BanvilleHouse of Odysseus

|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction |summary=''Well, at least you're a Wexford man.What could matter more than love?''

So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced The follow-up to the excellent 'Sinjun') Strafford Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. Osborne was master As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Keelmore Hounds Western Isles. Having survived – politically and had done something memorable with physical – the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk. The niceties had chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to be established even when there was a Catholic priest dead Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the library floor with some precious bits brink of his anatomy missinga fragile peace. Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and this, along One that shatters however with his good-but-shabby suitthe return of Orestes, marked him out as King of Osborne's class Mycenae, and obviously Protestant. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstownhis sister Elektra, who - despite the different religions - was in the habit of spending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled thereseeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075

|author= Tahi SaihateKay Chronister|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonDesert Creatures|rating= 3.54|genre= Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary= We long With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for our past even though humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a place robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to which we can never returncathartically experience their most existential fears. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel ''Astral Season, Beastly SeasonDesert Creatures'' illustrates how these roseby Kay Chronister is a new work of post-tinted glasses often lieapocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. Her 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 meditation on youth way to reflect our darkest emotions and how the things we do 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 teenager can seem intensely important collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and often life-alteringare harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|isbn= 1916277101

|author=Laura Imai MessinaMadelaine Lucas|title=The Phone Box at the End of the WorldThirst for Salt

|summary= In the northeast of Japan, in Inwate Prefecture a man installed a telephone box in his garden. ''Inside there is an old blackLove, telephoneI'd read, disconnectedwas supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, that carries voices into the wind.but I had always longed for gravity'' It is  Told from a real placeretrospective view, a necessary placeyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, and I am pleased the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to see its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the IMPORTANT NOTE that backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the author attaches to 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her storyolder lover, that the place is not a tourist destinationdepicting its all-consuming nature, how it is a sacred place, a place that must be left to those who really need changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how italtered her irrevocably.|isbn=178658039X0861546490

|author=Amin MaaloufMichael Grothaus|title=The DisorientedBeautiful Shining People|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Adam has lived in Paris for years, speaks French more easily than his native Arabic. In fact he hasn't been back 'But fearing something and having it come to his homeland for 25 yearspass are two different things. An old friend is dying…or as Adam prefers And I'm willing to think bet most of him a former-friend, perhaps not as harsh as an ex-friendwhat we fear will never happen, or maybewe can take steps to change it. The falling out was a long time ago, '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and Adam's partner has no idea acceptance. Of what it was about, even so she urges him means to go knowing that he'll regret not doing sobe human. Not knowing Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether he's going because he needs the development of technology is exciting or wants to, or simply because he was asked, he's on the next planefrightening. |isbn=B07ZQSK9CY191458564X

|author=Joanne M HarrisJennifer Saint|title=A Pocketful of CrowsAtalanta

|genre= Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= ''I have always been was as worthy as any one of the mind them. I would get on board that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violenceship, there is no difference between books for children and books for adultsI vowed. There are good books and poor ones. And Joanne Harris does I would take my place, not produce poor onesjust in the name of the goddess. ''A Pocketful It was for the sake of Crowsmy name, too. Atalanta''  Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is clearly aimed at raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the younger readers as witness opportunity comes – to join the use Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the middle initial chance to fight in the authorArtemis's name to differentiate from and carve out her adult offersown legendary place in history. Ignore What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you she marries, it will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy tale. This is no different. It is an utter delightbe her undoing.|isbn=14732221841472292154

|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)Amanthi Harris|title=A Life Without EndBeautiful Place|rating=45

|summary=I looked at Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the calendar Villa Hibiscus on the other week, and disappointedly realised I have southern coast of her home country. This is a birthday this year – I know, yet another oneplace she spent her formative years. It won't be one of the major numbersis not a place she was born into, but the time when I have the same number one she thinks of as Heinz varieties looms on the horizonhome. And then a few of How she came to be at the big 0-numbersVilla, how it became her home, and if all goes well, Ithe machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score''ll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eightythis gentle and yet subtly violent novel.) Now if that Padma's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have present fails to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would escape her past and much like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with musical score of a childfilm, which is that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on goingVilla. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|isbn=16428606701784631930

|authorisbn= Maryse Condé178563335X|title= The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and IvanaSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= We live When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a postPCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six- world: postyear-colonialismold Hannah and her elder brother, post-modernismJamie, post truthwhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. The list goes on. There are numerous works that utilise the prefix post Thelma's daughter- in their categorisation-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, but perhaps none more so than Maryse Condé. In her new novelon the Norfolk coast, ''The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana''is a lovely place, Condé writes but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with fervour about the scars left by colonialism on the countries to which it latched itself. Ivan parish - and Ivana are twins born she's in Guadeloupeawe of the vicar, a French overseas department. They grow up with intense and passionate feelings Gail, but then she's been doing the job for each othermore than thirty years. As they grow up Rachel and move overseas, Christopher hoped that a walk on the ravages of a postbeach would do them some good -colonial society drive them apart with tragic consequencesit was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|isbn=1642860697

|authorisbn= Ukamaka Olisakwe1398515388|title= Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All RightThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= The new novel by Ukamaka Olisakwe is a look at First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the trauma tsunami and heartache of being a woman this, in 1980s Nigeriaturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The title is ''Ogadinma Orresult was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, Everything Will Be All Right''. Ogadinma is and the eponymous heroine loss of the storylivelihoods was widespread.. We are with her in every scene and it is her narrative voice The fact that leads many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the story, although Olisakwe writes in third persontsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. This provides He wasn't a sense of detachment for dog person but the reader and highlights the isolation of Ogadinma. She is exiled from her fatherconvenience store owner's home and sent to Lagos where she is married comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to an older man named Tobe. Their marriage descends into violence open his car door and indignities and Ogadinma must utilise her resourcefulness to escapeTamon the dog jumped in.|isbn=1911648160

|authorisbn=Elliot Reed0989715337|title=A Key to Treehouse LivingPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=This is ''Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-deep in the story fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of a young boytheir eggs wove around him, William Tyce, who is being raised by his uncle after sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the death strange noise of his mother and his fatherthe buckets as he filled them.'s abandonment. However, it isn't told  How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the usual narrative wayform of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. InsteadAnd author Marco North, who has the book is made up most wonderful turn of glossary entries, written by Williamphrase, starts as a way of describing certain events, situations and emotions. It runs alphabetically, starting with ABSENCE, then moving he means to ALPHABETICAL ORDER. As I began to read I did find myself thinking 'what go on earth?!' but I soon grew used to the style, and was instead caught up in William's story.|isbn=1911545418

|author= Karina Sainz Borgo and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)Daisy Hildyard|title= It Would Be Night in CaracasEmergency|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= The summary of this book doesn''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates t come close to explaining what is done with the everyday horrors premise.|isbn=1913097811}}  {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of modern day VenezuelaLoss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. It begins with Traumatised after the death of Adelaida Falcon's mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming her sister, she awakes to terms with find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her new solitude spine which steadily increase in this world size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her attempts grief, recommends she go to escape itstay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Danger stalks Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the shadows other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and, in pain—but only at a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn=0062936867086154112X

|isbnauthor=1471186393Natalia Garcia Freire|title=Photographer of the Lost|author=Caroline ScottThis World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=May 1921Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. Edie receives a photograph through I will agree with the post. There first – tremendous is no letter or note understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar with it. There is nothing written on the back I have to confess my ignorance of the photographSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. It is a picture of her husbandFrom the little I have read (in translation, Francis. Francis has been missing for four years. Technically, he has been "missing, believed killed" but that is not something that I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a young widow can believe. She hangs on tendency towards the word 'missing', disbelieving fantastical – the word killedmystical realism.|isbn=0861541901

|isbnauthor=1509896465Jennifer Saint|title=The Nightjar|author=Deborah HewittElektra|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary='Elektra'The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting by Jennifer Saint tells the story. Alice Wyndham lives a normal life of three women who live in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins to unravel, fastthe heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magicCassandra, lossClytemnestra, expectation and particularly, betrayalElektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. As everything around her shifts, all Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that she knows, all that she thinks she knows, must changeoften the silent women have the most compelling stories and the most extreme furies. Who can she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself?|isbn=1472273915

|isbn=08570587388409290103|title=EquatorIf Only|author=Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)Matthew Tree|rating=34.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme park. Our agent to see how bad it was here is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of the white man against Native 'Indian', who spends days being physically sick while indulging in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelid. But this book is about so much more than the 1870s USA, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this book's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1526614960|title=The Dutch House|author=Ann Patchett|rating=5

|summary=When we first meet Danny and Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his elder sisteraccountant, Maeve ConroyMr Patrick, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of to ensure that the former owners whose oil paintings still hang young man got on board the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant boat and the closest Danny seems to come thereafter Patrick was to send him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family ownsmonthly allowance. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until Patrick sent the point comes when money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the children are told two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that she will not be returning. In other circumstancesLowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might have affected Maeve be a danger to his wife and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each otherchildren. It's a bond which only death will breakThe alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.

|isbn=0954899520B098FFFBH9|title=A Winter BookSnowcub|author=Tove JanssonGraham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=Tove JanssonFourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's worldwide fame lasts on animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the Moomin books, written way in which human beings exploit the 1940s and later becoming television characters animal world. She gets a great deal of the simplicitysupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, naivety mother Kate and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbiesher twin, Nick. Simple drawings Kate runs the family business, simple storiesa toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, simple goodness. What which is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of how the world might beinformation: five soft toys.