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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Khaled Hosseini1739526910|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A confession. If there's one book Where I'm not likely to read, it's that which everyone else is reading. If it turns into a hugely popular film for all the left-wing chattering classes to rave over, then that's just more grist to my mill – I'll always have a chance to catch up on it later on, even if I never take that opportunity. I'm not alone in acting like this – see a friend and colleague's similar admission when reviewing [[White Teeth by Zadie Smith]]. But at least, through the medium of the graphic novel, the book reviewing gods have conspired to let me see just what I'm missing, with this adaptation, by Italian artists, of a hugely successful – and therefore delayable – novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408815257</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewve Not Been Lost|author=Jennifer Haigh|title=FaithGlen Sibley
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As a ''New York Times BestsellerOne year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley'' I was expecting great things from this book; coupled with the fact that I really enjoy American fictions life, I was itching he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to get readingrecover. The story is told from the perspective of SheilaLiving with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, sister to Mike and half-sister to Arthur (he's normally called Art). Art is the priest and who is at the centre dreams of the storm. We go back in time and discover a rather pious woman who reconnecting with everything he has had a hard start to married lifelost. She's now left to bring up her young sonBut as those tentative plans falter, Art, on her own. But things pick he becomes swept up pretty quickly from here and as an attractive woman it's not long before she meets someone else. Two more children are born and they all settle down into in a normallocal world of unlikely friendships, American family unitmobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007225091</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonJenny Lecoat|title=Lord of MisruleBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=West Virginia, 1970Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. WeDuring the war, Jean're at s father was arrested for listening to a rundown race trackbanned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the dusty kind rundown horses British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race to interrupt the boredomhopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Into things comes But will the truth come as a young upstart hoping to surprise all with his four unknown quantities and make a packet before fleeing. His girlfriend is here too to help outrelief, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen or will it all before. raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Also in Who was the background are some small-time gangsters informer who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing told the Nazis about the radio? And what and how races are going to be run and won.other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithOnyi Nwabineli|title=Unusual Uses for Olive Oil: A Von Igelfeld NovelAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Following Anuri spent her childhood on from display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia''The 2½ Pillars s increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of WisdomAnuri'' which was a compilation of three shorter volumess childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, this book sees Professor Dr Von Igelfeld still dealing with his academic colleagues but also with suing her step-mother to take down the prospect of a love interestcontent about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, a recently widowed ladyundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, Frau Benzshe is desperately worried about her little sister, who has inherited is the large Schloss in Regensburgnew focus of Ophelia's online empire. Is love in Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the air? Or will his arch rival, Unterholzer interfere once againsame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316027545</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Duffy1529153298|title=The Generation GameList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Do you remember It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'The Generation Games not what's worrying Miv' TV shows family, with old Brucie and then Larry Grayson managing the mayhem? though. Where were you when Charles and Di got married? Women have been disappearing. What about when Diana died? Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. ThereMiv's upset because she's plenty of reminiscing overheard that her father wants to be done in this book as Sophie Duffy takes us from move the 1960family 's to 2006 through Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the life of move would mean leaving her characterbest friend, PhilippaSharon, in a book and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that fleets from funny, heartwarming moments her Mum's stopped talking - to real sadnessanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908248017</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Larry Pontius1035906708|title=Future KingDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's the near future and King Charles III has ascended the throne We tend to think of the United Kingdom with Camilla Maria Callas as his Queen Consort. The country is Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in a mess with rampant inflationManhattan, unemploymentNew York, a crumbling infrastructure in December 1923 and riots: the people have taken only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to calling this time 'Callas'The Troubles''. Such situations breed power-hungry politicians and Prime Minister Alistair Saxon has plans to become the dictator of make it more manageable in the countryStates. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the King refuses to give his assent to the Emergency Powers ActNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Saxon and his fellow-conspirators kidnap the Royal family to prevent Charles speaking against the EPAJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1463766297</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kirsten TranterAlexander McCall Smith|title=The LegacyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This The Perfect Passion Company is quite a chunky book so Tranter dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has given herself plenty of space asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and time look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to build up get away for a nice level of suspense here as well as putting some flesh on the bones of her central characterswhile. The book opens - towards the end Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the storychance to come home to Edinburgh. So And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we have firmalready love, but platonic friends, Julia thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Ralph both very concerned about their mutual friendthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, Ingridbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. She supposedly died on 9/11 Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- making, but with no remainsNess has full confidence in her abilities, no burial, their grief hasnand there't an outlet. They need s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to quote that much used word) closure.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857380621</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe SimpsonDean Koontz|title=The Sound of GravityBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Patrick Benny is climbing in the Alps with having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his girlfriendhouse gets trashed. They are taking an unusual Oh, and difficult ascentsomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it 's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is wintera nice person. A storm blows up. Whilst they are camping overnight, Patrick's girlfriend loses her footingreally nice person. He manages So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to catch her handhis house is a new friend, and then she slips through his fingers and falls into a chasmbad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. The novel details the days and hours in the run-up Spike is going to this tragedytake care of Benny, and the aftermathwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, both immediate and long termHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224072641</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin WilsonKatherine Howe|title=The Family FangA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back Hannah Masury is living at home in Boston, having been sent to live with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be againa family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. But it has come When she hears there is to this - her film actress career is on the rocks with be a hanging of some pirates in the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writerstown, she decides to go and he - wellwatch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, heHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's here because death at the hands of a jumbo spud guntwo vicious pirates. Neither want life back at homeShe hides away, as throughout their childhood so that they were used by their parents - without much planningdon't find and kill her too, without any consideration of feelingsand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, or consent - dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a whole career of performance art piecesmutiny on board, designed to enact a point and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life or just cause havocon the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Roth1471180158|title=NemesisMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky CantorJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping who's a control freak with all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forcessubtlety of a half brick. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at handJamie's son, if it were coolerBo, and if there were no polio epidemic happening'has his problems'. But there isHe's asthmatic and the more you read, and nobody knows what is causing itthe more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Is it flies? Is it Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to neighbourhood? school. Is it blacks, germs Missed shifts or the need to be away on money - is it time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under wrong. It was going to come to a blistering sun?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>head.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nina BellB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Empty Nesters|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=With their children all off to university (most from the same school year, plus an erroneous one who took a handy-for-the-sake-of-the-story gap year), it's all change for the parents in this book – for Clover and George, and Laura and Tim, and Alice. Though some of the fathers are present, as you'd expect this is a tale told mainly from the eyes of the mothers. Clover and Laura have been friends forever, while Clover and Alice's relationship is more recent. As for Laura and Alice, well they really don't get on, making life a little tricky at times for Clover, stuck somewhere in the middle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751543667</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author=Susan Hill|title=The Shadows in the StreetJeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover graphics leave Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the reader in no doubt that this strange, reclusive Bear, he is a thriller brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the blurb on the back cover mentions the troubles forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in Afghanistanhuman company, deadly bombsand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, sniffer dogsPetr goes on a journey through the forest, so broadcasting the theme here is bang up to-date strange, wild and many would possibly say, relevantrarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092598</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Evelio RoseroSarah Marsh|title=Good OfficesA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 1945 After a German bomber crashed on bout of scarlet fever as a glacier in Icelandchild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. This might not have been quite so extraordinary were it not for the fact that there were both German and American officers on boardSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Two of the passengers are killed Living in a time when the crashuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, one sets off for help and four people remainEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, trapped in the plane, eventually freezing to deathbut physically restrained from signing. Just before the end of last century the glacier gave From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the plane deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the US army began an operation to remove the wreckage as secretly as possiblesame time, but two young Icelanders are caught up in what Bell is going working on. One contacts his sister but before he can complete the call they are grabbed by the soldiersother inventions and ideas, brutally attacked and their bodies and snowmobiles dumped Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a crevassecomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535637</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda GillardB0BC3YTCMR|title=Untying the KnotGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've often wondered why it's This story is not axiomatic that a man should stand by his woman – although perhaps it couldn't be set to music quite so easily – but Fay had failed to stand by her manfor everyone. To make it worse, she was an army wife and they just don't desert – and Magnus was a hero. He'd been in bomb disposal and despite being blown up had briefed his number two about the bomb before he was taken off to hospital. He was good-looking, charismatic – and divorced. Fay knew that marrying Magnus had been a mistake – but she also admitted that the biggest mistake of all was divorcing him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005JTAMQO</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sheila Kohler1472263936|title=Becoming Jane EyreThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=25
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is no denying It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the Brontë family lived an interesting life. While some authors' lives are shrouded in mysteryhome and refused to return, with their characters far better known than they themselves are, thatbut Mary and Hamish (Helena's not really parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the case with family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the Brontësfirst of several annual visits. Various biographers have, over the years, provided a clear picture of 19th century Yorkshire life thanks She grew to a wealth of original letters love her grandmother and diaries preserved from the time. This makes Kohlerfamily's choice maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of topic slightly oddher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Rather than an attempt He was proud of his close connections to imagine the unknown lives of the sisters, it is a cobbling together of facts Junta and assumptions that have been in the public arena for some timeexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. For anyone who knows anything about the Brontës, it really is nothing new, His prejudices included Helena's red hair and thatgreen eyes - inherited from her father's a shameScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010862</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Phil RickmanDean Koontz|title=The Secrets of PainAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a freezing winter's night and top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a couple of the locals are driving home when they come across virus is released in a strange and disturbing incidentbio-hazard accident. They don't know what to make of it but as the SAS have Finding himself in a training presence makeshift mortuary, covered in the area Gomer plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and Danny put it down to exercises only him – as he sits up and breath a sigh looks around at the shrouded bodies of reliefhis dead friends and former colleagues. ItAs he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel's anything for a quiet life round these parts and thanks to Rickman's excellent writing, we soon see that these men, Gomer especially, are characters in themselveseverything. Plenty of personality''Everything''. Once seen, difficult to forget. And I didnMichael isn't want to forget them. They also speak in the local dialect which comes across very well indeed''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848872739</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erin MorgensternB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Night Circus|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Night Circus moves from town to town; appearing with no warning, no announcements. The attractions seem impossible – a carousel with breathing animals, handkerchiefs that turn into birds in front of the watchful eyes of the audience, doors that appear and disappear. In the middle of it all are Celia, the daughter of a famous illusionist, and Marco, the apprentice of a mysterious magician. From a young age the lovers have been destined to compete against each other using their unusual skills to win a prize that neither of them understands; and an end that will leave only one standing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655523X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGrave Listeners|author=Dorothy B Hughes|title=The Expendable ManWilliam Frank|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dorothy B Hughes (1904-93) took a journalism degree in Kansas City, Missouri The village is isolated and started her distinguished career with poor. It's surrounded by a prizeWitching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants -winning book of poems. Her first hardits bread-boiled thriller appeared in 1940 like fruit provides nutrition and it was followed by more than a dozen in its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the next decade. Three were made into noir films forest provides heat and in 1944 Hughes went to Hollywood to assist Hitchcock warmth, roofs on his filmhomes, ''Spellbound''and even gallows, if needed. Here she met Ingrid Bergman The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and consequently Humphrey Bogart came to buy that is the film rights to one reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of her novelsa man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1903155584</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck PalahniukB0BYF82CXT|title=DamnedSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Are you there, Satan? It's meBill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, Madison'. I'm stuck in a spunkydepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, lively tweenage girl, except I'm a dead onewhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and I'm very much in love – move in Hellnext door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to my surpriseimprove for both pairs. While I'm here I'll find out just where But all is not what it is all those cold-calling telegraphers ring you from just while you're settling down to your evening mealseems, and where the world's wasted sperm and discarded toenail clippings fetch uptheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. I'll have very hairy encounters with demons of Satan's and mankind's making, and with some superlative plotting and flashbacks I'll find a clearer approach to why I was put here in the first place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091158</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emily BarrShalini Boland|title=The First WifeSilent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lilybella Tatiana Blossom Button (who thankfully – for our sake as well as hers – goes by Alice and Seth are a simple Lily) match made in heaven. He is everything she has had an upbringing almost as unconventional as her name. Raised by her grandparentsbeen searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, we join her following their recent deaths funny; total and soon discover she utter husband-material. She is quite unlike most other 20 year olds. It’s going to be a brisk transition from a sheltered life all he could possibly want in a small cottage, nursing elderly relatives to the Real World but with no money to speak offwife; beautiful, she’ll have to pull herself togethersuccessful, confident… and quickly. Her background so the inevitable proposal is an important part of Lily eagerly accepted by Alice and contributes enormously to her trusting the wedding is planned and a little immature personality that will later be her downfallset. A few weeks later When the much-anticipated day arrives, thoughAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and things are looking up. She has taken a room in a house where excitement as she is much more one of surveys the family than just a lodger. She’s found some cleaning work congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day andwhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, even more excitingAlice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, one of who is waiting for her agency clients is a rather dashing ex-celeb and to become his beautiful, elegant wife. Yes, Lily’s star is definitely on the rise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755351371</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Erinna Mettler1787636003|title=StarlingsThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have to say It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that what was a big factor in me choosing to read (she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and review) this book was its urban front coverarrived on the island. MonochromeRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, a bit gritty but with plenty of sky. The first character we meet is Andyperhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an ex-prisonerinterest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. He's on his own now It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time is heavy on his handsshe was obsessed by him. He stares out of Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his window, twelve floors up interests on the island and thinks back to when he had a nice family life. All that's gone now. He stands and looks down at in particular in the children in a nearby playground and temptation rises bar where all over again (he was convicted as a paedophile)the girls either worked or partied. He'll need to find the inner strength to resist - but can he?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956511929</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithAmanda Craig|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Forgotten Affairs of YouthThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=My husband is soon to take a work trip to Edinburgh and I am very jealous. Mainly because thanks to AMS' novels I feel Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like I already know the city, and I would love to walk in state-of-the footsteps -nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of Isabel or any the atmosphere of the characters from his other seriesday and capture it, '44 Scotland Street'. So, to console me, I have turned to crafting an image of the latest country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the Isabel Dalhousie seriesgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. I must admit, I was She has such a little wary at gift for weaving the beginning since I was quite disappointed with Isabel's seventh outing, [[Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks ongoing issues of Others by Alexander McCall Smith|The Charming Quirks the day into the lives of Others]], and I wondered what I would do if this one also proved to be her characters in a let down. Fortunately it wasn't, way that feels natural and dear Isabel is back lived-in sparkling form!, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408703394</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sara Gruen152915118X|title=Ape HousePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Isabel Duncan ''Pineapple Street'' is a scientist working with Bonobo chimpsthe story of three women: Sasha, teaching them sign languageDarley and Georgiana. John Thigpen Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is a journalist who comes married to meet the apes and write their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a story about IsabelStockton by birth so she isn's work with themt readily accepted into the tribe. He is moved by The problem's exacerbated when the apesclan matriarch, by their behaviour Tilda, asks Cord and IsabelSasha if they's obviously very close relationship with themd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Soon after he leavesTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, howevera street or so away, there is a bomb at the centre by a group which they own. They won't need any of extremists who want to liberate the apesfurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Isabel begins Nominally, they had a desperate hunt to try and discover where theychoice but that wasn've gone, t the reality. Darley and John finds himself also caught up, trying Georgiana start to discover call Sasha 'the truth of whatgold digger'. She's happenedliving in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444716026</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roger SmithEmily Critchley|title=Dust DevilsOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary="Rosie Dell had come 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to end it. For keeps this timeanother house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory." ''It'' However, Edie is tormented by the affair memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she's been having with Ben Baker, one of was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the richest men in thing that reveals the countrytruth of what happened all that time ago. Unfortunately for RosieAfter 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she doesn't say what was the last time she's come to say… unfortunately for Ben, for Rosie, and for saw her family, someone has plans she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to end it for her. ActuallyAnd yet as she remembers the past, not plans, as suchshe is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. She shouldnWill she uncover the truth about Lucy't have been there. Everything that happens next wouldn't haves disappearance before her move, if she hadn't been.and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687950</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monique TruongMadelaine Lucas|title=Bitter in the MouthThirst for Salt|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Linda Hammerick, a young girl growing up in North Carolina in the late 1970's, is different. She suffers from synesthesia, tasting things when she speaks or hears words. She grows up with her great-uncle, Baby Harper, as her best friend, as hissingsong voice is the only one she can hear without the accompanying tastes, and writes letters back and forth with her best friend Kelly rather than have long conversations with her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099474743</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Meg Rosoff|title=There Is No Dog|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Ok. Imagine God is actually a teenage immortal, much in the vein of teenage humans. He rushes his coursework (creation) and while there are flashes of brilliance and potential in it, there's no real thought or organisation and so the whole thing doesn't really work properly. But God is too busy having a lie-in or lusting after buxom young women to be ironing out these sorts of boring creases in the making of a successful planet. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327162</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kirsten Reed|title=The Ice Age|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Two people road trip across America. Sort of. They don't start off together, or meet up intentionally, and the age gap is purposely provocative. She likes him because he's old and has pointy, vampire teeth he might use to bite her with (Twilight sell out, much?) She is 17. We don't know her name, but it is she who tells us the story. He is called Gunther. People think she is his daughter. They hope she is. It's just too odd to comprehend otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447200411</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick deWitt|title=The Sisters Brothers|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Invariably, the Booker Prize longlist contains one book that is more on the side of light reading than the more worthy and overtly literary fare that it is usually associated with. 'The Sisters Brothers' is the 2011 choice. Set in the US in 1851Love, it details the adventures of two brothersI'd read, Eli was supposed to be a light and Charlie Sistersweightless feeling, who are hired hands but I had always longed for a mysterious boss known only as the Commodore. Narrated by Eli, who has slightly more of a conscience than his older brother, the story starts with the Commodore ordering a hit, for reasons unknown, on a certain Hermann Kermit Warm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847083188</amazonuk>}}gravity''
}}
{{newreview|author=Margaret Pelling|title=A Diamond in the Sky|rating=4Frontpage|genreisbn=General Fiction0008506337|summary=We meet Dora in a reflective mood in what used to be the nursery. Well, it still is - except there's no baby there now. Pelling tells us down the storyline exactly what happened and why and the (a bit mushy for me) title of the book is key to the story of Dora. It gets mentions throughout. As Dora sits in the empty nursery she can't help but re-live that tragic event all over again. ''Her arms were wrapping themselves around her so tight that she was having trouble breathing.'' She's now a total mess and that's about the sum total of her life at the moment. Dora now thinks she's a dreadful person. And no one will want to know a dreadful person, will they?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784280</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Garnett Girls|author=Zoe Heller|title=Notes on a ScandalGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barbara has been teaching at St GeorgeThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's for several yearsLeary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and in spite of described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her caustic words on away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the institutionevent, it is very much they eloped and Richard took her away from the focus Isle of her lonely lifeWight. When newcomer, Sheba joins them, she forms Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a strong bond with herwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and becomes part Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of ShebaWight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's life. Sheba is married with two children, but her attraction to a pupil, Connolly, leads her mind: ''she would never be able to risk everything leave him in a liaison of which Barbara is extremely jealous. As a result, their apparent friendship travels a sinister pathcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024195455X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dori Ostermiller1914585402|title=Outside the Ordinary WorldDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although not keen on the title (a little clunky) I did feel that this was going to be a reviewed David F Ross's book I'd enjoy. Ostermiller has some fulsome praise for this debut novel including from the author [[:Category:Diane ChamberlainThere's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|Diane ChamberlainThere's Only One Danny Garvey]]. And after reading the back cover blurb I can sense a similarity which is fine by me. (I thoroughly enjoyed all couple of Chamberlain's books). Would I enjoy this book as much?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830468X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Yvvette Edwards|title=A Cupboard Full of Coats|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''He just knocked, that was all, knocked years back and the front door remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and waited, like the fourteen years since I'd killed my mother hadn't happened...'' Jinx is cold and she knows affecting itwas. She cleans obsessively - It was a largely pointless taskgripping, emotionally wounding read, since there is little mess to clean since her husband and young son, tired rereading my review of her frigidity, moved out. She cooks beautifully balanced meals it my main takeaway was that look aesthetic I might not have lavished enough praise on the plateit. But her food offers sustenance, not comfort. In fact, Jinx feels most at home amongst the dead people she works with as a funeral home cosmetologist. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688382</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithLucy Ashe|title=44 Scotland Street: Bertie Plays the BluesClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In this seventh outing to Scotland Street weThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler're back with the cast of familiar characterss Wells. Matthew Ballerinas Clara and Elspeth have had their triplets and must now face Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the trials of being new parentsoutside but not, we learn, with three times the trouble! Angus and Domenica are attempting to resolve on the tricky issue of where they will live once they're marriedinside. And what of dear Bertie? Wellnot on stage, heeither. Because there's finally reached a point of having had enough of his mother solot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', with that don't come from the help of his friendclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, he puts himself up for adoption on Ebay!and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971888</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura KasischkeHeather Fawcett|title=The RaisingEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Craig Emily Wilde is returning an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to universitywrite her life's work, where he is widely viewed as being responsible for the death very first encyclopaedia of his girlfriend Nicolefaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in a road accident. Suffering from post-traumatic stress and memory loss as a result the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the accidentvillage matriarch, Craig she is an obvious candidate to fall victim not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the hauntings that start right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to occur around the campusEmily's frustration. But it's not just Craig who why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is seeing inexplicable things happen at going on with the university.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857891545</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Ings1398515388|title=Dead Water|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary=The standard advice to artists has always been "don't gild Boy and the lily". For those writers who appear not to understand how this relates to their art form, let me offer up a basic translation: don't complicate a brilliant plot! Dead Water suffers from such gilding.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848878885</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler Seishu Hase and Julia Donaldson|title=The GloomsterAlison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We've First of all been there, 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. Finding fault with everything around usThe deaths were uncountable, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" many pets were separated from their owners came far down on all creation the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - including, of course, ourselvesKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. After all, our lot is so bad it wonHe wasn't make anything much worsea 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithChristopher Bowden|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks of OthersMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I do wonder, sometimes, how it Christopher Bowden's latest novel is possible that Mr Alexander McCall Smith can possibly manage to write so many novels? Wouldn't it be fascinating to meet him, and see if the stories just ooze out a patient untangling of him non-stop, and if he walks around with pen and paper at all times jotting things down as they occur to him... In this book hea seemingly ordinary woman's bringing us backlife, once again, to Isabel Dalhousie's worldcarried out by her nephew after she has died. If you don't know The aunt who Isabel is then you should really forget all about this book for the moment always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and go right back it seems to the beginning him an obligation to [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0349118698?tag=thebookbag-21&camp=1406&creative=6394&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0349118698&adid=12XVW0J2SJ9MJA2J2YPB& The Sunday Philosophy Club] so you can get find it all the characters in order and know what's going onout. If you're already up to date, however, and have read up to [[The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith|The Lost Art of Gratitude]] then you're good to go!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349123128</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brett BattlesJennifer Mason|title=The SilencedPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the fourth instalment of the Jonathan Quinn seriesHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, Quinn dominatrix and his team are hired to clean up after an operation unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and find unravelled a mysterious woman has followed them thereseries of disappearances. Before they can stop herIn ''Partitions of Unity'', she disappearssets her mind to solving a murder. On the next job she turns up again, this time with friends, and things start to go drastically wrong. Quinn must find this woman and stop her, but in the meantime somebody has become very interested in finding out Jonathan Quinn's real identity and is getting closer to his family. Quinn has to make a choice; do his job or save his family?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848092881</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will Carver
|title=The Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.
|isbn= 1914585186
}}
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