132,814
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce Robinson1739526910|title=The Rum Diary - A Screenplay|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto a failing newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rica, as the only candidate for the job, and in a semi-comatose state induced by too many miniatures from the hotel minibar, stumbles into a conspiracy of epic proportions, via classic bar room brawls and nightclub mayhem. On the way he (almost) writes horoscopes and bowling championship stories, meets the fantastically erotic girlfriend of the evil businessman, and teams up with a proto-Nazi out of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSD, and a photographer side kick. There is no question that this is Hunter S Thompson territory, especially when all the above is combined with a witty, slow-talking hero who in spite of his alcoholic haze sees clearly through the exploitation of a third world country by its massive first world near neighbour. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555697</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Louisa Young|title=My Dear I Wanted to Tell YouGlen Sibley
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Tiny Sunbirds Far Away'' starts in Lagos but soon moves to the rural, oil producing Niger Delta. This allows Christie WatsonOne year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's young narrator, 12 year old Blessinglife, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to view the traditional ways afreshrecover. It's a clever device and young Blessing is shocked by the rural conditions after a relatively luxurious life in Lagos Living with a good school and a modern apartment. But when her mother discovers her father on top of another womanan unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, she takes Blessing and her older brother, the asthmatic Ezikiel, back to her family home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849163758</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Lake|title=In Darkness|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Shorty is lying in the rubble he dreams of the great Haitian earthquake of 2010reconnecting with everything he has lost. If he's not rescued soonBut as those tentative plans falter, he will die. Shorty is from Site Soley, the sprawling slum becomes swept up in a local world of Port-au-Prince. After the murder of his father and abduction of his twin sisterunlikely friendships, Shorty has allowed himself to fall further mobile discos and further into the slum's gang culturesurprising romantic possibilities. But Route 9 isn't all about drug-dealing and gun-running - it's also about feeding the poor and educating the children. And Shorty has a great deal to teach his readers, as he recounts his life while waiting to die. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408824183</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon LelicJenny Lecoat|title=The Child WhoBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Simon LelicJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's third bookfather was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, ''The Child Who'', takes leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him back to . As the British finally free the Channel islands from the format that worked so successfully with his first novelNazis, ''Rupture'', avoiding and the near-future angle he tookwar is finally over, less successfully I felt, with his second booktheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Lelic's themes are always inspired by real events that have been in But will the news. Heretruth come as a relief, he tackles or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the murder of an 11 year old child by Daniel, a 12 year old. The creative inspiration is surely war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the James Bulger case and he acknowledges radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the creative debt to Blake Morrison's ''As If'' on that very subject.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330522744</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather PeaceOnyi Nwabineli|title=All To Play ForAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Back in August 1985 at the time of the Edinburgh Festival a group of people met in what could have been difficult circumstances. They were arrested for causing a disturbance despite the fact that they weren't really involved in the fracas and it was all a misunderstanding. Little did they know that in the following decade they would all be involved - one way and another - in producing drama for the BBC as it went through one of the toughest periods in its history. The tale is told - mainly - by Rhiannon, but we hear the stories of Nicky, Maggie, Jill, Jonathan and Chris. Names will change, but they'll all wander the circular corridors of power in Langford Place.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908248130</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Damian McNicholl|title=Twisted Agendas|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Writing about Ireland and Anuri spent her childhood on display to the Irishworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, especially the dimension where she posted every step of the Troubles Anuri's 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, suing her step-mother to take down the IRAcontent about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from a third hand American perspective is a recipe them for cliché and stereotypedoing so. Balancing and interweaving Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the story new focus of American journalist Piper with that of Irishman DannyOphelia's search for independence in London does enable McNicholl in some online empire. part to achieve a wry Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and knowing stance, making us hope for a clever twist away from her relationship with her father at the predictably which always seems so close.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248025</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Barry1529153298|title=City The List of BohaneSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Bohane It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a thoroughly lawless townPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, set in honestly...) She's not what would appear to be some kind of parallel universe's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. We are told it is set in 2053 Well, they've been murdered, but itto have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's a town without any technology or modern luxuriesupset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. It When you's re from Yorkshire, Down South is a violent frightening, foreign place fuelled by alcohol, drugs and lust with a patois style language that takes a little work to get intobest avoided. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest For Miv, the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She'City of Bohane'' is nominated for this years not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly goodstopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090577</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kerry Young1035906708|title=PaoDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In her Costa Prize short-listed first novelWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, Kerry Young brings together a huge number of elements that make up a good story. Set but she was born to Greek parents in JamaicaManhattan, New York, the time period covers 1938 in December 1923 and only moved to almost present day, Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it is the political backdrop of independence and control over Jamaicato 'Callas's assets that informs much of the story. But while the politics of Jamaica resound throughout the book, to make it's also a very personal story about more manageable in the life of the eponymous Yang PaoStates. Issues of race, class, love, family, ambition and business philosophy When she was back in Athens - Pao's guiding light is Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - are skilfully woven into she was raised under the mix to make this Nazi occupation by a great book to curl up with on a cold winter's nightmother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140881207X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gavin James BowerAlexander McCall Smith|title=Made in BritainThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The settings of the intertwined tales of RussellPerfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, the working class swot trapped run by his conditions, Charlie, Ness and operating as an alternative to all the heroic 'lad' who gets caught online apps in the drugs scene providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and Hayley look after the naïve wannabee business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a single parent father are bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the school rooms and backstreetschance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, flatsbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, pubs thanks to 44 Scotland Street and clubs of Every Townthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, the vision of twentyor in match-first century deprivation that Bower conjures. Or making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather fails handsome) neighbour, William, to conjure, for the device of making the 16 year olds tell the story from their own first person narrative deprives the reader of lend a genuine sense of the physical reality in which this story unfolds.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704372290</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura WilkinsonDean Koontz|title=BloodminingThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Although Wilkinson Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has placed her story in delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the near futurething that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the most partdelivery to his house is a new friend, you wouldn't necessarily be aware of that facta bad 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. PersonallySpike is going to take care of Benny, I was delighted as Iand will certainly take care of Benny'm not s enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a fan of futuristic fictionwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907335145</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kerry JamiesonKatherine Howe|title=The Forgotten LiesA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the mid-thirtiesHannah Masury is living in Boston, the golden age of Hollywoodhaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, three aspiring starlets shared a studio house on Lantana Drive as they waited to hear if they were going and being made to have work there from a career in the movies – or notyoung age. Charlotte (soon When she hears there is to be Carlie for acting purposes)a hanging of some pirates in the town, Verbena, known she decides to her friends (go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don'only'' t find and kill her friends) too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as Bee a boy and Ivy were desperate for joining the role of notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a lifetime, which would put their name in lightscabin boy. There was an added appeal. Whoever won would star opposite Liam Malone – good lookingShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, charismatic and ''very'' married with six children. It wasn't just a case from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of being able to act. Their lives would be under intense scrutinylife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141026049</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Conny Braam1471180158|title=The Cocaine SalesmanMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Picture Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a world man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of hellish exclusiona half brick. Jamie's son, nightmarish noise and imagesBo, and horrid violence'has his problems'. Picture one person trying to live through He's asthmatic and the sleepless nightsmore you read, the isolation among his peers, more you'll suspect that he's on the permanent sense of dreadful threatautistic spectrum. Picture him needing drugsSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. His best friend might even Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be called Charliecontrolled and put in the wrong. But don't picture an inner city slum, 2012, but It was going to come to a man on the front in World War Onehead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907822054</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel ConnorB0CKD1L5JL|title=SisterwivesRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I first read the title (I hadn't yet read the back cover blurb) I glibly thought that it was about two sisters and their marriagesPetr is an orphan. Wrong. This debut novel Rescued by Connor is about two very different women (one is no more than a girl really) who just happen to 'marry' the same man. I use the word marry very loosely indeed. Their communitystrange, reclusive Bear, their ruleshe is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, their descriptions etc can be rather quirky. Marriages are normally called 'sealingsin the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0946745587</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Forsyth|title=Why Me? The Very Important Emails of Bob Servant|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Catchy title After Bear dies and catchy front cover graphics. What's not to like? It takes a lot to make me laugh generallybrief sojourn in human company, but as I had an initial flick through this bookand armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, things looked promising. And I was also thinking that it's Petr goes on a pleasant change to see another location (other than perhaps journey through the predictable Glasgow and Edinburgh) get an airing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=D. J. Connell|title=Sherry Cracker Gets Normal|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Whilst it's wrong to judge a book by its coverforest, a mere sight of D. J. Connell's second novel 'Sherry Cracker Gets Normal' is enough to make me smile. The title is amusing; broadcasting the colourful design enticing strange, wild and the effusive praise for Connell's debut 'Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar' encouragingrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000733219X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gavin JamesSarah Marsh|title=Ariadne's ThreadA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Ariadne's Thread'' is the story After a bout of Elena Avgoulas who decided in May 1941 that she would have to leave Chiosscarlet fever as a child, the Greek island where she was born, until the war was overEllen Lark loses her hearing. German soldiers had occupied the island and whilst they were there it would not be home to herSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her mother and sister and brotherslife changes. The brothers were Living in a time when the Greek army. Her mother would run the family bakery and her sister would support their mother. Elena use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a medical student in Athens and had a nursing qualification; school where she decided that is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she would make use of this ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the war effortdeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. And so began a journey that would take her to CyprusAt the same time, PalestineBell is working on other inventions and ideas, Egypt, Italy and Germany Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the course a complicated tangle of the warespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B005FRG8P4</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Javier MariasB0BC3YTCMR|title=While the Women are SleepingGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As Holmes embarks on a journey towards the Northern Isles, we are treated to a comprehensive background of the ways of witches all over the world; all points are pertinent and the history ''This story is fascinating as well as necessarynot for everyone. The introduction to the ways of witchcraft demonstrates the worldwide links that will become highly significant later. Revill weaves in the relevant history and all its complications with ease, and the novel flows in spite of having to accommodate this.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780920091</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ernest Cline1472263936|title=Ready Player OneThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A short while agoIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, I stumbled across a highly enjoyable film called ''Fanboys''Greek by birth, about a bunch of ''Star Wars'' fans trying had left the family home and refused to break into George Lucasreturn, but Mary and Hamish (Helena' mansion to get s parents) felt that it would be a sneak preview of the new filmpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. I didn't pay much attention Her trip to the name family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the writer, until I came across Ernest Clinefamily's author bio in ''Ready Player One'' maid, Dina, but was wary - and realised it frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was written by proud of his close connections to the same personJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. This immediately gave me high hopesHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059372</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert HarrisDean Koontz|title=The Fear IndexAfter Death|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With the FTSE recording its biggest quarterly drop Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in yearsplastic, he has a sense that something very, turmoil on the bond markets very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the prospect shrouded bodies of economic meltdown his dead friends and the possible disintegration of the euro zoneformer colleagues. As he recovers his senses, Robert Harrishe realises that there is something different about him; he can '' new thriller couldnfeel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't be more timely''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091936969</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom BaleB0BVDC2VWH|title=Blood FallsThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read The village is isolated and reviewed Balepoor. It's [[Terror's Reach surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by Tom Bale|Terror's Reach]]farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and enjoyed itits blossom provides herbal medicines. What would I think The black wood of his latest? Joe is doing his level best to live an unremarkable (almost invisible) life in Bristol. He uses his brawn to pay his modest bills for rentthe forest provides heat and warmth, food etc. But you could sayroofs on homes, once a copperand even gallows, always a copper so his brain if needed. The fear of being buried alive is not idle, it's in constant use. Whirring away an existential superstition in the background village and it's just as well. Joe soon senses imminent danger when that is the reason Volushka, a couple drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of blokes stroll by, stop and ask his gaffer a couple of questions. Joe needs to be somewhere else - and fastman is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184809325X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John O'ConnellB0BYF82CXT|title=The Baskerville Legacy: A NovelSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1900, ''Bill and Amanda are living in a man on semi-detached house, stuck in a ship coming back from the Boer War to edit the Daily Express meets one depressing rut of his heroes boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in the form of Arthur Conan Doylenext door. With similar experiences and interests yet Despite their different enough to bounce off outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other they take up the idea of collaborating on a plotand life appears to improve for both pairs. When they do fix on time to do so, But all is not what it leads to literary prospectsseems, which lead to a week's research together on Dartmoor, which leads to and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''The Hound of the Baskervilles''. But perhaps in a way that only one of them intended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595465</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Syd MooreShalini Boland|title=The Drowning PoolSilent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Alice and Seth are a group of young women out on the townmatch made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, letting their hair down funny; total and having funutter husband-material. Moore describes She is all of them he could possibly want in a fresh wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and modern voice which I really likedso the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. It came across as a breath of fresh air. The storyWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, Sarah's story Alice is told walked down the aisle by Sarah herself. But ither father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's told from world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the perspective of looking back after it's all happened so there's lots of why-didn't-I-see-that-coming language. Hindsightaltar is, in a wordwho is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847562663</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guillaume Musso1787636003|title=The Girl on PaperGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is a modern book for modern timesIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. I loved the reader-friendly layout with bigRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, bold type letting the reader know exactly where we werenaive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in terms her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of storyline physical approach to her and locationby that time she was obsessed by him. But Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the story itself does jump about a lot island and I suspect Musso wants to give a sense of urgency, a sense of frenetic energy at timesin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313056</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Victoria HislopAmanda Craig|title=The ThreadThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read and enjoyed HislopFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's 'The Island' something so I was looking forward to reading this book. The Prologue is May 2007 utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and readers are treated to a vivid coastal description capture it, crafting an image of the area which country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is to play such a big part in skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the novelgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Lines She has such as 'With a gift for weaving the lifting haze, Mount Olympus gradually emerged far away across ongoing issues of the Thermaic Gulf and day into the restful blues lives of sea her characters in a way that feels natural and sky shrugged off their pale shroudlived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755377737</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Giraldi152915118X|title=Busy MonstersPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. HeDarley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They's proved it to us, if not to herre Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with birth so she isn't readily accepted into the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat insteadtribe. But lo and behold, sheThe problem's declared sheexacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they's off d like to discover move into the real love of her life - the giant squidPineapple Street property. Failing Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to stop thisanother property, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessivestreet or so away, then goes on a hunt which they own. They won't need any of his own - for Bigfoot, all the whilefurniture from Pineapple Street, chapter by chapterso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, sending his narrative of they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the same gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columns'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicholas SparksEmily Critchley|title=The Best of MeOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Since watching 84 year old Edie has lived in the film of 'The Notebook' years ago I've always fancied reading some Nicholas Sparks books same small town for almost her whole life, but never quite got around now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to it until I saw thislive with his family, his newest offeringas Edie is starting to lose her memory. Here we have However, Edie is tormented by the tale memory of two her childhood sweethearts whose love friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was always threatened by a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the fact thing that they were from opposite sides reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the tracks - he from the roughhigh street, poor family that is forever on just as she was the wrong side of the lawlast time she saw her, and she from one starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the betterpast, respected families she is forgetting more and more in the town. After her day to day life forces them apart they go on to live very different lives, but it seems that neither one has ever forgotten that early passion. Drawn back together for Will she uncover the funeral of an old friend they are both forced to look at the choices theytruth about Lucy've made in their lives s disappearance before her move, and where they go to from here.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847443206</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=S G Browne0008506337|title=FatedThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Clever The love affair between Margo Garnett and very funnypoet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, this is the sort of book where you immediately feel apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in safe handslove. S Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'.G Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. Browne has gone to town (New York) In the event, satirising just about every aspect they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of modern lifeWight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and my reading Sasha. Life was continually interrupted by bells clanging loudly lived in recognition London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in my headcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954728</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Sanderson1914585402|title=Netherwood|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=The cover of Netherwood features a bold promise - 'Perfect for fans of Downton Abbey'. The basic features of a reliable 'upstairs/downstairs' saga are all present; the landed gentry enjoying their estate, the staff servicing it and the locals, all relying on the fortunate family for their own income.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751547638</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Khaled Hosseini|title=The Kite Runner (Graphic Novel)|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A confession. If there's one book I'm not likely to read, it's that which everyone else Dashboard Elvis 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>}}{{newreviewDead|author=Jennifer Haigh|title=FaithDavid F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As a I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'New York Times Bestsellers Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'' I was expecting great things from this book; coupled with the fact that I really enjoy American fiction, I was itching to get reading. The story is told from the perspective s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of Sheila, sister to Mike years back and half-sister to Arthur (he's normally called Art). Art is the priest remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and who is at the centre of the stormaffecting it was. We go back in time and discover a rather pious woman who has had It was a hard start to married life. She's now left to bring up her young songripping, Artemotionally wounding read, on her own. But things pick up pretty quickly from here and as an attractive woman rereading my review of it's my main takeaway was that I might not long before she meets someone else. Two more children are born and they all settle down into a normal, American family unithave lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007225091</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jaimy GordonLucy Ashe|title=Lord of Misrule|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=West Virginia, 1970. We're at a rundown race track, of the dusty kind rundown horses and their rundown owner/trainers fetch up living in, with the occasional race to interrupt the boredom. Into things comes 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 out, and naively eager for success and knowledge, but old hands like Medicine Ed have seen it all before. Also in the background are some small-time gangsters who are not too keen at for once not knowing who is doing what and how races are going to be run Clara and won.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386697</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=Unusual Uses for Olive Oil: A Von Igelfeld NovelOlivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Following The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on from stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''The 2½ Pillars of Wisdomje ne sais quoi'' which was a compilation of three shorter volumes, this book sees Professor Dr Von Igelfeld still dealing with his academic colleagues but also with that don't come from the prospect of classroom. A stage presence, a love interestcharm, a recently widowed lady''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, Frau Benz, who has inherited the large Schloss in Regensburgand a star. Is love in the air? Or will his arch rival, Unterholzer interfere once again?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316027545</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sophie DuffyHeather Fawcett|title=The Generation GameEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Do you remember Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life''The Generation Game'' TV shows work, with old Brucie and then Larry Grayson managing the mayhem? very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Where were you when Charles Whilst she is brilliant at research and Di got married? speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. What about So when Diana died? There's plenty she finds herself far, far North in the small village of reminiscing Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to be done in this redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book as Sophie Duffy takes us from back on the 1960's to 2006 through the life of right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her characterdashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, Philippa, in a book that fleets from funnyall charm and delight, heartwarming moments much to real sadnessEmily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908248017</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Larry Pontius1398515388|title=Future KingThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the near future tsunami and King Charles III has ascended this, in turn, caused the throne of the United Kingdom with Camilla as his Queen Consortnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The country is in a mess with rampant inflation, unemploymentdeaths were uncountable, a crumbling infrastructure and riots: the people have taken to calling this time ''The Troubles''loss of livelihoods was widespread. Such situations breed power-hungry politicians and Prime Minister Alistair Saxon has plans to become The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the dictator list of priorities but - six months after the countrytsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. When He wasn't a dog person but the King refuses convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to give open his assent to the Emergency Powers Act, Saxon car door and his fellow-conspirators kidnap Tamon the Royal family to prevent Charles speaking against the EPAdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1463766297</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kirsten TranterChristopher Bowden|title=The LegacyMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This Christopher Bowden's latest novel is quite a chunky book so Tranter has given herself plenty patient untangling of space and time to build up a nice level of suspense here as well as putting some flesh on the bones of seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her central charactersnephew after she has died. The book opens - towards the end aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of the story. So we have firm, but platonic friends, Julia indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and Ralph both very concerned about their mutual friend, Ingrid. She supposedly died on 9/11 - but with no remains, no burial, their grief hasn't it seems to him an outlet. They need (obligation to quote that much used word) closurefind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857380621</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe SimpsonJennifer Mason|title=The Sound Partitions of GravityUnity|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Patrick is climbing Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in the Alps with his girlfriend. They are taking an unusual and difficult ascent[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and it is winterunravelled a series of disappearances. A storm blows up. Whilst they are camping overnightIn ''Partitions of Unity'', Patrick's girlfriend loses she sets her footing. He manages mind to catch her hand, and then she slips through his fingers and falls into solving a chasmmurder.. The novel details the days and hours in the run-up to this tragedy, and the aftermath, both immediate and long term.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224072641</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin WilsonWill Carver|title=The Family Fang|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come to this - her film actress career is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed to enact a point of life or just cause havoc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Roth|title=NemesisDaves Next Door|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=1944, Newark, New Jersey. Summer. Hot. Bucky Cantor, a young Jewish man, is gym teacher and playground attendant-cum-sports instructor for the district, helping all those interested become fit young men, able to do what his eyesight prevents him from doing - serving in the forces. Things would be fine if his girlfriend were closer at hand, if it were cooler, and if there were no polio epidemic happening. But there is, and nobody knows what is causing it. Is it flies? Is it a gang of taunting Italian kids spreading it from neighbourhood to neighbourhood? Is it blacks, germs on money - is it in fact Cantor himself, draining all the youthful vigour from his charges under a blistering sun?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542269</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nina Bell|title=The Empty Nesters|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their children all off to university (most from the same school yearfates overlap, 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 foreverin backwards order, 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 leading up to the middlefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751543667</amazonuk>1914585186}}
