Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{Frontpage|isbn=1739526910|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=4.5|genre=General fiction=Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip S NeweyJenny Lecoat|title=Maybe They'll Remember MeBeyond Summerland|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Gregory receives a letter from an ageing actress requesting his presence, he takes the only sensible action: he hops Jean lives on a plane to Switzerland to visit Jersey with her homemother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. Whilst there During the war, she reveals Jean's father was arrested for listening to a multi-layered story that helps banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him understand more about his parents' life. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and by associationthe war is finally over, his lifetheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>148006632X</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Erlend LoeOnyi Nwabineli|title=DopplerAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Doppler. He describes himself late in this as Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia'a failed man s increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of my time. Or just a man of a failed time. Depending on how you look at it.Anuri' The typical Oslo residents childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, a diligent career man with a young familybasically, he falls off his mountain bike one day monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and has a kind of epiphanyto get her life back, deciding suing her step-mother to avoid everyone else and live alone in take down the forestcontent about her. The book starts when he gains a companion however – he Anuri is short of food battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and drink secretly abusing people online and kills an elkreceiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, only to find she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the animalnew focus of Ophelia's baby latching on to him online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and forming an unbreakable bond…her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781851050</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Wayne Macauley1529153298|title=The CookList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Frasier’s Law states It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that if her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you flick through 're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the TV channels long enoughmove would mean leaving her best friend, no matter what time of day Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or night you will eventually stumble across Kelsey Grammar enjoying a cappuccino in Café Nervosa in the greatest sitcom spin off of them allthat her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780876378</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=C J Sansom1035906708|title=DominionDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1952 and twelve years since Churchill became Minister We tend to think of War and Halifax took over from Chamberlain Maria Callas as Prime Minister. Churchill had thought that he might be able Greek, but she was born to run the war from that position butGreek parents in Manhattan, HalifaxNew York, the appeaser, held sway in December 1923 and Britain surrendered only moved to Germany in the aftermath of DunkirkAthens when she was thirteen. Russia fought on, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it was a war of attrition rather than one which looked to come 'Callas' to a clear conclusionmake it more manageable in the States. The British people are When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a violent, authoritarian rule mother who mercilessly exploited her and British Jews face a grim future. Winston Churchill - aged and possibly infirm - is the head made no secret of the Resistance organisationher preference for her elder sister, but he's forced to live his life in hiding and on the runJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230744168</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Trains and Lovers: The Heart's JourneyPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Do you have The Perfect Passion Company is a train journey dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to make? all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Will it Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take you several hours? a trip to Canada to get away for a while. If so, then I can't think Katie is coming out of a better place break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to sit and read Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith's , bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new, standalone novelcharacters who quickly begin to charm. It's all about four people travelling on Katie has no experience in running a train you seebusiness, and it's all about love. I gorged on it one eveningor in match-making, reading it all but Ness has full confidence in one go without stoppingher abilities, and itthere's really always her very helpful (and rather lovely!handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846972450</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monica McInerneyDean Koontz|title=The House Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone 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 a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a 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. Spike is going to take care of MemoriesBenny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ella Fox's life would never have Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been described as easy. Her parents divorced when she was young sent to live with a family who run an inn, and not long after, her father was killed in being made to work there from a light aircraft crashyoung age. Her mother remarried and although Ella loved her new and funny stepbrother, Charlie, When she could not stem her feelings hears there is to be a hanging of jealousy when her half sister Jess is born not long after some pirates in the marriage. Although she lived halfway across the world from himtown, she always turned decides to her Uncle Lucas go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in her lowest moments. Ita young boy's hardly surprising thendeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that years later, after the tragic death of they don't find and kill her twenty month old son, Felixtoo, and then to escape them completely she ultimately runs away to sea, 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 mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her uncle in Londonrip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230763014</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A K Hill1471180158|title=A Mediocre ManMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Francis James HumbletonJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, the 'mediocre for a manwho' s a control freak with all the subtlety of the title is quiet and reserveda half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, hardworking and a man of such regular habits that 'has his neighbours can set their clocks by his departure to work each morningproblems'. His life was unassumingHe's asthmatic and the more you read, unnoticed by all but a very few and his death only came to light because his employers knew the more you'll suspect that something must be wrong when he didn't return s on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to work after take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the Christmas breaklocal A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Mr Humbleton had been murdered, at precisely (what else could it Missed shifts or the need to be?) 3am in what looked away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be a burglary gone controlled and put in the wrong. Only Mr Humbleton had nothing that It was worth stealing and it's down going to Detective Inspector Johnson and Detective Constable Smith come to investigate his life as well as his deatha head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B008YWQTME</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John GrishamB0CKD1L5JL|title=The RacketeerRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Malcolm Bannister Petr is forty-three years old and a lawyeran orphan. He's also in prison for a crime Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he didn't know he was committing is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in which he had no criminal intentthe forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Halfway through After Bear dies and a ten-year stretch he's the only black man brief sojourn in the prison serving time for a white collar crime: that's what happens when you're just a bit naive human company, and what looks like armed with only a genuine real estate deal turns out to be part of pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a massive money laundering operation. The prison he's in is relatively relaxed and he's journey through the librarianforest, but he's lost his jobbroadcasting the strange, his wife's divorced him wild and rarely heard voices he wonders if he'll ever see his young son again. Other than that, life's pretty much of a muchnessencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444729748</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dawn FrenchSarah Marsh|title=Oh Dear SilviaA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Dawn French wrote After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her first novel [[A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French|A Tiny Bit Marvellous]] I hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was eager seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read it, looking forward to plenty of silly humour and those elusive-when-reading out loud laughsbut physically restrained from signing. I was disappointed unfortunatelyFrom here, and actually came away from she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the book feeling annoyed with the characters deaf and quite discouraged and depressed somehowusing a system called Visible Speech. SoAt the same time, I approached her new novel with a little trepidationBell is working on other inventions and ideas, unsure as to whether she deserved and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a second chancecomplicated tangle of espionage. I'm glad I gave her the benefit of the doubt!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718156064</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Salley VickersB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Cleaner of ChartresGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Agnes ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a mystery to the residents of Chartresvery bright student, even as she goes about filling any shortfall in labour here, doing any odd job therea bit too nerdy if truth be told, and cleaning for some of the suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in and around the fabulous cathedral the town case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is so proud of – 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and, even in the end, cleaning the cathedral itselfReggie asked if she would tutor him. There is She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an aged, dotty professor from Wales, two extremely curmudgeonly and bitter old gossips, and more than enough members of the order whose faith has lapsedextension. She seems perfectly willing went to do anything one asks, so much so that one might ask why, although nobody seems to do sohis house and he raped her. The answers might be in the In shock, she even-numbered chapters, which take us deeper into this character's extraordinary past, and allowed him to give her a linked series of quite tragic events…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670922129</amazonuk>lift home.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Meek1472263936|title=The Heart Broke InFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In ''The Heart Broke In''It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, James Meek manages had left the family home and refused to combine some big return, but Mary and serious issues into Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a compellingly readable and entertaining moral thrillerpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. At Her trip to the centre of the book are two siblings who are very different. Ritchie is a former rock star, now working family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the world first of reality television producing a game show about teenage pop bands while his younger sister, Bec, is a devoted scientist working on a cure for malariaseveral annual visits. On She grew to love her grandmother and the one hand itfamily's a story of family dynamicsmaid, Dina, but it's also a thoughtful was wary - and well constructed tale frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of morality his close connections to the Junta and judgementexpected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Setting science against religion it asks very modern day questions about who is the guardian of morality in today His prejudices included Helena's world red hair and who, if anyone, has the right to judge othersgreen eyes - inherited from her father' behaviours Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857862901</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sally TissingtonDean Koontz|title=Crocodile on the CarouselAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cath Furnish's life has been so marked out by suffering to such an extent that she believes that's what life's about. Despite being married to BillMichael Mace, Head of Security, raising her granddaughter Amanda and her daughter Marie being TV's 'Happy Lady'at a top secret biological research facility, Cath is attracted to the biblical book of Job, among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a cobio-sufferer in her eyeshazard accident. She's even bought Finding himself in a grotesque carousel for the back garden incorporating such jolly figures as makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a crocodilesense that something very, a bleeding horse very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the gates shrouded bodies of death because it reminds her of himhis dead friends and former colleagues. As much as Amanda loves her grandmotherhe recovers his senses, she doesnhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''t want to continue living like this and so sets herself a mission. Despite opposition she Michael isn't ''willMichael'' disprove her upbringing and find love and happiness, so help heranymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780950101</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=J K RowlingB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Casual VacancyGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's hard to know how to describe my experience reading JK Rowling's new book, surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and her first departure from its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the world of Hogwarts. 'Liked it' doesn't seem appropriateforest provides heat and warmth, because I didn't really. I found it very bleakroofs on homes, depressing and disturbing to be honesteven gallows, if needed. I have a friend who The fear of being buried alive is reading it at an existential superstition in the moment village and she says she's really enjoying itthat is the reason Volushka, which just makes me shake my head becausea drunken, reallyself-indulgent, this isn't the sort lazy lout of book you enjoya man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140870420X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Syd MooreB0BYF82CXT|title=Witch HuntSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The history of witchcraft ''Bill and the complexities of current social politics do not appear to be the easiest ingredients to blend smoothly into Amanda are living in a novel. But Moore has achieved thissemi-detached house, skilfully weaving the threads stuck in a depressing rut of the middle ages with the modern dayboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. This achievement has also been mixed with some fascinating points about feminismDespite their different outlooks on life, witchcraft the couples befriend each other and Essex stereotypes, life appears to improve for both pairs. But all the while presenting them as the narrative of the protagonistis not what it seems, Sadieand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847562698</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E FlanneryShalini Boland|title=God's GiftThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An ex-soap actor, Tommy Armstrong now hosts Alice and Seth are a successful Saturday night chat showmatch made in heaven. It covers entertainment and current affairs. Recently divorced He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, single Tommy enjoys bedding his researchers funny; total and then firing themutter husband-material. It's something to do She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, after allsuccessful, no? And particularly enjoyable if they're willing to take it up confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the bumwedding is planned and set. Tommy likes bums. Irritatingly When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the ''Dirty Bitch''aisle by her father, aka Susanbeaming 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, TommyAlice's ex-wife, world implodes because she has forgotten all about bums and become a born-again Christian. Her new partner absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is a 21st century Mary Whitehouse, leading a campaign who is waiting for her to clean up the mediabecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B009AEUOFS</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rowan Coleman1787636003|title=Dearest RoseThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rose has finally escaped. For years It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she has put up with her bullying husband and lived with Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the sadness of her motherisland. Rachel wasn's suicide after her father left when t exactly innocent but she was a young girl. Only once, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was heavily pregnant with her daughter Maddie, did anyone show her any warmth and kindness and treat her like a human being in her own rightflattered rather than wary. That person It was Frasier McCleod, an art dealer who had been trying quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to trace Rose's father, John Jacobs,who happened to be a very exciting artist. Although her and by that time she couldn't help was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, Frasier sent a postcard to thank her looking after his interests on the island and it is in particular in the bar where all the village pictured on that postcard that she makes her way to nine years later when she can put up with her husband's cruelty no moregirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551276</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony CapellaAmanda Craig|title=Love and Other Dangerous ChemicalsThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Just when you thought you’d seen (read?) everything, comes this book, Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the story state-of -the chemistry of Chemistry-nation novel. Dr Steven J. Fisher is an Oxford scientist whose special area There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of interest is the female orgasm. His latest work is attracting interest from drug companies and atmosphere of the public alike for it’s an elusive subject: a pill that will do for women what Viagra did for men (day and I don’t mean help their cardiac problems). Currently in the clinical trial stagecapture it, crafting an image of the results are looking promising until there’s a new addition to his group of guinea pigs country as it stands in the form of Annie, a literature post-grad from the same universityone particular moment. Her lover (also her PhD supervisor) is keen for her to take part in the hope To say that Dr Fisher can fix her problem (and it Amanda Craig is ‘her’ problem, not theirs). Simply put, Annie skilled at doing this would rather read a good book than have a good… well, you can fill in your own rhyme herebe embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857890255</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lucy Dawson|title=Little Sister|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Kate Palmer’s life She has been blighted with tragedy. Her sister Emily died at such a gift for weaving the age ongoing issues of thirteen in a freak accident. Her parents could not cope with the grief and subsequently divorced leading to day into the lives of her mother living characters in America and her father suffering a breakdown. Years later, she is married to Rob way that feels natural and struggling to cope with being a new mother to two month old Mathias. Kate’s always been the sensible one whereas her younger sisterlived-in, Anya, has always had a tendency to run away from her troubles and has never managed to settle down. Thereforemaking them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, it should come as no surprise to Kate that Anya has taken off once again and has gone diving in Mexico. That would have been OK but Anya is now missinggrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751542512</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Peter Hoeg152915118X|title=The Elephant Keepers' ChildrenPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Danish writer Peter Høeg is best known for his third novel [[Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow by Peter Hoeg|Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow]], partly because it was made into one of Pineapple Street'' is the more beautiful movie adaptations story of modern fictionthree women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. While his latest book Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The Elephant Keepersproblem' Childrens exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'' is unlikely d like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to change that associationanother property, it is a magicalstreet or so away, story told through the eyes which they own. They won't need any of the charmingly precocious fourteen year old Peterfurniture from Pineapple Street, full of farcical events, zany chases so Sasha and brilliantly named charactersCord can move straight in. If you are looking for Nominally, they had a gritty, realistic novel, this wonchoice but that wasn't fit the bill, but for all its madcap events, Høeg continues his arch view of events reality. Darley and has surprising depth Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the form of philosophical consideration of religions and faithGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846555841</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda JenningsEmily Critchley|title=Sworn SecretOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=A 84 year ago Anna Thorne was found dead after presumably falling from old Edie has lived in the roof of same small town for almost her school after drinking vodka. Twelve months laterwhole life, but now she is facing a move as her parentsson wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, Kate and Jonas Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, and Edie is tormented by the memory of her sisterchildhood friend, Lucy, Lizziewho went missing over 60 years ago, are still trying to make sense and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of and come to terms with what has happenedall that time ago. They each have their own way of dealing with their grief which After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, rather than unitingjust as she was the last time she saw her, serves she starts to isolate each find pockets of themmemories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Ultimately Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, they and before her memories are becoming three sad strangers living under the same roof.gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184901969X</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
 {{newreview|author=Julie Corbin|title=Do Me No Harm|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Dr Olivia Somers is minding her own business, trying to raise two kids alone in the wake of her divorce, when everything goes wrong and her son, Robbie, ends up in hospital. It’s hard to work out what really happened, or even if Robbie is giving her the full story, but when there’s a further incident, this time involving a break in at their home, it becomes clear that these are no random attacks, and someone is out to get them. With the help of a friendly (and handsome) detective, Olivia tries to piece together the puzzle to work who is behind the trouble, and it’s a race against time to figure it out before the next unwelcome surprise from the culprit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340918969</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian McEwanMadelaine Lucas|title=Sweet ToothThirst for Salt|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ian McEwan's 'Love, I'Sweet Tooth'' is part spy novel but more a love story and a tale of deception and half truths. It's also, more subtly, a book about the power, role and importance of fiction. Set in the 1970s, with frequent musical and political references to the UK at that time, Serena Frome is a beautifuld read, Cambridge-educated daughter of an Anglican bishop with a taste for unsuitable romances. From an early affair with a man who turns out was supposed to be homosexual, to an affair with an older lecturer she moves on to a surprise job at MI5 where she had a crush on one of her bosses, again light and awkwardweightless feeling, repressed and unattractive individual before encountering talented author Tom Haley as part of her job with whom she once again falls in love. Few of these men are what they seem, and neither but I had always longed for that matter is Serena when she has to hide her job from Haley.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097377</amazonuk>}}gravity''
{{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds|rating=4Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=SoOverlaid with later wisdom, here we are the narrator relives the affair with Isabel Dalhousie in a man twenty years her ninth story, and I'm assuming that you know who she is by now because really, if you don't, then you'd better not start with book number nine and instead you should really go all senior from its inception – the way back summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the beginning summer after. Set against the backdrop of the series and an isolated Australian coastal town ''The Sunday Philosophy Club.Thirst for Salt'' If, on details the other hand24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, you are well acquainted with Isabel then settle yourself down for another good read from the master of gentledepicting its all-consuming nature, funny fictionhow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704145</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Favel Parrett0008506337|title=Past the ShallowsThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harry Curren lives with Miles (one of his brothers) The love affair between Margo Garnett and their widowed father poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in a small Tasmanian fishing communitylove. Their Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother has been killed in a car accident but life goes on even if itas 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's more damaged influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and disjointed than beforeRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Miles still goes out Margo did go to Oxford and went on his father's fishing boat to ensure their income become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and Harry spends his time holidays were spent at schoolSandcove, outside amusing himself or being with his other brother, Joe, who, for some reason, lives with their grandfatherthe 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 charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848547501</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Charity Norman|title=After The Fall|rating=3Then Richard left them.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It’s the middle of the night when five year old Finn falls from the balcony at his home in a remote part of New Zealand. Leaving his twin brother and older sister in the care of a neighbour, his mother Martha stays with him as a helicopter races him to the nearest hospital. But as he is rushed into surgery, she is taken to one side for questioning, with first nursing staff then the police and social workers raising concerns. Was Finn really sleep walking, something he is prone to do? But if so, how did he come to have suspicious bruises on one side of his body, not in keeping with how he landed? And if it wasn’t the accident Martha is saying it was, was his mother involved or is she covering for someone?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>174331096X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dorothy Koomson1914585402|title=The Rose Petal Beach|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Tamia and Scott met at school and they were friends before they were anything else although it wasn't to the liking of either family. Scott's brother referred to Tamia as ''that'' - a reference to the colour of her skin. Tamia's family weren't racially prejudiced but they knew the Challey family and their reputation for criminality. It wasn't what they wanted for their daughter: they saw a university education, but were to be disappointed on both counts. It looked to be working well: the marriage seemed stable and they had two beautiful daughters, but then one night it all fell apart. Scott was arrested in front of his wife and children for a dreadful crime. As if this wasn't bad enough, Tami's world disintegrated even further when she discovered that Scott's accuser was someone whom she regarded as a close friend.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780874960</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=Chris Worthington|title=Setting The Record StraightDavid F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When he was twelve Geoff Dealer returned to his Texas home and walked in on what looked like a frightening situation. A man, trousers round his ankles was pushing his mother up against a wall and she was squealing. Mindful of his fatherI reviewed David F Ross's advice about using a gun Geoff grabbed it from the gun cabinet and injured the man with his first shot. The second killed him. It was their neighbour and his fatherbook [[There's best friend - whoOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'd obviously been more than s Only One Danny Garvey]] a friend to his mother. Lizzie Dealer took the blame - saying that she'd been attacked couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and had grabbed the gun from her son - but her husband affecting it was arrested and . It was killed in prison a couple gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of days laterit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848767080</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Herman KochLucy Ashe|title=The DinnerClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Serge Lohman, presidential candidate, The year is not the kind of man to frequent the cafés of ordinary people, 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and so when his brother Paul and his wife Claire join Serge and wife Babette for dinnerOlivia are sisters, it can only be at twins no less. Identical on the fanciest of localesoutside but not, and for 'fanciest' read poshestwe learn, snootiest, and most overpricedon the inside. And while they may be in Holland, going Dutch is not on the menustage, either. This is not Serge’s story, howeverBecause there's a lot that builds a dancer. It is Paul’sSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and what he lacks in terms of incomesome things, power and influence compared to his brotherthat ''je ne sais quoi'', he more than makes up for with dry humour and astute observations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873824</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kim Barnes|title=In the Kingdom of Men|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=This book begins beautifully with all that don't come from the characters springing to life through fantastically spare and creative descriptionclassroom. By the time we reach GinA stage presence, a charm, living with her her grandfather in the stifling atmosphere of a strict Methodist minister’s home''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, the story is in full swing and we follow Gin through her teenage years as she tries hard to rebel against all the limitations placed upon hera star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009194421X</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Luis SepulvedaHeather Fawcett|title=The Shadow Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of What we WereFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ChileEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, the modern day. Four elderly men meet for one last timeand she has travelled extensively, planning something suspiciously underhandand researched meticulously, having made arrangements - and discussed Internet dating - online. Weto write her life're let into the fact that the grandfather of one was a bank robber in a classic tale of Robin Hood-style wealth distributions work, but as to what the outcome very first encyclopaedia of their plans might be we're forced to waitfaeries. Elsewhere a domestic incident leads Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to a bizarre death - by record playerfaeries, she is not so good with people. And you can just tell I'm suggesting you wait to discover So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the link...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1609450027</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sophie Duffy|title=This Holey Life|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Vicky's husband has found faith and since he's working as a curate now rather than a plumber Vicky has been dragged into church life whether village matriarch, she likes it or is not. She's struggling sure what she has done, nor how to raise redeem herself and put her family whilst dealing with final investigations for her own grief when suddenly into book back on the mix come right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her irritating big brother dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and his little boydelight, much to Emily's frustration. As Vicky's patience But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is stretched paper-thin going on with the lies woven within her family begin to unravel and she struggles to keep everything and everyone together.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908775971</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cath Staincliffe1398515388|title=Split Second|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=On a late December evening, Emma Curtis is on a bus travelling home from work when she becomes aware of a young lad being picked on by three others. Too scared to intervene, she sits alone feeling guilty but taking everything in. To her shame, nineteen year old student, Jason Barnes, comes downstairs on the bus The Boy and immediately challenges the three youths. Luke, the young victim, leaps off the bus and a chase follows. Jason continues to try and defend Luke, and they end up in Jason's front garden where his parents witness the brutal attack. Eventually the trio run off leaving Luke unconscious on the snowy ground. Worse still, is the realisation that Jason has been stabbed and tragically it turns out to be fatal. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013462</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Peter Heller|title=The Dog StarsSeishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We are First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in North America the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in a near but post-Apocalyptic futureturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Those few humans to survive a pandemic have to be treated as carriers, The result was complete and/or armed and desperateutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and so are particularly the loss of note to military-minded survivalist Bangleylivelihoods was widespread. And climate and eco-problems have killed off The fact that many common species, something closer to narrator Hig's heart, as he's a more placid, huntin', shootin' and fishin' guy. These two solitary men are an unlikely partnership, pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but both look out for each other in complementary ways. Bangley has his watch-tower, while Hig takes off in his Cessna to get away from it all, and his flights act as six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a first line of defenseconvenience store. But is it all life could be, for Hig and his He wasn't a dog and Bangley? What is Hig still to make of person but the last inviting contact he heard on his planeconvenience store owner's radio - even if comment that was three years ago? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755392590</amazonuk>he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael FraynChristopher Bowden|title=SkiosMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set on Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a Greek islandseemingly ordinary woman's life, a cultural foundation is preparing for the biggest event in its year at which renowned academic Dr Norman Wilfred is due to give the keynote speechcarried out by her nephew after she has died. Also heading to the island on the same plane is Oliver Fox, The aunt who always provided a morally vacant but charming Lothario, who has arranged an assignation with safe harbour and a girl who he has met for only five minutes but has invited little bit of indulgence to spend a week with him at the villa young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that he was due spend a week with his ex-girlfriend before she threw nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him out. But when the girl sent an obligation to collect Dr Wilfred from the airport, Nikki, turns find it all out to be irresistibly charming Oliver decides to play the role of Dr Wilfred and follow her to the foundation while the real Dr Wilfred, minus luggage is transported to the villa at the other end of the island. Someone still has to give the speech though - will it be the real Dr Wilfred or the fake Dr Wilfred?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571281419</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanJennifer Mason|title=The Teleportation AccidentPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's hard to know where to start in reviewing Ned Beauman's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation Accident''. Reading itHere at Bookbag Towers, you feel like the parent of an ADHD-suffering child. At times it is lovable, brilliant and entertainingwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, at others you just want to reach for the Ritalin dominatrix and tell it to sit unintentional detective in a corner quietly while it composes itself. A clue to both the brilliance and frustration of Beauman is in the vast range of writers to whom he has been compared in both this and his first novel [[Boxer, Beetle Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Ned BeaumanJennifer Mason|Boxer, BeetlePreposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. There are hints In ''Partitions of people as wide ranging as [[:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]], [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P G Wodehouse]], [[:Category:Douglas Adams|Douglas Adams]]Unity'', Raymond Chandler even [[:Category:Angela Carter|Angela Carter]] she sets her mind to name just solving a fewmurder.. Beauman takes a huge range of styles and genres and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be a challenge keeping up with him at times.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998423</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreview|author=Howard L Anderson|title=Albert of Adelaide|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Albert the Duck-Billed Platypus lives in an Adelaide zoo but knows there's more to life than this. There must be as he's heard the stories. Somewhere beyond the cages is Old Australia, a land of dreams where there are no zoos and no human captors, just animals who are free to govern themselves and live in perpetual peace and happiness. That's a world that Albert wants to be a part of and so he escapes, realising that for the first time in his short life his future is in his own webbed paws.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668840X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manu JosephWill Carver|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other People|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog family''. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinking, and by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is a ''cartoonist hottie'' - a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world - or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying to seek the cause of this suicide, and what we have here is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles McLeod|title=American WeatherDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jim Haskin is a very odd man, doing a very odd job, Five strangers come together in one moment as a very odd country if this book is suicide bomber prepares to be believed. An advertising guru in San Francisco, he owns a touchy feely company which boasts such wonders as a ‘Dream Pod’, a room for detonate his team to relax in with sleeping bags, TVs and vest on a cooler brimming with organic fruit teaLondon tube line. That’s for As their down time in between saving the worldfates overlap, promoting one eco-friendly item after another and doing other worthy things. Except behind the scenes, Jim Haskin story is not that man. While his team are organising poetry slams to help homeless prostitutestold in backwards order, he’s coming leading up with fight-back campaigns, showing that bleach makes a beach better, chemical spills aren't as bad as you first might think, and other quite inexplicable thingsto the fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099542226</amazonuk>1914585186}}
{{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=Sunshine Move on Scotland Street|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I can hardly believe this is the eighth book about Scotland Street, and it's so nice to just pick up where we left off and discover what's been happening to all our friends. This time we have Angus and Domenica's wedding, Cyril's adventures whilst they're away on their honeymoon, Bruce encounters a rather strange gentleman and of course there's plenty of Bertie to entertain us!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972329</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

Navigation menu