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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction=={{adsense2}}__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=NoViolet Bulawayo1739526910|title=We Need New NamesWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley

|summary=This powerful narrative bears witness ''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to the experience recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of economic migrantsreconnecting with everything he has lost. Not just black Africans coming from Zimbabwe, like NoViolet Bulawayo, but more generally, But as those several generations of hardytentative plans falter, resourceful immigrants driven to the USA he becomes swept up in search a local world of a better future. Such people leave behind less courageous family membersunlikely friendships, but not their emotions towards those they have loved or their nation of birthmobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701188030</amazonuk>''

{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Lecoat|title=Beyond Summerland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their 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?|isbn=1846976537}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kim Izzo Onyi Nwabineli|title=My Life in Black and WhiteAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri'My Life s childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in Black her twenties and White'' starts off in a police station in England. The film noir theme that permeates she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the novel begins immediatelycontent about her. Clara Bishop Anuri is dressed in a gold evening gownbattling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and treats the police officer secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is interviewing the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her just as a femme fatale wouldrelationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=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. This girl has sass Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. But when Miv's upset because she begins 's overheard that her father wants to recount her talemove the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, it is clear this Down South is a new developmentfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. The old Clara describes For Miv, the move would mean leaving her life as something from a screwball comedybest friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not a film noirworried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. How does a screenwriter-slash-gossip-columnist from LA end up being interviewed about an assault in England?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444737716</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mave Fellowes1035906708|title=Chaplin and CompanyDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|summary=In 'Chaplin & Company'We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, Mave Fellowes takes a quirky look at life on London's canal boats. Yetbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, while her story is full of eccentric charactersNew York, not least the main human character of Odeline Milk, who moves in December 1923 and only moved to the boat that shares the title of the book after Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her mother passes away father changed it to 'Callas' to pursue her dream of becoming a mime artist in the make it more culturally enlightened big city after a lonely life manageable in provincial Arundel, the book is delightfully free of sentimentalityStates. I say When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the main human character, because this is also the story of Nazi occupation by a boat with a remarkable history mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of ownersher preference for her elder sister, and also a story of the strange life on the canal which somehow exists beneath the city through which it flowsJackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097350</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fayette FoxAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Deception ArtistPerfect Passion Company|rating=34.5

|summary=This story The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all about the charactersonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Plot-wise Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, it as Ness is set in 1980s suburban Americaplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. There are no explosions or even fairy tale adventures in this book. It’s just the simple adventure Katie is coming out of life when you’re a child break up with a bad boyfriend, and learning so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new things every day. Ivy accounts her day-story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to-day life with an extreme attention Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the strangest detailsIsabel Dalhousie novels, just like a childbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. As well as explaining what she Katie has learnt no experience in schoolrunning a business, or in match-making, she describes but Ness has full confidence in her daydreamsabilities, and there's always her friends very helpful (and her family. When her dad loses his jobrather handsome) neighbour, William, her parents start arguing and she is worried they might have to get lend a divorce like sad Sara in her class. And not only that, they might have to return their new TV. hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434244</amazonuk>1846976596

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan EvisonDean Koontz|title=The Revised Fundamentals 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 CaregivingBenny, 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

|summary= Ben hasn't worked for a while and soHannah Masury is living in Boston, deciding on having been sent to live with a career changefamily who run an inn, trains and being made to become work there from a caregiveryoung age. His first client When she hears there is Trevto be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a 20 year old Duchene Muscular Dystrophy sufferer who hasnyoung boy't s death at the sunniest hands of dispositionstwo vicious pirates. In fact Trev is angryShe hides away, self-centred so that they don't find and goes through caregivers like a knife through milk. Howeverkill her too, Ben, needing a job, holds on tight and tries then to encourage Trev escape them completely she runs away to live sea, dressing as a little. Eventually Trev complies boy and dictates joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a way forward: a road tripcabin boy. A road trip with She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a houseboundmutiny on board, ill, angry person is not what Ben had and from there we are caught up in mind at all. Meanwhile it gradually becomes clear to us that Trev isn't her rip roaring tale of life on the only one who has to learn to live a little differentlyocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781851751</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenny Mayhew1471180158|title=A Wolf in HindelheimMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5

|summary=GermanyJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the 1920ssubtlety of a half brick. Whatever that old proverb is about an ending of something merely being a beginning of something else in disguiseJamie's son, Bo, this novel is an evocation of it'has his problems'. In He's asthmatic and the rural habitation of more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the title autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a father frequent flier in the local A&E and son pair of policemen is called sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to a remote house by news that a newborn baby is missingschool. In Missed shifts or the house is an awkward combination of families – elderly matriarch, her son and daughter and both their spouses – two couples living need to be away on top of each other, with a disabled boy time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and maid put in the mix toowrong. We soon are given an explanation for the child being dead – It was going to come to a terrible instance of clumsiness, but like I say, this is only the beginning – of several things, including the older policeman's infatuation with the grieving mother's sister-in-law…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091944384</amazonuk>head.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessica SofferB0CKD1L5JL|title=Tomorrow There Will be ApricotsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=3.54

|summary=Lorca Petr is in her early teens and struggling to get attention an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from her mother. She's resorted to self-harming bustling cities and even her obvious abilities busy human society, in the kitchen don't seem to be enough to merit some forests of her chef motherWashington's timeOlympic Peninsula. Her last chance to make an impact before she's sent away to boarding school seems to be to find After Bear dies and a way to make Masgouf - an Iraqi fish dish - which her mother has described as her favourite meal. Along brief sojourn in human company, and armed with her only friend - a young man who pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes by on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the name of Blot - they discover that some Iraqi Jewish cooking classes are being offered by a chefstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091943973</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick TroutSarah Marsh|title=The Patron Saint A Sign of Lost DogsHer Own

|summary=Dr Cyrus Mills only intended to return to Vermont for long enough to sell the veterinary practice which his father had left himAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, collect the money and get back to South Carolina where he was trying to sort out the little matter of having his licence to practice suspendedEllen Lark loses her hearing. He had never got on with his father who had - somehow - managed NOT to tell his son that his mother had died until after Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her funerallife changes. The first snag he encountered was quite Living in a big one: his father had been equally forgetful about dealing with his financial affairs and time when the Bedside Manor practice use of sign language was dying on its feetseen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Cyrus didn’t have the money to prop it From here, she ends up and it looked as though he would have to hand everything over to in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the Bank deaf and walk away with nothingusing a system called Visible Speech. The second problem was an aging Golden Retriever by At the name same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of Frieda and an owner who’s very keen to see her put to sleepespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1401310885</amazonuk>1035401614

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clive LawtonB0BC3YTCMR|title=Flowers From FukushimaGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary= In 2011, Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. That and the subsequent tsunami caused level 7 meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant''This story is not for everyone.''

''Flowers Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from Fukushimavitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It' riffs s not easy being a black girl whose skin is 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 Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this in a post-apocalyptic story of a Japan devastated by even more was just an extension. She went to his house and even bigger natural disastershe raped her. It follows two main characters as they pick their way through the devastation In shock, each trying she even allowed him to make sense of this new and very different worldgive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CDLAK0E</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lynsey Rose1472263936|title=First Aid Kit GirlThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop

|summary=Steph hates It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her jobfirst trip to Greece. She hates was alone: her colleaguesmother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. She likes Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the work first aid kit, a lotof several annual visits. She’s trundling along She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, doing not very muchDina, finding but was wary - and frightened - of her release where she cangrandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. To me it seems like she loves He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to hate accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her life. Takes great pleasure in despising it, in factfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956235123</amazonuk>

{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= 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 plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gill HornbyB0BVDC2VWH|title=The HiveGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4.5

|summary=ThereThe village is isolated and poor. It's an old joke that, for parents, there are only two good days in surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the school holidays villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the first forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and the lasteven gallows, but if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in St Ambrose the ''real'' work begins when the children go back to school at the start of the new school year. There's a new head at the school (village and he'll have to be knocked into shape) but the real power that is Beatrice - 'Bea' to those whom she elects to call friends for the time being reason Volushka, a drunken, self- who rules the parentsindulgent, decides who lazy lout of a man is in or out and what status they should have in the community. And how does she do it? Well, she's the queentolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408704358</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jasper GibsonB0BYF82CXT|title=A Bright Moon For FoolsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=Jasper Gibson’s debut novel''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, A Bright Moon For Fools, tells the story stuck in a depressing rut of Harry Christmas boredom and his drunken escapades in Caracas disappointment, when Terry and the small villages of Venezuela. Harry Christmas is nowhere near as jolly as his name suggestsFiona – glamorous, successful and very much in fact Harry is drunken conmanlove – move in next door. He has pushed his luck too far and is forced to fly to Venezuela to evade William SladeDespite their different outlooks on life, the irate son of a woman Harry fleeced out of £27,000. Harry’s couples befriend each other and life is defined by booze and where appears to get the next drink; he is having a major breakdownimprove for both pairs. Slade But all is no better off not what it seems, and is also having his own mental crisis: unfortunately their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for Harry, Slade’s breakdown is of a much more psychotic naturetragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957468105</amazonuk>''

{{Frontpage|author=Shalini Boland|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her 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 world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Lisa ScottolineKatie Bishop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Come HomeThree Graces|rating=34.5

|summary=You divorce a partner, not a child, Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so although Jill utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and William’s split meant she was no longer legal step mum to his daughter Abbycapture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in some ways one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she never stopped seeing her as a daughter. Now, years after they last met up, Abby shows up on Jill’s doorstep 's practically synonymous with some devastating news about Jill’s ex-husbandthe genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. News that will unsettle both their lives, and She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of Jill’s new fiancé Sam, and of her own biological daughter. While Abby wants to pull her into untangling characters in a mysteryway that feels natural and lived-in, Sam is reluctant to encourage this investigationnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and the family reunion it will bring, leaving Jill torn between her new family and her old onegrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091944937</amazonuk>140871468X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antoine Laurain152915118X|title=The President's HatPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=The milliners' advertising used 'Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to say their brother Cord. They'to get aheadre Stocktons, get only Sasha isn't a hatStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. They would very much approve of this book The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Daniel Mercier is Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a Mr Average - street or perhaps a Monsieur Mediocreso away, which they own. He They won's a lowly accountant until one evening he finds himself dining next to French Presidentt need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, François Mitterrandso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, who leaves they had a choice but that wasn't the restaurant without his hatreality. When Daniel decides Darley and Georgiana start to keep call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it, his life starts to change and he feels somehow more confident'the GD'. In other strands of }}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the storysame small town for almost her whole life, Fanny Marquant but now she is having an affair facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with an older man who clearly has no intention of leaving his wife while celebrated perfumer Pierre Aslan has lost his ability family, as Edie is starting to detect smells and to create perfumeslose her memory. Bernard Lavallière However, meanwhile Edie is struggling to live up to tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the right wing standards truth of his wifewhat happened all that time ago. After 'seeing's friends and Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to read find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more left wing papersin her day to day life. At some point, all will come into contact with Will she uncover the Presidenttruth about Lucy's hat disappearance before her move, and it will have an impact on all of them.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908313471</amazonuk>1804181250

Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ma Jian0008506337|title=The Dark RoadGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=One of my many lovable traitsThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, according apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to my belovedOxford and having a glittering career. In the event, is my ability they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to absolutely insist I haven't read become a book before (when he catches me reading it again)well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. This has Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the huge benefit family home on the Isle of my getting to discover it all over again – and Wight. Even then the massive downside that I will doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never get be able to the end of my reading list, which must exist leave him in some kind of Möbius loopcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701187530</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Sarkissian1914585402|title=Dear LucyDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross

|summary=Dear LucyI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Dear, sweet Lucy. Lucy lives on It was a farm with Mister and Missusgripping, but the only person who is truly kind to her is Samanthaemotionally wounding read, who lives there with them. Lucy finds and rereading my review of it difficult, sometimes. She doesn’t always my main takeaway was that I might not have the words she needs. She tries very hard to be good but sometimes her helping is more of a hindrance. But she knows more that people think. She knows that although Mum Mum sent her to live lavished enough praise on the farm, she will come back for her one dayit. That is why Lucy must never leave the farm, otherwise Mum Mum won’t know where to find her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444767585</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian KimberlingLucy Ashe|title=SnapperClara and Olivia

|summary=There's little doubt that Brian KimberlingThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's debut novel, ''Snapper'' is a slightly unusual bookWells. The publishers describe it as a coming of age story, Ballerinas Clara and it is after a fashionOlivia are sisters, but it's more in the vein of an adult looking back twins no less. Identical on his young adult self than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at things. The narratoroutside but not, Nathanwe learn, shares many of on the traits of his creatorinside. Like KimberlingAnd not on stage, he is brought up in Indiana and is involved in research of songbirds in either. Because there's a lot that state; effectively builds a paid bird watcherdancer. The title of the book though comes not from any type of birdSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', but that don't come from the snapping turtle that lives in the stateclassroom. It's A stage presence, a broadly affectionate and wry look at the people of Indianacharm, known as a 'Hoosiers'joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0307908054</amazonuk>0861544080

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melvyn BraggHeather Fawcett|title=Grace and MaryEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4.5

|summary=Grace Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and Mary is a tender she has travelled extensively, and moving account spanning three generations of the same family. In the first chapterresearched meticulously, we are introduced to ninety-two year old Mary and write her doting sonlife's work, Johnthe very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Mary Whilst she is in a nursing home brilliant at research and has dementiaspeaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, hovering far North in a limbo-worldthe small village of Hrafvsnik, precariously balanced between having somehow offended the present village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the pastright track. John delights when he catches the occasional glimpse of the ''real'' Mary Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and they find a meeting placeinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, of sorts in their shared world of memories all charm and songsdelight, much to Emily'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>1444762346</amazonuk>0356519120

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Clarke1398515388|title=The Sea SistersBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Kate is as sensibleFirst of all, focused and down to earth as her sister Mia is reckless and unsettledit was the earthquake, so it’s no surprise that it’s Mia who leaves London behind to go traveling. With dreams of seeing deep in the USAocean floor, Australia which created the tsunami and beyondthis, Mia sets off excitedly with her best friend Finn, but this once in a lifetime trip tragically becomes just that as some months later Mia is found dead in Baliturn, an apparent suicide plungecaused the nuclear meltdown. With her life thrown into turmoil The result was complete and unable to get past the things they saidutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and didn’t say, to each other when Mia the loss of livelihoods was alive, Kate makes widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a rather Mia-like decision to leave it all behind tooconvenience store. Armed with Mia’s travel journey, she sets off He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to retrace her sister’s steps, stop by stop, to try open his car door and work out what Mia was going through, and what ultimately lead to her deathTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007481349</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian ClaryChristopher Bowden|title=Briefs EncounteredMr Magenta

|summary=Choosing this book from Julian Clary was irresistibleChristopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. Normally, I try not The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to review books where I’m already familiar with author. But I didn’t feel a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that seeing nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him live several times or watching him regularly on TV counted, as I hadn’t read either of his two previous novelsan obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091938856</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Suzanne BuglerJennifer Mason|title=The Safest PlacePartitions of Unity|rating=54

|summary=Jane and David Berry have always lived Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and worked unintentional detective in London. However[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], since their children have come along, the house has felt too cramped when she investigated and Jane has often dreamed unravelled a series of moving awaydisappearances. When their son Sam fails to get a place at his chosen secondary schoolIn ''Partitions of Unity'', that is the catalyst she needs sets her mind to start making her dream solving a reality. The only problem is that the rest of the family are not quite as enthusiastic about moving as she would have hopedmurder. David will have to commute every day to London and the children are anxious about starting a new school, particularly Sam who finds it difficult to make friends. Even Jane starts to wonder if it was a good idea, isolated in a house miles from anywhere, finding it difficult to get to know the local community.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330544969</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maria SempleWill Carver|title=Where'd You Go, BernadetteThe Daves Next Door

|summary=Much like the missing question mark Five strangers come together in the title it would seem, Bernadette has disappeared. Maria Semple's ''Where'd You Go, Bernadette'' works one moment as both a physical and emotional question. Bernadette Fox is the wife of Elgie Branch, suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a star at Microsoft in Seattle, and mother of 15 year old, BeeLondon tube line. The narrative begins with Bee wondering where her mother had goneAs their fates overlap, but then quickly moves to an epistolary format the story is told in e-mailsbackwards order, notes and messages between the major players, including some rather obnoxious mothers at Bee's school, one of whom also works at Microsoft with Elgie. We are taken back a few weeks to when Bernadette was around and a seemingly somewhat angry mother prior leading up to her mysterious disappearance. One of the delights about the book, which along with being very funny on issues like helicopter parenting, corporate life and, er, Canadians, is that it emerges that Bernadette is more than a wife and mother but has a past career of her own as a talented architect which she has sacrificed for one reason or another. Thus, in many ways she disappeared long before her physical disappearancefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0316204269</amazonuk>1914585186}}

{{newreview|author=Christopher Currie|title=The Ottoman Motel|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Simon Sawyer is 11 years old, forced Move on a road-trip with his parents to visit his grandmother, Iris. Iris is living in some backwater town hemmed in on three sides by corn fields, and on the fourth by the sea. The town is called Reception in a heavy-handed attempt at irony, as we learn the town actually has no reception for mobile phones and is pretty much isolated from the rest of the world but for a few dirt tracks leading out.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908737190</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]