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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Blazing WorldEowyn Ivey|authortitle=Siri HustvedtBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating=43.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary='All intellectual and artistic endeavours…fare better in 'Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the mind story of Birdie, the crowd when young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the crowd knows that somewhere behind the great work or the great spoof it can locate Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a cock setting which enables her bad habits and a pair her accidental neglect of ballsEmaleen.Described as a ' Thus we are introduced 'wild card'', she feels stuck in her day-to the unforgettable Harriet Burden – larger-than-day life, six-foot-tall amazon artist – and yearns to some of cross the novel's essential elements: musing Wolverine river and live on what makes intellectual products successful in the North Fork to fulfil her desires of a postmodern marketplacesimple life surrounded by nature. When she meets Arthur Nielson, feminist resentment of the overvaluing of male achievementa strange, taciturn and an unapologeticsolitary man, who says he has a cabin over there, playful boldness she feels called to go - and bring Emaleen with languageher. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's lives forever.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444779648</amazonuk>1472279042
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and temperaments with remarkable clarity.|isbn=0241619785}}{{Frontpage|author=James Baldwin|title=Clever GirlGiovanni's Room|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Tessa HadleyAlba de Cespedes |title=Forbidden Notebook
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Stella grows up with her single mother in Bristol in This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the 1960s; her father left when she was a babymoment our protagonist, but her mother has cultivated the convenient myth that he died. In the stand-alone first chapterValeria Cossati, Stella recounts a disturbing incident of domestic violence that affected purchases her Aunt Andy. Sordid snippets from the ensuing court case stay with Stella over the years; 'Innocent-seeming fragments would get in past my defences…then stick to my imagination like tar.' Even soforbidden notebook, the novel that follows is and learns about herself in the way in which we engage with memory – facts that linger versus those we, deliberately or subconsciously, choose not to tellmost intimate and revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570521</amazonuk>1782278222
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=All That is Solid Melts into AirOttessa Moshfegh|authortitle=Darragh McKeonMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=MoscowAt best, 1986this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, and a nine-year old piano prodigy it is trapped in a subway station by bulliesthe cynical, who carefully break one predictable and slightly trite tale of his little fingersan unlikeable protagonist. Rehearsal cancelledThis unlikely heroine, the boy finds his favourite aunta slim, who takes him to treatment only to discover attractive and newly orphaned girl in her ex-husband the doctor involved. Many miles away a slightly older young man twenties is off on his first hunting trip disillusioned with the men of the villageworld, only but resolves not to find diseased cows, and the grouse they seek sickly and weirdly uncoordinated. What has affected them, and will of course affect all the characters lose sleep over it: in the bookfact, is the nuclear disaster her solution lies in the plant at Chernobylher hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670922706</amazonuk>1784707422
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Black SnowMatthew Tree|authortitle=Paul LynchWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Barnabas Kane returned Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his birthplace in Ireland with his family with the goal of setting up his own farm father, a drunk and raising his son in a better setting than New York. With his farm chronic underachiever whose dreams of a decent size and a good herd being exceptional at any of cattle his artistic passions all seems well with Kane until out ploughing one day he failed miserably and his farm hand Matthew Peoples spot smoke in the sky from the direction who had endless crises of his byreself confidence. The fire marks the start of a sometimes bleak downward spiral and Kane is forced So Tim applied himself to rely on the kindness of his neighbours who still see him as an outsiderstudies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782062041</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Truman CapoteB0C47LV1PC|title=Breakfast at Tiffany's Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Holly Golightly. Who doesn't know her? Whether in the pages of Can you make a ''Breakfast at Tiffany'sYo birthing person''joke? And if you could, is the short novel by Truman Capote or capture on film by Audrey Hepburnquestion should you make it? Or is the question if you did, she's an American iconwould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.. A young country girl becomes a New York socialite, trading on amusement value to make a life paid for by rich men who are titillated by her outrageous opinions and anecdotes. We ''want'' to know her. And the narrator ''wants'' to know her as much, if not more, than we dono. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HX9UTSE</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Patrick Ness|title=The Crane Wife|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Crane WifeFragility'' ticks all my boxes. It's by Patrick Ness who is one set as the city of my favourite writers of Young Adult fiction. It has a basis in myth and legend and still better in an ancient story new Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to me. It doesn't go on and on and Ariston for half a billion pages. Best of all, emerge from the author includes a shout-out for restrictions imposed during the brilliant Decemberists. I agree with Ness: this is a band you should look up. A heavy reading schedule meant I didn't get to it last year when it was first published but now it's out in paperback and here I am. I wasn't disappointed. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857868748</amazonuk>covid pandemic
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jill DawsonMosby Woods|title=The Tell-Tale HeartA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Being told that you have six months to live concentrates The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the mind most wonderfully: fifty West is no age quite sure how to die, mend this or even if you have lived life to mending it is the fullbest course of action. Governments are flailing. Patrick's heart was giving up on him and the Professor of American StudiesA war here, philanderer and heavy drinker was at the head of the list a push for a heart transplantclimate action there. His other problems - entirely of his own making - faded into insignificanceA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Sixteen-year-old Drew Beamish died in Imagine then, there was a motorcycle accident in man with precognition. Imagine the village where he lived strategic advantage in rural Cambridgeshire and it this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be his (still beating) heart which is transplanted into Patrickvaluable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. The two, who had never metImagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would be permanently joined.governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444731068</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The People in the PhotoHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Helene GesternFiona Williams|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Hélène Hivert works at the Museum ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the History story of the Postcardfour people. It is a job Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she lovesmight be happier there, but instead, as she finds delving into other people's lives 'most exciting'in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Luckily Insubstantial as it might look, she is 'regularly sent collections to catalogueit's stood the passage of time, storms and each time the 'moment of discovery' gives her a thrillfloods. It may be 'addictive' Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, but 'There is something very moving about to complete the thought that just two or three sources can be enough delivery rounds - and to build a picture of an entire life'bring in sufficient money. But what happens when the sources are a bit too close to home They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, when Hélène must play Holmes among the artefacts of her own familyrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's past, pondering Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don'the silence of surfacest believe that they'? Well, the professional detachment goes straight out the windowre related, much less twins and what had been a genuine pleasure, tinged by wonder, now becomes there's an uncomfortable obsessionassumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313544</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
{{newreview|title=The Atheistfollow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca''s Prayer|author=Amy R Biddle|rating=3picks up a few months after where we left off.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I don’t shy away from a book In the palace of Odysseus, with a little edgedelicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, in fact [[:Category:Chuck Palahniuk|Chuck Palahniuk]] is one who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of my favourite authors the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and his books can be so sharp you can shave with them. On physical – the surface chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca''The Atheist’s Prayer'' would seem to be courting controversy; why else have such a provocative title? Buts shores, Queen Penelope is it really on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shocking? Nope. This is a story about how people deal shatters however with the modern world return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and what happens when dangerous ideals infect a vulnerable grouphis sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780995822</amazonuk>0356516075
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Three MusketeersKay Chronister|authortitle=Alexandre Dumas and Will Hobson (translator)Desert Creatures|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Dystopian Fiction|summary=Leaving his home to try and join the famous musketeers in ParisWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, young Gascon d'Artagnan encounters troubles on the this genre is a way but quickly falls in with title characters Athos, Aramis and Porthosfor humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Soon, the quartet are caught up in ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a diabolical plot new work of the wicked Cardinal Richelieu and his accomplice Milady de Winter post- can they save apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the Queen's honour?fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849907498</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Eric LundgrenLaRocca|title=The FacadesTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Sven Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and Molly Norberg live in , by the American mid-western town end of Trudethe story, beatable. At least Sven still does; Molly has gone missingEric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. Night after night Sven leaves Kyle, his teenage son, home alone while he scours It is a collection of short stories more interested in the streetshorrors of illness, revisiting places grief and humiliation. Horrors that he linger and Molly wandered through together in order are harder to find herdefeat than any ''Big Bad''. Meanwhile Trude has problems of its own and the librarians are armed and ready!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715647679</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Romy AshMadelaine Lucas|title=FlounderingThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Loretta collects her boys Jordy ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and Tom from school as if it's the most normal thing in the worldweightless feeling, but itI had always longed for gravity''s not; not for them anyway Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Jordy and Tom have been living Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with their grandparents a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after being abandoned by this woman who refuses finishing university – to be called its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town 'Mum'. As they get further from their eastern Australian home it remains an adventure Thirst for Tom but JordySalt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's more sullen. Once they arrive at their ultimate destination deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all- a ramshackle caravan park - Tom begins to understand why but not before consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both lads realise that their worries are just beginningromantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1921922087</amazonuk>0861546490
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Michael Grothaus
|title=Beautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Audrey MageeJennifer Saint|title=The UndertakingAtalanta
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Peter Faber has decided to become part of the new Nazi initiative. He will marry Katharina Spinell, a woman he won't even meet till their honeymoon. In return he'll receive honeymoon leave from the Russian front while she will secure a widow's pension should anything happen to him, hopefully providing the Reich with I was as worthy as any one or two more Aryan babies on the way. Peter may not be the son-in-law Katharina's parents envisaged but their disappointment is blunted by their luxurious lifestyle under the patronage of the sinister Dr Weinartthem. HoweverI would get on board that ship, this is still wartime and Peter must eventually return to Russia and whatever fate awaits himI vowed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782391029</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pamela Erens|title=The Virgins|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Set in 1979-80 I would take my place, not just in an elite boarding school on the east coast name of the USA ''The Virgins'' tells the story of two young peoplegoddess. The story is mainly narrated by Bruce Bennett-Jones who would have liked to have a close relationship with Aviva Rossner but her unlikely choice It was Seung Jung. They're not shy about flaunting their relationship and it's the talk of Auburn Academy, but whilst the watchers believe that for the relationship is one sake of unalloyed passionmy name, the truth is rather different and the couple are set on a path to an inevitable tragedytoo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549873</amazonuk>}}Atalanta''
{{newreview|title=Crumbs|author=Miha Mazzini|rating=3Princess.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are in a hell of man's own making – a town that is basically one huge foundry, whose men go from working there to a bar then to (someone's) bed in three eight hour shifts, or so it seemsWarrior. Egon isn't one of those men, or isn't any more, for he works at other things than the foundry – namely churning out trashy low-brow fiction, and a lot of wheeling and a lot more dealingLover. He still keeps his shift in at the bar and in people's beds, though, all the while looking out for number oneHero. He has several friendships on the go, and several sexual partners at the same time, yet drinks so much it's hard to say he exactly cherishes himself above all – if anything he doesn't care that much about anyone. He certainly cares for something however – his beloved stash of Cartier cologne has run out, and he'll as like as not do anything for more…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754397</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Amy Grace Loyd|title=The Affairs Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of Others|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Five years ago Celia Cassill's husband died leaving her the owner goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the Brooklyn apartment block chance to fight in which she lives. SheArtemis's fastidious as to whom she lets name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is understandably hesitant when George (one a whirlwind of her longstanding tenants) wants to temporarily sub-let to a friend while he goes abroad. Celia eventually agrees challenges and discovery and so in moves Hopethrough it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, a lady who has just left it will be her husband and for whom life is as complicated as she makes Celia'sundoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297871188</amazonuk>1472292154
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Donal RyanAmanthi Harris|title=The Thing About DecemberBeautiful Place|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Johnsey Cunliffe was always Padma, a nice boyyoung Sri Lankan, but a little slow - has returned to the one that the other kids picked Villa Hibiscus on and it's much the same in adult lifesouthern coast of her home country. If you were to ask Johnsey he'd say that he was This is a gomplace she spent her formative years. Even if you've never met It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the word before you know what Villa, how it means. It wasnbecame her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score''t too bad whilst Daddy was there - he was a man with a certain presence and even when it was just Johnsey for this gentle and his mother he had some supportyet subtly violent novel. But after Padma's present fails to escape her death Johnsey was dependant on small kindnesses from other people past and at much like the mercy musical score of those for whom he was an easy target. His life might have continued in this rather unsatisfactory a film, that strand weaves its way for some time but for through everything that happens at the collision of two eventsVilla.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781620091</amazonuk>1784631930
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James McBride178563335X|title=The Good Lord Bird|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Henry 'The Onion' Shackleford lives as Henrietta (or just plain Onion) until he's 17 due to a misunderstanding that may prove too dangerous for him to correct. The reason is that the person under this misapprehension is the fiercely well-meaning slavery abolitionist (with the emphasis on the 'fiercely') John Brown. As Onion accompanies him on his quest to free every slave they encounter, he discovers that Brown's philanthropy only stretches so far. Meanwhile it's that time of the 19th century when a shadow spreads over America, one that will cause a historic scar almost as great as that of slavery but Brown is oblivious to this. He doesn't; want to start a civil war, just an armed slave revolt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594486344</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Ashley Hay|title=The Railwayman's WifeHilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mackenzie When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and Anikka Lachlan have all wondering why they could possibly want're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. They live Thelma's daughter-in Thirroul-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a close New South Wales coastal communitylovely place, are parents but Rachel is struggling to develop a lovely little girl real bond with the parish - and nowshe's in awe of the vicar, in 1948Gail, Mac has come through but then she's been doing the war job for more than thirty years unscathed due to his job at home on the railways. However in a single moment all their luck changes Rachel and Anikka becomes Christopher hoped that a widow, another grieving shadowwalk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. Alongside her neighbours (a war poet who can't write now he's home and the local GP who experienced hell while not being able to bring anyone back from its grasp) Anikka must learn the most difficult lesson: how to go on livingAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1743318014</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amy Tan1398515388|title=The Joy Luck ClubBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary= The Joy Luck Club First of all, it was Jing Mei's mother's idea. After arriving the earthquake, deep in the US from China ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in 1949 she invited three other Chinese immigrant ladies to jointurn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The four would meet to play Mah Jong result was complete and feast on morsels that none of them could really affordutter devastation. Once played outThe deaths were uncountable, they shared stories and the loss of the land they'd leftlivelihoods was widespread. The evenings evolve over time; fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the food becomes affordable, men join the discussions list of priorities but - six months after the core remains the sametsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Four Chinese mothers living He wasn't a new life while sharing moments enjoyed dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and regretted, discussing their children and parents and telling stories of wisdom, happiness and, sometimes, intense painTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0031Y9DPU</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Byers0989715337|title=IdiopathyPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Katherine no longer seeks or expects to be happy. She's stuck in a place and a job she hates and her relationship with Daniel broke up over a year ago. Since then she's Some frogs had sexual encounters with a few men but her motivations have been confusing and disturbing - not least to Katherine. She has a vicious wit (actually, calling it ''wit'' is perhaps stretching the point a little...) which repels the people she'd like to attract and attracts gotten into the people she'd prefer to repel. Daniel is with a new girlfriend (well, there was a ''slight'' overlap) but he's not certain that he loves Angelica. He's in a difficult situation: not telling her that he loves her becomes tantamount to telling her that he doesn't love her and as a result he has to tell her that he loves her just to keep on the level.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007412088</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=Sathnam Sanghera|title=Marriage Material|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=On the morning after his father's funeral Arjan Banga was surprised to see his mother opening up 'Walter stood waist-deep in the family shop. She was in her sixtiesfragrant water, recovering from cancer and besides, Bains Stores wasn't exactly thrivingnaked except for his beaten leather hat. You could even be forgiven for wondering if it was ''open''Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two of the advert for a bar of chocolate discontinued in 1994 having pride of place in dogs leaned over the window opening and barked down at the strange noise of the security shutter stuck at a quarter open. Much buckets as he might wish otherwise Arjan has no choice but to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, leaving his job as a graphic designer and his girlfriend, Freya, in limbofilled them. They were supposed to be getting married in December, but that looked increasingly unlikely.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021903</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|title=Kerrigan in Copenhagen|author=Thomas E Kennedy|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Terrence Einhorn Kerrigan How is that for an Irish-Danish American living opening? The style of this novel in Copenhagen. He is 'a full-time writer the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and translator'musing, who 'thinks of himself as turning on a failed poet, which is a less complicated concept than a failed human being'sixpence. His newest writing assignment, however, is to 'select a sampling of one hundred of the bestAnd author Marco North, who has the most historic, the most congenial wonderful turn of Copenhagen's 1phrase,525 serving houses and write them up for one of a one-hundred-volume travel guide: ''The Great Bars of the Western World'''. Kerrigan, though, 'does not wish the book starts as he means to be written. He wants only to research it. Forever' - and preferably in the company of his green-eyed Associate, Annelisego on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408841940</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lois WaldenDaisy Hildyard|title=AfterworldEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The Duvalier family owe their wealth summary of this book doesn't come close to sugar cane although their gratitude explaining what is shown in varying degrees and various ways. From the patriarch William (who never recovered from being hit by a manhole cover) through his wife and children, down to Theodore, done with the lad who gained comfort (and a certain amount of secrecy) from travel and on to their black servant Rheta B, each has had a life. Each also has a story to tell and, whether alive or in Afterworld, they're going to tell itpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908129859</amazonuk>1913097811}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Kate ClanchySally Oliver |title=Meeting the EnglishThe Weight of Loss |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Struan Robertson was just seventeenMarianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, but set to go she awakes to Aberdeen to study dentistryfind strange, when his English teacher passed him a short advertisementthick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. A literary giant needed Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a carer. Why not take a gap year? Struan had never been physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to ‘’England’’ before and he would be living stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in HampsteadWales. On the plus side he’d been working in a care home Yet something strange is happening to earn money Marianne and he could do the workother patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. Soon - almost too soon - Struan was the main carer for Phillip PrysAs Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, rendered dumb Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and paralysed by pain—but only at a massive stroke. His family couldn’t take care terrible price: that of him - the young (very young) third wife was too busy with her painting. His son, Jake, had other things - anything else - to do rather than be in his father’s presence. Juliet had never been her father’s favourite but she wasn’t ‘’exactly’’ stable when it came to helpingidentity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330535277</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michele ForbesNatalia Garcia Freire|title=Ghost MothThis World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Belfast 1949: Katherine Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is about to become engaged to fireman George Bedford when she meets Tom McKinley. Heperhaps using the expression in a way I's bright fun and makes her feel more alive than dependable, boring George ever couldm not familiar with. The weight I have to confess my ignorance of the decision Katherine eventually makes will haunt her for a lifetimeSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. We fast forward to Belfast 1969 and as From the troubles little I have read (in Northern Ireland exacerbatetranslation, as do I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the cracks in Katherine's marriage. In fact 20 years and four children later, they've become chasmsfantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297870440</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonSaint|title=A Sixpenny SongElektra|rating=34
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Annie's father is dead. SheElektra's not particularly upset as it's a decade or so since they've had any contactby Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. Dada (he preferred to be called 'Father') had wanted her to go into the family businessCassandra, to make money. She'd wanted to go to Trinity College in Dublin to read English LiteratureClytemnestra, but instead she'd packed a suitcase and left for London, where she still is - working Elektra are all bit players in a bookshop. Her mother died when she was young - Dada had sent the child off to boarding school and did his best to ensure that her mother's name was never referred to again - and it wasn't too long before he remarriedstory of the Trojan War. His death brought Annie back to Ireland and she found Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the money had been left to wife number two (as he was confident that she would know how to look after it) but most compelling stories and the house now belonged to Anniemost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472209222</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Kovacs8409290103|title=The Currency of PaperIf Only|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Maximilian Sacheverell Hollingsworth was Twenty-one- as the name might suggest year- of aristocratic birthold Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, but had broken off all contact with cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his family accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and in consequence found himself labouring for forty hours thereafter Patrick was to send him a week in a printing works in Dagenhammonthly allowance. He came upon Patrick sent the idea money regularly and a correspondence - of planning out sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his entire life and son, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he did in the course of might be a single afternoon whilst enjoying a little illicit sick leave in a pub in Bloomsbury. He would first become a counterfeiter - on a massive scale - and then a sculptor, filmmaker, collector of artefacts, sound artist danger to his wife and mysticother children. Circumstances would also turn him into a recluse, except The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on certain well-ordered occasions, most of which would occur - somewhat to his initial surprise - later in his lifeway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564788571</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charlie HillB098FFFBH9|title=BooksSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourLiterary Fiction|summary=Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses the sudden untimelydeath of two tourists in Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a bar while on holiday. Birmingham bookshop ownerRichard Anger happens competition entry to be highlight the way in which human beings exploit the same bar so together our single holidaymakers decide to team up as an investigatory force to be reckoned with.(Well, Lauren teams up for thatanimal world. Richard's reasons are more physical thanintellectual to begin with.) The murders seem to emanate She gets a great deal of support from author GarySaylesher family: father Pip Harrison, a legend in his own mind lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate andher twin, apparently, fatal to readNick. Elsewherehippy exhibitionists (in an over-18 way) Zeke and Pippa, are planning Kate runs theart installation to end all art installations andfamily business, are determined to makeGary the centrepiecea toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, whether he realises it or notwhich is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251630</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alice McDermott
|title=Someone
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Marie is growing up in 1920s Brooklyn and, although not financially rich she's the secure, cared for child of Irish parents from one of the many waves of immigration which the US has promised to welcome. Marie's friend Pegeen is from Irish/Syrian stock and is dying for romantic love to come her way. Marie's brother Gabe is singled out for Catholic seminary and priesthood. Marie thinks the future is as safe as the loved ones around her but the future is an unknown country and her journey towards it hasn't finished yet.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408847248</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview|title=The Ice-Cold Heaven|author=Mirko Bonne|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=They say that if you fall off a horse you should get back Move on one right away, but even so… I don't think many people who had only just left their first love – a shopgirl in their village – for their second – exploring the world on sailing cargo ships – would leap to a further voyage having been wrecked and stranded off the coast of South America for well over a week. But Merce here does – he wants to follow his best friend on to a ship called ''The Endurance'' and head with Shackleton to the Antarctic. But Merce is only seventeen, and is rejected – causing him to stow away onto one of the world's worst ever journeys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715645846</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]

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