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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sebastian BarryMatthew Tree|title=Days Without EndWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5

|summary=It's the mid nineteenth century and Thomas McNulty has left Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his home in Sligofather, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his family dead from famine, to make a new life in a new nation. He teams up with prairie fairy - a dancer in drag - John Cole artistic passions all failed miserably and together they sign up for the US Armywho had endless crises of self confidence. Their journey will take them through the American Indian wars and eventually So Tim applied himself to the Civil War. Along the wayhis studies, the two soldiers form a lasting bond with a young Sioux girl called Winona cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and their travels take them from Missouri to Wyoming and Tennessee. It's the story of perhaps the most violent birth of a nation in history set himself high but it's also a convention-defying love storyachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571277004</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rose TremainB0C47LV1PC|title=The Gustav SonataFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54

|summary=Gustav Perle grew up in Can you make a small town in neutral Switzerland: ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the horrors of question should you make it? Or is the Second World War seemed distantquestion if you did, but neutrality was maintained partly at the expense of those who would seek refuge in it land? The catch is that the countryanswer for both could well be... Gustav's father died in mysterious circumstances and whilst Gustav adored his mother, Emilie, she was cold and indifferent to him. Until he met Anton Zwiebel he was a lonely child with just one toy, a tin train, but he and Anton met at kindergarten where it fell to Gustav to look after the nervous boyno. Anton  ''Fragility'' is Jewish and he's a talented pianist, but he lacks set as the confidence to perform in public. Throughout much city of his life he relies on Gustav's supportPortland, but fails to appreciate just how importantOregon, how necessary it is cautiously begins to his wellbeing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784700207</amazonuk>emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom TomaszewskiMosby Woods|title=The Eleventh LetterA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=34

|summary=At The West isn't the end of dominant force it once was. Nobody in the working day, Christopher West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is looking over the ghosts best course of his occupancy of some rooms on Harley Street, before moving up the road to different chambers, and pastures newaction. Governments are flailing. He's half impelled and half reluctant to revisit a pair of audio cassettesA war here, on which are interviews by him and someone else of a woman called Louise, who was arrested in Italy in the 1980s push for the double murder of two close friends, Kate and Johnclimate action there. Hardly aware he's being snowed A feeling that nobody is in by actual charge. Imagine then, there was a London blizzard and man with precognition. Imagine the usual British response to any bad weather, he spontaneously provides shelter to strategic advantage in this asset; a flame-haired beauty, Kay, man who provokes him into playing the tapescan tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. It's an occurrence which changes him much more profoundly than he does others at That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the therapist's couchmost valuable asset in history. Indeed, the closer he gets to KayImagine then, the closer he gets to the voice of the victim from decades agothat this man loses this ability. What on earth could be the connectionwould governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>099357582X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steinunn Sigurdardottir and Philip Roughton (translator)0571379559|title=The Good LoverHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=2.5

|summary=Karl ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is a global example the story of the Icelandic species, with more than one home abroad and an amanuensis-cum-assistant to do his scheduling and arrange housework while hefour people. Tess Hembry's going here and roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there being a businessman. He has a string of lovers that has stretched into three figures, partly because with one exception three is but instead, she lives in the house on the limit riverbank, built of liaisons he'll have with eachbroken bricks. But heInsubstantial as it might look, it's also got a heart devoted to Unastood the passage of time, his teenaged love whom he adores, despite her splitting with him decades agostorms and floods. On a whim he leaves a beach holiday Her husband, Richard, struggles to go back grow his vegetables, to one of complete the icy limbs of Icelanddelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, witnesses the changes wrought by fifteen years on her – and then ends up staying the night with the woman next doorrainbow twins. This is purely platonic, but what with Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his host knowing everything about the situation, an ever-present taxi driverfather. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an ex on the line in America, assumption when Max is there a way he can snatch out with his mother that she's his love from her marriage and find happiness?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380139</amazonuk>nanny.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eric Beck RubinClaire North|title=School House of VelocityOdysseus|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Jan's head is dropping him in it. He's What could matter more than love?'' The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a trained concert pianist, but is having difficulty performingfew months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with a horrendous problem, in that he can hear any discordant music, or just in fact horrid noisedelicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, when in the wings waiting who sailed to perform, war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the score he is due chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to follow. The devilIthaca's tinnitusshores, you might call it. With another failure behind him, but dignity somewhat intact, Jan decides he has to work back through his life to tell us Queen Penelope is on the cause – and we're likewise dropped into an extended flashback, to his formative years at art school, with brink of a pretentious drama student, Dirkfragile peace. The book is a fast-moving exploration One that shatters however with the return of what Jan finds Orestes, King of note (pun intended) through his lifeMycenae, and all that might have caused his mental problemsister Elektra, seeking refuge. But is cognisance of what might lie behind it going to help?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993506275</amazonuk>0356516075

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gerard ReveKay Chronister|title=The Evenings: A Winter's TaleDesert Creatures|rating=3.54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=''The Evenings'' was voted the best Dutch novel of all time by the Society of Dutch LiteratureWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, and its authorpost-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, Gerard Reve (1923–2006)a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, was the first openly gay writer in the Netherlands. It's this genre is a historic book way for its native country, but will it have the same impact in English translation? Contemporary Dutch novelist Herman Koch compares humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''The EveningsDesert Creatures'' to by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the works of Kerouac and Salinger, and I can see how it could have achieved cult status fears that exist for humanity today. It is a certain generation, but plot-wise I found it more tedious than revelatoryshocking novel that still manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782271783</amazonuk>1803364998

{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Henrietta Rose-InnesEric LaRocca|title= NinevehThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There

|genre= General FictionHorror|summary= Henritetta Rose-Inne's 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 ''NinevehBig Bad'' instantly reassures you , whether that you are in the presence of is a confident and talented writer. The story of Katya Grubbshome invader, a second generation pest exterminator who specialises in relocating the bugs monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and rodents that ruin middle-class garden parties, Rose-Inne writes with by the enviable ability end of describing both the intricacies of Katyastory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's job and ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the feeling horrors of it simultaneouslyillness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709166</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara Stridsberg and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)Madelaine Lucas|title=The Gravity of LoveThirst for Salt|rating=4.5

|summary=Particularly literate cover… Setting of a real-life mental hospital – in Sweden… Mature themes… Opening with an emotion- and closure-laden death… Yes''Love, I'd read, this book has more than its share of things was supposed to put the potential reader off. Which, in this instance, is quite be a large shame indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857054767</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carys Bray light and others|title=How Much the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Loveweightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''|rating=3.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This Sceptre collection does not have as simple Told from a retrospective view, a remit as it might appear; these are no straightforward love storiesyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. InsteadOverlaid with later wisdom, they each take one aspect of love the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – often one of the ancient Greek classifications summer after finishing university – and provide a whole new way to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of thinking about it. After 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, the heart holds a lot of metaphorical weighthow it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Salley VickersMichael Grothaus|title= CousinsBeautiful Shining People

|summary=''We donBut fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I't know our own limits so how can we judge the limits m willing to bet most of others? And what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it is easy to forget is that they were so young. Too young to bear all those horribly complicated family strains.''

Salley Vickers' intense family odyssey 'Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around one devastating accident in 1994. Reminiscent of the past, Will Tye's accident has a powerful effect on three generations question of the Tye family, revealing long forgotten truths identity and close kept secretsacceptance. ''Cousins'' pieces together the events leading up to the event from three different close relatives perspectives, in an attempt to understand Of what exactly happened and why it happened that dark nightmeans to be human. His sister, grandmother Of what is real and aunt all recount Will's childhood and growth into an adultwhat is artificial, highlighting both his successes and mistakes whilst reflecting on their own pasts. From whether the outbreak development of the Second World War right up until the present day, the family's mysteries are laid out for all to see. Family loyalties are tested and the lengths you will go to for those you love are questioned. At its heart, ''Cousins'' technology is a love story between two cousins, Will and Cece, littered with complications, potential and realism as well as the struggle to determine your worth when you're youngexciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241187710</amazonuk>191458564X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul BeattyJennifer Saint|title=The SelloutAtalanta

|summary=''This may be hard to believeI was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, coming from a black manI vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the goddess. It was for the sake of my name, but I've never stolen anythingtoo.Atalanta''

Our black hero and narrator, surname MeAbandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, first name unknown, was born in Atalanta is raised under the southern Los Angeles suburb protective eye of Dickens the goddess Athemis and subjected fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to an isolated upbringing dominated by his father's extreme views on racejoin the Argonauts, supposedly the subject a fierce band of a psychological memoir which will solve their financial problemswarriors, but cruel and unnatural descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to anyone with an ounce of humanity. To add insult to injury Me discovered after his fatherfight in Artemis's death (a racially provoked shooting) that there was no memoirname and carve out her own legendary place in history. A drive-by shooting produces nothing more substantial than What follows is a bill for a drive-whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through funeralit, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, but it starts Me on the path which will end in the Supreme Court, the subject of a race trial: ''Me v the United States of America''be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070154</amazonuk>1472292154

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nir BaramAmanthi Harris|title=Good PeopleBeautiful Place|rating=45

|summary=Thomas Heiselberg's self-focus pays off when he attracts Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the best clientele to Villa Hibiscus on the American advertising firm he helps establish across Europe from his German southern coast of her homecountry. Meanwhile in Russia Sasha Weissberg This is struggling with being in a literary, free-thinking family that doesn't go down too well with Stalin's regimeplace she spent her formative years. As World War II arrivesIt is not a place she was born into, both but the one she thinks of their worlds are shakenas home. As a result both decide How she came to become collaborators rather than resistance fighters be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for different reasons this gentle and with far reaching effectsyet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911231006</amazonuk>1784631930

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian McEwan178563335X|title=Nutshell|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Trudy. Successfully living in a large and valuable London home, she is heavily pregnant, and in between two men – she has swapped the homeowner, poet and publisher John, for someone completely different, namely Claude, a nasty, brutish and short type. Some people cannot work out why on earth she has made that decision, including our narrator. Oh, and he himself, our narrator, is the child she's pregnant with. He is a very alert young thing, with nothing else to do but kick here and there, and practice what you might well call mindfulness, and listen in on Claude and Trudy, as they calmly talk their way to plotting and carrying out murder…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1911214330</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewSea Defences|author= Matt Wilven|title=The Blackbird Singularity|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Thirty-something writer Vince Watergate sees his partner's pregnancy as a fresh start. He stops taking his lithium and the new clarity of mind lets him start writing his best work in ages. He befriends a blackbird in the garden with the help of a bag of sultanas, and begins preparing the baby's room. For a short while, everything seems full of peace and hope. But Vince and Lyd's first child, despite having died a couple of years earlier, might not have completely left them and the blackbird might not be as friendly as Vince first thought. Lithium withdrawal, stress, and the pressure of appearing 'normal' push Vince into a frightening, irrational place. Can he fight his way through it and return to his family?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079689</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Carolyn Parkhurst|title=HarmonyHilary Taylor

|summary=Josh and Alexandra Hammond have two daughters. Iris is eleven years old and neurotypical: her brain works in the same way as most peopleWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she'sa trainee vicar, but her elder sister, Tilly, is thirteen sitting in on a PCC meeting and on wondering why they're held when you need to pick the autistic spectrumchildren up. Her parents are finding it difficulthusband, if not impossibleChristopher, to cope with collects six-year-old Hannah and her. Even her special and rather expensive school has indicated that they can't continueelder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. SheThelma's subject to mood swings and unpredictable and inappropriate behaviourdaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Josh Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is lucky - he goes to work - a lovely place, but Alexandra Rachel is stuck struggling to develop a real bond with the problem, which is why Scott Bean, educator parish - and expert she's in parentingawe of the vicar, Gail, appeals to herbut then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. The name came to her attention Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on a couple of occasions: she subscribed to his newsletter, heard him speak and the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what he had to say rang a bellthey needed. Before long he was coming to the house for private consultations And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340978171</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Ryan1398515388|title=The Constant SoldierBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Paul Brandt returns home to his village without First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the arm he left at ocean floor, which created the Russian Front tsunami and this, in defence of Germanyturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The village looks pretty much the same as he left itdeaths were uncountable, with and the exception loss of the lack of young men and a new buildinglivelihoods was widespread. His home now boasts an SS rest hut, providing officers with entertainment and respite breaks The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the fightingtsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. As Paul passes He wasn't a dog person but the hut for the first time, convenience store owner's comment that he sees something… or rather someone… that will make him return would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to work for those he despises. The subject of open his decision? A girl he once got into trouble with under different circumstances – before she wore car door and Tamon the stripes of a concentration camp prisonerdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447255011</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pamela Johnson0989715337|title=Taking in WaterPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=Pamela Johnson's third novel is set in 2002 but has its roots in a real'Some frogs had gotten into the well.'' ''Walter stood waist-life tragedy from nearly 50 years earlier: deep in 1953 a storm surge hit the Norfolk coastfragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of their eggs wove around him, destroying Lydia Hutton's grandmother's home and sweeping her whole family out to seasticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Seven-year-old Lydia was Two of the only one to survive, clinging to dogs leaned over the wreckage opening and singing hymns to herself to survive. It's a dark part barked down at the strange noise of her past she's never told anyone except Luc, the half-French lover whose iconic performance art piece, buckets as he filled them.''Taking  How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in Water''the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, she participated in during turning on a spell in New York City in sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the 1960smost wonderful turn of phrase, when she was known starts as 'Layla' and hung around with the likes of Andy Warholhe means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1534627243</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A N WilsonDaisy Hildyard|title=ResolutionEmergency

|summary=In 1772 Reinhold Forster and his son George were hired as shipThe summary of this book doesn's naturalists for the ''Resolution'', the vessel Captain James Cook piloted t come close to New Zealand and back on a three-year voyage of discovery. Once a Lutheran pastor near Danzig, Reinhold seemed unable to settle to one line of work and had a higher opinion of himself than was prudent. In Wilson's vision of life on the ''Resolution'', Reinhold seems fussy, argumentative and rather heartless, as when he offers George's dog up as fresh meat when the captain explaining what is desperately ill. George, just 18 when he joins done with the expedition, is a self-taught illustrator and botanist with a keen ear for languages. Though precociously intelligent, he is emotionally immature and cannot keep a handle on his masturbation habit or deal with their servant Nally's crush on himpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782398279</amazonuk>1913097811}}{{newreview|author= Michael Hughes|title= The Countenance Divine|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=In 1999, a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can't shake the sense he's been chosen for something. In 1888, five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master. In 1777, an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns.

And {{Frontpage |author=Sally Oliver |title=The Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in 1666size and volume. Her GP, poet diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and revolutionary John Milton completes the epic for which he will be remembered centuries laterother patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself. |isbn= 086154112X }} But where does the feeling come {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from that Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the world first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is about perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the little I have read (in translation, I don't read Spanish) there does seem to end?be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636507</amazonuk>0861541901

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emily BittoJennifer Saint|title= The Strays|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Lily comes from an ordinary suburban family, but on her first day at a new school she meets Eva: the super-confident middle daughter of artist Evan Trentham. The girls fast become firm friends, to the exclusion of all those ar ound them and it isn't long before Lily is spending more time at the Trentham's than she does at home. Why wouldn't she? Their life is everything her family's isn't.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079514</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Eowyn Ivey|title=To the Bright Edge of the WorldElektra

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=If you're going to go pioneering across unexplored lands, at least be prepared to accept what you seek – namely, what youElektra've never seen before. That lesson seems quite obvious, but back by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in the time heavily male dominated world of 1885 Allen Forrester is a little too naïve to heed itAncient Greece. A career soldierCassandra, Clytemnestra, he is tasked with scouring and Elektra are all bit players in the potential story of the Wolverine River Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that threads south to often the shores of Alaska, even though the Russians (who of course used to own the Territory) silent women have had all manner of lethal encounters with those already living there, and even though a major stretch of the river has to be traversed in winter when entirely frozen over, as the cliffs either side are too impenetrable. Allen leaves a much younger, new bride behind – most compelling stories and right from the get-go his journals force him to pen words about strange happenings, strange encounters and things of legend coming to lifemost extreme furies. Like I say, what he's never seen before…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472208609</amazonuk>1472273915

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Talulah Riley8409290103|title= Acts of Love|rating= 4.5|genre= Women's Fiction |summary= Bernadette St John presents herself as the very face of contemporary feminine independence. She is strong, career-driven, beautiful…and definitely holds the attention of the public. For Bernadette is the ''Man Whisperer'', winning herself fame with her ability to coax secrets from the richest and most powerful men of the world, exposing them with controversial distaste in her articles. Hidden behind such a conniving and judgemental persona, however, is a deep insecurity, and a desperate longing to be loved by the perfect man. She has already decided that the newly engaged Tim Bazier is the only candidate for such a position in her heart, and will stop at nothing to win him back from his all-too-lovely fiancé. Yet what is perfect is a subject for discussion, and charismatic entrepreneur Radley Blake's unwavering attention has also fallen upon the feisty journalist. It is a weaving tale of ''will-they-wont-they'' that Riley spins here, one that I found myself unable to put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473637902</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewIf Only|author=Jesse Ball|title=How to Set a Fire and WhyMatthew Tree|rating=4.5

|summary=Lucia Stanton is a sarcastic 14Twenty-one-year-old misfit who lives with her elderly Aunt Lucy in a garage they rent from an evil landlord at the bottom of Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his large garden. She never comes right out and explains why she's thereaccountant, Mr Patrick, but if you read between to ensure that the young man got on board the lines you work out that her father is dead boat and her mother is in thereafter Patrick was to send him a mental hospital – presumably for his murdermonthly allowance. Aunt Lucy is dignified Patrick sent the money regularly and principled – a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn''Dont that Lowry senior didn't do things you arencare for his son, it was that he didn't proud of'' is her motto – care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even though they are undeniably poor: Lucia only has one set of clothes and mostly lives off of liquorice and Aunt Lucy's terrible homemade breadbefore Patrick managed to get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925355470</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=FellRed is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Now her parents [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have diedspelled that more accurately – this one was, Annette returns to sell her old childhood home but there's work to do on the decrepit building firstand is, black and white and red. As she wanders around and tries to make some order of the overgrown shamblesYes, she's watched by the ghost of her motherhe has an artistic collaborator on this piece, Netty; a spirit with regrets. Netty reminisces about Annetteand I think it's childhood and the turning point their lives reached when the mysterious healer Timothy Richardson came possible to stay. It was a time that promised so much but say not one for which Netty now needs to make amends, even if she is beyond page lacks the graveinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473630606</amazonuk>1913547183

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue GeeB098FFFBH9|title=TrioSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=In the winter of 1936, Steven CoulterFourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's wife, Margaret, dies of tuberculosis, leaving their Northumberland cottage cold animal rights project leader and she and empty. His work as her friend are producing a history teacher at Kirkhoughton Boys' School isn't enough competition entry to distract him from his grief; he spends his long evenings writing letters to Margaret. Gradually, though, as spring arrives he starts to take an interest highlight the way in other thingswhich human beings exploit the animal world. His colleague Frank Embleton invites him to She gets a performance by the Hepplewick Triogreat deal of support from her family: Frank's sister Diana on cello; pianist Margot Heslop, whose mother died when she was young and who looks after her fatherPip Harrison, a coal mine managerlecturer at Imperial College, London, at Hepplewick Hall; mother Kate and their friend George Liddellher twin, Nick. Kate runs the violinist and leaderfamily business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, who which is a Royal College where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of Music graduateinformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630616</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Stephanie DanlerYancey Williams|title= SweetbitterCrosshairs of the Devil|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Twenty –two year old Tess Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is a restless graduate getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from a broken family. With Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the intention Garden of finally starting her lifeEden nursing home, she moves to New York City with no real plan but only a need to do somethingtrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. She manages Nothing is going to get a job at one of the most exclusive restaurants keep Eddie from his stock-in town as a back-waiter and Tess is thrown into the comforting commotion trade of New York life. It's at her new job that she becomes fascinated by two people: Simonewriting though, a know-it-all server and Jakeso here, a handsome yet moody bartender. While the restaurant becomes her home and her colleagues her new familyfor his readers, ''Sweetbitter'' follows Tess are his wanderings through a year of her his life as she grows and learns about the complexities of human relationships's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780749155</amazonuk>0986031658}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rodrigo Hasbun and Sophie Hughes (translator)0008421714|title=AffectionsMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=If you thought your teenaged years were a struggle to work out The problem began just after the world, and yourself, consider that publication of Heidi ErtlGeorge March's most successful novel to date. Or either of Everyone but Mrs March (we know her sisters – this book serves as a sort of tribute to these three real-life women, and first name only on the lives that came out of their very disjointed youth, forced last page) seemed to either be rarefied from the norm by their family uprootingreading it or had already done so. Father Hans was one of Leni Riefenstahl's key cameramen, and a Nazi military photographer, before taking the whole family into post-war exile in Bolivia. Their mother would have followed him Every day Mrs March went to the ends of the earth – as in part would their daughters, the older two of which start the book by joining him on an expedition local patisserie to discover a lost Incan city. Heidi finds young, instant love buy olive bread but on the trek – but sees the dark side of such emotionsthat particular morning, too. Older sister MonikaPatricia asked, who might well be manic depressive, finds something else, while the baby of the family stays at home with a maudlin mother. So much here could be as she was wrapping the hook on which to hang a full novelbread, ''but if anything itisn's the reaction of them all to this unusual formative journey that inspires t this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272135</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sun-mi Hwang|title= The Dog who Dared to Dream|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=From the very beginning, Scraggly knows that she is different to her brothers and sisters. Her siblings have short, glossy coats, but Scragglyfirst time he's blue/black fur is long, wild and untamed. based a character on you?'' She may be an outsidermentioned that Johanna, but she still enjoys life with the principal character had 'her family in Grandpa Screechermannerisms''s sunny yard, even if it means putting up with the evil cat next door. Scraggly dreams that things can stay Perhaps this way forever, but fate has other plans. One tragic nightwould not have mattered, everything she loves is cruelly ripped away from her. As she struggles to rebuild a new life and family except for herself, she comes to understand the fact that sadness, betrayal and loss are an inevitable part Johanna is the whore of life. Can Scraggly ever learn to trust another human again?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349142106</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sarah Perry|title= The Essex Serpent|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I confess to a bias… when I came across a reference to Sarah PerryNantes - ''s latest novel; I wanted to read it for two reasons only. She is a local writerweak, plain, detestable, pathetic, and the book is set in a place not too far awayunloved, but that I have yet to explore and which fascinates me: the Blackwater estuary in Essexunloveable wretch. That's a place of the kind of wide open skies and mud creeks that you will find up much of the Norfolk and Suffolk coast as well, and a landscape type that probably only appeals to a certain type of person.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178125544X</amazonuk>'