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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alain MabanckouMatthew Tree|title=Memoirs of a PorcupineWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5

|summary=The protagonist of this novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi'', drunk and transforms him into chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his son's harmful doubleartistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as So Tim applied himself to his life goes onstudies, and sends cultivated his abilities rather than his porcupine to 'eat' anybody he feels the least bit threatened by, a process whereby that person's life essence is sucked out, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later daydreams and following his master's death at the hands of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires to the hollow of a baobab tree where he writes this confessionalset himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie MyersonB0C47LV1PC|title=ThenFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=The front cover is graphic and telling. A frozen London with its skyscrapers emitting black smoke and random fires across Can you make a desolate landscape. As early as the second paragraph we see that something is wrong, something cataclysmic has happened with the lines ''People are eating the birds ... fighting over a handful of scorched sparrows.Yo birthing person'' The story joke? And if you could, is told in the first person by question should you make it? Or is the central character which gives question if you did, would it immediacy and draws land? The catch is that the reader straight inanswer for both could well be.... no.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093754</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|title=Whatever|author=Michel Houellebecq|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Interviewed by BBC film critic Mark Kermode shortly before his 60th birthday, Woody Allen gave the bequiffed one this somewhat startling piece of advice, ''You get to my age, you realise that when you die youFragility're really not losing that much.'' Those words sprang to mind while reading ''Whatever'', first novel by Michel Houellebecq. The main protagonist in ''Whatever'' may be only half is set as the age city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the film director, but restrictions imposed during the outlook on life shared by both men seems strikingly similar. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687845</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Sag HarborMosby Woods|authortitle=Colson WhiteheadA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=Colson Whitehead wanted The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to write something personal mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for his fourth bookclimate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, so he chose an autobiographical novel, based on his experiences as there was a vacationing youngsterman with precognition. Sag Harbor really does exist - at Imagine the far end of Long Island and next to the up-market Hamptons. It has strategic advantage in this asset; a history man who can tell you what will happen given any set of whaling and an association with John Steinbeckcircumstances. Within easy reach of New YorkThat man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in 1985 it was an affluent black enclave within a largehistory. Imagine then, white middle-class holiday areathat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531887</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carlos Alba0571379559|title=The Songs House of Manolo EscobarBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45

|summary=Antonio ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the second-born son to Spanish parentsstory of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, living she lives in Glasgowthe house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. He Insubstantial as it might look, it's embarrassed to be anything other than Scottishstood the passage of time, storms and he tries everything floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to hide grow his family background from friends at schoolvegetables, refusing to speak Spanish with his parents complete the delivery rounds - and struggling to forge his own identity bring in lifesufficient money. In his middle age They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, he suddenly finds the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his life falling apart around him as mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his marriage begins to fail and his increasingly frail father becomes obsessed with the proper burial of his parents back in Spain. Antonio continues to play a rather emotionally distant part in his parents People don't believe that they' livesre related, but then finds himself drawn further much less twins and further into the truth about there's an assumption when Max is out with his fathermother that she's past which, ultimately, leads him to question his own past and the path his future might takenanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697173X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ann PatchettClaire North|title=State House of WonderOdysseus

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Anders Eckman is dead. The news has been delivered in the form an aerogram – remember those blue paper-cum-envelope things we used to use to write to foreign pen-pals when the notion of befriending a person you'd never met in a foreign country still seemed exotic'What could matter more than love? ''

This flimsy piece of paper was delivered The follow-up to Eckmanthe excellent 's employers'Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. After all it was them that had sent him down In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the Brazilian Amazon to find throne of the enigmatic Western Isles. Having survived – politically and evasive Dr Annik Swensonphysical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, and more precisely find out exactly how she was getting Queen Penelope is on with developing the drug brink of a fragile peace. One that was costing shatters however with the firm so much return of Orestes, King of their research budgetMycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408818590</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean RhysKay Chronister|title=Wide Sargasso SeaDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=In the late eighteen thirties the father of With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an English gentleman conspires to marry him off to almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a landed Jamaican Creole as robotic takeover, a means world devoid of giving his second son an estate and stopping him being water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a burden on the familyway for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. Written in the nineteen sixties, 'Wide Sargasso Sea' was inspired by RochesterDesert Creatures's first wife in ''Jane Eyre'', and by Kay Chronister is an impressionistic, hallucinatory account a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that woman's alienation and subsequent descent into madness aligns many of the fears that can be read as exist for humanity today. It is a prequel shocking novel that still manages to the Bronte novel. The book covers Antoinette's childhood in Jamaica and her honeymoon on a small Caribbean island with her new husband and their domestic servants, and the point of view shifts between Antoinette and her husbandfind hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241951550</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Douglas KennedyEric LaRocca|title=The MomentTrees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=After I'd read the blurb on the back cover I gave a bit of a shrug Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as if to say, well, I've read quite a number of books recently where undying love has been found in war-torn Europe, so was this book going way to be different, or better? Thomas Nesbitt, middle-aged, disillusioned with love reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and more than a tad world-weary is trying to move on in his lifeprocess them. His marriage of more than twenty years is dissolving before his very eyes. But rather than being upset, he's feeling as if Most horror fiction feature a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He and his wife were never really ''in loveBig Bad'' in , whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the true sense end of the phrasestory, despite having a daughter togetherbeatable. And thereEric LaRocca's a very good reason as to why Thomas ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like this and that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the rest horrors of the book tells us whyillness, warts grief and allhumiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091795842</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aminatta FornaMadelaine Lucas|title=The Memory of LoveThirst for Salt

|summary=The setting for this story is a hospital in Freetown''Love, Sierra LeoneI'd read, soon after the government has declared an end was supposed to an 11 year civil war. How can people come to terms with the terrible things that have happened? Actuallybe a light and weightless feeling, can they come to terms with those things?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809656</amazonuk>}}but I had always longed for gravity''

{{newreview|author=Jenn Ashworth|title=Cold Light|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Cold Light'' is the story of three teenage girls who become involved in a predatory adult world. As the story opens we're looking back on what happened Told from a decade later and we know that one of the girls, Chloëretrospective view, died in a Valentine's Day suicide pactyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. The town council has finally decided on Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a memorial to Chloë man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – it's to be a summerhouse at its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the side backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the pond where she drowned, although it24-year-old narrator's difficult to understand quite why anyone would want to sit there. The grounddeepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-breaking ceremony is being televised when consuming nature, how it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But Lola, our narrator, knows that they've found a body. She also knows who changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it isaltered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444721445</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreview|author=Alain Mabanckou|title=Broken Glass|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the Congolese bar question of Credit Gone West, the owner Stubborn Snail wants a record of the lives of those who drink thereidentity and acceptance. The man he chooses Of what it means to write it? Disgraced schoolteacher Broken Glassbe human. Of what is real and what is artificial, who fills up a notebook with and whether the stories development of the bar’s patrons – technology is exciting or at least their versions of those talesfrightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668675X</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreview|author=David Bezmozgis|title=The Free World|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It's the late 1970's and a family of Latvian Jews, the Krasnanskys, are emigrating from the Soviet Union. They're made to stay in Rome whilst they apply to live in the States and they find themselves trapped in a strange migratory limbo, belonging nowhere and tied to no-one but each other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920053</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer EganSaint|title=A Visit From the Goon SquadAtalanta

|summary=Apparently there's a saying 'I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that 'time's a goon' - noship, I'd never heard of it and to be fairvowed. I would take my place, neither had the first character to whom it is said not just in Jennifer Egan's 'A Visit from the Goon Squad', but together with a pair name of epigraphs from Proust, it's clear that time is very definitely what is being explored herethe goddess. Egan's subject area is all loosely based around It was for the music world. Her central charactersake of my name, if one can be said to exist, is Bennie Salazar, a music mogul who we encounter both directly and tangentially at various stages of his up and down careertoo. Atalanta''Goon Squad'' is also the title of an Elvis Costello track, continuing the music theme as Egan uses the music industry as a lens to examine time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010331</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Lauren Liebenberg|title=The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Best friends Tommy and Chris are 12 years oldPrincess. It is 1958 and they are growing up in a small mining town near Johannesburg, South AfricaWarrior. They are learning to box and to dance to rock and roll musicLover. Hero.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844084892</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=James Frey|title=The Final Testament of the Holy Bible|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Rabbis say that all the signs are there from the Abandoned at birth of Ben Zion Avrohom that he for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the Messiah. That's a lot protective eye of anyone to cope with the goddess Athemis andfashioned into a formidable huntress, like Jesus, there's much of Ben's early life that is untold hereone who longs for adventure. When he is involved in an horrific accident on the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a building site that he miraculously survives, albeit with terrible scaringfierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the prophecies appear chance to be truefight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. He develops What follows is a form whirlwind of epilepsy during which he appears to speak to God. He is fluent in ancient languages despite never learning themchallenges and discovery and through it, knows all the Holy books by heart and yet distains all forms of religionAtalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, instead spreading his message of love to all who meet him in modern day New Yorkit will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543174</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreview|author=Mirza Waheed|title=The Collaborator|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Collaborator of the title is our narrator, a sensitive bookish young man. He is the son of the headman of a small village in a side valley of the Kashmir. The heritage of the people is that of nomads. The village has been settled for less than a generation. Everything they have has been built by the sheer hard graft of the people themselves… including the recently completed mosque.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918954</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan WarnerAmanthi Harris|title=The Stars in the Bright SkyBeautiful Place|rating=45

|summary=In 1999Padma, Alan Warner introduced us a young Sri Lankan, has returned to a wonderful set of characters in 'The Sopranos' when a school choir from a backwater town in Scotland went the Villa Hibiscus on a trip to the big citysouthern coast of her home country. Much debauchery ensued This is a place she spent her formative years. 'The Stars in It is not a place she was born into, but the Bright Sky' once again reunites most one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the original gang Villa, how it became her home, and there is no need to the machinations that have read the flowed through her life ever since she first book to pick up on arrived there provide the diverse characters''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Now though, they Padma've grown up (or at least got older!) s present fails to escape her past and are gathered much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at Gatwick Airport to set off on a girls' holidaythe Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009946182X</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elia Barcelo and David Frye (Translator)178563335X|title=The Goldsmith's Secret|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The Goldsmith's Secret' has a wonderfully romantic beginning; alone on a snowy night in New York, the craftsman is puzzling over how to tell his story, and how to separate reality from the overwhelming memories in his mind. The romance continues as the story unfolds, with the goldsmith taking us back to the town and time of his youth, and the chance meeting that led him to find the love of his life. Telling the tale of romance from many perspectives, we learn the town of Villasanta has labelled his love, the mysterious Celia, as 'a marked woman' and the 'black widow'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050052</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSea Defences|author=Peter Salmon|title=The Coffee StoryHilary Taylor

|summary=Teddy EverettWhen we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, head of Everett sitting in on a PCC meeting and Sons Coffee is dyingwondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, slowly collects six-year-old Hannah and painfullyher elder brother, of cancerJamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. The Coffee Story is his story, told Thelma's daughter-in his own (very descriptive) words-law won't let her see her grandson. It goes from (although not necessarily in this order) his childhood in EnglandHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, his adolescence in Ethiopia and then his life in but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the USA parish - and Cuba. Itshe's his time in Cuba which has put him where he is now – in prison. For his crimes he would normally have suffered awe of the death penaltyvicar, Gail, but his sentence was commuted because of his illness and now then she's been doing the doctors try to save himjob for more than thirty years. Or perhaps Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it's that was probably what they're trying to persuade Teddy that they're trying to save him – whether he wants to be saved or notneeded. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724703</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Miller1398515388|title=PureThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=I've read Miller's ''Oxygen'' First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and ''this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The Optimists'' so I result was looking forward to reading this novelcomplete and utter devastation. The story opens in deaths were uncountable, and the opulence loss of the Palace of Versailleslivelihoods was widespread. We are given vivid descriptions of both The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the scale list of the palace and its grandeur. Jeanpriorities but -Baptiste Baratte, six months after the young engineer, seems completely overtsunami -awed by the whole occasionKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Even although heHe wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's not entirely sure what is expected of him in Paris, comment that he accepts. He needs would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to eat, after allopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724258</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Enright0989715337|title=The Forgotten WaltzPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North

|summary=Anne Enright's 2007 Booker prize winning [[The Gathering by Anne Enright|The Gathering]] addressed 'Some frogs had gotten into the gloomy subjects of the three D's; death, depression and dysfunctional familieswell. Her latest book, ''The Forgotten Waltz'', set in Dublin in 2009, sees her turning her attentions to a love affair. A more uplifting subject you might think. Well only up to a point. The affair in question you see is that of her narrator, Gina, who is already married to the generally good, if undynamic, Connor, while on the other end, the subject of the affair is the older, Seán, also married and neighbour of Gina's sister. In case your moral compass isn't stretched quite enough by this, Seán and his wife Aileen, also have a young daughter who suffers from epilepsy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022408903X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Leila Aboulela|title=Lyrics Alley|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The front cover photograph is eye''Walter stood waist-catching and lovely and has deep in the appeal fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat. Long strands of saying to potential readers - read me. The book's title is both poetic and enigmatic. I was keen to get reading but before I couldtheir eggs wove around him, I'm faced sticky gray pearls with a page listing tadpoles inside them. Two of the ''Principal Characters'' dogs leaned over the opening and another page setting out barked down at the Abuzeid family tree. It did put me off slightly, I have to admit. I tend to think that with a modern, average-paged work strange noise of fiction a list of characters is well, a list too far. So, yes, for the first couple of chapters I was constantly flicking back and forth to remind myself who everyone wasbuckets as he filled them. Not so good for those lazy readers out there, I'm thinking.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297860097</amazonuk>}}'

{{newreview|author=Shehan Karunatilaka|title=Chinaman|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=After How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the 1996 World Cupform of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, dying sports journalist WG Karunasena decides that the world needs 'turning on a half decent documentary on Sri Lankan cricket'sixpence. He sets out to make the said documentaryAnd author Marco North, focusing on who has the mysterious Pradeep Mathewmost wonderful turn of phrase, the 1980's spin bowler he considers to have been his country's greatest ever player. But Mathew disappeared some time ago and everywhere Karunasena turns he is faced with more complications starts as he tries means to find out more go on what happened to him…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>022409145X</amazonuk>.

 {{newreview|author=Tessa Hadley|title=The London Train|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Part one focuses on Paul - a rather self obsessed and aimless character, who is less than honest with his family, using various friends to cover up his movements. He has several daughters, and on learning that one is having problems, goes to visit her in London - and ends up staying with her, for several weeks, leaving both his (second) wife, and the mother of this daughter (first wife), completely in the dark as to what is happening. Initially we feel that he is acting in a protective manner towards his daughter, who is struggling to come to terms with her pregnancy - but in fact his motives are far less altruistic, thereby alienating the reader from his tale. The squalor in which her daughter is living, would appal most parents - yet he seems to take it all in his stride, and attempts to join the hippy-style commune - yet more irritation with this deeply flawed character therefore emerges.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090976</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Emma Henderson|title=Grace Williams Says it Loud|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Grace, aged eleven, is sent to the Briar Mental Institute as her parents can no longer cope with her care. She is befriended there by a young boy, Daniel, who is epileptic and also has no arms after a terrible accident. Together we see the horrors of life in the Briar, and also their slowly growing love affair with each other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144470401X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roma TearneDaisy Hildyard|title=The SwimmerEmergency

|summary=Ria, solitary, middle-aged poet, was idly watching the river one night when she saw a swimmer. It wasn't just the time The summary of day which was unusual, but the river was hardly clean – and then she heard a noise downstairs. In this remote part of Suffolk it wasnbook doesn't unusual come close to leave doors unlocked and the following morning she realised that a loaf of bread had been stolen. It was strange that she didn't really feel fear, but when the visits and minor thefts continued she waited up to catch the swimmer, who stole small amounts of food – and played explaining what is done with the piano like an angelpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007301596</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Tea ObrehtSally Oliver |title=The Tiger's WifeWeight of Loss |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Téa Obreht's 'The Tiger's Wife' comes with a fair degree Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of hype from the USher sister, and largely it lives up she awakes to itfind strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which is no small achievement. The main story is set steadily increase in Yugoslavia size and explores a young doctorvolume. Her GP, Natalia, seeking for diagnosing the truth about odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grandfather's deathgrief, while on a mission to deliver much needed medical aid recommends she go to stay at Nede, an orphanage experimental new treatment centre in the war-ravaged BalkansWales. But what sets this book apart Yet something strange is the intricate weaving of reality with the myths happening to Marianne and stories of the region. In particular there are two myths that represent a good chunk of the page countother patients at Nede: the story of a tiger who has escaped from captivity after the World War two bombing metamorphosis of Belgrade and who has settled near a remote mountain village where Nataliakind. As Marianne's grandfather is growing upmemories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and who develops pain—but only at a strange relationship with a deaf-mute girl who becomes known as 'the tiger's wife'; and a mysterious story terrible price: that of the 'Deathless Man' whom the grandfather encounters at various points in his life who appears to have the power to foresee others' death without being able to die himselfidentity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297859013</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graham SwiftNatalia Garcia Freire|title=Wish You Were HereThis World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I cannot tell you exactly how long after will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but 'a delight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I finished this book that 'm not familiar with. I sat, holding it, in stunned silence for have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish- but it was light when language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the little I finished it and dark when have read (in translation, I put it down. Some books can do that don't read Spanish) there does seem to you. This is one of thembe a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330535838</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BurnsideJennifer Saint|title=The Summer of DrowningElektra

|summary=The 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story is narrated of three women who live in the first person by the daughter a decade or so after the tragedyheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. SoCassandra, Clytemnestra, she has a healthy dose of hindsight which shows itself time and time again with sentiments such as ... if only I'd have known back then ... and ...I thought it was a Elektra are all bit strange at players in the time story of the Trojan War... if you get my drift. Burnside takes his time to set Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the scene (spartan) most compelling stories and his characters (a mere handful). His chosen location is the arresting emptiness of somewhere deep in the Arctic Circle so straight away he's caught my imagination - with hismost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>022406178X</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edward St Aubyn8409290103|title=At Last|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In ''At Last'', Edward St Aubyn returns to the Melrose family, the subject of both ''Some Hope'' and of his Booker-shortlisted [[Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn|Mother's Milk]]. I confess that I have still not got around to reading the first of the trilogy, but loved ''Mother's Milk'' and found that I wasn't greatly disadvantaged by not having read the previous book. ''At Last'' could also be read as a stand-alone book, but I wouldn't advise this approach. You will miss out on so much that if you are planning on reading it, you really should read at least ''Mother's Milk'' first. This isn't much of an inconvenience as it's a terrific book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330435906</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewIf Only|author=Deborah Kay Davies|title=True Things About MeMatthew Tree

|summary=Take Twenty-one benefit office worker; bored-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, listlessMr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to send him a walking study in destructive human behaviourmonthly allowance. Add Patrick sent the money regularly and a recently releasedcorrespondence - of 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 son, jobless ex-con with it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a glint in danger to his eye wife and taste for masochismother children. Throw all caution The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the wind and collide these two ingredients by means of visceral, brutal and almost wordless sex in an underground car park and you have the opening chapters of Deborah Kay Davies's debut novelyoung man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678319</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine BrooksAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Caleb's CrossingRed is My Heart|rating=43.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=Let's start, as Geraldine Brooks has, with a fact[[:Category: Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in 1665 the first Native American, Caleb Cheeshateaumauk, graduated from Harvard Collegemy house. Around And so was thisone, Brooks has created a wholly fictional story (the known facts are so few although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is largely unavoidable), black and white and red. The stroke of genius here is to put the story into the words of the entirely fictitious Bethia MayfieldYes, the daughter of he has an English minister artistic collaborator on what we now call Marthathis piece, and I think it's Vinyard, where Caleb lived in the Wampanoag tribe. At various points in her life, Bethia sets down events concerning her early secret friendship with Caleb on the island, possible to accompanying him and her brother to Harvard and say not one page lacks the subsequent eventsinfluence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007333536</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David LodgeB098FFFBH9|title=Ginger, You're BarmySnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright

|summary=Jonathan Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a few days away from completing his National Servicecompetition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. Within the week he will dash off to Majorca with his girlfriendShe gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and who knowsher twin, he might even do more than chastely cup her breast under her clothingNick. But it's Kate runs the family business, a bittersweet week for Jonathan, as he looks back on the beginnings of his two years spent most reluctantly toy shop called Cornucopia in the armyPutney, and especially the time spent with his best companion, and his girlfriendwhich is where we'll meet Rachel's ex, Mikemain (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099554135</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=David LodgeYancey Williams|title=A Man Crosshairs of Partsthe Devil

|summary=The man of parts in question here Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is HG Wells getting on in this fictionalised biography. He was indeed a man of many talents years and, despite his strenuous objections and intereststhanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, although the parts that most exercise the interest of David Lodge are the great authorfrom Eddie's private parts. You see, not only was HG a prolific writer of fiction that incorporated a staggering amount point of visionary ideas (tanks, airborne warfare and atomic bombs) view - although admittedly some of his ideas have yet to come to pass such as time machines and Martian invasion - but he was also something of a political philosopher and idealist, being a central figure for a while in the Fabian movement, and an ardent practitioner room 315 of the concept Garden of free love.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554969</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=George Makana Clark|title=The Raw Man|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The Prologue opens bang up to date: 2011. The language is poeticEden nursing home, lilting, evocative but tinged with sadness and sets the tone for the rest of the book. Lots of unanswered questions hang in the air throughout. The location is South Africa and section headings such as 'The Earthworks of the Universe' and 'The Story-Ghost' give only a flavour of its contents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224090461</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Delphine de Vigan|title=Underground Time|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mathilde is unhappy at work. More than just unhappy actuallytrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, because after expressing an opinion different to her boss he has frozen her out of the team and bullied her mentally and emotionally for monthspalatable company. Mathilde Nothing is a woman on the edge of breaking point, feeling increasingly browgoing to keep Eddie from his stock-in-beaten by both the demands trade of city life and her awful boss. Meanwhile Thibault is an emergency on-call doctorwriting though, racing from one district to another through the nightmares of Parisian trafficso here, unhappy in for his relationship and also strugglingreaders, mentally, to surviveare his wanderings through his life's work. Will today be the day that changes everything?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408811111</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Siri Hustvedt0008421714|title=The Summer Without MenMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|summary=Sometime The problem began just after Miathe publication of George March's husband of thirty years, Boris, suggests a marriage 'pause', Mia goes mad and finds herself in a psychiatric hospitalmost successful novel to date. Although this Brief Psychotic Disorder does not Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last long, she remains fragile and retreats page) seemed to the town in Minnesota where she was brought up and where her elderly mother still liveseither be reading it or had already done so. While Boris cavorts with Every day Mrs March went to the Pauselocal patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she struggles through was wrapping the summerbread, learning to live without him. She builds relationships with her mother''but isn't this the first time he's friends, with her neighbours and with based a group of teenage girls who form her creative writing class. character on you?'' Written in the first personShe mentioned that Johanna, the book catalogues principal character had 'her progress using these friendships, her past, her reading and her shrink, Dr S.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444710524</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Edward Docx|title=The Devilmannerisms''s Garden|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Set on a research station in an unnamed Amazonian country (although by the indigenous tribes mentioned, Perhaps this is probably Peru)would not have mattered, this first person narrative story is told by Dr Forle, who has come to the area to study ants - specifically except for the strange phenomenon of a type of ant fact that appear to destroy their own environment. It's sort of ants on the deck in the jungle, if you like. However the scientific study Johanna is interrupted by the arrival whore of an army colonel and Nantes - ''a judgeweak, who at least on the surface of things is there to organize the registration of the local tribes. However when the doctor witnesses a clear act of violence by the soldiers accompanying the colonelplain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, he becomes more engaged with the local goings onunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330463500</amazonuk>''

{{newreview|author=Mary Horlock|title=The Book of Lies|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Catherine Rozier is fifteen years old and she has a secret.  Secrets are a big thing Move on Guernsey, the small Channel Isle that is only three miles across at one point with a population a little over 65,000 i.e. somewhat more than Hereford, considerably less than Lincoln, or about half that of Norwich or Preston. Unlike any of those towns, Guernsey is an island. It is self-contained. It isn't just that everyone knows everyone else; they're almost certainly, quite closely, related.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847678858</amazonuk>}}  {{newreview|author=Alexi Zentner|title=Touch|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Stephen, an Anglican priest is writing a story of three generations, a haunting tale of his childhood set in Sawgamet, an isolated clearing in the snowy forest expanse of North West Canada. It is the evening before his mother's funeral. One loss brings up earlier losses; relating this deeply poignant tale he relates the disastrous event of his father's attempts to rescue his sister, Marie, when on a skating expedition she falls through a dark hole in the thin ice at the turbulent confluence of two rivers. His terrified sister looks towards her father who plunges into the water and both perish in a catastrophe. Consequently, Stephen is to struggle with for many years to in some way to come to terms with this severe trauma. His grandfather, Jeannot, a resilient settler is a stalwart figure who keeps returning protectively into Stephen's life in order to resurrect his own lost love, Martine from the hereafter. This love between Jeannot and Stephen's grandmother, Martine, and also that between Jeannot's brother and future wife blossom through magical events involving the metamorphosis of gold, trees and mountains which move, and malevolent 'qualuplillumits' ogres from a richly various panoply of magical realism.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185465</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]