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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven AmsterdamMatthew Tree|title=Things We Didn't See Coming|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This book has gained praise from the likes of the Washington Post and the Financial times so I was really looking forward to a good - even great read. But did I get it? I think that opening on the eve of the millennium (the most recent one) is pretty special in itself and should be a good 'hook' to draw the reader in. The narrator, young, male (not named as yet) and his family are packing the family car for the journey ahead. The poor car is full to bursting. Dad is a sceptic and he's taking no chances with this millennium situation and he's instructed his family to pack more than the usual festive presents this time. They've (well, dad has) made the decision to get as far away from London as they can - just in case. Just in case of what exactly is never mentioned, only implied. So it's New Year celebrations with the grandparents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954704X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alexander Maksik|title=You Deserve Nothingll Never Know

|summary=Does the world need another 'inspirational teacher lets down students' story? It's debatableTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but this one is really rather goodachievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848545703</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Judith HermannB0C47LV1PC|title=AliceFragility|author=Mosby Woods

|summary=Can you make a ''AliceYo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is a collection of five short stories, linked thematically since they all deal with the subject of death, but they are also linked because question should you make it? Or is the central character, Alicequestion if you did, would it land? The catch is that the same in each storyanswer for both could well be.... So rather than feeling like short stories the book has a hint of the novel to it, yet the stories are never completed or fully told so it's a novel where you're not always sure what's going onno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668529X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=S J Watson|title=Before I Go To Sleep|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Rather ironically, 'Before I Go To Sleep'Fragility'' is not a book that you will forget in a hurry. Imagine, if you will, waking up every morning with no memory set as the city of who you arePortland, where you areOregon, or who cautiously begins to emerge from the person lying next to you in bed is. You can remember things restrictions imposed during the day, but once you go to sleep, your mind is effectively wiped clean. This is the slightly unusual form of amnesia that the narrator, Christine suffers from in Watson's first novel that is a daring and gripping literary thriller.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520172</amazonuk>covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amos OzMosby Woods|title=My MichaelA Whirly Man Loses His Turn

|summary=The Introduction West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this book has a lovely sub-heading - 'Forty Years Later' where Oz admits freely that now, today, he wouldn't attempt or even if mending it is the best course of action.Governments are flailing.. 'dare write an entire novel in A war here, a female voicepush for climate action there.' But I found his open telling of why and how he came to write the book A feeling that nobody is in the first place interesting and rather enchanting and whetted my appetite to get on and read the bookactual charge. For exampleImagine then, Oz wrote most of there was a man with precognition. Imagine the book strategic advantage in the cramped confines of this asset; a toilet, would man who can tell you believewhat will happen given any set of circumstances. But for me what caught my attention was the fact that he tells his readers that HannahThat man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the central character, was most valuable asset in his head and determined to he heardhistory. 'Just shut up and write' she tells himImagine then, that this man loses this ability. A Translator's Note follows before we What would governments do to get to the story proper.it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009952905X</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jacqueline Yallop0571379559|title=ObedienceThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45

|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story opens with a much younger Sister Bernard - no more than a girl reallyof four people. The daily Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives of in the house on the nuns is regulatedriverbank, with long hours for prayer, meditation and solitudebuilt of broken bricks. Everyone is housedInsubstantial as it might look, fed and watered adequately and thatit's as far as it goesstood the passage of time, storms and floods. No little luxuries Her husband, Richard, struggles to speak ofgrow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. Nothing to temper the harshness They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the silencerainbow twins. Visits from family members are forbidden alsoSonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. However, the young Sister Bernard appears to not only be coping very well with all of this but even embracing itMax takes after his father. She doesnPeople don't grumble or complain about anything. Howeverbelieve that they're related, even although much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she may appear saintly she is human, just like the rest of us and temptation does come along in the shape of a young man's his nanny. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857891014</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Aatish Taseer|title=Noon|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'Noon' sits somewhere between picks up a collection few months after where we left off. In the palace of related short stories Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and a full blown novel in 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 chaotic storm that it tells four different episodes in Rehan TabassumClytemnestra brought to Ithaca's lifeshores, spread over Queen Penelope is on the brink of a couple fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of decades. It explores some large issues thoughMycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330540416</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Louis B JonesKay Chronister|title=RadianceDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Mark Perdue took his daughterWith a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, Carlotta – or Lotta, as she's known – on post-apocalyptic fiction can become an indulgent fantasy weekend in Los Angelesalmost masochistic thrill. Lotta and some other teenagers were going to live the celebrity lifestyle for Whether it is a few daysrobotic takeover, with gigsa world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, recordings and stretch limos this genre is a way for humans to ferry them aroundcathartically experience their most existential fears. Mark's got problems of his own. He 'Desert Creatures'was'' an eminent physicist but illness has taken its toll. His wife by Kay Chronister is still suffering the emotional effects a new work of a latepost-term abortion – the family called the foetus 'Noddy' – and Lotta can't reconcile how she feels about the loss of her unborn sibling, even going as far as to say apocalyptic fiction that she would have given up the next ten years aligns many of her life to look after the childfears that exist for humanity today. And Mark? Well, on the tarmac at LAX it dawns on him It is a shocking novel that a heart attack would be a convenient way out of everythingstill manages to find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>158243736X</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Alice LaPlanteEric LaRocca|title=Turn of MindThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=This Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a beautifully-presented book with its eye-catching front cover way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and poetic titleprocess them. Jennifer has had Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a busy ghost, it usually something tangible and fulfilling professional life as a well-respected medical surgeon. Until now, by the end of the story, beatable. SheEric LaRocca's gradually losing bits of her mind to Alzheimer's'The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. Her family It is supportive and keep popping in on a regular basis plus there's now a live-collection of short stories more interested in carerthe horrors of illness, Magdalena, so grief and humiliation. Horrors that daily life linger and daily chores are just about coveredharder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554632</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jose Saramago and Margaret Jull CostaMadelaine Lucas|title=The Elephant's JourneyThirst for Salt|rating=3.5

|summary=This novel is inspired by a real event – the marriage gift of an elephant from Dom João III of Portugal to his cousin Maximilian''Love, I'd read, the Hapsburg Archduke of Austria. When the gift was accepted, the elephant Solomon, his mahout Subhro and numerous soldiers, oxen supposed to be a light and porters, walked from Lisbon to Vienna to deliver the presentweightless feeling, arriving in 1552. This is the story of that journey.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546884</amazonuk>}}but I had always longed for gravity''

{{newreview|author=Ross Raisin|title=Waterline|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Raisin has an enviable portfolio for one so Told from a retrospective view, a young, having been named ''Sunday Times Young Writer Of The Year 2009'' and his [[God's Own Country by Ross Raisin|previous novel]] receiving fulsome praisewoman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. No pressure then Overlaid with this book. The story opens later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with all members of a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the Little family paying their respects summer after finishing university – to Cathy. Some have travelled further than others as they all squeeze into Mick's modest house, somewhere in Glasgow. A less-than-posh partits sorrowful end the summer after. Mick is obviously numb with Set against the shock backdrop of it all (even although his wifean isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''s death was not sudden details the 24-year- she had been ill for some time). Itold narrator's clear that some of the familydeepening relationship with her older lover, distant membersdepicting its all-consuming nature, feel uncomfortable how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and don't quite know how to actit altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917354</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jamil AhmadMichael Grothaus|title=The Wandering FalconBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary="In the tangle of crumbling, weather-beaten ''But fearing something and broken hills, where the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, is a military outpost…" Thus begins the tale of Tor Baz, the Black Falcon. To this desolate place having it come to pass are two wanderersdifferent things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, a man and a woman seeking refugeor we can take steps to change it. ''

Refuge is denied them, since it places duties that the fort commander cannot accept, but instead he offers them shelter from ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the wind question of a hundred identity and twenty daysacceptance. For as long as they want Of what itmeans to be human. ShelterOf what is real and what is artificial, and foodwhether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241145155</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreview|author=Anthony Burgess|title=A Clockwork Orange|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=A Clockwork Orange comes under the heading of "books you feel you ought to have read by now". Mostly these are books that you don't necessarily want to read, but are considered such classics that an inability to pass any kind of comment upon them suggests a gaping hole in your education.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951445</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anna Gavalda|title=Breaking Away|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Garance is on her way to a family wedding. In the car with her brother and his wife she thinks about all her siblings, what's happened in their lives and who they have all become. Throughout the journey she finds herself bickering constantly with her sister-in-law who always rubs her up the wrong way, and for the first time Garance senses some tension from her brother too who is usually calm and collected at all times. Is everything okay in his life or is his wife finally beginning to wear his patience thin? They take a detour en route to pick up another sibling, much to Carine's annoyance, and then on reaching the wedding there's a surprise in store for all of them as the four siblings find themselves on an unplanned escape, together once again, rediscovering their youthful selves in a fun, brief break from their real lives. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906040400</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Haley TannerJennifer Saint|title=Vaclav and LenaAtalanta

|summary=Vaclav and Lena are both children of Russian immigrants, growing up in Brooklyn. Vaclav dreams of becoming a fantastic magician, with his friend Lena ''I was as his assistant, and worthy as children they practise their routine together, making lists any one of the things they'll need, the costumes they will wear and the tricks they will performthem. Vaclav is confident and happy, but Lena is quiet, withdrawn and struggles with speaking English. Yet Vaclav believes, always, that they are destined to be together. Even when Lena disappears one day and is gone from his life for many years still he hopes I would get on board thatship, somehow, he will find her againI vowed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020443</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Jordan|title=Mistaken|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The front cover photograph and the blurb on the back cover give this book a misty, floaty, ethereal feel. The story starts at the end, if you get I would take my drift. The adult Kevin attends a local funeral but he's careful to remain low-keyplace, hidden almost. Why is that? And whose funeral is it anyway? As early as page 6, Jordan's poetic and atmospheric style is apparent not just in lines such as ' ... close to the line name of yew trees, were the massed umbrellas of goddess. It was for the mourners, retreating, like so many mushrooms come alive in a fairy-tale forest.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848544197</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Humphreys|title=The Reinvention sake of Love|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary='The Reinvention of Love' is one of those stories that is so bizarre and strange that it could only be based on factual events. Essentially it is a goodmy name, old-fashioned love triangle set mostly in Paris in the period from the 1830s to the 1860s; a world where fighting duels is a commonplace eventtoo. The triangle features the great French literary writer Victor Hugo, his wife Adèle and the altogether strange critic Charles Saint-Beuve who narrates much of this story, with brief breaks for AdèleAtalanta's side of events and some letters written by the Hugo's youngest daughter, also called Adèle (but let's call her, as she was known to her family, Dédé to avoid confusion).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687985</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Wesley Stace|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary="Nothing in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of this subtle tale of English music in the making, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]"

Just two Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the previous reviews that adorn goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. When the opportunity comes – to join the back cover Argonauts, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis'Charles Jessold…name and carve out her own legendary place in history. What follows is a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis'fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546574</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Roy Jacobsen, Don Bartlett (translator) and Don Shaw (translator)Amanthi Harris|title=Child WonderBeautiful Place

|summary=1961 was a year of changePadma, a timeyoung Sri Lankan, as Jacobsen puts it, ''when men became boys and housewives women''has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. At the outset Finn and his mother are leading This is a quiet, rather timorous life in a working class Oslo suburbplace she spent her formative years. Then change overwhelms them, It is not through world eventsa place she was born into, but in the form one she thinks of a mysterious child who is Finnas home. How she came to 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''s half sisterfor this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Linda is not like other children and Finn Padma's attempt present fails to deal with escape her impact on his family is past and much like the central thread in this quintessential story musical score of growing upa film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857050184</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Salman Rushdie178563335X|title=Luka and the Fire of Life|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Back in 1990, Salman Rushdie followed up his controversial 'Satanic Verses' with a book dedicated to his then nine year old son, Zafar, called 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories'. Now, his second son, Milan, finally gets a book of his own, although he had to wait until he was 13 for his father to get around to it. 'Luka and the Fire of Life' is very much a follow up to 'Haroun' and it is certainly helpful, although not necessary, if you have read that book as many of the events in the first book are referred to here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555328</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDefences|author=Manuel de Lope and John Cullen (Translator)|title=The Wrong BloodHilary Taylor|rating=45

|summary=Although de Lope has written over When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a dozen novelstrainee vicar, this is sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the first to be translated into Englishchildren up. The cover is as pretty as Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a picture and screams sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won'Spanisht let her see her grandson.' So farHolthorpe, so good. But I have to admit that on the whole most of Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the European novels Iparish - and she've read over s in awe of the last year or sovicar, Gail, have fallen short of but then she's been doing the mark job for memore than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. Will this one prove to be different?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099551853</amazonuk>And then Hannah went missing.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind Adiga1398515388|title=Last Man In TowerThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Following a Man Booker winning book like [[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 White Tiger by Aravind Adiga|result was complete and utter devastation. The White Tiger]] is always going to be a daunting challenge for any writerdeaths were uncountable, let alone one when that book and the loss of livelihoods was the author's first novelwidespread. In 'Last Man in Tower' Adiga perhaps sensibly turns to a proven structure The fact that allows his storymany pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami -telling skills to flourishKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Gone are clever structural ideas, like He wasn'The White Tigert a dog person but the convenience store owner's' letter format comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and instead we get a straightforward engaging story set Tamon the dog jumped in modern day Mumbai where a rich builder is seeking to force residents of an old apartment block to sell their flats to enable redevelopment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848875169</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Christos Tsiolkas0989715337|title=Loaded|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Ari is just nineteen, of Greek descent but living in Melbourne with his family. He's gay, unemployed and not in education. He wants to get away from the traditional Greek life of his parents and their friends but has no idea how to do it. He falls back Papa on the only life that he knows: clubs, parties, anonymous sex, a cocktail of drugs and alcohol. But will even this be enough to dull the pain? Told vividly in the first person and sexually explicit it's a short book – a novella – which grabs you and has no intention of letting you go until it spits you out at the other end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099757710</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Alain Mabanckou|title=Memoirs of a PorcupineMarco North

|summary=The protagonist of this novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi'', and transforms him Some frogs had gotten into his son's harmful doublethe well. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as his life goes on, and sends 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 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 confessional.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Julie Myerson|title=Then|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The front cover is graphic and telling. A frozen London with its skyscrapers emitting black smoke and random fires across 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 Walter stood waist-deep in the birds .fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hat.Long strands of their eggs wove around him, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. fighting over a handful Two of scorched sparrows.'' The story is told in the first person by dogs leaned over the central character which gives it immediacy opening and draws barked down at the strange noise of the reader straight inbuckets as he filled them.|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 How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the bequiffed one this somewhat startling piece form of advice, ''You get interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to my agewistful and musing, you realise that when you die you're really not losing that muchturning on a sixpence.'' Those words sprang to mind while reading ''Whatever''And author Marco North, first novel by Michel Houellebecq. The main protagonist in ''Whatever'' may be only half who has the age most wonderful turn of the film directorphrase, but the outlook starts as he means to go on life shared by both men seems strikingly similar. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687845</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Sag HarborDaisy Hildyard|authortitle=Colson WhiteheadEmergency

|summary=Colson Whitehead wanted to write something personal for his fourth The summary of this book, so he chose an autobiographical novel, based on his experiences as a vacationing youngster. Sag Harbor really does exist - at the far end of Long Island and next doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the up-market Hamptons. It has a history of whaling and an association with John Steinbeck. Within easy reach of New York, in 1985 it was an affluent black enclave within a large, white middle-class holiday areapremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531887</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Carlos AlbaSally Oliver |title=The Songs Weight of Manolo EscobarLoss |rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Antonio Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the second-born son death of her sister, she awakes to Spanish parentsfind strange, living thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in Glasgowsize and volume. He's embarrassed Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to be anything other than Scottishher grief, and he tries everything recommends she go to hide his family background from friends stay at schoolNede, refusing to speak Spanish with his parents and struggling to forge his own identity an experimental new treatment centre in lifeWales. In his middle age, he suddenly finds his life falling apart around him as his marriage begins Yet something strange is happening to fail Marianne and his increasingly frail father becomes obsessed with the proper burial other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of his parents back in Spaina kind. Antonio continues to play a rather emotionally distant part in his parents' lives, but then finds himself drawn further and further into the truth about his fatherAs Marianne's past whichmemories threaten to overwhelm her, ultimately, leads him to question his own past Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and the path his future might takepain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184697173X</amazonuk>086154112X }} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ann PatchettNatalia Garcia Freire|title=State of WonderThis World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=Anders Eckman is deadEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. The news has been delivered in I will agree with the form an aerogram first – remember those blue paper-cum-envelope things we used to use to write to foreign pen-pals when the notion of befriending tremendous is no understatement – but 'a person youdelight'd never met is perhaps using the expression in a foreign country still seemed exotic?  This flimsy piece of paper was delivered to Eckmanway I's employersm not familiar with. After all it was them that had sent him down I have to confess my ignorance of the Brazilian Amazon to find Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. From the enigmatic and evasive Dr Annik Swensonlittle I have read (in translation, and more precisely find out exactly how she was getting on with developing I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the drug that was costing fantastical – the firm so much of their research budgetmystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408818590</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean RhysJennifer Saint|title=Wide Sargasso SeaElektra|rating=54

|summary=In 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the late eighteen thirties story of three women who live in the father heavily male dominated world of an English gentleman conspires to marry him off to a landed Jamaican Creole as a means of giving his second son an estate and stopping him being a burden on the familyAncient Greece. Written in the nineteen sixtiesCassandra, 'Wide Sargasso Sea' was inspired by Rochester's first wife in ''Jane Eyre''Clytemnestra, and is an impressionistic, hallucinatory account Elektra are all bit players in the story of the Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that woman's alienation and subsequent descent into madness that can be read as a prequel to often the silent women have 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, most compelling stories and the point of view shifts between Antoinette and her husbandmost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241951550</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Douglas Kennedy8409290103|title=The MomentIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=After I'd read Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the blurb young man got on board the back cover I gave a bit of a shrug as if boat and thereafter Patrick was to say, well, I've read quite send him a number of books recently where undying love has been found in war-torn Europe, so was this book going to be different, or better? monthly allowance. Thomas Nesbitt, middle-aged, disillusioned with love Patrick sent the money regularly and more than a tad worldcorrespondence -weary is trying to move on in his life. His marriage of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than twenty years is dissolving before Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his very eyes. But rather than being upsetson, it was that hedidn's feeling as if t care to have him in this country where he might be a weight has been lifted from danger to his shoulders. He wife and his wife were never really ''in love'' in the true sense of the phrase, despite having a daughter togetherother children. And there's a very good reason as The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to why Thomas is like this and get the rest of the book tells us why, warts and allyoung man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091795842</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Aminatta Forna|title=The Memory of Love|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The setting for this story is a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, soon after the government has declared an end to an 11 year civil war. How can people come to terms with the terrible things that have happened? Actually, can they come to terms with those things?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809656</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|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 from a decade later and we know that one of the girls, Chloë, died in a Valentine's Day suicide pact. The town council has finally decided on a memorial to Chloë – it's to be a summerhouse at the side of the pond where she drowned, although it's difficult to understand quite why anyone would want to sit there. The ground-breaking ceremony is being televised when it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But Lola, our narrator, knows that they've found a body. She also knows who it Red is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444721445</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alain Mabanckou|title=Broken GlassMy Heart

|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In the Congolese bar of Credit Gone West[[: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 spelled that more accurately – this one was, and is, the owner Stubborn Snail wants a record of the lives of those who drink thereblack and white and red. The man Yes, he chooses has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I think it's possible to write it? Disgraced schoolteacher Broken Glass, who fills up a notebook with the stories of say not one page lacks the bar’s patrons – or at least their versions influence of those talessome striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184668675X</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David BezmozgisB098FFFBH9|title=The Free WorldSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=34.5

|summary=ItFourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the late 1970's and way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a great deal of support from her family of Latvian Jews: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, the Krasnanskysmother Kate and her twin, are emigrating from the Soviet UnionNick. They're made to stay in Rome whilst they apply to live in Kate runs the States and they find themselves trapped family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in a strange migratory limboPutney, belonging nowhere and tied to no-one but each otherwhich is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670920053</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer EganYancey Williams|title=A Visit From Crosshairs of the Goon SquadDevil|rating=4.5

|summary=Apparently there's a saying that 'time's a goon' Award- nowinning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, I'd never heard of it despite his strenuous objections and thanks to be fairhis daughter, neither had the first character to whom it is said in Jennifer Egan's 'A Visit from the Goon Squad'finds himself living - or imprisoned, but together with a pair of epigraphs from Proust, itEddie's clear that time is very definitely what is being explored here. Egan's subject area is all loosely based around the music world. Her central character, if one can be said to exist, is Bennie Salazar, a music mogul who we encounter both directly and tangentially at various stages point of view - in room 315 of his up and down career. ''Goon Squad'' is also the title Garden of an Elvis Costello trackEden nursing home, continuing the music theme as Egan uses the music industry as with only 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 oldtrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. It Nothing is 1958 and they are growing up in a small mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa. They are learning going to box and to dance to rock and roll music.|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 keep Eddie from the birth his stock-in-trade of Ben Zion Avrohom that he is the Messiah. That's a lot of anyone to cope with and, like Jesuswriting though, there's much of Ben's early life that is untold so here. When he is involved in an horrific accident on a building site that he miraculously survives, albeit with terrible scaringfor his readers, the prophecies appear to be true. He develops a form of epilepsy during which he appears to speak to God. He is fluent in ancient languages despite never learning them, knows all the Holy books by heart and yet distains all forms of religion, instead spreading are his wanderings through his message of love to all who meet him in modern day New Yorklife's work.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543174</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mirza Waheed0008421714|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>}} {{newreviewMrs March|author=Alan Warner|title=The Stars in the Bright SkyVirginia Feito|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=In 1999, Alan Warner introduced us to a wonderful set of characters in 'The Sopranos' when a school choir from a backwater town in Scotland went on a trip to the big city. Much debauchery ensued. 'The Stars in the Bright Sky' once again reunites most of the original gang and there is no need to have read the first book to pick up on the diverse characters. Now though, they've grown up (or at least got older!) and are gathered at Gatwick Airport to set off on a girls' holiday.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009946182X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elia Barcelo and David Frye (Translator)|title=The Goldsmith's Secret|rating=3.5

|summary='The Goldsmithproblem began just after the publication of George March's Secret' has a wonderfully romantic beginning; alone most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on a snowy night in New York, the craftsman is puzzling over how last page) seemed to tell his story, and how either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to separate reality from the overwhelming memories in his mind. The romance continues local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the story unfoldsbread, with ''but isn't this the goldsmith taking us back to first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the town and time of his youthprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, and except for the chance meeting fact that led him to find Johanna is the love whore of his life. Telling the tale of romance from many perspectivesNantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, we learn the town of Villasanta has labelled his lovepathetic, the mysterious Celiaunloved, as unloveable wretch.'a marked woman' and the 'black widow'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050052</amazonuk>

{{newreview|author=Peter Salmon|title=The Coffee Story|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Teddy Everett, head of Everett and Sons Coffee is dying, slowly and painfully, of cancer. The Coffee Story is his story, told in his own (very descriptive) words. It goes from (although not necessarily in this order) his childhood in England, his adolescence in Ethiopia and then his life in the USA and Cuba. It's his time in Cuba which has put him where he is now – in prison. For his crimes he would normally have suffered the death penalty, but his sentence was commuted because of his illness and now the doctors try Move on to save him. Or perhaps it's that they're trying to persuade Teddy that they're trying to save him – whether he wants to be saved or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724703</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Andrew Miller|title=Pure|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=I've read Miller's ''Oxygen'' and ''The Optimists'' so I was looking forward to reading this novel. The story opens in the opulence of the Palace of Versailles. We are given vivid descriptions of both the scale of the palace and its grandeur. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, the young engineer, seems completely over-awed by the whole occasion. Even although he's not entirely sure what is expected of him in Paris, he accepts. He needs to eat, after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444724258</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Paranormal Reviews]]