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[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]]==Literary fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christine Dwyer HickeyMatthew Tree|title=The Cold Eye of HeavenWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I reviewed Hickey's [[Last Train From Liguria by Christine Dwyer Hickey| Last Train From Liguria]] so was keen Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to see if I'd enjoy this book too. The front cover says that Farley ''unravels the warp and weft of be different from his life'' which is father, a great phrase - wish I'd though drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of it. Hickey lives in Dublin so I'm kind being exceptional at any of expecting good characterization (as the book's location is Dublin) his artistic passions all failed miserably and a nice line in put-me-down witwho had endless crises of self confidence. But will I get it? Time So Tim applied himself to find out ..his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857890301</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The book is in the first Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, told by a woman who is a relative newcomer to this tiny village, no more than a cluster of homes and a few basic amenities. The story opens in the lead-up to a horrendous storm. The narrator has seen nothing like question should you make it before and ? Or is both afraid and excited. The locals take the question if you did, would it all in their stride. They're a hardy bunch of disparate individuals and we get to know more them, one by one, as the story develops.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906694710</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Susan Hill|title=land? The Woman in Black|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Arthur Kipps catch is a young solicitor working in a fog-bound London and soon to that the answer for both could well be married. All looks rosy for Arthur until one day he is called into his boss' office where he is tasked with the affairs of the deceased recluse Alice Drablow. Alice Drablow had lived in the melancholy village of Crythin Gifford in an isolated house on the remote Eel Marsh, a house only accessible by a strange causeway when the tide is out. It is here Arthur must travel to firstly represent his firm at her funeral and then to sift through Mrs Drablow's house to ensure all her legal paperwork is in order. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685621</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Julian Barnes|title=The Sense of an Ending|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary='The Sense of an Ending' is almost more of a novella - it's a slim volume but exquisitely written, as you might expect from Julian Barnes. It starts off describing the relationships between four friends at school, narrated by one of the friends, Tony Webster, but quickly it becomes clear that this is written many years later. Barnes has long been a terrific observer of the English middle classes and his style invariably contains satire and dry humour. And this being Barnes, this school clique is intellectual in interest, as the narrator recalls English and History teachers and student philosophisingno.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224094157</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A L KennedyMosby Woods|title=The Blue BookA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Despite not being The West isn'quoits and gin slings and rubbers t the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of bridge people' Elizabeth and Derek have embarked on action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a cruisepush for climate action there. Derek A feeling that nobody is probably hoping to proposein actual charge. Imagine then, but things do not go as plannedthere was a man with precognition. From Imagine the moment they encounter strategic advantage in this asset; a stranger as they board man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the shipmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, the cruise proves that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to be revelationary for all concerned.get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224091409</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Richard Beard0571379559|title=Lazarus is DeadThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''The title certainly got my attention and when I read that Beard House of Broken Bricks'' is the Director story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the National Academy riverbank, built of Writing, London I was expecting great things from himbroken bricks. IInsubstantial as it might look, it'm also thinking in s stood the very next breath how audacious passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to write a fictional book about a towering biblical character but thengrow his vegetables, many to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have done just twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother thatshe's his nanny. Will he pull it off though?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184655506X</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire North
|title=House of Odysseus
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy WaldmanKay Chronister|title=The SubmissionDesert Creatures|rating=54|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=The front cover of the book With a world that I received is becoming increasingly inhospitable for review is subtle (as befitting the sensitive contents) and I humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can see the two twin towers (as was) depicted in grey in the title word submissionbecome an almost masochistic thrill. The back cover announces that Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this novel will be genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Published in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.Desert Creatures'' No pressure thenby Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. I open the book with It is a certain amount of trepidation, I have to admit and feel slightly as if I'm about shocking novel that still manages to tread on (literary) eggshellsfind hope. Heavens - what if I don't like the book?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434019321</amazonuk>1803364998
}}
{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author=Bernard BeckettEric LaRocca|title=AugustThe Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=45|genre=TeensHorror|summary=In an alternate worldHorror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', Tristan and Grace come from The Citywhether that is a home invader, a closed monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and enclosed society in which religion dominates, by the end of the story, beatable. Tristan had been an acolyte at St AugustineEric LaRocca's''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. He spent It is a childhood being drilled collection of short stories more interested in philosophical discussion the horrors of free will by the Rector. A star pupilillness, a single event made him question everything he had been taughtgrief and humiliation. Grace had spent the first part of her childhood in the convent, but a single act of kindness led Horrors that linger and are harder to her excommunicationdefeat than any ''Big Bad''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857387898</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daisy WaughMadelaine Lucas|title=Last Dance with ValentinoThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When I read on the front cover that this book is described by the Sunday Times as ''A grippingLove, bittersweet love storyI'' it wasn't a particularly good statement for me to d read. As a rule I don't generally 'do' love stories. If I happen , was supposed to read one every once in be a while then that's fine by me light and weightless feeling, but I donhad always longed for gravity''t encourage them! But, both the lovely title and the front cover did their job and pulled me in - just a little.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000739120X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven AmsterdamMichael Grothaus|title=Things We Didn't See ComingBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This book has gained praise from the likes of the Washington Post ''But fearing something and the Financial times so I was really looking forward to a good - even great read. But did I get having 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' come to draw the reader in. The narrator, young, male (not named as yet) and his family pass are packing the family car for the journey aheadtwo different things. The poor car is full to bursting. Dad is a sceptic and he's taking no chances with this millennium situation and heAnd I's instructed his family m willing 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 bet most of what exactly is we fear will never mentionedhappen, only impliedor we can take steps to change it. So it's New Year celebrations with the grandparents.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954704X</amazonuk>}}'
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Rather ironically, 'Before 'I was as worthy as any one of them. I Go To Sleep' is not a book would get on board that you will forget in a hurryship, I vowed. ImagineI would take my place, if you will, waking up every morning with no memory not just in the name of who you are, where you are, or who the person lying next to you in bed isgoddess. You can remember things during It was for the daysake of my name, but once you go to sleep, your mind is effectively wiped cleantoo. This is the slightly unusual form of amnesia that the narrator, Christine suffers from in WatsonAtalanta''s first novel that is a daring and gripping literary thriller.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857520172</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aatish TaseerAmanthi Harris|title=NoonBeautiful Place|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as 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 ''Noonscore' sits somewhere between a collection of related short stories ' for this gentle and a full blown yet subtly violent novel in that it tells four different episodes in Rehan Tabassum. Padma's lifepresent fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, spread over a couple of decades. It explores some large issues thoughthat strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330540416</amazonuk>1784631930
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis B Jones178563335X|title=RadianceSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Mark Perdue took his daughter, Carlotta – or Lotta, as When we first meet Rachel Bird she's known – a trainee vicar, sitting in on an indulgent fantasy weekend in Los Angeles. Lotta a PCC meeting and some other teenagers were going wondering why they're held when you need to live pick the celebrity lifestyle for a few dayschildren up. Her husband, with gigsChristopher, recordings collects six-year-old Hannah and stretch limos to ferry them aroundher elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. MarkThelma's got problems of his owndaughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. He ''was'' an eminent physicist Holthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but illness has taken its toll. His wife Rachel is still suffering struggling to develop a real bond with the emotional effects of a lateparish -term abortion – the family called the foetus 'Noddy' – and Lotta canshe't reconcile how she feels about s in awe of the loss of her unborn siblingvicar, Gail, even going as far as to say that but then she would have given up 's been doing the next ten job for more than thirty years of her life to look after the child. And Mark? Well, Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the tarmac at LAX beach would do them some good - it dawns on him that a heart attack would be a convenient way out of everythingwas stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>158243736X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice LaPlante1398515388|title=Turn of MindThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=This is a beautifully-presented book with its eye-catching front cover First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and poetic titlethis, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Jennifer has had a busy The result was complete and fulfilling professional life as a well-respected medical surgeonutter devastation. Until nowThe deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. She's gradually losing bits The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of her mind to Alzheimer'spriorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Her family is supportive and keep popping in on He wasn't a regular basis plus theredog person but the convenience store owner's now a live-in carer, Magdalena, so comment that daily life he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and daily chores are just about coveredTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846554632</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jose Saramago and Margaret Jull Costa|title=The Elephant's Journey|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|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, the Hapsburg Archduke of Austria. When the gift was accepted, the elephant Solomon, his mahout Subhro and numerous soldiers, oxen and porters, walked from Lisbon to Vienna to deliver the present, arriving in 1552. This is the story of that journey.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546884</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|authorisbn=Ross Raisin0989715337|title=Waterline|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Raisin has an enviable portfolio for one so 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 praise. No pressure then with this book. The story opens with all members of the Little family paying their respects to Cathy. Some have travelled further than others as they all squeeze into Mick's modest house, somewhere in Glasgow. A less-than-posh part. Mick is obviously numb with the shock of it all (even although his wife's death was not sudden - she had been ill for some time). It's clear that some of Papa on the family, distant members, feel uncomfortable and don't quite know how to act.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917354</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Jamil Ahmad|title=The Wandering FalconMarco North
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary="In ''Some frogs had gotten into the tangle of crumbling, weather-beaten 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 come two wanderers, a man and a woman seeking refugewell. ''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna GavaldaDaisy Hildyard|title=Breaking AwayEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Garance is on her way The summary of this book doesn't come close to a family wedding. In the car with her brother and his wife she thinks about all her siblings, explaining what's happened in their lives and who they have all become. Throughout the journey she finds herself bickering constantly is done 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 livespremise. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906040400</amazonuk>1913097811}}
{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Haley TannerSally Oliver |title=Vaclav 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 size and volume. Her GP, 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 Lenathe other 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 }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Vaclav and Lena are both children of Russian immigrantsEarly comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, growing up in Brooklyna delight. Vaclav dreams of becoming a fantastic magician, I will agree with his friend Lena as his assistant, and as children they practise their routine together, making lists of the things they'll need, the costumes they will wear and the tricks they will perform. Vaclav first – tremendous is confident and happy, no understatement – but Lena 'a delight' is quiet, withdrawn and struggles perhaps using the expression in a way I'm not familiar with speaking English. Yet Vaclav believes, always, that they are destined I have to be togetherconfess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Even when Lena disappears one day and is gone from his life for many years still he hopes thatFrom the little I have read (in translation, somehow, he will find her againI don't read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020443</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neil JordanJennifer Saint|title=MistakenElektra
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The front cover photograph and the blurb on 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the back cover give this book a misty, floaty, ethereal feel. The story starts at of three women who live in the end, if you get my driftheavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. The adult Kevin attends a local funeral but he's careful to remain low-keyCassandra, hidden almost. Why is that? And whose funeral is it anyway? As early as page 6Clytemnestra, Jordan's poetic and atmospheric style is apparent Elektra are all bit players in lines such as ' the story of the Trojan War... close to Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the line of yew trees, were silent women have the massed umbrellas of most compelling stories and the mourners, retreating, like so many mushrooms come alive in a fairy-tale forestmost extreme furies.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848544197</amazonuk>1472273915
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen Humphreys8409290103|title=The Reinvention of LoveIf Only|author=Matthew Tree|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary='The Reinvention of Love' is Twenty-one of those stories that is so bizarre and strange that it could only be based on factual events. Essentially it is a good-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, oldcotton-fashioned love triangle set mostly in Paris in broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the period from young man got on board the 1830s boat and thereafter Patrick was to the 1860s; send him a world where fighting duels is a commonplace eventmonthly allowance. The triangle features Patrick sent the great French literary writer Victor Hugo, his wife Adèle money regularly and the altogether strange critic Charles Sainta correspondence -Beuve who narrates much of this story, with brief breaks for Adèle's side of events and some letters written by sorts - sprang up between the Hugotwo although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. It wasn's youngest daughter, also called Adèle (but lett that Lowry senior didn's call hert care for his son, as she it was known that he didn't care to her family, Dédé have him in this country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to avoid confusion)get the young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687985</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Wesley StaceAntoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a MurdererRed is My Heart
|rating=3.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction |summary="Nothing [[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this subtle tale of English music in the makingone was, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]" "His handling of dry comic dialogue and cynical affectation is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse… , black and white and red. Yes, he has an intelligentartistic collaborator on this piece, fun and thoughtful piece of fiction [Independent on Sunday]" Just two of I think it's possible to say not one page lacks the previous reviews that adorn the back cover influence of 'Charles Jessold…'some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546574</amazonuk>1913547183
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roy Jacobsen, Don Bartlett (translator) and Don Shaw (translator)B098FFFBH9|title=Child WonderSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=1961 was Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. She gets a year great deal of changesupport from her family: father Pip Harrison, a timelecturer at Imperial College, as Jacobsen puts itLondon, ''when men became boys mother Kate and housewives women''her twin, Nick. At Kate runs the outset Finn and his mother are leading family business, a quiet, rather timorous life toy shop called Cornucopia in a working class Oslo suburb. Then change overwhelms them, not through world eventsPutney, but in the form of a mysterious child who which is Finnwhere we's half sister. Linda is not like other children and Finnll meet Rachel's attempt to deal with her impact on his family is the central thread in this quintessential story main (if unsuspected) source of growing upinformation: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050184</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Salman RushdieYancey Williams|title=Luka and Crosshairs of the Fire of LifeDevil|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>}} {{newreview|author=Manuel de Lope and John Cullen (Translator)|title=The Wrong Blood|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Although de Lope has written over a dozen novelsAward-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, this is from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the first to be translated into English. The cover is as pretty as Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a picture and screams 'Spanish.' So fartrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, so goodfor palatable company. But I have Nothing is going to admit that on the whole most keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of the European novels I've read over the last year or writing though, sohere, have fallen short of the mark for mehis readers, are his wanderings through his life's work. Will this one prove to be different?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099551853</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aravind Adiga0008421714|title=Last Man In TowerMrs March|author=Virginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Following a Man Booker winning book like [[The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga|The White Tiger]] is always going problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be a daunting challenge for any writerreading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, let alone one when that book as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the authorfirst time he's first novel. In based a character on you?'Last Man in Tower' Adiga perhaps sensibly turns to a proven structure She mentioned that allows his story-telling skills to flourish. Gone are clever structural ideasJohanna, like the principal character had 'The White Tigerher mannerisms's' letter format and instead we get a straightforward engaging story set in modern day Mumbai where a rich builder . Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is seeking to force residents the whore of an old apartment block to sell their flats to enable redevelopmentNantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848875169</amazonuk>''
}}
