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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A J CroninJenny Lecoat|title=Dr Finlay's CasebookBeyond Summerland

|summary=Most people will have heard of Dr Finlay, although Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they may not be entirely sure why - A J Cronin's stories are celebrating the end of a fictional doctor in pre-War Scotland have been televised over the years, most recently in occupation. During the nineties when David Rintoul starred as Dr Finlay. Although fictional, A J Cronin, who died in 1981war, Jean's father was himself arrested for listening to a doctor banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and has apparently based some her mother waiting for years for news of Finlay's experiences on his ownhim. This omnibus As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is made up of two books by Croninfinally over, Dr Finlay of Tannochbrae, published in 1978 and Adventures their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a Black Bagrelief, published in 1943, both collections of short stories.or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841588547</amazonuk>1846976537

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Clancy MartinOnyi Nwabineli|title=How To SellAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=34.5

|summary=In Anuri spent her childhood on display to the 1980world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia'sincreasingly popular presence on social media, 16 year old Bobby Clark gets expelled from his high school in Canada for stealing. This is a young boy so immoral that he pilfers his own motherwhere she posted every step of Anuri's wedding ring to pawn childhood for cash to keep a girl happysponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. After the girl turns out to be less interested Now Anuri is in him than he her twenties and she is in slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get herlife back, he follows his older brother Jim suing her step-mother to Texas, where he gets a job working with Jim in a jewellery storetake down the content about her. As he falls into a life of scams Anuri is battling alcoholism, drugsfailing to start her PhD, hookersundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, gorgeous womenshe is desperately worried about her little sister, and an obsession with Jimwho is the new focus of Ophelia's girlfriend Lisaonline empire. Can she save her sister, it's clear that this coming of age story is a tragedy waiting to happen.and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099532182</amazonuk>0861546873

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Marrinan1529153298|title=Degrees The List of GuiltSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5

|summary=The Police broke into the apartment in Sandymount Village in Dublin It's 1979 and woke Yuri Komarova rather roughlyMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) HeShe's not what'd s worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been drinking heavilydisappearing. Well, smoking dope and was difficult to arousethey've been murdered, but on the floor near his bed was the knife which he had apparently used to stab his mother to deathhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. He seemed Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to have no memory of this but he spoke little English and had move the mental age of family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a twelve-year oldfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. An interpreter helped with For Miv, the questioning move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and when the case came she'll do anything to trial his defence relied on proving prevent that he had been sleep-walking at the time of the murder and had no intention of killing his mother. This is She's not worried about the most difficult defence to uphold and there was the added problem dangers or that Yuri seemed to have lied her Mum's stopped talking - to the police when he told them that his mother had very little money as some Russian icons were found in a strongbox and they were worth several million Eurosanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090749</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katie Kitamura1035906708|title=The LongshotDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=Cal and his long-time trainer Riley travel down We tend to the town think of Tijuana Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in Mexico for a crucial rematch with the undefeated champion RiveraDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Three years earlier Cal Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's promising career had been derailed following a close yet devastating defeat at the hands of Rivera. After that defeat Cal carried on fighting but never reached the same heights as before. Now he finally gets the chance to face his nemesis once make it moremanageable in the States. The story takes place When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the two days before the rematch as he Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and Riley prepare made no secret of her preference for the biggest fight of his lifeher elder sister, a fight that could once again end in tragedyJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374999</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurie GrahamAlexander McCall Smith|title=At SeaThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=I've already read Graham's 'The Future Homemakers of AmericaPerfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service.' It was goodNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, but not particularly memorable so I was keen as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to read this novelget away for a while. The reader Katie is introduced to two vastly differing opposites in the shape coming out of Mr a break up with a bad boyfriend, and Mrs Finchso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. WellAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, Lady Enid (English) bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Professor Bernard (American) Finchthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to be precisecharm. And we're transported straight away onto the decks of the liner 'Golden MemoriesKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there' s always her very helpful (and Graham starts rather handsome) neighbour, William, to have her fun: with the language, the characters and the whole set-up.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849162182</amazonuk>1846976596

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura BartonDean Koontz|title=Twenty-One LocksThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=This debut novel's central character Benny is 20 year old sales girlhaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, Jeannieand his house gets trashed. She lives Oh, and someone has delivered a very humdrum life in a rather uglyreally weird, downdisturbing coffin-at-heel town in sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the north. thing that has trashed his house! And straight away Barton treats The thing is, Benny is the reader very last person to her lovely, descriptive prosedeserve all this bad luck. For example, when the reader He is given some detail about Jeannie's workplace at the perfume and cosmetics counter where .a nice person. A really nice person. 'So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the lipsticks delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person... all lined up like chorus girls ...' BartonSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's writing style is very easy to readenemies, if he, Benny, very fluid and I found myself getting right Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into the story straight away - and caring about JeannieBenny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161747</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne PeileKatherine Howe|title=Repeat It Today With TearsA True Account

|summary=Repeat it Today Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with Tears follows the story of Susannaa family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a sixteen year old girl from young age. When she hears there is to be a broken hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and loveless home who obsessively collects information watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the back hands of a notebook about the father she has never mettwo vicious pirates. When by chance she discovers She hides away, so that he still lives nearby they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she sets out deliberately runs away to find sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and seduce himfrom there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687462</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francine Prose1471180158|title=GoldengroveMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|summary=On Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a hot day Nico and her older sister Margaret take control freak with all the subtlety of a boat out onto Mirror Lakehalf brick. Jamie's son, but only Nico returns after Margaret dives off the boat and doesnBo, 'has his problems't resurface. MargaretHe's sudden death tears through Nico asthmatic and her parentsthe more you read, the more you'll suspect that he' lives, and each mourn for her in their own ways on the autistic spectrum. Unable Sometimes Jamie needs to find take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the help she needs from her parents, who are both consumed by their own grief local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to help Nico go to come school. Missed shifts or the need to terms with her loss, Nico turns be away on time to the vast array of books pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in Goldengrove, her father's bookshop, for answers, and soon embarks on a dangerous relationship with Margaret's boyfriend Aaron, the only person who seems wrong. It was going to come to understand her griefa head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870361</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie OrringerB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Invisible BridgeRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=54

|summary=In a story that takes us from the elegance of Paris, through the streets of Budapest and on into the Hungarian countryside and the Ukraine this Petr is an epic tale, masterfully toldorphan. It is 1937 and Andras LeviRescued by the strange, a young Hungarian Jewish studentreclusive Bear, he is about to leave his brother Tibor to go brought up far from bustling cities and study architecture busy human society, in Paristhe forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Andras' story unfolds first amongst the beautiful buildings of Paris, the theatres After Bear dies and the barsa brief sojourn in human company, as he struggles in his studies and falls in love armed with only a beautiful ballerina who has pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a terrible secret to hide. As the tragedy of World War 2 edges ever closer to Andras, journey through the book moves back to Hungaryforest, to broadcasting the little village where Andras and his brothers grew upstrange, to Budapest where his new family live wild and then on into the forced labour camps across Hungaryrarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670914584</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen GibbonSarah Marsh|title=Thief|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It’s summer, and school teacher Suzanne is renting a cabin by a lake. Spending her days reading and swimming, she also finds time to engage in some old fashioned letter writing with a stranger who responded to a personal ad she placed. He’s currently an inmate at the state penitentiary, but Suzanne’s not one to judge, and agrees to give their correspondence a shot. Then she finds out what he’s in for – and it’s not pretty. Breville is a convicted thief and rapist, and Suzanne herself was raped as a teenager, by a friend’s brother. That should be the end A Sign of it: any sensible person would cut off all communication and turn their back on the situation. But Suzanne is different and though she’s acknowledges that it might not be the healthiest of relationships, she maintains the back and forth with Breville.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871821</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Guy Fraser|title=Avenging the DeadHer Own

|summary=It's 1863 and the Superintendent covering the inner city area After a bout of Glasgow has his hands fullscarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. First off an alarming forgery scandal has just been discovered and no sooner has he drawn breath than oneSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, two and counting suspicious deaths occureverything about her life changes. InstinctivelyLiving in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, I want Ellen is sent to say that it's all gooda school where she is taught to lip read, clean funbut physically restrained from signing. Because it isFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. The language Fraser uses At the same time, Bell is very much of that era which lends the book a particular old-fashioned working on other inventions and rather tweeideas, charm. It's all over the book and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in spades. On almost every page. Let me give you just one endearing example of the flavour of the book 'None of Mrs Maitland's four regulars at her superior guest house for single gentlemen would even dream a complicated tangle of taking another's seat ..espionage.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090684</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreview|author=Jodi Compton|title=HaileyLavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's War|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=At the beginning of the book, Hailey Cain not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a 23 crush on seventeen-year -old cycle courierliving in San FranciscoReggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. The story then takes a step back in time Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and wediscover that Reggie asked if she had to leave West Point Military Academy during herfinal year, for reasons she prefers to keep to herselfwould tutor him. I continued to read under the assumption that Hailey had done She readily agreed: tutoring was something which forced her to leaveshe gladly did at church: this was just an extension. Hernext move is She went to L.A, where she spent the latter part of his house and he raped her childhood.During these years In shock, her mother with whom she has, at best, a very strained relationship is no source of comfort and Hailey develops a very close attachment even allowed him to give her cousin CJ. Aspects of this relationship make for uncomfortable reading at timesa lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847373577</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew Grant1472263936|title=Die Twice (David Trevellyan)The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45

|summary=The title is very much at It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and in keeping with the thriller genre refused to return, but Mary and itHamish (Helena's both eye-catching and also has parents) felt that it would be a perfectly reasonable explanation which comes right at the very end of the storypity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. I must admit Her trip to thrillers generally not being my most favourite reading material. Some can the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be a bit flashy, a bit trashy eventhe first of several annual visits. But not this novel. Right from She grew to love her grandmother and the start I felt I family's maid, Dina, but was in for a goodwary - and frightened - of her grandfather, intelligent readretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. There were pointers He was proud of his close connections to this all over the placeJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. For starters, David Trevellyan has a nice line in witty humour. There are numerous snazzy oneHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes -liners. It all went down very wellinherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230747582</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan LeeDean Koontz|title=Who Is Mr Satoshi?After Death|rating=3.5

|summary=The novel opens somewhere Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the Home Counties shrouded bodies of his dead friends and Rob Fossick is attending his mother's funeralformer colleagues. The event in itself As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is extremely distressing and also depressing for something different about him; factor in that hecan ''s become a bit of a recluse lately and I could feel the sheer loneliness creeping into Rob's very bones' everything. Lee describes the event as 'Zimmer frames, bifocals, trifocals, dark grey coats with yawning shoulders'Everything''. The apparatus of old ageMichael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020419</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hazel McHaffieB0BVDC2VWH|title=Remember RememberThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=The story starts at the end village is isolated and works back in timepoor. This works extremely well as we see Doris Mannering, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother now living in a residential home. The decision to 'put motherIt' into s surrounded by a home was very, very difficult and had been put off time and time againWitching Forest. We come to realize that this was a heartAnd the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-wrenching decisionlike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The daughter black wood of the forest provides heat and carerwarmth, Jessicaroofs on homes, and even gallows, will always be asking herself if she'd done the right thing, made the right decision for the right reasonsneeded. A veritable minefield. And here The fear of being buried alive is where many an ethical dilemma lies for many families existential superstition in realthe village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-life similar situationsindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906817294</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John NivenB0BYF82CXT|title=The AmateursSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=Gary Irvine only wants two things out of life. He'd like to have children 'Bill and he wants to reduce his golf handicap. Nothing extraordinary thereAmanda are living in a semi-detached house, you might think except for the fact that his wifestuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, Paulinewhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, is planning to leave him for a self-made carpet millionaire successful and Gary is a dreadful golfer. His handicap is eighteen very much in love – but I'm not entirely certain how he got it down to that level move in the first place. His family doesn't give him much solace eithernext door. His brother Lee is Despite their different outlooks on life, the fringes of the local criminal underworld couples befriend each other and hasn't the wit life appears to keep himself out of trouble with Ranta Campbell, the local overlordimprove for both pairs. Ranta could be quite likeable if But all is not what it wasn't for his penchant seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for a certain type of violence designed to keep the others in line rather than to teach the victim a lessontragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099516667</amazonuk>''

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam RossShalini Boland|title=Mr PeanutThe Silent Bride|rating=3.5

|summary=The main couple who tend to take centre stage here Alice and Seth are called David and Alice Pepina match made in heaven. They live a kind of comfortableHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, middlefunny; total and utter husband-class life in busy and bustling Manhattanmaterial. After more than She is all he could possibly want in a decade of generally happy married life togetherwife; beautiful, successful, they want to take confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the next step wedding is planned and have a familyset. Easy When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to say but things don't quite work out according celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to plan. We are taken on various face his approaching bride, Alice'dark' journeys within their marriage. These are situations which most of us can identify with. Some of these situations are painfuls world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, stressful, unhappywho is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087738</amazonuk>1662507089

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Shakespeare1787636003|title=InheritanceThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45

|summary=Andy Larkham's life and career are going nowhere. He works for a small publishing house, Carpe Diem, It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that specialises in publishing self-help books, his fiancée is about to dump him she and he has no money Caroline went backpacking around Greece and mountains of debtarrived on the island. And that Rachel wasn's before we begin to talk about his dysfunctional family. His only real role model t exactly innocent but she was the Montaigne, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-loving teacherold Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, Stuart Furnivall, whose funeral he is late forshe was flattered rather than wary. But an unexpected inheritance of £17 million has It was quite a habit while before he made any sort of changing one's outlook on lifephysical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. But while he trades self-help Alistair worked for help yourselfHenry Taylor, Andy also realises that he has inherited a mysterylooking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553156</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cath StaincliffeAmanda Craig|title=The Kindest ThingThree Graces|rating=4.5

|summary=Imagine that your partner Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of twenty or -the-nation novel. There's something so years discovers that they are dying from a terminal diseaseutterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. Now imagine To say that theyAmanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she've asked you to help them to die s practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a little sooner, on their own terms. What would you do? This is gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the dilemma lives of her characters in a way that faced Deborah feels natural andlived-in, after she went ahead and helped her husband Neil to dienever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, she found herself charged and standing trial for murder grappling with her own teenage daughter, Sophie, testifying against herissues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849012083</amazonuk>140871468X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza Graham152915118X|title=JubileePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson

|summary=As ''Pineapple Street'' is the village celebrates the Queenstory of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn's Golden Jubilee two people cant a Stockton by birth so she isn't help but think back to readily accepted into the Silver Jubileetribe. Evie Winter and her niece Rachel have vivid memories of the day when EvieThe problem's daughter Jessamy wandered off exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the mystery of her disappearance has never been solvedPineapple Street property. She was eleven years oldTilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, brighta street or so away, athletic and loved by her mother and cousinwhich they own. There would seem to be no explanation as to why she might have disappeared They won't need any of her own free will the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and no evidence that she was abductedCord can move straight in. Life has carried onNominally, they had a choice but it has not been that wasn't the samereality. It has not been easyDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509268</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael RobothamEmily Critchley|title=Bleed For MeOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=An ex-detective is found dead in a pool of blood 84 year old Edie has lived in his teenager's bedroom. She runs from the scene of the crime. Is this the easiest cut-and-dried case ever? This novel is told in the first person by the investigating psychologistsame small town for almost her whole life, Professor Joe O'Loughlin. He's got a lot going on in his life right but now. His health she is not good so he's facing a move as her son wants to keep popping pills move to try and get through another working day. He's also newly separated house and bring Edie to live with his daughters seem family, as Edie is starting to talk a completely different language. He feels old and very ragged round the edgeslose her memory. Into this mixHowever, he discovers that the teenager everyone Edie is talking about, tormented by the teenager who's been discussed and described as a cold-blooded killer, is his daughter's best memory of her childhood friend. Could his life get any worse, he thinks. Yes. Big-time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847442188</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Catherine O'Flynn|title=The News Where You Are|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The main character in this novel is Frank Allcroft. HusbandLucy, fatherwho went missing over 60 years ago, son and also the worry that there was a bit of a minor celebrity as he's beamed into secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the region's television screens nightly, presenting thing that reveals the local newstruth of what happened all that time ago. Make that minor with a small After 'mseeing'. He comes across as a likeable, middle-aged man, content with his lot and with his home life. But he does have some personal issues to attend to. In particular, his grumpy, sometimes forgetful, elderly mother who is now living Lucy in a retirement home. Mother and son give each other lots of grief on a regular basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918555</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mario Puzo|title=Six Graves to Munich|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=In the dying days of the Second World War Michael Roganhigh street, an American Intelligence officer just as she was captured and tortured by a group of seven menthe last time she saw her, most she starts to find pockets of whom were senior Gestapo officers trying memories coming back to obtain the secrets which Rogan could give them. His wife was in another room and he could hear her screams. Ten years later, when he had recovered from the appalling injuries he suffered he made up his mind that he would avenge the death of his wife at the hands of the seven men. It's no easy task And yet as he doesn't even know who they are.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916276X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kishwar Desai|title=Witness she remembers the Night|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens on a disturbing dream sequence (or is it a memory?) that sets up the murder which past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to be at the centre of this bookday life. Durga, a young girl living in Julundur, is instructed by a mysterious male character to return to the house from which Will she has just fled, uncover the house in which truth about Lucy's disappearance before her whole family lies dead- poisonedmove, stabbed and partly scorched. There Durga is tied up, having been attacked and raped.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905636857</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreview|author=Chioma Okereke|title=Bitter Leaf|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=JerichoTold from a retrospective view, (who's female by the way), is a beautiful young woman. She's curious about unravels the outside world so like many before year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, she's taken the brave step of sampling life in narrator relives the affair with a big, bustling city. She returns man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to her home village with some rather pretentious airs its sorrowful end the summer after... and a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jericho's mother had attended Set against the backdrop of an interview in her past at her daughterisolated Australian coastal town 's new boyfriend's family home. A veritable mansion with Thirst for Salt' ... sweeping rooms that took longer than a river to cross.' What a lovely way of describingluxury in an essentially poor area of Africa. Everyone thinks details the next natural step is marriage 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and babies but is how it?altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>0861546490

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Colquhoun0008506337|title=Five Deadly Words|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Five Deadly Words follows the story of charismatic former dictator Lucas, as he charms and 'collects' people during his exile in London. The story is seen mostly from the point of view of Helen Berlin, the bright young Detective Constable who is put in charge of Lucas' safety. Helen finds herself caught up in matters which become increasingly out of her depth as she falls further into the former dictator's world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529496</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGarnett Girls|author=Don Boyd|title=Margot's SecretsGeorgina Moore

|summary=Margot is a psychologist who specialises in sexual disorders The love affair between Margo Garnett and obsessionspoet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. She lives and works for herself Margo was just sixteen when they fell in Barcelona amongst the exlove. Richard was twenty-pat community, one and although described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she only has could achieve - going to Oxford and having a dozen or so clients at any one timeglittering career. In the event, spends much they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of her week living at her officeWight. Her clients, both male Margo did go to Oxford and femalewent on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, are bewildering Imogen and fascinating Sasha. Life was lived in equal portionsLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, and the description family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the therapy sessions make fascinating and revealing readingdoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955405149</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Steven Carroll|title=The Art of the Engine Driver|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Carroll has chosen a bygone era in the 1950s and also a bygone but much treasured mode of transport, whether it's Australia or the UKThen Richard left them. Immediately I'm drawn in to the story. Both the title and book's front cover are arresting and original. The novel centres on one evening in this suburban neighbourhood when all its residents are invited to a celebration party. Carroll see-saws back and forth as he shares the individual lives with us. It is an engaging style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537273</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick Woodhead1914585402|title=The Forbidden TempleDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5

|summary=Luca, I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a mountaineer trying to escape from his disappointingly unsupportive parents couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a past accidentgripping, witnesses something strange in the distanceemotionally wounding read, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped like a perfect pyramid, circled by other peaks he's never seen before. Back in England nobody else seems to have seen them either, but colleagues mention mysterious Shangri-La style Buddhist sanctuaries - could this be the prime one, hidden from prying eyes for centuries? Nobody wants to declare it actually exists at all. Meanwhile, Himalayan natives are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ken McClureLucy Ashe|title=Dust to Dust (Steven Dunbar)Clara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary=John Motram The year is a cell biologist1933. HeThe place? Sadler's a promising Wells. Ballerinas Clara and well-though of academic and his pet subject is - Black DeathOlivia are sisters, twins no less. Intrigue is high Identical on the agenda right from outside but not, we learn, on the beginninginside. And not on stage, either. Motram is invited to Because there's a lot that builds a meeting along with other high-fliers in their respective fieldsdancer. This meeting is top secretSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. Motram isA stage presence, howevera charm, mystifieda ''joie de vivre''. The situation appears pretty straightforwarddifference between a hard-worker, so why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, he wondersa star. And why has everyone to refer to the patient only as 'Patient X?'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971268</amazonuk>0861544080

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert RyanHeather Fawcett|title=Signal RedEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=Ryan Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has certainly travelled extensively, and researched thoroughly for this novel - and it shows. Straight away the blurb on the back cover tells us theremeticulously, to write her life's an 'afterword' by Bruce Reynoldswork, no less than the ringmaster/leader very first encyclopaedia of the Great Train Robbery gangfaeries. Notice how it's always given capital lettersWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. Even all these decades down the lineSo when she finds herself far, those readers of a certain age remember it and perhaps shake their head far North in amazement. And there's also a very useful 'aftermath' section as Ryan painstakingly sets out all the robbers' names and what's happened since that date in the summer small village of 1963. PerhapsHrafvsnik, like othershaving somehow offended the village matriarch, I also assumed the leadershe is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the top man if you like, was Ronnie Biggsright track. No soEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, apparentlymuch to Emily's frustration. I also remember television footage of his release from prison on compassionate grounds only a year or so ago. But why is he here? The crime seems to have achieved almost mythical proportions - What does he want? some would say it's up there And what exactly is going on with what were you doing when JFK was assassinatedthe faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>075535818X</amazonuk>0356519120

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Giles Milton1398515388|title=According to Arnold: A Novel of Love The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and MushroomsAlison Watts (translator)

|summary=Arnold Trevellyan’s ordinary life as a charismatic auctioneer is about to change First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in ways he could never have imaginedturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. Encouraged by his wife Flora to take a sabbaticalThe deaths were uncountable, and the two head to a remote region loss of France to indulge Arnold’s passion for mushroomslivelihoods was widespread. Whilst out in The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the forest hunting for rare mushrooms Arnold stumbles across tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a secret hidden for centuriesdog outside a convenience store. This secret makes him abandon Flora He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and their life together for Tamon the island of Tuva dog jumped in the South Pacific where he soon finds himself married to Lola, its queen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330452517</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chuck PalahniukChristopher Bowden|title=Tell-AllMr Magenta

|summary=Meet Katherine Kenton. A movie star Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of great renown, shea seemingly ordinary woman's always on TV as someone famous - or the wife of somebody who happens to be famous and male, whether they were actually ever wedded. She herself has had copious real-life marriages, making somebody carried out of by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a nobody on many an instance. Her shelves of 'best lifetime' awards are groaning, safe harbour and their dusting is a job akin little bit of indulgence to painting the Forth bridge. The person who dusts them is narrator for this book, but she does a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that. She is everything to "Miss Kathie" - general housekeeper, housemate, and string-puller. But what might those strings be being pulled for? When Katherine meets a new toyboy, nephew Stephen had ever realised and our narrator it seems to get in the way, him an obligation to what purpose might this be?find it all out. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224087150</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caryl PhillipsJennifer Mason|title=In the Falling SnowPartitions of Unity

|summary=We are introduced to the central character Keith right away Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and discover lots about him. His personal unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and professional CV is laid bare before usunravelled a series of disappearances. HeIn ''Partitions of Unity''s one mixed up, middle-aged, not-quite-middle-class man. He appears to be rather weak-willed and almost seems she sets her mind to fall into situations, rather than choose to be part of them. When in his marital relationship (now on solving a downward spiral), his wife most definitely wore the trousersmurder. I found Keith a very infuriating person. I wanted to take him by the scruff and give him a good old shake and then shout 'wake up and smell the coffee, before it's too late.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099539748</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

 {{newreview|author=Mark Neilson|title=The Valley of the Vines|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=The reader discovers that Sophie, the central character is living in rural isolation. She's supposed to be living the dream. She's separated from her husband and her two daughters are at boarding school back in the UK. She's also now a one-woman organization. And she's failing practically and financially for many reasons. Apparently, according to Neilson, there's a very small window in which to carry out the vital work of harvesting the grapes for wine. We are also told at frequent intervals about the enigmatic 'Old Ones'. They are 'The timeless custodians of the vines.' I'm afraid I found their too-frequent references rather annoying.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090595</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Maggie O'Farrell|title=The Hand That First Held Mine|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Lexie Sinclair was sent down from university for the crime of going through a door reserved for men. She could not graduate until she apologised and this she was not going to do. Home was not an option either but when she met the sophisticated Innes Kent she made up her mind to go to London and make her way there. It was the nineteen fifties and Lexie and Innes made a life for themselves in Soho. In the present day Elina and Ted are struggling to recover from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina is an artist and she’s finding it difficult to come to terms with being a mother. Ted does his best to help but he is having to cope with disturbing visions and memories of his own childhood which don’t seem to agree with what he’s been told by his parents. The further he looks, the stranger are the links which he uncovers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075530845X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue PeeblesWill Carver|title=The Death of Lomond FrielDaves Next Door|rating=4.5

|summary=Rosie was a successful radio presenter when her father, Lomond Friel, had Five strangers come together in one moment as a stroke. Whether or not Rosie was always reckless and impulsive isn't entirely clear, but once she heard about the stroke she took a break from work and began suicide bomber prepares to build her life around making a future for herself and her father. There are two problems here: Rosie isn't really all that capable of looking after herself, never mind her father and Lomond is quietly plotting detonate his own death. He might not be able to speak, to move very much, but he has plans.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701184302</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Najat El-Hachmi|title=The Last Patriarch|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Najat El-Hachmi's debut novel, The Last Patriarch is vest on a difficult book - both in terms of content and styleLondon tube line. It's a story of physical and sexual abuse in a patriarchal Moroccan family, an immigrant story, when first the father and then the family move to Catalonia, and ultimately a story of the narrator, the patriarch's daughter, breaking free of her past as she takes on different cultural values. Narrated entirely from the perspective of the patriarch, Mimoun Driouch's unnamed daughterAs their fates overlap, the story is also concerned with cultural and imagined historiestold in backwards order, and leading up to the importance of origin storiesfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687179</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BlakeJennifer Mason|title=The PostmistressPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery

|summary=The reader is in no doubt that a war is raging. 'And bombs were falling on Coventry'A struggling poetry zine, London a mom-and Kent. Sleek metal pellets shaped like -pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the blunt tipped ends of pencils ...2004 Olympics, a women' The Americans howevers track coach with a yen for bullwhips, are carrying on a billionaire with their daily lives regardless. They are completely unfazed and uninvolved. Apart from one or twoa state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, namely radio reporter Frankie. She reports from London as it happens and she is gradually becoming more and more concerned that her fellow Americans will be called upon. But she seems to be a lone voice blowing man serving a life sentence in the wind. AlsoAlabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, as you may expectx), there are plenty of raised eyebrows as to why on a woman is doing a mancheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'s job. She should be at the kitchen sink or having babies, shouldn't she?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918687</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Tess Callahan|title=April and Oliver|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After spending their childhoods together, April and Oliver haven't seen each other for many years. It This is only after just a sample of the death cast of April's little brother that they find their lives overlapping again. April is reckless, damaged, characters and struggling from one day to the next whereas Oliver is mature and sensiblesettings in Preposterous. He is now a law studentAs you can see, engaged to the sweet, gentle Bernadette who is the antithesis some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of Aprilthis mystery story goes like this.. Seeing April's life in tatters, Oliver tries to rescue her from herself, yet the more entangled he becomes the more his own seemingly perfect life starts to fall apart.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537524</amazonuk>B09STS96HS

{{newreview|author=F G Cottam|title=The Waiting Room|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=On the outskirts of ex rock star Martin Stride's country estate lies the disused Shale Point Station. Abandoned in the 1960s the railway line has been dug up and removed and all that remains is the crumbling platform and eerie waiting room. Martin is quick to employ Britain's top ghost hunter Julian Creed to investigate the strange and threatening occurrences of the waiting room that he and his children have witnessed – the sound and smell of a steam train, male voices singing a famous World War One song, and most frightening of all, the leering face of a soldier at the waiting room window. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704214</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shane Jones|title=Light Boxes|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=You will have to go a long way to find a more magical and quirky novella than ‘Light Boxes’. Set in a far off land, as all good fairy stories should be, the balloon-loving residents suffer a ban Move on all forms of flight. But the culprit is not some unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, but rather February. And this February - who takes both the form of a person and a season - has lasted for more than three hundred days. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he has also started making children disappear. One man, Thaddeus Lowe, is determined to do something about it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144957</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]