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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David WilliamsJenny Lecoat|title=11:59Beyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb informs Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the reader that this novel was a semi-finalist in end of the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awardoccupation. And During the front jacket is stylish war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and a bit Hitchcock-esqueher mother waiting for years for news of him. All As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the signs looked promising for a decent readwar is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But did will the truth come as a relief, or will it deliverraise 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>0956373356</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William NicholsonOnyi Nwabineli|title=All the Hopeful LoversAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I had previously read NicholsonAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri''The Society Of Others'' s childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was looking forward to reading this book, basically, monetary gain. Nicholson writes a modern-day story which Now Anuri is relevant in her twenties and bang up she is slowly trying to date. We first meet Laura regain her confidence and Belindato get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Two middle-agedAnuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, middle-class wives undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and mothersreceiving money from them for doing so. Feeling sort of okay with their lives generally but all too aware alsoMost importantly, that the marital 'spark' in their marriages she is now a low peep - if there at all. Belinda in particulardesperately worried about her little sister, knows she who is bumbling along in life. Shethe new focus of Ophelia's not sure what to do to make things more interesting in the sex departmentonline empire. A fling would probably help - but would it be Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the answersame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184916388X</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Dugdall1529153298|title=The Woman Before Me|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We're introduced to one List of the female central characters, Rose. There's been a serious house fire and a baby has been involved. Rose is implicated. But is she innocent or guilty? Unfortunately for Rose, she's been in the wrong place at the wrong time - and she's put behind bars. Five years is a long time for a young woman with the rest of her life to lead. Even more so, if you're telling anyone and everyone that you are, in fact, innocent of the crime. But is anyone listening?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907461159</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=John Buchan|title=The Island of Sheep (John Hannay)|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Richard Hannay is feeling old. He looks at himself and his contemporaries and sees a spread of complacency. Luckily - or perhaps very unluckily - an old pledge will come to haunt him. His earlier career in Africa saw Hannay and his friends swear to protect a man from others - and now a second generation of animosity is ripe for Hannay to step in and be a protective detective. Add in a supposed treasure hoard, and who knows where his last journey might end up?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697156X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jed Rubenfeld|title=The Death InstinctJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's three years since we were all blown away by [[The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld|The Interpretation of Murder]] but Jed Rubenfeld 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is back with the sequelPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, which takes place ten years laterhonestly... ) And She's not what a decade that has 's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've beenmurdered, with the appalling tragedy of the First World War and the influenza outbreak which followedbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. ThereMiv's upset because she's a hope overheard that things are getting better as New York moves into her father wants to move the twenties and Stratham Younger and Captain James Littlemore meet up for the first time in ten yearsfamily 'Down South'. TheyWhen you're in Wall Street on September the sixteenth – just as from Yorkshire, Down South is a quarter of a ton of explosives is detonated in frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the worst terrorist attack in move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the countrydangers or that her Mum's hundred and fifty year historystopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755343999</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Hall Page1035906708|title=The Body in the FjordDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Page gives us another ''The Body In The...'' book within a tried and tested format. The book jacket covers are always bright and jazzy and this one is no exception. We're deep tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in NorwayManhattan, New York, its picturesque countryside and world-famous fjords. We are in the company of two different but interesting women. Mother December 1923 and daughter. Pix, the daughter (I think the name sounds as if it belongs only moved to someone young) is a mother in middle-age with teenage childrenAthens when she was thirteen. She has responsibilities, Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but at times she behaves like a sixteen year old and I suppose that is part of her appeal. She cannot seem father changed it to say ''no'Callas' to anyone and now finds herself enlisted to solve an unexplained death and a missing person. The latter is the make it more important as manageable in the missing person, Kari, is related to Ursula's best friendStates. Yes, perhaps When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a few too many names at the beginning mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of the book to grapple with but it soon settles downher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090641</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcelo FiguerasAlexander McCall Smith|title=KamchatkaThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Initially I was very excited and interested when The Bookbag was given this novel to review. Set at Perfect Passion Company is a time dating agency in which I lived in Buenos AiresEdinburgh, I was looking forward run by Ness and operating as an alternative to a fictionalised account of these traumatic years - made all the online apps in providing a more appealingpersonal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as the narrator purported Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to be the eldest get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the family's two sons - 10 year old 'Haroldo' as he comes chance to come home to be known, having by necessity left his former identity behindEdinburgh. In And so begins this respectnew story from Alexander McCall Smith, I was bringing us to be sadly disappointed. The majority of the novel comprises recollections from an adult Haroldo - not quite what the Amazon blurbEdinburgh we already love, nor thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the précis on the coverIsabel Dalhousie novels, leads the reader but with some new characters who quickly begin to believe! In fairnesscharm. Katie has no experience in running a business, the author can't be blamed for this or in match- making, but I felt mislead by the dust jacket - which may have coloured my enjoymentNess has full confidence in her abilities, and which leadthere's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, in partWilliam, to the relatively low star rating which I gave the book.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843548267</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=PJ VanstonDean Koontz|title=CrumpThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first Benny is having a terrifically bad day as . He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University really weird, disturbing coffin- an ex-polytechnic. Itsized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the happiest day of thing that has trashed his lifehouse! The thing is, and he can't wait Benny is the very last person to see deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that it holdsthe delivery to his house is a new friend, and make a difference bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to all his studentshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness Spike is going to take care of authority figuresBenny, the students who canand will certainly take care of Benny't string two sentences togethers enemies, the lowering of standards in search of higher test scoresif he, so more money from foreign studentsBenny, and political correctness gone Harper (as I believe the saying goesa waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) madcan figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex ChanceKatherine Howe|title=Savage BloodA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book's cover Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a very good clue as family who run an inn, and being made to its content: weapons dripping in blood and decapitated heads. The novel starts with Professor Edward Quinn on work there from a rather unusual journeyyoung age. It seems When she hears there is to end abruptly and be a hanging of some pirates in plenty of spilled bloodthe town, gore she decides to go and horrendous scenes of carnage. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, USA, Dr Cortez has been cheating on his wifewatch. His one-night stand proves satisfactory Enthralled and interesting horrified in all sorts of ways. Suddenlyequal measure, he's involved Hannah finds herself embroiled in an extremely worrying medical situation. It needs to be sorted - and quickly. Cortez is a young, modern professional but heboy's human alsodeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so not without his hang-ups. The conversations between himself that they don't find and his even more successful wifekill her too, are bang on. They hit the right note. Many will identify with the couple. At times you can almost hear the friction between and then to escape them. And the man-completely she runs away to-man conversations between Charlie Cortez sea, dressing as a boy and his buddy Dan are terrificjoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Trying hard to be big shots She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a social situation when really they mutiny on board, and from there we are out of their depth. A great introduction to this part caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the story, I thoughtocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434019364</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Buchan1471180158|title=Separate Beds|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Annie and Tom Nicholson looked like the sort of people you would envy. Both had rewarding jobs, Tom in the World Service and Annie in hospital management. They had a lovely home and three grown-up children. But all is not as it seems. For five years they have had separate existences after a family row when Tom caused his elder daughter to walk out of the house and never return. There hasn't been a catalyst which would have caused them to separate but Tom moved into his daughter's vacated room and he and Annie have lived together - but apart. It could have gone on indefinitely but then Tom came home one day and dropped the bombshell which could well finish them off.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141019891</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaybe Tomorrow|author=Geoff Dyer|title=Jeff in Venice, Death in VaranasiPenny Parkes|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Jeff4. He's a journalist living in London, with a fine line in delaying his work effort and a keen eye for detail. He can see how the world is made better by a smile from a random shopkeeper - yet seems too grumpy to try it himself. Instead he suspects his habit of walking round, mouthing or speaking out his own inner thoughts is making him seem a scary old man. He can partly address this, by dying his hair. And he can stop walking round London when he gets commissions to report back from the modern arts Biennale in Venice. Soon, however, the only work of art he's at all worried about goes by the name of Laura...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184767271X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diane Chamberlain|title=Secrets She Left Behind|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the third novel Isubtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He've s asthmatic and the more you read by Diane Chamberlain and I felt as if I was visiting an old friend, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. I enjoyed Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the other two books local A&E and this one looked promisingsometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Although many of Missed shifts or the characters spill over need to be away on time to pick Bo up from [[Before school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the Storm by Diane Chamberlain|Before The Storm']] this current book is wrong. It was going to come to a stand alonehead. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830387X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Priya BasilB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Obscure Logic of the HeartRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lina Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a devout Muslim family brief sojourn in human company, and lives armed with her aunt while she studies law at university; where she meets Anil. Anil is only a Kenyan boy from pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a non-practicing Sikh family who dreams of becoming a ground-breaking architect. The two fall in love but as journey through the forest, broadcasting the lies they have to tell their respective families become more strange, wild and more elaborate they are forced to make some difficult decisionsrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385611455</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana EvansSarah Marsh|title=The WonderA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lucas and Denise have been brought up by their grandmother on After a canal boat in west London, after the death bout of their parents. Now they are in their 20s, and their grandmother Toreth is gone. Denise is a practical and responsible young woman, getting on with her job scarlet fever as a floristchild, but Ellen Lark loses her younger brother Lucas is hearing. Suddenly plunged into a dreamer, still trying to establish what he wants to do with his life, and increasingly distracted by trying to find out more about his identityworld of silence, everything about who his parents were, especially his father.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099479052</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Henderson Smith|title=A Question of Answers|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Harriet Glover lives with her partner who's reluctant to commit himself to marriagelife changes. It's not that he hasn't had Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to make up his mind – their two children are at the stage a school where they might produce grandchildren. His excuse she is that he can't see the point as they already share a surname through chancetaught to lip read, so what difference would marriage make? Mark's not ''entirely'' insensitive (well, some of the time…) but he can't understand Harriet's need for that reassuring piece of paperphysically restrained from signing. Until then From here, she's going to be wondering if his eyes are wandering elsewhereends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Harriet's not entirely immune either: she At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds the headmaster herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of the school where she teaches quite irresistibleespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1845493281</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne TylerB0BC3YTCMR|title=Noah's CompassGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender 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 always not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a red letter day to sit down to crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an unread Anne Tylerextension. This is She went to his house and he raped her eighteenth published novel. For any readers not already fans of her books In shock, this American writer observes the ordinary in order she even allowed him to excel at 'making the familiar, strange'give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539586</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bernie McGill1472263936|title=The Butterfly CabinetFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This novel has been based on factIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. McGill moves back and forth with various characters' stories. A child has died in She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and the motherrefused to return, Harriet has been tried in a court of law but Mary and found guilty. The fact Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that she is it would be a practical, no-nonsense woman who does not wear pity if Helena grew up without knowing her heart on grandparents or understanding her sleeve does not go down well with Greek heritage. Her trip to the majority family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of the juryseveral annual visits. She has also committed another crimegrew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, almost equally as graveDina, she has sullied the family name but was wary - and frightened - of her husbandgrandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He is a prominent and respected member was proud of his close connections to the local communityJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Nothing will be the same again for either of themHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755370686</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean KwokDean Koontz|title=Girl in TranslationAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate to the USA from Hong Kong they believe thatMichael Mace, true to the American DreamHead of Security, their lives are about to get better. Howeverat a top secret biological research facility, although Kimberly's aunt paid their air fares and arranged their green cards she is intent on getting her money backamong 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. She arranges their accommodation Finding himself in a run-down part of Brooklyn makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a building where they are sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the only tenantsshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. Their apartment has broken windowsAs he recovers his senses, no heating and he realises that there is rife with cockroaches and ratssomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. The aunt arranges work for Kim's mum in her husband's Chinatown factory, paying her a pittance for piece work and then taking most of her salary away for repayments on their flights and their accommodationEverything''. Huddled around their oven for warmth, wearing layers of clothing made from material they found in the trash, their lives seem incredibly bleak. But Kimberly has brains, and determination, and she is adamant that she will find a way to take care of her motherMichael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490623</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helon HabilaB0BVDC2VWH|title=Oil on WaterThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with two local journalists on village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a rather dangerous tripWitching Forest. Zaq, oldAnd the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-timer like fruit provides nutrition and cynic but still has its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the skills to seek out a good story forest provides heat and apprentice Rufus. A British oil engineer's wife has gone missingwarmth, roofs on homes, believed kidnapped and the two journalists are following her trail. Zaq comes across as an interesting character; all-seeingeven gallows, all-knowing albeit likes a drink or twoif needed. He's happy to impart years The fear of knowledge to Rufus being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and tells him that ' ... the story is not always the final goal.' What's really importantreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, what the readers want to know and what sells newspapers lazy lout of a man is ' tolerated... the meaning of the story.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144868</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Laura ElliotB0BYF82CXT|title=Stolen ChildSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of the book leaves us boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in no doubt as to what it's all aboutnext door. It does exactly what it says Despite their different outlooks on life, the tincouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But those twoall is not what it seems, small words and their increasingly interconnected relationships are wrapped up in plenty of emotions fated for the characters involvedtragedy. In some ways, it's worse than a death. With death, there's closure but with a baby being stolen there's living hell. And, as you would expect, some characters cope with all of this better than others.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561462</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A L KennedyShalini Boland|title=What BecomesThe Silent Bride|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=You're three stories into this collection Alice and two people have cut their hands open preparing food - Seth are a man with love drooping away from his marriagematch made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, making soupaccomplished, and another, a greengrocerclever, preparing stock funny; total and thinking about his own relationshiputter husband-material. But there She is no pattern to that. Four stories all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and there have been two bursts of non-sequitur comedyso the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. Why your fruit might be ruined When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by stray fingersher father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the thoughts of a woman in a flotation tank, remembering Doctor Whocongregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, locked parental doors - and the urban myths of gerbils. But thereAlice's still world implodes because she has absolutely no pattern - and that's idea who the man at the point of these combined stories. Life and all of its emotions does not live altar is, who is waiting for her to rulebecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1787636003|title=The Importance Girls of Being Seven (44 Scotland Street)Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=EvereyoneIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn's favouritet exactly innocent but she was, Bertieperhaps, is still struggling with his overnaive, so when thirty-four-protective, overyear-zealous mother Irene. Poor Bertie. He still has yoga class, saxophone lessons, Italian lessons, and he longs old Alistair Wright started to go away to Scout camptake an interest in her, but really doesn't want his mum to come along as a helpershe was flattered rather than wary. And, as the title suggests, It was quite a while before he is looking forward made any sort of physical approach to being sevenher and by that time she was obsessed by him. His little brotherAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, Ulysses, is getting bigger looking after his interests on the island and has developed an interesting reaction to their mother, whilst Irene herself goes missing in a rather mysterious manner..particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971454</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shannon BurkeAmanda Craig|title=Black FliesThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ollie Cross has failed to get into medical schoolFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. While he thinks There's something so utterly compelling about what he plans to doany writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, he takes a job crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a paramedic on gift for weaving the tough streets ongoing issues of Harlemthe day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, New York Citynever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and finds his whole perspective on life and death beginning to shiftgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535491</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frances Kay152915118X|title=MickaPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Micka ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Laurie Georgiana. Darley and George are two ten year old boyssisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're in the same class at school and are friendsStocktons, of only Sasha isn't a sortStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. They both have vivid imaginationsThe problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and LaurieSasha if they's plans involve finding d like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a magical bone and using it for murderstreet or so away, which they own. Micka lives with his mum (who canThey won't read need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and is often drunk) and his two older brothers who get into fights, are involved Cord can move straight in crime, and who abuse Micka physically and sexually. Laurie lives with his parentsNominally, until they suddenly break up, and he is left with his mum who seems to be having had a breakdownchoice but that wasn't the reality. The book is told from Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the point of view of gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the two boys, and so as we see how their own lives are falling apart, sympathising with them, we also read with horror their own descent into violenceGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330513826</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan WiggsEmily Critchley|title=Just BreatheOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Sarah may be struggling to make a living off it84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she does enjoy is facing a move as her job son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a cartoonistsecret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. She After 's been through a lot recentlyseeing' Lucy in the high street, including just as she was the last time she saw her husband's battle with cancer, and she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her alter ego Shirl provides an outlet for a lot of . And yet as she remembers the emotions past, she is forgetting more and confusion more in her day to day life. Will sheuncover the truth about Lucy's feeling.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303543</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clancy Martin0008506337|title=How To SellThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the 1980The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'sLeary was all-consuming, 16 year old Bobby Clark gets expelled from his high school apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in Canada for stealinglove. This is a young boy so immoral Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that he pilfers his own motherRichard's wedding ring influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to pawn for cash to keep Oxford and having a girl happyglittering career. After In the girl turns out event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to be less interested in him than he is in her, he follows his older brother Jim Oxford and went on to Texas, where he gets become a job working with Jim in a jewellery storewell-respected journalist. As he falls into a life of scams The couple had three children: Rachel, drugsImogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, hookers, gorgeous women, and an obsession with Jimthe family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's girlfriend Lisa, itdrinking were never far from Margo's clear that this coming of age story is a tragedy waiting mind: ''she would never be able to happenleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532182</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katie Kitamura1914585402|title=The LongshotDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cal and his long-time trainer Riley travel down to the town of Tijuana in Mexico for a crucial rematch with the undefeated champion Rivera. Three years earlier CalI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's promising career had been derailed following Only One Danny Garvey]] a close yet devastating defeat at the hands couple of Riverayears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. 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 more. The story takes place in the two days before the rematch as he It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and Riley prepare for the biggest fight rereading my review of his life, a fight it my main takeaway was that could once again end in tragedyI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374999</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurie GrahamLucy Ashe|title=At SeaClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've already read GrahamThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's 'The Future Homemakers of AmericaWells.' It was goodBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not particularly memorable so I was keen to read this novel, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. The reader is introduced Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to two vastly differing opposites in detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the shape of Mr and Mrs Finchclassroom. WellA stage presence, Lady Enid (English) and Professor Bernard (American) Fincha charm, to be precise. And wea ''re transported straight away onto the decks of the liner joie de vivre'Golden Memories' and Graham starts to have her fun: with the language. The difference between a hard-worker, the characters and the whole set-upa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849162182</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura BartonHeather Fawcett|title=Twenty-One LocksEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This debut novelEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's central character work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is 20 year old sales girlbrilliant at research and speaking to faeries, Jeannieshe is not so good with people. She lives a very humdrum life in a rather uglySo when she finds herself far, down-at-heel town far North in the north. And straight away Barton treats small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the reader village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her lovely, descriptive prosefinal investigations for her book back on the right track. For exampleEnter Wendell Bambleby, when the reader is given some detail about Jeannieher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's workplace at the perfume and cosmetics counter where ..frustration. 'the lipsticks ... all lined up like chorus girls ...' But why is he here? What does he want? Barton's writing style And what exactly is very easy to read, very fluid and I found myself getting right into going on with the story straight away - and caring about Jeannie.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161747</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Peile1398515388|title=Repeat It Today With TearsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Repeat First of all, it Today with Tears follows was the earthquake, deep in the story of Susannaocean floor, a sixteen year old girl from a broken which created the tsunami and loveless home who obsessively collects information this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the back list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a notebook about dog person but the father she has never met. When by chance she discovers convenience store owner's comment that he still lives nearby she sets out deliberately would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to find open his car door and seduce himTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687462</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francine ProseChristopher Bowden|title=GoldengroveMr Magenta|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a hot day Nico and her older sister Margaret take patient untangling of a boat out onto Mirror Lake, but only Nico returns after Margaret dives off the boat and doesn't resurface. Margaretseemingly ordinary woman's sudden death tears through Nico and her parents' liveslife, and each mourn for carried out by her in their own waynephew after she has died. Unable to find the help she needs from her parents, The aunt who are both consumed by their own grief always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to help Nico to come to terms with her loss, Nico turns to the vast array of books in Goldengrove, her father's bookshop, for answers, a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and soon embarks on a dangerous relationship with Margaret's boyfriend Aaron, the only person who it seems to understand her griefhim an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848870361</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julie OrringerJennifer Mason|title=The Invisible BridgePartitions of Unity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a story that takes us from the elegance of ParisHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, through the streets of Budapest dominatrix and on into the Hungarian countryside and the Ukraine this is an epic taleunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], masterfully told. It is 1937 when she investigated and Andras Levi, unravelled a young Hungarian Jewish student, is about to leave his brother Tibor to go and study architecture in Parisseries of disappearances. AndrasIn ' story unfolds first amongst the beautiful buildings 'Partitions of ParisUnity'', the theatres and the bars, as he struggles in his studies and falls in love with she sets her mind to solving a beautiful ballerina who has a terrible secret to hidemurder.. As the tragedy of World War 2 edges ever closer to Andras, the book moves back to Hungary, to the little village where Andras and his brothers grew up, to Budapest where his new family live and then on into the forced labour camps across Hungary. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670914584</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maureen GibbonWill Carver|title=ThiefThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1863 and the Superintendent covering the inner city area of Glasgow has his hands full. First off an alarming forgery scandal has just been discovered and no sooner has he drawn breath than Five strangers come together in one, two and counting suspicious deaths occur. Instinctively, I want moment as a suicide bomber prepares to say that it's all good, clean fun. Because it isdetonate his vest on a London tube line. The language Fraser uses is very much of that era which lends the book a particular old-fashioned and rather tweeAs their fates overlap, charm. It's all over the book story is told in spades. On almost every page. Let me give you just one endearing example of backwards order, leading up to the flavour of the book 'None of Mrs Maitland's four regulars at her superior guest house for single gentlemen would even dream of taking another's seat fateful moment...'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090684</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jodi ComptonJennifer Mason|title=Hailey's WarPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the beginning 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of -the book-art S&M dungeon, Hailey Cain is a 23 year old cycle courierliving man serving a life sentence in San Francisco. The story then takes Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a step back cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in time and wediscover that she had to leave West Point Military Academy during herfinal year, for reasons she prefers to keep to herselfGeorgia.. I continued to read under the assumption that Hailey had done something which forced her to leave. Her'' next move This is to L.A, where she spent just a sample of the latter part cast of her childhoodcharacters and settings in Preposterous.During these yearsAs you can see, her mother with whom she has, at best, a very strained relationship is no source some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of comfort and Hailey develops a very close attachment to her cousin CJthis mystery story goes like this.. Aspects of this relationship make for uncomfortable reading at times.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847373577</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
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