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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ken FollettJenny Lecoat|title=Fall of GiantsBeyond Summerland|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is a thumping, great read at 850 pagesJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. We meet During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a clutch banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of families who are all vastly different in terms of class, outlook, values etchim. I have to admit at As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the outset war is finally over, their hopes rise that this is the first Ken Follett book I've read even although two they will finally learn what became of his previous books are in my ever-growing 'to read' pilehim. So although I know of himBut will the truth come as a relief, my reading expectations were wide-open.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>0230710077</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda SargentOnyi Nwabineli|title=Paper WingsAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a wood in Kent two children played happily and as is Anuri spent her childhood on display to the way with children they sometimes went world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where they shouldnshe posted every step of Anuri'ts childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, but it was the nineteen fifties basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the worry was more content about whether they would injure themselves by falling down an abandoned well than the problems which we worry over half a century laterher. It was a place Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for plans and gamesdoing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, projects they didnwho is the new focus of Ophelia't always tell their parents about and generally growing ups online empire. Ruby loved climbing trees Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and longed to fly. Peter was more sensible but her relationship with her father at the pair were inseparable.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956483305</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle Paver1529153298|title=Dark MatterThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's January 1937 1979 and dark clouds of impending war are gathering over EuropeMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly. Jack Miller is in London..) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, working as a clerk and living in one lonely roomthough. He should probably think himself lucky because many people Women have neither job nor home in this Great Depressionbeen disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but he to have 'disappeared' doesn'tsound quite so frightening. He feels lonely and isolated and angry Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a career in research physics was snatched away from him by economic circumstancefrightening, foreign place, best avoided. So when For Miv, the chance of becoming move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the wireless operator for an Arctic expedition comes along, he jumps at it dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - even though the team comprises of the exact privileged young men he most resentsto anyone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409123782</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Janet Evanovich1035906708|title=Wicked AppetiteDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Take one rather ditzy girl. Add a funnyWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, extrovert friendbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, and anotherNew York, more sensible one. Stir in two seriously attractive men, an unhinged pet or two, a slapstick plot December 1923 and an unending series of carsonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. What have you got? A Janet Evanovich novel! This has been Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the formula States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the winning 'Stephanie Plum' series for years, about Nazi occupation by a hopelessly incompetent bounty hunter mother who never quite manages to choose between the two hunks in mercilessly exploited her life, and it has given much pleasure and amusement. But even the best formulas get stale, so this year Ms Evanovich has branched out into something new. Wellmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, almostJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755352769</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan HamiltonAlexander McCall Smith|title=Two UnknownThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story Perfect Passion Company is based 'between the wars'a dating agency in Edinburgh, the 1920s to be exact. We're introduced run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the main characters: online apps in providing a small family unit of mothermore personal, father and two childrentailored service. On Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the surface this normalbusiness, middle-class set-up all appears fine - but underneath, things are far from fineas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. The fatherKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, Ian is actually and so jumps at the step-father chance to come home to the twinsEdinburgh. And through various detailed so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and sometimes unusually lengthy parent-child conversations and chats the reader is filled in Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with the background storysome new characters who quickly begin to charm. A bit staccato Katie has no experience in placesrunning a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, I have to admit.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907230130</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brian FreemanDean Koontz|title=The Bone HouseBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The novel opens with one of the central charactersBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, Markand his house gets trashed. And straight away we see that he Oh, and someone has an eye for the girls delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin- young girlssized object to his home, and it would seem's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He's is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a married manbad weather friend called Spike, so tongues start who has been sent to waghelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. The book's front cover depicts a house Spike is going up in flames to take care of Benny, and on the very first page there's another mention will certainly take care of fire, Billy JoelBenny's hit song 'We Didn't Start The Fire.' Soenemies, fire seems as if ithe, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's going to play an important part in this book. And it does. Big-timewild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755348788</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca HuntKatherine Howe|title=Mr ChartwellA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a couple of years now Esther Hammerhans has lived alone family who run an inn, and money is being made to work there from a little tightyoung age. She works When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the House of Commons library but it doesn't pay particularly well. Letting the spare room to a lodger seemed like a good ideatown, but she's somewhat surprised when she sees Mr Chartwell's silhouettedecides to go and watch. ItEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the size hands of a mattress and Mr Chartwell is a dogtwo vicious pirates. A large black dog. At home in KentShe hides away, Winston Churchill wakes up. Heso that they don's reaching the end of his time in parliament t find and kill her too, and in some ways he's not surprised then to escape them completely she runs away to sense that theresea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a visitor cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the room. It's someone he hasn't seen for thick of things when there is a whilemutiny on board, but the presence and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the huge, mute hulk who watched him with a tortured expression was only to be expected. Winston's black dog was backocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490690</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice de Smith1471180158|title=Welcome to LifeMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's the 80s. Freya is 14 and Jamie Matson works in an only child. She lives with her parents in Cambridge. So farupper-class grocery store, so normal. Except... Freyafor a man who's home life is slightly a-typicalcontrol freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. She Jamie's on first name terms with the parental figures (no affectionate son, Bo, 'has his problems'Mum. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you' or ll suspect that he''Daddy'' here) and is under s on the distinct impression that they spend their days imagining life without herautistic spectrum. Her best friend is a middle aged housewife on whose son Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she has 's a rather too obvious crush. Her mother communicates with her through lists and shows her affection frequent flier in the oddest ways. Her father has just moved his business associate in, but helocal A&E and sometimes Bo's not just sleeping fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the spare roomwrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843549840</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex DrydenB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Blind SpyRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author writes under a pseudonym and he has worked in intelligence, so he should know what he's talking - and writing about. He concentrates on the battle for supremacy (and we've been here before) as Russia and the USA clash. The story itself Petr is an intricate oneorphan. Full of agents/counter-agentsRescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, spies/double spies he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the like and appearances by members forests of the CIA and MI6 amongst othersWashington's Olympic Peninsula. If you like spy thrillersAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, then this novel will suit you down to the ground. Lots of furtive and secretive missions all over armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the place to keep forest, broadcasting the reader guessing strange, wild and interestedrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755373332</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrea NewmanSarah Marsh|title=A Bouquet Sign of Barbed WireHer Own|rating=23.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For those After a bout of you who've never heard scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of itsilence, A Bouquet everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of Barbed Wire sign language was most famous seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a landmark 70's TV series based on this 1969 novel by Andrea Newmanschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. I'd never read From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the book before - in fact I'm not even sure I knew there ''was'' deaf and using a book - or seen the TV series but I was aware of the controversy it created at system called Visible Speech. At the same time ofrelease so lapped , Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up the chance to read the rerelease, accompanying the remake in a complicated tangle of the TV series which has just startedespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846687721</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David WilliamsB0BC3YTCMR|title=11:59Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb informs the reader that this novel was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. And the front jacket ''This story is stylish and a bit Hitchcock-esque. All the signs looked promising not for a decent readeveryone. But did it deliver?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956373356</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Dugdall1472263936|title=The Woman Before MeFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're introduced It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to one of Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the female central charactersfamily home and refused to return, Rose. Therebut Mary and Hamish (Helena's been parents) felt that it would be a serious house fire and a baby has been involvedpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Rose is implicatedHer trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. But is she innocent or guilty? Unfortunately for Rose, sheShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's been in the wrong place at the wrong time maid, Dina, but was wary - and she's put behind barsfrightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Five years is a long time for a young woman with He was proud of his close connections to the rest of her life Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to leadaccommodate them. Even more so, if youHis prejudices included Helena're telling anyone s red hair and everyone that you are, in fact, innocent of the crimegreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. But is anyone listening?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907461159</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BuchanDean Koontz|title=The Island of Sheep (John Hannay)After Death|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Hannay Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is feeling oldreleased in a bio-hazard accident. He looks at Finding himself and his contemporaries and sees in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a spread of complacency. Luckily - or perhaps sense that something very, very unluckily - an old pledge will come bad has happened to haunt him. His earlier career in Africa saw Hannay – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends swear to protect a man from others - and now a second generation of animosity former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is ripe for Hannay to step in and be a protective detectivesomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Add in a supposed treasure hoard, and who knows where his last journey might end up?Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184697156X</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jed RubenfeldB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Death InstinctGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's three years since we were all blown away surrounded by [[The Interpretation of Murder a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by Jed Rubenfeld|farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The Interpretation black wood of Murder]] but Jed Rubenfeld is back with the sequelforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, which takes place ten years laterand even gallows, if needed. And what a decade that has been, with the appalling tragedy The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the First World War village and the influenza outbreak which followed. There's a hope that things are getting better as New York moves into is the twenties and Stratham Younger and Captain James Littlemore meet up for the first time in ten years. They're in Wall Street on September the sixteenth – just as reason Volushka, a quarter drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a ton of explosives man is detonated in the worst terrorist attack in the country's hundred and fifty year historytolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755343999</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Hall PageB0BYF82CXT|title=The Body in the FjordSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Page gives us another ''The Body In The...'' book within a tried Bill and tested format. The book jacket covers Amanda are always bright living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and jazzy disappointment, when Terry and this one is no exception. We're deep in NorwayFiona – glamorous, its picturesque countryside successful and world-famous fjordsvery much in love – move in next door. We are in the company of two Despite their different but interesting women. Mother and daughter. Pixoutlooks on life, the daughter (I think the name sounds as if it belongs couples befriend each other and life appears to someone young) improve for both pairs. But all is a mother in middle-age with teenage children. She has responsibilitiesnot what it seems, but at times she behaves like a sixteen year old and I suppose that is part of her appealtheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. She cannot seem to say ''no'' to anyone and now finds herself enlisted to solve an unexplained death and a missing person. The latter is the more important as the missing person, Kari, is related to Ursula's best friend. Yes, perhaps a few too many names at the beginning of the book to grapple with but it soon settles down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090641</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcelo FiguerasShalini Boland|title=KamchatkaThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Initially I was very excited Alice and interested when The Bookbag was given this novel to review. Set at Seth are a time match made in which I lived in Buenos Airesheaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, I was looking forward to a fictionalised account of these traumatic years funny; total and utter husband- made material. She is all the more appealinghe could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, as confident… and so the narrator purported to be inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the eldest of the family's two sons - 10 year old 'Haroldo' as he comes to be known, having by necessity left his former identity behindwedding is planned and set. In this respect, I was to be sadly disappointed. The majority of When the novel comprises recollections from an adult Haroldo much- not quite what the Amazon blurbanticipated day arrives, nor Alice is walked down the précis on the coveraisle by her father, leads beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the reader congregation – their friends assembled to believe! In fairnesscelebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the author can't be blamed for this - but I felt mislead by man at the dust jacket - which may have coloured my enjoyment, and which lead, in partaltar is, who is waiting for her to the relatively low star rating which I gave the bookbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843548267</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{Frontpage|isbn=1787636003|title=The Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=PJ VanstonAmanda Craig|title=CrumpThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of- an exthe-polytechnicnation novel. ItThere's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the happiest day of his life, and he can't wait to see all that capture it holds, and make a difference to all his studentscrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. And then it hits himTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the relentless pettiness genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of authority figures, the students who can't string two sentences together, day into the lowering lives of standards her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign studentsnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and political correctness gone (as I believe the saying goes) madgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Chance152915118X|title=Savage BloodPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book's cover 'Pineapple Street'' is a very good clue as to its contentthe story of three women: weapons dripping in blood Sasha, Darley and decapitated headsGeorgiana. The novel starts with Professor Edward Quinn on a rather unusual journey. It seems to end abruptly Darley and in plenty of spilled blood, gore George are sisters and horrendous scenes of carnage. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, USA, Dr Cortez has been cheating on his wifeSasha is married to their brother Cord. His one-night stand proves satisfactory and interesting in all sorts of ways. SuddenlyThey're Stocktons, heonly Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn's involved in an extremely worrying medical situationt readily accepted into the tribe. It needs to be sorted - and quickly. Cortez is a young, modern professional but heThe problem's human alsoexacerbated when the clan matriarch, so not without his hang-upsTilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. The conversations between himself Tilda and Chip have renovated and his even more successful wifedownsized to another property, are bang ona street or so away, which they own. They hit won't need any of the right notefurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Many will identify with Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the couplereality. At times you can almost hear Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the friction between themgold digger'. And the man-to-man conversations between Charlie Cortez and his buddy Dan are terrific. Trying hard to be big shots She's living in a social situation when really they are out of ''their depth'' family home. A great introduction They use it so often that they abbreviate it to this part of 'the story, I thoughtGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019364</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth BuchanEmily Critchley|title=Separate BedsOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Annie 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and Tom Nicholson looked like the sort of people you would envybring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. Both had rewarding jobsHowever, Tom in Edie is tormented by the World Service memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and Annie in hospital management. They had the worry that there was a lovely home and three grown-up childrensecret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. But all is not After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as it seemsshe was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. For five years they have had separate existences after a family row when Tom caused his elder daughter to walk out of And yet as she remembers the house past, she is forgetting more and never returnmore in her day to day life. There hasn't been a catalyst which would have caused them to separate but Tom moved into his daughterWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's vacated room and he disappearance before her move, and Annie have lived together - but apart. It could have before her memories are gone on indefinitely but then Tom came home one day and dropped the bombshell which could well finish them off.forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141019891</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=Diane Chamberlain0008506337|title=Secrets She Left BehindThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is the third novel IThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O've read Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Diane Chamberlain and I felt Margo's mother as if I was visiting 'an old friendolder man'. I enjoyed Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the other two books event, they eloped and this one looked promisingRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Although many Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the characters spill over doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from [[Before the Storm by Diane Chamberlain|Before The StormMargo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge'']] this current book is a stand alone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830387X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diana Evans1914585402|title=The WonderDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lucas and Denise have been brought up I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by their grandmother on David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a canal boat in west London, after the death couple of their parents. Now they are in their 20s, years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and their grandmother Toreth is goneaffecting it was. Denise is a practical and responsible young woman, getting on with her job as a florist, but her younger brother Lucas is It was a dreamergripping, still trying to establish what he wants to do with his lifeemotionally wounding read, and increasingly distracted by trying to find out more about his identity, about who his parents were, especially his fatherrereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099479052</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's always a red letter day to sit down to an unread Anne TylerWells. This is her eighteenth published novelBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. For any readers Identical on the outside but not already fans of her books, this American writer observes we learn, on the ordinary in order inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to excel at detail – and some things, that 'making 'je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the familiarclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, strangea ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099539586</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bernie McGillHeather Fawcett|title=The Butterfly CabinetEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This novel Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has been based on facttravelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. McGill moves back Whilst she is brilliant at research and forth speaking to faeries, she is not so good with various characters' storiespeople. A child has died So when she finds herself far, far North in the family home and small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the mothervillage matriarch, Harriet has been tried in a court of law and found guilty. The fact that she is a practicalnot sure what she has done, no-nonsense woman who does not wear nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her heart book back on her sleeve does not go down well with the majority of the juryright track. She has also committed another crimeEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, almost equally as graveall charm and delight, she has sullied the family name of her husbandmuch to Emily's frustration. He But why is a prominent and respected member of the local community. he here? What does he want? Nothing will be And what exactly is going on with the same again for either of them.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755370686</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Kwok1398515388|title=Girl in TranslationThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate to First of all, it was the USA from Hong Kong they believe thatearthquake, true to deep in the American Dreamocean floor, their lives are about to get better. Howeverwhich created the tsunami and this, although Kimberly's aunt paid their air fares and arranged their green cards she is intent on getting her money back. She arranges their accommodation in a run-down part of Brooklyn in a building where they are turn, caused the only tenantsnuclear meltdown. Their apartment has broken windows, no heating and is rife with cockroaches The result was complete and ratsutter devastation. The aunt arranges work for Kim's mum in her husband's Chinatown factorydeaths were uncountable, paying her a pittance for piece work and then taking most the loss of her salary away for repayments on their flights and their accommodationlivelihoods was widespread. Huddled around The fact that many pets were separated from their oven for warmth, wearing layers owners came far down the list of clothing made from material they found in priorities but - six months after the trash, their lives seem incredibly bleaktsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. But Kimberly has brains, and determination, and she is adamant He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that she will find a way he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to take care of her motheropen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490623</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helon HabilaChristopher Bowden|title=Oil on WaterMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with two local journalists on Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a rather dangerous trip. Zaq, old-timer and cynic but still has the skills to seek out patient untangling of a good story and apprentice Rufus. A British oil engineerseemingly ordinary woman's wife has gone missinglife, believed kidnapped and the two journalists are following carried out by her trailnephew after she has died. Zaq comes across as an interesting character; all-seeing, all-knowing albeit likes The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a drink or two. He's happy to impart years little bit of knowledge indulgence to Rufus a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and tells it seems to him that ' ... the story is not always the final goal.' What's really important, what the readers want an obligation to know and what sells newspapers is ' .find it all out.. the meaning of the story.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144868</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura ElliotJennifer Mason|title=Stolen ChildPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title of the book leaves us Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in no doubt as to what it's all about. It does exactly what it says on the tin. But those two[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], small words are wrapped up in plenty when she investigated and unravelled a series of emotions for the characters involveddisappearances. In some ways''Partitions of Unity'', it's worse than she sets her mind to solving a deathmurder. 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561462</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A L KennedyWill Carver|title=What BecomesThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ollie Cross has failed Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to get into medical schooldetonate his vest on a London tube line. While he thinks about what he plans to doAs their fates overlap, he takes a job as a paramedic on the tough streets of Harlem, New York Citystory is told in backwards order, and finds his whole perspective on life and death beginning leading up to shiftthe fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535491</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances KayJennifer Mason|title=MickaPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Micka ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and Laurie are two ten year old boys. They're -pop mobile diner in the same class at school and are friendsNorthern California redwoods, of a sort. They both have vivid imaginations400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, and Lauriea women's plans involve finding track coach with a magical bone and using it yen for murder. Micka lives bullwhips, a billionaire with his mum (who can't read and is often drunk) and his two older brothers who get into fightsa state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, are involved a man serving a life sentence in crimeAlabama, an enigmatic signature, and who abuse Micka physically and sexually. Laurie lives with his parentsK(s, until they suddenly break upx), and he is left with his mum who seems to be having on a breakdowncheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia.. The book is told from the point of view of 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 violence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330513826</amazonuk>}}''
}}
