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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony BaylissJenny Lecoat|title=Past ContinuousBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author's note tells Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide end of the author's sonoccupation.' Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that During the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computers. Hewar, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a bit of a whiz-kid. He's also shy banned radio and tongue-tied which makes soldiers took him a bit away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of a loner as wellhim. He stands out at school for all As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the wrong reasons but he's coping with it - justwar is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. And early on in But will the book we meet Sophie. She's truth come as a big part of this book. She's relief, or will it raise further questions around Matthew's age. what else happened during the war? She is bright and clever. Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good.And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam HayesOnyi Nwabineli|title=Someone Else's SonAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenagerAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hardthanks to her step-headedmother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, business-like, aloof and rather distant but thatwhere she posted every step of Anuri's the whole pointchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, of coursemonetary gain. Very good at Now Anuri is in her day job. But as a mother? Her television show twenties and she is a reality programmeslowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, dealing with well, basically suing her step-mother to take down the dregs of society: content about her. singleAnuri is battling alcoholism, young mumsfailing to start her PhD, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people keep her in designer shoes online and bags but she keeps receiving money from them at arm's lengthfor doing so. She wouldnMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia't want to catch somethings online empire. Carrie sails through Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her life relationship with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brooke Morgan1529153298|title=TrappedThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ellie Walters It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is 36Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, divorced and keen to start a new life away from her cheating and control-freak ex-husbandhonestly... Fulfilling a life-long dream) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, she decides to take her 15-year-old sonthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, Timthey've been murdered, but to live with have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her in father wants to move the small town of Bournefamily 'Down South'. As she soon becomes good friends with her next-door neighbour When you're from Yorkshire, Louisa Amory, Ellie finally feels she Down South is making a life of her ownfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. She begins to feel a sense of freedom and independence but for how long? When strange events start occurring Ellie is forced to face some painful and guilty memories connected to a tragic accident nineteen years ago; memories which she For Miv, the move would rather forget. It is clear that someone has discovered mean leaving her well-kept secret best friend, Sharon, and is reluctant to let her forget about it. As a campaign of terror against Ellie unfolds she must come to terms with what happened all those years ago and try to discover who her tormentor is. Vulnerable and afraid, she relies on Louisa's friendship ll do anything to help her through the ordealprevent that. However, when a misunderstanding causes a rift between Ellie and Louisa She's son, Joe, not worried about the womendangers or that her Mum's friendship is threatened. Alone and afraid, she suddenly finds herself trapped in a nightmare from which she must do all she can stopped talking - to escapeanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099536285</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Atwood1035906708|title=The Handmaid's TaleDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed. For the worse, We tend to think of course. The population is dying outMaria Callas as Greek, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted but she was born to any male of enough esteemGreek parents in Manhattan, called a CommanderNew York, who balances the household with his wife in December 1923 and what is practically a walking wombonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to what are reported 'Callas' to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for lifemake it more manageable in the States. Men are restricted too When she was back in Athens - Handmaids are offsupposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice -limits to everybody but their Commander, and those households are patrolled carefully she was raised under the Nazi occupation by other eunuch types. It's up to our nameless narrator a mother who mercilessly exploited her and main charactermade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, however, to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feelsJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carmine AbateAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Homecoming PartyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Every year young Marco eagerly awaits his father's returnThe Perfect 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. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, when he can as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a few months spend precious time with him before he leaves againwhile. Marco's father Tullio Katie is coming out of a migrant worker forced through poverty break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to work in Northern France doing hard manual workcome home to Edinburgh. In And so begins this way he manages new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to earn enough an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to help his family have 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a decent living. The familybusiness, or in match-making, his eldest daughter Elise now at collegebut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, Marco his only son and a younger sister known only as there'la piccola' along with his wife s always her very helpful (and elderly mother live in Calabriarather handsome) neighbour, William, an economically depressed area of southern Italy. They belong to the minority Arberesh community, descended from Albanian immigrants settling small villages in the mountainous regions of La Sila. Just as the Calabrian people are looked down upon by other Italians the Arberesh people are even looked down upon by the Calabrians.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1933372834</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris KuzneskiDean Koontz|title=The Secret CrownBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The riddle Benny is the whole crux of the bookhaving a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. So we're taken right backOh, albeit brieflyand someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to Bavaria in the year 1886his home, via and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the Prologue. thing that has trashed his house! So, the scene The thing is now set, foul play Benny is most definitely afoot and lots of questions should pop into the reader's mindvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. Such as who? He is a nice person. Why? etcA really nice person. So farfortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, so who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good, I thoughtperson. We then fast-forward straight Spike is going to present-day Germany take care of Benny, and due to an unfortunate hunting accidentwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, something which was and Harper (a secret, is no longerwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241952123</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Padgett PowellKatherine Howe|title=The Interrogative MoodA True Account|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=SoHannah Masury is living in Boston, what is having been sent to live with a novel? Does it need a plotfamily who run an inn, climax and resolution? Characters who grow? A setting? Themes which explore the human condition? And must it entertain? Padgett Powell challenges our perceptions of fiction with being made to work there from a book that explores what it young age. When she hears there is to be a novelhanging of some pirates in the town, but without any preconditionsshe decides to go and watch. How far he succeeds is down Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the individual readernotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. But I thought I'd give it She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a gomutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683661</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken Follett1471180158|title=Fall of GiantsMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is a thumpingJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, great read at 850 pages. We meet for a clutch of families man who are 's a control freak with all vastly different in terms the subtlety of classa half brick. Jamie's son, outlookBo, values etc'has his problems'. I have to admit at He's asthmatic and the more you read, the outset more you'll suspect that this is he's on the first Ken Follett book Iautistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she've read even although two of his previous books are s a frequent flier in my ever-growing the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to read' pilego 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 wrong. So although I know of him, my reading expectations were wide-openIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710077</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Linda SargentB0CKD1L5JL|title=Paper WingsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a wood in Kent two children played happily and as Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the way with children they sometimes went where they shouldn'tstrange, reclusive Bear, but it was the nineteen fifties he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the worry was more about whether they would injure themselves by falling down an abandoned well than the problems which we worry over half a century laterforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. It was After Bear dies and a place for plans brief sojourn in human company, and gamesarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, projects they didn't always tell their parents about wild and generally growing up. Ruby loved climbing trees and longed to fly. Peter was more sensible but the pair were inseparablerarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956483305</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle PaverSarah Marsh|title=Dark MatterA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's January 1937 and dark clouds After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of impending war are gathering over Europesilence, everything about her life changes. Jack Miller is Living in Londona time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, working as Ellen is sent to a clerk and living in one lonely room. He should probably think himself lucky because many people have neither job nor home in this Great Depressionschool where she is taught to lip read, but he doesn'tphysically restrained from signing. He feels lonely From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and isolated and angry that using a career in research physics was snatched away from him by economic circumstancesystem called Visible Speech. So when At the chance of becoming the wireless operator for an Arctic expedition comes alongsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, he jumps at it - even though the team comprises and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of the exact privileged young men he most resentsespionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409123782</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Hamilton1472263936|title=Two UnknownThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story is based 'between the wars'It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the 1920s family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be exacta pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. We're introduced Her trip to the main characters: a small family unit apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of mother, father and two childrenseveral annual visits. On She grew to love her grandmother and the surface this normalfamily's maid, middleDina, but was wary -class setand frightened -up all appears fine - but underneathof her grandfather, things are far from fineretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. The father, Ian is actually He was proud of his close connections to the step-father Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to the twinsaccommodate them. And through various detailed His prejudices included Helena's red hair and sometimes unusually lengthy parentgreen eyes -child conversations and chats the reader is filled in with the background story. A bit staccato in places, I have to admitinherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230130</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= 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 shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian FreemanB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Bone HouseGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with one of the central characters, Markvillage is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And straight away we see that he has an eye for the girls villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread- young girlslike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, it would seem. He's a married manand even gallows, so tongues start to wagif needed. The book's front cover depicts a house going up fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in flames the village and on that is the very first page there's another mention of firereason Volushka, Billy Joel's hit song 'We Didn't Start The Fire.' Soa drunken, fire seems as if it's going to play an important part in this book. And it does. Bigself-timeindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755348788</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca HuntB0BYF82CXT|title=Mr ChartwellSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For a couple of years now Esther Hammerhans has lived alone ''Bill and money is Amanda are living in a little tight. She works semi-detached house, stuck in the House a depressing rut of Commons library but it doesn't pay particularly well. Letting the spare room to a lodger seemed like a good ideaboredom and disappointment, but she's somewhat surprised when she sees Mr Chartwell's silhouette. It's the size of a mattress Terry and Mr Chartwell is a dog. A large black dog. At home in KentFiona – glamorous, Winston Churchill wakes up. He's reaching the end of his time in parliament successful and very much in some ways he's not surprised to sense that there's a visitor love – move in the roomnext door. It's someone he hasn't seen for a whileDespite their different outlooks on life, but the presence of the hugecouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, mute hulk who watched him with a tortured expression was only to be expectedand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Winston's black dog was back.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490690</amazonuk>'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice de SmithShalini Boland|title=Welcome to LifeThe Silent Bride|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's the 80sAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. Freya He is 14 everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and an only childutter husband-material. She lives with her parents is all he could possibly want in Cambridge. So fara wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so normal. Except... Freya's home life the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is slightly a-typicalplanned and set. She's on first name terms with When the parental figures (no affectionate ''Mum'' or ''Daddy'' here) and much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is under walked down the distinct impression that they spend their days imagining life without aisle by her. Her best friend is a middle aged housewife on whose son she has a rather too obvious crush. Her mother communicates father, beaming with her through lists pride and shows her affection in excitement as she surveys the oddest ways. Her father has just moved congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his business associate inapproaching bride, but heAlice's not just sleeping in world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the spare roomaltar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843549840</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Dryden1787636003|title=The Blind SpyGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author writes under a pseudonym It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and he has worked in intelligence, so he should know what he's talking - Caroline went backpacking around Greece and writing about. He concentrates arrived on the battle for supremacy (and we've been here before) as Russia and the USA clashisland. The story itself is Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an intricate oneinterest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. Full It was quite a while before he made any sort of agents/counter-agents, spies/double spies physical approach to her and the like and appearances by members of the CIA and MI6 amongst othersthat time she was obsessed by him. If you like spy thrillersAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, then this novel will suit you down to looking after his interests on the ground. Lots of furtive island and secretive missions in particular in the bar where all over the place to keep the reader guessing and interestedgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755373332</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrea NewmanAmanda Craig|title=A Bouquet of Barbed WireThree Graces|rating=24.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=For those of you who've never heard of it, A Bouquet of Barbed Wire was most famous as a landmark 70's TV series based on this 1969 novel by Andrea Newman. I'd never read the book before - in fact I'm not even sure I knew there ''was'' a book - or seen the TV series but I was aware of the controversy it created at the time ofrelease so lapped up the chance to read the rerelease, accompanying the remake of the TV series which has just started.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687721</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Williams|title=11:59|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb informs Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the reader that this novel was a semistate-of-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award-nation novel. And There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the front jacket is stylish day and a bit Hitchcock-esquecapture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. All To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the signs looked promising genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a decent readway that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves. But did it deliver?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956373356</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Nicholson152915118X|title=All the Hopeful LoversPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I had previously read Nicholson's ''The Society Of OthersPineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was looking forward Sasha is married to reading this booktheir brother Cord. Nicholson writes They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a modern-day story which is relevant Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and bang up Sasha if they'd like to datemove into the Pineapple Street property. We first meet Laura Tilda and Chip have renovated and Belindadownsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. Two middle-agedThey won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, middle-class wives so Sasha and mothersCord can move straight in. Feeling sort of okay with their lives generally Nominally, they had a choice but all too aware also, that wasn't the marital reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'sparkthe gold digger' in their marriages is now a low peep - if there at all. Belinda in particular, knows she is bumbling along in life. She's not sure what to do to make things more interesting living in the sex department''their'' family home. A fling would probably help - but would They use it so often that they abbreviate it be to 'the answer?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916388X</amazonuk>GD'.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth DugdallEmily Critchley|title=The Woman Before MeOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=We're introduced to one of 84 year old Edie has lived in the female central characterssame small town for almost her whole life, Rose. There's been but now she is facing a serious move as her son wants to move to another house fire and a baby has been involved. Rose bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is implicatedstarting to lose her memory. But 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 secret she innocent or guilty? was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. Unfortunately for Rose, sheAfter 'seeing's been Lucy in the wrong place at high street, just as she was the wrong last time - and she's put behind barssaw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Five years And yet as she remembers the past, she is a long time for a young woman with the rest of forgetting more and more in her day to day life to lead. Even more soWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, if you're telling anyone and everyone that you before her memories are, in fact, innocent of the crime. But is anyone listeninggone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907461159</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=Jed Rubenfeld0008506337|title=The Death InstinctGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's three years since we were Leary was all blown away -consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by [[The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld|The Interpretation of Murder]] but Jed Rubenfeld is back with the sequel, which takes place ten years laterMargo's mother as 'an older man'. And Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a decade that has beenglittering career. In the event, with they eloped and Richard took her away from the appalling tragedy Isle of the First World War Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and the influenza outbreak which followedwent on to become a well-respected journalist. There's a hope that things are getting better as New York moves into the twenties The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Stratham Younger and Captain James Littlemore meet up for the first time in ten yearsSasha. They're Life was lived in Wall Street London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on September the sixteenth – just as a quarter Isle of a ton of explosives is detonated in Wight. Even then the worst terrorist attack doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in the countrycharge''s hundred and fifty year history.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755343999</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine Hall Page1914585402|title=The Body in the FjordDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Page gives us another I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There'The Body In The...s Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'' book within s Only One Danny Garvey]] a tried and tested format. The book jacket covers are always bright couple of years back and jazzy remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and this one is no exceptionaffecting it was. We're deep in NorwayIt was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, its picturesque countryside and world-famous fjords. We are in the company rereading my review of two different but interesting women. Mother and daughter. Pix, the daughter (I think the name sounds as if it belongs to someone young) is a mother in middle-age with teenage children. She has responsibilities, but at times she behaves like a sixteen year old and my main takeaway was that I suppose that is part of her appeal. 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 might not have lavished enough praise on it soon settles down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090641</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcelo FiguerasLucy Ashe|title=KamchatkaClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Initially I was very excited and interested when The Bookbag was given this novel to reviewyear is 1933. Set at a time in which I lived in Buenos Aires, I was looking forward to a fictionalised account of these traumatic years - made all the more appealing, as the narrator purported to be the eldest of the familyThe place? Sadler's two sons - 10 year old 'Haroldo' as he comes to be known, having by necessity left his former identity behindWells. In this respectBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, I was to be sadly disappointedtwins no less. The majority of Identical on the novel comprises recollections from an adult Haroldo - outside but not quite what the Amazon blurb, nor we learn, on the précis inside. And not on the coverstage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, leads the reader attention to believe! In fairnessdetail – and some things, the author canthat ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't be blamed for this - but I felt mislead by come from the dust jacket classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard- which may have coloured my enjoymentworker, and which lead, in part, to the relatively low a star rating which I gave the book.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843548267</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=PJ VanstonHeather Fawcett|title=CrumpEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - Emily Wilde is an ex-polytechnic. Itexpert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the happiest day very first encyclopaedia of his life, faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and he can't wait speaking to see all that it holdsfaeries, and make a difference to all his studentsshe is not so good with people. And then it hits him: So when she finds herself far, far North in the relentless pettiness small village of authority figuresHrafvsnik, having somehow offended the students who can't string two sentences togethervillage matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the lowering of standards in search of higher test scoresright track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, so more money from foreign studentsher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and political correctness gone (as I believe delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the saying goes) mad.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Chance1398515388|title=Savage BloodThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book's cover is a very good clue as to its content: weapons dripping in blood and decapitated heads. The novel starts with Professor Edward Quinn on a rather unusual journey. It seems to end abruptly and in plenty First of spilled bloodall, gore and horrendous scenes of carnage. Meanwhileit was the earthquake, deep in Atlantathe ocean floor, USAwhich created the tsunami and this, Dr Cortez has been cheating on his wife. His one-night stand proves satisfactory and interesting in all sorts of ways. Suddenlyturn, he's involved in an extremely worrying medical situationcaused the nuclear meltdown. It needs to be sorted - The result was complete and quicklyutter devastation. Cortez is a youngThe deaths were uncountable, modern professional but he's human also, so not without his hang-ups. The conversations between himself and his even more successful wife, are bang on. They hit the right noteloss of livelihoods was widespread. Many will identify with The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the couple. At times you can almost hear list of priorities but - six months after the friction between themtsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. And He wasn't a dog person but the man-convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to-man conversations between Charlie Cortez open his car door and his buddy Dan are terrific. Trying hard to be big shots Tamon the dog jumped in a social situation when really they are out of their depth. A great introduction to this part of the story, I thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019364</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth BuchanChristopher Bowden|title=Separate BedsMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Annie Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and Tom Nicholson looked like the sort a little bit of people you would envy. Both indulgence to a young nephew had rewarding jobs, Tom in the World Service and Annie in hospital management. They had a lovely home much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised 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 him an obligation to find it all 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141019891</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geoff DyerJennifer Mason|title=Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet Jeff. 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 Partitions 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 BehindUnity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This is the third novel I've read by Diane Chamberlain Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and I felt as if I was visiting an old friend. I enjoyed the other two books and this one looked promising. Although many of the characters spill over from unintentional detective in [[Before the Storm Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Diane ChamberlainJennifer Mason|Before The Storm'Preposterous]] this current book is , when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a stand alonemurder... |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>077830387X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Priya BasilWill Carver|title=The Obscure Logic of the HeartDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lina is from Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a devout Muslim family and lives with her aunt while she studies law at university; where she meets AnilLondon tube line. Anil As their fates overlap, the story is a Kenyan boy from a non-practicing Sikh family who dreams of becoming a ground-breaking architect. The two fall told in love but as backwards order, leading up to the lies they have to tell their respective families become more and more elaborate they are forced to make some difficult decisionsfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385611455</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana EvansJennifer Mason|title=The WonderPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lucas ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and Denise have been brought up by their grandmother on a canal boat -pop mobile diner in west Londonthe Northern California redwoods, after a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the death of their parents. Now they are in their 20s2004 Olympics, and their grandmother Toreth is gone. Denise is a practical and responsible young woman, getting on women's track coach with her job as a floristyen for bullwhips, but her younger brother Lucas is a dreamer, still trying to establish what he wants to do billionaire with his life, and increasingly distracted by trying to find out more about his identity, about who his parents were, especially his father.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099479052</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Henderson Smith|title=A Question a state-of Answers|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Harriet Glover lives with her partner who's reluctant to commit himself to marriage. It's not that he hasn't had time to make up his mind – their two children are at -the stage where they might produce grandchildren. His excuse is that he can't see the point as they already share -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a surname through chancelife sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, so what difference would marriage make? Mark'K(s not ''entirely'' insensitive (well, some of the time…x) but he can't understand Harriet's need for that reassuring piece of paper, on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... Until then she's going to be wondering if his eyes are wandering elsewhere. Harriet's not entirely immune either: she finds the headmaster of the school where she teaches quite irresistible.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845493281</amazonuk>}}
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