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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DurantineJenny Lecoat|title=The Chocolate AssassinBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the final days end of the Second World War as occupation. During the allied guns came ever closer a young German war, Jean's father was sent on arrested for listening to a secret mission to America. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyone, including the U-boat captain who banned radio and soldiers took him across the Atlanticaway one night, about the nature leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of his missionhim. Fifty five years later As the British finally free the Channel islands from the U-boat captainNazis, Eric Hoest, long settled in and the Stateswar is finally over, was murdered at his beach hometheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Samuel GreyBut will the truth come as a relief, police detective and part-time student was called in to investigate or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the murder. war? The local police chief thought that the most likely murderer Who was the neighbour informer who had reported told the crime, but Grey suspected that Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoest's background.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1451579527</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila O'FlanaganOnyi Nwabineli|title=A Season Allow Me to RememberIntroduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet Anuri spent her childhood on display to the Lodge ownersworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, a likable couplewhere she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating Now Anuri is in her twenties and exhausting. The novel she is bang up slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to date so O'Flanagan gets in take down the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early oncontent about her. As the festive season loomsAnuri is battling alcoholism, the unthinkable has happened. Empty rooms. They're not used failing to empty roomsstart her PhD, at any time of the yearundergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Normally Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the Lodge is a full housenew focus of Ophelia's online empire. But then a slow Can she save her sister, and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the story starts proper, so to speak.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jack Everett and David Coles1529153298|title=Last Mission: the last hours The List of the Third ReichSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet a couple of characters living in the United StatesIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A husband and wife and a relation of theirs called Paul. woman? On the surfaceI mean, they appear to be enjoying happy, normal liveshonestly... ) But all is She's not what is seems's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. We soon find out that the husbandWell, they've been murdered, Carl has some secretsbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Pretty big onesMiv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. He keeps When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - in his homefrightening, foreign place, for examplebest avoided. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked aboutFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, or rather whispered aboutSharon, with a handful of trusted and she'acquaintancesll do anything to prevent that. She' over a beer s not worried about the dangers or twothat her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary E Martin1035906708|title=The Drawing Lesson: The First in the Trilogy of RemembranceDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander Wainwright is the UK's premier artist. He's just won the Turner with ''The Hay Wagon'' – a painting with a luminous, moonlit landscape. He should be at the peak We tend to think of his powersMaria Callas as Greek, but he's about she was born to lose his muse andGreek parents in Manhattan, more worryinglyNew York, there seems to be something wrong with his sight in December 1923 and the year to come is going only moved to be traumaticAthens when she was thirteen. The story of Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it is told by his friend, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, who has pieced together what he knows, what heto 'Callas's heard – and used a little artistic licence to fill make it more manageable in the gapsStates. It's 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 most unusual story which will take you deep into the world mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of artists and writersher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450229360</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cathleen SchineAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Three Weissmanns of WestportPerfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with Joseph WeissmannPerfect 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, or Josie as he Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is knowncoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, deciding and so jumps at the age of 78 that he no longer wants chance to be married come home to Betty after 48 years togetherEdinburgh. In And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an attempt Edinburgh we already love, thanks to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but the truth is he Ness has fallen head over heels full confidence in love. Betty is devastatedher abilities, and there's always her life in tattersvery helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to her.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John IrvingDean Koontz|title=Last Night in Twisted RiverThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in Benny is having a log-cutters' encampmentterrifically bad day. The cook lives alone with He loses his twelve year old sonjob, in some kind of comfort - a decent jobhe loses his fiancee, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting ithis house gets trashed. But Oh, and someone has delivered a pair of tragedies really weird, disturbing coffin- one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the jobthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, force Benny is the pair very last person to fleedeserve all this bad luck. They leave behind He is a red herring nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that they hope will force the local brutal policeman delivery to get the wrong impressionhis house is a new friend, and a best bad weather friend in the shape of Ketchumcalled Spike, the most hardened logger in the camp as who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a kind good person. Spike is going to take care of safety-netBenny, but their destiny, spread over the next few generationsand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, will prove to still be populated with tragedyif he, romanceBenny, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted RiverHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony BaylissKatherine Howe|title=Past ContinuousA True Account|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The author's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide of the author's son.' Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computers. He's a bit of a whiz-kid. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit of a loner as well. He stands out at school for all the wrong reasons but he's coping with it - just. And early on in the book we meet Sophie. She's a big part of this book. She's around Matthew's age. She is bright and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Hayes|title=Someone Else's Son|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Brooke Morgan|title=Trapped|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ellie Walters Hannah Masury is 36living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, divorced and keen being made to start work there from a new life away from her cheating and control-freak ex-husbandyoung age. Fulfilling a life-long dream, When she decides hears there is to take her 15-year-old son, Tim, to live with her be a hanging of some pirates in the small town of Bourne. As she soon becomes good friends with her next-door neighbour, Louisa Amory, Ellie finally feels she is making a life of her own. She begins decides to feel a sense of freedom go and independence but for how long? When strange events start occurring Ellie is forced to face some painful watch. Enthralled and guilty memories connected to horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a tragic accident nineteen years ago; memories which she would rather forgetyoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. It is clear She hides away, so that someone has discovered her well-kept secret they don't find and is reluctant to let kill her forget about it. As a campaign of terror against Ellie unfolds she must come to terms with what happened all those years ago too, and try then to discover who her tormentor is. Vulnerable and afraid, escape them completely she relies on Louisa's friendship runs away to help her through the ordeal. Howeversea, when a misunderstanding causes dressing as a rift between Ellie boy and Louisa's son, Joe, joining the womennotorious Ned Low's friendship is threatenedpirate ship as a cabin boy. Alone and afraid, she suddenly She soon finds herself trapped in the thick of things when there is a nightmare mutiny on board, and from which she must do all she can to escapethere we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099536285</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Atwood1471180158|title=The Handmaid's TaleMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the near-future USA that they call Gileadsubtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, society 'has changedhis problems'. For He's asthmatic and the worsemore you read, of coursethe more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. The population is dying out, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given a cherished status of Handmaid Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - gifted to any male of enough esteem, called she's a Commander, who balances frequent flier in the household with his wife local A&E and what is practically a walking wombsometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Other women get drudge work, Missed shifts or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off need to be away on time to what pick Bo up from school are reported to occasions when Jamie can be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commander, controlled and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch typesput in the wrong. It's up was going to our nameless narrator and main character, however, come to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feelsa head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carmine AbateB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Homecoming Party|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Every year young Marco eagerly awaits his father's return, when he can for a few months spend precious time with him before he leaves again. Marco's father Tullio is a migrant worker forced through poverty to work in Northern France doing hard manual work. In this way he manages to earn enough to help his family have a decent living. The family, his eldest daughter Elise now at college, Marco his only son and a younger sister known only as 'la piccola' along with his wife and elderly mother live in Calabria, 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1933372834</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author=Chris Kuzneski|title=The Secret CrownJeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The riddle Petr is the whole crux of the bookan orphan. So we're taken right back, albeit briefly, to Bavaria in Rescued by the year 1886strange, via the Prologue. Soreclusive Bear, the scene he is now setbrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, foul play is most definitely afoot and lots in the forests of questions should pop into the readerWashington's mindOlympic Peninsula. Such as who? Why? etc. So far, so goodAfter Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, I thought. We then fast-forward straight to present-day Germany and due to an unfortunate hunting accidentarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, something which was Petr goes on a secretjourney through the forest, is no longerbroadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241952123</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Padgett PowellSarah Marsh|title=The Interrogative MoodA Sign of Her Own|rating=23.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=SoAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, what is Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a novel? Does it need world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a plot, climax and resolution? Characters who grow? A setting? Themes which explore time when the human condition? And must it entertain? Padgett Powell challenges our perceptions use of fiction with sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a book that explores what it school where she is taught to be a novellip read, but without any preconditionsphysically restrained from signing. How far he succeeds is down to From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the individual readerdeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. But I thought I'd give it At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a gocomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683661</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken FollettB0BC3YTCMR|title=Fall of GiantsGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is a thumping, great read at 850 pages. We meet a clutch of families who are all vastly different in terms of class, outlook, values etcnot for everyone. I have to admit at the outset that this is the first Ken Follett book I've read even although two of his previous books are in my ever-growing 'to read' pile. So although I know of him, my reading expectations were wide-open.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710077</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle Paver1472263936|title=Dark MatterThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's January 1937 and dark clouds of impending war are gathering over Europewas in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Jack Miller is in London She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, working as a clerk had left the family home and living in one lonely room. He should probably think himself lucky because many people have neither job nor home in this Great Depressionrefused to return, but he doesnMary and Hamish (Helena't. He feels lonely and isolated and angry s parents) felt that it would be a career pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in research physics was snatched away from him by economic circumstance. So when up-market Kolonaki would be the chance first of becoming several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the wireless operator for an Arctic expedition comes alongfamily's maid, he jumps at it Dina, but was wary - and frightened - even though the team comprises of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the exact privileged young men he most resentsJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409123782</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Janet EvanovichDean Koontz|title=Wicked AppetiteAfter Death|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Take one rather ditzy girl. Add a funnyMichael Mace, extrovert friendHead of Security, and anotherat a top secret biological research facility, more sensible oneis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Stir Finding himself in two seriously attractive mena makeshift mortuary, an unhinged pet or twocovered in plastic, he has a slapstick plot and an unending series of cars. What have you got? A Janet Evanovich novel! This sense that something very, very bad has been the formula for the winning 'Stephanie Plum' series for years, about a hopelessly incompetent bounty hunter who never quite manages happened to choose between him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the two hunks in her life, and it has given much pleasure shrouded bodies of his dead friends and amusementformer colleagues. But even the best formulas get stale As he recovers his senses, so this year Ms Evanovich has branched out into he realises that there is something newdifferent about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Well, almost Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755352769</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan HamiltonB0BVDC2VWH|title=Two UnknownThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story village is based isolated and poor. It'between the wars', the 1920s to be exacts surrounded by a Witching Forest. We're introduced to And the main characters: a small family unit of mother, father villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and two childrenits blossom provides herbal medicines. On The black wood of the surface this normalforest provides heat and warmth, middle-class set-up all appears fine - but underneathroofs on homes, and even gallows, things are far from fineif needed. The father, Ian fear of being buried alive is actually an existential superstition in the step-father to the twins. And through various detailed village and sometimes unusually lengthy parent-child conversations and chats the reader that is filled in with the background story. A bit staccato in placesreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, I have to admitlazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230130</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brian FreemanB0BYF82CXT|title=The Bone HouseSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with one of the central characters, Mark. And straight away we see that he has an eye for the girls - young girls, it would seem. He's a married man, so tongues start to wag. The book's front cover depicts Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house going up , stuck in flames a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and on the very first page there's another mention of fire, Billy Joel's hit song 'We Didn't Start The Firemuch in love – move in next door.' SoDespite their different outlooks on life, fire seems as if it's going the couples befriend each other and life appears to play an important part in this bookimprove for both pairs. And But all is not what it doesseems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Big-time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755348788</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rebecca HuntShalini Boland|title=Mr ChartwellThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For Alice and Seth are a couple of years now Esther Hammerhans match made in heaven. He is everything she has lived alone been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and money is a little tightutter husband-material. She works is all he could possibly want in the House of Commons library but it doesn't pay particularly well. Letting the spare room to a lodger seemed like a good ideawife; beautiful, successful, but she's somewhat surprised when she sees Mr Chartwell's silhouette. It's confident… and so the size of a mattress inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and Mr Chartwell the wedding is a dogplanned and set. A large black dog. At home in KentWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, Winston Churchill wakes up. He's reaching beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the end of his time in parliament congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and in some ways he's not surprised when Seth turns to sense that thereface his approaching bride, Alice's a visitor in world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the room. It's someone he hasn't seen for a while, but man at the presence of the hugealtar is, mute hulk who watched him with a tortured expression was only is waiting for her to be expected. Winston's black dog was backbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905490690</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alice de Smith1787636003|title=Welcome to LifeThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's was the 80s. Freya is 14 summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and an only childarrived on the island. She lives with her parents in Cambridge. So far Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so normal. Except... Freya's home life is slightly awhen thirty-four-year-typical. She's on first name terms with the parental figures (no affectionate ''Mum'' or ''Daddy'' here) and is under the distinct impression that they spend their days imagining life without old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her. Her best friend is a middle aged housewife on whose son , she has a was flattered rather too obvious crushthan wary. Her mother communicates with It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her through lists and shows her affection in the oddest waysby that time she was obsessed by him. Her father has just moved Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his business associate interests on the island and in, but he's not just sleeping particular in the spare roombar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843549840</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex DrydenAmanda Craig|title=The Blind SpyThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author writes under a pseudonym and he has worked in intelligence, so he should know what heFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's talking - and writing something so utterly compelling about. He concentrates on the battle for supremacy (and we've been here before) as Russia and any writer who can catch hold of the USA clash. The story itself is an intricate one. Full atmosphere of agents/counter-agents, spies/double spies and the like day and appearances by members capture it, crafting an image of the CIA and MI6 amongst otherscountry as it stands in one particular moment. If you like spy thrillers, then To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this novel will suit you down to would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the groundgenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Lots She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of furtive and secretive missions all over the place to keep day into the reader guessing lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and interestedlived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755373332</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrea Newman152915118X|title=A Bouquet of Barbed WirePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For those ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of you whothree women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They've never heard of itre Stocktons, A Bouquet of Barbed Wire was most famous as only Sasha isn't a landmark 70Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's TV series based on this 1969 novel by Andrea Newmanexacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. I They won'd never read t need any of the book before - furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in fact I. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'm not even sure I knew there the gold digger'. She'wass living in ''their'' a book - or seen the TV series but I was aware of the controversy family home. They use it created at the time ofrelease so lapped up the chance often that they abbreviate it to read 'the rerelease, accompanying the remake of the TV series which has just startedGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687721</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David WilliamsEmily Critchley|title=11:59One Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The back cover blurb informs 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 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 reader worry that this novel there was a semi-finalist secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awardhigh street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the front jacket past, she is stylish forgetting more and a bit Hitchcock-esquemore in her day to day life. All Will she uncover the signs looked promising for a decent read. But did it delivertruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956373356</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''
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Nicholson0008506337|title=All the Hopeful LoversThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I had previously read Nicholson's ''The Society Of Otherslove affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'' and thoroughly enjoyed it so I Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was looking forward to reading this bookjust sixteen when they fell in love. Nicholson writes a modernRichard was twenty-day story which is relevant one and bang up to datedescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. We first meet Laura Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and Belindahaving a glittering career. Two middle-agedIn the event, middle-class wives they eloped and mothersRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Feeling sort of okay with their lives generally but all too aware also, that the marital 'spark' in their marriages is now Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a low peep well- if there at allrespected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Belinda Life was lived in particularLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, knows she is bumbling along in lifethe family home on the Isle of Wight. SheEven then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's not sure what mind: ''she would never be able to do to make things more interesting leave him in the sex departmentcharge''. A fling would probably help - but would it be the answer?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916388X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Buchan1914585402|title=The Island of Sheep (John Hannay)Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Hannay is feeling old. He looks at himself and his contemporaries and sees I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a spread couple of complacency. Luckily - or perhaps very unluckily - an old pledge will come to haunt him. His earlier career in Africa saw Hannay years back and his friends swear to protect a man from others - remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and now a second generation of animosity is ripe for Hannay to step in and be a protective detectiveaffecting it was. Add in It was a supposed treasure hoardgripping, emotionally wounding read, and who knows where his last journey rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might end up?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697156X</amazonuk>not have lavished enough praise on it.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jed RubenfeldLucy Ashe|title=The Death InstinctClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's three years since Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we were all blown away by [[The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld|The Interpretation of Murder]] but Jed Rubenfeld is back with learn, on the sequel, which takes place ten years laterinside. And what a decade that has beennot on stage, with the appalling tragedy of the First World War and the influenza outbreak which followedeither. ThereBecause there's a hope lot that builds a dancer. Some things are getting better as New York moves into the twenties that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and Stratham Younger and Captain James Littlemore meet up for some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the first time in ten yearsclassroom. They're in Wall Street on September the sixteenth – just as A stage presence, a quarter of charm, a ton of explosives is detonated in the worst terrorist attack in the country's hundred 'joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and fifty year historya star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755343999</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katherine Hall PageHeather Fawcett|title=The Body in the FjordEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Page gives us another ''The Body In The...'' book within a tried Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and tested format. The book jacket covers are always bright she has travelled extensively, and jazzy and this one is no exception. Weresearched meticulously, to write her life're deep in Norways work, its picturesque countryside and world-famous fjords. We are in the company very first encyclopaedia of two different but interesting womenfaeries. Mother Whilst she is brilliant at research and daughterspeaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. Pix So when she finds herself far, far North in the daughter (I think small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the name sounds as if it belongs to someone young) village matriarch, she is a mother in middle-age with teenage children. She not sure what she has responsibilitiesdone, but at times she behaves like a sixteen year old nor how to redeem herself and I suppose that is part of put her final investigations for her appealbook back on the right track. She cannot seem to say ''no'' to anyone Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and now finds herself enlisted to solve an unexplained death insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and a missing person. The latter is the more important as the missing persondelight, Kari, is related much to UrsulaEmily's best friendfrustration. Yes, perhaps a few too many names at the beginning of But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the book to grapple with but it soon settles down.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090641</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Marcelo Figueras1398515388|title=KamchatkaThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Initially I First of all, it was very excited the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and interested when The Bookbag was given this novel to review. Set at a time in which I lived , in Buenos Airesturn, I caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was looking forward to a fictionalised account of these traumatic years - made all the more appealingcomplete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, as and the narrator purported to be the eldest loss of the family's two sons - 10 year old 'Haroldo' as he comes to be known, having by necessity left his former identity behind. In this respect, I livelihoods was to be sadly disappointedwidespread. The majority fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the novel comprises recollections from an adult Haroldo tsunami - not quite what the Amazon blurb, nor the précis on the cover, leads the reader to believe! In fairness, the author canKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't be blamed for this - a dog person but I felt mislead by the dust jacket - which may have coloured my enjoyment, convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and which lead, Tamon the dog jumped in part, to the relatively low star rating which I gave the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843548267</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=PJ VanstonChristopher Bowden|title=Crump|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - an ex-polytechnic. It's the happiest day of his life, and he can't wait to see all that it holds, and make a difference to all his students. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness of authority figures, the students who can't string two sentences together, the lowering of standards in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign students, and political correctness gone (as I believe the saying goes) mad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alex Chance|title=Savage BloodMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The bookChristopher Bowden's cover latest novel 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 of spilled blood, gore and horrendous scenes of carnage. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, USA, Dr Cortez has been cheating on his wife. His one-night stand proves satisfactory and interesting in all sorts patient untangling of ways. Suddenly, he's involved in an extremely worrying medical situation. It needs to be sorted - and quickly. Cortez is a young, modern professional but heseemingly ordinary woman's human alsolife, so not without his hang-upscarried out by her nephew after she has died. The conversations between himself aunt who always provided a safe harbour and his even more successful wife, are bang on. They hit the right note. Many will identify with the couple. At times you can almost hear the friction between them. And the man-to-man conversations between Charlie Cortez and his buddy Dan are terrific. Trying hard to be big shots in a social situation when really they are out little bit of their depth. A great introduction indulgence to this part of the story, I thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019364</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elizabeth Buchan|title=Separate Beds|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Annie and Tom Nicholson looked like the sort of people you would envy. Both 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 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>}} {{newreview|author=Geoff Dyer|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 him an obligation to try find it himself. Instead he suspects his habit of walking round, mouthing or speaking all 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...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184767271X</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane ChamberlainJennifer Mason|title=Secrets She Left BehindPartitions of Unity
|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
}}
{{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>}}
}}