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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{commenthead}}[[Category:Literary Fiction]]{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maria Angels AngladaJenny Lecoat|title=The Auschwitz ViolinBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Poland in Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the early 1990s, a violin singsoccupation. The maestro who owns it produces such During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a music from itbanned radio and soldiers took him away one night, people are forced to take noteleaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. They'd be even more amazed if she could bring herself to state exactly how As the British finally free the instrument came to be. For this was Channel islands from the work of DanielNazis, suffering in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stumblesand the war is finally over, chances, half-lies, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour and engage in his real-world careertheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But is there will the truth come as a price to pay in doing something you loverelief, just for a man you can only hateor 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>1849016437</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bethan DarwinOnyi Nwabineli|title=Two Times TwentyAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, 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 content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You can tell from the beginning of this novel that youIt're in Waless 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. The young Anna (as we travel back in timeA woman? I mean, honestly...) is meeting She's not what will be long-term friends's worrying Miv's family, Bob and Janethough. Women have been disappearing. We find Anna rather proudly introducing her two young sons and Bob butting in with Well, they'Duwve been murdered, good-sized boys for their age but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. 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 frightening, foreign place, best avoided. Make good rugby players one day For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She' But s not worried about the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touchdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190678423X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Dawson1035906708|title=CODEXDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I read the resume on the back cover I immediately thought that it We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was going born to be one of those high-octaneGreek parents in Manhattan, action every second paragraphNew York, type of thrillers. All action in December 1923 and perhaps very little substanceonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. I Her original surname was happily proved wrongKalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. And very early on When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the novel, as wellNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, which was goodJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956577008</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DurantineAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Chocolate AssassinPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the final days of online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the Second World War business, as the allied guns came ever closer Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a young German was sent on break up with a secret mission bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to AmericaEdinburgh. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyoneAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, including thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the U-boat captain Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who took him across the Atlantic, about the nature of his missionquickly begin to charm. Fifty five years later the UKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-boat captainmaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, Eric Hoestand there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, long settled in the Stateshe loses his fiancee, was murdered at and his beach homehouse gets trashed. Samuel GreyOh, police detective and partsomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-time student sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was called in inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to investigate the murderdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. The local police chief thought So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the most likely murderer was the neighbour delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who had reported the crimehas been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, but Grey suspected that the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoestand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's backgroundwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1451579527</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila O'FlanaganKatherine Howe|title=A Season to RememberTrue Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet the Lodge ownersHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating family who run an inn, and exhaustingbeing made to work there from a young age. The novel When she hears there is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets be a hanging of some pirates in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early ontown, she decides to go and watch. As the festive season loomsEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the unthinkable has happenedhands of two vicious pirates. Empty rooms. TheyShe hides away, so that they don're not used t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to empty roomssea, at any time of dressing as a boy and joining the yearnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. Normally She soon finds herself in the Lodge thick of things when there is a full house. But then a slow mutiny on board, and steady trickle starts as our characters book from there we are caught up in - and her rip roaring tale of life on the story starts proper, so to speakocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jack Everett and David Coles1471180158|title=Last Mission: the last hours of the Third ReichMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a couple man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of characters living in the United States. A husband and wife and a relation of theirs called Paulhalf brick. On the surfaceJamie's son, they appear to be enjoying happyBo, normal lives'has his problems'. But all is not what is seems. We soon find out He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the husband, Carl has some secretsautistic spectrum. Pretty big onesSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler Missed shifts or the need to be away on display - somewhere - time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in his home, for examplethe wrong. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked about, or rather whispered about, with It was going to come to a handful of trusted 'acquaintances' over a beer or twohead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mary E MartinB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Drawing Lesson: The First in the Trilogy of RemembranceRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander Wainwright Petr is the UK's premier artistan orphan. He's just won Rescued by the Turner with ''The Hay Wagon'' – a painting with a luminousstrange, moonlit landscape. He should be at the peak of his powersreclusive Bear, but he's about to lose his muse is brought up far from bustling cities andbusy human society, more worryingly, there seems to be something wrong with his sight and in the year to come is going to be traumatic. The story forests of it is told by his friend, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, who has pieced together what he knows, what heWashington's heard – Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and used a little artistic licence to fill brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the gaps. It's a most unusual story which will take you deep into forest, broadcasting the world of artists strange, wild and writersrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450229360</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cathleen SchineSarah Marsh|title=The Three Weissmanns A Sign of WestportHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with Joseph WeissmannAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, or Josie as he is knownEllen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, deciding at everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the age use of 78 that he no longer wants sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to be married a school where she is taught to Betty after 48 years togetherlip read, but physically restrained from signing. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differencesFrom here, but she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the truth is he has fallen head over heels in lovedeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Betty At the same time, Bell is devastatedworking on other inventions and ideas, her life and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in tatters, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to hera complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John IrvingB0BC3YTCMR|title=Last Night in Twisted RiverGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We start in 1954, in the middle ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of nowhere, in a log-cutters' encampmenther fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old sonShe was a very bright student, in some kind of comfort - a decent jobbit too nerdy if truth be told, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened suffered from vitiligo - people inhabiting were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. But It's not easy being a pair of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to fleeblack girl whose skin is 84% white. They leave behind She had a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safetycrush on seventeen-year-net, old Reggie Anderson but their destiny, spread over the next few generations, will prove never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to still be populated with tragedy, romancehis house and he raped her. In shock, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder she even allowed him to the tiny settlement of Twisted Rivergive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Bayliss1472263936|title=Past ContinuousThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author's note tells the reader It was in 1968 that this book 'Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was inspired alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the suicide of the authorfamily home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's sonparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage.' Chapter 1 opens with Her trip to the reader being family apartment in no doubt that up-market Kolonaki would be the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computersfirst of several annual visits. HeShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's a bit of a whizmaid, Dina, but was wary -kid. He's also shy and tonguefrightened -tied which makes him a bit of a loner as wellher grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He stands out at school for all was proud of his close connections to the wrong reasons Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but he's coping with it - just. And early on in the book we meet Sophiesaw no reason to accommodate them. SheHis prejudices included Helena's a big part of this book. She's around Matthew's age. She is bright red hair and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that shegreen eyes - inherited from her father's too clever for her own goodScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam HayesDean Koontz|title=Someone ElseAfter 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's Son' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kentvillage is isolated and poor. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, MaxIt's surrounded by a Witching Forest. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hardAnd the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants -headed, businessits bread-like, aloof fruit provides nutrition and rather distant but that's its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the whole pointforest provides heat and warmth, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programmeroofs on homes, dealing with welland even gallows, basically the dregs if needed. The fear of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her being buried alive is an existential superstition in designer shoes the village and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tellindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Brooke MorganB0BYF82CXT|title=TrappedSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ellie Walters is 36, divorced ''Bill and keen to start Amanda are living in a new life away from her cheating and controlsemi-freak ex-husband. Fulfilling detached house, stuck in a life-long dreamdepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, she decides to take her 15-year-old sonwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, Tim, to live with her successful and very much in love – move in the small town of Bourne. As she soon becomes good friends with her next-door neighbour. Despite their different outlooks on life, Louisa Amory, Ellie finally feels she is making a the couples befriend each other and life of her own. She begins appears to feel a sense of freedom and independence but improve 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 would rather forgetboth pairs. It But all is clear that someone has discovered her well-kept secret and is reluctant to let her forget about not what it. As a campaign of terror against Ellie unfolds she must come to terms with what happened all those years ago seems, and try to discover who her tormentor istheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Vulnerable and afraid, she relies on Louisa's friendship to help her through the ordeal. However, when a misunderstanding causes a rift between Ellie and Louisa's son, Joe, the women's friendship is threatened. Alone and afraid, she suddenly finds herself trapped in a nightmare from which she must do all she can to escape.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099536285</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret AtwoodShalini Boland|title=The Handmaid's TaleSilent Bride|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changedAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. For the worseHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, of coursefunny; total and utter husband-material. The population She is dying out, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given all he could possibly want in a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted to any male of enough esteemwife; beautiful, called a Commandersuccessful, who balances confident… and so the household with his wife inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and what the wedding is practically a walking wombplanned and set. Other women get drudge workWhen the much-anticipated day arrives, or run horrid finishing schools for Alice is walked down the Handmaidsaisle by her father, or are packed off beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to what are reported celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commanderface his approaching bride, and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch types. ItAlice's up to our nameless narrator and main character, howeverworld implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feelsbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carmine Abate1787636003|title=The Homecoming PartyGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The riddle is It was the whole crux of summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the bookisland. So weRachel wasn're taken right backt exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, albeit brieflynaive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to Bavaria take an interest in the year 1886her, via the Prologueshe was flattered rather than wary. So, the scene is now set, foul play is most definitely afoot It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and lots of questions should pop into the reader's mind. Such as who? Why? etcby that time she was obsessed by him. So farAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, so good, I thought. We then fast-forward straight to present-day Germany looking after his interests on the island and due to an unfortunate hunting accident, something which was a secret, is no longerin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241952123</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Padgett PowellAmanda Craig|title=The Interrogative MoodThree Graces|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So, what is a Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel? Does . There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it need a plot, climax and resolution? Characters who grow? A setting? Themes which explore crafting an image of the human condition? And must country as it entertain? Padgett Powell challenges our perceptions stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction with at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a book way that explores what it is to be a novelfeels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but without any preconditions. How instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far he succeeds is down to the individual reader. But I thought I'd give it a golarger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683661</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken Follett152915118X|title=Fall of GiantsPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This ''Pineapple Street'' is a thumpingthe story of three women: Sasha, great read at 850 pagesDarley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. We meet They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a clutch of families who are all vastly different in terms of classStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, outlookTilda, values etcasks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. I Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to admit at another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the outset furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that this is wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the first Ken Follett book Igold digger've read even although two of his previous books are . She's living in my ever-growing ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to read' pile. So although I know of him, my reading expectations were wide-openthe GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230710077</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda SargentEmily Critchley|title=Paper WingsOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a wood in Kent two children played happily 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 way with children they sometimes memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went where they shouldn'tmissing over 60 years ago, but it was the nineteen fifties and the worry that there was a secret she was more about whether they would injure themselves by falling down an abandoned well than keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the problems which we worry over half a century latertruth of what happened all that time ago. It After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was a place for plans and gamesthe last time she saw her, projects they didn't always tell their parents about and generally growing upshe starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Ruby loved climbing trees And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and longed more in her day to flyday life. Peter was more sensible but Will she uncover the pair were inseparable.truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956483305</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle PaverMadelaine Lucas|title=Dark MatterThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=It's January 1937 and dark clouds of impending war are gathering over Europe. Jack Miller is in London'Love, I'd read, working as was supposed to be a clerk light and living in one lonely room. He should probably think himself lucky because many people have neither job nor home in this Great Depressionweightless feeling, but he doesnI had always longed for gravity''t. He feels lonely and isolated and angry that a career in research physics was snatched away from him by economic circumstance. So when the chance of becoming the wireless operator for an Arctic expedition comes along, he jumps at it - even though the team comprises of the exact privileged young men he most resents. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409123782</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Hamilton0008506337|title=Two UnknownThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story is based 'love affair between the warsMargo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, the 1920s to be exactapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. WeHer parents worried that Richard're introduced s influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the main characters: event, a small family unit they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of mother, father and two childrenWight. On the surface this normal, middle-class set-up all appears fine Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well- but underneath, things are far from finerespected journalist. The fathercouple had three children: Rachel, Ian is actually the step-father to the twinsImogen and Sasha. And through various detailed Life was lived in London and sometimes unusually lengthy parent-child conversations and chats holidays were spent at Sandcove, the reader is filled in with family home on the background storyIsle of Wight. A bit staccato Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in places, I have to admitcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230130</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rebecca Hunt1914585402|title=Mr ChartwellDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For a couple of years now Esther Hammerhans has lived alone and money is a little tight. She works in the House of Commons library but it doesn't pay particularly well. Letting the spare room to a lodger seemed like a good idea, but sheI reviewed David F Ross's somewhat surprised when she sees Mr Chartwellbook [[There's silhouette. ItOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's the size Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of a mattress years back and Mr Chartwell is a dog. A large black dog. At home in Kent, Winston Churchill wakes up. He's reaching the end of his time in parliament remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and in some ways he's not surprised to sense that there's a visitor in the roomaffecting it was. It's someone he hasn't seen for was a whilegripping, emotionally wounding read, but the presence and rereading my review of the huge, mute hulk who watched him with a tortured expression it my main takeaway was only to be expectedthat I might not have lavished enough praise on it. Winston's black dog was back.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490690</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice de SmithLucy Ashe|title=Welcome to LifeClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's the 80sWells. Freya is 14 Ballerinas Clara and an only childOlivia are sisters, twins no less. She lives with her parents in CambridgeIdentical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. So farAnd not on stage, so normaleither. Except... FreyaBecause there's home life is slightly a-typicallot that builds a dancer. SheSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that 's on first name terms with the parental figures (no affectionate 'je ne sais quoi'Mum', that don' or t come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''Daddyjoie de vivre'' here) and is under the distinct impression that they spend their days imagining life without her. Her best friend is The difference between a middle aged housewife on whose son she has hard-worker, and a rather too obvious crush. Her mother communicates with her through lists and shows her affection in the oddest ways. Her father has just moved his business associate in, but he's not just sleeping in the spare roomstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843549840</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex DrydenHeather Fawcett|title=The Blind SpyEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author writes under a pseudonym Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and he she has worked in intelligencetravelled extensively, and researched meticulously, so he should know what heto write her life's talking - and writing aboutwork, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. He concentrates on the battle for supremacy (Whilst she is brilliant at research and we've been here before) as Russia and the USA clash. The story itself speaking to faeries, she is an intricate onenot so good with people. Full of agents/counter-agentsSo when she finds herself far, spies/double spies and far North in the like and appearances by members small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the CIA and MI6 amongst others. If you like spy thrillersvillage matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, then this novel will suit you down nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the groundright track. Lots of furtive Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and secretive missions insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all over the place charm and delight, much to keep Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the reader guessing and interested.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755373332</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrea Newman1398515388|title=A Bouquet of Barbed WireThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=For those of you who've never heard First of all, itwas the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, A Bouquet which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of Barbed Wire livelihoods was most famous as a landmark 70's TV series based on this 1969 novel by Andrea Newmanwidespread. I'd never read The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the book before tsunami - in fact I'm not even sure I knew there ''was'Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn' t a book - or seen the TV series dog person but I was aware of the controversy it created at the time ofrelease so lapped up the chance convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to read open his car door and Tamon the rerelease, accompanying the remake of the TV series which has just starteddog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687721</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David WilliamsChristopher Bowden|title=11:59Mr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb informs the reader that this Christopher Bowden's latest novel was is a semi-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awardpatient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. And the front jacket is stylish The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit Hitchcock-esque. All the signs looked promising for of indulgence to a young nephew had had a decent readmuch more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. But did it deliver?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956373356</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William NicholsonJennifer Mason|title=All the Hopeful LoversPartitions of Unity|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I had previously read Nicholson's ''The Society Of Others'' and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was looking forward to reading this book. Nicholson writes a modern-day story which is relevant and bang up to date. We Here at Bookbag Towers, we first meet Laura met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and Belinda. Two middle-agedunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], middle-class wives when she investigated and mothersunravelled a series of disappearances. Feeling sort In ''Partitions of okay with their lives generally but all too aware also, that the marital Unity'spark' in their marriages is now , she sets her mind to solving a low peep - if there at allmurder. Belinda in particular, knows she is bumbling along in life. She's not sure what to do to make things more interesting in the sex department. A fling would probably help - but would it be the answer?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184916388X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth DugdallWill Carver|title=The Woman Before MeDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're introduced to Five strangers come together in one of the female central characters, Rose. There's been moment as a serious house fire and suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a baby has been involvedLondon tube line. Rose is implicated. But is she innocent or guilty? Unfortunately for RoseAs their fates overlap, she's been in the wrong place at the wrong time - and she's put behind bars. Five years story is a long time for a young woman with the rest of her life to lead. Even more so, if you're telling anyone and everyone that you are, told in factbackwards order, innocent of leading up to the crimefateful moment. But is anyone listening?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907461159</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John BuchanJennifer Mason|title=The Island of Sheep (John Hannay)Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard Hannay is feeling old. He looks at himself and his contemporaries and sees ''A struggling poetry zine, a spread of complacency. Luckily mom- or perhaps very unluckily and- an old pledge will come to haunt him. His earlier career pop mobile diner in Africa saw Hannay and his friends swear to protect the Northern California redwoods, a man from others 400- and now meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a second generation state-of animosity is ripe for Hannay to step in and be -the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a protective detective. Add life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a supposed treasure hoardcheap oil painting, and who knows where his last journey might end up?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697156X</amazonuk>}}an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
}}
