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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Asa JonesJenny Lecoat|title=The Illustrated Mind of Mike ReevesBeyond Summerland|rating=3.54|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=Mike Reeves doesn't have his troubles to seekJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. His wife During the war, Jean's father was brutally raped some four or five years ago and whilst she might seem to be recovered she cannot stand arrested for listening to be touched by a man – any manbanned radio and soldiers took him away one night, Mike includedleaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. Quite suddenly Mike was aloneAs the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, in every way – until he found himself drawn to the darker arts and began to dabble in Tarot, the Runes and I Ching. He's guided by two spirits. Sean war is a wise and benevolent older man and Debbiefinally over, well she… isn'ttheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. She's But will the one who satisfies Mike's sexual needs. If that's all sounding rather good, then hesitate truth come as a momentrelief, for with or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the good comes war? Who was the bad and informer who told the bad is in Nazis about the form of Tony a (very) real-life gangster who's radio? And what other secrets have been doing his own dabbling in kept throughout the spirit world. When their worlds clash Mike has a problem which could well be more than he can handle.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>160693905X</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret ForsterOnyi Nwabineli|title=Diary of an Ordinary WomanAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After reading Anuri spent her childhood on display to the introductionworld, I couldn't help but sneak a sly read at the authorthanks to her step-mother Ophelia's note right at the end increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of the novel. I donAnuri't usually do this. I'm glad I did as the information is both surprising s childhood for sponsorships and revelatory. Back to the beginning influencer deals and Chapter 1 .., basically, monetary gain. We meet the 13 year old Millicent Now Anuri is in 1914. By her written statements twenties and recorded mannerisms, we see that she's a girl who knows is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her own mind. For examplelife back, she thinks writing in suing her diary every single day could be dull and boring so she's made a golden rule that she's only going step-mother to write something take down when she feels like itthe content about her. Some may call her precocious but I liked Millicent right from the Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start. Courtesy of her diary we find out that she's part of a large PhD, undergoing therapy and boisterous family. She doesn't appreciate all the noise secretly abusing people online and chatter receiving money from her siblingsthem for doing so. She craves peace and quiet to think and to read. SheMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's a prolific readeronline empire. She also believes that Can she's smart save her sister, and clever perhaps herself and wants to 'do' something her relationship with her life when she grows up. She's not sure what exactly but she certainly doesn't want to be a mere housewife and mother.father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099449285</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Dunn1529153298|title=The Accidental ProposalList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Middleton seems like a pretty decent guyIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... He always stops to buy a Big Issues from Billy) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, a local homeless man and he takes his elderly widowed neighbour shopping once a weekthough. Women have been disappearing. These are some of the reasons why his girlfriend Well, Samthey've been murdered, loves him but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so muchfrightening. One night, after a friend Miv's upset because she's wedding, Sam asks Ed if he would also like overheard that her father wants to get married to which Ed enthusiastically replies move the family 'yesDown South'. However When you're from Yorkshire, the following morningDown South is a frightening, whilst nursing his hangoverforeign place, he cannot work out if it was a hypothetical question or an actual proposalbest avoided. His For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best mate Dan is no help at all friend, Sharon, and is quite incredulous she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone should ever want to marry Ed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847395244</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Styron1035906708|title=The Suicide Run|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving and leaving. A soldier remembers calming memories, and those causing tension, as he rests up before action. And for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk to be found in his high-octane downtime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Molly Carr|title=The Sign of FearDaisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mary Watson - a distant second We tend to John Watsonthink of Maria Callas as Greek, who of course but she was a distant second born to Sherlock Holmes. Fed up with staying at home while her new husband spends too much time at 221b Baker StreetGreek parents in Manhattan, or away with Holmes sleuthingNew York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she gets was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to dabble make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her own feet in voice - she was raised under the underworld waters when Nazi occupation by a certain Professor Moriarty comes callingmother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685006</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon Stephen FinkAlexander McCall Smith|title=A Storm In The BloodPerfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Storm In The Blood'' Perfect Passion Company is based on a true story involving dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the police force online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the government business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the day trying chance to come home to suppress racial tensions in early 20th century LondonEdinburgh. It has resonance for our modern times as And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we grapple already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with similar situations some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and problems.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Allegra GoodmanDean Koontz|title=The Cookbook CollectorBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it''s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The Cookbook Collector'' thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all about emotionsthis bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Concentrating on twoSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, younga bad weather friend called Spike, American women who are vastly different in many areas has 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 their lives Benny, and also on their outlook on lifewill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, Goodman digs deeper to find if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out what makes them tick - what makes them get up in the morningwho exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848875398</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Craig SmithKatherine Howe|title=Cold RainA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life was pretty good for Dr David AlboHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. He'd just had fifteen months away from his job as an associate professor When she hears there is to be a hanging of English at a university some pirates in the mid-western USAtown, she decides to go and watch. He lived on a plantation-style farmhouse with a beautiful and intelligent wife Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a step-daughter who adored himyoung boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. He was even going back to work in the expectation She hides away, so that he might well be offered a full professorship in the not-they don't find and kill her too-distant future , and just then to put the icing on escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the cake henotorious Ned Low's been clear of alcohol for two yearspirate ship as a cabin boy. Yes; She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life was very goodon the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190580234X</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Gavalda1471180158|title=ConsolationMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet CharlesJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the main character right at the startsubtlety of a half brick. And straight away, itJamie's no secret thatson, Bo, as a middle-aged professional (he'has his problems'. He's an architect asthmatic and a successful one at the more you read, the more you'll suspect that) he's jadedon the autistic spectrum. Been-there, doneSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -that and got-the-bloody-tee-shirt just about sums him up pretty well. Heshe's acquired (somehow) a beautiful, witty frequent flier in the local A&E and clever partner and also a step-daughter whom he adoressometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. As Missed shifts or the story deepens, I soon acknowledged that the step-daughter seems need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be about the only true love controlled and put in his life. He's luke-warm about the rest of his family and that includes his partner and his ageing parentswrong. Is this man It was going through some mid-life crisis, would be an obvious question to askcome to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531925</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam HawkenB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Dead Women of JuarezRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Although the story related here is a work of fiction, the situation Petr is based on factan orphan. The Mexican border city of Juárez has a shocking problem with female homicides (usually young and invariably pretty). Official statistics put Rescued by the number of murders at 400 since 1993 whilestrange, we are toldreclusive Bear, residents believe that the true number of disappeared women he is closer to 5000. But attention to this problem is diverted by drug crimebrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, although in the two may not be entirely unrelated. Anything that raises public awareness forests of this terrible situation, such as HawkenWashington's bookOlympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, is to be encouraged. So much for Petr goes on a journey through the factforest, what about broadcasting the fiction?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668773X</amazonuk>strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela KlaffkeSarah Marsh|title=SnappedA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=They say that After a good idea is to write about what you knowbout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. WellSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, Klaffke seems to have heeded that piece of adviceeverything about her life changes. She writes here about Living in a fictional fashion writer called Sara B (note time when the pretentious second capital letter) who use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is the central charactertaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. And although Sara B is now in her middle yearsFrom here, she's still acting like ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a teenagersystem called Visible Speech. She's got At the younger boyfriend/loversame time, got the latest fashion look which she can deftly put her stamp Bell is working onother inventions and ideas, got the invites to the best parties and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the best venues with the must-be-seen-with minor celebritiesa complicated tangle of espionage. But - is she happy? I know, it seems a silly question, but is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778304337</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=Lola Shoneyin1472263936|title=The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's WivesFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is one of those books that you read with a smile on your face. It's full of gloriously unsavoury characters caught was in a terrible web of deceit1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. We are promised 'four women She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, one husband but Mary and a devastating secretHamish (Helena' and s parents) felt that it delivers on all three countswould be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Sure Her trip to the secret is quite well signposted and Shoneyin doesn't really make much family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of an effort several annual visits. She grew to divert love her grandmother and the reader from putting two and two togetherfamily's maid, although it takes wife number fourDina, Bolanlebut was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, an inordinate amount retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of time for his close connections to the penny Junta and expected his family to drop, uphold his values but itsaw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's not about discovering the deception red hair and green eyes - itinherited from her father's about the glorious journey of how things unfoldScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687497</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cornelius MedveiDean Koontz|title=Caroline: A MysteryAfter Death|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mr ShawMichael 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. He's an insurance worker who takes his wife and son off on their annual vacation one year, and finds Finding himself indulging in a surprisingly platonic holiday romance. The subject of his infatuationmakeshift mortuary, Carolinecovered in plastic, he has eyesa sense that something very, ears, hair very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and more that easily combine with Mr Shaw's fondness for classical Persian love poetry. At looks around at the end shrouded bodies of the holiday he lets his wife dead friends and son depart while he takes a further week off to walk all the way home with Carolineformer colleagues. Who isAs he recovers his senses, as it happens, a donkey.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553881</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steve Martin|title=An Object of Beauty|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Leave aside the title of the book for a minute, the book itself he realises that there is also something different about him; he can ''feel'an object of beauty' with its striking front cover and primary colours artfully arrangedeverything. And then I turned the book over and said to myself, oh, it's ''thatEverything'' Steve Martin. I knew he was - and is - a very funny actor but I didnMichael isn't know that he was also a writer. So, before I'd even opened the book I was thinking - will he be as good a writer as he is an actor. I was about to find out ..'Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297863290</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom CampbellB0BVDC2VWH|title=FoldThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Five men in Reading circulate their monthly poker evenings around their respective housesThe village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. None of them like all the others, none of them seem to completely like And the game, but they're morevillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants -orits bread-less happy with the habitlike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. It's The black wood of the way the five different personalities approach the evenings that we are concerned withforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and enjoy principallyeven gallows, especially when if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the poorest playervillage and that is the reason Volushka, Nicka drunken, decides to clash with his polar oppositeself-indulgent, Douglazy lout of a man is tolerated. And what might happen if a non-playing character were to enter things, and make them even feistier?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408807602</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francois LelordB0BYF82CXT|title=Hector and the Secrets of Love|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Professor Cormorant has gone AWOL. Tasked with developing drugs to cure a lot of ills, by making us fall in love, he has fled with his secrets, his prototypes, and a few samples that may or may not be dangerous. It is down to Hector, a psychiatrist, to chase him down, work out where Cormorant is in his researches, and if possible help bring the trade secrets back to the company his girlfriend, and now himself, works for. With the exotic far East his destination, a partner left behind, and time on his hand to muse on the subject of love, will Hector find more than just a bunch of chemicals in a syringe?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906040338</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSemi-Detached|author=Edward Wright|title=From BloodDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=While I'm not mad about the title, the book's cover is atmospherically good - it says to the reader 'please pick me up Bill and read me.' So I did. The book opens Amanda are living in 1960s America with the Prologue. A bunch of radical thinkers are angry. They turn this pent-up anger into a wellsemi-oileddetached house, well-ordered act stuck in a depressing rut of violenceboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Lives are lost. But Despite their different outlooks on life, the perpetrators are clever couples befriend each other and most of them escape justicelife appears to improve for both pairs. They do But all is not what many around the world have done before them; they go underground. But several key members it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are still at large fated for tragedy...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752891774</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David LindsleyShalini Boland|title=The Darkfall SwitchSilent Bride|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens on Alice and Seth are a sultry, hot summer's day match made in central Londonheaven. Imagine the stifling heat He is the subliminal message hereeverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, especially for those passengers on the underground funny; total and utter husband- ' material... as if they were She is all joined he could possibly want in some macabre dance as a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the train rattled along inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the tunnel. Everybody pressed against otherswedding is planned and set.' Suddenly there's a problem with When the infrastructure. A big problem. As much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the experts frantically work behind aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the scenes congregation – their friends assembled to get London moving again - celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the unthinkable happens. People lose their lives in what appears altar is, who is waiting for her to be a power cutbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>070909146X</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Lorber1787636003|title=Benny Allen Was A Star: A New York Music StoryThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=35
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alan Lorber has written a fictional It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and I suspect a semi autobiographical account of his years as a top music arranger in arrived on the 1950island. Rachel wasn's and early 1960'st exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, a period of huge change so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in the music industry culminating with the breakthrough of the Beatles in Americaher, she was flattered rather than wary. Rather than simply writing It was quite a factual narrative while before he made any sort of his involvement during this period he decided physical approach to tell the story of the fictional Benny Allenher and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, a classically trained musician who almost by accident gets involved in looking after his interests on the music publishing business island and then goes on to produce some hugely successful orchestrations on many of in particular in the top hit records of bar where all the timegirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0041VXCTA</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah HarknessAmanda Craig|title=A Discovery of WitchesThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Poland in Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the early 1990s, a violin sings-nation novel. The maestro There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who owns can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it produces such a music from , crafting an image of the country as it, people are forced to take notestands in one particular moment. They'd To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be even more amazed if embarrassingly inadequate: she could bring herself to state exactly how 's practically synonymous with the instrument came to begenre of contemporary social fiction at this point. For this was She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the work lives of Daniel, suffering her characters in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Stumbles, chances, half-lies, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour way that feels natural and engage in his reallived-world career. But is there a price to pay in doing something you love, just never making them ciphers for a man you can only hate?social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849016437</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bethan Darwin152915118X|title=Two Times Twenty|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=You can tell from the beginning of this novel that you're in Wales. The young Anna (as we travel back in time) is meeting what will be long-term friends, Bob and Jane. We find Anna rather proudly introducing her two young sons and Bob butting in with 'Duw, good-sized boys for their age ... Make good rugby players one day.' But the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190678423X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPineapple Street|author=Adrian Dawson|title=CODEXJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I read ''Pineapple Street'' is the resume on story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the back cover I immediately thought that it was going Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to be one of those high-octaneanother property, action every second paragrapha street or so away, type of thrillerswhich they own. All action They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and perhaps very little substanceCord can move straight in. I was happily proved wrongNominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. And very early on Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the novel, as well, which was goodGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956577008</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DurantineEmily Critchley|title=The Chocolate AssassinOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=In 84 year old Edie has lived in the final days of the Second World War 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 the allied guns came ever closer a young German was sent on a secret mission Edie is starting to Americalose her memory. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyoneHowever, including Edie is tormented by the U-boat captain memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who took him across went missing over 60 years ago, and the Atlantic, about worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the nature truth of his missionwhat happened all that time ago. Fifty five years later After 'seeing' Lucy in the U-boat captainhigh street, Eric Hoest, long settled in just as she was the Stateslast time she saw her, was murdered at his beach homeshe starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. Samuel GreyAnd yet as she remembers the past, police detective she is forgetting more and part-time student was called more in her day to investigate the murderday life. The local police chief thought that the most likely murderer was the neighbour who had reported the crime, but Grey suspected that Will she uncover the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoestabout Lucy's background.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1451579527</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=Jack Everett and David Coles0008506337|title=Last Mission: the last hours of the Third ReichThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet a couple of characters living The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the United Stateslove. A husband Richard was twenty-one and wife described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a relation of theirs called Paulglittering career. On In the surfaceevent, they appear to be enjoying happy, normal liveseloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. But all is not what is seemsMargo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. We soon find out that the husbandThe couple had three children: Rachel, Carl has some secretsImogen and Sasha. Pretty big ones. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - Life was lived in his London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home, for exampleon the Isle of Wight. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked Even then the doubts about, or rather whispered about, with a handful of trusted Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge'acquaintances' over a beer or two.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cathleen Schine1914585402|title=The Three Weissmanns of WestportDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with Joseph Weissmann, or Josie as he is known, deciding at the age I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of 78 that he no longer wants to be married to Betty after 48 years together. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences, but the truth is he has fallen head over heels in loveback and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Betty is devastatedIt was a gripping, her life in tattersemotionally wounding read, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to herand rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John IrvingLucy Ashe|title=Last Night in Twisted RiverClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We start in 1954The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, in twins no less. Identical on the middle of nowhereoutside but not, we learn, in a log-cutters' encampmenton the inside. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind of comfort - a decent jobAnd not on stage, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting iteither. But Because there's a pair of tragedies - one involving lot that builds a fatal work accident with a young teenager new dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to the jobdetail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', force that don't come from the pair to fleeclassroom. They leave behind A stage presence, a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impressioncharm, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a kind of safetyhard-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generationsworker, will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted Rivera star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony BaylissHeather Fawcett|title=Past ContinuousEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The authorEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by work, the suicide very first encyclopaedia of the author's sonfaeries.' Chapter 1 opens Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the reader being in no doubt that small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the schoolboy Matthew village matriarch, she is not sure what she has a knack with computersdone, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. HeEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's a bit of a whiz-kidfrustration. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit of a loner as well. But why is he here? He stands out at school for all the wrong reasons but What does he's coping with it - just. want? And early what exactly is going on in with the book we meet Sophie. She's a big part of this book. She's faerie folk around Matthew's age. She is bright and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good.Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Hayes1398515388|title=Someone Else's SonThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother First of teenagerall, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headedit was the earthquake, business-likedeep in the ocean floor, aloof which created the tsunami and rather distant but that's this, in turn, caused the whole point, of coursenuclear meltdown. Very good at her day jobThe result was complete and utter devastation. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programmeThe deaths were uncountable, dealing with well, basically and the dregs loss of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etclivelihoods was widespread. Carrie knows The fact that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but she keeps them at arm's length- six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. She wouldnHe wasn't want a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tellopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brooke MorganChristopher Bowden|title=TrappedMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ellie Walters Christopher Bowden's latest novel is 36, divorced and keen to start a new life away from her cheating and control-freak ex-husband. Fulfilling patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life-long dream, carried out by her nephew after she decides to take her 15-year-old son, Tim, to live with her in the small town of Bournehas died. As she soon becomes good friends with her next-door neighbour, Louisa Amory, Ellie finally feels she is making The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a life little bit of her own. She begins indulgence 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 young nephew had had a tragic accident nineteen years ago; memories which she would rather forget. It is clear much more interesting life than that someone has discovered her well-kept secret nephew Stephen had ever realised 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 seems to discover who her tormentor is. Vulnerable and afraid, she relies on Louisa's friendship him an obligation 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 find it all she can to escapeout.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099536285</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret AtwoodJennifer Mason|title=The Handmaid's TalePartitions of Unity|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the near-future USA that they call GileadHere at Bookbag Towers, society has changed. For the worsewe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, of course. The population is dying outdominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given unravelled a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted to any male series of enough esteem, called a Commander, who balances the household with his wife and what is practically a walking wombdisappearances. Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off to what are reported to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commander, and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch types. ItIn ''s up to our nameless narrator and main character, however, to show us just how cherished the status Partitions of Handmaid feels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carmine Abate|title=The Homecoming Party|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Every year young Marco eagerly awaits his fatherUnity''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 she sets her mind to work in Northern France doing hard manual work. In this way he manages to earn enough to help his family have solving a decent livingmurder. 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1933372834</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris KuzneskiWill Carver|title=The Secret CrownDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The riddle is the whole crux of the book. So we're taken right back, albeit briefly, to Bavaria Five strangers come together in the year 1886, via the Prologue. So, the scene is now set, foul play is most definitely afoot and lots of questions should pop into the reader's mind. Such one moment as who? Why? etc. So far, so good, I thought. We then fast-forward straight a suicide bomber prepares to present-day Germany and due to an unfortunate hunting accident, something which was detonate his vest on a secret, is no longerLondon tube line.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241952123</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Padgett Powell|title=The Interrogative Mood|rating=2.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=SoAs their fates overlap, what is a novel? Does it need a plot, 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 a book that explores what it is to be a novel, but without any preconditions. How far he succeeds is down to the individual reader. But I thought I'd give it a go.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683661</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ken Follett|title=Fall of Giants|rating=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 told in terms of classbackwards order, outlook, values etc. I have leading up 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-openfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230710077</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Linda SargentJennifer Mason|title=Paper WingsPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In ''A struggling poetry zine, a wood mom-and-pop mobile diner in Kent two children played happily and as is the way with children they sometimes went where they shouldn'tNorthern California redwoods, but it was a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the nineteen fifties and the worry was more about whether they would injure themselves by falling down an abandoned well than the problems which we worry over half 2004 Olympics, a century later. It was women's track coach with a place yen for plans and gamesbullwhips, projects they didn't always tell their parents about and generally growing up. Ruby loved climbing trees and longed to fly. Peter was more sensible but a billionaire with a state-of-the pair were inseparable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956483305</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michelle Paver|title=Dark Matter|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's January 1937 and dark clouds of impending war are gathering over Europe. Jack Miller is in London-art S&M dungeon, working as a clerk and living man serving a life sentence in one lonely room. He should probably think himself lucky because many people have neither job nor home in this Great DepressionAlabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), but he doesn't. He feels lonely and isolated and angry that on a career cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in research physics was snatched away from him by economic circumstanceGeorgia.. 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>}}''
}}
