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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael DhillonJenny Lecoat|title=The Cuckoo Parchment and the DykeBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tristan Jarry is the world's most famous artist but he's rather moved Jean lives on from selling his work for millions and has just kidnapped Angelique Burr, the step-daughter of Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the President end of the United Statesoccupation. SheDuring the war, Jean's not an innocent child but an abused father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and abusing womansoldiers took him away one night, now a journalist leaving Jean and at times well able to hold her own with Jarrymother waiting for years for news of him. He's got helpers though - As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and forward planning - and it's not long before Angelique finds herself involved in a trail the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of destruction and death as Jarry works towards his purposehim. He intends to resurrect DadaBut will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the iconic movement founded in 1916 in Zurich with informer who told the intention of protesting against Nazis about the war. radio? He'll tell Angelique so much – but not And what he finally intends to do.other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849235104</amazonuk>1846976537
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leo BenedictusOnyi Nwabineli|title=The AfterpartyAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I opened Anuri spent her childhood on display to the front cover and was confronted with the lines world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia'This book is different. Yous increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri've really never read a book like this befores childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain.' Confident wordsNow Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, I thought but will suing her step-mother to take down the book live up to this lofty expectation I now had? content about her. And when I got round Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to reading the notes at the end of the novelstart her PhD, I was pleasantly surprised undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and also rather taken aback, I have to sayreceiving money from them for doing so. SoMost importantly, a refreshing take on she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the modern work new focus of fictionOphelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, I thought, as I started on Chapter One.and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>022409114X</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Baddiel1529153298|title=The Death List of Eli GoldSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eli Gold is recognized as the It'the greatest living writer' - although his claim to this s 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is slipping by by the day as he is on his death bedPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... He) She's not a nice character - his attitudes to his five wives and his children are deplorable and he has been bound up in his own what'genius'. Hes worrying Miv's a bit like the best and the worst of Saul Bellowfamily, Philip Roth and Norman Mailer combinedthough. Women have been disappearing. Now dying in hospital in New York Well, the book explores this event from the perceptive of four people in his life; his eight year oldthey've been murdered, precocious daughter by his current wife; his first wife watching on the news from an old peoplebut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's home in England; the angst-ridden son of his third marriage, himself a pale imitation of the author overheard that his her father is; and a mysterious fourth character who appears wants to have a very different motive for seeing Gold snr and who may be linked to Goldmove the family 'Down South'. When you's fourth wife who died in re from Yorkshire, Down South is a mutual suicide pact with her then-husbandfrightening, foreign place, from which Eli survivedbest avoided. (In fact his identity is revealed in For Miv, the publisher's blurb on the jacketmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, but Iand she'll let you decide if you want do anything to know this prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to let the story unfold as I did)anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007270836</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alma Katsu1035906708|title=The TakerDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Dr Luke Findley begins his nightshift at Aroostook County Hospital We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in St AndrewsManhattan, MaineNew York, things are quiet until Lanny McIlvrae is brought in by the police. Lanny is covered in blood December 1923 and claims only moved to Athens when she has killed a man and left him in the woodswas thirteen. Desperate Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to escape, Lanny quickly asks for Luke's help, but he is not sure at first, so Lanny decides Callas' to tell Luke her life story, a story that begins make it more manageable in the early Puritan settlement of St Andrews in 1809 and spans nearly two hundred years, taking Lanny from her home to Boston and beyondStates. A story When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that is rich, imaginative and entirely authentic, filling the majority of the novel, and there wasn't a moment when I questioned she could get appropriate training for her reliability as voice - she tells Luke everything, chapter was raised under the Nazi occupation by chapter, as he helps a mother who mercilessly exploited her to escape, slowly drawing him and the reader into made no secret of her preference for her worldelder sister, Jackie. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058171</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aimee BenderAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Particular Sadness of Lemon CakePerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title of this novel first caught my eyePerfect 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. How can food feel emotions? Actually Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, it as Ness is Rose who discovers that when she planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is eating she can taste the feelings coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the person who cooked or prepared the foodchance to come home to Edinburgh. I was a bit worried that And so begins this initial gimmick of the book new story from which Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the title is taken would become annoyingIsabel Dalhousie novels, but really this is another very well-written and readable novel about growing up with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a dysfunctional family. Rose is about to turn 9 at the beginningbusiness, and comes home to find her mother or in match-making , but Ness has full confidence in her birthday cake. She can't resist tasting the cakeabilities, and at first it is delicious: there'Warm citrus-baked batter lightness enfolded by cool deep dark swirled sugar'. But then she has 'the sensation of shrinkings always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, of upsetWilliam, tasting to lend a distance I somehow knew was connected to my mother'.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009953827X</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guillaume MussoDean Koontz|title=Where Would I Be Without You?The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=I love the coverBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, which I think angles this book firmly towards womenand his house gets trashed. With Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that old Beach Boys hit from whoever or whatever was inside is the Sixties as thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the title, it encapsulates everything you need very last person to know when choosing deserve all this bookbad luck. It's not He is a nice person. A really crime fiction, in nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that it lacks the delivery to his house is a whodunnit aspect in favour of following the protagonistsnew friend, a French cop and a Scottish master criminalbad weather friend called Spike, through who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a romantic entanglement and into the jaws of deathgood person. The interest Spike is in which going to take care of the two men Benny, and will gain command certainly take care of the other – Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who is really driving the action – when both their attentions finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are focused on the same girl.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906040346</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mischa HillerKatherine Howe|title=Shake OffA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Shake Off'' Hannah Masury is the latest from the pen of Mischa Hellerliving in Boston, having been sent to live with a student of the John Le Carre universe where the Spies had family who run an inn, and being made to Come In From The Coldwork there from a young age. Set When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the 80s against a backdrop of daggers and cloakstown, wests she decides to go and easts watch. Enthralled and defectors and double agentshorrified in equal measure, HellerHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's protagonistdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, Michel Khouryso that they don't find and kill her too, hooked on pain killers and posing then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a student, has been tasked with boy and joining the unlikely mission of scouting for notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a Cambridge location cabin boy. She soon finds herself in which to host secret talks between those Palestinians and Israelis who seek the thick of things when there is a 'secular democratic state for Jewsmutiny on board, Christians and Muslims'from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846590884</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Winman1471180158|title=When God Was A RabbitMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When God Was Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a Rabbit is man who's a book that tugs at control freak with all the emotions in subtlety of a sweet but uncompromising wayhalf brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. It He's in no way a RomCom but if asthmatic and the more you are a fan of that genre of filmread, I would suggest the more you'll suspect that you might too enjoy this book as it shares many of he's on the traits if not the storylineautistic spectrum. The analogy Sometimes Jamie needs to a movie is apposite too as first take time author Sarah Winmanoff at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo'day job' is as an actor - she has appeared recently s not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in Holby City, for examplethe wrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755379284</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam MeekingsB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Book of CrowsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Having lived Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in China for a substantial period the forests of time, Sam Meekings has clearly soaked up Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a great deal of the culture; something he has already put to great effect brief sojourn in his first book, [[Under Fishbone Clouds by Sam Meekings|Under Fishbone Clouds]]. In The Book of Crows, his third bookhuman company, he continues to show his talent as and armed with only a non-Chinese raconteur of Chinese culturepirate radio transmitter, but Petr goes one step further by telling on a story that spans several periods of Chinese historyjourney through the forest, thereby giving broadcasting the reader a glimpse into different people's livesstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971721</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel SimonSarah Marsh|title=The Story A Sign of Beautiful GirlHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book begins with widow MarthaAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, an ex-teacher in Ellen Lark loses her seventies living alone in her farmhouse in the Pennsylvanian countrysidehearing. Martha's life is filled with loneliness, Suddenly plunged into a phone that never ringsworld of silence, and she rarely sees other peopleeverything about her life changes. But all that is set to change one rainy night Living in 1968 a time when Lynnie and Homan knock on Martha's door. Lynnie and Homan have escaped from The School for the Incurable and Feeblemindeduse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a harsh institution school where people with disabilities are kept away she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the rest of the worlddeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. Martha takes At the couple same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in and soon discovers that Lynnie is carrying a new born babycomplicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809339X</amazonuk>1035401614
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry SuttonB0BC3YTCMR|title=Get Me Out Of HereGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hapless (and you could also say hopeless) Matt ''This story is fed up with his rather sad and unexciting lifenot for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. SoShe was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, at every opportunity he wants and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to spice hug her in case it up a bit's contagious. But does this strategy work? WeIt're barely pages into the book when we see that Matt s not easy being a black girl whose skin is an out84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-andyear-out snobold Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. He knows all the designer labels for the best clothes, the best shoes (handmade, natch), the best champagne label Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him... I think you may get my drift here She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. That's fineShe went to his house and he raped her. As long as you can pay for this high life, what's the problem? WellIn shock, Matt's problem is cash - or the distinct lack of it. He's down on his financial luck at the minute so it's time she even allowed him to try another angle give her a lift home...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535629</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Joolz DenbyVictoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta 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.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Curious Mystery After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Miss Lydia Larkin 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 Widow Marvellshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a bit surprised Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by this book when it arrivedfarming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. Joolz Denby is a punk poetThe black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and has written four noir crime novelseven gallows, including Billie Morganif needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, longlisted for the Orange Prize. This quirky little novella with a long title features drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a large black cat and recipes at the backman is tolerated. Has Joolz really written a cosy?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956778607</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert DinsdaleB0BYF82CXT|title=Three MilesSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Captain Abraham Matthews is so desperate to catch the villainous Albie Crowe ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and bring the youngster to justice that some people would say he was obsessed. After six monthsdisappointment, Matthews has finally tracked down his preywhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and captures him just three miles from very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the police stationcouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But with Albie's boys trying to rescue him, other men without Abraham's moral compass more interested in vengeance than justiceall is not what it seems, and the Luftwaffe dropping bombs on Leeds, this is set to be the longest three miles of either of their livesincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057126025X</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antoinette Van HuegtenShalini Boland|title=Saving MaxThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The one-page Prologue sees us at the scene of the crimeAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. Two teenagers He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and a lot of blood utter husband- one of whom will not survivematerial. Seems like an open-and-shut case - but She is it? We then go back all he could possibly want in time to a medical consulting room in downtown New Yorkwife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. Hot-shot lawyer and timeWhen the much-pressedanticipated day arrives, single mum Danielle Alice is trying to understand walked down the aisle by her severely disabled son. Even allowing for father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the normal teenage angst congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and racing hormoneswhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, things are not good Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at home. She knows it. Max knows it. And the medical profession at largealtar is, know it. Something needs who is waiting for her to be done before things get out of handbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778304086</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Edwards1787636003|title=The Lake Girls of DreamsSummer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with a lovely It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and intriguing sentence - 'My name is Lucy Jarrett Caroline went backpacking around Greece and before I knew about the girl in arrived on the window ... I found myself living in a village near the sea in Japanisland. Rachel wasn' Who could fail t exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to be drawn into a story after reading thattake an interest in her, I thoughtshe was flattered rather than wary. I It was hooked immediately. Edwards gives us quite a fleeting taste while before he made any sort of life in Japan, particularly the importance (almost reverence) of nature physical approach to her and gardens, public and privateby that time she was obsessed by him. This sets the tone Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the novel which is captivating island and interesting, but put together beautifully, unhurriedin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0142428396</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nikesh ShuklaAmanda Craig|title=Coconut UnlimitedThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It is Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the early 1990-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and Amitcapture it, Anand and Nishant are three young Asian boys crafting an image of the country as it stands in an all white private school. As such they are considered massively uncool by defaultone particular moment. Too bad then To say that their Asian peers in Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the North London Gujarati enclave known as Harrow think that they are a bunch genre of stuck up toffscontemporary social fiction at this point. Soft. Weak. No street cred whatsoever. Worst She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of all they are labelled as 'Coconuts' (brown on the outside, white on day into the inside). There's only one thing for it - start lives of her characters in a hipway that feels natural and lived-hop band. The fact that they don't have any songsin, talent or initially any idea what hip-hop actually sounds like isn't really a problem. As everyone knowsnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, forming a band makes you 'pretty cool' and after that the girls simply fall at your feetgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704372045</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elizabeth Haynes152915118X|title=Into The Darkest CornerPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=The book didn't actually look that appealing'Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. The cover Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is on the sepia side of dullmarried to their brother Cord. I didnThey're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't know readily accepted into the authortribe. The problem's name exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the title didn't really grab mePineapple Street property. When I started reading we were straight into the transcript of Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a court case in street or so away, which it seemed that a police officer was being questioned they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in court about his relationship with a woman. He was accused of being violent to herNominally, they had a choice but it seemed that wasn't the boot was really on the other footreality. Then we were into a story – or even two stories – with two time lines some four years apartDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. Within ten minutes I couldn She's living in ''their''t put family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it downto 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251579</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben PastorEmily Critchley|title=LumenOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Cracow, Poland, October 1939: The Germans have recently occupied Poland and are seeking to establish their authority. Captain Martin Bora of the Wehrmacht (the German army) 84 year old Edie has just arrived lived in the city from the battlefield to take up same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a posting move as her son wants to Intelligence. His boss asks Bora move to drive him another house and bring Edie to a convent every day live with his family, as Edie is starting to see lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the renowned Abbessmemory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, rumoured to have mystic and healing powersthe worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. A few days later, though After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she is found shot dead in was the grounds of last time she saw her convent. Bora is asked , she starts to investigate and report find pockets of memories coming back. He proceeds to investigate who shot her and why, but . And yet as his investigation continuesshe remembers the past, there are she is forgetting more questions for Bora and the readermore in her day to day life. Where does this case fit in with Will she uncover the priorities of the occupying forcestruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904738664</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jake Wallis SimonsMadelaine Lucas|title=The English German Girl|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=When it began it wasn't pleasant, but there was hope that it would get better. Rosa's father, Otto was a doctor and she lived with him, her mother, Inga, elder brother Heinrich and younger sister Hedi in a pleasant flat in Berlin. The turn of opinion against Jews was slow – an anti-Jewish pin handed to Rosa as she went shopping, friends who felt that they couldn't remain such obvious friends – certainly Thirst for the time being – and a change of employment for Otto. It was better for the patients if they didn't have contact with him, even if he was a good doctor.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971764</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nathacha Appanah|title=The Last BrotherSalt|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Raj and his two beloved brothers live on ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a Mauritian sugar plantation. World War II rages far away light and close tooweightless feeling, but Raj is blissfully unaware of anything beyond his immediate surroundings. Life is poor and hard and RajI had always longed for gravity''s father takes out the privations of his life on his sons and his wife - drunken beatings are a regular occurrence. But his mother is loving and kind, and skilled at healing, and his brothers are constant playmates. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849164010</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daphne Kalotay0008506337|title=Russian WinterThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novellove affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently 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'. Her parents worried that Richard's structure goes back and forth influence would take her away from the past what they felt she could achieve - going to the present dayOxford and having a glittering career. The book opens with NinaIn the event, now elderly, in pain they eloped and in a wheelchair: Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. waiting Margo did go to die basicallyOxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. And even although she's lived an interesting lifeThe couple had three children: Rachel, now all she has for company is a daily home-helpImogen and Sasha. I Life was struck straight away by how prickly Nina is lived in London and I could feel all those emotions seething underneath holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the surfaceIsle of Wight. So Even then the question is - why has doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she decided would never be able to sell some of her exquisite jewellery. Is it to help pay the bills? Or some other reason? We find out by degreesleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099553244</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Janes1914585402|title=Why Don't You Come For Me?Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over a decade ago JoI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's daughter was abducted from in front Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of a shop whilst she years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and her husband were on holidayaffecting it was. The pushchair It was found on a cliff edge but there was no trace of Laurengripping, even on the beach below. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture of her daughter on the front simply saying that the writer still has Lauren. The policeemotionally wounding read, the people who know what happened believe the cards to be a hoax. Jo believes differently. She also realises that as she has moved house and remarried and the story has faded from press attention someone is going to a great deal rereading my review of trouble to keep track of herit my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849011257</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=G S MattuLucy Ashe|title=Sons Clara and FascinationOlivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book concentrates on emotionsThe year is 1933. Take an impressionable young man, add in a chance (The place?) encounter with an attractive older woman Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and then stand well back as Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the fireworks explode and as familyoutside but not, we learn, friends and colleagues get sucked in to their deepening relationshipon the inside. I must say I'm And not keen on the title (stage, either. Because there's a little pretentious for lot that builds a work of fiction in my opinion and more suited dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to poetry) detail – and even when it was ever so gently explained later on in some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the book (twice) I still didnclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''t warm to it. All in allThe difference between a hard-worker, not off to the greatest of startsand a star. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907756000</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip WildingHeather Fawcett|title=Cross Country Murder SongEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with the (unnamed) central character in a therapy session in downtown New York. The air is charged and tension is present, big-time. This Emily Wilde is one troubled human being. And of coursean expert academic scholar on faerie lore, childhood issues and experiences are dominant in this question and answer session. We soon find out that this individual she has secrets in his basement. It all becomes too muchtravelled extensively, he packs a bag and hits researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the road and so the story starts proper.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Asa Jones|title=The Illustrated Mind very first encyclopaedia of Mike Reeves|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Mike Reeves doesn't have his troubles to seekfaeries. His wife was brutally raped some four or five years ago Whilst she is brilliant at research and whilst she might seem speaking to be recovered faeries, she cannot stand to be touched by a man – any man, Mike includedis not so good with people. Quite suddenly Mike was aloneSo when she finds herself far, far North in every way – until he found himself drawn to the darker arts and began to dabble in Tarotsmall village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the Runes village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and I Chingput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. He's guided by two spirits. Sean is a wise Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and benevolent older man insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Debbiedelight, well she… isnmuch to Emily'ts frustration. She's the one who satisfies Mike's sexual needs. If that's all sounding rather good, then hesitate a moment, for with the good comes the bad and the bad But why is in the form of Tony a (very) real-life gangster who's been doing his own dabbling in the spirit world. he here? When their worlds clash Mike has a problem which could well be more than What does he can handle.want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>160693905X</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Forster1398515388|title=Diary of an Ordinary WomanThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After reading First of all, it was the introductionearthquake, I couldn't help but sneak a sly read at deep in the author's note right at ocean floor, which created the end of tsunami and this, in turn, caused the novelnuclear meltdown. I don't usually do this. I'm glad I did as the information is both surprising The result was complete and revelatoryutter devastation. Back to the beginning The deaths were uncountable, and Chapter 1 ... We meet the 13 year old Millicent in 1914loss of livelihoods was widespread. By her written statements and recorded mannerisms, we see The fact that she's a girl who knows her own mind. For example, she thinks writing in her diary every single day could be dull and boring so she's made a golden rule that she's only going to write something many pets were separated from their owners came far down when she feels like it. Some may call her precocious the list of priorities but I liked Millicent right from - six months after the start. Courtesy of her diary we find out that she's part of tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a large and boisterous familyconvenience store. She doesnHe wasn't appreciate all the noise and chatter from her siblings. She craves peace and quiet to think and to read. She's a prolific reader. She also believes that she's smart and clever and wants to 'do' something with her life when she grows up. She's not sure what exactly dog person but she certainly doesn't want to be a mere housewife and mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099449285</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Matt Dunn|title=The Accidental Proposal|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Edward Middleton seems like a pretty decent guy. He always stops to buy a Big Issues from Billy, a local homeless man and he takes his elderly widowed neighbour shopping once a week. These are some of the reasons why his girlfriend, Sam, loves him so much. One night, after a friendconvenience store owner's wedding, Sam asks Ed if comment that he would also like to get married call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to which Ed enthusiastically replies 'yes'. However, the following morning, whilst nursing open his hangover, he cannot work out if it was a hypothetical question or an actual proposal. His best mate Dan is no help at all car door and is quite incredulous that anyone should ever want to marry EdTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847395244</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William StyronChristopher Bowden|title=The Suicide RunMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman'A Storm In s life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The Blood'' is based on aunt who always provided a true story involving the police force safe harbour and the government a little bit of the day trying indulgence to suppress racial tensions in early 20th century London. It has resonance for our modern times as we grapple with similar situations a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and problemsit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Allegra GoodmanJennifer Mason|title=The Cookbook CollectorPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''The Cookbook CollectorPartitions of Unity'' is all about emotions. Concentrating on two, young, American women who are vastly different in many areas of their lives and also on their outlook on life, Goodman digs deeper she sets her mind to find out what makes them tick - what makes them get up in the morningsolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848875398</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Craig SmithWill Carver|title=Cold RainThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life was pretty good for Dr David Albo. He'd just had fifteen months away from his job Five strangers come together in one moment as an associate professor of English at a university in the mid-western USA. He lived on a plantation-style farmhouse with a beautiful and intelligent wife and a step-daughter who adored him. He was even going back suicide bomber prepares to work in the expectation that he might well be offered a full professorship in the not-too-distant future and just to put the icing detonate his vest on the cake he's been clear of alcohol for two years. Yes; life was very good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190580234X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anna Gavalda|title=Consolation|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We meet Charles, the main character right at the start. And straight away, it's no secret that, as a middle-aged professional (he's an architect and a successful one at that) he's jadedLondon tube line. Been-thereAs their fates overlap, done-that and got-the-bloody-tee-shirt just about sums him up pretty well. He's acquired (somehow) a beautiful, witty and clever partner and also a step-daughter whom he adores. As the story deepensis told in backwards order, I soon acknowledged that the step-daughter seems leading up to be about the only true love in his life. He's luke-warm about the rest of his family and that includes his partner and his ageing parents. Is this man going through some mid-life crisis, would be an obvious question to askfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531925</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam HawkenJennifer Mason|title=The Dead Women of JuarezPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=They say that ''A struggling poetry zine, a good idea is to write about what you know. Wellmom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, Klaffke seems to have heeded that piece of advice. She writes here about a fictional fashion writer called Sara B (note the pretentious second capital letter) 400-meter hurdler who is just missed the central character. And although Sara B is now in her middle years2004 Olympics, shea women's still acting like track coach with a teenager. She's got the younger boyfriend/loveryen for bullwhips, got the latest fashion look which she can deftly put her stamp on, got the invites to the best parties in the best venues a billionaire with the musta state-beof-seenthe-with minor celebrities. But - is she happy? I knowart S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), it seems on a silly questioncheap oil painting, but is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304337</amazonuk>}}an erotic art dealer in Georgia...''
}}
