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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Naomi WoodJenny Lecoat|title=The Godless BoysBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=BritainJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. 1986 During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. The country became a theocracy during As the British finally free the Channel islands from the 1950s Nazis, and since then outbreaks the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of secular terrorism have been dealt with by exilehim. The atheists have been sent to But will the Island where they can burn churches truth come as they please. Aside from a weekly boat bringing donated suppliesrelief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the exiled must shift as best they can on a remote snippet of land in radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the North Sea. occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330530127</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan BennettOnyi Nwabineli|title=Smut: Two Unseemly StoriesAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=Mrs DonaldsonAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, a widow in thanks to her fifties, spends an inordinate time in hospital, but she's not dying any quicker than the rest of us step- in fact, somethingmother Ophelia's keeping her young. Could it be the carnal goings-increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of the couple of student lodgers sheAnuri's using as an incomechildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, or basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is it that in her twenties and she's a patient simulator for young medical wannabes is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to give lots of attention get her life back, suing her step-mother to? take down the content about her. Or Anuri is it that battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, sheis 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 lead character in an Alan Bennett storysame time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846685257</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Patterson and Neil McMahon1529153298|title=ToysThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel has a very glamorous openingIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) WeShe's not what're at President Jacklins worrying Miv's inauguration party and the easy flow of narration gets me seamlessly and effortlessly into the storyfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. There are plenty of comments and observations pertaining to the super-duper hi-tech times of the storyWell, so as early as page 10 Hays and his beautiful wife Lizbeththey've been murdered, who are invitees, are attended but to by a well-trained and well-programmed have 'disappeared'doesn'iJeeves butlert sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she' I loved s overheard that phraseher father wants to move the family 'Down South'. It made me smile. The Bakers are an impressive and influential couple. As part of the When you'elite' society they expect re from Yorkshire, Down South is a flawlessfrightening, ordered life for themselves and their familyforeign place, best avoided. And Patterson then informs us that mere human beings have been relegated to menial work For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and most of them live pitiful lives and serves them right, apparently. Theyshe're despised but their labour is necessary ll do anything to oil the wheels of the important daily lives of the elitesprevent that. But She's not worried about the elites have extremely ambitious plansdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. Can they pull them off?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846057701</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louise Welsh1035906708|title=Naming the BonesDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Murray Watson is a Doctor We tend to think of English Literature embarking on a year-long sabbatical Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to pursue his long-held dream of writing the definitive biography of Archie Lunan andGreek parents in Manhattan, as a specifically intended by-productNew York, restore Lunanin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's poetry to its rightful place make it more manageable in the high canon States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of Scots creativityher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847672566</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anita ShreveAlexander McCall Smith|title=RescueThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When we meet Peter Webster he's The Perfect Passion Company is a rookie paramedic who takes dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an emergency call alternative to help a drunk driver who's been badly injured all the online apps in providing a car crashmore personal, tailored service. It was touch Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and go look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to whether or not Sheila Arsenault made it, but she did and afterwards Webster can't get her away for a while. Katie is coming out of his thoughtsa break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Every instinct tells him that he shouldn't get involved with her – that it'll mean trouble – but perhaps it was the longAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, shiningbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, dark hair that tipped thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the balance and Webster is involved in an intense love affairIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. He's also involved Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in Sheilaher abilities, and there's life – for better or for worse.always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408700735</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manu JosephDean Koontz|title=Serious MenThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Ayyan Mani Benny is having a Dalitterrifically bad day. He loses his job, an untouchablehe loses his fiancee, stuck in and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a flat in Mumbaireally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's slums but hopingpossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, somehow, for Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a better future for his sonnice person. A really nice person. Working at So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the Insitute of Theory and Research he uses all delivery to his cunning and wiles house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to stay ahead of the game amongst the Brahmin scientistshelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Does he have the intelligenceSpike is going to take care of Benny, and nerveswill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, to convince everyone that his sonif he, against all oddsBenny, is and Harper (a genius?waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philippe Claudel and Euan CameronKatherine Howe|title=Monsieur Linh and His ChildA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=From Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a war-ravaged country family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a bit like young age. When she hears there is to be a Vietnam or a Cambodia an old man carries hanging of some pirates in the fragile frame of his granddaughter aboard town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a refugeeyoung boy's ship, staring death at the receding horizon all the weeks it takes hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to arrive at sea, dressing as a city a bit like a Seattle or boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a New Yorkcabin boy. He She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and she from there we are given the basics caught up in her rip roaring tale of a new life together but it's up to him, Monsieur Linh, to find friendship, which he does, accepting uncomprehendingly on the chatty company of a fellow mourner called Barkocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694990</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ed Siegle1471180158|title=InvisiblesMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The closest Brighton usually gets to Brazil is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the pages subtlety of a dictionaryhalf brick. Jamie's son, Bo, but in 'has his problems'Invisibles'. He' s asthmatic and the two are drawn together in more you read, the life of Joel Burns, a thirty-five year old dentist who lives in Brighton as does his mother, Jackie, and partner Debbie from whom more you'll suspect that he is separated's on the autistic spectrum. When Joel sees Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a news clip of a bus hijack frequent flier in Rio de Janeiro, where Joel the local A&E and Jackie lived until Joel was ten, he is convinced that one of sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the bystanders is his Brazilian father. What makes this more unusual is that Jackie has always told Joel that his father is dead, although Joel has never quite bought into this story which is at least part of need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the cause of his problems with Debbiewrong. The solution? Head off It was going to come to Rio and see if he can track down this persona head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956559913</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael DhillonB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Cuckoo Parchment and the DykeRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tristan Jarry Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the world's most famous artist but strange, reclusive Bear, he's rather moved on is brought up far from selling his work for millions bustling cities and has just kidnapped Angelique Burrbusy human society, in the step-daughter forests of the President of the United StatesWashington's Olympic Peninsula. She's not an innocent child but an abused After Bear dies and abusing womana brief sojourn in human company, now a journalist and at times well able to hold her own armed with Jarry. He's got helpers though - and forward planning - and it's not long before Angelique finds herself involved in only a trail of destruction and death as Jarry works towards his purpose. He intends to resurrect Dadapirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the iconic movement founded in 1916 in Zurich with forest, broadcasting the intention of protesting against the war. He'll tell Angelique so much – but not what strange, wild and rarely heard voices he finally intends to doencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849235104</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Leo BenedictusSarah Marsh|title=The AfterpartyA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I opened the front cover and was confronted with the lines 'This book is differentAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. You've really never read Suddenly plunged into a book like this beforeworld of silence, everything about her life changes.' Confident words, I thought but will the book live up to this lofty expectation I now had? And Living in a time when I got round to reading the notes at the end use of the novel, I sign language was pleasantly surprised and also rather taken abackseen as something only savages do, I have Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to saylip read, but physically restrained from signing. SoFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a refreshing take on system called Visible Speech. At the modern work of fictionsame time, I thoughtBell is working on other inventions and ideas, as I started on Chapter Oneand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>022409114X</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=Alma Katsu1472263936|title=The TakerFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Dr Luke Findley begins his nightshift at Aroostook County Hospital It was in St Andrews1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, MaineGreek by birth, things are quiet until Lanny McIlvrae is brought in by had left the policefamily 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. Lanny is covered in blood and claims she has killed a man and left him Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the woodsfirst of several annual visits. Desperate She grew to escape, Lanny quickly asks for Lukelove her grandmother and the family's helpmaid, Dina, but he is not sure at firstwas wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, so Lanny decides retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to tell Luke her life story, a story that begins in the early Puritan settlement of St Andrews in 1809 Junta and spans nearly two hundred years, taking Lanny from her home expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to Boston and beyondaccommodate them. A story that is rich, imaginative and entirely authentic, filling the majority of the novel, and there wasnHis prejudices included Helena't a moment when I questioned her reliability as she tells Luke everything, chapter by chapter, as he helps her to escape, slowly drawing him s red hair and the reader into green eyes - inherited from her worldfather's Scottish ancestors. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846058171</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Aimee BenderDean Koontz|title=The Particular Sadness of Lemon CakeAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title Michael Mace, Head of this novel first caught my eye. How can food feel emotions? ActuallySecurity, at a top secret biological research facility, it is Rose among 55 people who discovers that die when she a virus is eating she can taste the feelings of the person who cooked or prepared the foodreleased in a bio-hazard accident. I was Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a bit worried sense that this initial gimmick of the book from which the title is taken would become annoyingsomething very, but really this is another very well-written bad has happened to him – and readable novel about growing only him – as he sits up in a dysfunctional family. Rose is about to turn 9 and looks around at the beginning, shrouded bodies of his dead friends and comes home to find her mother making her birthday cakeformer colleagues. She As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't resist tasting the cake, and at first it is delicious: 'Warm citrus-baked batter lightness enfolded by cool deep dark swirled sugar'. But then she has Michael'the sensation of shrinking, of upset, tasting a distance I somehow knew was connected to my mother'anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009953827X</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guillaume MussoB0BVDC2VWH|title=Where Would I Be Without You?The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I love the cover, which I think angles this book firmly towards women. With that old Beach Boys hit from the Sixties as the title, it encapsulates everything you need to know when choosing this bookThe village is isolated and poor. It's not really crime fiction, in that it lacks surrounded by a whodunnit aspect in favour Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of following the protagonistsforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, a French cop and a Scottish master criminaleven gallows, through a romantic entanglement and into the jaws of deathif needed. The interest fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in which of the two men will gain command of the other – village and who that is really driving the action – when both their attentions are focused on the same girlreason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906040346</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mischa HillerB0BYF82CXT|title=Shake OffSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Shake Off'' is the latest from the pen of Mischa HellerBill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, a student of the John Le Carre universe where the Spies had to Come In From The Cold. Set stuck in the 80s against a backdrop depressing rut of daggers boredom and cloaksdisappointment, wests when Terry and easts Fiona – glamorous, successful and defectors and double agents, Heller's protagonist, Michel Khoury, hooked very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on pain killers and posing as a studentlife, has been tasked with the unlikely mission of scouting for a Cambridge location in which couples befriend each other and life appears to host secret talks between those Palestinians and Israelis who seek a 'secular democratic state improve for Jewsboth pairs. But all is not what it seems, Christians and Muslimstheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846590884</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah WinmanShalini Boland|title=When God Was A RabbitThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When God Was Alice and Seth are a Rabbit match made in heaven. He is a book that tugs at the emotions in a sweet but uncompromising wayeverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. It's She is all he could possibly want in no way a RomCom but if you are a fan of that genre of filmwife; beautiful, successful, I would suggest that you might too enjoy this book as it shares many of confident… and so the traits if not inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the storylinewedding is planned and set. The analogy to a movie When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is apposite too walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as first time author Sarah Winmanshe surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's 'day job' is as an actor - world implodes because she has appeared recently in Holby Cityabsolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for exampleher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755379284</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam Meekings1787636003|title=The Book Girls of CrowsSummer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Having lived in China for a substantial period of timeIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, Sam Meekings has clearly soaked up a great deal of the culture; something he has already put so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to great effect take an interest in his first bookher, [[Under Fishbone Clouds by Sam Meekings|Under Fishbone Clouds]]she was flattered rather than wary. In The Book It was quite a while before he made any sort of Crows, his third book, he continues physical approach to show his talent as a non-Chinese raconteur of Chinese culture, but goes one step further her and by telling a story that spans several periods of Chinese historytime she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, thereby giving looking after his interests on the reader a glimpse into different people's livesisland and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971721</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel SimonAmanda Craig|title=The Story of Beautiful GirlThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book begins with widow Martha, an exFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-teacher in her seventies living alone in her farmhouse in the Pennsylvanian countryside-nation novel. MarthaThere's life is filled with lonelinesssomething so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, a phone that never rings, and she rarely sees other peoplecrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. But all To say that Amanda Craig is set to change one rainy night in 1968 when Lynnie and Homan knock on Marthaskilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's doorpractically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Lynnie and Homan have escaped from The School She has such a gift for weaving the Incurable and Feebleminded, a harsh institution where people with disabilities are kept away from the rest ongoing issues of the world. Martha takes day into the couple lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and soon discovers that Lynnie is carrying a new born babylived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184809339X</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henry Sutton152915118X|title=Get Me Out Of HerePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hapless (and you could also say hopeless) Matt ''Pineapple Street'' is fed up with his rather sad the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and unexciting lifeGeorgiana. So, at every opportunity he wants Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to spice it up a bittheir brother Cord. But does this strategy work? WeThey're barely pages Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the book when we see that Matt is an out-and-out snobtribe. He knows all The problem's exacerbated when the designer labels for the best clothesclan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the best shoes (handmadePineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, natch)a street or so away, the best champagne label ... I think you may get my drift herewhich they own. ThatThey won's finet need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. As long as you can pay for this high lifeNominally, whatthey had a choice but that wasn's t the problem? reality. Well, MattDarley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 's problem is cash - or the distinct lack of itgold digger'. He She's down on his financial luck at the minute living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate itto 'the GD's time to try another angle ...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535629</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joolz DenbyEmily Critchley|title=The Curious Mystery of Miss Lydia Larkin and the Widow MarvellOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I was 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a bit surprised by this book when it arrivedmove 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. Joolz Denby However, Edie is a punk poettormented by the memory of her childhood friend, and has written four noir crime novelsLucy, including Billie Morganwho went missing over 60 years ago, longlisted and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the Orange Prizething that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. This quirky little novella with a long title features a large black cat and recipes at After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming backto her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Has Joolz really written a cosy Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956778607</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Dinsdale0008506337|title=Three MilesThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Captain Abraham Matthews is so desperate to catch the villainous Albie Crowe 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 love. Richard was twenty-one and bring the youngster to justice described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that some people Richard's influence would say he was obsessedtake her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. After six months, Matthews has finally tracked down his prey In the event, they eloped and captures him just three miles Richard took her away from the police stationIsle of Wight. But with Albie's boys trying Margo did go to Oxford and went on to rescue himbecome a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, other men without Abraham's moral compass more interested Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in vengeance than justiceLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, and the Luftwaffe dropping bombs family home on Leeds, this is set to be the longest three miles of either Isle of their lives.Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057126025X</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kim Edwards1914585402|title=The Lake of DreamsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The I reviewed David F Ross's book opens with [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a lovely couple of years back and intriguing sentence - 'My name is Lucy Jarrett remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and before I knew about the girl in the window ... I found myself living in a village near the sea in Japan.' Who could fail to be drawn into a story after reading that, I thoughtaffecting it was. I It was hooked immediately. Edwards gives us a fleeting taste of life in Japangripping, particularly the importance (almost reverence) of nature and gardensemotionally wounding read, public and private. This sets the tone for the novel which is captivating and interesting, but put together beautifully, unhurriedrereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0142428396</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nikesh ShuklaLucy Ashe|title=Coconut UnlimitedClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It The year is the early 19901933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and AmitOlivia are sisters, Anand and Nishant are three young Asian boys in an all white private school. As such they are considered massively uncool by default. Too bad then that their Asian peers in the North London Gujarati enclave known as Harrow think that they are a bunch of stuck up toffstwins no less. Soft. Weak. No street cred whatsoever. Worst of all they are labelled as 'Coconuts' (brown Identical on the outsidebut not, we learn, white on the inside). ThereAnd not on stage, either. Because there's only one thing for it - start a hip-hop bandlot that builds a dancer. The fact Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that they don't have any songs, talent or initially any idea what hip-hop actually sounds like isn't really a problem. As everyone knows, forming a band makes you je ne sais quoi'pretty cool' and after , that the girls simply fall at your feet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704372045</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elizabeth Haynes|title=Into The Darkest Corner|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=The book didndon't actually look that appealing. The cover is on come from the sepia side of dullclassroom. I didnA stage presence, a charm, a ''t know the authorjoie de vivre's name and the title didn't really grab me. When I started reading we were straight into the transcript of The difference between a court case in which it seemed that a police officer was being questioned in court about his relationship with a woman. He was accused of being violent to herhard-worker, but it seemed that the boot was really on the other foot. Then we were into and a story – or even two stories – with two time lines some four years apart. Within ten minutes I couldn't put it downstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251579</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben PastorHeather Fawcett|title=LumenEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=CracowEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, Polandand she has travelled extensively, October 1939: The Germans have recently occupied Poland and are seeking researched meticulously, to establish their authority. Captain Martin Bora write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of the Wehrmacht (the German army) has just arrived in the city from the battlefield to take up a posting to Intelligencefaeries. His boss asks Bora to drive him to a convent every day Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to see the renowned Abbessfaeries, rumoured to have mystic and healing powersshe is not so good with people. A few days later, though So when she finds herself far, she is found shot dead far North in the grounds small village of her convent. Bora Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is asked not sure what she has done, nor how to investigate redeem herself and report put her final investigations for her book backon the right track. He proceeds to investigate who shot Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and whyinsufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, but as his investigation continuesall charm and delight, there are more questions for Bora and the readermuch to Emily's frustration. Where But why is he here? What does this case fit in he want? And what exactly is going on with the priorities of the occupying forcesfaerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904738664</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jake Wallis Simons1398515388|title=The English German GirlBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When First of all, it began it wasn't pleasantwas the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, but there was hope that it would get bettercaused the nuclear meltdown. Rosa's father, Otto The result was a doctor complete and she lived with him, her mother, Ingautter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, elder brother Heinrich and younger sister Hedi in a pleasant flat in Berlinthe loss of livelihoods was widespread. The turn fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of opinion against Jews was slow – an antipriorities but -Jewish pin handed to Rosa as she went shopping, friends who felt that they couldn't remain such obvious friends – certainly for six months after the time being – and tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a change of employment for Ottoconvenience store. It was better for He wasn't a dog person but the patients if they didnconvenience store owner't have contact with him, even if s comment that he was a good doctorwould call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971764</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nathacha AppanahChristopher Bowden|title=The Last Brother|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Raj and his two beloved brothers live on a Mauritian sugar plantation. World War II rages far away and close too, but Raj is blissfully unaware of anything beyond his immediate surroundings. Life is poor and hard and Raj'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>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Bale|title=Terror's ReachMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=WeChristopher Bowden're on the south coast of England in the middle s latest novel is a patient untangling of a hot summer in a very upmarket enclaveseemingly ordinary woman's life, not dissimilar to Sandbanks, along the coast a bitcarried out by her nephew after she has died. The locals are going about their business, about their daily lives aunt who always provided a safe harbour and Bale obligingly introduces them a little bit of indulgence to us one by one and also gives us an idea of their respective backgrounds, their family members and even some of the house designs ' ... each home a young nephew had had a private jetty' for example.. New money is also apparent along with ostentatious taste. What's also apparent is much more interesting life than that trouble's afoot. Big timenephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090765</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daphne KalotayJennifer Mason|title=Russian WinterPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel's structure goes back and forth from the past to the present day. The book opens with NinaHere at Bookbag Towers, now elderlywe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in pain [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and in unravelled a wheelchair: waiting to die basicallyseries of disappearances. And even although sheIn ''Partitions of Unity''s lived an interesting life, now all she has for company is sets her mind to solving a daily home-helpmurder. I was struck straight away by how prickly Nina is and I could feel all those emotions seething underneath the surface. So the question is - why has she decided to sell some of her exquisite jewellery. Is it to help pay the bills? Or some other reason? We find out by degrees.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553244</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott MarianiWill Carver|title=The Lost RelicDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ben Hope went to Italy Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to visit a former SAS comrade and offer him a job, but he's got marriage and happiness – and Ben's trade is far from the front of his mind. It's whilst he's driving away that Ben nearly runs down a small boy and unwittingly walks into a deadly heist which will see the boy and his mother – and many others – brutally murdered. It's only the beginning for Ben though as he find himself fleeing for detonate his life and accused of murder. When the state needs to act people – even heroes – are disposable.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561977</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diane Janes|title=Why Don't You Come For Me?|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Over a decade ago Jo's daughter was abducted from in front of a shop whilst she and her husband were on holiday. The pushchair was found vest on a cliff edge but there was no trace of Lauren, even on the beach belowLondon tube line. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture of her daughter on the front simply saying that the writer still has Lauren. The policeAs their fates overlap, 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 of trouble to keep track of her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849011257</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=G S Mattu|title=Sons and Fascination|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=This book concentrates on emotions. Take an impressionable young man, add told in a chance (?) encounter with an attractive older woman and then stand well back as the fireworks explode and as familybackwards order, friends and colleagues get sucked in leading up to their deepening relationship. I must say I'm not keen on the title (a little pretentious for a work of fiction in my opinion and more suited to poetry) and even when it was ever so gently explained later on in the book (twice) I still didn't warm to it. All in all, not off to the greatest of startsfateful moment. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907756000</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip WildingJennifer Mason|title=Cross Country Murder SongPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(unnameds, x) central character in , on a therapy session in downtown New York. The air is charged and tension is present, big-time. This is one troubled human being. And of coursecheap oil painting, childhood issues and experiences are dominant an erotic art dealer in this question and answer sessionGeorgia. We soon find out that this individual has secrets in his basement. It all becomes too much, he packs a bag and hits the road and so the story starts proper.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>}}''
}}
