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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben BrooksJenny Lecoat|title=Grow UpBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The back cover blurb tells us that Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the mentally ill (for whatever reason or reasons) are still stigmatised by various sectors end of societythe occupation. I would agreeDuring 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. I then flip As the book over to British finally free the front cover which has Channel islands from the words 'Nazis, and the mental health publisher' and straight away some war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of us may already be making him. But will the truth come as a judgement (perhaps unfairly too) before they even open relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the book. war? Perhaps this up-front honesty by Who was the publisher negates somewhat informer who told the terrific title and terrific graphics of Nazis about the cover. Just my own personal opinion here. radio? The publishing company is being supported by And what other secrets have been kept throughout the Arts Council, England.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849915261</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ira LevinOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Stepford WivesAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='It can't be a coincidence that Stepford women are all Anuri spent her childhood on display to the way they areworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia' says Bobbies increasingly popular presence on social media, Joanna Eberhartwhere she posted every step of Anuri's only friend childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in Stepfordher twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Joanna has recently come Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to live in the idyllic suburban town of Stepford with start her husband PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and two childrenreceiving money from them for doing so. She Most importantly, she is an independent woman with desperately worried about her own part-time career as a photographerlittle sister, who is intelligentthe new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, liberated and has a keen interest in feminism. perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849015899</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Summer Wood1529153298|title=WreckerThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I found the book title intriguing It's 1979 and wondered if Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Imean, honestly...) She'd got caught up in some demolition yard story by mistakes not what's worrying Miv's family, though. WoodWomen have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, at some stage in the book does give her readers the explanationbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. ItMiv's a boyupset because she's name apparently and overheard that her father wants to move the detailed explanation is rather charming - and aptfamily 'Down South'. But itWhen you's also just re from Yorkshire, Down South is a tad over-frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the-top (in terms of credibility I'm thinking) move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and by the time Ishe'd finished the book I was heartily sick of this name which had short-term appeal for me. I was muttering ll do anything to myself saying silly things like - why can't he be called Billy, for exampleprevent that. But IShe'm s not writing worried about the bookdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809311</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Jose Farmer1035906708|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless PeerDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=It's World War OneWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and Britain has got wind of some brilliant scientific research, that has created a new bacterial weapon capable of wiping out the world's supply of sauerkrautonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. But a dastardly German has stolen Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the formulaStates. Before he can give 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 variant based on boiled meat, cabbage mother who mercilessly exploited her and potatoes to the kaiser, his most recent nemesis - Sherlock Holmes, made no less - must be brought out secret of beekeeping retirement. Cue an adventure and a half, as he and Watson take to the skies her preference for the first time in their hectic lives, end up in darkest Africaher elder sister, and encounter a certain yodelling, long-haired nobleman, more than up to the name of King of the Jungle..Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681206</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom RachmanAlexander McCall Smith|title=The ImperfectionistsPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has reached asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the dizzy heights business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of an ''International Bestseller'' a break up with plaudits all over its coversa bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And it's a debut novelso begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, albeit by bringing us to an author Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has worked no experience in journalism. Sorunning a business, am I going to be another notch on the bookor in match-reading bedpostmaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, so to speak?lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849160317</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon SteeleDean Koontz|title=The WatchersBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=At over 500 pages IBenny 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'm sincerely hoping s possible that this book whoever or whatever was inside is going to appeal. the thing that has trashed his house! The back cover blurb thing is promising, informing Benny is the reader that the author very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a well-travelled cameraman/editor of many years standingnice person. The story opens with a young Marc Rochat starting a new life in SwitzerlandA really nice person. Everything So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is strange and a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help himsince Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. He becomes a night-watchman at the local cathedral Spike is going to take care of Benny, and carries out his duties diligently. He doesn't mind the fact that itwill certainly take care of Benny's a rather solitary job as enemies, if he more than makes up for the silence , Benny, and Harper (when the bells are not ringing that isa waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) by chatting away to all of the various bells as if can figure out who exactly they were human. Marc's conversations with his 'ladies' are utterly charming. I could listen to them all day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0593067517</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John HartKatherine Howe|title=Iron HouseA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hart Hannah Masury is already a best-selling author so he has a lot living in Boston, having been sent to live up to with his latest book. At over 400 pages it's a big, meaty read. The story opens with Michael, now family who run an adult. In his primeinn, with the woman he loves and about being made to become work there from a father: young age. life When she hears there is looking very rosy indeedto be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. He thinks that heEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's left his shady past behind him foreverdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. HeShe hides away, so that they don's wrong. Hart gives his readers a little background info on Michaelt find and kill her too, the central characterand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, just enough to whet our appetites. It worked for me dressing as a boy and I was eager to keep turning joining the pagesnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. At She soon finds herself in the start thick of the book things when there's is a definite sense of something catastrophic about to happen mutiny on board, and that it involves Michael from there we are caught up in some wayher rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848541791</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Thornton1471180158|title=Death of an Unsigned BandMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Russell knows that his band is going nowhereJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, and for a man who's a control freak with all the prospect subtlety of a life consisting only of a grim day job and some depressing creative exercises is getting him downhalf brick. But when Josh turns up with a potential way out, it Jamie's not quite the way Russell, or any of the other band membersson, would have envisaged.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531879</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Haley Tanner|title=Vaclav and Lena|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Vaclav and Lena are both children of Russian immigrantsBo, growing up in Brooklyn'has his problems'. Vaclav dreams of becoming a fantastic magician, with his friend Lena as his assistant, He's asthmatic and as children they practise their routine togetherthe more you read, making lists of the things theymore you'll need, suspect that he's on the costumes they will wear and the tricks they will performautistic spectrum. Vaclav is confident Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and happy, but Lena is quiet, withdrawn and struggles with speaking Englishsometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Yet Vaclav believes, always, that they Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are destined to occasions when Jamie can be togethercontrolled and put in the wrong. Even when Lena disappears one day and is gone from his life for many years still he hopes that, somehow, he will find her againIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020443</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon BlakeB0CKD1L5JL|title=69ers: A Novel About the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival of MusicRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the summer of 1969strange, reclusive Bear, as Thunderclap Newman proclaimed in their one he is brought up far from bustling cities and only musical claim to famebusy human society, there was something in the airforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. The alternative generation were talking about the recent Woodstock Festival After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in Americahuman company, and eagerly looking forward to what promised to be armed with only a similar gatheringpirate radio transmitter, albeit Petr goes on a smaller scalejourney through the forest, at broadcasting the Isle of Wight at the end of Auguststrange, where Bob Dylan was headliningwild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908105658</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Wesley StaceSarah Marsh|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary="Nothing in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of this subtle tale of English music in the making, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]" "His handling of dry comic dialogue and cynical affectation is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse… an intelligent, fun and thoughtful piece of fiction [Independent on Sunday]" Just two A Sign of the previous reviews that adorn the back cover of 'Charles Jessold…'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546574</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rebecca Makkai|title=The BorrowerHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read the front cover blurb and didn't quite get it 'She borrowed After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. He stole Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about herlife changes.' I don't mind 'not getting it' Living in a time when the slightest use of sign language was seen as it just makes me want something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where 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 book even moredeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. So I was keen to get stuck into this debut novelAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434021008</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Isabel AshdownB0BC3YTCMR|title=Hurry Up And WaitGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ashdown won the Observer Best Debut Novels of the Year with her book [[Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown|Glasshopper]], an excerpt of which ''This story is given at the back of this booknot for everyone. I decided to read it first and I must say that I immediately warmed to Ashown's style of writing. She seems to have a knack for down-to-earth language especially with teenagers and young people. So, I was really looking forward to this book but I was also conscious of the fact that it had a lot to live up to. Will she be able to deliver?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251552</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caitlin Davies1472263936|title=The Ghost of Lily PainterFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Annie Sweet buys a home with It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the familyhome and refused to return, she feels inexplicably bonded 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 it from the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first sightof several annual visits. As life brings unwelcome changes for She grew to love hergrandmother and the family's maid, she decides to uncover the history Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her house grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to provide a distraction the Junta and expected his family to understand uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her feelings about her homefather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091937035</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane ChamberlainB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Midwife's ConfessionGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I feel that IThe village is isolated and poor. It've barely finished s surrounded by a Chamberlain review when up pops another of her books Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread- such seems to be proliferationlike fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The story opens with black wood of the build-up to the death of middle-aged midwifeforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, Noelleif needed. Her friendsThe fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, all a little younger than herself and with families of their owndrunken, are busy getting on with their daily lives. But someone self- suddenly - remembers they haven't heard from Noelle for some days. It's unusual as this group indulgent, lazy lout of chatty friends are forever phoning, texting or popping round to each other's housesa man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304663</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bella PollenB0BYF82CXT|title=The Summer of the BearSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Letty Fleming''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, recently widowedstuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, is driving her three children hundreds of miles north to a new when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and hopefully happy very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life on a remote Scottish island. We get a peek at the personalities of , the children straight away: Alba is opinionated couples befriend each other and strong-willed, life appears to improve for exampleboth pairs. Still young she's managed to acquire a list as long as her arm of her 'hates' in the world - fishBut all is not what it seems, English teachers and doors which their increasingly interconnected relationships are ajar all feature and I didn't care as I couldn't help liking her. At least she knows her own mindfated for tragedy. What will she be like when she's grown up, for heaven's sake?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519069</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Celine IbeShalini Boland|title=Shadow of a ThiefThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Obinna's childhood had been gloriously happy, living Alice and Seth are a match made in the Nigerian village with Mamaheaven. But when he was fifteen years old Mama told him that He is everything she was not his motherhas been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, but his grandmother and that his mother funny; total and father were deadutter husband-material. Stunned She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and almost disbelieving he went to bed only to be woken so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by a loud noise in Alice and the nightwedding is planned and set. It came from Mama's room but when Obinna went to When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she was dead on surveys the floor. The boy could have lived with neighbours who would have been only too glad congregation – their friends assembled to have him, but he set off as soon as he could celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his only living relativeapproaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his Uncle Raffiawife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907629149</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dawn French1787636003|title=A Tiny Bit MarvellousThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over It was the years I have become something of a Dawn French fansummer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. She has consistently entertained and quite frankly made my sides split with laughter as Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an actorinterest in her, comedian, and most recently as she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a writer with while before he made any sort of physical approach to her wonderful autobiography [[Dear Fatty and by Dawn French|Dear Fatty]]that time she was obsessed by him. So when I saw her first novel ‘A Tiny Bit Marvellous’ waiting Alistair worked for me Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on The Bookbag shelves I thought here’s another treat from this remarkable entertainerthe island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046341</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Storm at the DoorAmanda Craig|authortitle=Stefan Merrill BlockThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The author, Stefan Merrill Block, is writing Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about members any writer who can catch hold of his own family in ''The Storm at the Door''. The story opens at atmosphere of the endday and capture it, if you get my driftcrafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. We see To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the elderly grandmother Katherine in a bit genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a spot, wondering whether to open and then read a bunch gift for weaving the ongoing issues of papers. These papers (these red-hot papers) are the words and thoughts day into the lives of her husband Frederick from his time characters in a mental institution. If she opens way that feels natural and lived-in, never making themciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, then it will be opening a veritable can of wormsgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. Does she or doesn't she?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571269591</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=A Conspiracy Of FriendsPineapple Street|author=Alexander McCall SmithJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=So''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, here we Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are again back with our friends 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 Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in Corduroy Mansions in this. Nominally, their third bookthey had a choice but that wasn't the reality. I found Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in 'A Conspiracy Of Friends'their' ' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a little slow move as her son wants to start move to another house and bring Edie to live withhis family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and I worried the worry that perhaps I had tired 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. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the characterslast time she saw her, but a few chapters later she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the pace picked up past, she is forgetting more and once again I was thoroughly entertained by more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the quirky characterstruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, interesting thoughts and ideas.before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846971829</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=In The Sea There Are CrocodilesMadelaine Lucas|authortitle=Fabio GedaThirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''In The Sea There Are CrocoilesLove, I'' is based on d read, was supposed to be a true story about a young boy left by his mother to fend light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for himself. As if that wasn't difficult enough, hegravity's stranded in Pakistan while the rest of his family are in war-ravaged Afghanistan. It's a collaboration between Afghan Enaiatollah and his Italian translator, Fabio - this book is already a big hit with Italian readers (it says so on the back cover blurb). Enaiatollah eventually claimed political asylum in Italy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560085</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Poison TreeGarnett Girls|author=Erin KellyGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Karen is ending her university years 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 has described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her future mapped out. But then away from what they felt she meets Biba, who opens doors could achieve - going to Oxford and having a world she's never seen beforeglittering career. In the event, they eloped and to Richard took her away from the type Isle of intense friendship that she's never experienced eitherWight. As Karen embarks Margo did go to Oxford and went on this friendshipto become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, she collects all kinds Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of new experiences along the wayWight. At Even then the start of that summer, doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she could would never have predicted just how indelible the mark left by the friendship would turn out be able to beleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444701053</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elliott Hall1914585402|title=The Children's CrusadeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We back-track several years to get the low-down and history on Felix. ItI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's interesting, very interesting. HeOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's like some sort Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of American 007 but not all of his plans have been successful. Some have years back-fired and he has the scars to prove remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting itwas. In fact although in his prime yearsIt was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, Felix could be healthier and is forced to take regular medication. And throughout the story Hall tells us why rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that is. Chapter Two, which sees Felix in Nevada opens with the no-nonsense line ''I came to Las Vegas to kill a man.'' But who? And why? We get the answers all in Hall's good timemight not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848540752</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=J Robert LennonLucy Ashe|title=CastleClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the late winter of 2006 Erich Loesch returns to Gerrysburgoutside but not, we learn, NY (Pop 2310 and falling) and buys six hundred or so acres of undeveloped land on the edge of the countyinside. Loesch grew up in GerrysburgAnd not on stage, but heeither. Because there's been away a long timelot that builds a dancer. The place hasnSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't changed much except through long, slow declinecome from the classroom. There are vacant lots where he remembers homesA stage presence, businessesa charm, amenitiesa ''joie de vivre''. There are one or two people who remember himThe difference between a hard-worker, or remember his family. They remember what happened to the family, or heard about what happened to him afterwardsand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1555975593</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel GennHeather Fawcett|title=The Cure|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We get the background on Eugene early on in the story; a troubled childhood with an alcoholic father who was often not at home. Instead he was working on a building site in London and drinking away much of his wages. His wife and children didn't appear to benefit much - either financially or emotionally. Eugene still bears plenty of invisible scars from that time and now grown up, would like to carve out his own path and thinks a fresh start would be a good idea. Although itEmily Wilde's not altogether a fresh start as he chooses to work on the same construction site as his father and even lives in the same lodgings in the East End. Is this his own unique way Encyclopaedia of exorcising some ghosts?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901583X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cathy Glass|title=Run, Mummy, RunFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Aisha Emily Wilde is a youngan expert academic scholar on faerie lore, beautiful and successful woman who she has worked hard travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to get where she is. But there is one thing missing in write her life: a man's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Still living with her parents Whilst she is brilliant at the age of thirty research and inexperienced when it comes speaking to menfaeries, Aisha wonders if she will ever find a husbandis not so good with people. But then So when she spots an ad finds herself far, far North in the paper and plucking up all her courage and determinationsmall village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she decides is not sure what she has done, nor how to replyredeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. This could be Enter Wendell Bambleby, her only chance at love dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and she doesndelight, much to Emily't s frustration. But why is he here? What does he want to waste it.? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007299281</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Blake Morrison1398515388|title=The Last Weekend|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens in the sunny month of June when the invitation is given, via telephone, from Ollie and Daisy to Ian and Emily. Or Em as she's called throughout - there's a lovely explanation of why Ian insists on shortening his wife's name. And even with this generous Boy and seemingly innocent phone call, all hell seems to break loose as Ian decides to de-cipher the call. Did they mean this? Did they really mean that? And lots of undercurrents and negative feelings start to bubble up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954234X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDog|author=Nicholas Hogg|title=The Hummingbird Seishu Hase and the Bear|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Sam Taylor seems to have a charmed life – a City job that brings him wealth and prestige, a wonderful fiancée and a lovely London home. But all this can't compensate for a childhood that contained great sorrow; he is haunted by a sense of being somehow incomplete. When a chance encounter at a wedding brings a new woman into this life, he begins to hope that he has found everything he really needs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184901647X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa Jewell|title=The Making of UsAlison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=LydiaFirst of all, it was the earthquake, Robyn and Dean are three completely different people with only one thing deep in common. According to an online donor registrythe ocean floor, they were all fathered by which created the same sperm donor. Some have known of their heritage for a whiletsunami and this, others are just finding outin turn, but none of them knew caused the other two existednuclear meltdown. Until now The result was complete and utter devastation. At The deaths were uncountable, and the same time, loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their donor father's life is slipping away. His last wish is to know owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the impact his tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn'noble' act may have had, the legacy it is leaving on t a dog person but the world. And in this information age itconvenience store owner's not comment that hard he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to trace your roots, unless, that is, you're searching for people who don't want to be foundopen his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846055741</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jenn AshworthChristopher Bowden|title=Cold Light|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''Cold Light'' is the story of three teenage girls who become involved in a predatory adult world. As the story opens we're looking back on what happened from a decade later and we know that one of the girls, Chloë, died in a Valentine's Day suicide pact. The town council has finally decided on a memorial to Chloë – it's to be a summerhouse at the side of the pond where she drowned, although it's difficult to understand quite why anyone would want to sit there. The ground-breaking ceremony is being televised when it becomes obvious that something has gone terribly wrong. But Lola, our narrator, knows that they've found a body. She also knows who it is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444721445</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kristina McMorris|title=Letters From HomeMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Liz Stephens accompanies Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a couple patient untangling of friends to a GI social occasion. Sheseemingly ordinary woman's content and already 'spoken for' so life, carried out by her nephew after she wouldn't normally be here where essentially most people are foot-loose and fancy-freehas died. But she's promised her good friend Betty to come along. As the evening progresses with lots of singing and dancing, things become both interesting The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and just a little dangerous. But for whom? Who are we talking about here? Liz bumps into one bit of the many GIs present. His name's Morgan. An instant spark is there - or so someone believes. But they both end the evening on indulgence to a young nephew had had a less-much more interesting life than-satisfactory note. Liz returns that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to her life with her soon-to-be-fiance and Morgan goes off him an obligation to warfind it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847562418</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steve HelyJennifer Mason|title=How I Became a Famous NovelistPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became a Famous Novelist', this clearly isn't intended to be a subtle book. So I can hardly complain when a cynical look Here at the writing industry swings raw punches in every direction. It just isn't my sort of humourBookbag Towers, but equallywe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, if you rave about 'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Bress|title=The Dysfunctional Family|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Societies are constantly changing dominatrix and sociology students are presented with theories to help them to comprehend what's happening. Here we have a different approachunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: a family has been paid a small amount of money to write diaries which they would keep secret from other members of the family and which would be available for publication. This book is the result and we follow Phil and Sue Brown and their two sonsAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], Jack when she investigated and Theo though unravelled a traumatic period which lasts for just over two monthsseries of disappearances. The entries in the diaries are made daily and we read what has happened to each member In ''Partitions of the Unity'dysfunctional family'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0048ELN32</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anna Quindlen|title=Every Last One|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Mary Beth Latham is contemplating her average, ordinary life where every day is more of less the same. Would things be better if life were more exciting, varied, newsworthy? Is that a legitimate thing to hope for? They say to be careful what you wish for, and Mary Beth never comes right out and says this is what she wants, but there are hints sets her mind to this effectsolving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537966</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John LawtonWill Carver|title=A Lily of the FieldThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens Five strangers come together in the early 1930s in Vienna where we meet one of the main characters; ten year old Meret. She's gifted musically and in particular in playing the cello. Even at this tender age, people are talking about her starry future on the world stage. She is the apple of her father's eye and soon she's being given extra musical tuition by moment as a kind but much older man. He's old enough suicide bomber prepares to be her grandfather but nevertheless they strike up detonate his vest on a rather unusual friendship with music being the common denominatorLondon tube line. But some of As their conversations are serious and quite grown-up for a young girl, not yet into puberty. The tutorfates overlap, Viktor Rosen is Jewish and has already suffered at the hands of the Germans. Meret progresses at such a pace that before you know it, she's performing in public. Her life appears to be wonderful and full of future promise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1611856019</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kim Newman|title=Anno Dracula|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=The story begins is told in London. It is 1888 and Queen Victoria is on the throne. She has recently remarriedbackwards order, taking as her husband the infamous vampire Count Dracula. Dracula's influence is all around London as more and more of its citizens turn willingly leading up to vampirism, whilst others resist its temptations. A distinct sense of social and political unrest is in the air as factions speak out against the race of vampires, somehow spurred on by the serial killer at large. Known at first as the Silver Knife, but later as Jack the Ripper, this killer targets young vampire women in Whitechapel, prostitutes who have recently turned to vampirism, known as new-bornsfateful moment. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857680838</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander BaronJennifer Mason|title=There's No HomePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 'A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the year 1943 and Sicily has been invaded (along with other parts of Europe). The menfolk have gone (will they return?) and Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, children and old people left behind are a sorry sight. Impoverished, ragged and billionaire with barely enough food to eat. A British company a state-of soldiers rolls into town ... and everything changes. The men are foot-sorethe-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), exhausted and dirtyon a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia. They are also glassy-eyed with the horrors of war. And as if that were not enough, the Sicilian sun beats down on them mercilessly. But there's some good news - they're here to rest and recuperate for a while.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956308600</amazonuk>}}
}}
