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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael FraynJenny Lecoat|title=SkiosBeyond Summerland|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set Jean lives on a Greek island, a cultural foundation is preparing for Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the biggest event in its year at which renowned academic Dr Norman Wilfred is due to give end of the keynote speechoccupation. Also heading to During the island on the same plane is Oliver Foxwar, a morally vacant but charming Lothario, who has arranged an assignation with a girl who he has met Jean's father was arrested for only five minutes but has invited listening to spend a week with banned radio and soldiers took him at the villa that he was due spend a week with his ex-girlfriend before she threw away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him out. But when As the British finally free the girl sent to collect Dr Wilfred Channel islands from the airportNazis, Nikki, turns out to be irresistibly charming Oliver decides to play the role of Dr Wilfred and follow her to the foundation while the real Dr Wilfredwar is finally over, minus luggage is transported to the villa at the other end their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of the islandhim. Someone still has to give But will the speech though - truth come as a relief, or will it be raise further questions around what else happened during the real Dr Wilfred or war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the fake Dr Wilfredoccupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571281419</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ned BeaumanOnyi Nwabineli|title=The Teleportation AccidentAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's hard to know increasingly popular presence on social media, where to start in reviewing Ned Beaumanshe posted every step of Anuri's Booker long-listed ''The Teleportation Accident''. Reading itchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, you feel like the parent of an ADHD-suffering childmonetary gain. At times it Now Anuri is lovable, brilliant in her twenties and entertaining, at others you just want she is slowly trying to reach for the Ritalin regain her confidence and tell it to sit in a corner quietly while it composes itself. A clue get her life back, suing her step-mother to both take down the brilliance and frustration of Beauman content about her. Anuri is in the vast range of writers battling alcoholism, failing to whom he has been compared in both this start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and his first novel [[Boxerreceiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, Beetle by Ned Beauman|Boxershe is desperately worried about her little sister, Beetle]]who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. There are hints of people as wide ranging as [[:Category:David Mitchell|David Mitchell]] Can she save her sister, [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P G Wodehouse]], [[:Category:Douglas Adams|Douglas Adams]], Raymond Chandler even [[:Category:Angela Carter|Angela Carter]] to name just a few. Beauman takes a huge range of styles and genres perhaps herself and pushes them and bends them often to glorious effect, but it can be a challenge keeping up her relationship with him her father at times.the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998423</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Howard L Anderson1529153298|title=Albert The List of AdelaideSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Albert the Duck-Billed Platypus lives in an Adelaide zoo but knows thereIt's more to life than this1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) There must be as heShe's not what's worrying Miv's heard the storiesfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Somewhere beyond the cages is Old AustraliaWell, a land of dreams where there are no zoos and no human captorsthey've been murdered, just animals who are free but to govern themselves and live in perpetual peace and happinesshave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. ThatMiv's a world upset because she's overheard that Albert her father wants to be move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a part of frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and so he escapes, realising she'll do anything to prevent that for . She's not worried about the first time in his short life his future is in his own webbed pawsdangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668840X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Manu Joseph1035906708|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other People|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog family''. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinking, and by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is a ''cartoonist hottie'' - a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world - or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying to seek the cause of this suicide, and what we have here is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDiva|author=Charles McLeod|title=American WeatherDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jim Haskin is a very odd man, doing a very odd jobWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, in a very odd country if this book is but she was born to be believed. An advertising guru Greek parents in San FranciscoManhattan, he owns a touchy feely company which boasts such wonders as a ‘Dream Pod’New York, a room for his team to relax in with sleeping bags, TVs December 1923 and a cooler brimming with organic fruit teaonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. That’s for their down time Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in between saving the world, promoting one ecoStates. When she was back in Athens -friendly item after another and doing other worthy things. Except behind the scenes, Jim Haskin is not supposedly so that man. While his team are organising poetry slams to help homeless prostitutes, he’s coming up with fightshe could get appropriate training for her voice -back campaigns, showing that bleach makes she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a beach bettermother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, chemical spills aren't as bad as you first might think, and other quite inexplicable thingsJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542226</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Sunshine on Scotland StreetThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I can hardly believe this The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the eighth book about Scotland Streetonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and it's so nice look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to just pick get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up where we left off with a bad boyfriend, and discover what's been happening so jumps at the chance to come home to all our friendsEdinburgh. This time And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we have Angus already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Domenica's weddingthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, Cyril's adventures whilst they're away on their honeymoonbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, Bruce encounters a rather strange gentleman and of course there's plenty of Bertie always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to entertain us!lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846972329</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael PalinDean Koontz|title=The TruthBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Keith Mabbutt was at one of those points in life when everything seemed to be changingBenny is having a terrifically bad day. His marriage was on the rocks. His relationship with He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his children was not goodhouse gets trashed. He knew that he was Oh, and someone has delivered a writer really weird, disturbing coffin- he had a British Gas Award sized object to prove his home, and it - but 's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the investigative journalist which he once was had been replaced by someone who did corporate vanity projectsvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He skated over is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the unpalatable and accentuated what there was that was positive and he was paid passably well delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for doing itbeing a good person. When he was offered the chance Spike is going to write a biography take care of Hamish MelvilleBenny, the influential humanitarian activistand will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he seized the chance , Benny, and not just because the money on offer was beyond his wildest dreamsHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0297860216</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven AmsterdamKatherine Howe|title=What the Family NeededA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Steven Amsterdam's first novel [[Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam|Things We Didn't See Coming]] won several awards including The Guardian First Boom Award. His second bookHannah Masury is living in Boston, 'What the Family Needed'having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is similar in that it too contains to be a large dose hanging of some pirates in the strangetown, yet it doesnshe decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy't quite work as well. The book is centred around s death at the families hands of two sistersvicious pirates. She hides away, with each member having their own chapter told at different stages of their lives. In each one the various family members are facing problems of some sort or other and each mysteriously achieves some sort of super-power so that they don'need' t find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to partly overcome thesesea, although not always with dressing as a boy and joining the desired results. From early on, the reader suspects that Alek, elder sister Natalienotorious Ned Low's younger son who appears pirate ship as an imaginative kid a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when we first meet himthere is a mutiny on board, is at the heart of the weirdness and sure enough he has the final chapter from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the book. Just don't expect everything to be explainedocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846555809</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrey Kurkov1471180158|title=The Milkman in the NightMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you're going to go sleepwalking, there are better places to do so than Jamie Matson works in Kiev in the grip of its usual snowyan upper-class grocery store, cold and bleak winter - even if there is for a man who's a lovely blonde at control freak with all the end subtlety of your journeya half brick. Semyon is living this realityJamie's son, unaware of Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the strange consequencesmore you read, just as others around him are unaware of the strange consequences of their actions - such as the airport security men who purloin some impounded drugs and test them more you'll suspect that he's on the catautistic spectrum. We also have Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a young single mother selling herself - just frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not in that way - commuting into a capital where some are rich fit enough to try and stave of ageing, 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 to cheat death put in various ways.the wrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548860</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon RichB0CKD1L5JL|title=What in God's NameRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In ''What in God's Name'', Simon Rich imagines Heaven Inc as a corporate entity, with all the dysfunctional trappings of many a large companyPetr is an orphan. At the head of Rescued by the operationstrange, as you might expectreclusive Bear, he is Godbrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, although he seems to have lost his interest in planet Earth and certainly in the operation forests of heavenWashington's Olympic Peninsula. In fact After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, he'd rather be watching the religious channels on satellite television or opening a restaurant. Although he would like to see rock group ''Lynyrd'' ''Skynyrd'' re-form before he's done and armed with the planet. In fact the only two who really care about what a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on down here are a workaholic angel named Craig who works in journey through the Miracles Department and the recently promoted Eliza who has been labouring awayforest, somewhat fruitlessly it seems, in broadcasting the Prayers Department. When Eliza finds that her work on preparing prayers for God has been for nothingstrange, her anger threatens the end of the world, unless Craig wild and Eliza can help a couple of hopeless humans find love with each otherrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688485</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon CanterSarah Marsh|title=WorthA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard, an Ad man, and SarahAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a city lawyer meet, get marriedworld of silence, and decide to leave London behind for an idyllic country everything about her life insteadchanges. He’ll Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do some drawing, maybe look into illustrating. She’ll do voluntary work. They will start Ellen is sent to Enjoy Life a bit moreschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. They will become Better People From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. They will be At the envy same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of all their friends still toiling away in the big smokeespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546825</amazonuk>1035401614
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melanie GideonB0BC3YTCMR|title=Wife 22Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary=Alice and William Buckle have been married ''This story is not for quite a few years and have two teenage children and a dogeveryone. With their busy lives, they end up having little time for each other and rarely get the opportunity to talk about the things that matter. In order to do something about her feelings of discontent, Alice googles 'happy marriage?' and although there seem to be no magic secrets for success, a little later she is invited to take part in an online survey about modern marriage. She is given the label, Wife 22, and is assigned to her caseworker, Researcher 101, who sends her questions periodically, and is also available through email to answer any queries. Alice soon enjoys being able to pour her heart out through the questions that she has to answer but also finds that she is becoming more than a little attracted to her faceless caseworker. They start chatting through facebook and Alice finds it quite exciting to mildly flirt with her new friend. However, the more she does so, the more disgruntled she becomes with her own husband. There comes a point though where Alice has to decide whether to take things further and if she does, what will become of her marriage?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007481772</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Heather Gudenkauf1472263936|title=One Breath AwayThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mrs Oliver has spent 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 life grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the classroomfirst of several annual visits. Educating She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Guiding. Nurturing. But on He was proud of his close connections to the last day of term all she really wants is Junta and expected his family to get uphold his values but saw no reason to the afternoon bell without any dramaaccommodate them. A gunman walking in to her classroom really does not fit in with His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her plansfather's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848451326</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Timeri N MurariDean Koontz|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubAfter Death|rating=4.53|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=We all knowMichael Mace, or think we knowHead of Security, how oppressive life was for Afghansat a top secret biological research facility, particularly Afghan womenis among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, under the Taliban regimecovered in plastic, but when you read this novel, boy do you get 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 how tough it really washis 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|amazonukgenre=<amazonuk>1742378846</amazonuk>General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a 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 the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kerry HudsonB0BYF82CXT|title=Tony Hogan Bought Me an IceSemi-cream Float Before He Stole My MaDetached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Janie Ryan is born into a definitely underprivileged family. Despite ''Bill and Amanda are living in a mother who tries to make the right decisionssemi-detached house, growing up becomes stuck in a fight for survival (both figuratively depressing rut of boredom and literally) as Janie encounters social servicesdisappointment, tough schoolswhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, domestic violence successful and an array of 'uncles'very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all promising a better future that is not what it seems as tangible as the holy grail, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186399</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen MacInnesShalini Boland|title=Above SuspicionThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1939 Oxford professor Richard Myles Alice and his wife Frances were preparing for their annual European holiday when they were visited by an old friend who had Seth are a request match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for them; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. Would they start their holiday She is all he could possibly want in Parisa wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, meet a man there beaming with pride and then continue excitement as she surveys the congregation – their holiday as he directed? There was a great deal of tension in Europe friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and Richard Myles was reluctant when Seth turns to undertake face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the taskaltar is, mainly because he didn't want who is waiting for her to put become his wife at risk. Frances had other ideas, but not even they were above suspicion. At first they were watched but the attentions of some shadowy figures became more pressing as they realised that pre-war Germany was not a comfortable place to be.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781161534</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Drew Thomas1787636003|title=CurtainsThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Danny is a performer It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on London’s cabaret circuitthe island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, but his hard work isn’t doing much for his status. When he meets Veronicaperhaps, who promises to make him a starnaive, he never guesses that this might be too good so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to be true. Rapidly falling take an interest in love with her – or so , she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he thinks – soon his life revolves around doing made any sort of physical approach to her biddingand by that time she was obsessed by him. But Veronica is a more complex individual than Danny could ever have imagined - Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and her forcefulness will lead them both down an unimaginable pathin particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957187807</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna KavennaAmanda Craig|title=Come to the EdgeThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you are fortunate enough to own a rural second home hideaway in Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the UK, this beautifully written book will probably give you nightmares-nation novel. For There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the rest atmosphere of usthe day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as itstands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a great read. The target gift for Joanna Kavenna's satire is weaving the unused property, owned by ongoing issues of the wealthy, depriving day into the local population lives of anywhere to live her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in the places they have grown up, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780872135</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Denman152915118X|title=ConnectedPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Doug''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, a maths Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and computing undergraduate at Essex UniversitySasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, has just pulled only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the most amazing girltribe. So he The problem's not really that interested in exacerbated when the file of fractals research best friend Kal has just sent him. But while Doug and Cindy are busily getting it onclan matriarch, Tilda, something has gone horribly wrong for Kal asks Cord and Doug emerges from afternoon delight Sasha if they'd like to move into the horrific discovery that his friend has committed suicidePineapple Street property. Miles Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away in the countryside, Peter is attending his brother's funeral. Martin was a musician but not a tortured artist and it seems inconceivable that he too would take his which they own life. But They won't need any of the tripfurniture from Pineapple Street, for Peterso Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, is more than they had a family obligation - itchoice but that wasn's t the chance of a break from a stale marriage reality. Darley and an opportunity Georgiana start to indulge call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in some guilty proximity ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to his newly-bereaved sister-in-law'the GD'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0089YQPI0</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane FeaverEmily Critchley|title=An Inventory of HeavenOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Mavis Gaunt was evacuated 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to Shipleigh in Devon during World War II another house and went bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her auntmemory. It wasn't just an escape from However, Edie is tormented by the dangers memory of London - it was a welcome relief from her parents' loveless marriage childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and in her mind it became the worry that there was a heavenly retreatsecret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. In her twenties and with her mother dead there After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was nothing to keep the last time she saw her in London so , she headed starts to find pockets of memories coming back to Shipleighher. She struck up an unlikely friendship with Frances UpcottAnd yet as she remembers the past, one of three children of a reclusive farmer she is forgetting more and, almost against more in her will, found herself drawn into the day to day life of the farm. It gave Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her a sense of belonging but it ended in tragedy.memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780330006</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin AmisMadelaine Lucas|title=Lionel AsboThirst for Salt|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nasty''Love, self-centred central characters. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms of class. HeI's violentd read, uncouth and ignorant. He's a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' is a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town where he lives in was supposed to be a tower block with his nephew, Des, who in fact is the central character in the book. Des, in contrast is far more sympathetic - intelligent light and kindweightless feeling, that is if you overlook the fact that as a 15 year old he but I had an affair with his grandmother, Lionelalways longed for gravity's mother. Hey, no one's perfect. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shams Uddin0008506337|title=The Year from JahannamGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Wright family begin a blog 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 January 2011love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. They all want Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to celebrate Oxford and having a new start after the turmoil of recent yearsglittering career. Father Richard had been a casualty of In the financial crisisevent, working for Lehman Brothers at they eloped and Richard took her away from the time Isle of its collapse, Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and the ensuing chaos went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had affected the entire family one way or another. But Richard retrainedthree children: Rachel, secured a new job Imogen and has recently earned a huge bonusSasha. At last Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family are back home on track and enjoying the fruits Isle of hard labourWight. 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>0957175205</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Natasa Dragnic and Liesl Schillinger (translator)1914585402|title=Every Day, Every HourDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Dora and Luka meet and become firm friends. In normal situations one might add I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There'and s Only One Danny Garvey]] a whole lot more'' to that sentence, but Dora couple of years back and Luka are in Kindergarten, which makes their intense relationship hard to define. As they grow into adults, however, it becomes obvious that there is something between them remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and no matter how much they, or their circumstances, try to fight this affecting it is there and is not going to fade awaywas. Dora’s parents move her across the continentIt was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, careers develop and flourish, out rereading my review of nowhere they are enveloped by family lives, but still there is an invisible bond it my main takeaway was that draws them back to one anotherI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186941</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gerry WellsLucy Ashe|title=Kicking the Hornets' NestClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=WWII books about The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the RAF and outside but not, we learn, on the Navy are quite commoninside. And not on stage, either. Books about Special Operations Executive and similar organisations proliferateBecause there's a lot that builds a dancer. Stories about the army are fewer Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and try as I might I really couldn't think of one which was other than incidentally about tank crewsome things, so when the opportunity came I that ''hadje ne sais quoi'' to read , that don'Kicking t come from the Hornetsclassroom. A stage presence, a charm, a '' Nestjoie de vivre' particularly as it's written by an author who crewed a Sherman tank in Operation Overlord, back in June 1944. I had just The difference between a couple of nagging doubts. It's a book of short stories. Would I find it easy to pick up hard- worker, and out down again? The big worry was whether or not this was going to be a macho action story, which wouldn't really be my cup of tea at allstar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780881568</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura SolomonHeather Fawcett|title=Hilary and DavidEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=HilaryEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, a single mother the very first encyclopaedia of two troublesome boys meets Davidfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, an elderly writer she is not so good with problems people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of his ownHrafvsnik, through Facebook. It’s an odd beginning – they have a mutual friendhaving somehow offended the village matriarch, so one adds the othershe is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and then they start chatting quite spontaneously – but sets put her final investigations for her book back on the scene well for their atypical relationshipright track. Hilary’s in New Zealand Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, David’s in London. They are many decades apart in age but are clearly both quite lonely all charm and looking for someone to talk delight, much toEmily's frustration. So, But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the vague anonymity of social networking on their side, they reach out to one another.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9881993296</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lionel Shriver1398515388|title=The New RepublicBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Lionel Shriver adds a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal in The New Republic and immediately has First of all, it fighting for independencewas the earthquake, taking a wry look at terrorism as well as the ethics of deep in the international press corps. After a series of international terrorism actsocean floor, which created the Os Soldados Ousados De Barbatsunami and this, or the SOB for shortin turn, have gone quiet at caused the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a tracenuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barrington's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killers, as it The deaths were. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne Sward|title=Breathless|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are those who say thatuncountable, on an individual level, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate itand the loss of livelihoods was widespread. Oh, if only it The fact that many pets were so easyseparated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner'Breathless'' is one of those s comment that I neither love nor hate, he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and yet am not totally uninspired by eitherTamon the dog jumped in. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris CleaveChristopher Bowden|title=GoldMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Novels that feature sport often put people off reading them, particularly if you are not au fait with the sport in question. However, while the characters in Chris CleaveChristopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman''Gold'' are athletes, specifically cyclists aiming for the 2012 London Olympicss life, it's more about the characters themselvescarried out by her nephew after she has died. In fact, if you are looking for The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a book little bit of indulgence to read a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to avoid the brouhaha of the Olympics this year but still want him an obligation to get a taste of what find it all the fuss is about, this would be a superb choiceout.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340963433</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan LeeJennifer Mason|title=JoyPartitions of Unity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Very stylishHere at Bookbag Towers, observant we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and oh so spikyunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], this is an incrediblewhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', often uncomfortable novel that you just can't put downshe sets her mind to solving a murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020427</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miranda FranceWill Carver|title=That Summer at Hill FarmThe Daves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you were Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to pass Hill Farm you would think it the perfect country idyll with lambs in the fieldsdetonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, children playing and the farmhouse nestled story is told in the folds of the hills. The truth though is different. Farmer Hayes loves the landbackwards order, but he's no farmer. His wife is neglected and it's not that long since Isabel miscarried her fourth child. She loves her children but she's not a particularly good housewife - or wife. She and Hayes were rather bounced into marriage by her aging and doting parents. Now she's trapped in a house with death-watch beetle and a husband who is struggling leading up to keep the farm goingfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555131</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sylvie NickelsJennifer Mason|title=The Other Side of SilencePreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Pippa Eastman went to Australia to get away from her domineering father''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the historian Joseph Eastman and it was there that she met JudeNorthern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the son of two Ten Pound Poms. Their relationship was good2004 Olympics, but not exactly committed on either side. It was about having fun. Familial ties were surprisingly strong though and when Joseph Eastman developed Alzheimera women's Disease Pippa returned to the UK to care track coach with a yen for him. Slightly to her surprisebullwhips, Jude followed her a billionaire with a state-of- determined to track down the alcoholic father who had left him and his mother -art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Australia. It'Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s only after her father's death that Pippa finds herself , x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in search of her fatherGeorgia...'s life - and trying to establish that he wasn't a murderer.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781762686</amazonuk>}}
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