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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stuart PrebbleJenny Lecoat|title=The Insect FarmBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I was predisposed to enjoy this book before I'd even opened Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the cover. It set me in mind end of [[The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams]] - another tale of a challenged person who finds refuge in an obsession with insectsthe occupation. But where [[The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams|The Behaviour of Moths]] focuses on two warring sisters During the war, Jean''The Insect Farm'' has two brothers as the central characters: Roger, who has special needss father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and his devoted younger brother Jonathanher mother waiting for years for news of him. Both boys develop an obsession As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, Roger with his insect farm and Jonathan with a womanthe war is finally over, Harriettheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. When obsession eventually leads to But will the violence of destructiontruth come as a relief, other behaviours come into play: feelings of guilt quickly switch to or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the fear of capture and Nazis about the sly acts of a man keen to lay radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the blame elsewhere.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846883547</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Caroline Vermalle and Anna Aitken (translator)Onyi Nwabineli|title=George's Grand TourAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=George loves Anuri spent her childhood on display to the Tour de France so when his over protective daughter goes way world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for an extended holiday the time sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is right slowly trying to do it himselfregain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Being 83 there will have Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to be some concessionsstart her PhD, using a car rather than a bike undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for a start and he'll take his neighbour Charles (a stripling at 76) with himdoing so. He'll also take his mobile phone since his landline has been diverted to it so no one knows heMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's goneonline empire. YesCan she save her sister, good luck and perhaps herself and her relationship with that George!her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908313730</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caitlin Moran1529153298|title=How to Build a GirlThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=1990 - WolverhamptonIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Johanna Morrigan is 14 (A woman? I mean, intelligenthonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, funny and from a loving familythough. Women have been disappearing. Unfortunately Well, said they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family consists of a depressed mother'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a mostly drunk fatherfrightening, an older brother with issues of his ownforeign place, and three younger brothers to worry aboutbest avoided. Well read For Miv, witty and hugely intelligentthe move would mean leaving her best friend, Johanna longs for escapeSharon, building a new version of herself and gaining employment as a writer, frequently travelling she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the drink, sex and drug filled bars and bedsits of Londondangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091949017</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Henderson Smith1035906708|title=The Turn of the TideDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harriet Glover is well and truly over Mark after he left her standing at the altar. She's pregnant with Sir Joris Sanderson's child and he's keen We tend to make the relationship permanentthink of Maria Callas as Greek, but ghosts from ''his'' past return she was born to haunt himGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, unfortunately at a rather important dinner partyin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. The mystery of Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'AmberCallas' really has to be solved and make it more manageable in the web of lies which surround her dismantledStates. Harriet is still being led astray by Tricia Harrington (or When she was back in Athens - supposedly so Harriet's mother would have you believe...) and that she can't really make up could get appropriate training for her mind about 'Mr Sanderson', particularly when voice - she was raised under the man from MI6 is around. She's got Nazi occupation by a lot to cope with mother who mercilessly exploited her and that's before we even get on to the subject made no secret of the Prime Minister's daughter's weddingher preference for her elder sister, which ''must'' remain secretJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845496485</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ivan Repila and Sophie Hughes (translator)Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Boy Who Stole Attila's HorsePerfect Passion Company|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=If you pick up a copy of this book you realise how small it is. You'll know, of course, that pockets hardly exist that are normally big enough to hold what we used to call a pocket book, but here is the exception to prove the rule. It's wee. The story is on a hundred pages. The concision is partly down to it starting after the beginning, for we first meet Big and Small, two brothers, once they're stuck down a large well in the middle of a forest. Tasked with a family errand, they're trapped at the bottom of a natural Erlenmeyer flask, and even a desperate move cannot get either out. This is the story of the next three months in their existence, as they brave hunger, delirium, loss of language, and the brute and unstinting human selfishness needed for existence.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782271015</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=James Hannah|title=The A-Z of You and Me|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lying 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 hospital bedmore personal, refusing visits from friendstailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, Ivo as Ness is aloneplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Only his carer Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, Sheilaand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, provides company - thanks to 44 Scotland Street and she asks him the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to think of charm. Katie has no experience in running a different part of his body for each letter of the alphabetbusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and then there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to tell lend a tale about each one.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857522647</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ann-Marie MacDonaldDean Koontz|title=Adult OnsetThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=At midlifeBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, Mary Rose MacKinnon he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has settled down with her partnerdelivered a really weird, Hilarydisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is raising two young children. Opting to fulfill the role of stay at home mumthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, she has placed her career as an author on holdBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. What follows He is a bid nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to reconcile this his house is a new identity with her former idea of self. Successfriend, howevera bad weather friend called Spike, depends on Mary Rose facing up who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to the confusions take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of her pastBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473610133</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diana SweeneyKatherine Howe|title=The MinnowA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Diana Sweeney's ''The Minnow'' Hannah Masury is an Australian book aimed at Young Adults that features deathliving in Boston, grief, abuse, fear and loneliness. Teenage pregnancy lies at its heart while bereavement, and trying having been sent to come to terms live with lossa family who run an inn, bubbles just under the surface, constantly. But don't be misled. This novel isn't some earnest pedagogical attempt and being made to convey teenage angst and elicit grave pity or understanding work there from the readera young age. What rescues it from mawkishness When she hears there is the beautiful voice to be a hanging of some pirates in the narratortown, Tom (or Hollyshe decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, if you prefer her real name). Tom doesnHannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy't fall prey to self-pitys death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She simply describes her world as she sees ithides away, matter-of-fact. And the fact so that they don't find and kill her view is rather unusual (too, and then to escape them completely she talks runs away to fishsea, dead people dressing as a boy and her unborn child - and they talk back) doesnjoining the notorious Ned Low't really matters pirate ship as a cabin boy. Nothing can detract from She soon finds herself in the sheer lyricism thick of her voice. As things when there is a readermutiny on board, you just have to suspend disbelief and enjoy from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the rideocean waves. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>192218201X</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hermione Eyre1471180158|title=Viper WineMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Venetia Stanley lives in Seventeeth century London. A celebrated beauty, she has had poems written in honour of her, and portraits painted by one of the leading artists of the time. Married to a handsome, kind and adventurous man, Venetia is kept in a life of luxury, and, at first glance - has everything she could ever have dreamed of. Except Venetia is not happy. A woman who has made her name and fortune because of her beauty, she is convinced that her allure is quickly slipping through her fingers. Signing a pact with an apothecary for his famed restorative 'Viper Wine', Venetia is set on a dangerous path.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099581663</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Liam Brown
|title=Real Monsters
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lorna was 12 when she was sent home from schoolJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, watched the unfurling events of 9/11 on her TV and recognised her fatherfor a man who's office block aflame and falling. Her fight for mental survival started at that moment and a control freak with all the use subtlety of alcohol to quell the memories came soon after but then she meets Danny – her life savera half brick. Shortly after this they marry and Danny joins the armyJamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's sent to fight asthmatic and the monstersmore you read, the fundamentalist organisations, which destroyed Lornamore you'll suspect that he's childhoodon the autistic spectrum. However when whatSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's left of his unit becomes lost a frequent flier in the desert without food, water local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or equipment, the focus changes need to be away on time to pick Bo up from military victory school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to personal survival and those monsters are still out there…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910394564</amazonuk>a head.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chigozie ObiomaB0CKD1L5JL|title=The FishermenRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book Petr is essentially a cautionary family tale of four brothers and the way they react to a prophecy about them an orphan. Rescued by the local madman. It strange, reclusive Bear, he is alsobrought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a sensebrief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a coming-of-age story where Benpirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the young narratorforest, is plunged into premature adulthood under broadcasting the most brutal of circumstances. And it is about brotherly love. None of these descriptionsstrange, however, convey the fact that this book is written by an exciting new voice in African literary fictionwild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957548850</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan KempSarah Marsh|title=GhostingA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Grace Wellbeck is 64 - living on After a bout of scarlet fever as a canal boat in London with child, Ellen Lark loses her second husbandhearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, she lives everything about her life changes. Living in a relatively settled life time when the use of routinesign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing.A chance encounter with a man From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the street changes everything though - deaf and using a man who system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is the spitting image working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of her first, deceased husbandespionage. Is he a ghost? Is Grace going mad?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956251560</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicci ClokeB0BC3YTCMR|title=Lay Me DownGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=It's New Year's Eve and the nightclub This story is pulsating with soundnot for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. The revellers heave She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and swell suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in oceanic waves and Jack is preparing to call case it 's contagious. It's not easy being a night, when he black girl whose skin is presented with Elsa84% white. She is small; delicate and pretty and alluringly confident had a crush on seventeen- a heady combination for a man like Jack year- old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and though he wants, with every fibre of his beingraped her. In shock, she even allowed him to walk away, to go give her a lift home and forget her, he doesn't.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099593653</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Antonia Honeywell1472263936|title=The ShipFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45|genre=Dystopian General Fiction|summary=Sixteen year old Lalla has spent It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her life in London – mostly inside first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family homeand 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. Because this is not Her trip to the London family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of today, or any other dayseveral annual visits. When Lalla was seven, She grew to love her grandmother and the apocalypse arrived; banks crashedfamily's maid, flood defences failedDina, power failed – but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the world could only focus on survivalJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. Now the Nazareth Act is in force His prejudices included Helena's red hair and without your identity card, you don’t exist – literally, as you will be shot if you dongreen eyes - inherited from her father't produce its Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871498</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel PackerDean 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}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Restoration of Otto LairdGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Restoration of Otto Laird'' village is an interesting concept for a storyisolated and poor. It pitches an ageing architect against an ageing building that was built early in Otto's careersurrounded by a Witching Forest. When Otto makes And the trip from Switzerland to London to try 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 save Marlowe house from demolitioneven gallows, he takes if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an unwilling journey down his own pastexistential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751553077</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian WalthewB0BYF82CXT|title=The Complex Chemistry of LossSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Deep ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in rural France James Kerr was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. His mental problems were deep and intractable. Superficially he seemed never to have got over the sudden death depressing rut of his mother boredom and sister disappointment, when he was a child Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and after their death his relationship with his father had deteriorated because his father refused to speak of their loss. There were additional factors too: Kerr had spent some time very much in Afghanistan love – move in a secret capacitynext door. In fact much of his Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life since he went appears to university had involved putting up a frontimprove for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, but doing something else in the backgroundand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00OLMHCW2</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brooke DavisShalini Boland|title=Lost and FoundThe Silent Bride|rating=53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Millie Bird keeps Alice and Seth are a notebookmatch made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She writes is all he could possibly want in it all of a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the Dead Things that she seeswedding is planned and set. Her Very First Dead Thing was When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her dog Rambo. Then there were other things a spiderfather, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, a Bird… but then there was number 28. The twenty-eighth dead thing than Millie Bird noticed was who is waiting for her Dadto become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0091958903</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Lethem1787636003|title=Dissident GardensThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rose ZimmerIt 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, a feisty American communist radicalperhaps, naive, takes on many good and great causes. These include everything from feminism and racism so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to the changing course of Stalinism take an interest in the American Cher, she was flattered rather than wary.P. but most It was quite a while before he made any sort of all; her biggest causes are the people around physical approach to her. The effects upon them are diverse and devastatingby that time she was obsessed by him. She often propels them to success but at Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the same time they feel battered island and must escape according to their own needs. Her affections are real but invasive. Rose keeps a shrine to Abraham Lincoln. Rose’s self-assertion within in particular in the perimeters of bar where all the German-designed 20th Century New York suburb of Queens, a multi-cultural suburb and a planned housing development similar to Hampstead Garden City provide the setting for Jonathan Lethem’s Tour de Forcegirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563428</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Virginia BurgesAmanda Craig|title=The VirtuosoThree Graces|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title character Few styles of ''The Virtuoso'' is Isabelle Bryant, a professional violinist who has earned contemporary fiction interest me like the affectionate nickname state-of 'Beethoven-the-nation novel. There's Babe'. She was the youngest-ever winner something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the BBC Young Musician atmosphere of the Year competition day and gave her first solo performancecapture it, crafting an image of Beethoventhe country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's violin concerto, practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at Royal Albert Hallthis point. 'Her violin represented another limb to She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her, it was characters in a way that precious. It felt so feels naturaland lived-in, like an extension of her body.' It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the violin is Isabelle's lifenever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00R07U0B0</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne Tyler152915118X|title=A Spool of Blue ThreadPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Every family has its tales which ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are told sisters and retold 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 in Sasha if they'd like to move into the Whitshank family it was 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 story of how Abby furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Red Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had fallen a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in love one ''beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoontheir'' 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 July 1959the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. It would usually However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be told on the porch thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the Baltimore house which Red's father had builthigh street, but on this final just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of its telling memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the circumstances are differentpast, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Abby Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and Red before her memories are aging gone forever?|isbn=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- even 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 glorious house is beginning summer after finishing university – to show its age - and decisions have to be made about how to look sorrowful end the summer after them. All Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the family are there24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, even Dennydepicting its all-consuming nature, who can generally be relied how it changed her perspective on to do only what pleases himboth romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701189517</amazonuk>0861546490
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Miranda Sherry0008506337|title=Black Dog SummerThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=YesterdayThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, Sally apparently on both sides. Margo was living just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a rambling farmstead with glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her teenage daughter Gigiaway from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. Now Sally is dead, murdered The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Gigi is alone Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the worldIsle of 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>1781859574</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Niyati Keni1914585402|title=Esperanza StreetDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=JosephI reviewed David F Ross's parents send him to work for Auntie Mary and her B&B business on Esperanza Street. Over the years there life for Joseph goes on the way it has for countless other youngsters from this Filipino town of Puerto. His mother may have died too young and Joseph only sees his father one day a week (and has to suffer church for part of that!) but therebook [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a rhythm to the market outside couple of years back and foreign visitors within Auntie Mary's walls that's familiar remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and comfortingaffecting it was. It's was a rhythm gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that's been there for generations but things change, sometimes with catastrophic resultsI might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276487</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nigel McCleaLucy Ashe|title=A Word Glittering with SpikesClara and Olivia|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=WeThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler're going to follow s Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the fortunes of two couples (or are they 'would-be couples' or 'might-have-been couples'?) as they navigate outside but not, we learn, on the treacherous waters of loveinside. David CastledineAnd not on stage, either. Because there's first meeting with Jenny could hardly have been less auspicious: he hit hera lot that builds a dancer. He didnSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that 't 'je ne sais quoi'actually', that don' mean to hit her but he threw a stick for his aunt's dog to chase and it caught her on t come from the headclassroom. Head wounds bleed profusely and this one was no exceptionA stage presence, a charm, so David had to take her back to his aunta ''joie de vivre''s apartment to clean her up. I suppose there have been worse meetingsThe difference between a hard-worker, but it's difficult to think of one!and a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0993025501</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick Modiano, Sempe (illustrator) and William Rodarmor (translator)Heather Fawcett|title=Catherine CertitudeEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=What little I know of Patrick Modiano was gained from the number of 'noEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, weto write her life've never heard of hims work, either' articles and summaries that came our way when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature at the end very first encyclopaedia of 2014faeries. They suggested his oeuvre was matureWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, slightly thriller-based but she is not exclusively so, and asked lots of accumulative questions regarding identity good with regard to the Vichy government during WWIIpeople. Identity is a lot more fixed So when she finds herself far, far North in this musing little piecethe small village of Hrafvsnik, for having somehow offended the adult voice-over looks back over a wide removevillage matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and says there will always be a little bit of put her final investigations for her living book back on the events and situations of the bookright track. Those situations are of a young dance-school attendeeEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and her loving insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much-loved father, living a cosy life in Paris – even if the girl never once really works out to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what it exactly is her father does for a living…going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1783443022</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=R D Shanks1398515388|title=A Reverie of BrothersThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The castle First of Delzean's walls have always protected Emperor Eliall, his sonsit was the earthquake, sisterdeep in the ocean floor, niece and nephew from which created the ravages tsunami and poverty of the people this, in turn, caused the city beyondnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. However The deaths were uncountable, and the days may be numbered as a burgeoning revolution has infiltrated its walls thanks to the rebel movement known as The Eyesloss of livelihoods was widespread. Their plan necessitates The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the unwitting involvement list of priorities but - six months after the spoilt, egotistical aforementioned niece, Princess Avatsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Unfortunately there will be collateral damage with tragic effectsHe wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1505631394</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick HarkawayChristopher Bowden|title=TigermanMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Battle-weary and suffering from PTSD, 40-year-old Sergeant Lester Ferris Christopher Bowden's latest novel is posted to the island a patient untangling of Mancreu to mark time till his retirementa seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. With no family of his own, Lester takes The aunt who always provided a local lad under his wing; an adolescent who lives his own life through comic books safe harbour and superheroes in the hope that he can be adopted. Despite Mancreu beginning a little bit of indulgence to churn with a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than its customary black marketeering, Lester realises that he has a job on his hands, not only nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to take care of him an island that sees him as a government puppet but also convince someone that he is the stuff of heroism and obligation to convince himself while he's at find itall out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099591758</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Karen Thompson WalkerJennifer Mason|title=The Age Partitions of MiraclesUnity
|rating=4
|genre=Dystopian General Fiction|summary=''The Age of Miracles'' was one of those much-talked about books that I never got the time to read on its Here at Bookbag Towers, we first go around. I'm not sure how I managed thatmet Elizabeth Cromwell, but I did. Anyway, it got debut author Thompson Walker a seven figure deal after a bidding war dominatrix and it has dystopian themesunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], so it is right up my alley when she investigated and not the sort unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of thing IUnity''d usually miss. And so, I was happy that Simon & Schuster decided she sets her mind to reissue it for solving a YA market and even happier that they decided to send me a copymurder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471124851</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gary KuryloWill Carver|title=The Seventh SimianDaves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edith has lived alone for many years and she has become irascible and rather anti-socialFive strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. She avoids even going into As their fates overlap, the nearby village to do her shopping and the only human being she sees with any regularity story is the local shopkeeper who makes grocery deliveries told in backwards order, leading up to her and makes an art form of palming off the strange old lady with overpriced, underweight goods. If it weren't for her cat, Edith would have no companionship at allfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00Q4SETM2</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jane Lythell Jennifer Mason|title=After the StormPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Rob and Anna are nearing the Honduras leg of their South American travels. Here they meet Kimberley and Owen, an American couple who charter out their own boat for sailing trips around the local islands. Rob persuades Anna it will be a fun way to end their holiday but Anna isn't so sure. There's something about Owen and Kimberley that makes her hesitant about being shut away on a boat at sea with them. Perhaps it's the way that he never sleeps or the mystery as to why there are no knives in the cutlery drawer. Rob thinks Anna's just overly imaginative, but time will tell.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855323</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stewart Foster
|title=We Used to Be Kings
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and Jack are 18 today. Not that they have much cause -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 celebration bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of- stuck the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a home for troubled childrencheap oil painting, they are constantly examined an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' This is just a sample of the cast of characters and questioned by doctorssettings in Preposterous. As you can see, when all they want is to some keeping up will be left alone to live life togetherrequired! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099584190</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
 
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