Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=S E CraythorneJenny Lecoat|title=How You See Beyond Summerland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|isbn=1846976537}}{{Frontpage|author=Onyi Nwabineli|title=Allow Meto Introduce Myself

|summary=DanielAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's father childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is ill after a stroke in her twenties and so Daniel needs she is slowly trying to go home regain her confidence and to Norfolk get her life back, suing her step-mother to nurse himtake down the content about her. While there he continues to write letters Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to his beloved girlfriend Alicestart her PhD, his sister Mab undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and his boss to keep receiving money from them up to datefor doing so. The problems in DanielMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's life are a lot closer to home than those he's left behind in his normal life thoughonline empire. Gradually Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the reasons why Daniel left Norfolk return to him, increasing in intensity until it's much, much too late.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434562</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Massey 1529153298|title=The Last Four Days Of Paddy BuckleyList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45

|summary= Paddy Buckley It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a grieving widower who has worked for years for GallagherPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'sfamily, a long-established—some say the best—funeral home in Dublinthough. Women have been disappearing. One night driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client Well, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his carthey've been murdered, intending but to do the right thinghave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. As he bends over Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to help move the manfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, he recognizes himDown South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. It's Donal Cullen For Miv, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublinmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. And he She's dead. Shocked and scared, Paddy jumps back in his car and drives away before anyone notices whatnot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's happenedstopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594634858</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James Lovegrove1035906708|title=Sherlock Holmes - The Thinking EngineDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=In this hyper-connected worldWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, it is not difficult but she was born to conceive of machines that can answer perplexing questions Greek parents in the blink of an eyeManhattan, communicate over a vast network or even seemingly outsmart humans. Of courseNew York, in the year 1895, such a machine would be viewed with deep suspicion December 1923 and curiosity; hailed as a miracle, or condemned as the work of dark supernatural forcesonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. James Lovegrove put this idea Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to the test in his latest Sherlock Holmes adventure, 'Callas'The Thinking Engine'', which pits man against machine to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the ultimate battle Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of witsher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783295031</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=C B CalicoAlexander McCall Smith|title=Dandelion AngelThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=In 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 asked her Author's Noteyounger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, debut novelist Cas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while.B. Calico reveals that ''Dandelion Angel'' was inspired by Katie is coming out of a break up with a non-fiction workbad boyfriend, ''Understanding and so jumps at the Borderline Mother'' by Christine Ann Lawsonchance to come home to Edinburgh. The four mother/daughter relationships in And so begins this Germany-set novel – all marked new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some extent by dysfunctionnew characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, physical and/or verbal abusein match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and borderline personality disorder – are based on Lawsonthere's metaphorical classifications: the hermitalways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny 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, the queendisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the waifthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, and Benny is the witchvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. Looping back through her four storylines in three complete cycles He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, Calico shows how mental illness who has been sent to help him since Benny is rooted in childhood experiences clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can go on to affect a whole familyfigure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B0112SC9CA</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby and Kevin MoffettKatherine Howe|title=The Silent HistoryA True Account

|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=WellHannah Masury is living in Boston, they kept this quiet – for reasons that will become obvious. A couple of years ago people in America were giving birth to problematic kids. They (the children) were soon found having been sent to be unnaturally quiet – perhaps crying live with hunger or paina family who run an inn, but never even trying and being made to 'ooga-wooga' their way into their parents' heartswork there from a young age. They were later found When she hears there is to be completely unable a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to speak, they could not read go and indeed they could not understand anything said to them, or shown them, as an instructionwatch. They were physically unable to parse anything as languageEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, and were Hannah finds herself embroiled in a silent world young boy's death at the hands of their owntwo vicious pirates. But right about now She hides away, so that they don't find and we are combining worlds – schools are being set upkill her too, and funds are being made availablethen to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and people are coming down on joining the endless divide notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as to whether they are just problematic, disabled – or even the blesseda cabin boy. In a couple She soon finds herself in the thick of years, however, the problems the virus that things when there is causing these people to be born with will be shown to be a major problem – mutiny on board, and that is before from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the kids themselves change. For they will be able to switch their mental abilities much like a blind man can hear more than the average, and will be able to comprehend body and facial language much more coherently than anyone elseocean waves. Throughout this timeline, however, people will be working hard to try and study the problem, and put it right – if indeed 'right' is the correct word…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>009959286X</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Crown and Jamie Searle Romanelli (translator)1471180158|title=SiriusMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5

|summary=Meet Levi. HeJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a humble little dog living control freak with all the subtlety of a loving familyhalf brick. TheyJamie's son, Bo, 've spent so much time with him he has learnt some tricks – not only his problems'. He's asthmatic and the usual onesmore you read, of begging, or playing dead, but walking on two legs, somersaulting the more you'll suspect that he's on to his two other paws, and giving the Hitler saluteautistic spectrum. If this was 2015 Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the UK he would be shoe-in for Britainlocal A&E and sometimes Bo's Got Talent (although not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the Hitler salute might lose him a few votes, need to be honest) but this is 1930s Berlin, and things away on time to pick Bo up from school are starting to get horrendously tough occasions when Jamie can be controlled and nasty for Jewish families like his. Querying the statute laws that demand a formalisation of Jewish names his owners rename Levi after Sirius, the Great Dog put in the night skieswrong. But nobody can foresee what happens when Jews are pushed harder and harder from their neighbourhoods, and nobody can see what It was going to come to a Great Dog star Sirius can become, in the most unlikely of milieux – Hollywood…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784081981</amazonuk>head.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Meike ZiervogelB0CKD1L5JL|title=KautharRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Meet LydiaPetr is an orphan. SheRescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a normal British girl, interested brief sojourn in following both her fatherhuman company, and Nadia Comaneciarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, into Petr goes on a journey through the world of gymnastics but not brave enough to pull off forest, broadcasting the larger set piecesstrange, wild and with not much more to interrupt rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her days than wondering why boys always have to talk hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about their williesher life changes. Now meet Kauthar, Living in a white British convert to Islam, devoted follower of time when the precepts use of her religionsign language was seen as something only savages do, ardent wife and stalwartly self-fulfillingEllen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, no-nonsense and satisfiedbut physically restrained from signing. But what is this – why is From here, she talking of being alone ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a desertsystem called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and why is she directly addressing her god regarding how she ''can't perform any movementEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Because it is torn apart''? Has something gone wrong?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784630292</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julia HeaberlinB0BC3YTCMR|title=Black Eyed SusansGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=I knew little about this book before I started it - other than the intriguing title and the scant information that it ''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a psychological mystery about very bright student, a girl who survives abduction by a serial killer. For those whobit too nerdy if truth be told, like me, can't resist suspense (and it seems that many suffered from vitiligo - people do fall into this category, according were afraid to the bestseller lists at least), this is enticement enoughhug her in case it's contagious. And I was It's not disappointed: this story offers psychological uncertainty and suspense from start to finisheasy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. The narrative alternates between present day and the past, each section lasting just She had a couple of pagescrush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. I found this structure tricky Then he did: Lavender was very good at first, although each chapter does offer a helpful timeline math and the chapters are short enough that it's easy to reorient yourselfReggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. Once I got used She went to the choppy style I found that it did work, his house and it worked really wellhe raped her. In shock, reflecting the constant flashbacks and mental turmoil experienced by Tessa, the protagonistshe even allowed him to give her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718181336</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tessa McWatt1472263936|title= Higher Ed The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating= 2.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Robin works at 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 universitypity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Olivia is one Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of his studentsseveral annual visits. Francine works behind She grew to love her grandmother and the scenes in admin. Katrin is a waitress in a local caféfamily's maid, Dina, but was wary - and Ed has a role in a rather unique bit frightened - of local governmenther grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. This bizarre cast He was proud of characters are his close connections to the stars of Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father'Higher Ed'', a story which eventually combines all of their livess Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1925228045</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Mary KubicaDean Koontz|title= Pretty Baby|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= On her morning commute to work, Heidi sees something that shakes her. A young girl, barely older than her own pre-teen daughter, huddling in the rain on the platform, clutching a tiny baby. It's a distressing situation and it stays on her mind for the rest of the day. So much so that when she sees the girl again, she feels obligated to help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848453965</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=John Piper|title=La Crème de la CremAfter Death

|summary=Gala night Michael Mace, Head of Security, at Frere Jacques restaurant where the local political and good gather for a banquettop secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Everyone is looking forward Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to a good night 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 thatthere is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything's what they'll have, just not quite in the way they envisaged. Indeed it will be Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a night to remember for a long time to come, for all Witching Forest. And the wrong reasons courtesy villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the little something 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 dessert. Meanwhile young people are going missing on a scale village and that is the town reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of Tresside has never experienced before but Tresside doesn't know the half of it… yet!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00G4A2RQ0</amazonuk>a man is tolerated.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Katie EversonB0BYF82CXT|title= DropSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Katie Everson’s debut novel''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, ‘Drop,’ is stuck in a tale depressing rut of grief boredom and disappointment, when Terry and healingFiona – glamorous, whirlwind romance successful and brutal honestyvery much in love – move in next door. We follow Despite their different outlooks on life, the story of Carla - straight-A-student, rule-abiding daughter couples befriend each other and somewhat uninteresting friend - who is determined life appears to change her predictable lifeimprove for both pairs. When her absentee mother But all is offered a job in Londonnot what it seems, Carla transfers to yet another school and this time she is desperate to not be overlookedtheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406356271</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= John NivenShalini Boland|title= The Sunshine Cruise CompanySilent Bride|rating= 4.53|genre= HumourGeneral Fiction|summary= Susan Frobisher Alice and Julie Wickham live Seth are a match made in a small Dorset townheaven. Friends since school He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage to accountant Barryclever, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat funny; total and working in an old people's homeutter husband-material. When Barry She is found dead trussed up all he could possibly want in a sex dungeonwife; beautiful, it transpires that he has been leading a hidden life for yearssuccessful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and his expensive fetishes lead to the bank moving to take Susan's homewedding is planned and set. Struck When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by both desperation and a sense of injusticeher father, Sue beaming with pride and Julie conspire to rob a bank, taking along excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due friends assembled to lack of money celebrate this joyful day and a terminally ill grandsonwhen Seth turns to face his approaching bride, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the nursing home longing altar is, who is waiting for adventureher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paula McGrath1787636003|title= GenerationThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating= 45|genre= General Fiction|summary=How can we know It was the effect summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that our choices may have she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the next generation? Even island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a seemingly minor decision has while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the potential to create ripples island and waves of unforeseen repercussions in particular in the future. This fascinating theme is explored in “Generation”, an intelligently-written début novel that approaches bar where all the subject from multiple perspectives over an eighty-year periodgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147361483X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kerry HudsonAmanda Craig|title= ThirstThree Graces|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= London – SummerFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. AlenaThere's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, a young siberian immigrant crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is caught stealing shoesskilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Dave, She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the man who catches lives of her, is a security guard – surviving on characters in a minimal income way that feels natural and with little drive to better his quietlived-in, repetitive life. As Alena and Dave grow closernever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, Dave finds his life turned upside downgrappling with issues far larger than themselves. But will Alena ever let down her guard, and reveal the truth about her past?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099589893</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Lesley Pearse152915118X|title= Without a TracePineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Cassie's arrival was bound to cause a stir in 'Pineapple Street'' is the sleepy Somerset village story of Sawbridgethree women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. She had flaming red hair Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a voluptuous figure accentuated Stockton by very tight clothingbirth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, towering heelsTilda, heavy make-up asks Cord and no wedding ring. But the thing that really shocked the locals was Sasha if they'd like to move into the fact that she had a little mixed-race girl in towPineapple Street property. Petal Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, as she was calleda street or so away, soon melted the hearts which they own. They won't need any of the residentsfurniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but no such courtesy was extended that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to Cassie, who was dubbed call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'that red-headed whore' by somefamily home. Her only friend was the kind shopkeeper Molly Heywood, who would They use it so often visit Cassie and Petal at their isolated stone cottage on that they abbreviate it to 'the outskirts of the villageGD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024196153X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eva RiceEmily Critchley|title=Love Notes for FreddieOne Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Marnie 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is an innocentfacing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, mathematical genius schoolgirl who, unfortunately, gets expelled from as Edie is starting to lose her fancy boarding schoolmemory. Julie However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her teacherchildhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, formerly and the worry that there was a dancer, rigorously private about her past. Freddie is secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the boy thing that both reveals the truth of them fall in love withwhat happened all that time ago. Revealed through After 'seeing' Lucy in the eyes of two of high street, just as she was the three main characterslast time she saw her, this is a slow-moving, but rather beautifully told, love storyshe starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. It has And yet as she remembers the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets'' past, she is forgetting more and it cleverly winds its way through Marnie's story more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the 1960truth about Lucy's as well as Julie's past in pre-WW2 New York.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782064486</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kat GordonMadelaine Lucas|title= Artificial Anatomy of ParksThirst for Salt|rating= 5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary=One morning in 2002''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, twentya young woman unravels the year-one year old Tallulah Park is woken in her depressing bedsit by the phonecall announcing long relationship that once defined her father's heart attack. From this bleak beginning springs Kat Gordon's gripping debut novel of a dysfunctional upper middle class family Overlaid with a history of papering over later wisdom, the cracks and ignoring narrator relives the uncomfortable and unfitting. Tallulah has been doing affair with a man twenty years her fair share of powering on and pretending things don't exist, but it seems like this might turn out senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to be its sorrowful end the time to stop running awaysummer after. With Set against the reluctant help backdrop of two aunts, an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old family friend and her own imperfect recollections, and narrator's deepening relationship with a vivid imagining of her late grandmother as the voice of conscienceolder lover, Tallulah sets out to answer some longdepicting its all-standing questions about consuming nature, how it changed her family perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her own pastirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079867</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dido Butterworth and Tim Flannery0008506337|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=35|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=Meet Archie MeekThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. He's about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived for the last five years, and return to Sydney, where he'll take his office Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the museum love. Richard was twenty-one and fill it with all the cultural artefacts hedescribed by Margo's found and wildlife hemother as 'an older man's plucked or pickled. ThatHer parents worried that Richard's not influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan Oxford and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his bodyhaving a glittering career. But what's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him to go there in In the first place, a hugeevent, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanishedWight. Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell Margo did go to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kate Hewitt|title= Rainy Day Sisters|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Amateur artist Lucy Bagshaw isn't exactly living the American dream; she lives in Boston with her overbearing mother Oxford and works as a barista in a coffee shop, but things are about went on to get become a lot worsewell-respected journalist. Her mother The couple had three children: Rachel, a famous Imogen and controversial artist, writes an scathing editorial, publicly insulting Lucy's artwork just before her first exhibitionSasha. The editorial quickly goes viral Life was lived in London and a humiliated Lucy flees holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the country, unsure Isle of where her life is headingWight. She runs away where nobody can find her; a sleepy Cumbrian village by Even then the sea, where her estranged half-sister runs a boarding house. Lucy quickly questions the wisdom of her decision when doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she receives a frosty welcome from her sister would never be able to leave him in a village that seems permanently cold, wet and rainycharge''. Should Lucy try and make a new life for herself here, or should she return to Boston and face her demons?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0451475585</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sarah Winman1914585402|title=A Year of Marvellous WaysDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross

|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across the landscape with her binoculars. She has I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a feeling something will happen couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and soonaffecting it was. Elsewhere American Francis Drake (he's heard all the jokes!) has come home from the war It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and looks up the girl he left behind with results rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that are beyond his nightmares but will feature in themI might not have lavished enough praise on it. Marvellous' and Drakes' lives will cross and then – Marvellous is right – something will happen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Bourne Lucy Ashe|title=Two LivesClara and Olivia|rating=34.5

|summary=One late afternoon in January 2012, Emma Elliot and Loretta DavidsonThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's lives collide – along with their carsWells. Both Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are running late and driving too fast along this Surrey roadsisters, twins no less. Emma is unharmed and flees Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the sceneinside. And not on stage, either. Little does she know Because there's a lot that this incident will have long-term consequences further down the linebuilds a dancer. For LorettaSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the effects are more immediateclassroom. A social worker in her fortiesstage presence, a charm, she has taken a career break to raise her and Martin's beloved son Ethan, born after an arduous IVF cycle just over four years ago'joie de vivre''. Ethan is in critical condition after the car accident and dies during surgery. In her griefThe difference between a hard-worker, Loretta turns to Scotch and Valium and drifts away from her husband and their familiesa star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Val HennessyHeather Fawcett|title=Not Far From DreamlandEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries|rating=4.5

|summary=Ronald Tonks Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has reached that stage in travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to s work, the free television licence barriervery first encyclopaedia of faeries. What Ronald ''has'' got Whilst she is a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'the shack')brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, a dog who she is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supplynot so good with people. On So when she finds herself far, far North in the plus side he small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has friendsdone, mostly platonic nor how to redeem herself and usually in much put her final investigations for her book back on the same boat as Ronaldright track. But are they downhearted? WellEnter Wendell Bambleby, they are occasionallyher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, but mostly they're generously optimistic all charm and out delight, much to make the most of what theyEmily've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble saless frustration. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the story of a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relatives.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo McMillan1398515388|title=Motherland: A NovelThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=Jess is a teenage Communist First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which isn't a surprise since she comes from a Communist familycreated the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Her late father The result was a card carrying member complete and Jess spends her weekends selling ''The Morning Star'' with her equally enthused mother Eleanorutter devastation. It's not only a thankless taskThe deaths were uncountable, it's not a very welcome sight for some citizens in their native Tamworth of the 1970s. However Eleanor and Jess' lives are about to change, thanks to an all-expenses paid trip to the GDR – Communist East Germany; a place on the same side loss of the Berlin Wall as Jess' and Eleanor's heartslivelihoods was widespread. However, they both learn The fact that even a political heaven has its lessons and, indeed, its downside.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473611997</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Eve Chase|title= Black Rabbit Hall|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=At Black Rabbit Hall, time goes “syrupy slow.” None many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the clocks work properly, but an hour at Black Rabbit is said to last twice as long as tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a London one, and you donconvenience store. He wasn't get a quarter of dog person but the things done. Every holiday, the Alton family swap the hustle and bustle of London life for this secluded Cornish retreat, a place convenience store owner's comment that is theirs he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and theirs aloneTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718182979</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle MillerChristopher Bowden|title=The UnderwritingMr Magenta

|summary= Todd Kent Christopher Bowden's latest novel is young, rich, stupidly handsome, and well on his way to the top a patient untangling of Wall Street. When a new dating app called “Hook” decides to go publicseemingly ordinary woman's life, Todd is handpicked carried out by Hook’s eccentric founder to lead the project teamher nephew after she has died. Taking brainy analyst Neha, spoilt party-boy Beau, The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and old flame Tara Taylor with him – the team find themselves thrust into the hectic circumstances of a $14 Billion deal. As Silicon Valley and Wall Street clash, the death little bit of indulgence to a young girl will find the team at odds with each other – nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and spinning wildly out of control. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182974</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Alena Graedon|title= The Word Exchange|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Welcome to the world of the ''Meme''; the next-generation mobile device. Imagine technology so sophisticated that it could anticipate your needs as soon as they come into your mind. Need seems to get home? Your Meme will hail a cab. Feeling unwell? The Meme has him an app for that. Negative thoughts? The Meme will intercede on your behalf obligation to call family and friends or even 911, if needed. Yes, the Meme is a truly indispensable aid that has revolutionised the way that humans communicate. Critics say that find it's destroying human language and verbal interaction, but don't worry: the Meme has an app for that too. If you are lost for words, the ''Word Exchange'' will supply you with the word you require. For a small fee of course..all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780225628</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cornelius MedveiJennifer Mason|title=The Making Partitions of Mr BolsoverUnity

|summary=Meet Andrew Lynch. He's a graduate civil servantHere at Bookbag Towers, then he isn't. He's marriedwe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, then he isn't. He's a librarian, then he isn’t. He starts, of all things, to live dominatrix and unintentional detective in a handmade camp in the Sussex countryside[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and gets unravelled a job writing nature notes for a local magazine – until itseries of disappearances. In 's clear he's shooting, killing and eating too many Partitions of his subjects for his audienceUnity''s tastes. He turns his efforts to writing politicised letters , she sets her mind to the local newspaper, where his nephew is solving a jobbing hack, which inspires further, more campaigning activitiesmurder... Yes, it seems that Andrew Lynch's path to the top is foretold – but his fate is most definitely anything but natural…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099548690</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison Jean LesterWill Carver|title=Lillian on LifeThe Daves Next Door|rating=4.5

|summary=Lillian is Five strangers come together in her late fifties, single and childless but you shouldn't - for a one moment - allow yourself to think that she has a rather sad life. She's lived through periods of tremendous change in post-war Munich, Paris, London and she's now come to rest, smart and independent, in New York. Born in a time when the expectations of her parents - and of society - were fairly standard as to what a woman should do with her life, she seems always suicide bomber prepares to have had detonate his vest on a sense that she would disappoint both if she was to be true to herself. She's hot blooded and sexually uninhibited and certainly ahead of her time in her views. When we first meet her she's waking up next to her married lover and taking stock of her lifeLondon tube line. Amongst other things.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549520</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Robert Crompton|title=Bunderlin|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=As a child Martin had been fascinated and entranced by his neighbour Mrs Bundy's household menagerie. Her son Peter was there too but on the periphery; Martin was just there to visit the animals. In adulthood their paths cross again but this time Peter Bunderlin (as he's now known) isn't so easy to avoid – and Martin's tried! Perhaps if Martin could understand what fates overlap, the heck Peter story is told in backwards order, leading up to?the fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784078549</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eve MakisJennifer Mason|title=The Spice Box LettersPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5

|summary=Katerina''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's Armenian grandmother Mariam dies leaving her and her mother track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a journal life sentence in Armenian and Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a spice box full of mysterious letterscheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... They're special to them both because they're  This is just a sample of the legacy cast of a much loved relative but totally indecipherable to the monolingually English paircharacters and settings in Preposterous. However a holiday abroad to get over a recent break As you can see, some keeping up brings a random encounter for Katerinawill be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this.. When Katerina meets Ara she also meets the key to her grandmother's secret past.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910124087</amazonuk>B09STS96HS