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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Danielle McLaughlinJenny Lecoat|title=Dinosaurs Beyond Summerland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jean lives on Other PlanetsJersey 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 Me to Introduce Myself

|genre=Short Stories General Fiction|summary=Seeing as this book is clearly a talented author hitting Anuri spent her childhood on display to the ground runningworld, I will dispense with any major preamble. We start with a tale of a daughter affected by the emotions of thanks to her parents as they separate – and the influence of a certain schoolstep-teacher – from the motherOphelia's point increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of viewAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. An ancient input shows how alien, Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and the modern day domesticity how regularto get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the isolation of a woman can feel, as events are peppered by minor acts of destructioncontent about her. But men can be alienated too – especially oneAnuri is battling alcoholism, a reluctant guest at a party for children hosted by someone he once had an affair with – he feels the new form of this influence in the light of another one he has had failing to try start her PhD, undergoing therapy and abandonsecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. 'All About Alice' – that's what the title character wants to say but has nobody to speak it toMost importantly, but she is it desperately worried about her – mid-40s and singlelittle sister, living with her father – that who is most removed from the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her dreams or sister, and perhaps herself and her old friend and now child factory, Marian? And we complete a lap of the calendar relationship with her father at the wintry tale of a man unable to tell his work superiors of the problems he faces at home – a new home, recently built like so many one sees while driving round Ireland.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473613701</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Gary D SchmidtJennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, 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 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Orbiting JupiterDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Twelve year-old Jack is informed that his We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents will be fostering another boy – fourteen year-old Josephin Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. But Joseph isn Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 't like most fourteen year-olds. HeCallas's troubled: to make it more manageable in the rumour is States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that he spent time in juvenile incarceration she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for trying to kill his teacher. And there's something else about Josephher elder sister, too: he has a daughterJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783443944</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tasha KavanaghAlexander McCall Smith|title=Things We Have In CommonThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=Yasmin The Perfect Passion Company is fifteen a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and seriously overweight - her capacity for consuming food will amaze and sickenoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She's bullied at school Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and even her own mother finds her just look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a little bit weird: let's not go into what her stepfather thinks about herwhile. Her father died Katie is coming out of a break up with a while agobad boyfriend, but Yasmin has never really and so jumps at the chance to come home to terms with his death Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and still has the feeling that everything would be OK if only Terry was still aroundIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. There's Katie has no experience in running a girl business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in Yasminher abilities, and there's class called Alice always her very helpful (and Yasmin is so in awe of her that she stalks her. One dayrather handsome) neighbour, in the school playgroundWilliam, she spots to lend a man watching Alice as carefully as she does and becomes obsessed by the idea that the man is going to abduct Alice.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782115943</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate AtkinsonDean Koontz|title=A God in RuinsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=Teddy Todd never 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 expected weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to survive his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the warvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. As He is a bomber pilot nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it wasn't something which you could rely on and he certainly knew turns out that the statisticsdelivery 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 being a good person. But - against all the oddsSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he came through it, albeit Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491}}{{Frontpage|author=Katherine Howe|title=A True Account|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, 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 to be a hanging of some time spent as pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a prisoner young boy's death at the hands of wartwo vicious pirates. On balance he had a good warShe hides away, but time will see him married to Nancyso that they don't find and kill her too, father and then to Viola and grandfather escape them completely she runs away to Sunny sea, dressing as a boy and Bertie - and left with joining the feeling that itnotorious Ned Low's more difficult to have pirate ship as a good peace than cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a good warmutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552776645</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jessica Treadway1471180158|title=If She Did ItMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes

|summary=Hanna and Joe had two daughters. IrisJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, the elder, had done well at school and gone on to be for a man who's a medical student, but Dawn had always struggled. Hanna worried that it was something to do control freak with all the birth when Dawn might have been starved subtlety of oxygen for a brief momenthalf brick. She was never brightJamie's son, Bo, bullied at school and suffered from amblyopia or lazy eye'has his problems'. Dawn called it He'lacy eyes asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. In her late teens Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she had 's a boyfriend - tall, good-looking Rud frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to 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 put in the wrong. It was obviously besotted with him going to come to a head.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CKD1L5JL|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and brought him home for Thanksgivingbusy human society, but in the pair left the next morning under a cloud with Joe accusing Rud forests of having stolen from the house whilst everyone else was outWashington's Olympic Peninsula. That night Hanna After Bear dies and Joe were attacked a brief sojourn in their beds; Joe died from his injuries and Hanna was left severely scarred human company, and armed with no memory of only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the events of that nightstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751555266</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christopher RansomSarah Marsh|title=Beneath The LakeA Sign of Her Own

|summary=The Mercer family are on the holiday After a bout of scarlet fever as a lifetime at the somewhat remote Blundstone Lake in Nebraskachild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. It is all the things Suddenly plunged into a camping holiday should be; tranquillity and beautiful scenery world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in spades and lots a time when the use of good old-fashioned family funsign 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. When From here, she ends up in another family arrive, the Mercers try not to feel disappointed that their solitude school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been encroached upon teaching the deaf and do their best to keep out of using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other family's wayinventions and ideas, but when the newcomers' family disharmony becomes violent and murderous, The Mercers have no option but to become rather more acquainted with them than they had bargained for. And so their lives are forever alteredEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751555223</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Jonathan CoeAyura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-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 he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home.}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=Number 11The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45

|summary=There's a great deal of significance It was in the title of ''Number 11''1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. It's the common abbreviation for She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home of the Chancellor of the Exchequerand refused to return, as well as a bus route around the outskirts of Birmingham which provides a useful haven for those who can't afford to put the heating on at home. Itbut Mary and Hamish (Helena's also Jonathan Coe's eleventh novelparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. On a level more personal Her trip to the characters family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the book it's also the number first of floors below ground which are being added to a house in Chelsea owned by an obscenely-rich familyseveral annual visits. Even more obscene is She grew to love her grandmother and the fact that the owner of the house doesnfamily't know what she wants that floor for - everything that could possibly be added (swimming pool with palm treess maid, wine cellarDina, bank vaultbut was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, staff quartersretired general Stamatis Papagiannis...) is on He was proud of his close connections to the other floors or in the house itselfJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. But Mrs Gunn wants it because she can have itHis prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923796</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nils SchouDean Koontz|title= Salinger's LettersAfter Death|rating= 3|genre= General Fiction|summary=Dentist-turned-author Dan Moller is strugglingMichael Mace, Head of Security, both financially and mentallyat a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when an opportunity presents itself a virus is released in the form of a pair of Americansbio-hazard accident. They offer to sweep away Moller's financial worries Finding himself in exchange for his correspondence with J. D. Salingera makeshift mortuary, the elusive author of The Catcher covered in the Rye. What follows isplastic, for Dan Mollerhe has a sense that something very, a journey very bad has happened to America to meet Salinger, him – and only him – as he sits up and, for looks around at the readershrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, a journey through these letters into Mollerhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''s relationship with his depression, the lives of the eccentrics in his writersMichael' collective, and into Western intelligentsia ranging from Kiergegaard's writings to a psychedelic apparition of pop icons featuring Andy Warhol and Woody Allenanymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910124656</amazonuk>1662500467

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck PalahniukB0BVDC2VWH|title=Beautiful YouThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary=Meet Penny HarriganThe village is isolated and poor. And letIt's hope your introduction to her is more gentle than that we have on surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the first page villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of this book, where she is being raped in front of a full court house, who – male to the bone – sit back forest provides heat and say nothingwarmth, if not whip out their camera phone. Once people take her out roofs on a gurney homes, and recognise hereven gallows, we can start from the beginning, where she is a lowly underling at a law firm, having failed too many exams to progress satisfactorilyif needed. The company fear of being buried alive is where an existential superstition in the world's richest man village and that is in legal negotiations having left the world's best and most beautiful actressreason Volushka, a drunken, and lo and behold he just happens to pick Penny to replace her withself-indulgent, even if she doesn't think lazy lout of herself as the most beautiful girl arounda man is tolerated. But what exactly is it she is wanted for, and can her apolitical style of feminism and aspirations be met?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009958767X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Melissa HillB0BYF82CXT|title=The Hotel on Mulberry BaySemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone

|summary=Penny ''Bill and Elle Harte Amanda are sistersliving in a semi-detached house, but they couldn't be more different. The two had an idyllic childhood, brought up stuck in the family hotel in the scenic Irish coastal town a depressing rut of Mulberry Bay. Ambitious Elle always had the urge to spread her wings boredom and disappointment, when Terry and flyFiona – glamorous, whereas her dreamy younger sister was content to stay at home successful and help her parents out very much in love – move in the hotelnext door. As time passedDespite their different outlooks on life, the sisters no longer had the close bond they once shared, especially with Elle living in London, enjoying her successful couples befriend each other and demanding role as an architectlife appears to improve for both pairs. A family tragedy brings the sisters together once more; howeverBut all is not what it seems, and family loyalties their increasingly interconnected relationships are tested as never beforefated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471127710</amazonuk>''

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John SearanckeShalini Boland|title=Prunes for BreakfastThe Silent Bride|rating=43

|summary=Edward Searancke was called up to serve his country Alice and Seth are a match made in 1940heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, not long after the outbreak of the Second World War funny; total and we hear his story from initial callutter husband-upmaterial. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, through successful, confident… and so the years of preparation for inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the invasion of France, to his eventual release as a Prisoner of War wedding is planned and return home to attempt to pick up the pieces of everyday lifeset. It's a delightful mixture of When the mundane (much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the difficulties of getting dry clothingaisle by her father, problems beaming with his feet) and the dramatic (being surrounded and captured in an orchard in Northern France pride and his life excitement as a prisoner of war) and much of the story is told through she surveys the genuine letters from Searancke congregation – their friends assembled to his wife which were handed celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his son after his fatherapproaching bride, Alice's death. John Searancke tells us world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the story of altar is, who is waiting for her to become his father's warwife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784625051</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alexander McCall Smith1787636003|title=Chance Developments: Unexpected Love StoriesThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=Sometimes, if I'm in a cafe by myself, I like to watch It was the people summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around me Greece and imagine stories about their livesarrived on the island. Just a single sentenceRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, overheardnaive, can lead so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to wonderous tales take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of mystery physical approach to her and intrigue whilst I sip my cappuccino! by that time she was obsessed by him. So I was delighted to sit down to read Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanda Craig|title=Three Graces|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the latest offering from AMS, not only because he wrote day and capture it, but because he wrote crafting an image of the country as it after looking stands 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 5 different black this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and white photographslived-in, and then imagining the stories behind never making them. Who are all these ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and what are their stories? Each story is unique, and yet they all have one abiding link...lovegrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846973295</amazonuk>140871468X

{{Frontpage|isbn=152915118X|title=Pineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Helle Helle and Martin Aitken (translator)Emily Critchley|title=This Should One Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a 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. 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 Written the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the Present Tensetruth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt

|summary= This is the first novel of Helle Helle's'Love, an award winning Danish authorI'd read, was supposed to be translated into English. It is easy to see a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from this novel why she is gaining accolades in a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her Danish homeland. The rhythmicOverlaid with later wisdom, natural flow of the narrative is mesmerising and appears narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to lull you through its sorrowful end the booksummer after. It has some lovely, spare sentences Set against the backdrop of description: an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''There were rundetails the 24-year-down cottages old narrator's deepening relationship with open doors her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and news on the radio. Gulls flocked around an early harvester in the late sun''. But mostly, familial relationships and how it is written in a modernist, almost stream of consciousness style, which I found refreshingaltered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099587475</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Homer Hickam0008506337|title=Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife and Her AlligatorGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|genre= General Fiction|summary=Elsie The love affair between Margo Garnett and Homer Hickam were West Virginians poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and knew how to make their tales as described by Margo''tall s mother as the hills that surrounded them on all sides'an older man'. There is a Hickam family legend Her parents worried that has been told Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and retold so many times over having a glittering career. In the years that event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the lines between myth Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and reality have went on to become a well -respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and truly blurredholidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo'Carrying Albert Homes mind: '' is the story of a man and his wife, a sweet pet alligator and a very lucky rooster who decide she would never be able to take a road trip to Florida leave him in 1935; the year of the Great Depressioncharge''. What follows next is all completely true, well, except for the parts that are made up Then Richard left them...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000815421X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lina Wolff and Frank Perry (translator)1914585402|title= Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Upstairs, a flat where mother and daughter struggle from pay cheque to pay cheque; downstairs, the love nest of a dying writer and her last of many conquests. Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs Dashboard Elvis is a multilayered testimonial to the writer, the eccentric Alba Cambó, gathered by Araceli, the teenager upstairs. Through Araceli's bird's-eye view, anecdotes unfold as told by lovers, business acquaintances (often both – for with Alba Cambó you can never know), and the short stories of Cambó herself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276649</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDead|author=John Van der Kiste|title=Always ThereDavid F Ross|rating=34.5

|summary=When Dave left Plymouth to go to college in Uxbridge he met Lisa. They sort of palled around together for a little while with no thought of anything more, well, not on DaveI reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's part at least. The he met Jo and for a long time they were really good friends and it would be Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years before they were anything more. Lisa didn't see it that way though: she reckoned that if Jo hadn't come along she back and Dave would have stuck together remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and made a go of affecting itwas. Dave It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and Jo's couple rereading my review of years at college were marked, if it my main takeaway was that I might not marred, by Lisa's regular outburstshave lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1517761239</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela HartLucy Ashe|title=The Soldier's WifeClara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary=''...none of it was real, until the last moment when his hand, the tips of his fingers, left the tips of hers and he was goneThe year is 1933.The place? Sadler'' ''Turned into just another soldiers Wells.'' Ruby Ballerinas Clara and Jimmy Olivia are newly-weds full of big dreams and plans for the futuresisters, but all of that will have to waittwins no less. It is 1915 and Identical on the world is in outside but not, we learn, on the grip Great Warinside. And not on stage, sweeping Jimmy away to fight battles in far-off Gallipolieither. Ruby feels like sheBecause there's in limbo; no longer an innocent child but not quite a fully-fledged married ladylot that builds a dancer. Not wanting to return homeSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, she decides attention to stay in Sydneydetail – and some things, to keep herself occupied as she waits out the warthat ''je ne sais quoi'', longing for that don't come from the return of her beloved husbandclassroom. She rents A stage presence, a room from charm, a local landlady and finds a job as a bookkeeper at a Timber Merchant''joie de vivre''. Although she initially takes the job to keep herself occupied and earn The difference between a little moneyhard-worker, she soon falls into and a comfortable routine and starts to enjoy her new-found independence and responsibilitystar.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349410186</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alice ThompsonHeather Fawcett|title=The Book CollectorEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=Meet Violet. Swept off her feet by a disarming encounter with a landed gentleman Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and bookshop owner at a coffee shop, she immediately falls in love with himhas travelled extensively, and is quickly marriedresearched meticulously, to write her life's work, and almost as quickly with childthe very first encyclopaedia of faeries. When the boy Whilst she is bornbrilliant at research and speaking to faeries, however, fairly understandable doubts creep inshe is not so good with people. Is her husband hiding anything behind his assuredness – especially So when she wakes finds herself far, far North in the middle small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the night alone? What ghost village matriarch, she is left by the fact he lost his first wife not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and baby in childbirth? What should she understand from put her own opinions about final investigations for her new lifebook back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her new lifedashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's life, and the idea of a nanny looking after itfrustration. But why is he here? What does he want? Just And what exactly is going on in her new country pilewith the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784630438</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sophie Duffy1398515388|title=Bright StarsThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5

|summary= I fell into this novel from First of all, it was the first short chapterearthquake, set deep in 1983the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, at Lancaster University – perhaps because I grew up in turn, caused the 1980'snuclear meltdown. The central character and first person narrator, Cameron Spark, comes across as vulnerable, shy and unassuming, result was complete and at first, likeableutter devastation. As the novel progressedThe deaths were uncountable, however, I did find him less plausible and a bit wet and annoyingthe loss of livelihoods was widespread. He falls in mad love with Bex right at The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the beginning list of priorities but - six months after the book, who is tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a much more interesting character, being dog outside a feisty, feminist, fox-hunting activist and saboteurconvenience store. Cameron is clearly besotted and therefore biased in He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his affection for Bex, car door and you can sense that this is going to get him into deep trouble from Tamon the startdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079840</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack WilsonChristopher Bowden|title=In FidelityMr Magenta|rating=34

|summary=Dick and Christine Blodgett were only 22 when they got married in 1955. As the novel opens in 1974, itChristopher Bowden's clear their relationship latest novel is now precarious. A brief allegorical prologue, echoing Heraclitus, warns that a crisis will change the course patient untangling of the marriage irrevocably: 'one day there was a storm…and the stream never returned to the [channel] it had known before.seemingly ordinary woman' The title of Chapter 1s life, 'A Premonition of Danger', reinforces that sense of forebodingcarried out by her nephew after she has died. Driving on dark, icy roads, Dick The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and Christine fret about her health: a dental procedure revealed little bit of indulgence to a serious problem with her gums for which she will soon need young nephew had had a biopsymuch more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784623830</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jolien JanzingJennifer Mason|title=Charlotte Bronte's Secret Love|rating=3.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=This is the second novel by Jolien Janzing, a Dutch author who lives in Belgium. Originally published in Dutch as ''The Master'' in 2013, it is already being made into a film. The flawlessly translated story zeroes in on two momentous years in Charlotte Brontë's life, 1842–3, when she was a pupil and then a teacher at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels. I read this in tandem with Claire Harman's new biography Partitions of Charlotte Brontë; it was particularly fascinating to see that the two books open with the same climactic episode: lovesick Charlotte making a confession at a Catholic church, even though she was an Anglican parson's daughter.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9462380597</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jojo Moyes|title=After YouUnity

|summary=After writing the massively popular Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Me Before You'Partitions of Unity', all of Jojo Moyes' readers were clamouring for more. Having been on the edge of our armchairs during the story, we all wanted to know what happened to Lou next. Would she be okay? Would she live sets her life with passion? Where would she go next? So the arrival of this story is mind to solving a special treat, as it continues the tale of Lou, although perhaps not in the way we had imagined…murder...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718179617</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Mike BullenWill Carver|title= TrustThe Daves Next Door|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Greg and Amanda are happy. Unmarried, but together thirteen years and with two young daughters, they are very much in love. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motions, and they're staying together for the sake of their troubled teenage son. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, and turns an unhappy couple into love's young dream. As secrets and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trust|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Menna Van Praag|title=The Dress Shop Of Dreams|rating=5

|summary= Cambridge is a city of winding streets and cobbled alleyways and Five strangers come together in such one moment as a street you will find A Stich In Time, a tiny dress shop filled suicide bomber prepares to bursting with dresses that will take your breath away. Etta Sparks spends her days crafting gowns from jewel-coloured velvets and beaded silks that are unlike any dresses you have seen before; once you try one of Etta's creations detonate his vest on - and with a few stitches from her expert and rather magical needle - these incredibleLondon tube line. As their fates overlap, amazing garments have the power story is told in backwards order, leading up to reach within your soul and extract your deepest desire and hidden-away dreamsthe fateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749018720</amazonuk>1914585186}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ruth RendellJennifer Mason|title=Dark CornersPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4.5

|summary=Carl Martin was ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the fortunate position of having Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just had his first novel published and inheriting his late fathermissed the 2004 Olympics, a women's house in Maida Vale. His father had accumulated track coach with a collection of homeopathic remedies which really should have been thrown outyen for bullwhips, but Carl had other things on his mind and never got round to it. There was his girlfriend Nicola, work to start on his second novel and he wanted to let the top floor of his house. Authors are not that well off, you see and he needed some ready money coming in. In addition to being a bit remiss about the contents billionaire with a state-of -the medicine cabinet he should have been -art S&M dungeon, a bit more careful about who he took on as man serving a tenant.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091959241</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Julia Franck and Anthea Bell (translator)|title=West|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Put yourself life sentence in the shoes of a young mother to two childrenAlabama, who declares her intention to leave the Communist East Germany for West Berlinan enigmatic signature, and thus loses her scientist job. What would you expect on the other side – shops full of attainable productsK(s, pleasant neighbourhoodsx), nice neighbourson a cheap oil painting, an active and busy new life, where things might feel alien but at least you speak the same language? Well, for Nelly Senff, this is hardly the caseerotic art dealer in Georgia... Once past the depressing Eastern exit procedures she is confronted with more desultory interrogations from those 'welcoming' her to  This is just a sample of the West, beyond which she cast of characters and her children (their father, whom she never married, is long assumed dead by the authorities, if nobody else) are practically left in a shared accommodation settings in a transit campPreposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The shops are full basic premise of what is still unobtainable, the children hate their new school – and people still look down on them as being foreign, even if they have only moved across a citythis mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099554321</amazonuk>B09STS96HS