'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Philip Sington
|title=The Einstein Girl
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The two central characters are (and we've come across it many times before) a psychiatrist (in this case Kirsch) and his patient (known as the Einstein Girl) and hence the novel's title. The case of this girl is intriguing, not least because both doctor and patient had accidentally met prior to her admission to hospital. Kirsch appears immediately smitten - which may be a problem. He's already spoken for. In a nutshell, the Einstein Girl has lost her memory. Kirsch finds more and more of his professional time given over to her recovery, back to mental well-being. It becomes a long and complicated journey, for both of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535793</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Juliet Nicolson
|summary=Rowena Moon and her husband Brendan lived on the Cornish coast with their three children, Jenna, Charlie and Olivia. Brendan was an artist – and a reasonably successful one. Rowena ran a local café and the children had the freedom of the local beach. It sounds like, and probably was, an idyllic childhood until one day Rowena disappeared without warning and without explanation. It was devastating and affected each of the children in different ways as they grew up. Twenty two years later the five are reunited and the mystery of their past unravels.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955599741</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bobbie Darbyshire
|title=Love, Revenge and Buttered Scones
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Three people are travelling on a train heading to Inverness. Their destination is the town's library where the book group meets on the last Friday of each month. They each have their own reasons for going but none of them realise that the weekend is going to have far reaching consequences for them all.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905207379</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sandra Heath
|title=A Commercial Enterprise
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Caroline is a Lexham, but she's not one of ''the'' Lexhams as her father made a rather unfortunate marriage. In consequence she's rather surprised to be invited to the reading of her uncle's will. She didn't know him, had no expectations and probably wouldn't have gone to London if she hadn't been trying to escape the attentions of a pressing suitor. The journey there is trying, but she's rescued by Sir Hal Seymour who gives her a lift in his carriage. It might have got Caro to the reading on time, but she made an enemy of his mistress who had hopes of becoming his wife.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070908997X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jaye Wells
|title=The Mage in Black (Sabina Kane)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=After betraying the Dominae and siding with a Mage over the Vampires, Sabina Kane finds herself on the run. Leaving behind everything she knows, she travels with Mage, Adam, to meet the other half of her family – her twin sister, Maisie. Though the Mages welcome her with open arms, Sabina, used to the cold, displeasure of her Dominae Grandmother, can't quite accept their open affection, or their conviction that she has a destiny. Her only focus is on revenge, developing her Mage powers so she can defeat her Grandmother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497576</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lorrie Moore
|title=A Gate At The Stairs
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Bass-playing, 20 year-old Tassie Keltjin is studying an eclectic range of subjects (Geology, British Literature, Sufism, Soundtracks to War Movies and Wine Tasting) in post 9/11 USA when she lands a job as a child minder for chef, Sarah Bink who is adopting an African-American baby. A Gate at the Stairs is at times a very funny and at others a sad reflection of growing up in modern America.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057119530X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Eleanor Catton
|title=The Rehearsal
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you are the type of person who wants their novels to start at the beginning, build character and plot before coming to a satisfying 'they all lived happily ever after' ending, then avoid this book at all costs. You will hate it. But I cannot remember when I last enjoyed a first time novel as much as this one. It is ambitious, daring and complex, and yet it works beautifully.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847081398</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Barbara Kingsolver
|title=The Lacuna
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Ten years ago, Barbara Kingsolver's [[The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver|Poisonwood Bible]] revealed the grim politics in the Congo. The Lacuna has a similarly political theme, this time turning her focus on Mexico and the USA in the 1940s and 1950s.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057125263X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Christine Dwyer Hickey
|title=Last Train From Liguria
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The heroine in this novel is Bella. She's a rather unassuming young woman who has had a rather unassuming childhood - save for the fact that she was motherless at an early age and her relationship with the father is a little strained, to say the least. Bella needs to breathe. So she leaves the drizzle of England for the blue skies and heat of Italy. Her father has propelled her into ''gentle'' employment there. She's tentative about the whole thing but warms to it by degrees.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843549883</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Eagleman
|title=Sum: Tales from the Afterlives
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=For some reason I find myself unable to start this review. So I'll mention this book starts with the end, and see where we go from there. Of course, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen to be reading this) and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafter, in the hereafter. It's not so much 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' as 'Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=James Lasdun
|title=It's Beginning To Hurt
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=It's Beginning to Hurt is a collection of sixteen short stories, all bound together by the theme of hurt in various forms. It is James Lasdun's third collection of short stories and, chances are, if you are a fan of the short story then you will have read something by him before.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099512327</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=M J Hyland
|title=This Is How
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Things weren't going too badly for Patrick Oxtoby. He's intelligent and did well at school. Then his Gran died. He started getting pains in his shoulder and things rapidly went downhill from there. He drops out of university to become a mechanic. By the time we meet him as a 23-year-old, he's become a loner who cannot communicate his feelings and who cannot seem to fit himself into society. Now his fiancee has left him (and you can see her point) and he finds himself in a seaside boarding house in an unnamed English town, hoping to start a new life. Then, one night he commits an act of violence (you can see it coming) and his life goes from bad to awful.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184767383X</amazonuk>
}}
