==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Sam Hayes
|title=Someone Else's Son
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Brooke Morgan
|summary=This novel has been based on fact. McGill moves back and forth with various characters' stories. A child has died in the family home and the mother, Harriet has been tried in a court of law and found guilty. The fact that she is a practical, no-nonsense woman who does not wear her heart on her sleeve does not go down well with the majority of the jury. She has also committed another crime, almost equally as grave, she has sullied the family name of her husband. He is a prominent and respected member of the local community. Nothing will be the same again for either of them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755370686</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean Kwok
|title=Girl in Translation
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate to the USA from Hong Kong they believe that, true to the American Dream, their lives are about to get better. However, although Kimberly's aunt paid their air fares and arranged their green cards she is intent on getting her money back. She arranges their accommodation in a run-down part of Brooklyn in a building where they are the only tenants. Their apartment has broken windows, no heating and is rife with cockroaches and rats. The aunt arranges work for Kim's mum in her husband's Chinatown factory, paying her a pittance for piece work and then taking most of her salary away for repayments on their flights and their accommodation. Huddled around their oven for warmth, wearing layers of clothing made from material they found in the trash, their lives seem incredibly bleak. But Kimberly has brains, and determination, and she is adamant that she will find a way to take care of her mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905490623</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Helon Habila
|title=Oil on Water
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens with two local journalists on a rather dangerous trip. Zaq, old-timer and cynic but still has the skills to seek out a good story and apprentice Rufus. A British oil engineer's wife has gone missing, believed kidnapped and the two journalists are following her trail. Zaq comes across as an interesting character; all-seeing, all-knowing albeit likes a drink or two. He's happy to impart years of knowledge to Rufus and tells him that ' ... the story is not always the final goal.' What's really important, what the readers want to know and what sells newspapers is ' ... the meaning of the story.'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144868</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Laura Elliot
|title=Stolen Child
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title of the book leaves us in no doubt as to what it's all about. It does exactly what it says on the tin. But those two, small words are wrapped up in plenty of emotions for the characters involved. In some ways, it's worse than a death. With death, there's closure but with a baby being stolen there's living hell. And, as you would expect, some characters cope with all of this better than others.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561462</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=A L Kennedy
|title=What Becomes
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=You're three stories into this collection and two people have cut their hands open preparing food - a man with love drooping away from his marriage, making soup, and another, a greengrocer, preparing stock and thinking about his own relationship. But there is no pattern to that. Four stories in and there have been two bursts of non-sequitur comedy. Why your fruit might be ruined by stray fingers, and the thoughts of a woman in a flotation tank, remembering Doctor Who, locked parental doors - and the urban myths of gerbils. But there's still no pattern - and that's the point of these combined stories. Life and all of its emotions does not live to rule.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Importance of Being Seven (44 Scotland Street)
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Evereyone's favourite, Bertie, is still struggling with his over-protective, over-zealous mother Irene. Poor Bertie. He still has yoga class, saxophone lessons, Italian lessons, and he longs to go away to Scout camp, but really doesn't want his mum to come along as a helper. And, as the title suggests, he is looking forward to being seven. His little brother, Ulysses, is getting bigger and has developed an interesting reaction to their mother, whilst Irene herself goes missing in a rather mysterious manner...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971454</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Shannon Burke
|title=Black Flies
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ollie Cross has failed to get into medical school. While he thinks about what he plans to do, he takes a job as a paramedic on the tough streets of Harlem, New York City, and finds his whole perspective on life and death beginning to shift.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535491</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Frances Kay
|title=Micka
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Micka and Laurie are two ten year old boys. They're in the same class at school and are friends, of a sort. They both have vivid imaginations, and Laurie's plans involve finding a magical bone and using it for murder. Micka lives with his mum (who can't read and is often drunk) and his two older brothers who get into fights, are involved in crime, and who abuse Micka physically and sexually. Laurie lives with his parents, until they suddenly break up, and he is left with his mum who seems to be having a breakdown. The book is told from the point of view of the two boys, and so as we see how their own lives are falling apart, sympathising with them, we also read with horror their own descent into violence.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330513826</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Susan Wiggs
|title=Just Breathe
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Sarah may be struggling to make a living off it, but she does enjoy her job as a cartoonist. She's been through a lot recently, including her husband's battle with cancer, and her alter ego Shirl provides an outlet for a lot of the emotions and confusion she's feeling.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303543</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=A J Cronin
|title=Dr Finlay's Casebook
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Most people will have heard of Dr Finlay, although they may not be entirely sure why - A J Cronin's stories of a fictional doctor in pre-War Scotland have been televised over the years, most recently in the nineties when David Rintoul starred as Dr Finlay. Although fictional, A J Cronin, who died in 1981, was himself a doctor and has apparently based some of Finlay's experiences on his own. This omnibus is made up of two books by Cronin, Dr Finlay of Tannochbrae, published in 1978 and Adventures of a Black Bag, published in 1943, both collections of short stories.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841588547</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Clancy Martin
|title=How To Sell
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the 1980's, 16 year old Bobby Clark gets expelled from his high school in Canada for stealing. This is a young boy so immoral that he pilfers his own mother's wedding ring to pawn for cash to keep a girl happy. After the girl turns out to be less interested in him than he is in her, he follows his older brother Jim to Texas, where he gets a job working with Jim in a jewellery store. As he falls into a life of scams, drugs, hookers, gorgeous women, and an obsession with Jim's girlfriend Lisa, it's clear that this coming of age story is a tragedy waiting to happen.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532182</amazonuk>
}}
