==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=S G Browne
|title=Fated
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Clever and very funny, this is the sort of book where you immediately feel in safe hands. S.G. Browne has gone to town (New York), satirising just about every aspect of modern life, and my reading was continually interrupted by bells clanging loudly in recognition in my head.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954728</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Titania Hardie
|summary=We meet Dora in a reflective mood in what used to be the nursery. Well, it still is - except there's no baby there now. Pelling tells us down the storyline exactly what happened and why and the (a bit mushy for me) title of the book is key to the story of Dora. It gets mentions throughout. As Dora sits in the empty nursery she can't help but re-live that tragic event all over again. ''Her arms were wrapping themselves around her so tight that she was having trouble breathing.'' She's now a total mess and that's about the sum total of her life at the moment. Dora now thinks she's a dreadful person. And no one will want to know a dreadful person, will they?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784280</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Zoe Heller
|title=Notes on a Scandal
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Barbara has been teaching at St George's for several years, and in spite of her caustic words on the institution, it is very much the focus of her lonely life. When newcomer, Sheba joins them, she forms a strong bond with her, and becomes part of Sheba's life. Sheba is married with two children, but her attraction to a pupil, Connolly, leads her to risk everything in a liaison of which Barbara is extremely jealous. As a result, their apparent friendship travels a sinister path.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>024195455X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=A D Miller
|title=Snowdrops
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The front cover, a snowy scene with majestic architecture in the background, is arresting and also suggests a thriller-type read. I was keen to find out why the book was called ''Snowdrops'' and hoped the author would enlighten me. He did - and it's nothing to do with flowers or gardening. It's rather chilling and altogether more interesting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874537</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dori Ostermiller
|title=Outside the Ordinary World
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although not keen on the title (a little clunky) I did feel that this was going to be a book I'd enjoy. Ostermiller has some fulsome praise for this debut novel including from the author [[:Category:Diane Chamberlain|Diane Chamberlain]]. And after reading the back cover blurb I can sense a similarity which is fine by me. (I thoroughly enjoyed all of Chamberlain's books). Would I enjoy this book as much?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830468X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Yvvette Edwards
|title=A Cupboard Full of Coats
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''He just knocked, that was all, knocked and the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since I'd killed my mother hadn't happened...''
Jinx is cold and she knows it. She cleans obsessively - a largely pointless task, since there is little mess to clean since her husband and young son, tired of her frigidity, moved out. She cooks beautifully balanced meals that look aesthetic on the plate. But her food offers sustenance, not comfort. In fact, Jinx feels most at home amongst the dead people she works with as a funeral home cosmetologist.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688382</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=44 Scotland Street: Bertie Plays the Blues
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In this seventh outing to Scotland Street we're back with the cast of familiar characters. Matthew and Elspeth have had their triplets and must now face the trials of being new parents, with three times the trouble! Angus and Domenica are attempting to resolve the tricky issue of where they will live once they're married. And what of dear Bertie? Well, he's finally reached a point of having had enough of his mother so, with the help of his friend, he puts himself up for adoption on Ebay!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971888</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Laura Kasischke
|title=The Raising
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Craig is returning to university, where he is widely viewed as being responsible for the death of his girlfriend Nicole, in a road accident. Suffering from post-traumatic stress and memory loss as a result of the accident, Craig is an obvious candidate to fall victim to the hauntings that start to occur around the campus. But it's not just Craig who is seeing inexplicable things happen at the university.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857891545</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Simon Ings
|title=Dead Water
|rating=3
|genre=Crime
|summary=The standard advice to artists has always been "don't gild the lily". For those writers who appear not to understand how this relates to their art form, let me offer up a basic translation: don't complicate a brilliant plot!
Dead Water suffers from such gilding.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848878885</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldson
|title=The Gloomster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We've all been there. Finding fault with everything around us, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down on all creation - including, of course, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Isabel Dalhousie: The Charming Quirks of Others
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I do wonder, sometimes, how it is possible that Mr Alexander McCall Smith can possibly manage to write so many novels? Wouldn't it be fascinating to meet him, and see if the stories just ooze out of him non-stop, and if he walks around with pen and paper at all times jotting things down as they occur to him... In this book he's bringing us back, once again, to Isabel Dalhousie's world. If you don't know who Isabel is then you should really forget all about this book for the moment and go right back to the beginning to [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0349118698?tag=thebookbag-21&camp=1406&creative=6394&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0349118698&adid=12XVW0J2SJ9MJA2J2YPB& The Sunday Philosophy Club] so you can get all the characters in order and know what's going on. If you're already up to date, however, and have read up to [[The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith|The Lost Art of Gratitude]] then you're good to go!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349123128</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Brett Battles
|title=The Silenced
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the fourth instalment of the Jonathan Quinn series, Quinn and his team are hired to clean up after an operation and find a mysterious woman has followed them there. Before they can stop her, she disappears. On the next job she turns up again, this time with friends, and things start to go drastically wrong. Quinn must find this woman and stop her, but in the meantime somebody has become very interested in finding out Jonathan Quinn's real identity and is getting closer to his family. Quinn has to make a choice; do his job or save his family?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848092881</amazonuk>
}}
