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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Shakespeare1739526910|title=InheritanceWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Andy Larkham''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life and career are going nowhere. He works for a small publishing house, Carpe Diem, that specialises he arrives in publishing self-help books, his fiancée is about an unfamiliar Devon town to dump him and he has no money and mountains of debtrecover. And that's before we begin to talk about Living with an unexpected housemate at his dysfunctional family. His only real role model was the Montaigne-loving teacherformer manager’s holiday home, Stuart Furnivall, whose funeral he is late for. But an unexpected inheritance dreams of £17 million reconnecting with everything he has a habit of changing one's outlook on lifelost. But while he trades self-help for help yourselfas those tentative plans falter, Andy also realises that he has inherited becomes swept up in a mysterylocal world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553156</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cath StaincliffeJenny Lecoat|title=The Kindest ThingBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Imagine that your partner of twenty or so years discovers that Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are dying from a terminal diseasecelebrating the end of the occupation. Now imagine that theyDuring the war, Jean've asked you to help them s father was arrested for listening to die a little soonerbanned radio and soldiers took him away one night, on their own termsleaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. What would you do? This is As the British finally free the Channel islands from the dilemma that faced Deborah andNazis, after she went ahead and helped her husband Neil to diethe war is finally over, she found herself charged and standing trial for murder with her own teenage daughtertheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, Sophie, testifying against her.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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849012083</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eliza GrahamOnyi Nwabineli|title=JubileeAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As Anuri spent her childhood on display to the village celebrates the Queenworld, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's Golden Jubilee two people canincreasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri't help but think back to the Silver Jubilees childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Evie Winter Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her niece Rachel have vivid memories of the day when Evie's daughter Jessamy wandered off confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the mystery of content about her disappearance has never been solved. She was eleven years oldAnuri is battling alcoholism, brightfailing to start her PhD, athletic undergoing therapy and loved by her mother secretly abusing people online and cousinreceiving money from them for doing so. There would seem to be no explanation as to why Most importantly, she might have disappeared is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of her own free will and no evidence that she was abductedOphelia's online empire. Life has carried onCan she save her sister, but it has not been and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same. It has not been easy.time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330509268</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Robotham1529153298|title=Bleed For MeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An ex-detective is found dead in a pool of blood in his teenagerIt's bedroom. She runs from the scene of the crime1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Is this the easiest cut-and-dried case ever(A woman? This novel is told in the first person by the investigating psychologistI mean, Professor Joe O'Loughlinhonestly... ) HeShe's not what's worrying Miv's got a lot going on in his life right nowfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. His health is not good so heWell, they's ve been murdered, but to keep popping pills to try and get through another working dayhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. HeMiv's upset because she's also newly separated and his daughters seem overheard that her father wants to talk a completely different language. He feels old and very ragged round move the edgesfamily 'Down South'. Into this mixWhen you're from Yorkshire, he discovers that the teenager everyone Down South is talking abouta frightening, the teenager who's been discussed and described as a cold-blooded killerforeign place, is his daughter's best friendavoided. Could his life get any worseFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, he thinksand she'll do anything to prevent that. Yes. BigShe's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking -timeto anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847442188</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Catherine O'Flynn1035906708|title=The News Where You AreDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The main character in this novel is Frank Allcroft. Husband, father, son and also a bit We tend to think of a minor celebrity Maria Callas as he's beamed into the region's television screens nightlyGreek, presenting the local news. Make that minor with a small 'm'. He comes across as a likeablebut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, middle-aged manNew York, content with his lot in December 1923 and with his home lifeonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. But he does have some personal issues Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to attend 'Callas' tomake it more manageable in the States. In particular, his grumpy, sometimes forgetful, elderly When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who is now living in a retirement home. Mother mercilessly exploited her and son give each other lots made no secret of grief on a regular basisher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918555</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mario PuzoAlexander McCall Smith|title=Six Graves to MunichThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the dying days of the Second World War Michael RoganThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an American Intelligence officer was captured and tortured by alternative to all the online apps in providing a group of seven menmore personal, most of whom were senior Gestapo officers trying to obtain the secrets which Rogan could give themtailored service. His wife was in another room Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and he could hear her screamslook after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Ten years laterKatie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, when he had recovered from the appalling injuries he suffered he made up his mind that he would avenge the death of his wife and so jumps at the hands of chance to come home to 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 the seven menIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. ItKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's no easy task as he doesn't even know who they are.always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184916276X</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kishwar DesaiDean Koontz|title=Witness the NightThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=24.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The book opens on 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, disturbing dream sequence (coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is it a memory?) the thing that sets up has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the murder which is very last person to be at the centre of deserve all this bookbad luck. Durga, a young girl living in Julundur, He is instructed by a mysterious male character to return nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to the his house from which she has just fledis a new friend, the house in which her whole family lies dead- poisoneda bad weather friend called Spike, stabbed and partly scorchedwho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. There Durga Spike is tied upgoing to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, having been attacked and rapedHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905636857</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chioma OkerekeKatherine Howe|title=Bitter LeafA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=JerichoHannah Masury is living in Boston, (having been sent to live with a family who's female by the way)run an inn, is and being made to work there from a beautiful young womanage. She's curious about When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the outside world so like many before hertown, shedecides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's taken death at the brave step hands of sampling life in a big, bustling citytwo vicious pirates. She returns to hides away, so that they don't find and kill her home village with some rather pretentious airs ... too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jerichoboy and joining the notorious Ned Low's mother had attended an interview in her past at her daughter's new boyfriend's family home. A veritable mansion with ' ... sweeping rooms that took longer than pirate ship as a river to crosscabin boy.' What She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a lovely way of describingluxury mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in an essentially poor area her rip roaring tale of Africalife on the ocean waves. Everyone thinks the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Keith Colquhoun1471180158|title=Five Deadly WordsMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Five Deadly Words follows Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the story subtlety of charismatic former dictator Lucasa half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, as he charms and 'collectshas his problems' people during his exile in London. The story is seen mostly from He's asthmatic and the point of view of Helen Berlinmore you read, the bright young Detective Constable who is put more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in charge of Lucasthe local A&E and sometimes Bo' safetys not fit enough to go to school. Helen finds herself caught 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 matters which become increasingly out of her depth as she falls further into the former dictator's worldwrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529496</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Don BoydB0CKD1L5JL|title=Margot's SecretsRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Margot Petr is a psychologist who specialises in sexual disorders and obsessionsan orphan. She lives and works for herself in Barcelona amongst Rescued by the ex-pat communitystrange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and although she only has a dozen or so clients at any one timebusy human society, spends much in the forests of her week living at her officeWashington's Olympic Peninsula. Her clients, both male After Bear dies and femalea brief sojourn in human company, are bewildering and fascinating in equal portionsarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, and Petr goes on a journey through the description of forest, broadcasting the therapy sessions make fascinating strange, wild and revealing readingrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955405149</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven CarrollSarah Marsh|title=The Art A Sign of the Engine DriverHer Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carroll has chosen After a bout of scarlet fever as a bygone era in the 1950s and also child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a bygone but much treasured mode world of transportsilence, whether it's Australia or the UKeverything about her life changes. Immediately I'm drawn Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to the storylip read, but physically restrained from signing. Both From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the title deaf and book's front cover are arresting and originalusing a system called Visible Speech. The novel centres At the same time, Bell is working on one evening other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in this suburban neighbourhood when all its residents are invited to a celebration party. Carroll see-saws back and forth as he shares the individual lives with us. It is an engaging stylecomplicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099537273</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick WoodheadB0BC3YTCMR|title=The Forbidden TempleGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Luca, a mountaineer trying to escape from his disappointingly unsupportive parents and a past accident, witnesses something strange in the distance, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped like a perfect pyramid, circled by other peaks he's never seen before. Back in England nobody else seems to have seen them either, but colleagues mention mysterious Shangri-La style Buddhist sanctuaries - could this be the prime one, hidden from prying eyes 'This story is not for centuries? Nobody wants to declare it actually exists at alleveryone. Meanwhile, Himalayan natives are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personage.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>}}'
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Ryan1472263936|title=Signal RedThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ryan has certainly researched thoroughly for this novel - and it showsIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Straight away the blurb on the back cover tells us there's an 'afterword' She was alone: her mother, Greek by Bruce Reynoldsbirth, no less than had left the ringmaster/leader of the Great Train Robbery gang. Notice how itfamily home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's always given capital letters. Even all these decades down the line, those readers of parents) felt that it would be a certain age remember it and perhaps shake their head in amazementpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. And there's also a very useful 'aftermath' section as Ryan painstakingly sets out all Her trip to the robbers' names and what's happened since that date family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the summer first of 1963several annual visits. Perhaps, like others, I also assumed She grew to love her grandmother and the leaderfamily's maid, the top man if you likeDina, but was Ronnie Biggs. No sowary - and frightened - of her grandfather, apparentlyretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. I also remember television footage He was proud of his release from prison on compassionate grounds only a year or so agoclose connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. The crime seems to have achieved almost mythical proportions His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - some would say itinherited from her father's up there with what were you doing when JFK was assassinated?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075535818X</amazonuk>Scottish ancestors.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Giles MiltonDean Koontz|title=According to Arnold: A Novel of Love and MushroomsAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Arnold Trevellyan’s ordinary life as Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a charismatic auctioneer virus is about to change released in ways he could never have imagineda bio-hazard accident. Encouraged by his wife Flora to take Finding himself in a sabbaticalmakeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, the two head to he has a remote region of France sense that something very, very bad has happened to indulge Arnold’s passion for mushrooms. Whilst out in the forest hunting for rare mushrooms Arnold stumbles across a secret hidden for centuries. This secret makes him abandon Flora – and only him – as he sits up and their life together for looks around at the island shrouded bodies of Tuva in the South Pacific where his dead friends and former colleagues. As he soon finds himself married to Lolarecovers his senses, its queenhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330452517</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck PalahniukB0BVDC2VWH|title=Tell-AllThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Katherine KentonThe village is isolated and poor. A movie star of great renown, sheIt's always on TV as someone famous surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread- or like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the wife of somebody who happens to be famous forest provides heat and malewarmth, whether they were actually ever wedded. She herself has had copious real-life marriages, making somebody out of a nobody roofs on many an instance. Her shelves of 'best lifetime' awards are groaninghomes, and their dusting is a job akin to painting the Forth bridgeeven gallows, if needed. The person who dusts them fear of being buried alive is narrator for this book, but she does more than an existential superstition in the village and that. She is everything to "Miss Kathie" - general housekeeperthe reason Volushka, housematea drunken, and stringself-pullerindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. But what might those strings be being pulled for? When Katherine meets a new toyboy, and our narrator seems to get in the way, to what purpose might this be?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087150</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Caryl PhillipsB0BYF82CXT|title=In the Falling SnowSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We ''Bill and Amanda are introduced to the central character Keith right away living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and discover lots about him. His personal disappointment, when Terry and professional CV is laid bare before us. He's one mixed up, middle-agedFiona – glamorous, not-quite-middle-class man. He appears to be rather weak-willed successful and almost seems to fall into situations, rather than choose to be part of themvery much in love – move in next door. When in his marital relationship (now Despite their different outlooks on a downward spiral)life, his wife most definitely wore the trouserscouples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. I found Keith a very infuriating personBut all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. I wanted to take him by the scruff and give him a good old shake and then shout 'wake up and smell the coffee, before it's too late.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539748</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mark NeilsonShalini Boland|title=The Valley of the VinesSilent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The reader discovers that Sophie, the central character is living Alice and Seth are a match made in rural isolationheaven. She's supposed to be living the dreamHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She's separated from her husband is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and her two daughters are at boarding school back in the UKwedding is planned and set. She's also now a oneWhen the much-woman organization. And anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she's failing practically surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and financially for many reasons. Apparently, according when Seth turns to Neilsonface his approaching bride, thereAlice's a very small window in which to carry out world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the vital work of harvesting man at the grapes altar is, who is waiting for wine. We are also told at frequent intervals about the enigmatic 'Old Ones'. They are 'The timeless custodians of the vines.' I'm afraid I found their too-frequent references rather annoyingher to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090595</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Maggie O'Farrell1787636003|title=The Hand That First Held MineGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Lexie Sinclair It was sent down from university for the crime of going through a door reserved for men. She could not graduate until summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she apologised and this she was not going to doCaroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Home Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was not an option either but , perhaps, naive, so when she met the sophisticated Innes Kent she made up her mind thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to go to London and make take an interest in her way there, she was flattered rather than wary. It was the nineteen fifties and Lexie and Innes quite a while before he made a life for themselves in Soho. In the present day Elina and Ted are struggling to recover from the difficult birth any sort of their first child. Elina is an artist and she’s finding it difficult physical approach to come to terms with being a mother. Ted does his best to help but he is having to cope with disturbing visions her and memories of his own childhood which don’t seem to agree with what he’s been told by his parentsthat time she was obsessed by him. The further he looksAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the stranger are island and in particular in the bar where all the links which he uncoversgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>075530845X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue PeeblesAmanda Craig|title=The Death of Lomond FrielThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rosie was a successful radio presenter when her father, Lomond Friel, had a strokeFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. Whether or not Rosie was always reckless and impulsive isnThere't entirely clear, but once she heard s something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the stroke she took a break from work atmosphere of the day and began to build her life around making a future for herself and her fathercapture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. There are two problems hereTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: Rosie isnshe't really all that capable s practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of looking after herself, never mind her father characters in a way that feels natural and Lomond is quietly plotting his own death. He might not be able to speaklived-in, to move very muchnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, but he has plansgrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701184302</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Najat El-Hachmi152915118X|title=The Last PatriarchPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Najat El-Hachmi's debut novel'Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, The Last Patriarch Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a difficult book - both in terms of content and styleStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. It The problem's a story of physical and sexual abuse in a patriarchal Moroccan familyexacerbated when the clan matriarch, an immigrant storyTilda, when first asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the father Pineapple Street property. Tilda and then the family move Chip have renovated and downsized to Cataloniaanother property, and ultimately a story street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the narratorfurniture 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 patriarchgold digger'. She's daughter, breaking free of her past as she takes on different cultural valuesliving in ''their'' family home. Narrated entirely from the perspective of They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the patriarch, Mimoun DriouchGD's unnamed daughter, the story is also concerned with cultural and imagined histories, and the importance of origin stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687179</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah BlakeEmily Critchley|title=The PostmistressOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The reader 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is in no doubt that facing a war move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is ragingstarting to lose her memory. 'And bombs were falling on CoventryHowever, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, London and Kent. Sleek metal pellets shaped like the blunt tipped ends worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of pencils ..what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' The Americans howeverLucy in the high street, are carrying on with their daily lives regardless. They are completely unfazed and uninvolved. Apart from one or twojust as she was the last time she saw her, namely radio reporter Frankieshe starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. She reports from London And yet as it happens and she remembers the past, she is gradually becoming forgetting more and more concerned that in her fellow Americans will be called uponday to day life. But Will she seems to be a lone voice blowing in uncover the wind. Also, as you may expect, there are plenty of raised eyebrows as to why a woman is doing a mantruth about Lucy's job. She should be at the kitchen sink or having babiesdisappearance before her move, shouldn't sheand before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670918687</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=F G Cottam0008506337|title=The Waiting RoomGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On the outskirts of ex rock star Martin StrideThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's country estate lies the disused Shale Point StationLeary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Abandoned Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the 1960s the railway line has been dug up love. Richard was twenty-one and removed and all that remains is the crumbling platform and eerie waiting roomdescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Martin is quick to employ BritainHer parents worried that Richard's top ghost hunter Julian Creed influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to investigate the strange Oxford and threatening occurrences of having a glittering career. In the waiting room that he event, they eloped and his children have witnessed – Richard took her away from the sound Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and smell of went on to become a steam train, male voices singing a famous World War One songwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and most frightening of allholidays were spent at Sandcove, the leering face family home on the Isle of a soldier at Wight. Even then the waiting room windowdoubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444704214</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Shone1914585402|title=In The RoomsDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The I reviewed David F Ross's book jacket for this novel is of New York [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by night, a cityscape par excellence. It also boasts Toby YoungDavid F Ross|There's comment as ''laugh-out-loud funny.'' I have Only One Danny Garvey]] a lot couple of time for Toby Young. I find him witty years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and entertainingaffecting it was. But I usually approach claims such as this with It was a healthy dose of 'we'll-wait-and-see' scepticism. Howevergripping, emotionally wounding read, he was right. And I am truly impressed with Shone's ability to make me laugh out loud and at the very beginning rereading my review of the novel too. A very good sign of delights to come, it my main takeaway was that I thoughtmight not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099534061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel DeWoskinLucy Ashe|title=Repeat After MeClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=September 1989: It The year is a few months after the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China1933. Aysha is teaching English at a private language school in New York CityThe place? Sadler's Wells. She makes friends with some of her studentsBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Da Ge is angry and disruptive yet attractive and interesting at Identical on the same timeoutside but not, and they quickly become involvedwe learn, although his interest in her is on the inside. And not as romantic ason stage, perhapseither. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, she would like it attention to be. He asks her to marry him so he can stay in detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the countryclassroom. Aysha agreesA stage presence, although there is still a lot she does not know about the mysteriouscharm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, unstable Da Geand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715638998</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan CoeHeather Fawcett|title=The Terrible Privacy Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Maxwell SimFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Maxwell Sim. ActuallyEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, perhaps I should rephrase that so that it doesnto write her life't sound like an imperative instruction - for if you do meet hims work, you might not like the experiencevery first encyclopaedia of faeries. An ex-salesmanWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, he's now in after sales (ie he's stuck on a customer returns counter in a department store); however he she is completely awful not so good with regards to other people. His wife So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has run off with their daughterdone, all his few friends have forsaken him (nor how to redeem herself and his Facebook wall)put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. We start the book with him trying to patch things up with his fatherEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival whoarrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's safely in Australiafrustration. He finds all those who know of him are already aware But why is he's depressed. here? Those who don't know him can find him painfully shy, or able to talk away their will to live, gabbling on and on about Watford. What does he want? But a lot And what exactly is about to change. He's about to be combined going on with some people excited about green toothbrushes.the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917389</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Amanda Sington-Williams1398515388|title=The Eloquence of DesireBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel starts in First of all, it was the post-war austerity years earthquake, deep in England and centres around a middle-class, traditional family unit. Sington-Williams gives the reader a detailed description of that period - the bland foodocean floor, which created the monotony of commuting to London (some things don't change) tsunami and of coursethis, in turn, caused the rainnuclear meltdown. George, his wife Dorothy The result was complete and their teenage daughter Susan don't really talk to each otherutter devastation. They tend to skirt round issues The deaths were uncountable, and walk on eggshellsthe loss of livelihoods was widespread. Appearances are everything. So a suitably fabricated story is told to The fact that many pets were separated from their small, family circle owners came far down the list of George's company move. George has no choice in priorities but - six months after the mattertsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. So he does what he always has done up till now, he puts He wasn't a brave face on for dog person but the world and grins and bears it. Itconvenience store owner's a huge change in their domestic situation. Uprooted comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to a strange, foreign, tropical country they've only glimpsed open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in National Geographic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230114</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nikki DudleyChristopher Bowden|title=EllipsisMr Magenta|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Both the title and book cover are slick and glossy. Can the contents live up to this positive image? Straight away the reader Christopher Bowden's latest novel is drawn into Daniela patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life , carried out by her nephew after she has died... but the clock is ticking. He will soon be spoken about in the past tense. He dies The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and leaves many, many questions a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that his immediate family struggle nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to answer. But as the story progresses we discover that secrets have been kept for a long timehim an obligation to find it all out. Why? Too disturbing to reveal?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907230106</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Austin WrightJennifer Mason|title=Tony and SusanPartitions of Unity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Sheffield hadn't exactly been Susan's childhood sweetheartHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, but after a family tragedy left him homeless he came to live with Susan dominatrix and her parents for a year so that he could finish school. Susan didn't particularly want him there but accepted that it was the right thing to do. Years later they met at university unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when Edward was studying law she investigated and after unravelled a short relationship they marriedseries of disappearances. The marriage wasnIn ''Partitions of Unity''t entirely successful; Edward gave up law to become a writer, relying on Susan's teaching income she sets her mind to support them, but whilst he spent a month away in solving a remote cabin 'to find himself' Susan found Arnold insteadmurder. Many years – and three children – later Susan receives a manuscript from Edward. She was, he said, always his best critic and he would like her opinion.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848870205</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jess WalterWill Carver|title=The Financial Lives of the Poets|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=There is a certain type of modern fiction I just cannot get along with. It's a narrative that features a concentration on a main character that goes through his plot with unhappiness, making wrong decisions perhaps, getting crapped on by life, and discussing his woes with the reader. I get to the end and think nothing of it, until I read the blurb, where I find the book was supposed to be hilariously funny, the character an insincere cypher for our lives and times, and the whole thing an ironic masterpiece - I should have been disbelieving, disagreeing and dis-everything else with the hapless hero. I hate such books - I always only see the sincerity in the narrative, and never the comedy. Thankfully, such is never the case with this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141049138</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carlos Ruiz Zafon|title=The Prince of Mist|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=During World War Two, Max's father decides to move the whole family to a seaside retreat he knows of - a wooden house far away from the city he's grown his family up in. Nobody seems too keen on the idea, neither of Max's sisters, his mother, nor he - and Max is gifted a pocket watch by his loving, talented mechanic cum engineer cum watchmaker of a father, enscribed as "Max's Time Machine". But the house they move to, and its surroundings, are full of more successful time machines - a stash of early home videos, a public clock that runs backwards, a sunken shipwreck, a yard full of statues of a stone circus... And let's not forget the mysterious, spider-eating cat that joins in with proceedings. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856421</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Danielle Trussoni|title=AngelologyDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Nephilim have lived among the human race since before the days of the Great Flood. Horrific creatures, the hybrid children of humans and angels, their strength, beauty and cruelty are unmatched, and they have infiltrated human society completely. For centuries, a secret society, students Five strangers come together in a branch of theology known one moment as 'Angelology', have studied the ways of the heavens and the Nephilim, and waged a secret war against them – suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a war that has spanned every continentLondon tube line. But As their fates overlap, the Nephilim grow weakstory is told in backwards order, their blood contaminated by leading up to the blood of their human ancestorsfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155580</amazonuk>1914585186}}