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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helon HabilaJenny Lecoat|title=Oil on WaterBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens Jean lives on Jersey with two local journalists on a rather dangerous tripher mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. ZaqDuring the war, old-timer and cynic but still has the skills Jean's father was arrested for listening to seek out a good story banned radio and apprentice Rufussoldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. A As the British oil engineer's wife has gone missingfinally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, believed kidnapped and the two journalists are following her trailwar is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Zaq comes across But will the truth come as an interesting character; all-seeinga relief, all-knowing albeit likes a drink or two. will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? He's happy to impart years of knowledge to Rufus and tells him that ' ... Who was the informer who told the story is not always Nazis about the final goal.' radio? What's really important, what the readers want to know and And what sells newspapers is ' ... other secrets have been kept throughout the meaning of the story.'occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144868</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura ElliotOnyi Nwabineli|title=Stolen ChildAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title of Anuri spent her childhood on display to the book leaves us in no doubt as world, thanks to what ither step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's all aboutchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. It does exactly what it says on Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the tincontent about her. But those twoAnuri is battling alcoholism, small words are wrapped up in plenty of emotions failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for the characters involveddoing so. In some waysMost importantly, it's worse than a death. With deathshe is desperately worried about her little sister, there's closure but with a baby being stolen therewho is the new focus of Ophelia's living hellonline empire. AndCan she save her sister, as you would expect, some characters cope and perhaps herself and her relationship with all of this better than others.her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561462</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A L Kennedy1529153298|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 The List of its emotions does not live to rule.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009949406X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSuspicious Things|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Importance of Being Seven (44 Scotland Street)Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=EvereyoneIt's favourite1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Bertie, is still struggling with his over-protectivehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, over-zealous mother Irenethough. Poor BertieWomen have been disappearing. He still has yoga classWell, saxophone lessonsthey've been murdered, Italian lessons, and he longs but to go away to Scout camp, but really have 'disappeared' doesn't want his mum sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to come along as a helpermove the family 'Down South'. AndWhen you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, as the title suggestsforeign place, he is looking forward to being sevenbest avoided. His little brotherFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, UlyssesSharon, is getting bigger and has developed an interesting reaction she'll do anything to their mother, whilst Irene herself goes missing in a rather mysterious manner.prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971454</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Shannon Burke1035906708|title=Black FliesDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ollie Cross has failed We tend to get into medical school. While he thinks about what he plans think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to do, he takes a job as a paramedic on the tough streets of HarlemGreek parents in Manhattan, New York City, in December 1923 and finds his whole perspective on life only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. 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 mercilessly exploited her and death beginning to shiftmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099535491</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances KayAlexander McCall Smith|title=MickaThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Micka The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Laurie are two ten year old boys. They're operating as an alternative to all the online apps in the same class at school and are friendsproviding a more personal, of a sorttailored service. They both have vivid imaginationsNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, and Laurie's plans involve finding as Ness is planning to take a magical bone and using it trip to Canada to get away for murdera while. Micka lives Katie is coming out of a break up with his mum (who can't read and is often drunk) and his two older brothers who get into fights, are involved in crimea bad boyfriend, and who abuse Micka physically and sexuallyso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. Laurie lives with his parentsAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, until they suddenly break upbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and he is left the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with his mum some new characters who seems quickly begin to be having a breakdowncharm. The book is told from the point of view of the two boysKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and so as we see how their own lives are falling apartthere's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, sympathising with themWilliam, we also read with horror their own descent into violence.to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330513826</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan WiggsDean Koontz|title=Just BreatheThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionParanormal|summary=Sarah may be struggling 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 coffin-sized object to 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 very last person to make deserve all this bad luck. He is a living off nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny itturns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, but she does enjoy her job as a cartoonist. She's bad weather friend called Spike, who has been through sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a lot recentlygood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, including her husbandand will certainly take care of Benny's battle with cancerenemies, if he, Benny, and her alter ego Shirl provides an outlet for Harper (a lot of the emotions and confusion shewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's feelingwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303543</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A J CroninKatherine Howe|title=Dr Finlay's CasebookA True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Most people will have heard of Dr FinlayHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, although they may not and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be entirely sure why - A J Cronin's stories a hanging of a fictional doctor some pirates in pre-War Scotland have been televised over the yearstown, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, most recently Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the nineties when David Rintoul starred as Dr Finlayhands of two vicious pirates. Although fictional She hides away, A J Croninso that they don't find and kill her too, who died in 1981and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, was himself dressing as a doctor boy and has apparently based some of Finlayjoining the notorious Ned Low's experiences on his ownpirate ship as a cabin boy. This omnibus is made up of two books by Cronin, Dr Finlay of Tannochbrae, published She soon finds herself in 1978 and Adventures the thick of things when there is a Black Bagmutiny on board, published and from there we are caught up in 1943, both collections her rip roaring tale of short storieslife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841588547</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clancy Martin1471180158|title=How To SellMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the 1980subtlety of a half brick. Jamie'sson, 16 year old Bobby Clark gets expelled from Bo, 'has his high school in Canada for stealingproblems'. This is a young boy so immoral He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he pilfers his own mother's wedding ring on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to pawn for cash go to keep a girl happyschool. After Missed shifts or the girl turns out need to be less interested in him than he is in her, he follows his older brother Jim away on time to Texas, where he gets a job working with Jim pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in a jewellery storethe wrong. 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 It was going to come to a tragedy waiting to happenhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532182</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Patrick MarrinanB0CKD1L5JL|title=Degrees of Guilt|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Police broke into the apartment in Sandymount Village in Dublin and woke Yuri Komarova rather roughly. He'd been drinking heavily, smoking dope and was difficult to arouse, but on the floor near his bed was the knife which he had apparently used to stab his mother to death. He seemed to have no memory of this but he spoke little English and had the mental age of a twelve-year old. An interpreter helped with the questioning and when the case came to trial his defence relied on proving that he had been sleep-walking at the time of the murder and had no intention of killing his mother. This is the most difficult defence to uphold and there was the added problem that Yuri seemed to have lied to the police when he told them that his mother had very little money as some Russian icons were found in a strongbox and they were worth several million Euros.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090749</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author=Katie Kitamura|title=The LongshotJeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cal Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and his long-time trainer Riley travel down to busy human society, in the town forests of Tijuana in Mexico for a crucial rematch with the undefeated champion Rivera. Three years earlier CalWashington's promising career had been derailed following a close yet devastating defeat at the hands of RiveraOlympic Peninsula. After that defeat Cal carried Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on fighting but never reached a journey through the same heights as before. Now he finally gets forest, broadcasting the chance to face his nemesis once more. The story takes place in the two days before the rematch as strange, wild and rarely heard voices he and Riley prepare for the biggest fight of his life, a fight that could once again end in tragedyencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374999</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laurie GrahamSarah Marsh|title=At SeaA Sign of Her Own|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=I've already read Graham's 'The Future Homemakers of America.' It was good, but not particularly memorable so I was keen to read this novel3. The reader is introduced to two vastly differing opposites in the shape of Mr and Mrs Finch. Well, Lady Enid (English) and Professor Bernard (American) Finch, to be precise. And we're transported straight away onto the decks of the liner 'Golden Memories' and Graham starts to have her fun: with the language, the characters and the whole set-up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162182</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Laura Barton|title=Twenty-One Locks|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This debut novel's central character is 20 year old sales girlAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, JeannieEllen Lark loses her hearing. She lives Suddenly plunged into a very humdrum world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a rather uglytime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, down-at-heel town in the north. And straight away Barton treats the reader Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to her lovelylip read, descriptive prosebut physically restrained from signing. For exampleFrom here, when she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the reader is given some detail about Jeannie's workplace at the perfume deaf and cosmetics counter where ..using a system called Visible Speech. 'At the lipsticks ... all lined up like chorus girls ...' Barton's writing style same time, Bell is very easy to readworking on other inventions and ideas, very fluid and I found myself getting right into the story straight away - and caring about JeannieEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849161747</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anne PeileB0BC3YTCMR|title=Repeat It Today With TearsGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Repeat it Today with Tears follows the ''This story of Susanna, a sixteen year old girl from a broken and loveless home who obsessively collects information in the back of a notebook about the father she has never metis not for everyone. When by chance she discovers that he still lives nearby she sets out deliberately to find and seduce him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687462</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Julie Orringer1472263936|title=The Invisible BridgeFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a story It was in 1968 that takes us from the elegance of ParisHelena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, through had left the streets of Budapest family home and on into the Hungarian countryside refused to return, but Mary and the Ukraine this is an epic tale, masterfully toldHamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. It is 1937 and Andras Levi, a young Hungarian Jewish student, is about Her trip to leave his brother Tibor to go and study architecture the family apartment in Parisup-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. AndrasShe grew to love her grandmother and the family' story unfolds first amongst the beautiful buildings of Pariss maid, Dina, the theatres but was wary - and the barsfrightened - of her grandfather, as he struggles in his studies and falls in love with a beautiful ballerina who has a terrible secret to hideretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. As the tragedy He was proud of World War 2 edges ever closer to Andras, the book moves back to Hungary, his close connections to the little village where Andras Junta and expected his brothers grew up, family to Budapest where uphold his new family live values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and then on into the forced labour camps across Hungarygreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670914584</amazonuk>
}}
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1863 and the Superintendent covering the inner city area Michael Mace, Head of Glasgow has his hands fullSecurity, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. First off an alarming forgery scandal Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has just been discovered a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and no sooner has only him – as he drawn breath than one, two sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and counting suspicious deaths occurformer colleagues. InstinctivelyAs he recovers his senses, I want to say he realises that itthere is something different about him; he can ''feel''s all good, clean funeverything. Because it is''Everything''. The language Fraser uses is very much of that era which lends the book a particular old-fashioned and rather twee, charm. ItMichael isn't 's all over the book in spades. On almost every page. Let me give you just one endearing example of the flavour of the book 'None of Mrs MaitlandMichael's four regulars at her superior guest house for single gentlemen would even dream of taking another's seat .anymore..'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090684</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jodi ComptonB0BVDC2VWH|title=Hailey's WarThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the beginning villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the bookforest provides heat and warmth, Hailey Cain is a 23 year old cycle courierliving in San Franciscoroofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The story then takes a step back fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in time the village and wediscover that she had to leave West Point Military Academy during herfinal year, for reasons she prefers to keep to herself. I continued to read under the assumption that Hailey had done something which forced her to leave. Hernext move is to L.A, where she spent the latter part of her childhood.During these yearsreason Volushka, her mother with whom she hasa drunken, at bestself-indulgent, lazy lout of a very strained relationship man is no source of comfort and Hailey develops a very close attachment to her cousin CJ. Aspects of this relationship make for uncomfortable reading at timestolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847373577</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrew GrantB0BYF82CXT|title=Die Twice (David Trevellyan)Semi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The title is very much at home ''Bill and Amanda are living in keeping with the thriller genre a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and it's both eye-catching Fiona – glamorous, successful and also has a perfectly reasonable explanation which comes right at the very end of the story. I must admit to thrillers generally not being my most favourite reading materialmuch in love – move in next door. Some can be a bit flashyDespite their different outlooks on life, a bit trashy even. But not this novel. Right from the start I felt I was in couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for a good, intelligent readboth pairs. There were pointers to this But all over the place. For startersis not what it seems, David Trevellyan has a nice line in witty humour. There and their increasingly interconnected relationships are numerous snazzy one-linersfated for tragedy. It all went down very well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230747582</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan LeeShalini Boland|title=Who Is Mr Satoshi?The Silent Bride|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens somewhere Alice and Seth are a match made in the Home Counties and Rob Fossick is attending his mother's funeralheaven. The event in itself He is extremely distressing and also depressing everything she has been searching for him; factor handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in that he's become a bit of a recluse lately wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and I could feel the sheer loneliness creeping into Rob's very boneswedding is planned and set. Lee describes When the event much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice'Zimmer framess world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, bifocals, trifocals, dark grey coats with yawning shoulderswho is waiting for her to become his wife. The apparatus of old age.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434020419</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hazel McHaffie1787636003|title=Remember RememberThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story starts at It was the end summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and works back in timearrived on the island. This works extremely well as we see Doris ManneringRachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, mothernaive, grandmother and greatso when thirty-four-year-grandmother now living old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in a residential homeher, she was flattered rather than wary. The decision It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to 'put mother' into a home was very, very difficult her and had been put off by that time and time again. We come to realize that this she was a heart-wrenching decisionobsessed by him. The daughter and carer, JessicaAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, will always be asking herself if she'd done looking after his interests on the right thing, made island and in particular in the right decision for bar where all the right reasons. A veritable minefield. And here is where many an ethical dilemma lies for many families in real-life similar situationsgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906817294</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John NivenAmanda Craig|title=The AmateursThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Gary Irvine only wants two things out Few styles of life. He'd contemporary fiction interest me like to have children and he wants to reduce his golf handicap. Nothing extraordinary there, you might think except for the fact that his wife, Pauline, is planning to leave him for a selfstate-of-made carpet millionaire and Gary is a dreadful golfer. His handicap is eighteen – but I'm not entirely certain how he got it down to that level in the first place-nation novel. His family doesnThere't give him much solace either. His brother Lee is on s something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the fringes atmosphere of the local criminal underworld day and hasn't the wit to keep himself out capture it, crafting an image of trouble with Ranta Campbell, the local overlordcountry as it stands in one particular moment. Ranta could To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be quite likeable if it wasnembarrassingly inadequate: she't s practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for his penchant for a certain type weaving the ongoing issues of violence designed to keep the others day into the lives of her characters in a way that feels natural and lived-in line rather , never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than to teach the victim a lessonthemselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099516667</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adam Ross152915118X|title=Mr PeanutPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The main couple who tend to take centre stage here ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are called David sisters and Alice PepinSasha is married to their brother Cord. They live 're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a kind of comfortableStockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, middle-class life in busy asks Cord and bustling ManhattanSasha if they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. After more than Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a decade of generally happy married life togetherstreet or so away, which they want to take own. They won't need any of the next step furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and have a familyCord can move straight in. Easy to say Nominally, they had a choice but things donthat wasn't quite work out according the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to plancall Sasha 'the gold digger'. We are taken on various She's living in 'dark' journeys within their marriage'' family home. These are situations which most of us can identify with. Some of these situations are painful, stressful, unhappyThey use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224087738</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicholas ShakespeareEmily Critchley|title=InheritanceOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Andy Larkham's 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 career are going nowherebring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. He works for a small publishing house However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, Carpe Diemwho went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that specialises reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in publishing self-help booksthe high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, his fiancée is about she starts to dump him and he has no money and mountains find pockets of debtmemories coming back to her. And that's before we begin to talk about his dysfunctional family. His only real role model was yet as she remembers the Montaigne-loving teacher, Stuart Furnivallpast, whose funeral he she is late forforgetting more and more in her day to day life. But an unexpected inheritance of £17 million has a habit of changing one Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's outlook on life. But while he trades self-help for help yourselfdisappearance before her move, Andy also realises that he has inherited a mystery.and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553156</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''
Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cath Staincliffe0008506337|title=The Kindest ThingGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Imagine that your partner of The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty or so years discovers -one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they are dying from felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a terminal diseaseglittering career. Now imagine that In the event, they've asked you eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to help them Oxford and went on to die become a little soonerwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on their own termsthe Isle of Wight. What would you do? This is Even then the dilemma that faced Deborah and, after doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she went ahead and helped her husband Neil would never be able to die, she found herself charged and standing trial for murder with her own teenage daughter, Sophie, testifying against herleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849012083</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza Graham1914585402|title=JubileeDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=As the village celebrates the QueenI reviewed David F Ross's Golden Jubilee two people canbook [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There't help but think s Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back to the Silver Jubilee. Evie Winter and her niece Rachel have vivid memories of the day when Evie's daughter Jessamy wandered off remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and the mystery of her disappearance has never been solvedaffecting it was. She It was eleven years olda gripping, brightemotionally wounding read, athletic and loved by her mother and cousin. There would seem to be no explanation as to why she rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have disappeared of her own free will and no evidence that she was abducted. Life has carried lavished enough praise on, but it has not been the same. It has not been easy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509268</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael RobothamLucy Ashe|title=Bleed For MeClara and Olivia|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=An ex-detective The year is found dead in a pool of blood in his teenager1933. The place? Sadler's bedroomWells. She runs from Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the scene of outside but not, we learn, on the crimeinside. Is this the easiest cut-and-dried case ever? This novel is told in the first person by the investigating psychologistAnd not on stage, Professor Joe O'Loughlineither. HeBecause there's got a lot going on in his life right nowthat builds a dancer. His health is not good so he's to keep popping pills Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to try detail – and get through another working day. Hesome things, that ''je ne sais quoi''s also newly separated and his daughters seem to talk a completely different language. He feels old and very ragged round the edges. Into this mix, he discovers that don't come from the teenager everyone is talking aboutclassroom. A stage presence, the teenager who's been discussed and described as a cold-blooded killercharm, is his daughtera ''joie de vivre''s best friend. Could his life get any worseThe difference between a hard-worker, he thinks. Yes. Big-timeand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847442188</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Catherine O'FlynnHeather Fawcett|title=The News Where You Are|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The main character in this novel is Frank Allcroft. Husband, father, son and also a bit of a minor celebrity as he's beamed into the regionEmily Wilde's television screens nightly, presenting the local news. Make that minor with a small 'm'. He comes across as a likeable, middle-aged man, content with his lot and with his home life. But he does have some personal issues to attend to. In particular, his grumpy, sometimes forgetful, elderly mother who is now living in a retirement home. Mother and son give each other lots Encyclopaedia of grief on a regular basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670918555</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mario Puzo|title=Six Graves to MunichFaeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the dying days of the Second World War Michael RoganEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, an American Intelligence officer was captured and tortured by a group of seven menresearched meticulously, most of whom were senior Gestapo officers trying to obtain write her life's work, the secrets which Rogan could give themvery first encyclopaedia of faeries. His wife was in another room Whilst she is brilliant at research and he could hear her screamsspeaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. Ten years laterSo when she finds herself far, when he had recovered from the appalling injuries he suffered he made up his mind that he would avenge far North in the death small village of his wife at Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the hands of village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the seven menright track. ItEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's no easy task as frustration. But why is he doesn't even know who they are.here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184916276X</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kishwar Desai1398515388|title=Witness The Boy and the NightDog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=24.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book opens on a disturbing dream sequence (or is First of all, it a memory?) that sets up was the earthquake, deep in the murder ocean floor, which is to be at created the centre of tsunami and this book, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. DurgaThe result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, a young girl living in Julundur, is instructed by a mysterious male character to return to and the house loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from which she has just fled, their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the house in which her whole family lies deadtsunami - poisoned, stabbed and partly scorchedKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. There Durga is tied up, having been attacked He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and rapedTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905636857</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chioma OkerekeChristopher Bowden|title=Bitter LeafMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jericho, (whoChristopher Bowden's female by the way), latest novel is a beautiful young patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman. She's curious about the outside world so like many before her, she's taken the brave step of sampling life in a big, bustling city. She returns to carried out by her home village with some rather pretentious airs ..nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a rich suitor in tow. By sheer coincidence Jericho's mother little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had attended an interview in her past at her daughter's new boyfriend's family home. A veritable mansion with ' ... sweeping rooms a much more interesting life than that took longer than a river nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to cross.' What a lovely way of describingluxury in him an essentially poor area of Africaobligation to find it all out. Everyone thinks the next natural step is marriage and babies but is it?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1844086275</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Keith ColquhounJennifer Mason|title=Five Deadly Words|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Five Deadly Words follows the story of charismatic former dictator Lucas, as he charms and 'collects' people during his exile in London. The story is seen mostly from the point of view of Helen Berlin, the bright young Detective Constable who is put in charge of Lucas' safety. Helen finds herself caught up in matters which become increasingly out Partitions of her depth as she falls further into the former dictator's world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529496</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Don Boyd|title=Margot's SecretsUnity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Margot is a psychologist who specialises in sexual disorders and obsessions. She lives Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and works for herself unintentional detective in Barcelona amongst the ex-pat community[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and although she only has unravelled a dozen or so clients at any one timeseries of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', spends much of she sets her week living at her officemind to solving a murder.. Her clients, both male and female, are bewildering and fascinating in equal portions, and the description of the therapy sessions make fascinating and revealing reading.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0955405149</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven CarrollWill Carver|title=The Art of the Engine DriverDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Carroll has chosen a bygone era in the 1950s and also a bygone but much treasured mode of transport, whether it's Australia or the UK. Immediately I'm drawn Five strangers come together in to the story. Both the title and book's front cover are arresting and original. The novel centres on one evening in this suburban neighbourhood when all its residents are invited to a celebration party. Carroll see-saws back and forth moment as he shares the individual lives with us. It is an engaging style.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537273</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Patrick Woodhead|title=The Forbidden Temple|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=Luca, a mountaineer trying suicide bomber prepares to escape from detonate his disappointingly unsupportive parents and a past accident, witnesses something strange in the distance, while watching his climbing partner Bill put the kibosh vest on their latest sky-bursting Himalayan ascent - a mountain shaped like a perfect pyramid, circled by other peaks he's never seen beforeLondon tube line. Back in England nobody else seems to have seen them eitherAs their fates overlap, but colleagues mention mysterious Shangri-La style Buddhist sanctuaries - could this be the prime onestory is told in backwards order, hidden from prying eyes for centuries? Nobody wants leading up to declare it actually exists at all. Meanwhile, Himalayan natives are trying to pull the wool over Chinese occupiers' eyes regarding a very sacred personagefateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090773</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ken McClureJennifer Mason|title=Dust to Dust (Steven Dunbar)Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=John Motram is a cell biologist. He's 'A struggling poetry zine, a promising and wellmom-though of academic and his pet subject is - Black Death. Intrigue is high on pop mobile diner in the agenda right from Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the beginning. Motram is invited to 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a meeting along billionaire with other higha state-fliers of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in their respective fields. This meeting is top secret. Motram isAlabama, an enigmatic signature, howeverK(s, mystified. The situation appears pretty straightforwardx), so why all this cloak-and-dagger stuffon a cheap oil painting, he wondersan erotic art dealer in Georgia... And why has everyone to refer to the patient only as 'Patient X?'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971268</amazonuk>}}
}}