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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]
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{{newreview
|title=Isabel's Skin
|author=Peter Benson
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=David Morris is a book trader and valuer in some indeterminate Victorian year, when he is given the job of perusing a great and valued collection held in a rich house in rural Somerset. One can guess – especially given the mood that leaps off these pages from the first and never relents – that something might go wrong, just him and the house's sole servant and her cats. But the clues build when we find just how much she dislikes a neighbour – who seems a decent enough fellow, living in seclusion, and culture and intellect wise the only equal to Morris for his short working holiday. But whose unusual behaviour can Morris trust – and who is Isabel?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846882958</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Deborah Schwartz
|summary=Our decidedly unheroic main character has been at the café for three weeks now, so we are following on very closely from [[Heaven and Hell by Jon Kalman Stefansson|Heaven and Hell]]. After the tragedy and soul-searching of that first book, he seems settled in the ridiculous family that has formed around him there, finding employment, enjoying the literature, yet being very intrigued by the female body. The man who is still young enough to be known only as ''the boy'' might have latched on to stability for once, and replaced the family and best friend he had lost. But everything is restless in this environment, and once again he might just be tempted to go on a journey, with another male companion, despite the harshness of the surrounds.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857051652</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=Heaven and Hell
|author=Jon Kalman Stefansson
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Iceland, a hundred years ago. From a place that is the very definition of rural and remote, a small fishing boat leaves for four hours' hard row to a profitable bank. It carries six men on the way out, and five on the way back. The deceased is the best friend – or perhaps only friend – of the main character, who is still young enough to merely be known as ''boy''. When he returns to port he enters an almost Camus-like semi-existence, wondering just how much life is an answer, and for what, after the tragedy he has witnessed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849164061</amazonuk>
}}