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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Elizabeth Haynes|title=Into The Darkest Corner|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=The book didn't actually look that appealing. The cover is on the sepia side of dull. I didn't know the author's name and the title didn't really grab me. When I started reading we were straight into the transcript of a court case in which it seemed that a police officer was being questioned in court about his relationship with a woman. He was accused of being violent to her, but it seemed that the boot was really on the other foot. Then we were into a story – or even two stories – with two time lines some four years apart. Within ten minutes I couldn't put it down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956251579</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ben PastorJenny Lecoat|title=LumenBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)General Fiction|summary=Cracow, Poland, October 1939: The Germans have recently occupied Poland and Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are seeking to establish their authority. Captain Martin Bora celebrating the end of the Wehrmacht (occupation. During the German army) has just arrived in the city from the battlefield war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to take up a posting to Intelligence. His boss asks Bora to drive banned radio and soldiers took him to a convent every day to see the renowned Abbessaway one night, rumoured to have mystic leaving Jean and healing powersher mother waiting for years for news of him. A few days later As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, thoughand the war is finally over, she is found shot dead in the grounds their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of her conventhim. Bora is asked to investigate and report back. He proceeds to investigate who shot her and why, but But will the truth come as his investigation continuesa relief, there are more or will it raise further questions for Bora and around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the reader. Where does this case fit in with Nazis about the priorities of radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupying forcesoccupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904738664</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jake Wallis SimonsOnyi Nwabineli|title=The English German GirlAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When it began it wasnAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia't pleasants increasingly popular presence on social media, but there was hope that it would get better. Rosawhere she posted every step of Anuri's fatherchildhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, Otto was a doctor monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she lived with himis slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-motherto take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, Ingafailing to start her PhD, elder brother Heinrich undergoing therapy and younger sister Hedi in a pleasant flat in Berlinsecretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. The turn of opinion against Jews was slow – an anti-Jewish pin handed to Rosa as Most importantly, she went shoppingis desperately worried about her little sister, friends who felt that they couldnis the new focus of Ophelia't remain such obvious friends – certainly for s online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time being – ?|isbn=0861546873}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and a change of employment for OttoMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. It was better for the patients if Well, they didn've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't have contact with himsound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, even if he was Down South is a good doctorfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846971764</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nathacha Appanah1035906708|title=The Last BrotherDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Raj and his two beloved brothers live on a Mauritian sugar plantation. World War II rages far away and close too, but Raj is blissfully unaware of anything beyond his immediate surroundings. Life is poor and hard and Raj's father takes out the privations of his life on his sons and his wife - drunken beatings are a regular occurrence. But his mother is loving and kind, and skilled at healing, and his brothers are constant playmates.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849164010</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tom Bale
|title=Terror's Reach
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're on the south coast tend to think of England in the middle of a hot summer in a very upmarket enclaveMaria Callas as Greek, not dissimilar but she was born to SandbanksGreek parents in Manhattan, along the coast a bit. The locals are going about their businessNew York, about their daily lives in December 1923 and Bale obligingly introduces them only moved to us one by one and also gives us an idea of their respective backgrounds, their family members and even some of the house designs ' ... each home had a private jetty' for example.Athens when she was thirteen. New money is also apparent along with ostentatious taste. WhatHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's also apparent is that troubleCallas's afootto make it more manageable in the States. Big timeWhen 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 made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090765</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daphne KalotayAlexander McCall Smith|title=Russian WinterThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel's structure goes back Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and forth from the past operating as an alternative to all the present dayonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. The book opens with NinaNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, now elderly, in pain and in as Ness is planning to take a wheelchair: waiting trip to Canada to die basicallyget away for a while. And even although she's lived an interesting life, now all she has for company Katie is coming out of a break up with a daily bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home-helpto Edinburgh. I was struck straight away by how prickly Nina is And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and I could feel all those emotions seething underneath the surfaceIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. So the question is Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- why making, but Ness has she decided to sell some of full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her exquisite jewellery. Is it very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to help pay the bills? Or some other reason? We find out by degrees.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553244</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott MarianiDean Koontz|title=The Lost RelicBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Ben Hope went to Italy to visit a former SAS comrade and offer him Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, but he's got marriage loses his fiancee, and happiness – his house gets trashed. Oh, and Bensomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's trade possible that whoever or whatever was inside is far from the front of thing that has trashed his mindhouse! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. It's whilst he's driving away A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that Ben nearly runs down the delivery to his house is a new friend, a small boy and unwittingly walks into bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a deadly heist which will see the boy and his mother – and many others – brutally murderedgood person. ItSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's only the beginning for Ben though as enemies, if he find himself fleeing for his life , Benny, and accused of murder. When the state needs to act people – even heroes – Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are disposable.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847561977</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Diane JanesKatherine Howe|title=Why Don't You Come For Me?A True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a decade ago Jo's daughter was abducted family who run an inn, and being made to work there from in front of a shop whilst she and her husband were on holidayyoung age. The pushchair was found on When she hears there is to be a cliff edge but there was no trace hanging of Laurensome pirates in the town, even on the beach belowshe decides to go and watch. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of her daughter on the front simply saying that the writer still has Laurentwo vicious pirates. The policeShe hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the people who know what happened believe the cards to be notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a hoax. Jo believes differentlycabin boy. She also realises that as she has moved house and remarried and soon finds herself in the story has faded from press attention someone thick of things when there is going to a great deal mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of trouble to keep track of herlife on the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849011257</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=G S Mattu1471180158|title=Sons and FascinationMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book concentrates on emotions. Take Jamie Matson works in an impressionable young upper-class grocery store, for a man, add in who's a chance (?) encounter control freak with an attractive older woman all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and then stand well back as the fireworks explode and as familymore you read, friends and colleagues get sucked in to their deepening relationship. I must say Ithe more you'll suspect that he'm not keen s on the title (autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a little pretentious for a work of fiction frequent flier in my opinion the local A&E and more suited sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to poetry) pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and even when it was ever so gently explained later on put in the book (twice) I still didn't warm wrong. It was going to it. All in all, not off come to the greatest of startsa head. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907756000</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip WildingB0CKD1L5JL|title=Cross Country Murder SongRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel opens with Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the (unnamed) central character in a therapy session in downtown New York. The air strange, reclusive Bear, he is charged brought up far from bustling cities and tension is presentbusy human society, big-timein the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. This is one troubled After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human being. And of coursecompany, childhood issues and experiences are dominant in this question and answer session. We soon find out that this individual has secrets in his basement. It all becomes too mucharmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, he packs Petr goes on a bag and hits journey through the forest, broadcasting the road strange, wild and so the story starts properrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Asa JonesSarah Marsh|title=The Illustrated Mind A Sign of Mike ReevesHer Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=Mike Reeves doesn't have his troubles to seekAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. His wife Living in a time when the use of sign language was brutally raped some four or five years ago and whilst she might seem seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to be recovered a school where she cannot stand is taught to be touched by a man – any manlip read, Mike includedbut physically restrained from signing. Quite suddenly Mike was aloneFrom here, she ends up in every way – until he found himself drawn to the darker arts and began to dabble in Tarot, another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the Runes deaf and I Ching. He's guided by two spirits. Sean is using a wise and benevolent older man and Debbie, well she… isn'tsystem called Visible Speech. She's At the one who satisfies Mike's sexual needs. If that's all sounding rather goodsame time, then hesitate a momentBell is working on other inventions and ideas, for with the good comes the bad and the bad is Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the form a complicated tangle of Tony a (very) real-life gangster who's been doing his own dabbling in the spirit world. When their worlds clash Mike has a problem which could well be more than he can handleespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>160693905X</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret ForsterB0BC3YTCMR|title=Diary of an Ordinary WomanGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After reading the introduction, I couldn't help but sneak a sly read at the author's note right at the end of the novelThis story is not for everyone. I don't usually do this. I'm glad I did as the information is both surprising and revelatory Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. Back to the beginning and Chapter 1 ... We meet the 13 year old Millicent in 1914. By her written statements and recorded mannerismsShe was a very bright student, we see that she's a girl who knows bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her own mind. For example, she thinks writing in her diary every single day could be dull and boring so shecase it's made a golden rule that she's only going to write something down when she feels like it. Some may call her precocious but I liked Millicent right from the startcontagious. Courtesy of her diary we find out that sheIt's part of not easy being a large and boisterous familyblack girl whose skin is 84% white. She doesn't appreciate all the noise and chatter from had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her siblings. She craves peace Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and quiet to think and to readReggie asked if she would tutor him. She's a prolific readerreadily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She also believes that she's smart went to his house and clever and wants to 'do' something with he raped her life when she grows up. She's not sure what exactly but In shock, she certainly doesn't want even allowed him to be give her a mere housewife and motherlift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099449285</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Dunn1472263936|title=The Accidental ProposalFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Middleton seems like a pretty decent guy. He always stops It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to buy a Big Issues from Billy, a local homeless man and he takes his elderly widowed neighbour shopping once a weekGreece. These are some of the reasons why his girlfriend She was alone: her mother, SamGreek by birth, loves him so much. One nighthad left the family home and refused to return, after a friendbut Mary and Hamish (Helena's wedding, Sam asks Ed parents) felt that it would be a pity if he Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would also like be the first of several annual visits. She grew to get married to which Ed enthusiastically replies love her grandmother and the family'yes'. Howevers maid, the following morningDina, whilst nursing his hangoverbut was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, he cannot work out if it retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was a hypothetical question or an actual proposalproud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His best mate Dan is no help at all prejudices included Helena's red hair and is quite incredulous that anyone should ever want to marry Edgreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847395244</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|author=William Styron|title=The Suicide Run|rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving and leaving. A soldier remembers calming memories, and those causing tension, as he rests up before action. And for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk to be found in his high-octane downtime.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Molly CarrDean Koontz|title=The Sign of FearAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mary Watson - Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a distant second to John Watsontop secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who of course was die when a virus is released in a distant second to Sherlock Holmesbio-hazard accident. Fed up with staying at home while her new husband spends too much time at 221b Baker Street Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, or away with Holmes sleuthinghe has a sense that something very, she gets very bad has happened to dabble her own feet in him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the underworld waters when a certain Professor Moriarty comes callingshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685006</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jon Stephen Fink|title=A Storm In The Blood|rating=3 As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= ''A Storm In The BloodEverything'' is based on a true story involving the police force and the government of the day trying to suppress racial tensions in early 20th century London. It has resonance for our modern times as we grapple with similar situations and problemsMichael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Allegra GoodmanB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Cookbook CollectorGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''The Cookbook Collectorvillage is isolated and poor. It'' is all about emotionss surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. Concentrating The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on twohomes, youngand even gallows, American women who are vastly different if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in many areas of their lives the village and also on their outlook on lifethat is the reason Volushka, a drunken, Goodman digs deeper to find out what makes them tick self- what makes them get up in the morningindulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848875398</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Craig SmithB0BYF82CXT|title=Cold RainSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life was pretty good for Dr David Albo. He'd just had fifteen months away from his job as an associate professor of English at a university 'Bill and Amanda are living in the mid-western USA. He lived on a plantationsemi-style farmhouse with detached house, stuck in a beautiful depressing rut of boredom and intelligent wife disappointment, when Terry and a step-daughter who adored him. He was even going back to work Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in the expectation that he might well be offered a full professorship love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the not-too-distant future couples befriend each other and just life appears to put the icing on the cake he's been clear of alcohol improve for two yearsboth pairs. Yes; life was very goodBut all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190580234X</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anna GavaldaShalini Boland|title=Consolation|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We meet Charles, the main character right at the start. And straight away, it's no secret that, as a middle-aged professional (he's an architect and a successful one at that) he's jaded. Been-there, done-that and got-the-bloody-tee-shirt just about sums him up pretty well. He's acquired (somehow) a beautiful, witty and clever partner and also a step-daughter whom he adores. As the story deepens, I soon acknowledged that the step-daughter seems to be about the only true love in his life. He's luke-warm about the rest of his family and that includes his partner and his ageing parents. Is this man going through some mid-life crisis, would be an obvious question to ask.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531925</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Hawken|title=The Dead Women of Juarez|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Although the story related here is a work of fiction, the situation is based on fact. The Mexican border city of Juárez has a shocking problem with female homicides (usually young and invariably pretty). Official statistics put the number of murders at 400 since 1993 while, we are told, residents believe that the true number of disappeared women is closer to 5000. But attention to this problem is diverted by drug crime, although the two may not be entirely unrelated. Anything that raises public awareness of this terrible situation, such as Hawken's book, is to be encouraged. So much for the fact, what about the fiction?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668773X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pamela Klaffke|title=SnappedSilent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=They say that Alice and Seth are a good idea is to write about what you knowmatch made in heaven. WellHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, Klaffke seems to have heeded that piece of adviceclever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She writes here about is all he could possibly want in a fictional fashion writer called Sara B (note wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the pretentious second capital letter) who inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the central character. And although Sara B wedding is now in her middle years, she's still acting like a teenagerplanned and set. She's got When the younger boyfriend/lovermuch-anticipated day arrives, got Alice is walked down the latest fashion look which she can deftly put aisle by her stamp onfather, got the invites to the best parties in the best venues beaming with the must-be-seen-with minor celebrities. But - is pride and excitement as she happy? I know, it seems a silly question, but is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304337</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diane Chamberlain|title=Breaking surveys the Silence|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=As I've reviewed several of Chamberlain's previous books and enjoyed them, I was looking forward to getting stuck in congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this one. We meet the central character; wife joyful day and mother when Seth turns to five-year-old Emmaface his approaching bride, Laura. SheAlice's distraught. Her father (Emma's grandfather) has just passed away but his dying wish has really upset Laura. It's a strange request and world implodes because she doesn't know what to make of it. She confides in her husband thinking that two heads are better than one. He's a brilliant academic and could give some much-needed advice. But he doesn't. In fact, he behaves like a five-year-old himself and almost has a tantrum. Odd. Now poor Laura's doubly confusedabsolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, upset and doesn't know how who is waiting for her to handle her grief. Tough timesbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778304140</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lola Shoneyin1787636003|title=The Secret Lives Girls of Baba Segi's WivesSummer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is one of those books It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that you read with a smile on your face. It's full of gloriously unsavoury characters caught in a terrible web of deceit. We are promised 'four women, one husband she and a devastating secret' Caroline went backpacking around Greece and it delivers arrived on all three countsthe island. Sure the secret is quite well signposted and Shoneyin doesn Rachel wasn't really make much of an effort to divert the reader from putting two and two togetherexactly innocent but she was, although it takes wife number fourperhaps, Bolanlenaive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an inordinate amount interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the penny to drop, but it's not about discovering island and in particular in the deception - it's about bar where all the glorious journey of how things unfoldgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687497</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cornelius MedveiAmanda Craig|title=Caroline: A MysteryThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mr ShawFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. HeThere's an insurance worker something so utterly compelling about any writer who takes his wife can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and son off on their annual vacation one yearcapture it, and finds himself indulging crafting an image of the country as it stands in a surprisingly platonic holiday romanceone particular moment. The subject of his infatuation, Caroline, has eyes, ears, hair and more To say that easily combine with Mr ShawAmanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's fondness practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for classical Persian love poetry. At weaving the end ongoing issues of the holiday he lets his wife and son depart while he takes day into the lives of her characters in a further week off to walk all the way home with Caroline. Who isthat feels natural and lived-in, as it happensnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, a donkeygrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553881</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Martin152915118X|title=An Object of BeautyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Leave aside ''Pineapple Street'' is the title story of the book for a minutethree women: Sasha, the book itself is also 'an object of beauty' with its striking front cover Darley and primary colours artfully arrangedGeorgiana. And then I turned the book over Darley and George are sisters and said Sasha is married to myself, ohtheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, itonly Sasha isn's t a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem'thats exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'' Steve Martind like to move into the Pineapple Street property. I knew he was - Tilda and is - Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a very funny actor but I didnstreet or so away, which they own. They won't know that he was also a writerneed any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. SoNominally, before Ithey had a choice but that wasn'd even opened t the book I was thinking - will he be as good a writer as he is an actorreality. I was about Darley and Georgiana start to find out call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home.They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297863290</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom CampbellEmily Critchley|title=FoldOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Five men 84 year old Edie has lived in Reading circulate their monthly poker evenings around their respective housesthe 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 bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. None However, Edie is tormented by the memory of them like all her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the others, none of them seem to completely like worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the game, but they're more-or-less happy with thing that reveals the habittruth of what happened all that time ago. ItAfter 's seeing' Lucy in the way the five different personalities approach the evenings that we are concerned with, and enjoy principallyhigh street, especially when just as she was the poorest playerlast time she saw her, Nick, decides she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to clash with his polar opposite, Dougher. And what might happen if a non-playing character were yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to enter thingsday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and make them even feistierbefore her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408807602</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''
{{newreview|author=Francois Lelord|title=Hector and the Secrets of Love|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Professor Cormorant has gone AWOL. Tasked with developing drugs to cure Told from a lot of illsretrospective view, by making us fall in love, he has fled with his secrets, his prototypes, and a few samples young woman unravels the year-long relationship that may or may not be dangerousonce defined her. It is down to HectorOverlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a psychiatrist, man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to chase him down, work out where Cormorant is in his researches, and if possible help bring its sorrowful end the trade secrets back to summer after. Set against the company his girlfriend, and now himself, works backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for. With Salt'' details the exotic far East his destination24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, a partner left behinddepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and time on his hand to muse on the subject of love, will Hector find more than just a bunch of chemicals in a syringe?how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906040338</amazonuk>0861546490
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edward Wright0008506337|title=From BloodThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=While IThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'm not mad about the titleLeary was all-consuming, the bookapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's cover is atmospherically good influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - it says going to the reader 'please pick me up Oxford and read mehaving a glittering career.' So I did. In the event, The book opens in 1960s America with they eloped and Richard took her away from the Prologue. A bunch Isle of radical thinkers are angryWight. They turn this pent-up anger into Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-oiled, well-ordered act of violencerespected journalist. Lives are lostThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. But Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the perpetrators are clever and most Isle of them escape justiceWight. They do what many around Even then the world have done before them; they go underground. But several key members are still at large ..doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752891774</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=David Lindsley|title=The Darkfall Switch|rating=3Then Richard left them.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens on a sultry, hot summer's day in central London. Imagine the stifling heat is the subliminal message here, especially for those passengers on the underground - ' ... as if they were all joined in some macabre dance as the train rattled along the tunnel. Everybody pressed against others.' Suddenly there's a problem with the infrastructure. A big problem. As the experts frantically work behind the scenes to get London moving again - the unthinkable happens. People lose their lives in what appears to be a power cut.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070909146X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Lorber1914585402|title=Benny Allen Was A Star: A New York Music StoryDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alan Lorber has written a fictional and I suspect a semi autobiographical account of his years as a top music arranger in the 1950reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's and early 1960Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's, Only One Danny Garvey]] a period couple of huge change in the music industry culminating with the breakthrough of the Beatles in Americayears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Rather than simply writing It was a factual narrative of his involvement during this period he decided to tell the story of the fictional Benny Allengripping, emotionally wounding read, a classically trained musician who almost by accident gets involved in the music publishing business and then goes rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on to produce some hugely successful orchestrations on many of the top hit records of the timeit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0041VXCTA</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah HarknessLucy Ashe|title=A Discovery of WitchesClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The back cover is full of praise for this debut novel which has been involved in a publishing 'tussle', no less. Impressive. I was looking forward to reading what all the fuss was about. The title is terrific too. But was the book a terrific read?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755374029</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Elfriede Jelinek
|title=The Piano Teacher
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Erika is a single woman in her thirties, who, despite the best efforts of her mother, did not succeed as a concert musician, but instead works as a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory. I say best efforts, I mean outright pressure. Erika and her mother make for an unusual relationship - the older relying on the glory, company and complete obedience of the younger, the daughter sharing a bed with her mother even at this stage of her life. All this is until a young student at the school decides he will be a younger lover for Erika, and forces his will into the household. But who, should such a relationship actually form, is going to be the power-maker?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687373</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Maria Angels Anglada
|title=The Auschwitz Violin
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Poland in The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the early 1990soutside but not, we learn, a violin singson the inside. The maestro who owns it produces such a music from itAnd not on stage, people are forced to take noteeither. TheyBecause there'd s a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be even more amazed if she could bring herself taught or learnt – discipline, attention to state exactly how detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the instrument came to beclassroom. For this was the work of DanielA stage presence, a charm, suffering in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau''joie de vivre''. Stumbles, chances, halfThe difference between a hard-liesworker, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour and engage in his real-world careera star. But is there a price to pay in doing something you love, just for a man you can only hate?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849016437</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bethan DarwinHeather Fawcett|title=Two Times TwentyEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You can tell from Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the beginning very first encyclopaedia of this novel that you're in Walesfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. The young Anna (as we travel back So when she finds herself far, far North in time) the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is meeting not sure what will be long-term friendsshe has done, Bob nor how to redeem herself and Janeput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. We find Anna rather proudly introducing Enter Wendell Bambleby, her two young sons dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Bob butting in with delight, much to Emily'Duw, good-sized boys for their age ... Make good rugby players one days frustration.' But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touch.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190678423X</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Dawson1398515388|title=CODEXThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I read First of all, it was the resume on earthquake, deep in the back cover I immediately thought that it was going to be one of those high-octaneocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, action every second paragraphin turn, type of thrillerscaused the nuclear meltdown. All action The result was complete and perhaps very little substanceutter devastation. I The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was happily proved wrongwidespread. And very early on The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. 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 Tamon the dog jumped in the novel, as well, which was good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956577008</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DurantineChristopher Bowden|title=The Chocolate AssassinMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the final days Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of the Second World War as the allied guns came ever closer a young German was sent on a secret mission to Americaseemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyone, including the U-boat captain The aunt who took him across the Atlantic, about the nature always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of his mission. Fifty five years later the U-boat captain, Eric Hoest, long settled in the States, was murdered at his beach home. Samuel Grey, police detective and part-time student was called in indulgence to investigate the murder. The local police chief thought a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that the most likely murderer was the neighbour who nephew Stephen had reported the crime, but Grey suspected that the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoest's backgroundever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1451579527</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila O'FlanaganJennifer Mason|title=A Season to RememberPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We Here at Bookbag Towers, we first meet the Lodge ownersmet Elizabeth Cromwell, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating dominatrix and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets unintentional detective in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], the unthinkable has happenedwhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. Empty rooms. TheyIn ''Partitions of Unity''re not used , she sets her mind to empty rooms, at any time of the yearsolving a murder. Normally the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack Everett and David ColesWill Carver|title=Last Mission: the last hours of the Third ReichThe Daves Next Door|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We first meet Five strangers come together in one moment as a couple of characters living in the United States. A husband and wife and suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a relation of theirs called PaulLondon tube line. On As their fates overlap, the surfacestory is told in backwards order, they appear leading up to be enjoying happy, normal lives. But all is not what is seems. We soon find out that the husband, Carl has some secrets. Pretty big ones. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - in his home, for example. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked about, or rather whispered about, with a handful of trusted 'acquaintances' over a beer or twofateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary E MartinJennifer Mason|title=The Drawing LessonPreposterous: The First in the Trilogy of RemembranceAn Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander Wainwright is the UK's premier artist. He's just won A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Turner with ''The Hay Wagon'' – Northern California redwoods, a painting with a luminous, moonlit landscape. He should be at 400-meter hurdler who just missed the peak of his powers2004 Olympics, but hea women's about to lose his muse andtrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, more worryingly, there seems to be something wrong a billionaire with his sight and a state-of-the year to come is going to be traumatic. The story of it is told by his friend, -art dealer Jamie HelmsworthS&M dungeon, who has pieced together what he knows, what he's heard – and used a little artistic licence to fill man serving a life sentence in the gaps. It'Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s , x), on a most unusual story which will take you deep into the world of artists and writers.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1450229360</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Cathleen Schine|title=The Three Weissmanns of Westport|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The novel begins with Joseph Weissmanncheap oil painting, or Josie as he is known, deciding at the age of 78 that he no longer wants to be married to Betty after 48 years together. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences, but the truth is he has fallen head over heels erotic art dealer in loveGeorgia.. Betty is devastated, her life in tatters, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=John Irving|title=Last Night in Twisted River|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in This is just a log-cutters' encampment. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind sample of comfort - a decent job, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting it. But a pair cast of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to flee. They leave behind a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, characters and a best friend settings in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safety-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generationsPreposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement required! The basic premise of Twisted Riverthis mystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
{{newreview|author=Tony Bayliss|title=Past Continuous|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The author's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide of the author's son.' Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computers. He's a bit of a whiz-kid. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit of a loner as well. He stands out at school for all the wrong reasons but he's coping with it - just. And early Move on in the book we meet Sophie. She's a big part of this book. She's around Matthew's age. She is bright and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Hayes|title=Someone Else's Son|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]