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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon CanterJenny Lecoat|title=WorthBeyond Summerland|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard, an Ad manJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and Sarah, a city lawyer meet, get marriedsoldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and decide to leave London behind her mother waiting for years for an idyllic country life insteadnews of him. He’ll do some drawing As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, maybe look into illustrating. She’ll do voluntary workand the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. They But will start to Enjoy Life the truth come as a bit more. They relief, or will become Better People. They will be it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the envy of all their friends still toiling away in radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the big smoke.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099546825</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melanie GideonOnyi Nwabineli|title=Wife 22Allow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Matt will admit that his writing career failed, and so he had Anuri spent her childhood on display to join his wife in interior designthe world, where he can use his love of books thanks to arrange her step- at a cost - the contents, design and most importantly the coloursmother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of upper class peopleAnuri's home libraries childhood for themsponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. He'll concede that it's a good way Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get into her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the housescontent about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and bedsreceiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of rich women, such as his latest flame, ClaudiaOphelia's online empire. But why is thisCan she save her sister, his confession, talking of murderand perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0552773875</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Heather Gudenkauf1529153298|title=One Breath AwayThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mrs Oliver has spent her life in the classroomIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... Educating) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Guiding Women have been disappearing. Nurturing Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. But on the last day of term all Miv's upset because she really 's overheard that her father wants is to get to move the afternoon bell without any dramafamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. A gunman walking in For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to her classroom really does prevent that. She's not fit in with worried about the dangers or that her plansMum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848451326</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Timeri N Murari1035906708|title=The Taliban Cricket ClubDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Janie Ryan is We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born into a definitely underprivileged familyto Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Despite a mother who tries Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the right decisions, growing up becomes 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 fight for survival (both figuratively and literally) as Janie encounters social services, tough schools, domestic violence mother who mercilessly exploited her and an array made no secret of 'uncles'her preference for her elder sister, all promising a better future that seems as tangible as the holy grailJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186399</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen MacInnesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Above SuspicionThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1939 Oxford professor Richard Myles The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and his wife Frances were preparing for their annual European holiday when they were visited by operating as an old friend who had alternative to all the online apps in providing a request for themmore personal, tailored service. Would they start their holiday in ParisNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, meet as Ness is planning to take a man there and then continue their holiday as he directed? trip to Canada to get away for a while. There was Katie is coming out of a great deal of tension in Europe break up with a bad boyfriend, and Richard Myles was reluctant so jumps at the chance to undertake the task, mainly because he didn't want come home to put his wife at riskEdinburgh. Frances had other ideasAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but not even they were above suspicionwith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. At first they were watched Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but the attentions of some shadowy figures became more pressing as they realised that pre-war Germany was not Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a comfortable place to be.hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781161534</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Drew ThomasDean Koontz|title=CurtainsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Danny Benny is having a performer on London’s cabaret circuitterrifically bad day. He loses his job, but he loses his hard work isn’t doing much for fiancee, and his statushouse gets trashed. When he meets Veronica Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, who promises disturbing coffin-sized object to make him a starhis home, he never guesses 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 deserve all this might be too good bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to be true. Rapidly falling in love with her – or so he thinks – soon his life revolves around doing her biddinghouse is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. But Veronica Spike is a more complex individual than Danny could ever have imagined - going to take care of Benny, and her forcefulness will lead them both down an unimaginable pathcertainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0957187807</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna KavennaKatherine Howe|title=Come to the EdgeA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you are fortunate enough Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to own be a rural second home hideaway hanging of some pirates in the UKtown, this beautifully written book will probably give you nightmaresshe decides to go and watch. For Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the rest hands of ustwo vicious pirates. She hides away, itso 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 notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a great readcabin boy. The target for Joanna Kavenna's satire She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is the unused propertya mutiny on board, owned by the wealthy, depriving the local population and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of anywhere to live in life on the places they have grown upocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780872135</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Denman1471180158|title=ConnectedMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=DougJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a maths and computing undergraduate at Essex University, has just pulled the most amazing girl. So heman who's not really that interested in a control freak with all the file subtlety of fractals research best friend Kal has just sent hima half brick. But while Doug and Cindy are busily getting it on Jamie's son, Bo, something 'has gone horribly wrong for Kal and Doug emerges from afternoon delight to the horrific discovery that his friend has committed suicideproblems'. Miles away in He's asthmatic and the countrysidemore you read, Peter is attending his brotherthe more you'll suspect that he's funeralon the autistic spectrum. Martin was a musician but not a tortured artist and it seems inconceivable that he too would Sometimes Jamie needs to take his own life. But the trip, for Peter, is more than a family obligation time off at short notice - itshe's a frequent flier in the chance of a break local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from a stale marriage school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and an opportunity put in the wrong. It was going to indulge in some guilty proximity come to his newly-bereaved sister-in-lawa head. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0089YQPI0</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane FeaverB0CKD1L5JL|title=An Inventory of HeavenRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Mavis Gaunt was evacuated to Shipleigh in Devon during World War II and went to live with her auntPetr is an orphan. It wasn't just an escape Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the dangers forests of London - it was a welcome relief from her parentsWashington' loveless marriage and in her mind it became a heavenly retreats Olympic Peninsula. In her twenties After Bear dies and with her mother dead there was nothing to keep her a brief sojourn in London so she headed back to Shipleigh. She struck up an unlikely friendship human company, and armed with Frances Upcottonly a pirate radio transmitter, one of three children of Petr goes on a reclusive farmer andjourney through the forest, almost against her willbroadcasting the strange, found herself drawn into the life of the farm. It gave her a sense of belonging but it ended in tragedywild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330006</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin AmisSarah Marsh|title=Lionel AsboA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Martin Amis can be relied upon to create some pretty nastyAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, self-centred central charactersEllen Lark loses her hearing. Usually they are upper class cads and bounders but in Lionel Asbo his central character is at the polar opposite in terms Suddenly plunged into a world of class. He's violentsilence, uncouth and ignoranteverything about her life changes. He's Living in a criminal whose usual sidekicks are a pair time when the use of vicious pit bulls. His 'manner' sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a fictitious down trodden area of London called Diston Town school where he lives in a tower block with his nephewshe is taught to lip read, Desbut physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who in fact is has been teaching the central character in deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the book. Dessame time, in contrast Bell is far more sympathetic - intelligent working on other inventions and kindideas, that is if you overlook the fact that as and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a 15 year old he had an affair with his grandmother, Lionel's mother. Hey, no one's perfectcomplicated tangle of espionage. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224096206</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ben FountainB0BC3YTCMR|title=Billy Lynn's Long Halftime WalkGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Ben Fountain's ''Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk'', Billy and what This story is left of his Bravo troop colleagues are back from the war in Iraq following a brave firefight caught on camera by embedded journalistsnot for everyone. The US army, keen to gain PR from the event has brought them back on an optimistically titled 'Victory Tour' despite the fact that they are all to be re-deployed the next week. The majority of the book takes place on the last day of this tour when Billy is in his home-state of Texas, where the Bush link makes it even more pro-war, as the boys are invited to attend that most American of PR events, the Thanksgiving football game at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. Accompanying the troop is a veteran Hollywood producer who has promised the soldiers that he can sell their story to a movie studio for mega-bucks. If only it were that simple.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857864386</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Shams Uddin|title=The Year from Jahannam|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Wright family begin a blog in January 2011. They all want to celebrate a new start after the turmoil of recent years. Father Richard had been a casualty of the financial crisis, working for Lehman Brothers at the time of its collapse, and the ensuing chaos had affected the entire family one way or another. But Richard retrained, secured a new job and has recently earned a huge bonus. At last the family are back on track and enjoying the fruits of hard labour. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957175205</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jan Wallentin|title=Strindberg's Star|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Just as he is preparing for an appearance on a television show, a stranger approaches Don Titelman and asks for his help. This man, Erik Hall, has recently discovered a mysterious body at the bottom of a flooded mine shaft. Whilst perfectly preserved, medical checks confirm the man had been dead for nearly a hundred years. The deceased apparently committed suicide whilst holding on to a metal ankh with some strange writings on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848879873</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gerry Wells1472263936|title=Kicking the Hornets' Nest|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=WWII books about the RAF and the Navy are quite common. Books about Special Operations Executive and similar organisations proliferate. Stories about the army are fewer and try as I might I really couldn't think of one which was other than incidentally about tank crew, so when the opportunity came I ''had'' to read 'Kicking the Hornets' Nest' particularly as it's written by an author who crewed a Sherman tank in Operation Overlord, back in June 1944. I had just a couple of nagging doubts. It's a book of short stories. Would I find it easy to pick up - and out down again? The big worry was whether or not this was going to be a macho action story, which wouldn't really be my cup of tea at all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780881568</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFigurine|author=Laura Solomon|title=Hilary and DavidVictoria Hislop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hilary, a single It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother of two troublesome boys meets David, an elderly writer with problems of his own, through Facebook. It’s an odd beginning – they have a mutual friendGreek by birth, so one adds had left the otherfamily home and refused to return, but Mary and then they start chatting quite spontaneously – but sets Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the scene well for their atypical relationshipfirst of several annual visits. Hilary’s in New Zealand She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, David’s in Londonretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. They are many decades apart in age but are clearly both quite lonely He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and looking for someone expected his family to talk uphold his values but saw no reason toaccommodate them. So, with the vague anonymity of social networking on their side, they reach out to one another His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>9881993296</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lionel ShriverDean Koontz|title=The New RepublicAfter Death
|rating=3
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Lionel Shriver adds Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a beard-shaped appendage to Southern Portugal virus is released in The New Republic and immediately has it fighting for independence, taking a wry look at terrorism as well as the ethics of the international press corpsbio-hazard accident. After Finding himself in a series of international terrorism actsmakeshift mortuary, the Os Soldados Ousados De Barbacovered in plastic, or the SOB for shorthe has a sense that something very, have gone quiet very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the same time as charismatic journalist Barrington Sadler has vanished without a traceshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. Insecure former lawyer Edgar Kellogg steps into Barrington's post: Kellogg on the hunt for serial killers As he recovers his senses, as it were. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007459807</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Anne Sward|title=Breathless|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=There are those who say he realises that, on an individual level, books are like Marmite: you love it or you hate itthere is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. Oh, if only it were so easy''Everything''. Michael isn't ''BreathlessMichael'' is one of those that I neither love nor hate, and yet am not totally uninspired by eitheranymore. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857051032</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris CleaveB0BVDC2VWH|title=GoldThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Novels that feature sport often put people off reading them, particularly if you are not au fait with The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the sport in questionvillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. However, while The black wood of the characters in Chris Cleave's ''Gold'' are athletesforest provides heat and warmth, specifically cyclists aiming for the 2012 London Olympicsroofs on homes, it's more about the characters themselves. In factand even gallows, if you are looking for a book to read to avoid needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the brouhaha of village and that is the Olympics this year but still want to get reason Volushka, a taste drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of what all the fuss a man is about, this would be a superb choicetolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340963433</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan LeeB0BYF82CXT|title=JoySemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Very stylish''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, observant successful and oh so spikyvery much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, this the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is an incrediblenot what it seems, often uncomfortable novel that you just canand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''t put down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020427</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Miranda FranceShalini Boland|title=That Summer at Hill FarmThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you were to pass Hill Farm you would think it the perfect country idyll with lambs in the fields, children playing Alice and the farmhouse nestled Seth are a match made in the folds of the hillsheaven. The truth though He is differenteverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. Farmer Hayes loves the land, but She is all he's no farmer. His could possibly want in a wife ; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is neglected planned and it's not that long since Isabel miscarried her fourth childset. She loves her children but she's not a particularly good housewife When the much- or wife. She and Hayes were rather bounced into marriage anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her aging father, beaming with pride and doting parents. Now excitement as shesurveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's trapped in a house with death-watch beetle and a husband world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is struggling waiting for her to keep the farm goingbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555131</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sylvie Nickels1787636003|title=The Other Side Girls of SilenceSummer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Pippa Eastman went to Australia to get away from her domineering father, It was the historian Joseph Eastman and it was there summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she met Jude, and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the son of two Ten Pound Pomsisland. Their relationship Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was good, but not exactly committed on either sideperhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was about having fun. Familial ties were surprisingly strong though quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and when Joseph Eastman developed Alzheimer's Disease Pippa returned to the UK to care for by that time she was obsessed by him. Slightly to her surpriseAlistair worked for Henry Taylor, Jude followed her - determined to track down looking after his interests on the alcoholic father who had left him island and his mother in Australia. It's only after her father's death that Pippa finds herself particular in search of her father's life - and trying to establish that he wasn't a murdererthe bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781762686</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William NicholsonAmanda Craig|title=The Golden HourThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maggie is nervous Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about committing to a live-in relationshipany writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, terrified by crafting an image of the idea country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that there must Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be something better out thereembarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. Dean is terrified She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of losing the love day into the lives of his life her characters in a way that feels natural and old Mrs Dickinson is just, well, terrified. Henry is frustrated by rabbits lived-in his garden, Alan is frustrated by work, and Liz is frustrated by old Mrs Dickinsonnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, who is her mother..grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849163936</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Daniel Glattauer152915118X|title=Love VirtuallyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When Emmi sends ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and email George are sisters and Sasha is married to cancel their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a magazine subscription, Stockton by birth so she has no idea what a slight typo in isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the email address will lead to – a life-changingclan matriarch, potentially marriage-wreckingTilda, all-consuming online love affair with asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the man whom she emails in errorPineapple Street property. What starts as an insignificant, casual message quickly becomes something much more important to both her Tilda and Leo as two people who Chip have never met start renovated and downsized to share their secrets and wishesanother property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, dreams so Sasha and fears with each otherCord can move straight in. Nominally, not just because they can had a choice but, that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it seems, because so often that they have abbreviate it to'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857050958</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan ClarkEmily Critchley|title=RoryOne Puzzling Afternoon|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=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 bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who 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 reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's Boysdisappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=1804181250}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=HumourLiterary Fiction|summary=Rory Blaine''Love, grandson of Lady Sybil Blaine is gay, free, single and loving it, as he tells himself a dozen times a day. He may be middle aged but he's still got it. HeI's a partner in a successful advertising firm and sod read, so over having been thrown out of home when he was supposed to be a teenager; yes, over it – totally light and completely. When he hears his grandmother is dyingweightless feeling, he decides it's time to remind her (and her considerable wealth) of his existence. The tardy but intensive attention seems to pay off when heI had always longed for gravity's left the ancestral pile. But the stately home wasn't left to him quite in the way that he thought. There are so many strings attached it resembles a marionette: if he wants to keep it he must transform it into the first retirement home for elderly gay gentlemen and he also seems to have acquired his first resident, whether he's wanted or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906413886</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eliza Graham0008506337|title=The History RoomGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel begins with a key scene from Meredith’s childhood love affair between Margo Garnett and then springs forward to the present day and the incident poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the history roomlove. The prank sets the tone for the whole novel – sinister in many subtle ways Richard was twenty-one and having several layers of meaningdescribed by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. The cast assemble around the fall out Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from the prank what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and each character is beautifully drawnhaving a glittering career. Hugh In the event, Meredith’s husband, is suffering they eloped and Richard took her away from the results Isle of horrors he experienced in HelmandWight. Meredith’s immediate family are also traumatised by the death of her mother Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. In this highly charged atmosphere The couple had three children: Rachel, it’s hard to know whether they are taking the prank too seriously or if it does indeed imply worrying occurrences within the schoolImogen and Sasha. Add Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the presence of strangers in family home on the form Isle of new pupils and new staff, and before long even Wight. Even then the most long-held relationships begin doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to suffer as a result of all the suspicions that are brought out by the prankleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330509276</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chuck Palahniuk1914585402|title=Invisible Monsters RemixDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='Don't expect this to be the kind of story that goes: and then, and then, and then.' And yet... Once upon a time I collected a couple of Palahniuk books, upon his first, ''Fight Club'reviewed David F Ross'-inspired flush of British success, and never got round to reading them. And then the s book reviewing gods conspired to give me [[Pygmy There's Only One Danny Garvey by Chuck PalahniukDavid F Ross|PygmyThere's Only One Danny Garvey]], [[Tell-All a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by Chuck Palahniuk|Tell-All]] how powerful and [[Damned by Chuck Palahniuk|Damned]] to peruseaffecting it was. And then I still didn't go back through his past works. But then he revised Invisible MonstersIt was a gripping, his second-written and third-published novelemotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I got to look at might not have lavished enough praise on it after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099575051</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcello FoisLucy Ashe|title=Memory of the AbyssClara and Olivia|rating=34.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=We The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on Sardiniastage, over either. Because there's a hundred years agolot that builds a dancer. It is a land of legendSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, where storytellers can see a different nature attention to the moon each night detail – and convey some things, that in their earthly stories. It's a world of wonder'je ne sais quoi'', where sheep can fall that don't come from the skies for more than one reasonclassroom. It's a poor landA stage presence, where lads are expected to be responsible shepherds by the time they are ten. As a result people look after each other - exceptcharm, while returning from a Christening Samuele and his father are refused basic hospitality''joie de vivre''. Later when the boy runs away one night the land falls away beneath him The difference between a hard- yet he finds a girl to ground him to this earth. Which is most relevant when he goes to warworker, and particularly when he comes back and finds himself a wronged man, and in need of vengeance..star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694001</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francis BennettHeather Fawcett|title=The Crabber StoriesEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=John White was known to everyone as Crabber - a nickname which he once earned Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and which then stuck - she has travelled extensively, and he grew up on researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the shores very first encyclopaedia of Long Island in the nineteen-fiftiesfaeries. It was a close-knit community Whilst she is brilliant at research and a time when children had more freedom than they are likely speaking to be allowed nowfaeries, she is not so good with people. We watch as Crabber grows from being a boy still suffering from So when she finds herself far, far North in the death small village of his elder brother when we first met him through Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to a time when he's old enough to go on a hunting trip redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the mainland with a local familyright track. He tells his own storiesEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, as truthfully as much to Emily's frustration. But why is he can and here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the sort of insight which children have before life injects its cynicism.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00737IKIW</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Belinda Seaward1398515388|title=The Beautiful TruthBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=There are two parallel story lines in Belinda Seaward's ''The Beautiful Truth'': one set First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the present day ocean floor, which created the tsunami and one this, in wartime Polandturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Both involve love stories The result was complete and personal strugglesutter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and there are repeating themes such as horses and the stars loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that effectively provide links between many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the two in this clearly welltsunami -researched 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 engrossing narrativeTamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0719521114</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=EL JamesChristopher Bowden|title=Fifty Shades FreedMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When the [[Fifty Shades Of Grey Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by EL James|first]] book in her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a trilogy is outstandingly awesome, safe harbour and the [[Fifty Shades Darker by EL James|second]] is pretty darn excellent, a little bit of indulgence to read the final instalment is a no-brainer really. And, I suspect that is why this book is selling so well, because while it’s young nephew had had a mildly much more interesting reading, in my mind life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it didn’t come close seems to him an obligation to the first two offerings in terms of intriguing characters, a suspense filled plot or general ''kinky-fuckery''find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099579944</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maggie ShipsteadJennifer Mason|title=Seating ArrangementsPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Weddings are always Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a potential source for intrigue and dramaseries of disappearances. In Maggie Shipstead's debut novel, ''Seating Arrangements'', there's plenty Partitions of that going on. Set in a New England island called Waskeke, Winn Van MeterUnity's eldest daughter, Daphne, who is already heavily pregnant is about to marry Greyson Duff. The problems start when Daphne's retinue of bridesmaids, who include her sister, Livia, who has had her heart broken by she sets her first love mind to the son of Winn's social arch rival, and the flirtatious Agatha mix with Greyson's brotherssolving a murder.. Add in the fact that Winn has always had a yearning for Agatha and things get decidedly messy.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>000742521X</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Will Carver|title=The Daves Next Door|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony ParsonsJennifer Mason|title=Catching the SunPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Tom Finn had been ''A struggling poetry zine, a builder, but bankruptcy intervened mom-and taxi driving provided some sort of living for him-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, his wifea 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, Tess and twins Rory and Keeva. And so it might have continued but a women's track coach with a yen for two burglars in his home. Tom 'confronted' them - and nearly went to jailbullwhips, but his conviction mean that taxi driving was no longer an option. Then a chance encounter brought him billionaire with a state-of-the offer of another driving job - but this one was art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Phuket in Thailand - and included accommodation. There'Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s , x), on a saying that if something seems too good to be true then it probably ischeap oil painting, but when youan erotic art dealer in Georgia...'re as close to the bottom as Tom Finn there comes a time when you've got to take This is just a chance sample of the cast of characters and hope that settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this is your lucky daymystery story goes like this...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007327811</amazonuk>B09STS96HS
}}
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