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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__{{adsense2Frontpage|isbn=1739526910|title=Where I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''One year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.''}}__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Things We NeedJenny Lecoat|authortitle=Jennifer CloseBeyond Summerland

|summary= ''Cats Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are not dogscelebrating the end of the occupation. And dogs are not cats. Even two-legs know that. But Dog was a cat During the war, because that Jean's father was his name: he was a cat - arrested for listening to a cat called Dog - banned radio and he was happy with that too.'' Confused? Don't be. Dog may be happy but he is the confused soldiers took him away onenight, not youleaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. He is a cat. He is ''a cat''. But he's called Dog because he behaves like one. He pokes his tongue out like a puppy. When he gets excited As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, he wags his tail like a puppy. And, horror of horrors, he even yaps and barks like a puppy. This kitten-cat the war is only one summer oldfinally over, so perhaps it's not too latetheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. Perhaps, if he were to find But will the truth come as a tutorrelief, he could learn to be a ''proper'' cat. A cat who understands or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the feline holy trinity of eating, sleeping and washing. A cat who understands his importance to two-legs. A cat informer who can proudly take his place among told the others of Nazis about the best species in radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the world.occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780885598</amazonuk>1846976537

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Closed DoorsOnyi Nwabineli|authortitle=Lisa O'DonnellAllow Me to Introduce Myself

|summary=Did you listen at doors when you were little? Did you hang from Anuri spent her childhood on display to the banistersworld, trying thanks to hear what was going her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the grown up world when you'd been banished content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to your room? start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. In this storyMost importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, eleven year old Michael finds out most who is the new focus of his information by listening. HeOphelia's adept at creeping around and learning snippets of information, local gossip and tidbits of family dynamicsonline empire. But one nightCan she save her sister, when his mum comes home screaming and covered in blood perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the secrets that Michael becomes privvy too are far more disturbing than what Tricia down the road has been getting up to.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434022551</amazonuk>0861546873

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mike Gayle1529153298|title=Turning FortyThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey

|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I made the mistake of reading Mike Gaylemean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'Turning Thirty'' in the weeks before I did sos family, though. Women have been disappearing. Despite it being a story of a man whose life fell apart just before his 30th birthdayWell, he still seemed to be doing better than I wasthey've been murdered, which made it a readable but depressing experienceto have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Fortunately, Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Turning FortyDown South'. When you' re from Yorkshire, Down South is being published about 15 months before I reach that milestone and my life is in a different frightening, foreign place which, hopefullybest avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, will combine Sharon, and she'll do anything to make it a more enjoyable readprevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340918535</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Pont1035906708|title=Remember to BreatheDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5

|summary=We meet Sam Grant on his 27th birthdaytend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but he's not out celebratingshe was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. HeHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's got flu and just to add to his problems he's got a boil make it more manageable in his groin - or on his thigh - depending on which side of the doctor's desk you're sittingStates. Sam's not been looking after himself since his girlfriend dumped him just over three months ago and when you work When she was back in adland the opportunities for not looking after yourself are many and varied. The millenium hasn't quite arrived, 'austerity' hasn't even been thought about and living an out-ofAthens -control life has never been easier. What we supposedly so that she could get is Sam's diary, but it's not in chronological order, with some of it going back to before he met Sarah appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the girl he didn't really wantNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, but struggles to get overJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909273007</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Grace McCleenAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Professor of PoetryPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5

|summary=Grace McCleen's ''The Professor of Poetry'' Perfect Passion Company is Elizabeth Stonea dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a 52 year old aged professor at a London Universitymore personal, tailored service. When Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the book opens she has just discovered that a cancer scare business, as Ness is now in remission, but forced by her illness planning to take a sabbaticaltrip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, she sets about researching her latest book based on some papers of TS Eliotand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. This takes her back And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to Oxfordan Edinburgh we already love, thanks to her alma mater 44 Scotland Street and raises the prospect of seeing Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her former professor abilities, and there, a man convinced of the young Miss Stone's potential at an early agealways her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, but whose last meeting was somewhat awkwardto lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. McCleen looks at the issues raised by generations of poets He loses his job, namely timehe loses his fiancee, death and lovehis house gets trashed. For Professor Stone Oh, the first and someone has passeddelivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, the second come uncomfortably close and the third remains unknown to her. Whatit's morepossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, her academic focus Benny is on the music of love poetry which very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is somewhat ironic in a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that she avoids human relationships perhaps due the delivery to the death of her mother at an early age and an unhappy foster experiencehis house is a new friend, while also having a peculiar aversion bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to musichelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Perhaps though this Spike is what allows her going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a detached ability to write academic studieswaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444769952</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel JoyceKatherine Howe|title=PerfectA True Account

|summary=In 1972 two seconds were added Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to the yearwork there from a young age. 11 year old Byron Hemmings heard about it from his friend James and felt it wouldn't When she hears there is to be a good thinghanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. In fact Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the moment Bryonhands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don's watcht 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 second hand reversed something happened that would mean neither his or James' lives would ever be pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the same againocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857520660</amazonuk>0861547438

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=419Maybe Tomorrow|author=Will FergusonPenny Parkes|rating=4.5

|summary=Anyone who has ever opened Jamie Matson works in an Eupper-Mail which proves to be class grocery store, for a man who's a plea for assistance in getting large amounts control freak with all the subtlety of money ahead of the authorities will recognise the themea half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. Laura Curtis He' father had such an E-Mail s asthmatic and having tried to help and spent all his moneythe more you read, the more you'll suspect that he has driven his car 's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a bridge. Meanwhile, frequent flier in Nigeria, a pregnant young woman walks through the dust, trying to escape her family local A&E and find something that ever she doesnsometimes Bo't know what she is looking fors not fit enough to go to school. In Missed shifts or the Niger Delta, meanwhile, the oil companies need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are moving in occasions when Jamie can be controlled and a whole way of life is changing put in the fishing villages therewrong. It was going to come to a head. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781855056</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Juan Pablo VillalobosB0CKD1L5JL|title=Down The Rabbit HoleRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn

|summary=Down The Rabbit Hole Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a fictional tale bout of scarlet fever as a young boy’s child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life as changes. Living in a time when the son use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a Mexican drug lordschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. Tochtli narrates From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the story deaf and gives us using a child’s view of the sordid world that his father rulessystem called Visible Speech. We are shown At the positives same time, Bell is working on other inventions and negatives ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of this kind espionage.|isbn=1035401614}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of lifestyle as Tochtli sees thingsher fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from presents galore vitiligo - people were afraid to having hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to call his father by his first namehouse and he raped her. This book is a strange blend of childlike wonder within In shock, she even allowed him to give her a violent worldlift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276282</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1472263936|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and 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 first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.}}{{Frontpage|author=Isabelle GreyDean Koontz|title=The Bad MotherAfter Death

|summary=When we first meet Tessa Parker she has Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a major problem on her handsbio-hazard accident. Her seventeen-year-old son Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has been missing since happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the previous dayshrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. The police are involved and Tessa As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is beside herself with worrysomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. She's told the police quite a bit - however you can'Everything''. Michael isn't help but feel that there''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH|title=The Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a lot more going on that she's not tellingWitching Forest. To find out And the full story we go back four monthsvillagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines.The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed.The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386484</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Irene Nemirovsky and Sandra Smith (translator)B0BYF82CXT|title=The MisunderstandingSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=3.54

|summary=After the Great War Yves Harteloup was ''Bill and Amanda are living in a disappointed young man when he returned to the resort where he had spent idyllic childhood summers. It wasn't long before he became infatuated by the beautiful Denise semi- mother detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of a young childboredom and disappointment, wife of an older man who was away on business when Terry and bored. In the heat of the summer the relationship is intoxicating Fiona – glamorous, successful and Denise falls passionately very much in love with Yves– move in next door. When they return to Paris Denise envisages a little flat which they will furnish to Despite their taste for afternoons of leisure and pleasure but different outlooks on life, the truth is that Yves must return to his mundane office job couples befriend each other and try life appears to make every franc stretch as far as it canimprove for both pairs. In the drab autumn of Paris Denise But all is driven mad with desire for Yves not what it seems, and their love disintegrates under the burden of misunderstandingincreasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099563843</amazonuk>''

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Isabel AshdownShalini Boland|title=Summer of '76The Silent Bride|rating=43

|summary=1976 was Alice and Seth are a blisteringly hot summermatch made in heaven. People celebrated when it eventually did rain He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and at one point it was so hot that Big Ben stopped workingutter husband-material. It would be the summer that Luke Wolff turned eighteen and She is all he planned on leaving the Isle of White and going to poly could possibly want in Brighton. He had a job at wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the holiday camp, which was hard work but there was a great social life too inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and even the possibility of romancewedding is planned and set. His parents were happy to let him have his independence When the much- after allanticipated day arrives, he was a sensibleAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, well-balanced young man - beaming with pride and they were rather preoccupied with excitement as she surveys the congregation – their own problems. Looking infriends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, youAlice'd have thought that s world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the Wolffs were man at the ideal family: from the inside there were obviously one or two cracksaltar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908434333</amazonuk>1662507089

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cees Nooteboom1787636003|title=RitualsThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop

|summary=''Rituals'' introduces us to Amsterdam, It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and to Inni, firstly in 1960, then in 1950, Caroline went backpacking around Greece and then in arrived on the 1970sisland. When we first meet Inni Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, it is perhaps, naive, so when he is a middlethirty-aged man in 1960. Far from responsible and hardfour-working, we see him as someone who is impulsive and reckless, even to the point of cruelty to his wife year- who formulates plans old Alistair Wright started to leave himtake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It is only after this frankly miserable first impression that we meet the younger Inni, and we see how was quite a chance meeting with a man called Arnold Taads had changed the course while before he made any sort of his life. Taads is a man obsessed with matriculating his life down physical approach to the last second, letting her and by that time dictate what he can do, with whom he can do it with, and, most importantly, whenshe was obsessed by him. In Part three, in another chance meeting Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the now ageing Inni meets Taads' son, Phillip. Phillip, though having never met his father, curiously lives a life that is an echo of his father's; though as Arnold isolated himself island and in the mountains, Phillip isolates himself particular in meditation and the methodology of bar where all the tea ceremonygirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782067175</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony QuinnAmanda Craig|title=The StreetsThree Graces

|summary=Anthony Quinn's ''The Streets'' is set in London in Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the early 1880s in state-of-the area known as Somers Town, which to those not familiar with London geography is the area around Euston, St Pancras and King-nation novel. There's Cross stations. Today, much something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of this falls under the trendy Camden area, but in atmosphere of the 1880sday and capture it, was the site of some crafting an image of the worst slum tenements country as it stands in the capitalone particular moment. Some 50 yearsTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she' earlier, Charles Dickens lived in this part s practically synonymous with the genre of London and although he had died by the time contemporary social fiction at this is set, point. She has such a gift for weaving the depiction ongoing issues of the poverty is not far from what we would term Dickensian. The book is narrated by David Wildeblood, who is a principled but naive young man who finds employment as an 'investigator' for day into the charismatic Mr Marchmont's ''The Labouring Classes lives of London'' - her characters in a strange mix of social geography way that feels natural and journalism publishing regular stories of the poor who reside lived-in the slums of London, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099575159</amazonuk>140871468X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ruth Thomas152915118X|title=The Home CornerPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=34.5

|summary=When you finish your Highers''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, you’re supposed Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to go on to universitytheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, especially asks Cord and Sasha if you’re a girl they'd like Luisato move into the Pineapple Street property. But she’s failed hers Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so for now higher education is outaway, which they own. They won't need any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and working is unfortunately Cord can move straight in. So Nominally, she finds they had a job working as a classroom assistant choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in a primary school''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'. It’s not something }}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley|title=One 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 ever wanted 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 dolose 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 finds herself 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 a weird sort the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of limbomemories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, at a she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life stage somewhere between . Will she uncover the children in truth about Lucy's disappearance before her classmove, and before her proper grown-up adult colleagues.memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057123061X</amazonuk>1804181250

Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably.|isbn=0861546490}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lucy Cruickshanks0008506337|title=The Trader of SaigonGarnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=In the Saigon of the 1980s the Vietnam War is over but the traces remainThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Alexander has deserted Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from the US army what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and makes having a comfortable living selling girls to local business menglittering career. Phuc used to be a business manIn the event, complete with mansion they eloped and Richard took her away from the means Isle of Wight. Margo did go to keep his wife Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children in affluence: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Now his family live Life was lived in a shanty hutLondon and holidays were spent at Sandcove, afraid of the ruling government that spies through family home on the eyes Isle of childrenWight. At last he finds a way out, his luck just needs to hold. Hanh also lives in poverty, desperately trying to help her sick mother with Even then the pittance she earns doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from cleaning one of the cityMargo's many open latrines. Then one day mind: ''she meets someone who offers so much more. His name is Alexanderwould never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782063218</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Alain Mabanckou|title=Tomorrow I'll Be Twenty|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Michel is as carefree as any child can be during that difficult process called 'growing up'Then Richard left them. Here in Congo Brazzaville he has his best friend Lounes, a crush on Caroline (his best friend's sister), the hassles of school and a family consisting of two mothers in two houses which seems perfectly normal. He's also being educated about the world by his father; a world that changes daily as it's 1979. Never mind, he can always marry Caroline as long as he meets her conditions: she requires children, a red 5-seater car and a white dog.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685842</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary Reyl1914585402|title=Lessons In FrenchDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5

|summary=American graduate Kate leaves the States for a job in Paris, working for a I reviewed David F Ross's book [[The Devil Wears Prada There's Only One Danny Garvey by Lauren WeisbergerDavid F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] style boss, world famous photo-journalist Lydia Schell. She’s lived in France before, so she thinks she knows what she’s letting herself in for. She doesn’t. So while the title doesn’t refer to the language itself (she is beautifully fluent even before she arrives), there are many lessons for her to learn, from how to act as a go-between for Lydia couple of years back and her husband Clarence (and his graduate students), to remember being absolutely floored by how to handle the handsome Olivier powerful and the ''bon chic bon genre'' boys, to where to source the lavish ingredients her employer needs for dinner or how to make affecting it was. It was a proper timeline. The Berlin Wall is about to fallgripping, the continent is buzzingemotionally wounding read, and Kate is a part rereading my review of it, for better or worsemy main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007446268</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim ParksLucy Ashe|title=Sex is ForbiddenClara and Olivia

|summary=Tim Parks's ''Sex is Forbidden'' The year is narrated by twenty-something, Beth1933. SheThe place? Sadler's working as a volunteer server at a Buddhist retreat called the Dasgupta Institute where she has been for the last nine months although the book covers one ten day cycle of retreatWells. The Dasgupta Institute imposes bans on attendeesBallerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, although the conditions are slightly twins no less onerous . Identical on the servers whooutside but not, we learn, nevertheless are expected to join in on the meditationsinside. And not on stage, either. ThereBecause there's no talkinga lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, no writingthat ''je ne sais quoi'', no mingling of that don't come from the sexes and no physical or even eye contactclassroom. One day BethA stage presence, still a rebel at heartcharm, wanders into the mena ''joie de vivre''s side where she discoverers an attendee is keeping a diary where he is contemplating his moment of crisis and she is hooked. The revealing of the past that has driven both Beth and the mysterious diary keeper to such an austere retreat is part of the intrigue of the bookdifference between a hard-worker, but while there is an inevitable focus on introspection and new age thinking, Beth's tone is delightfully sceptical and feels very authentic. It's almost impossible not to feel for her plight and to admire her approacha star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099565897</amazonuk>0861544080

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam ThorpeHeather Fawcett|title=FlightEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary=The past Emily Wilde is catching up with Bob Winrushan expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. His marriage Whilst she is over as a result of his inconsiderate arrival home early when weather cancelled one of his jobs as a cargo pilot brilliant at research and speaking to find his wife in bed faeries, she is not so good with another man but people. So when an investigative journalist starts to dig into some of she finds herself far, far North in the content small village of Bob's previous cargo tripsHrafvsnik, his life is quickly placed in grave danger. His problems stemmed from having walked away from a particularly morally dubious trip to transport arms to somehow offended the Taliban some years agovillage matriarch, although it turns out that his moral line in the sand she is somewhat blurred. He not sure what she has knowingly transported guns done, nor how to redeem herself and military personnel in his timeput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. He Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's sort of frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the aeronautical equivalent of white van man.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099539764</amazonuk>0356519120

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Danny Wallace1398515388|title=Charlotte StreetThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|summary=In his early booksFirst of all, Danny Wallace it was the new Tony Hawksearthquake, deep in the ocean floor, taking on silly challenges which created the tsunami and recounting them this, in amusing waysturn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. With ''Charlotte Street''The deaths were uncountable, his first entirely fictional work, he seems to be moving into territory inhabited by [[:Category:Mike Gayle|Mike Gayle]], that and the loss of bloke-litlivelihoods was widespread. It seems a decent fit, as his book ''Yes Man'' had elements The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of blokepriorities but - six months after the tsunami -lit, despite being based on actual eventsKazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. It may have suffered from He wasn't a twee ending, dog person but it offered enough the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to suggest that this is a field Danny Wallace could work well open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009191907X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=NoViolet BulawayoChristopher Bowden|title=We Need New NamesMr Magenta|rating=4.5

|summary=This powerful narrative bears witness to the experience Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of economic migrantsa seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. Not just black Africans coming from Zimbabwe, like NoViolet Bulawayo, but more generally, those several generations The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of hardy, resourceful immigrants driven indulgence to the USA in search of a better future. Such people leave behind less courageous family members, but not their emotions towards those they have loved or their nation of birthyoung nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701188030</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kim Izzo Jennifer Mason|title=My Life in Black and WhitePartitions of Unity|rating=4.5

|summary=''My Life in Black Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and White'' starts off unintentional detective in a police station in England. The film noir theme that permeates the novel begins immediately. Clara Bishop is dressed in a gold evening gown[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and treats the police officer who is interviewing her just as unravelled a femme fatale wouldseries of disappearances. This girl has sass. But when In ''Partitions of Unity'', she begins sets her mind to recount her tale, it is clear this is solving a new developmentmurder.. The old Clara describes her life as something from a screwball comedy, not a film noir. How does a screenwriter-slash-gossip-columnist from LA end up being interviewed about an assault in England?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444737716</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreview|author=Mave Fellowes|title=Chaplin and Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 'Chaplin & Company', Mave Fellowes takes a quirky look at life Move on London's canal boats. Yet, while her story is full of eccentric characters, not least the main human character of Odeline Milk, who moves to the boat that shares the title of the book after her mother passes away to pursue her dream of becoming a mime artist in the more culturally enlightened big city after a lonely life in provincial Arundel, the book is delightfully free of sentimentality. I say the main human character, because this is also the story of a boat with a remarkable history of owners, and also a story of the strange life on the canal which somehow exists beneath the city through which it flows. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224097350</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]