==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Alan Hamilton
|title=Two Unknown
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The story is based 'between the wars', the 1920s to be exact. We're introduced to the main characters: a small family unit of mother, father and two children. On the surface this normal, middle-class set-up all appears fine - but underneath, things are far from fine. The father, Ian is actually the step-father to the twins. And through various detailed and sometimes unusually lengthy parent-child conversations and chats the reader is filled in with the background story. A bit staccato in places, I have to admit.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230130</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Brian Freeman
|summary=In the 1980's, 16 year old Bobby Clark gets expelled from his high school in Canada for stealing. This is a young boy so immoral that he pilfers his own mother's wedding ring to pawn for cash to keep a girl happy. After the girl turns out to be less interested in him than he is in her, he follows his older brother Jim to Texas, where he gets a job working with Jim in a jewellery store. As he falls into a life of scams, drugs, hookers, gorgeous women, and an obsession with Jim's girlfriend Lisa, it's clear that this coming of age story is a tragedy waiting to happen.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532182</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Patrick Marrinan
|title=Degrees of Guilt
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Police broke into the apartment in Sandymount Village in Dublin and woke Yuri Komarova rather roughly. He'd been drinking heavily, smoking dope and was difficult to arouse, but on the floor near his bed was the knife which he had apparently used to stab his mother to death. He seemed to have no memory of this but he spoke little English and had the mental age of a twelve-year old. An interpreter helped with the questioning and when the case came to trial his defence relied on proving that he had been sleep-walking at the time of the murder and had no intention of killing his mother. This is the most difficult defence to uphold and there was the added problem that Yuri seemed to have lied to the police when he told them that his mother had very little money as some Russian icons were found in a strongbox and they were worth several million Euros.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090749</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Katie Kitamura
|title=The Longshot
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Cal and his long-time trainer Riley travel down to the town of Tijuana in Mexico for a crucial rematch with the undefeated champion Rivera. Three years earlier Cal's promising career had been derailed following a close yet devastating defeat at the hands of Rivera. After that defeat Cal carried on fighting but never reached the same heights as before. Now he finally gets the chance to face his nemesis once more. The story takes place in the two days before the rematch as he and Riley prepare for the biggest fight of his life, a fight that could once again end in tragedy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847374999</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Laurie Graham
|title=At Sea
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I've already read Graham's 'The Future Homemakers of America.' It was good, but not particularly memorable so I was keen to read this novel. The reader is introduced to two vastly differing opposites in the shape of Mr and Mrs Finch. Well, Lady Enid (English) and Professor Bernard (American) Finch, to be precise. And we're transported straight away onto the decks of the liner 'Golden Memories' and Graham starts to have her fun: with the language, the characters and the whole set-up.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162182</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Laura Barton
|title=Twenty-One Locks
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This debut novel's central character is 20 year old sales girl, Jeannie. She lives a very humdrum life in a rather ugly, down-at-heel town in the north. And straight away Barton treats the reader to her lovely, descriptive prose. For example, when the reader is given some detail about Jeannie's workplace at the perfume and cosmetics counter where ... 'the lipsticks ... all lined up like chorus girls ...' Barton's writing style is very easy to read, very fluid and I found myself getting right into the story straight away - and caring about Jeannie.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161747</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anne Peile
|title=Repeat It Today With Tears
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Repeat it Today with Tears follows the story of Susanna, a sixteen year old girl from a broken and loveless home who obsessively collects information in the back of a notebook about the father she has never met. When by chance she discovers that he still lives nearby she sets out deliberately to find and seduce him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687462</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Francine Prose
|title=Goldengrove
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On a hot day Nico and her older sister Margaret take a boat out onto Mirror Lake, but only Nico returns after Margaret dives off the boat and doesn't resurface. Margaret's sudden death tears through Nico and her parents' lives, and each mourn for her in their own way. Unable to find the help she needs from her parents, who are both consumed by their own grief to help Nico to come to terms with her loss, Nico turns to the vast array of books in Goldengrove, her father's bookshop, for answers, and soon embarks on a dangerous relationship with Margaret's boyfriend Aaron, the only person who seems to understand her grief.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870361</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julie Orringer
|title=The Invisible Bridge
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In a story that takes us from the elegance of Paris, through the streets of Budapest and on into the Hungarian countryside and the Ukraine this is an epic tale, masterfully told. It is 1937 and Andras Levi, a young Hungarian Jewish student, is about to leave his brother Tibor to go and study architecture in Paris. Andras' story unfolds first amongst the beautiful buildings of Paris, the theatres and the bars, as he struggles in his studies and falls in love with a beautiful ballerina who has a terrible secret to hide. As the tragedy of World War 2 edges ever closer to Andras, the book moves back to Hungary, to the little village where Andras and his brothers grew up, to Budapest where his new family live and then on into the forced labour camps across Hungary.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670914584</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Maureen Gibbon
|title=Thief
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It’s summer, and school teacher Suzanne is renting a cabin by a lake. Spending her days reading and swimming, she also finds time to engage in some old fashioned letter writing with a stranger who responded to a personal ad she placed. He’s currently an inmate at the state penitentiary, but Suzanne’s not one to judge, and agrees to give their correspondence a shot. Then she finds out what he’s in for – and it’s not pretty. Breville is a convicted thief and rapist, and Suzanne herself was raped as a teenager, by a friend’s brother. That should be the end of it: any sensible person would cut off all communication and turn their back on the situation. But Suzanne is different and though she’s acknowledges that it might not be the healthiest of relationships, she maintains the back and forth with Breville.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848871821</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Guy Fraser
|title=Avenging the Dead
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1863 and the Superintendent covering the inner city area of Glasgow has his hands full. First off an alarming forgery scandal has just been discovered and no sooner has he drawn breath than one, two and counting suspicious deaths occur. Instinctively, I want to say that it's all good, clean fun. Because it is. The language Fraser uses is very much of that era which lends the book a particular old-fashioned and rather twee, charm. It's all over the book in spades. On almost every page. Let me give you just one endearing example of the flavour of the book 'None of Mrs Maitland's four regulars at her superior guest house for single gentlemen would even dream of taking another's seat ...'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709090684</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jodi Compton
|title=Hailey's War
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At the beginning of the book, Hailey Cain is a 23 year old cycle courier
living in San Francisco. The story then takes a step back in time and we
discover that she had to leave West Point Military Academy during her
final year, for reasons she prefers to keep to herself. I continued to read under the assumption that Hailey had done something which forced her to leave. Her
next move is to L.A, where she spent the latter part of her childhood.
During these years, her mother with whom she has, at best, a very strained relationship is no source of comfort and Hailey develops a very close attachment to her cousin CJ. Aspects of this relationship make for uncomfortable reading at times.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847373577</amazonuk>
}}
