'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Sue Moorcroft
|title=Love and Freedom
|rating=4.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Honor Sontag left her home in the States and came to the UK. Her career had hit a sticky patch but she was determined to take a four-month break in Brighton to think things over and get herself back together again. She needed a job that would help to supplement the money she had - and she definitely didn't want anything 'heavy'. The other thing that she didn't want was any sort of romantic entanglement. She's not even that tempted by the brother of her landlady, who's good looking, but his sister can't stop commenting about how irregularly he works although someone else mentions that he's on the buses. Not much of a starter there then.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906931666</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sharon Rentta
|summary=''Forgetting Zoe'' opens with Thurman, one of the two main characters. We see that his home life is dreadful - with a violent and cruel father and a mother who is weak. And as an only child (to rather elderly parents) Thurman hears his father's violence directed at his mother. Their home is out of the way and in an isolated spot, so really the three of them form a very unhappy threesome indeed. The reader is left in no doubt as to the nature of the father with lines such as, ''As a form of punishment Father would press one of his hands down on top of Thurman's head so forcefully that Thurman's legs would buckle... that blood would trickle down his forehead...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009953763X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Darkness Becomes Her
|author=Kelly Keaton
|rating=3
|genre=Teens
|summary=Growing up in foster care has always left Ari wondering where she came from. The teal coloured eyes and strange, unchangeable, silver hair just adds to the mystery surrounding her. When she searches for answers to her questions about her past, she finds a simple message left for her by her mother – ''RUN''. Desperately seeking answers and with scary figures on her trail, she returns to her birthplace of New 2, once known as New Orleans, to find herself plunged into a power struggle which could have far reaching consequences.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071459</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=The Deserter
|author=Peadar o Guilin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=It's been four years coming, but this sequel to The Inferior won't disappoint those who have loyally waited. I've loyally waited. And I would like to say that four years has been too long. In that time dystopian fiction for young adults has become more and more popular - lots of it is very good - and I did wonder if I would love the central character Stopmouth quite as much as I had before. I shouldn't have worried. He's a gorgeous creation - brave, honest, loyal and committed, he will appeal equally to male and female readers.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385610963</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=The Poison Tree
|author=Erin Kelly
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Karen is ending her university years and has her future mapped out. But then she meets Biba, who opens doors to a world she's never seen before, and to the type of intense friendship that she's never experienced either. As Karen embarks on this friendship, she collects all kinds of new experiences along the way. At the start of that summer, she could never have predicted just how indelible the mark left by the friendship would turn out to be.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444701053</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Whatever
|author=Michel Houellebecq
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Interviewed by BBC film critic Mark Kermode shortly before his 60th birthday, Woody Allen gave the bequiffed one this somewhat startling piece of advice, ''You get to my age, you realise that when you die you're really not losing that much.'' Those words sprang to mind while reading ''Whatever'', first novel by Michel Houellebecq. The main protagonist in ''Whatever'' may be only half the age of the film director, but the outlook on life shared by both men seems strikingly similar.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687845</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Sag Harbor
|author=Colson Whitehead
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Colson Whitehead wanted to write something personal for his fourth book, so he chose an autobiographical novel, based on his experiences as a vacationing youngster. Sag Harbor really does exist - at the far end of Long Island and next to the up-market Hamptons. It has a history of whaling and an association with John Steinbeck. Within easy reach of New York, in 1985 it was an affluent black enclave within a large, white middle-class holiday area.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531887</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Oomph! (Preston Pig)
|author=Colin McNaughton
|rating=3
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Preston Pig is a charming and somewhat lucky character who features in quite a few of Colin McNaughton's picture books. In ''Oomph!'', Preston and his family go to the seaside for their holiday where he makes a new little friend called Max. They have great fun together all week but are blissfully unaware that there is someone a bit sinister lurking in the background. With this book, as well as reading the words, make sure that you pay close attention to the illustrations where there is a slightly different story being told.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392617</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paige Harbison
|title=Here Lies Bridget
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Bridget Duke, daughter of a famous celebrity, is the undisputed queen of her school. Popular, wanted by the boys and feared or adored by the girls, she barely even notices the trail of destruction she leaves behind her as friends, teachers and even her stepmother end up being hurt by her actions. So when Bridget is in a car accident, and ends up in limbo, she's sent into the shoes of those she's wronged to see the effect she's had on them. Can she redeem herself?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>077830499X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carlos Alba
|title=The Songs of Manolo Escobar
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Antonio is the second-born son to Spanish parents, living in Glasgow. He's embarrassed to be anything other than Scottish, and he tries everything to hide his family background from friends at school, refusing to speak Spanish with his parents and struggling to forge his own identity in life. In his middle age, he suddenly finds his life falling apart around him as his marriage begins to fail and his increasingly frail father becomes obsessed with the proper burial of his parents back in Spain. Antonio continues to play a rather emotionally distant part in his parents' lives, but then finds himself drawn further and further into the truth about his father's past which, ultimately, leads him to question his own past and the path his future might take.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184697173X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Glenda Millard
|title=A Small Free Kiss in the Dark
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Skip is a runaway. Shipped around from one foster family to another, he finally plans an escape. Ending up homeless on the streets, he befriends an elderly homeless man called Billy. Just as Skip seems to be finding an unusual kind of stability in his life the city he lives in is suddenly bombed, and overnight his life changes again. Billy and Skip find themselves responsible for three more people: Max, Tia and the baby. Soon they're running away again, but this time to try to save their lives.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848770278</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tom Holt
|title=Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Imagine a world where pigs can do quantum mechanics, and where female solicitors turn into chickens. Add a dry cleaner that moves (literally, from the roof tiles to the basement) from town to town every forty-eight hours, a couple of medieval knights who've fought every day for centuries, and a magical ring (or pencil sharpener, depending on the mood it's in). Stir in a bit of property developing, a thaumaturgical detective and an old man who lives in a cloud. Result? You haven't even begun to probe the depths of this crazy, absurd, complex and hilarious book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495077</amazonuk>
}}
