'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Kate Morris
|title=Seven Days One Summer
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary='Seven Days One Summer' tells of an Italian holiday that should be perfect but somehow is not. When one reads on the front cover, the words 'what could possibly go wrong?', one somehow knows that this is going to be the holiday from hell. All of the couples that arrive at Sam's villa have their own problems and secrets that they seem unable to keep to themselves. Jen finds it hard to put up with Marcus' constant drive for success that impinges even on their holiday as he is constantly making calls about business; Tara and Dave are newly-weds but Tara is already disillusioned with married life; and Toby and Miranda are engaged to be married but he does not know whether he is able to put up with her controlling ways. Jack is a successful film star but struggles to entertain his small children on their first holiday since separating from his wife, Ellie. There are so many tensions that you could cut the air with a knife.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595279</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Joe Dunthorne
|summary=A young couple find the beginnings of a dream life together in a new apartment in a New York building that a friend says is a hotbed of death and misfortune. But it seems perfect. His job prospects as an actor have never been better, and they're quickly accepted into the elderly community of their neighbours. What's more, she - Rosemary - gets pregnant. Nothing can go wrong, can it? None of this happiness and hope can come at a dreadful cost - can it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015880</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Steven Amsterdam
|title=Things We Didn't See Coming
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=This book has gained praise from the likes of the Washington Post and the Financial times so I was really looking forward to a good - even great read. But did I get it? I think that opening on the eve of the millennium (the most recent one) is pretty special in itself and should be a good 'hook' to draw the reader in. The narrator, young, male (not named as yet) and his family are packing the family car for the journey ahead. The poor car is full to bursting. Dad is a sceptic and he's taking no chances with this millennium situation and he's instructed his family to pack more than the usual festive presents this time. They've (well, dad has) made the decision to get as far away from London as they can - just in case. Just in case of what exactly is never mentioned, only implied. So it's New Year celebrations with the grandparents.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009954704X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lloyd Jones
|title=The Man in the Shed
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=The title is certainly attention-grabbing and I hoped that the book would live up to my expectations. It did. The man in 'The Man in the Shed' is not blessed with a name. His name (whatever it is) is not important or relevant to the tale. It's all about ''why'' he's in the shed in the first place. This particular shed's in a garden of a house inhabited by a family which includes the young narrator. It's pretty clear that the marriage is going through a rocky patch right now. So who, you could reasonably wonder, is the odd one out here - the husband or the man in the shed. Jones tells us in his own way. He's a writer who catches your attention early, or he did in my case. No fancy statements or lazy cliches but good old plain English but with flair.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848544820</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Karin Fossum
|title=Bad Intentions
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jon, Reilly and Axel had been friends for the best part of a couple of decades. Axel was the dominant one of the trio and Reilly was easily led. Jon - well Jon was vulnerable. Something had happened to them all at the end of the previous year and Jon had recently been in a mental hospital, but now, at the beginning of autumn, Axel and Reilly were taking him for a weekend at Dead Water Lake.
The three young men went out in a boat and Jon went over the side. Neither Axel nor Reilly made any attempt to help him and they didn't report his disappearnace until the following moring - and even then they said that he'd gone for a walk in the forest and had not returned.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009953584X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Luke Williams
|title=The Echo Chamber
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1946, in the last days of the British Empire, Evie Steppman had exceptional hearing. She remembers what it was like in the womb, the pumping of her mother's blood, the different tones of her father's voice telling her stories, and the clatter of outside noise, yet to be recognized as the falling of rain or the whining of the wind. As she grew up she learnt to listen to the sounds around her, for even in silence there is still the echo of one's own heartbeat. Now, many years later, her hearing is going, and with it her memories. Confined to an attic space in Scotland she needs to write her story down before it is too late. To do this she turns to objects – a pocket watch, maps, photos and diaries, to help re-form her past, to take us on a journey – not through sights, but through sounds.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143004</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Morris Gleitzman
|title=Too Small to Fail
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Oliver's parents own an investment bank. They are very rich and also very busy and they need to be in the city for their work. This means that Oliver lives in a penthouse flat, largely in the company of a succession of housekeepers, and he can't have a pet. Of late, Oliver has been spending a lot of time with his nose pressed up against a pet shop window, falling in love with a black-and-white dog that he knows he'll never be able to take home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241955203</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ben Brooks
|title=Grow Up
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Jasper is seventeen. He spends his time pretending to revise for his AS levels, fantasising about sex with Georgia Treely, hanging out with self-harming best friend Tenaya watching cheesy TV shows, and taking ketamine and mephedrone with his friends. When he's at a loose end, he goes to sex chatrooms in a quest to see how far he can get without going private (paying). He's also convinced that his step-father, Keith, is a homicidal maniac whose next victim is likely to be Jasper's mother...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857861875</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander Maksik
|title=You Deserve Nothing
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Does the world need another 'inspirational teacher lets down students' story? It's debatable, but this one is really rather good.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848545703</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert Knapp
|title=Invisible Romans: Prostitutes, Outlaws, Slaves, Gladiators, Ordinary Men and Women … the Romans that History Forgot
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=This academic title by Robert Knapp, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, will be welcomed by serious students of the Roman Empire. It goes without saying that this research provides a valuable supplement to the existing academic literature. From the meticulous attention to detail, I suspect that amassing the material was a labour of love over a lifetime of analysing more prominent Roman citizens. Clues have been inferred from classical literature, culled from epitaphs and deduced from archaeological finds (particularly Pompeii), since hardly any evidence of ordinary folks' lives has otherwise survived.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684013</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Claudia Boldt
|title=Uugghh!
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=I like it when I find a completely different style in this genre of book as it reminds me that picture books are not just for the under fives, they can reach a much wider audience as well as giving out strong and important messages. This book is an interesting one; it is obviously giving a very clear message about self perception and image, which implies that everybody is special to somebody and you can always find beauty in the world, even if not everybody find beauty in you.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184643372X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean Davison
|title=The Dark Threads
|rating=3.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Like any other teenage girl in the 60s, Jean Davison spent her days playing records, hanging out in coffee shops with girlfriends and undertaking her first fumbles with boys. She was bright, a talented and eager writer full of dreams about the future.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906373590</amazonuk>
}}
