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{{newreview
|author=Barbara Delinsky
|title=Sweet Salt Air
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's ten years since Charlotte and Nicole were close. Since then Nicole has married Julian, an eminent surgeon and Charlotte has made her way as a writer. She has a base in New York, but it's little bigger than a cupboard and is only a place to stay between foreign assignments. Nicole lives in Philadelphia but still spends her summers at her family's property off the coast of Maine. This year is going to be the last time though. Her father died suddenly and her mother can't bear to go back to Quinniepeague, so Nicole is returning to the island to clear the house for sale. And she's going to write a cookbook.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472104579</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|title=Kind of Kin
|summary=Tim Parks's ''Sex is Forbidden'' is narrated by twenty-something, Beth. She'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 retreat. The Dasgupta Institute imposes bans on attendees, although the conditions are slightly less onerous on the servers who, nevertheless are expected to join in the meditations. There's no talking, no writing, no mingling of the sexes and no physical or even eye contact. One day Beth, still a rebel at heart, wanders into the men'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 book, 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 approach.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099565897</amazonuk>
}}
