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[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John PiperJenny Lecoat|title=La Crème de la CremBeyond Summerland|rating=34

|summary=Gala night at Frere Jacques restaurant Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the local political and good gather for a banquetend of the occupation. Everyone is looking forward During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a good banned radio and soldiers took him away one night , leaving Jean and that's what they'll haveher mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, just not quite in and the way war is finally over, their hopes rise that they envisagedwill finally learn what became of him. Indeed it But will be the truth come as a night to remember for a long time to comerelief, for all or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the wrong reasons courtesy of informer who told the little something in Nazis about the dessert. radio? Meanwhile young people are going missing on a scale that the town of Tresside has never experienced before but Tresside doesn't know And what other secrets have been kept throughout the half of it… yet!occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>B00G4A2RQ0</amazonuk>1846976537

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Katie EversonOnyi Nwabineli|title= DropAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= Katie Everson’s debut novelAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, ‘Dropthanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media,’ is a tale where she posted every step of grief Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and healing, whirlwind romance and brutal honestybasically, monetary gain. We follow the story of Carla - straight-A-student, rule-abiding daughter Now Anuri is in her twenties and somewhat uninteresting friend - who she is determined slowly trying to regain her confidence and to change get her predictable life. When back, suing her absentee step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is offered a job in Londonbattling alcoholism, Carla transfers failing to yet another school start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and this time receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperate to not be overlookeddesperately worried about her little sister, who is the new focus of Ophelia's online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406356271</amazonuk>0861546873

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John Niven1529153298|title= The Sunshine Cruise CompanyList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 4.5|genre= HumourGeneral Fiction|summary= Susan Frobisher It's 1979 and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset townMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Friends since school (A woman? I mean, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage to accountant Barry, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old peoplehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's homefamily, though. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeon Women have been disappearing. Well, it transpires that he has they've been leading a hidden life for yearsmurdered, and his expensive fetishes lead but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the bank moving to take Susanfamily 'Down South's home. Struck by both desperation and When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a sense of injusticefrightening, foreign place, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bankbest avoided. For Miv, taking along their the move would mean leaving her best friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money and a terminally ill grandson, Sharon, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the nursing home longing for adventuredangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Paula McGrath1035906708|title= GenerationDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=How can we know the effect that our choices may have on the next generation? Even a seemingly minor decision has the potential We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to create ripples Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and waves of unforeseen repercussions only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the futureStates. This fascinating theme is explored When she was back in “Generation”, an intelligentlyAthens -written début novel supposedly so that approaches she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the subject from multiple perspectives over an eighty-year periodNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147361483X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kerry HudsonAlexander McCall Smith|title= ThirstThe Perfect Passion Company|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary= London – Summer. AlenaThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a young siberian immigrant is caught stealing shoesmore personal, tailored service. Dave, Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the man who catches herbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a security guard – surviving on trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a minimal income bad boyfriend, and with little drive so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to better his quietan Edinburgh we already love, repetitive life. As Alena thanks to 44 Scotland Street and Dave grow closerthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, Dave finds his life turned upside downbut with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. But will Alena ever let down Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her guardabilities, and reveal the truth about there's always her past?very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099589893</amazonuk>1846976596

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Lesley PearseDean Koontz|title= Without a TraceThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionParanormal|summary=Cassie's arrival was bound to cause Benny is having a stir in the sleepy Somerset village of Sawbridgeterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. She had flaming red hair Oh, and someone has delivered a voluptuous figure accentuated by very tight clothingreally weird, towering heelsdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, heavy make-up and no wedding ring. But it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really shocked nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the locals was the fact that she had delivery to his house is a little mixed-race girl in tow. Petalnew friend, as she was a bad weather friend calledSpike, soon melted the hearts who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of the residentsBenny's enemies, if he, but no such courtesy was extended to CassieBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who was dubbed finds herself roped into Benny'that red-headed whore' by some. Her only friend was the kind shopkeeper Molly Heywood, s wild adventure) can figure out who would often visit Cassie and Petal at their isolated stone cottage on the outskirts of the villageexactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>024196153X</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eva RiceKatherine Howe|title=Love Notes for FreddieA True Account|rating=4.5

|summary=Marnie Hannah Masury is an innocentliving in Boston, mathematical genius schoolgirl having been sent to live with a family whorun an inn, unfortunately, gets expelled and being made to work there from her fancy boarding schoola young age. Julie When she hears there is her teacher, formerly to be a dancerhanging of some pirates in the town, rigorously private about her pastshe decides to go and watch. Freddie is Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the boy that both hands of them fall in love withtwo vicious pirates. Revealed through the eyes of two of the three main charactersShe hides away, this is a slow-movingso that they don't find and kill her too, but rather beautifully toldand then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, love storydressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. It has She soon finds herself in the same vintage feel that Eva Rice used so well in ''The Lost Art thick of Keeping Secrets'' things when there is a mutiny on board, and it cleverly winds its way through Marnie's story from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the 1960's as well as Julie's past in pre-WW2 New Yorkocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782064486</amazonuk>0861547438

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kat Gordon1471180158|title= Artificial Anatomy of ParksMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=One morning Jamie Matson works in 2002an upper-class grocery store, twenty-one year old Tallulah Park is woken in her depressing bedsit by for a man who's a control freak with all the phonecall announcing her fathersubtlety of a half brick. Jamie's heart attackson, Bo, 'has his problems'. From this bleak beginning springs Kat Gordon He's gripping debut novel of a dysfunctional upper middle class family with a history of papering over asthmatic and the more you read, the cracks and ignoring more you'll suspect that he's on the uncomfortable and unfittingautistic spectrum. Tallulah has been doing her fair share of powering on Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and pretending things donsometimes Bo't exist, but it seems like this might turn out s not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be the away on time to stop running away. With the reluctant help of two aunts, an old family friend pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and her own imperfect recollections, and with a vivid imagining of her late grandmother as put in the voice of conscience, Tallulah sets out wrong. It was going to come to answer some long-standing questions about her family and her own pasta head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079867</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Dido Butterworth and Tim FlanneryB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Meet Archie Meek. He's about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived for the last five years, and return to Sydney, where he'll take his office in the museum and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickled. That's not to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his body. But what's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922079308</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author= Kate Hewitt|title= Rainy Day Sisters|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Amateur artist Lucy Bagshaw isn't exactly living the American dream; she lives in Boston with her overbearing mother and works as a barista in a coffee shop, but things are about to get a lot worse. Her mother, a famous and controversial artist, writes an scathing editorial, publicly insulting Lucy's artwork just before her first exhibition. The editorial quickly goes viral and a humiliated Lucy flees the country, unsure of where her life is heading. She runs away where nobody can find her; a sleepy Cumbrian village by the sea, where her estranged half-sister runs a boarding house. Lucy quickly questions the wisdom of her decision when she receives a frosty welcome from her sister in a village that seems permanently cold, wet and rainy. Should Lucy try and make a new life for herself here, or should she return to Boston and face her demons?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0451475585</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Sarah Winman|title=A Year of Marvellous WaysJeffrey Dunn|rating=4.5

|summary=89 year old Marvellous Ways stands outside her secluded Cornish caravan looking across Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the landscape with her binocularsforests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. She has After Bear dies and a feeling something will happen brief sojourn in human company, and soon. Elsewhere American Francis Drake (he's heard all armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the jokes!) has come home from forest, broadcasting the war strange, wild and looks up the girl rarely heard voices he left behind with results that are beyond his nightmares but will feature in them. Marvellous' and Drakes' lives will cross and then – Marvellous is right – something will happenencounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755390911</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sarah Bourne Marsh|title=Two LivesA Sign of Her Own

|summary=One late afternoon in January 2012After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Emma Elliot and Loretta Davidson's lives collide – along with their carsEllen Lark loses her hearing. Both are running late and driving too fast along this Surrey road. Emma is unharmed and flees the scene. Little does she know that this incident will have long-term consequences further down the line. For Loretta Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, the effects are more immediateeverything about her life changes. A social worker Living in her fortiesa time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she has taken a career break is taught to raise her and Martin's beloved son Ethanlip read, born after an arduous IVF cycle just over four years agobut physically restrained from signing. Ethan is From here, she ends up in critical condition after another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the car accident deaf and dies during surgeryusing a system called Visible Speech. In her grief At the same time, Loretta turns to Scotch Bell is working on other inventions and Valium ideas, and drifts away from her husband and their familiesEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1505233682</amazonuk>1035401614

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Val HennessyB0BC3YTCMR|title=Not Far From DreamlandGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira

|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified 'This story is not for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barriereveryone. What Ronald ''has'' got is  Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a roof that leaks (therebit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's good reason why his home is called contagious. It'the shack'), s not easy being a dog who black girl whose skin is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supply84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. On the plus side Then he has friends, mostly platonic did: Lavender was very good at math and usually in much the same boat as RonaldReggie asked if she would tutor him. But are they downhearted? She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. Well, they are occasionally, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out She went to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops his house and jumble saleshe raped her. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story of In shock, she even allowed him to give her a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relativeslift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jo McMillan1472263936|title=Motherland: A NovelThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=4.5

|summary=Jess is a teenage Communist which isn't a surprise since she comes from a Communist familyIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. Her late father She was a card carrying member and Jess spends alone: her weekends selling ''The Morning Star'' with her equally enthused mother Eleanor. It, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's not only a thankless task, parents) felt that it's not would be a very welcome sight for some citizens pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in their native Tamworth up-market Kolonaki would be the first of the 1970sseveral annual visits. However Eleanor She grew to love her grandmother and Jessthe family' lives are about to changes maid, Dina, thanks to an allbut was wary - and frightened -expenses paid trip of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the GDR – Communist East Germany; a place on the same side of the Berlin Wall as JessJunta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena' s red hair and Eleanorgreen eyes - inherited from her father's hearts. However, they both learn that even a political heaven has its lessons and, indeed, its downsideScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473611997</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Eve ChaseDean Koontz|title= Black Rabbit HallAfter Death|rating= 53|genre= General Fiction|summary=At Black Rabbit HallMichael Mace, time goes “syrupy slow.” None Head of the clocks work properlySecurity, but an hour at Black Rabbit a top secret biological research facility, is said to last twice as long as among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a London onemakeshift mortuary, and you don't get covered in plastic, he has a quarter of the things done. Every holidaysense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the Alton family swap the hustle shrouded bodies of his dead friends and bustle of London life for this secluded Cornish retreatformer colleagues. As he recovers his senses, a place he realises that there is theirs and theirs alonesomething different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718182979</amazonuk>1662500467}}{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michelle MillerB0BVDC2VWH|title=The UnderwritingGrave Listeners|author=William Frank

|summary= Todd Kent The village is young, rich, stupidly handsome, isolated and well on his way to the top of Wall Streetpoor. When It's surrounded by a new dating app called “Hook” decides to go public, Todd is handpicked Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by Hook’s eccentric founder to lead farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the project team. Taking brainy analyst Nehaforest provides heat and warmth, spoilt party-boy Beauroofs on homes, and old flame Tara Taylor with him – even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the team find themselves thrust into village and that is the hectic circumstances of reason Volushka, a $14 Billion deal. As Silicon Valley and Wall Street clashdrunken, self-indulgent, the death lazy lout of a young girl will find the team at odds with each other – and spinning wildly out of controlman is tolerated. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1922182974</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Alena GraedonB0BYF82CXT|title= The Word Exchange|rating= 3.5|genre= General Fiction|summary=Welcome to the world of the ''Meme''; the nextSemi-generation mobile device. Imagine technology so sophisticated that it could anticipate your needs as soon as they come into your mind. Need to get home? Your Meme will hail a cab. Feeling unwell? The Meme has an app for that. Negative thoughts? The Meme will intercede on your behalf to call family and friends or even 911, if needed. Yes, the Meme is a truly indispensable aid that has revolutionised the way that humans communicate. Critics say that it's destroying human language and verbal interaction, but don't worry: the Meme has an app for that too. If you are lost for words, the ''Word Exchange'' will supply you with the word you require. For a small fee of course...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780225628</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewDetached|author=Cornelius Medvei|title=The Making of Mr BolsoverDeborah Stone

|summary=Meet Andrew Lynch. He's 'Bill and Amanda are living in a graduate civil servantsemi-detached house, then he isn't. He's married, then he isn't. He's stuck in a librariandepressing rut of boredom and disappointment, then he isn’t. He startswhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, of all things, to live successful and very much in a handmade camp love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the Sussex countryside, couples befriend each other and gets a job writing nature notes life appears to improve for a local magazine – until both pairs. But all is not what it's clear he's shootingseems, killing and eating too many of his subjects their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for his audiencetragedy.'s tastes. He turns his efforts to writing politicised letters to the local newspaper, where his nephew is a jobbing hack, which inspires further, more campaigning activities. Yes, it seems that Andrew Lynch's path to the top is foretold – but his fate is most definitely anything but natural…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548690</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alison Jean LesterShalini Boland|title=Lillian on LifeThe Silent Bride|rating=4.53

|summary=Lillian Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is in her late fiftieseverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, single funny; total and childless but you shouldn't - for a moment utter husband- allow yourself to think that she has a rather sad lifematerial. She's lived through periods of tremendous change is all he could possibly want in post-war Municha wife; beautiful, Parissuccessful, London confident… and she's now come to rest, smart so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and independent, in New Yorkset. Born in a time when When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the expectations of aisle by her parents - father, beaming with pride and of society - were fairly standard excitement as to what a woman should do with her life, she seems always surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to have had a sense that she would disappoint both if she was celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to be true to herself. Sheface his approaching bride, Alice's hot blooded and sexually uninhibited and certainly ahead of her time in her views. When we first meet world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her she's waking up next to her married lover and taking stock of her life. Amongst other thingsbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848549520</amazonuk>1662507089

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crompton1787636003|title=BunderlinThe Girls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=As a child Martin had been fascinated It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and entranced by his neighbour Mrs Bundy's household menageriearrived on the island. Her son Peter was there too Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but on the periphery; Martin she was just there , perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to visit the animalstake an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. In adulthood their paths cross again but this time Peter Bunderlin (as It was quite a while before he's now known) isn't so easy made any sort of physical approach to avoid – her and Martin's tried! by that time she was obsessed by him. Perhaps if Martin could understand what Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the heck Peter is up to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784078549</amazonuk>bar where all the girls either worked or partied.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eve MakisAmanda Craig|title=The Spice Box LettersThree Graces

|summary=KaterinaFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's Armenian grandmother Mariam dies leaving her something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and her mother a journal capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in Armenian and a spice box full of mysterious lettersone particular moment. TheyTo say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she're special to them both because they're s practically synonymous with the legacy genre of a much loved relative but totally indecipherable to the monolingually English paircontemporary social fiction at this point. However a holiday abroad to get over a recent break up brings She has such a random encounter gift for Katerina. When Katerina meets Ara she also meets weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the key to lives of her grandmother's secret pastcharacters in a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910124087</amazonuk>140871468X

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Crompton152915118X|title=Leaving GileadPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5

|summary=Tom Sparrow finally does what he's always dreamt 'Pineapple Street'' is the story ofthree women: buying the former Ridley house near his old childhood homeSasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. As Tom explores he finds his new house They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the only link with his pasttribe. ThereThe problem's something in exacerbated when the outhouse that takes him back clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the days Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own. They won't need any of young love the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and SusanCord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the Ridleyreality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger's daughter. She had been raised 's living in her parents' prohibitive faith as a Gilead Jehovah's Witness which didntheir''t seem a problem family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to them but they were young and experience wasn't on their side…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784077623</amazonuk>the GD'.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma CraigieEmily Critchley|title= What Was Never Said One Puzzling Afternoon

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= This story 84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is narrated by Zahra, facing a teenage girl who spends move as her early years in her home country of Somalia before her family son wants to move to the UK another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to escape civil warlose her memory. Inevitably However, some traditions travel with them and in Edie is tormented by the novel Zahra recounts memory of her efforts to protect herself and her younger sisterchildhood friend, SamsamLucy, against FGMwho went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a practice secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that claimed reveals the life truth of her older sister what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in Somalia several years previously. Zahra intersperses the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her account with flashbacks , she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to Somalia and her. And yet as she remembers the civil war that drove them awaypast, thus giving a clear picture of the trials that she is forgetting more and more in her family have facedday to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178072179X</amazonuk>1804181250

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David FinkleMadelaine Lucas|title= The Man With The OvercoatThirst for Salt|rating= 3.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary=''Why would anyone - he Love, I'd read, was soon supposed to ask himself innumerable times - take be a coat from a complete stranger only because it light and weightless feeling, but I had been offered?always longed for gravity'' Skip Gerber steps off  Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the elevator after a year-long day at work; relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the foyer of his office building is busy and buzzy and he does not notice narrator relives the affair with a man holding twenty years her senior from its inception – the overcoat until summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the man hands it to Skip telling him to backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''take very good care of itThirst for Salt''. Skip unthinkingly grasps details the coat 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 before he has the chance to realise what he is doing - familial relationships and that he is now holding an overcoat of unknown providence - the man disappears out of the exit door to the buildinghow it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0992618525</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fredrik Backman0008506337|title=My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and ApologisesThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore

|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O''Every 7Leary was all-year-old needs a superheroconsuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. ThatRichard was twenty-one and described by Margo's just how it is…mother as 'an older man' and for Elsa it. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her Granaway from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. When Gran diesIn the event, Elsa is surprised they eloped and devastatedRichard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Granny can't be old Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well- Elsa has only known her for 7 years! respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Elsa still has to carry out Gran's last wish though; there are letters to be delivered Life was lived in London and with each delivery Elsa learns something more about Gran holidays were spent at Sandcove, the person behind Gran family home on the superheroIsle of Wight. Will it enforce her hero status or destroy it?Even then the doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444775839</amazonuk>Then Richard left them.

 {{Frontpage|isbn=1914585402|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding read, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on it.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neil SmithLucy Ashe|title=BooClara and Olivia|rating=4.5

|summary=Oliver Dalrymple The year is dead1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. He realised this Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the moment he woke up in outside but not, we learn, on the rebirthing bedinside. His friends and tormentors had always called him Boo because of his ghostly pale complexion and now heAnd not on stage, either. Because there's finally earned the nickname fullya lot that builds a dancer. What he hasnSome things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't realised is come from the way in which he died; he thinks he died of holey heart problems in front of his locker while reciting the periodic tableclassroom. The location is correct butA stage presence, meeting Johnny (an equally dead former classmate) revealsa charm, he was actually murdereda ''joie de vivre''. What's worseThe difference between a hard-worker, their murderer has been spotted there in 13 year olds' heavenand a star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434023493</amazonuk>0861544080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Minette WaltersHeather Fawcett|title= CellarEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

|summary= To my mindEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, ''The Dark Room'' is the most perfect psychological thriller ever written (and I've read lots in this genre). In her later worksresearched meticulously, Minette Walters seemed to veer away from this particular path to glory as write her novels became steadily darker life's work, the very first encyclopaedia of faeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with increasingly dislikeable characterspeople. So it was quite refreshing to discover that ''The Cellar'' was written from when she finds herself far, far North in the point small village of view of a rather likeable protagonist. Muna is an African child living inHrafvsnik, shall we sayhaving somehow offended the village matriarch, somewhat unusual and very cruel conditions: she was stolen and now lives in captivity. Her voice is compelling not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and from the first page I found myself wanting put her to make good final investigations for her escape from book back on the dreadful - and sadly all too believable - circumstances in which she finds herselfright track. So Enter Wendell Bambleby, naturallyher dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, I admired her cunning all charm and resourcefulnessdelight, knowing that these attributes would serve her wellmuch to Emily's frustration. But, of course, this why is Minette Walters and nothing he here? What does he want? And what exactly is as simple as it first appears. As going on with the story unfolded I found myself questioning who exactly were the victims and who, if anyone, was innocent.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099594641</amazonuk>0356519120

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Naomi Novik1398515388|title=UprootedThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=Many years agoFirst of all, it was the earthquake, in a village deep in Eastern Europethe ocean floor, which created the locals live a life of relative peace tsunami and happiness - knowing to always avoid this, in turn, caused the wood that borders their landnuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and safe in the knowledge that they are guarded by a powerful wizard - the Dragonloss of livelihoods was widespread. Aware The fact that he is the one thing keeping them safe many pets were separated from their owners came far down the dangers list of priorities but - six months after the wood, the villagers take part in a ritual called 'The Choosing' every ten years tsunami - when Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a young girl is sent to serve the wizard for dog outside a decadeconvenience store.Agnieszka is of age for He wasn't a dog person but the choosing, but nobody fears convenience store owner's comment that she will be picked - her best friend Kasia is pretty he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and graceful, and sure to catch Tamon the eye of the immortal Dragondog jumped in. However, Agnieszka is not aware of the talents she holds that may attract the wizard - talents that the safety of the entire kingdom may come to depend on for their survival...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447294130</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barbara LamplughChristopher Bowden|title=Secrets of the PomegranateMr Magenta

|summary=Home in Bristol, Alice gets the news from her sisterChristopher Bowden's partner, Paco. Her sister, Deborah Hardy, was on board one latest novel is a patient untangling of the trains bombed at Madrida seemingly ordinary woman's Atocha station on 11 March. No one can yet confirm whether life, carried out by her nephew after she is alive or deadhas died. Deb had moved to Granada nearly 20 years ago, after her divorce from Mark's father, The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and was starting to make a name for herself as a scholar little bit of women in Andalusia's history. Alice and her nine-year-old son Timmy fly indulgence to Spain to find that Deb is alive, but in a coma in hospital. Over the weeks she keeps vigil for Deb, Alice lives in her sister's home in Granada and reads her diaries, which proves to be young nephew had had a way of feeling closer to her and learning much more about her interesting life than she that nephew Stephen had ever knew. Meanwhile, Mark realised and Paco keep their distance, working through their complicated grief in their own waysit seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781323690</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Menna Van PraagJennifer Mason|title=The House At The End Of Hope StreetPartitions of Unity|rating=54

|summary= Alba Ashby is a wallflower of a girl; studiousHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, bookish dominatrix and excruciatingly shyunintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], so when tragedy wields its ponderous bolt, she is less able than most to adjust to life as she now knows itinvestigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In one ''Partitions of her midnight walks around historical CambridgeUnity'', she finds herself at the door sets her mind to Number 11 Hope Street. It is house that she has never before seen; quirky and turreted with solving a wild garden and grandly Victorian in hue and Alba is enchanted by itmurder. So she does something that she would never normally do, in a million years. She knocks on the door.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749018623</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara GruenWill Carver|title=At The Water's EdgeDaves Next Door|rating=54|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube line. As their fates overlap, the story is told in backwards order, leading up to the fateful moment.|isbn= 1914585186}} {{Frontpage|author=Jennifer Mason|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery|rating=4

|summary=An indiscretion at ''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a party causes Ellis Hyde400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's parents to disown himtrack coach with a yen for bullwhips, cominga billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, as it doesx), hot on the heels of his father not understanding why Ellis has been turned down for war servicea cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... To prove he's not ' This is just a coward, Ellis, his new wife Maddie sample of the cast of characters and best friend Hank leave the US for Scotlandsettings in Preposterous. He's determined they As you can see, some keeping up will succeed where Ellis' father failed years before: they will find the Loch Ness monsterbe required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this. Maddie isn't as convinced but then she also thinks she knows Ellis. She and the locals at the inn where they're stranded by the global conflict will discover a lot more about him, and indeed themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473604702</amazonuk>B09STS96HS