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|author= Karina Sainz Borgo Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|author=Fyodor Dostoyevsky|title=White Nights|rating=5|genre=Short Stories|summary=As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and Elizabeth Bryer (translator)temperaments with remarkable clarity.|isbn=0241619785}}{{Frontpage|author=James Baldwin|title= Giovanni's Room|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=''Giovanni's Room'' follows the narrator David, an American man living in Paris, as he navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, an Italian bartender he meets in a gay bar. While David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It Would Be Night is David's crippling shame and denial of his sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|isbn=0141186356}}{{Frontpage|author=Alba de Cespedes |title=Forbidden Notebook|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=This Italian work of feminist fiction holds an air of suspense and tension from the moment our protagonist, Valeria Cossati, purchases her forbidden notebook, and learns about herself in Caracasthe most intimate and revealing ways.|isbn=1782278222}}{{Frontpage|author=Ottessa Moshfegh|title=My Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=3|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At best, this novel is a scathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, it is the cynical, predictable and slightly trite tale of an unlikeable protagonist. This unlikely heroine, a slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with the world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|isbn=1784707422}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating= 4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5

|summary= ''It Would Be Night in Caracas'' illuminates the everyday horrors of modern day Venezuela. It begins with the death of Adelaida FalconWhat could matter more than love?'s mother and chronicles Adelaida's coming to terms with her new solitude in this world and her attempts to escape it. Danger stalks the shadows and, in a society where the establishment is crumbling, who can you turn to? |isbn=0062936867}}

The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to Ithaca's shores, Queen Penelope is on the brink of a fragile peace. One that shatters however with the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.|isbn=0356516075}}{{Frontpage|author= Kay Chronister|title= Desert Creatures|class-"wikitable" cellpaddingrating= 4|genre="15"Dystopian Fiction<!|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post- Caroline Scott -->apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|-title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There| stylerating="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"5|genre= Horror[[image:1471186393.jpg|linksummary=http://wwwHorror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a home invader, a monster or a ghost, it usually something tangible and, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that.amazonIt is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation.coHorrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.uk/dp/1471186393/ref}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=nosim?tagThirst for Salt|rating=thebookbag-21]]5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''

''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X}}{{Frontpage| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Jennifer Saint|title=Atalanta|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=[[Photographer ''I was as worthy as any one of them. I would get on board that ship, I vowed. I would take my place, not just in the name of the Lost by Caroline Scott]]===goddess. It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''

[[image:4Princess.5starWarrior. Lover. Hero.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]

May 1921Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. Edie receives When the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, a photograph through fierce band of warriors, descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the postchance to fight in Artemis' name and carve out her own legendary place in history. There What follows is no letter or note with a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, itwill be her undoing. There is nothing written |isbn=1472292154}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the back southern coast of the photographher home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a picture place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came to be at the Villa, how it became her home, and the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|isbn=178563335X|title=Sea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, FrancisChristopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. Francis has been missing for four yearsThelma's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. TechnicallyHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, he has been "missingis a lovely place, believed killed" but that Rachel is not something that struggling to develop a young widow can believereal bond with the parish - and she's in awe of the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. She hangs Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the word 'beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing'.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, disbelieving and the word killedloss of livelihoods was widespread. [[Photographer The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the Lost by Caroline Scott|Full Review]]dog jumped in.}}

<!-- Ann Patchett -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=0989715337| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Papa on the Moon|author=Marco North[[image:1526614960.jpg|linkrating=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1526614960/ref4|genre=nosim?tagLiterary Fiction|summary=thebookbag-21]]''Some frogs had gotten into the well.''

How is that for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to wistful and musing, turning on a sixpence. And author Marco North, who has the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go on.}}{{Frontpage| styleauthor="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"Daisy Hildyard|title=Emergency|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=[[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett]]==summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.|isbn=1913097811}}

[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] When we first meet Danny and his elder sister, Maeve Conroy, they're both living at The Dutch House with their parents and under the gaze of the portraits of the former owners whose oil paintings still hang on the walls. It's a strange family dynamic: Cyril Conroy is distant and the closest Danny seems to come to him is when he goes out with him on a Saturday collecting rents from properties the family owns. Elna Conroy is loving, but absent increasingly often until the point comes when the children are told that she will not be returning. In other circumstances this might have affected Maeve and Danny deeply, but their primary relationship is with each other. It's a bond which only death will break. [[The Dutch House by Ann Patchett|Full Review]] <!-- Tove Jansson -->Frontpage |-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Sally Oliver [[image:0954899520.jpg|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954899520/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] The Weight of Loss | stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|4 ===[[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Tove Jansson's worldwide fame lasts on the Moomin books, written in the 1940s and later becoming television characters of the simplicity, naivety and sheer 'goodness' that would later produce flowerpot men or teletubbies. Simple drawings, simple stories, simple goodness. What is often forgotten outside of her native Finland is that she was a serious writer…that she wrote for adults as well as children…and that she had a feeling for the natural world and the simple life that not only informed those child-like trolls but went far beyond any fantasy of how the world might be. [[A Winter Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Jansson -->|-| stylesummary="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0954221710Marianne is grieving.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0954221710/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[Literary Fiction]] Tove Jansson's short novel about Summer is several worlds away from Traumatised after the Moomintrolls she is most famous for outside death of her native Scandinavia. Book yourself an afternoon this Summersister, and take yourself and The Summer Book somewhere quiet, preferably within sight and sound of the sea, settle back and prepare she awakes to be transported. [[The Summer Book by Tove Jansson|Full Review]] <!-- Sedgwick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1788542347.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1788542347/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Snowflakefind strange, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] This is a deep, interesting read unlike any book I've read in quite some time. The novel's story follows a young man named Ash in thick black hairs sprouting from the process bones of joining a community of sick people her spine which steadily increase in the curiously named town of Snowflake, Arizona. These people are sick, but it's not a sickness you've heard of. Instead, they're environmentally ill – affected by household chemicals and fabrics, pesticides, static electricity, and radiation – size and their only ''cure'' is to stay in the town away from the real world. Though it's about a real place, the people in it are fictionalvolume. It really is a place apartHer GP, quite literally cut off from diagnosing the outside world – people are even required to decontaminate themselves thoroughly before becoming fully integrated. [[Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick|Full Review]] <!-- Hewitt -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1509896465.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509896465/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] ''The Nightjar'' is an unusual and exciting story. Alice Wyndham lives odd phenomenon as a normal life in London until she finds a box on her doorstep one morning and her life begins physical reaction to unravel, fast. From that very moment, her life is flooded with magic, loss, expectation and particularly, betrayal. As everything around her shifts, all that she knows, all that she thinks she knowsgrief, must change. Who can recommends she trust? Who must she trust? Who will she trust? More importantly, can she even trust herself? [[The Nightjar by Deborah Hewitt|Full Review]] <!-- Mulligan -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1784742716.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784742716/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan]]=== [[image:2.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] I came go to this book thinking I knew just what to expectstay at Nede, even though it is [[:Category:Andy Mulligan|the author's]] debut an experimental new treatment centre in the adult novel market (hence the more mature name – he used to be an Andy)Wales. I thought it simple Yet something strange is happening to sum up, Marianne and the tale of a middle-aged man who knows too much about train travel having his life turned around in the most pleasant way. I hadn't opened it when I'd shelved it alongside [[:Category:Chris Cleave|Chris Cleave]], and [[:Category:David Nicholls|David Nicholls]]. I expected some whimsy, some warmth and some affirmative loveliness. More fool me. [[Train Man by Andrew Mulligan|Full Review]] <!-- Anstruther -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1784631647.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1784631647/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[other patients at Nede:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Enid Campbell was a woman who, on the face metamorphosis of it, had everythinga kind. Leading the life of an aristocrat – full of inherited wealth and splendour, glamourous locales and high expectations. Only EnidAs Marianne's life has been plagued by mental illness – undiagnosed, untreated and threatening both Enid and those close memories threaten to overwhelm her. After losing custody of her children, Enid sells Nede offers her son to her sister for £500 – but is release from this an act cycle of greed, or an act of desperation? Exploring the true story of her own grandmother, Eleanor Anstruther has found the perfect subject for an explosive, moving memory and beautifully well written debut. [[A Perfect Explanation by Eleanor Anstruther|Full Review]] <!-- Laguna -->|-| style="widthpain—but only at a terrible price: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:191070962Xthat of identity itself.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/191070962X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|086154112X ===[[The Choke by Sofie Laguna]]===}}  [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] There's a dull, dispiriting pang of disappointment that comes when you try something everyone else loves and find out that you're really not into it. Coffee. Ice skating. A new Netflix series. Books are like that, but doubly so. [[The Choke by Sofie Laguna|Full Review]] <!-- Varenne -->Frontpage|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Natalia Garcia Freire[[image:0857058738.jpg|linktitle=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0857058738/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] This World Does Not Belong To Us| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)]]==rating=5 [[image:3.5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]summary= Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]] It strikes me that nobody can speak well of the Wild West outside the walls of a theme parkdelight. Our agent to see how bad it was here I will agree with the first – tremendous is Pete Ferguson, who bristles at the indignity of white man against Native no understatement – but 'Indiana delight', who spends days being physically sick while indulging is perhaps using the expression in a buffalo hunt, and who hates the way man – and woman, I'm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of course – can turn against fellow man at the bat of an eyelidSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. But this book is about so much more than From the 1870s USAlittle I have read (in translation, and the attendant problems with gold rushes, pioneer spirits and racial genocide. He finds himself trying to find this bookI don's version of Utopia, namely the Equator, where everything is upside down, people walk on their heads with rocks in their pockets t read Spanish) there does seem to keep them on the ground to counter the anti-gravity, and where, who knows, things might actually be better. But that equator is a long way away tendency towards the fantastical – and there's a whole adventure full of Mexico and Latin America between him and it… [[Equator by Antonin Varenne and Sam Taylor (translator)|Full Review]] <!-- Kan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1911115847.jpg|link=http://www.amazonthe mystical realism.co.uk/dp/1911115847/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | styleisbn="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|0861541901===[[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan]]===}} [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Literary Fiction| Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] ''Nights of the Creaking Bed'' is a collection of short stories by Toni Kan. The series of stories tell of the lives and lusts of an assortment of characters living in and around Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria, in this collection, is imbued with its very own heart of darkness. Danger stalks the shadows and people are killed for nothing more than a wrong look. Kan writes with a vitality and passion that allows these cynical stories to achieve a glimmer of hope. [[Nights of the Creaking Bed by Toni Kan|Full Review]] <!-- Yancey Williams -->Frontpage|-| styleauthor="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Jennifer Saint[[image:0986031690.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0986031690/ref=nosim?tagtitle=thebookbag-21]] Elektra| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Resurrection of Jesus by Yancey Williams]]==rating=4 [[image:4.5star.jpg|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] In March 1990 two police officers entered Bostonsummary='Elektra's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. They left with thirteen famous paintings by Rembrandt, Degas and Vermeer. The frames remain empty to this day: whilst there might have been rumours about Jennifer Saint tells the whereabouts story of the paintings, even promises that the case was about to be solved, the paintings are still missing. Yancey Williams has a theory, which he delaborates on three women who live in his novel ''The Resurrection of Jesus'', and whilst his suspects might seem unlikely, who's to say that he's wrong? Forget the assertions that it was down to the Mafia and meet Jésus Ángel Escobar and Hiram Johnny Walker Quicksilver. [[The Resurrection of Jesus by Yancey Williams|Full Review]] <!-- Clark -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:034901082X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/034901082X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[In The Full Light heavily male dominated world of the Sun by Clare Clark]]=== [[image:5starAncient Greece.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]Cassandra, [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] In 1930's Berlin, three people obsessed with art find themselves swept up into a scandal. Emmeline, a wayward young student, Julius, an anxious middle-aged art expertClytemnestra, and Rachmann, a mysterious art dealer, live Elektra are all bit players in the politically turbulent Weimar Berlin, and soon find themselves whipped up into excitement over the surprise discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. Based on a true story and unfolding through the subsequent rise of Hitler and the Nazis, Trojan War. Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the discovery of silent women have the art allows these characters to explore authenticity, vanity most compelling stories and self-delusion. [[In The Full Light of the Sun by Clare Clark|Full Review]] <!-- Kazan -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0749024801most extreme furies.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0749022132/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan]]==isbn=1472273915}}[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] Deep in the Tuscan countryside of fifteenth century Italy, Onoria survives a massacre that destroys her family and home. Alone in the forest, she meets a band of soldiers who, believing her to be a boy train and develop her – and the determined Onoria becomes a mercenary – desperate to avoid any situation in which she may feel vulnerable again. Along the way, she meets ex-soldier Celavini, whose journey to Florence sees him investigating two brutal murders. As he digs further and uncovers links to his own family history, Celavini must revisit the past he shares with Onoria, in the hope that they can lay the ghosts of their shared history to rest, before it's too late... [[The Phoenix of Florence by Philip Kazan|Full Review]] <!-- Kennedy -->Frontpage|-isbn=8409290103| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|If Only[[image:1786331691.jpg|linkauthor=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786331691/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Matthew Tree| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Great Wide Open by Douglas Kennedy]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] Douglas Kennedy's ''The Great Wide Open'' has summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been described as epic sent abroad by just about everyonehis father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, and it often feels as though to ensure that was the intention. Though the novel often feels like a pastiche of young man got on board the great American novel – epic in scope, preoccupied with matters of money boat and literature, fixated with New York – it often feels more like Kennedy is trying thereafter Patrick was to reverse-engineer the concept altogethersend him a monthly allowance. Initially, Patrick sent the novel presents itself as an intimate study of family drama, in the latter half of the novel it smoothly turns to examining the turn of American society since the 70s, money regularly and the rapid rise of the hypera correspondence -capitalist neoliberal values that have dominated the west since the election of Ronald Reagan. Though it takes place over a twentysorts -year period sprang up between the 70s and the 90s, it notably always keeps one an eye on the present day (Trump, of course, makes an inevitable and slightly incongruous cameo) such that two although we hear more about what happens links subtly into current affairs without ever explicitly referencing themLowry has to say than Patrick. [[The Great Wide Open by Douglas Kennedy|Full Review]] <!-- d It wasn'Eramo -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1782273883.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1782273883/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Deviation by Luce dt that Lowry senior didn'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]t care for his son, [[:Category:Autobiography|Autobiography]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] For those of you who it was that he didn't care to have read books of life him in the Nazi camps – and of course, for those of you who have not – this can country where he might be considered a next step. It begins, after all, with someone escaping Dachau and fleeing her work assignment during a bombing raid, and you'd not blame her one minute, as her career was deemed danger to be cess-tank cleaner his wife and sewage unblocker by the Germansother children. In Munich, she stumbles on help The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get her to what seems to be a camp for non-native civilians to look for work, or company, or transport elsewhere, either official or otherwise. But then the next chapter sees her going back into the camp next to Dachau once more, and by then eyebrows are being raisedyoung man on his way. [[Deviation by Luce d'Eramo and Anne Milano Appel (translator)|Full Review]]}} <!-- Chamberlain -->{{Frontpage|-isbn=B098FFFBH9| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|Snowcub[[image:1786076446.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1786076446/ref=nosim?tagauthor=thebookbag-21]] Graham Fulbright| stylerating="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg5|linkgenre=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]], [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]] When Barbara Hummel arrives, determined to identify the mysterious woman whose photograph she has found among summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her motherschool's possessions, Dora animal rights project leader and Joe find their worlds upended – she and her friend are swiftly forced producing a competition entry to confront their pastshighlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. Revisiting their time on the Channel Islands during World War II, Dora remembers She gets a time when she concealed great deal of support from her Jewish identity, and Joefamily: father Pip Harrison, a Catholic Priestlecturer at Imperial College, remembers a time when he hid something very different. In this story of loveLondon, loss mother Kate and betrayalher twin, it remains to be seen whether a speck of light can diffuse the darkest shadows of war… [[The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain|Full Review]] <!-- Clár Ní Chonghaile -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1787198146Nick.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1787198146/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[The Reckoning by Clar Ni Chonghaile]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]] As Kate runs the blurb saysfamily business, ''In a cottage toy shop called Cornucopia in NormandyPutney, Lina Rose which is writing to the daughter she abandoned as a babywhere we''…the whole of Chonghailell meet Rachel's second novel is a series main (if unsuspected) source of letters addressed to Diane. Lina is now in her seventies and Diane is a mother herself. They have met just once since Lina gave her up for adoption. It was not a good meeting. [[The Reckoning by Clar Ni Chonghaile|Full Review]]<!-- Abbs -->|-| style="widthinformation: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1473691206five soft toys.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473691206/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Frieda by Annabel Abbs]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Historical Fiction|Historical Fiction]], [[:Category:Literary Fiction|Literary Fiction]]