Difference between revisions of "Newest General Fiction Reviews"
(792 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
[[Category:General Fiction|*]] | [[Category:General Fiction|*]] | ||
− | [[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]] __NOTOC__ | + | [[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]__NOTOC__ |
− | {{ | + | {{Frontpage |
− | | | + | |author=Jenny Lecoat |
− | | | + | |title=Beyond Summerland |
|rating=4 | |rating=4 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation? |
− | | | + | |isbn=1846976537 |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Onyi Nwabineli |
− | |author= | + | |title=Allow Me to Introduce Myself |
− | |title= | + | |rating=4.5 |
− | |rating= | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=Anuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately 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? |
− | | | + | |isbn=0861546873 |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=1529153298 |
− | |title= | + | |title=The List of Suspicious Things |
− | |author= | + | |author=Jennie Godfrey |
− | |rating= | + | |rating=5 |
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=1035906708 |
− | |title= | + | |title=Diva |
− | |author= | + | |author=Daisy Goodwin |
− | |rating=4 | + | |rating=4.5 |
− | |genre= | + | |genre=General Fiction |
− | |summary= | + | |summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and 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 States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Alexander McCall Smith |
− | | | + | |title=The Perfect Passion Company |
− | | | ||
|rating=4.5 | |rating=4.5 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=The 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 more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand… |
− | | | + | |isbn=1846976596 |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Dean Koontz |
− | |title= | + | |title=The Bad Weather Friend |
− | |author= | + | |rating=4.5 |
− | |rating=4 | + | |genre=Paranormal |
+ | |summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and 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 nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, 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 Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. | ||
+ | |isbn=1662500491 | ||
+ | }} | ||
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |author=Katherine Howe | ||
+ | |title=A True Account | ||
+ | |rating=4.5 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. |
− | | | + | |isbn=0861547438 |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=1471180158 |
− | |title= | + | |title=Maybe Tomorrow |
− | |author= | + | |author=Penny Parkes |
|rating=4.5 | |rating=4.5 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=B0CKD1L5JL |
− | |title= | + | |title=Radio Free Olympia |
− | |author= | + | |author=Jeffrey Dunn |
|rating=4 | |rating=4 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |author=Sarah Marsh | ||
+ | |title=A Sign of Her Own | ||
+ | |rating=3.5 | ||
+ | |genre=General Fiction | ||
+ | |summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. | ||
+ | |isbn=1035401614 | ||
+ | }} | ||
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |isbn=B0BC3YTCMR | ||
+ | |title=Good Girls Die | ||
+ | |author=Ayura Ayira | ||
+ | |rating=4.5 | ||
+ | |genre=General Fiction | ||
+ | |summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' | ||
− | + | Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. | |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | {{ | + | {{Frontpage |
− | |title= | + | |isbn=1472263936 |
− | |author= | + | |title=The Figurine |
− | |rating= | + | |author=Victoria Hislop |
+ | |rating=5 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Dean Koontz |
− | | | + | |title=After Death |
− | |title=The | + | |rating=3 |
+ | |genre=General Fiction | ||
+ | |summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore. | ||
+ | |isbn=1662500467 | ||
+ | }} | ||
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |isbn=B0BVDC2VWH | ||
+ | |title=The Grave Listeners | ||
+ | |author=William Frank | ||
|rating=4 | |rating=4 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=The village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | {{ | + | {{Frontpage |
− | |title= | + | |isbn=B0BYF82CXT |
− | |author= | + | |title=Semi-Detached |
+ | |author=Deborah Stone | ||
|rating=4 | |rating=4 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'' |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Shalini Boland |
− | | | + | |title=The Silent Bride |
− | | | + | |rating=3 |
− | |rating= | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife. |
− | | | + | |isbn=1662507089 |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=1787636003 |
− | | | + | |title=The Girls of Summer |
− | |title= | + | |author=Katie Bishop |
− | |rating= | + | |rating=5 |
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary=It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Amanda Craig |
− | | | + | |title=Three Graces |
− | | | ||
|rating=4.5 | |rating=4.5 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters 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. |
− | | | + | |isbn= 140871468X |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=152915118X |
− | |title= | + | |title=Pineapple Street |
− | |author= | + | |author=Jenny Jackson |
− | |rating=4 | + | |rating=4.5 |
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary=They | + | |summary=''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the 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 the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Emily Critchley |
− | | | + | |title=One Puzzling Afternoon |
− | | | ||
|rating=4 | |rating=4 | ||
− | |genre= | + | |genre=Crime |
− | |summary= | + | |summary=84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever? |
− | | | + | |isbn=1804181250 |
}} | }} | ||
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |author=Madelaine Lucas | ||
+ | |title=Thirst for Salt | ||
+ | |rating=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'' | ||
− | {{ | + | Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt'' details the 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 familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. |
− | |title=The | + | |isbn=0861546490 |
− | |author= | + | }} |
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |isbn=0008506337 | ||
+ | |title=The Garnett Girls | ||
+ | |author=Georgina Moore | ||
|rating=5 | |rating=5 | ||
− | |genre= | + | |genre=General Fiction |
− | |summary= | + | |summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. 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''. |
− | + | ||
+ | Then Richard left them. | ||
}} | }} | ||
− | {{ | + | {{Frontpage |
− | | | + | |isbn=1914585402 |
− | |title= | + | |title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead |
− | |rating= | + | |author=David F Ross |
+ | |rating=4.5 | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |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. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Lucy Ashe |
− | | | + | |title=Clara and Olivia |
− | | | ||
|rating=4.5 | |rating=4.5 | ||
− | |genre= | + | |genre=General Fiction |
− | |summary= | + | |summary=The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. |
− | + | |isbn=0861544080 | |
− | |||
− | | | ||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Heather Fawcett |
− | | | + | |title=Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries |
− | | | ||
|rating=4 | |rating=4 | ||
− | |genre= | + | |genre=General Fiction |
− | |summary= | + | |summary=Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her 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 people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik? |
− | | | + | |isbn=0356519120 |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |isbn=1398515388 |
− | |title=The | + | |title=The Boy and the Dog |
− | |author= | + | |author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator) |
− | |rating= | + | |rating=4.5 |
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |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, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. 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 dog jumped in. |
− | |||
}} | }} | ||
− | {{ | + | {{Frontpage |
− | | | + | |author=Christopher Bowden |
− | | | + | |title=Mr Magenta |
− | |rating= | + | |rating=4 |
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary= Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. |
− | | | + | |isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW |
}} | }} | ||
− | + | {{Frontpage | |
− | {{ | + | |author=Jennifer Mason |
− | |author= | + | |title=Partitions of Unity |
− | |title= | + | |rating=4 |
− | |rating= | ||
|genre=General Fiction | |genre=General Fiction | ||
− | |summary= | + | |summary= Here at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity'', she sets her mind to solving a murder... |
− | | | + | |isbn=B09LQR9FRF |
}} | }} | ||
+ | {{Frontpage | ||
+ | |author=Will Carver | ||
+ | |title=The Daves Next Door | ||
+ | |rating=4 | ||
+ | |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 | ||
+ | |genre=General Fiction | ||
+ | |summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia...'' | ||
− | + | This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this... | |
− | + | |isbn=B09STS96HS | |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | | | ||
}} | }} | ||
− | + | Move on to [[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]] | |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− |
Latest revision as of 13:52, 8 May 2024
Review ofBeyond Summerland by Jenny LecoatJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. As the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and the war is finally over, their hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation? Full Review |
Review ofAllow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi NwabineliAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the content about her. Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and receiving money from them for doing so. Most importantly, she is desperately 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? Full Review |
Review ofThe List of Suspicious Things by Jennie GodfreyIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone. Full Review |
Review ofDiva by Daisy GoodwinWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and 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 States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Full Review |
Review ofThe Perfect Passion Company by Alexander McCall SmithThe 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 more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand… Full Review |
Review ofThe Bad Weather Friend by Dean KoontzBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and 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 nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, 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 Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review |
Review ofA True Account by Katherine HoweHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Full Review |
Review ofMaybe Tomorrow by Penny ParkesJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a head. Full Review |
Review ofRadio Free Olympia by Jeffrey DunnPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a brief sojourn in human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the forest, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters. Full Review |
Review ofA Sign of Her Own by Sarah MarshAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. Full Review |
Review ofGood Girls Die by Ayura AyiraThis story is not for everyone. Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. Full Review |
Review ofThe Figurine by Victoria HislopIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors. Full Review |
Review ofAfter Death by Dean KoontzMichael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can feel everything. Everything. Michael isn't Michael anymore. Full Review |
Review ofThe Grave Listeners by William FrankThe village is isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, and even gallows, if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that is the reason Volushka, a drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of a man is tolerated. Full Review |
Review ofSemi-Detached by Deborah StoneBill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, the couples befriend each other and life appears to improve for both pairs. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Full Review |
Review ofThe Silent Bride by Shalini BolandAlice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife. Full Review |
Review ofThe Girls of Summer by Katie BishopIt was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived on the island. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied. Full Review |
Review ofThree Graces by Amanda CraigFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the lives of her characters 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. Full Review |
Review ofPineapple Street by Jenny JacksonPineapple Street is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem's exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the 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 the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in their family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'. Full Review |
Review ofOne Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley84 year old Edie has lived in the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was the last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to day life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever? Full Review |
Review ofThirst for Salt by Madelaine LucasLove, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity Told from a retrospective view, a young woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Overlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. Set against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town Thirst for Salt details the 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 familial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. Full Review |
Review ofThe Garnett Girls by Georgina MooreThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. In the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the Isle of Wight. 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. Then Richard left them. Full Review |
Review ofDashboard Elvis is Dead by David F RossI reviewed David F Ross's book 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. Full Review |
Review ofClara and Olivia by Lucy AsheThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, we learn, on the inside. And not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and some things, that je ne sais quoi, that don't come from the classroom. A stage presence, a charm, a joie de vivre. The difference between a hard-worker, and a star. Full Review |
Review ofEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather FawcettEmily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her 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 people. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik? Full Review |
Review ofThe Boy and the Dog by Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)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, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. 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 dog jumped in. Full Review |
Review ofMr Magenta by Christopher BowdenChristopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of a seemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out. Full Review |
Review ofPartitions of Unity by Jennifer MasonHere at Bookbag Towers, we first met Elizabeth Cromwell, dominatrix and unintentional detective in Preposterous, when she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. In Partitions of Unity, she sets her mind to solving a murder... Full Review |
Review ofThe Daves Next Door by Will CarverFive 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. Full Review |
Review ofPreposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer MasonA struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner in the Northern California redwoods, a 400-meter hurdler who just missed the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-of-the-art S&M dungeon, a man serving a life sentence in Alabama, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia... This is just a sample of the cast of characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this... Full Review |
Move on to Newest Graphic Novels Reviews