Newest General Fiction Reviews

	Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde General Fiction Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday night. He might be a retired lawyer, a state legislator, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrived. Ruth, a corporate lawyer, would find fault and want to talk about him going into a retirement home. George, a nurse, would argue and Lizzie, a professor of English Literature, who lived locally and kept and visited him regularly, would be unpredictable. Murray hoped that all would go smoothly, but that simply wasn't going to happen. Full Review
	The Particular Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan General Fiction Masha's son Gabriel died some years ago. She'd been a single parent with help from her friend, Edward, who had grieved as much as Masha and whilst Edward has moved on (his boyfriend moved out in the immediate aftermath of the drowning, but there's now a new love interest) Masha is still stricken, feeling that it would somehow be disloyal to Gabriel if she was to be happy. An independent, rebellious woman has somehow been diminished. Full Review
	The Gradual Disappearance of Jane Ashland by Nicolai Houm and Anna Paterson (translator) General Fiction, Literary Fiction Jane Ashland is dying. That's a description of a very early scene here – but also, of course, a platitude that can apply to all of us. Jane's life, if anything, is going up and down in levels of pleasure, energy – sobriety – in these pages, but we soon learn that it recently found a very deeply dark down place. Here then, scattered through a timeline-bending narrative, we have her days finding a Lincolnesque lover as a student in New York, glimpses of therapy, a drive to find her ancestors that takes her from rural America to Norway – and a trip there with a new-found friend to watch the musk oxen, of all things. And nowhere in sight is anything like a platitude… Full Review
	Tale of a Tooth by Allie Rogers General Fiction Danny lives in a small Sussex town with his mother, Natalie. Life is poor, but they manage - until they're threatened by a benefits sanction. A Job Centre employee looks to be their salvation - but her impact on the family goes far beyond what they first expect, and the resulting changes are described to the reader through the naive yet perceptive and wholly original eyes of four-year-old Danny. Full Review
	Claudia by Anthony Trevelyan General Fiction When Claudia is called to the reception of her Manchester Office block to meet a visitor, she doesn't expect it to be her father figure – a man she hasn't seen for fifteen years. Samson Glaze – otherwise known as Wild Samson, The Aztec and The Sun King, walked out of Claudia's life and into a world of success as a solar panel salesman – but now he's returned and he needs Claudia's help. Reggie, Samson's son, has joined a mysterious cult called Tarantula, a group who prepare for the end of the world and encourage humanity to embrace their impending doom. Claudia's journey takes her far from her home in Manchester to the end of the world – where encounters with hammer-wielding assassins make things very difficult indeed… Full Review
	The Man I Think I Know by Mike Gayle General Fiction James DeWitt and Danny Allen are both men in their early thirties whose lives haven't taken them where they were supposed to go. At an all time low time for both of them, the two men reconnect and slowly find they're exactly what the other needs. Together, they help each other put their lives back together. This is a beautiful story about friendship and what it really means to help another person. Full Review
	The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae by Stephanie Butland General Fiction, Women's Fiction Ailsa Rae has been sick her whole life, and just as she was edging closer to death she finally, finally got the call that she needed, that a heart was available for her to have a transplant. Previously she had felt so helpless that she had used her blog to make decisions for her, running polls amongst her readers to decide on her actions. But with her new heart, she has been given a new life. Can Ailsa manage to start to live on her own, and will her mother let her do that? Full Review
	Falling Leaves by Stefan Mohamed General Fiction, Fantasy, When your best friend vanishes, how can you begin to move on? How can you live your life not knowing whether they're okay? And what would you do if they reappeared in your life? – all questions that Vanessa faces every day, even seven years after her best friend Mark vanished. When he reappears, she's shocked not only by his presence back in her life, but also by the fact that he hasn't aged a day – for him, no time has passed since his disappearance. Shocked, confused and emotionally reeling, Vanessa must return to her home town in order to help Mark find the answers he so desperately craves. But what's waiting for them is far more surprising than either of them could ever have dreamt… Full Review
	Dyed Souls by Gary Santorella Teens, General Fiction The USA, early 1980s. Charlie (or Charles, if he's feeling belligerent, and he often is) is being taken back to his home by his drop-out, slutty mother. The home is called a Cottage, and while the book doesn't guide us to understand it perfectly, it seems to mean he has a private room in a large self-contained bungalow, on a gated compound with round-the-clock adult supervision. There's a paddock with horses for the kids to ride, their own school – and all the adults are armed with Thorazine to calm the kids down. Charlie, despite his obvious bookish intelligence, is struggling to get to grips with why and how he's ended up where he is, but it must have something to do with his single parent mother being violent, and the fact he is no longer allowed to stay with his grandfather. This book is a slightly woozy look at his thoughts, as he tries to build a relationship with a girl in a different Cottage, and work out his lot. He certainly has a lot on his plate for a thirteen-year-old. Full Review
	Two Steps Forward by Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist General Fiction When I read the blurb for this book, I found myself instantly interested in its premise of two people trying to start their lives again following serious life changes. The book did not disappoint. Full Review
	I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman General Fiction I Have Lost My Way tells the story of three individuals who have each lost something important to them leading to them losing their way. Freya has lost her voice, Harun has lost his love and Nathaniel has lost everything. However, these three elements do not give justice to the extent of what each character has lost. In this expertly written novel, Gayle Forman writes about how these three dissimilar individuals each came to lose what was most important to them, causing them to all meet one fateful day in New York City. Full Review
	One Clear Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Jamie Bulloch (translator) General Fiction First, forgive me if I don't refer to this book with its full title often. It's pointedly precise, accurate, and rather ungainly – when in fact the book it describes has only the former two attributes in any quantity. What happens in January is that a wild wolf walks across the frozen river separating Poland and eastern Germany. Which means that, when the book starts properly, mid-February, it has had time to get a lot closer to Berlin – within 80 kilometres, to be precise, for that is the road marker where one of our main characters sees it. He is trying to get back to work in Berlin for the first time in a month, and to be with his girlfriend, not knowing she has had an infidelity while he was away. Also fancying the bright lights and big city are a teenaged pair of love-birds, the boy and girl next door to each other in an eastern village, who flee an unhappy lot on the off-chance of a better one. You just know there is a chance that these characters – human and lupine alike – are sucked into one combined narrative, but you won't know quite what that will entail… Full Review
	W by John Banks General Fiction On the slopes of Mt Hood in Oregon, an 1000-year old Viking is discovered frozen - three thousand miles further west than any previously known Viking exploration. Josh Kinninger is inspired by the Viking discovery - three personal catastrophes having left him angry, unmoored and with his world in turmoil. Beginning a journey westward, he's filled with a desire to wreak vengeance on the individuals he finds morally corrupt. Full Review
	The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth General Fiction Pleasant Court is a cul-de-sac a few minutes from the beach in Melbourne. Kids play in the street and it's the sort of place people aspire to. Certainly that's how the families who live there feel and there's a good sense of community. Ben and Essie are glad that Essie's mother is living next door as Essie had a mental breakdown three years ago when her first daughter was having difficulty sleeping. Mia's come through that stage, but now there's Poppy, who's been the perfect baby for the first six months of her life, but is just starting to be difficult. Ben, in particular, is pleased that he can rely on Barbara to keep an eye on the situation whilst he's out at work. Full Review
	Ask For Blues by Malcolm Walton Autobiography, Entertainment, General Fiction Malcolm Walton's book is clearly a memoir about his introduction to the Trad Jazz scene of the late 1950's and early 1960's, but he has chosen to write it in the form of a novel, claiming in his prologue that this would give the book a different approach to the music memoir. His protagonist 'Martin' takes on Malcolm's mantle, and begins with his first discovery of the Salvation Army band with his grandfather. This catapults him into a love of music, initially taking piano lessons, and later delving into his true love – the trumpet. Full Review
	The Boat People by Sharon Bala General Fiction Among the 500 Sri Lankans in a rickety boat making its way to Vancouver Island are Mahindan and his six-year-old son Sellian. When the boat arrives the Canadian authorities take all the passengers into custody, placing the women and children in a separate facility from the men. A gruelling series of hearings will decide on the fate of each individual or family: whether they will be allowed to stay in Canada, or deported back to Sri Lanka. The government fears that up to half of these asylum-seekers may have links to the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group, so judges are instructed to have a firm hand. Full Review
	The Hoarder by Jess Kidd General Fiction Cathal Flood is an old, belligerent man, living in a filthy, crowded house that was once a family home. When Maud Drennan – underpaid carer and unintentional psychic is employed to look after the ancient Cathal, she assumes she'll just be the next in a long line of short-term dogsbodies for the old man. Instead, Maud finds herself drawn into the mysteries concealed within Cathal's once great house – and as Maud begins to clean and sort the rooms she uncovers secrets about the old man that awaken long-hidden memories within Maud herself. With the aid of her highly glamourous yet utterly agoraphobic landlady and a troop of holy ghosts, Maud must uncover the secrets at the heart of the house – and exactly why they were buried… Full Review
	Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi General Fiction Kintu opens with unbridled authority and mercilessness. In just a few pages a man has been hunted down by an angry mob in Uganda. He is then brained with a concrete slab; his woman is left in widowhood and has the hard task of dealing with her man's debt. Blood flows easily, and quickly, when your family's steps are haunted by a curse that spans generations. Full Review
	Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan General Fiction Sophie had been married to James for twelve years and two children: to be honest she was more than a little bit in awe of him. James Whitehouse was an MP and junior minister: perhaps most importantly he was a friend of the prime minister, so when he had to admit that he'd been having an affair he was confident that some contrition, a public admission that he'd been wrong, that he was not perfect, would soon have his career back on track. And it seemed as though that was the way it was going, until a friend of the 'other woman', parliamentary researcher Olivia Lytton, persuaded her to go to the police. There was no dispute that the relationship had been consensual, but after James had finished the affair there was an incident in a lift in House of Commons and the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were both of the opinion that this amounted to rape. The prosecuting counsel is Kate Woodcroft and she's very determined that Whitehouse is going to be brought to book. Full Review