Newest General Fiction Reviews
The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh
The Lemon Grove is not the book I expected it to be. No better no worse, just not what I expected. Set in Mallorca, it is the tale of a summer in the sunshine, but though they’ve holidayed at this villa for years, this summer is a bit different for Jenn and Greg. There are lots of things in this book that are a bit quirky, and the holiday set up is just one of them: the couple are joined by Greg’s daughter (Jen’s step-daughter) and her boyfriend. It’s not wildly unconventional in the real world, but for one reason or another it’s the sort of chaotic set up many authors wouldn’t bother to create. And yet as you read this book you wonder why, because it adds a dynamic that is definitely different, and in a good way. Full review...
Family Likeness by Caitlin Davies
On a summer’s day in 1950, a smartly-dressed white woman brings her young mixed-race daughter, Muriel, to the branch children’s home Hoodfield House, where she will leave her and never return. Muriel is physically well cared for, but has persistent questions about her identity and place in the world. Full review...
The Atheist's Prayer by Amy R Biddle
I don’t shy away from a book with a little edge, in fact Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favourite authors and his books can be so sharp you can shave with them. On the surface The Atheist’s Prayer would seem to be courting controversy; why else have such a provocative title? But, is it really that shocking? Nope. This is a story about how people deal with the modern world and what happens when dangerous ideals infect a vulnerable group. Full review...
The Forever Girl by Alexander McCall Smith
I have loved Alexander McCall Smith's books since I first picked one up, and so I have been waiting for the release of this, a standalone novel, ever since I first heard about it. It pains me, therefore, that I'm unable to shout about how marvellous it is to you all or how you should rush out to buy it immediately because actually, I found it disappointing. Full review...
Terms and Conditions by Robert Glancy
This is a slow bowl with a wicked curl! The hero, Franklyn wakes up in hospital; he discovers that he has had a car accident, but he can’t remember anything. Alice, Franklyn’s wife, and Oscar, his brother, are full of loving concern and his work colleagues are solicitous, but Franklyn soon senses a lack of authenticity in his family members and starts to sniff round to discover why. Full review...
Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville
Josef Breuer has never had a case such as this. For a doctor in fin-de-siecle Vienna, spurned by his ex-colleague Sigmund, and with some dark happenings in his marriage and his past, he gets as a patient a young, damaged girl, found naked and battered outside an asylum. She claims she has never come from there, however, and that she is of no father or mother besides a purpose. She says she is a machine, an automaton, a beautiful kind of golem, with the task of going to Linz and killing a monster. She has an unusual number design at her wrist. This story alternates with that of another young girl, a very impetuous and belligerent child, now that her favourite nanny-come-nurse-come-cook-come-storyteller has been drummed out, and living alone with her father, again a doctor, outside a zoo. But a zoo that doesn't strictly hold animals, nor allows for their conservation… Full review...
Still Life With Breadcrumbs by Anna Quindlen
I was going to say that Rebecca Winter is a well-known photographer, but that's not quite how Rebecca sees it. She had major success with Still Life With Breadcrumbs and became a household name - almost a feminist icon - but the success has faded into the past. People who think about it guess that she's well-off, if not wealthy but the truth is different. When we meet Rebecca she's woken in the middle of the night by what sounds very like a gunshot - but she's not in her New York apartment. She's a couple of hours drive away in a rented cottage. It's the finances, you see. If she lets her New York property and rents somewhere cheaper the difference allows her to pay her mother's nursing home fees, a contribution to her father's rent, some assistance to her son - and all the other obligations we accumulate as we get older. Full review...
It Felt Like A Kiss by Sarra Manning
Ellie Cohen lives with two of her best friends, works in an exclusive gallery, and sees her loving Jewish grandparents every first Friday of the month. Her single mother, Ari, has always been the epitome of cool and is Ellie’s best friend and confidante. The only thing they don’t talk about is Billy Kay, Ellie’s biological father. That doesn’t stop him being one of the nation’s favourites, recently knighted, and talked about by pretty much everyone else. But Billy is a non-issue for Ellie. She doesn’t need him, she has Chester, her mum’s best friend, who has always been enough of a dad if she needed. Her only real trouble is her penchant for lame ducks, or fixer-uppers. Full review...
Cairo by Chris Womersley
Tom Button has had enough of small-town Australian life, and wants to grasp the nettle at the earliest opportunity and escape for more exotic places as soon as he's free of school and he and a friend can afford it. Until the friend kills that pipe-dream. Plan B for Tom soon becomes the life of a university student in Melbourne, with the chance to live in the apartment his aunt left behind when she died – at least it's in an exotically named development building, called Cairo. But Plan C soon forms for Tom, when he falls in awkwardly with some bohemian neighbours – who still, despite being ten years older, have plans of their own for making their own way to a better life – just not the way Tom ever suspected… Full review...
First Novel by Nicholas Royle
Paul Kinder lectures in first novels at a Manchester university and, coincidentally, he's also published a novel. Yes, just the one. When not working he enjoys various pursuits, including sex in car parks when offered the opportunity (i.e. not very often at all). (If the car park is on a flight path, all the better.) He personally doesn't see it as a problem, although not all his life has been problem free. No, indeed it hasn't! Full review...
Respect by Mandasue Heller
Growing up is difficult in the best of circumstances. The council estate where Chantelle has grown up in isn't decaying - it is dead and rotten. It has become a holding place for those who are condemned to a life of crime, at least when they aren't serving time. It is the type of place that saps ambition and hope from its unlucky inhabitants. But Chantelle is determined to break out. She has avoided all the pitfalls waiting for children in her situation, avoiding drugs, alcohol, crime and dead end relationships. Full review...
Buddhaland Brooklyn by Richard C Morais
Seido Oda has lived all of his life in the shadow of the Head Temple of the Clearwater Sect of Mahayana Buddhism. His family home was an inn which catered to the pilgrims who flocked to the temple, and his mother a devout member of the sect. He seemed marked for the priesthood from an early age, and at age 11 was handed over to the guardianship of the priests to begin his apprenticeship. Seido's young life is blighted by tragedy, and a promise he could not keep, and although a devout follower of the Buddha, he seemed unable to achieve true peace, even in the beautiful tranquil surroundings of Mount Nagata. He was unable to relate to other humans and sought solace in poetry, art, 'the prayers' of the river and the beauty of his rural home. At age 42, he has spent almost all of his life in or near the temple, and expects to spend the remainder of it there when a very unwelcome appointment to America is offered to him. Seido accepts with a heavy heart, but only on the agreement that it must be temporary. Full review...
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Widow, Ruth, lives alone in the isolated seaside house in New South Wales that was once their family holiday house. Her two adult sons now work abroad leaving her just her cats for company. Oh, and possibly a tiger who prowls the house at night. When Frida turns up unannounced claiming to have been sent by the government to care for her things get more and more mysterious. As Ruth reminisces and then meets up again with her former heartthrob from her youth in Fiji, it becomes clear that something isn't right, although with whom is a different matter. Full review...
The Fields by Kevin Maher
Jim Finnegan is embarking on his teens in 1980s Dublin but that's not all he's embarking on. A lad from an average Catholic family in many ways, he has five sisters, a mother who believes the supreme threat is a telling off from the parish priest and his father is understandably tired all the time. Between school and the cacophony of his mother's coffee mornings Jim learns a lot but nothing as useful as what happens when you become very friendly with a pair of pillows or what to do with the girls he and his mates ogle from afar. Then suddenly a lot of things change almost simultaneously and life doesn't seem so average any more. Full review...
The Boat by Clara Salaman
This is a book that starts at the end, which saddened me a little. Sometimes it’s hard to get lost in the mystery of a story when you know how it ends. But a mystery this story is. Johnny and Clem are Brits abroad, traveling through Europe, sticking to the coast where the boats are. Johnny’s into all things nautical and as boat people, we understood this. The title is the first thing that caught my eye on this book, and the reason I picked it up. And it’s no lie: the vast majority of this book is set not just on boats generally, but on one specific boat. The Boat. It belongs to another expat couple, Frank and Annie, whose life is a series of ports and harbours, and they come to Johnny and Clem’s aid when they need it most. Full review...
Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas
There’s a hideous advert on TV at the moment that tells mums they’re doing great. And wouldn’t they like to buy some formula for their little ones, while they’re at it? It’s such a sweeping statement but the theory must be that mothers try to do their best for the kids, whatever the circumstances and whatever their resources. Full review...
The Emergence of Judy Taylor by Angela Jackson
Judy's life had been the stuff which many others might envy: she'd grown up with friends about her whom she'd known since primary school and married the first man who asked her - but he did seem to be doing rather well. Then one day she discovered a lump. A hard lump. In her right breast. Nerve-racking test followed nerve-racking test, but eventually she was told that everything was absolutely normal. Husband Oli wanted to celebrate. So did her friends. The problem was Judy. Missing the bus home after her hospital appointment she sat in a cafe and thought. She realised that normal was not what she wanted. She wanted something more. Full review...
Fin and Lady by Cathleen Schine
In 1964 eleven-year-old Fin Hadley met his half sister again. His first contact with Lady had been some years before when Lady had left her bridegroom at the altar and run away to Capri. Fin's mother and father took Fin with them as they went to Capri to bring Lady home. Fin's father had died a while ago but it was at his mother's funeral, six years later, that he and Lady met again - she was his only surviving relative and would be his guardian. Lady, Fin and Fin's dog Gus left rural Connecticut for New York. The snag about this is that Lady's well, not exactly parent material. Full review...
Lighthouse Bay by Kimberley Freeman
Having loved Wildlflower Hill, I was really looking forward to reading Kimberley Freeman’s newest work. A story split over different time periods, featuring the story of a family who made their fortune in jewellery sounded appealing on several levels. Full review...
The School Inspector Calls! by Gervase Phinn
If you've read any of Gervase Phinn's fictionalized autobiographies (the Dales series), or either of the previous two volumes in this Little Village School set, you'll know what to expect here: cosy English fun set mostly around a primary school, full of Yorkshire dialect, quirky characters prone to malapropisms and many 'kids say the darndest things' moments. Full review...
Emily of New Moon: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery
I think I should confess, before I write this review, that I am a true Lucy Maud Montgomery geek! I have loved her books since I was a little girl, and I have read them so many times that the covers are worn and faded and her stories live inside of me, at least in part making me who I am. I wrote my masters dissertation on her books. I went to Prince Edward Island, Canada, for a conference about her works. I came back with a bottle of red sand and a heart full of memories. If anyone ever mentions Anne of Green Gables in my presence my eyes get very large and I get very excited (and my husband rolls his eyes...) So it is with trepidation that I sit down to review one of her books. Bear with me, I will try not to geek out too much, and I will do my best to be fair! Full review...
Love...Under Different Skies by Nick Spalding
Jamie, Laura, and baby Poppy have had a few mishaps here at home, so when the opportunity comes to flit off to the land down under, and start a new life in Australia, they’re more excited than they are apprehensive. It might get them out of the rut they’ve fallen into, and it will definitely give them the sort of warm glow that comes from living under the, erm, warm glow of the sun. There’s really no reason not to go. Full review...
The First Phone Call From Heaven by Mitch Albom
Something extraordinary is going to happen, and will continue to happen, through a long and eventful autumn in the small town of Coldwater. People will pick up phones, and hear a loved one speak to them, with assurances, love, delight – but they will all be the voices of dead loved ones. One woman has her slightly older, late sister contact her, another her deceased mother, who had ended her life disabled and wordless, while the local policeman will regain contact with the son killed in action in Afghanistan. The whole town will be transformed, but it might actually hit someone else hardest – Sully, fresh out of prison and patching his life back together with his six year old son, with both of them puzzled at why the lad's dead mother is among the silent majority. Full review...
At Night We Walk In Circles by Daniel Alarcon
Peruvian-born Daniel Alarcón returns to South America in this story of one man's downfall and the twists and turns of fate that not only contributed to this but also which compelled the narrator of this story to seek to understand what happened. The main character, a young man named Nelson whose plans to follow his older brother to the US are halted when his father dies forcing him to care for his mother, has trained to be an actor but his career is going nowhere. Then he lands a part in a notorious three person play that is going to tour the provinces. One of the trio is the play's writer, Henry, a man who was imprisoned under terrorist charges when the play was first produced. With Nelson's ex girlfriend now pregnant with another man's child, the temptation to get away from his life in his home city is too tempting. No one could have forecast what the impact this tour would have on his life though. Full review...
The House by Sebastiana Randone
A woman wakes to find herself alone in a dark forest. She sees a man and calls out to him but he ignores her. Eventually, she finds her way to a house and takes shelter. With no idea of how she came to be there - or recall of her own name, even - the woman explores this dilipidated mansion and discovers a portal that transports her back to Regency England. Here, a dreadful thing happens before she is transported back in time again. Full review...
If I Never Went Home by Ingrid Persaud
Bea is a practising psychologist. It's her second career - she was once an ambitious academic, a professor of history, but a longstanding depression led to a breakdown and recovery meant a search for pastures new and more fulfilling. But even now, she can't cast off the family crises that led to her illness. Tina is a young girl living in Trinidad with her mother. One question preoccupies Tina - who is her father? Her mother won't say and her grandmother and aunt claim not to know. Tina feels lonely a lot of the time and she is sure that finding her father would put an end to her unhappiness. Full review...
The Ice-Cold Heaven by Mirko Bonne
They say that if you fall off a horse you should get back on one right away, but even so… I don't think many people who had only just left their first love – a shopgirl in their village – for their second – exploring the world on sailing cargo ships – would leap to a further voyage having been wrecked and stranded off the coast of South America for well over a week. But Merce here does – he wants to follow his best friend on to a ship called The Endurance and head with Shackleton to the Antarctic. But Merce is only seventeen, and is rejected – causing him to stow away onto one of the world's worst ever journeys. Full review...
