[[Category:Literary Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Henrietta Rose-InnesEowyn Ivey|title= NinevehBlack Woods Blue Sky|rating= 3.5|genre= General Literary Fiction|summary= Henritetta Rose-Inne's 'Black Woods Blue Sky'' tells the story of Birdie, the young mother of toddler Emaleen, who longs for a life beyond the Alaskan lodge where she works as a bar waitress, a setting which enables her bad habits and her accidental neglect of Emaleen. Described as a ''Ninevehwild card'' instantly reassures you that you are , she feels stuck in her day-to-day life, and yearns to cross the Wolverine river and live on the presence North Fork to fulfil her desires of a confident and talented writersimple life surrounded by nature. The story of Katya GrubbsWhen she meets Arthur Nielson, a second generation pest exterminator strange, taciturn and solitary man, who specialises in relocating the bugs and rodents that ruin middle-class garden partiessays he has a cabin over there, Roseshe feels called to go -Inne writes and bring Emaleen with the enviable ability of describing both the intricacies of Katyaher. Without realising it, this calling will transform hers and Emaleen's job and the feeling of it simultaneouslylives forever. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1910709166</amazonuk>1472279042
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sara Stridsberg and Deborah Bragan-Turner (translator)Sally Rooney|title=The Gravity of LoveIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Particularly literate cover… Setting Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a real-life mental hospital – in Sweden… Mature themes… Opening with an emotion- grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and closure-laden death… Yesso brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this book has more than its share of things story, the central one for readers to put unravel is the potential reader offfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. WhichIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in this instanceDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, is quite a large shame indeedthe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857054767</amazonuk>0571365469
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Carys Bray and othersFyodor Dostoyevsky|title=How Much the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on LoveWhite Nights|rating=3.5
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=This Sceptre collection does not have as simple As always in Dostoyevsky, the character work is sublime. One is never left wondering what a remit character is thinking or feeling because Dostoyevsky lays bare their innermost dispositions and 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 it might appear; these are no straightforward love stories. Insteadhe navigates his torturous affair with Giovanni, they each take one aspect of love – often one of the ancient Greek classifications – and provide an Italian bartender he meets in a whole new way of thinking about itgay bar. After allWhile David is engaged to Hella, who is travelling in Spain, the heart holds a lot real tension in the novel arises not from his infidelity but from the deeper conflict within himself. It is David's crippling shame and denial of metaphorical weighthis sexuality that ultimately dooms his relationship with Giovanni.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473649420</amazonuk>0141186356
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Salley VickersAlba de Cespedes |title= CousinsForbidden Notebook
|rating=4
|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary=''We don't know our own limits so how can we judge the limits of others? And what it is easy to forget is that they were so young. Too young to bear all those horribly complicated family strains.''
Salley Vickers' intense family odyssey revolves around one devastating accident in 1994. Reminiscent of the past, Will Tye's accident has a powerful effect on three generations of the Tye family, revealing long forgotten truths and close kept secrets. ''Cousins'' pieces together the events leading up to the event from three different close relatives perspectives, in an attempt to understand what exactly happened and why it happened that dark night. His sister, grandmother and aunt all recount Will's childhood and growth into an adult, highlighting both his successes and mistakes whilst reflecting on their own pasts. From the outbreak of the Second World War right up until the present day, the family's mysteries are laid out for all to see. Family loyalties are tested and the lengths you will go to for those you love are questioned. At its heart, ''Cousins'' is a love story between two cousins, Will and Cece, littered with complications, potential and realism as well as the struggle to determine your worth when you're young.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241187710</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Paul Beatty
|title=The Sellout
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I've never stolen anything.'' Isn't that one Italian work of the great opening lines feminist fiction holds an air of literature? Our black hero suspense and narratortension from the moment our protagonist, surname MeValeria Cossati, first name unknownpurchases her forbidden notebook, was born and learns about herself in the southern Los Angeles suburb of Dickens most intimate and subjected to an isolated upbringing dominated by his father's extreme views on race, supposedly the subject of a psychological memoir which will solve their financial problems, but cruel and unnatural to anyone with an ounce of humanity. To add insult to injury Me discovered after his father's death (a racially provoked shooting) that there was no memoir. A drive-by shooting produces nothing more substantial than a bill for a drive-through funeral, but it starts Me on the path which will end in the Supreme Court, the subject of a race trial: ''Me v the United States of America''revealing ways.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1786070154</amazonuk>1782278222
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nir BaramOttessa Moshfegh|title=Good PeopleMy Year of Rest and Relaxation|rating=43
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Thomas Heiselberg's self-focus pays off when he attracts the At best clientele to the American advertising firm he helps establish across Europe from his German home. Meanwhile in Russia Sasha Weissberg , this novel is struggling with being in a literaryscathing critique of modern society and reveals the fragility of human relationships; at worst, free-thinking family that doesn't go down too well with Stalin's regime. As World War II arrivesit is the cynical, both predictable and slightly trite tale of their worlds are shakenan unlikeable protagonist. As This unlikely heroine, a result both decide to become collaborators rather than resistance fighters for different reasons slim, attractive and newly orphaned girl in her twenties is disillusioned with far reaching effectsthe world, but resolves not to lose sleep over it: in fact, her solution lies in her hibernation.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911231006</amazonuk>1784707422
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian McEwanMatthew Tree|title=NutshellWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Meet Trudy. Successfully living in a large and valuable London home, she is heavily pregnant, and in between two men – she has swapped the homeowner, poet and publisher John, for someone completely Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different, namely Claudefrom his father, a nasty, brutish drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and short typewho had endless crises of self confidence. Some people cannot work out why on earth she has made that decision, including our narrator. OhSo Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and he set himself, our narrator, is the child she's pregnant withhigh but achievable ambitions. He is a very alert young thing, with nothing else to do but kick here and there, and practice what you might well call mindfulness, and listen in on Claude and Trudy, as they calmly talk their way to plotting and carrying out murder…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911214330</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Matt WilvenB0C47LV1PC|title=The Blackbird Singularity|rating= 5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=Thirty-something writer Vince Watergate sees his partner's pregnancy as a fresh start. He stops taking his lithium and the new clarity of mind lets him start writing his best work in ages. He befriends a blackbird in the garden with the help of a bag of sultanas, and begins preparing the baby's room. For a short while, everything seems full of peace and hope. But Vince and Lyd's first child, despite having died a couple of years earlier, might not have completely left them and the blackbird might not be as friendly as Vince first thought. Lithium withdrawal, stress, and the pressure of appearing 'normal' push Vince into a frightening, irrational place. Can he fight his way through it and return to his family?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785079689</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFragility|author=Carolyn Parkhurst|title=HarmonyMosby Woods|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Josh and Alexandra Hammond have two daughters. Iris is eleven years old and neurotypical: her brain works in the same way as most peopleCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''s, but her elder sister, Tillyjoke? And if you could, is thirteen and on the autistic spectrum. Her parents are finding question should you make it difficult, ? Or is the question if not impossibleyou did, to cope with herwould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. Even her special and rather expensive school has indicated that they can ''Fragility't continue. She's subject to mood swings and unpredictable and inappropriate behaviour. Josh is lucky - he goes to work - but Alexandra is stuck with set as the problemcity of Portland, which is why Scott BeanOregon, educator and expert in parenting, appeals to her. The name came to her attention on a couple of occasions: she subscribed to his newsletter, heard him speak and what he had to say rang a bell. Before long he was coming cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the house for private consultations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340978171</amazonuk>covid pandemic
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=William RyanMosby Woods|title=The Constant Soldier|rating=5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Paul Brandt returns home to his village without the arm he left at the Russian Front in defence of Germany. The village looks pretty much the same as he left it, with the exception of the lack of young men and a new building. A Whirly Man Loses His home now boasts an SS rest hut, providing officers with entertainment and respite breaks from the fighting. As Paul passes the hut for the first time, he sees something… or rather someone… that will make him return to work for those he despises. The subject of his decision? A girl he once got into trouble with under different circumstances – before she wore the stripes of a concentration camp prisoner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447255011</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Pamela Johnson|title=Taking in WaterTurn
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Pamela JohnsonThe West isn's third novel is set in 2002 but has its roots in a real-life tragedy from nearly 50 years earlier: in 1953 a storm surge hit t the Norfolk coast, destroying Lydia Hutton's grandmother's home and sweeping her whole family out to seadominant force it once was. Seven-year-old Lydia was Nobody in the only one to survive, clinging West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the wreckage and singing hymns to herself to survivebest course of action. Governments are flailing. It's a dark part of her past she's never told anyone except Luc, the half-French lover whose iconic performance art piece, ''Taking in Water''A war here, she participated in during a spell push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in New York City in the 1960sactual charge. Imagine then, when she there was known as 'Layla' and hung around a man with precognition. Imagine the likes strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of Andy Warholcircumstances.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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1534627243</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=A N Wilson0571379559|title=ResolutionThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In 1772 Reinhold Forster and his son George were hired as ship's naturalists for the 'The House of Broken Bricks'Resolution'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 vessel Captain James Cook piloted to New Zealand and back house on a three-year voyage the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of discoverytime, storms and floods. Once a Lutheran pastor near Danzig Her husband, Reinhold seemed unable Richard, struggles to settle grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to one line of work bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and had a higher opinion of himself than was prudentMax, the rainbow twins. In Wilson Sonny's vision of life on the colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don'Resolution't believe that they're related, Reinhold seems fussy, argumentative much less twins and rather heartless, as when he offers Georgethere's dog up as fresh meat an assumption when the captain Max is desperately ill. George, just 18 when he joins the expedition, is a self-taught illustrator and botanist out with a keen ear for languages. Though precociously intelligent, he is emotionally immature and cannot keep a handle on his masturbation habit or deal with their servant Nallymother that she's crush on himhis nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782398279</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Michael HughesClaire North|title= The Countenance DivineHouse of Odysseus|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=In 1999, a programmer is trying to fix the millennium bug, but can't shake the sense he's been chosen for something. In 1888, five women are brutally murdered in the East End by a troubled young man in thrall to a mysterious master. In 1777, an apprentice engraver called William Blake has a defining spiritual experience; thirteen years later this vision returns. What could matter more than love?''
And in 1666The follow-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseus, poet with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her husband, who sailed to war at Troy and revolutionary John Milton completes 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 epic for which he will be remembered centuries laterbrink 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 CreaturesBut where does |rating= 4|genre= 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-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the feeling come from fears that the world exist for humanity today. It is about a shocking novel that still manages to end?find hope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473636507</amazonuk>1803364998
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{{newreviewfrontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Emily BittoEric LaRocca|title= The StraysTrees Grew Because I Bled There
|rating= 5
|genre= Horror|summary= Horror 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. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for Salt|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Lily comes ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity'' Told from an ordinary suburban familya retrospective view, but on her first day at a new school she meets Eva: young woman unravels the superyear-confident middle daughter of artist Evan Trenthamlong relationship that once defined her. The girls fast become firm friendsOverlaid 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 exclusion backdrop of all those ar ound them and it isnan isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for Salt''t long before Lily is spending more time at details the Trentham24-year-old narrator's than she does at home. Why wouldn't she? Their life is everything 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 family's isn'tirrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785079514</amazonuk>0861546490
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eowyn IveyMichael Grothaus|title=To the Bright Edge of the WorldBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=If you're going 'But fearing something and having it come to go pioneering across unexplored lands, at least be prepared pass are two different things. And I'm willing to accept what you seek – namely, bet most of what you've we fear will never seen before. That lesson seems quite obvioushappen, but back in the time of 1885 Allen Forrester is a little too naïve or we can take steps to heed change it. A career soldier, he is tasked with scouring the potential of the Wolverine River that threads south to '' ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the shores question of Alaska, even though the Russians (who of course used to own the Territory) have had all manner of lethal encounters with those already living there, identity and even though a major stretch of the river has acceptance. Of what it means to be traversed in winter when entirely frozen over, as the cliffs either side are too impenetrablehuman. Allen leaves a much youngerOf what is real and what is artificial, new bride behind – and right from whether the get-go his journals force him to pen words about strange happenings, strange encounters and things development of legend coming to lifetechnology is exciting or frightening. Like I say, what he's never seen before…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472208609</amazonuk>191458564X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Talulah RileyJennifer Saint|title= Acts of LoveAtalanta|rating= 4.5|genre= Women's Literary Fiction |summary= Bernadette St John presents herself ''I was as the very face worthy as any one of contemporary feminine independencethem. She is strongI would get on board that ship, career-drivenI vowed. I would take my place, beautiful…and definitely holds not just in the attention name of the publicgoddess. For Bernadette is It was for the sake of my name, too. Atalanta''Man Whisperer'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, winning herself fame with her ability to coax secrets from Atalanta is raised under the richest and most powerful men protective eye of the world, exposing them with controversial distaste in her articles. Hidden behind such a conniving goddess Athemis and judgemental persona, however, is fashioned into a deep insecurityformidable huntress, and a desperate longing to be loved by the perfect manone who longs for adventure. She has already decided that When the newly engaged Tim Bazier is opportunity comes – to join the only candidate for such Argonauts, a position in her heartfierce band of warriors, and will stop at nothing descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to win him back from his all-too-lovely fiancé. Yet what is perfect is a subject for discussion, fight in Artemis' name and charismatic entrepreneur Radley Blake's unwavering attention has also fallen upon the feisty journalistcarve out her own legendary place in history. It What follows is a weaving tale whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis''will-they-wont-they'' fatal warning: that Riley spins hereif she marries, one that I found myself unable to put downit will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473637902</amazonuk>1472292154
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jesse BallAmanthi Harris|title=How to Set a Fire and WhyBeautiful Place|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Lucia Stanton Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a sarcastic 14-year-old misfit who lives with place she spent her elderly Aunt Lucy in formative years. It is not a garage they rent from an evil landlord at place she was born into, but the bottom one she thinks of his large gardenas home. She never comes right out and explains why How she's therecame to be at the Villa, how it became her home, but if you read between and the lines you work out machinations that have flowed through her father is dead and her mother is in a mental hospital – presumably for his murder. Aunt Lucy is dignified and principled – life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''Donscore't do things you aren't proud offor this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma'' is s present fails to escape her motto – even though they are undeniably poor: Lucia only has one set of clothes past and mostly lives off much like the musical score of liquorice and Aunt Lucy's terrible homemade breada film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1925355470</amazonuk>1784631930
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jenn Ashworth178563335X|title=FellSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Now her parents have died, Annette returns to sell her old childhood home but there's work to do on the decrepit building When we first. As she wanders around and tries to make some order of the overgrown shambles, meet Rachel Bird she's watched by the ghost of her mothera trainee vicar, Netty; sitting in on a spirit with regrets. Netty reminisces about AnnettePCC meeting and wondering why they's childhood and the turning point their lives reached re held when the mysterious healer Timothy Richardson came you need to stay. It was a time that promised so much but one for which Netty now needs to make amends, even if she is beyond pick the gravechildren up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473630606</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Sue Gee|title=Trio|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=In the winter of 1936 Her husband, Steven Coulter's wifeChristopher, Margaretcollects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, dies of tuberculosisJamie, leaving their Northumberland cottage cold and emptywhilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. His work as a history teacher at Kirkhoughton Boys Thelma' School isns daughter-in-law won't enough to distract him from his grief; he spends his long evenings writing letters to Margaretlet her see her grandson. Gradually Holthorpe, though, as spring arrives he starts to take an interest in other things. His colleague Frank Embleton invites him to a performance by the Hepplewick Trio: Frank's sister Diana on cello; pianist Margot Heslop, whose mother died when she was young and who looks after her father, a coal mine manager, at Hepplewick Hall; and their friend George Liddell, the violinist and leaderNorfolk coast, who is a Royal College of Music graduate.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630616</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Stephanie Danler|title= Sweetbitter|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= Twenty –two year old Tess is a restless graduate from a broken family. With the intention of finally starting her lifelovely place, she moves to New York City with no real plan but a need Rachel is struggling to do something. She manages to get develop a job at one of real bond with the most exclusive restaurants in town as a backparish -waiter and Tess is thrown into she's in awe of the comforting commotion of New York life. Itvicar, Gail, but then she's at her new been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that she becomes fascinated by two people: Simone, a knowwalk on the beach would do them some good -it-all server and Jake, a handsome yet moody bartenderwas stormy but it was probably what they needed. While the restaurant becomes her home and her colleagues her new family, ''Sweetbitter'' follows Tess through a year of her life as she grows and learns about the complexities of human relationships And then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780749155</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Rodrigo Hasbun Seishu Hase and Sophie Hughes Alison Watts (translator)|title=Affections
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=If you thought your teenaged years were a struggle to work out First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the worldocean floor, which created the tsunami and yourself, consider that of Heidi Ertl. Or either of her sisters – this book serves as a sort of tribute to these three real-life women, and the lives that came out of their very disjointed youthin turn, forced to be rarefied from caused the norm by their family uprootingnuclear meltdown. Father Hans The result was one of Leni Riefenstahl's key cameramen, complete and a Nazi military photographer, before taking the whole family into post-war exile in Boliviautter devastation. Their mother would have followed him to the ends of the earth – as in part would their daughtersThe deaths were uncountable, and the older two loss of which start the book by joining him on an expedition to discover a lost Incan citylivelihoods was widespread. Heidi finds young, instant love on The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the trek – list of priorities but sees - six months after the dark side of such emotions, too. Older sister Monika, who might well be manic depressive, finds something else, while the baby of the family stays at home with tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a maudlin motherconvenience store. So much here could be the hook on which to hang He wasn't a full novel, dog person but if anything itthe convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the reaction of them all to this unusual formative journey that inspires this bookdog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782272135</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Sun-mi Hwang0989715337|title= The Dog who Dared to DreamPapa on the Moon|author=Marco North|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=From ''Some frogs had gotten into the very beginning, Scraggly knows that she is different to her brothers and sisterswell. Her siblings have short, glossy coats, but Scraggly's blue/black fur is long, wild and untamed. She may be an outsider, but she still enjoys life with her family ' ''Walter stood waist-deep in Grandpa Screecher's sunny yard, even if it means putting up with the evil cat next door. Scraggly dreams that things can stay this way foreverfragrant water, but fate has other plansnaked except for his beaten leather hat. One tragic nightLong strands of their eggs wove around him, everything she loves is cruelly ripped away from hersticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. As she struggles to rebuild a new life Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and family for herself, she comes to understand that sadness, betrayal and loss are an inevitable part barked down at the strange noise of lifethe buckets as he filled them. Can Scraggly ever learn to trust another human again?''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0349142106</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Sarah Perry|title= How is that for an opening? The Essex Serpent|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary Fiction|summary= I confess to a bias… when I came across a reference to Sarah Perry's latest style of this novel; I wanted in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct and laconic to read it for two reasons only. She is a local writerwistful and musing, and the book is set in turning on a place not too far awaysixpence. And author Marco North, but that I have yet to explore and which fascinates me: the Blackwater estuary in Essex. That's a place of who has the kind most wonderful turn of wide open skies and mud creeks that you will find up much of the Norfolk and Suffolk coast phrase, starts as well, and a landscape type that probably only appeals he means to a certain type of persongo on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178125544X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan BealeDaisy Hildyard|title=The Good GuyEmergency
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=
The summary of this book doesn't come close to explaining what is done with the premise.
|isbn=1913097811
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sally Oliver
|title=The Weight of Loss
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=September 1964: an Indian summer in suburban MassachusettsMarianne is grieving. Ted McDougall is a twenty-three-year-old Goodyear tyre salesman who lives with his wife Abigail and ten-month-old daughter Mindy Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in the up-size and-coming Elm Grove communityvolume. Both Ted and Abigail feel unappreciated Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in their rolesWales. Ted knows his in-laws wanted him Yet something strange is happening to become Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a lawyer and join Abigailkind. As Marianne's father's firmmemories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the first – tremendous is no understatement – but he's a good salesman and wishes they wouldndelight' is perhaps using the expression in a way I't look down on him for itm not familiar with. I have to confess my ignorance of the Spanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Meanwhile Abigail, an American history buff From the little I have read (in translation, canI don't master read Spanish) there does seem to be a tendency towards the domestic arts of cooking and cleaning, much as she tries, and longs to go back to schoolfantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1473630339</amazonuk>0861541901
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Emma ClineJennifer Saint|title= The GirlsElektra|rating= 4|genre= Literary Fiction|summary=California. Summer 1969. Fourteen year old Evie Boyd is a thoughtful yet bored teenager from a broken home. The attention she craves is nowhere to be found in 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the form story of her neglectful, serial dating mother, or even three women who live in the friendship heavily male dominated world of her fickle best friend ConnieAncient Greece. Abandoned by those around herCassandra, Evie's path collides with Suzanne – a mysterious older girl who introduces Evie to a strange yet thrilling new lifeClytemnestra, offering her the intimate relationship her life back home lacks.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784740446</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Simon Van Booy|title= Father's Day|rating= 5|genre= General Fiction|summary=When devastating news shatters the life of six year old Harvey, she finds herself and Elektra are all bit players in the care story of a veteran social worker, Wanda, and alone in the world save for one relative she has never met - a disabled ex-con, haunted by a violent past he can't escapeTrojan War. Moving between past Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and present, Father's Day weaves together the story of Harvey's childhood on Long Island, and her life as a young woman in Parismost extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780749694</amazonuk>1472273915
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Thomas Keneally8409290103|title=Napoleon's Last IslandIf Only|author=Matthew Tree
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It's not usual to open a review with the history of how the book came Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to be written but with ''Napoleon's Last Island'' ensure that the story sheds an intriguing light young man got on board the plot. In 2012 author Thomas Keneally boat and thereafter Patrick was given tickets to an exhibition of Napoleonic artefacts: uniforms, furniture, china, paintings, military decorations, snuff boxes and memorabilia as well as Napoleon's death masksend him a monthly allowance. He was intrigued as to how Patrick sent the exhibits money regularly and particularly a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the mask came two although we hear more about what Lowry has to be in Australiasay than Patrick. Some pieces in the exhibition had been bought in later but most came from the descendants of the Balcombe family It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, who came it was that he didn't care to the colony have him in the first half of the nineteenth century, from St Helena via Englandthis country where he might be a danger to his wife and other children. The result of Keneally's research into alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the story is ''Napoleon's Last Island''young man on his way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473625335</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B098FFFBH9|title=The Natural Way of ThingsSnowcub|author=Charlotte WoodGraham Fulbright|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Yolanda Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and Verla wake up disorientated. They realise they've been drugged. Yolanda thinks that perhaps they are in some kind of mental facility - She knew she was not mad, but all lunatics thought that. Verla just sits, still and frozen, waiting. And soon enough, two men arrive her friend are producing a competition entry to reveal their fatehighlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. Yolanda and Verla She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip Harrison, along with eight other girls, have been brought to a remote farmhouse surrounded by an electrified fence. Their heads are shaved. They are dressed in uncomfortablelecturer at Imperial College, scratchyLondon, Amish-style clothes. They are tied together like a chain gang. And, like any chain gangmother Kate and her twin, their days are marked with forced labourNick. Two men, one more cruel than Kate runs the otherfamily business, and a so-toy shop called nurse are their jailersCornucopia in Putney, not their guardianswhich is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1760291870</amazonuk>
}}
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