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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tess Callahan1739526910|title=April and OliverWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After spending their childhoods together, April and Oliver haven't seen each other for many years. It is only 'One year after the death of Aprila suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's little brother that they find their lives overlapping again. April is recklesslife, damaged, and struggling from one day he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to the next whereas Oliver is mature and sensiblerecover. He is now a law studentLiving with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, engaged to the sweet, gentle Bernadette who is the antithesis he dreams of Aprilreconnecting with everything he has lost. Seeing April's life in tattersBut as those tentative plans falter, Oliver tries to rescue her from herself, yet the more entangled he becomes the more his own seemingly perfect life starts to fall apartswept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and surprising romantic possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537524</amazonuk>''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=F G CottamJenny Lecoat|title=The Waiting RoomBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the outskirts end of ex rock star Martin Stride's country estate lies the disused Shale Point Stationoccupation. Abandoned in During the 1960s the railway line has been dug up war, Jean's father was arrested for listening to a banned radio and removed soldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and all that remains is the crumbling platform and eerie her mother waiting roomfor years for news of him. Martin is quick to employ Britain's top ghost hunter Julian Creed to investigate As the British finally free the Channel islands from the strange Nazis, and threatening occurrences of the waiting room war is finally over, their hopes rise that he and his children have witnessed – they will finally learn what became of him. But will the sound and smell of truth come as a steam train, male voices singing a famous World War One song, and most frightening of allrelief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the leering face of a soldier at radio? And what other secrets have been kept throughout the waiting room window. occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444704214</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shane JonesOnyi Nwabineli|title=Light BoxesAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You will have Anuri spent her childhood on display to go a long way the world, thanks to find a more magical 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 quirky novella than ‘Light Boxes’, basically, monetary gain. Set Now Anuri is in a far off land, as all good fairy stories should beher twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, suing her step-mother to take down the balloon-loving residents suffer a ban on all forms of flightcontent about her. But the culprit Anuri is not some unpronounceable Icelandic volcanobattling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, but rather February. And this February - who takes both the form of a person undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and a season - has lasted receiving money from them for more than three hundred daysdoing so. And if that wasn’t bad enough Most importantly, he has also started making children disappear. One man, Thaddeus Loweshe is desperately worried about her little sister, who is determined to do something about itthe 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144957</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Shone1529153298|title=In The RoomsList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The book jacket for this novel It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is of New York by nightPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, a cityscape par excellencehonestly... ) It also boasts Toby YoungShe's comment as not what's worrying Miv'laugh-out-loud funnys family, though.'' I Women have a lot of time for Toby Youngbeen disappearing. I find him witty and entertaining Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. But I usually approach claims such as this with a healthy dose of Miv's upset because she'wes overheard that her father wants to move the family 'll-wait-and-seeDown South' scepticism. HoweverWhen you're from Yorkshire, he was rightDown South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. And I am truly impressed with ShoneFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she's ability ll do anything to make me laugh out loud and at the very beginning of the novel tooprevent that. A very good sign of delights She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to come, I thoughtanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099534061</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Rachel DeWoskin1035906708|title=Repeat After MeDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=September 1989: It is a few months after the Tiananmen Square massacre We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in BeijingManhattan, China. Aysha is teaching English at a private language school in New York City. She makes friends with some of her students. Da Ge is angry and disruptive yet attractive and interesting at the same time, in December 1923 and they quickly become involved, although his interest in only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her is not as romantic as, perhaps, she would like father changed it to be. He asks her 'Callas' to marry him so he can stay make it more manageable in the countryStates. Aysha agrees, although there is still a lot When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she does not know about was raised under the mysteriousNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, unstable Da GeJackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715638998</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan CoeAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell SimPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Maxwell Sim. ActuallyThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, perhaps I should rephrase that so that it doesn't sound like run by Ness and operating as an imperative instruction - for if you do meet himalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, you might not like the experiencetailored service. An ex-salesmanNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, he's now in after sales (ie he's stuck on as Ness is planning to take a customer returns counter in trip to Canada to get away for a department store); however he while. Katie is completely awful coming out of a break up with regards a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to other peopleEdinburgh. His wife has run off with their daughterAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, all his few friends have forsaken him (thanks to 44 Scotland Street and his Facebook wall). We start the book Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with him trying some new characters who quickly begin to patch things up with his father, who's safely in Australiacharm. He finds all those who know of him are already aware he's depressed. Those who don't know him can find him painfully shyKatie has no experience in running a business, or able to talk away their will to livein match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, gabbling on and on about Watford. But a lot is about to change. Hethere's about always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to be combined with some people excited about green toothbrushes.lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670917389</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amanda Sington-WilliamsDean Koontz|title=The Eloquence of DesireBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The novel starts in the post-war austerity years in England and centres around Benny is having a middle-classterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, traditional family unitand his house gets trashed. Sington-Williams gives the reader Oh, and someone has delivered a detailed description of that period really weird, disturbing coffin- the bland foodsized object to his home, the monotony of commuting to London (some things donand it't change) and of course, s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the rain. thing that has trashed his house! GeorgeThe thing is, his wife Dorothy and their teenage daughter Susan don't really talk Benny is the very last person to each otherdeserve all this bad luck. They tend to skirt round issues and walk on eggshellsHe is a nice person. Appearances are everythingA really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a suitably fabricated story 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 told going to their smalltake care of Benny, family circle and will certainly take care of GeorgeBenny's company move. George has no choice in the matter. So enemies, if he does what he always has done up till now, he puts Benny, and Harper (a brave face on for the world and grins and bears it. Itwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a huge change in their domestic situation. Uprooted to a strange, foreign, tropical country wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they've only glimpsed in National Geographicare.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907230114</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nikki DudleyKatherine Howe|title=EllipsisA True Account|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Both the title Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, and book cover are slick and glossybeing made to work there from a young age. Can When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the contents live up town, she decides to this positive image? go and watch. Straight away the reader is drawn into DanielEnthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's life ... but death at the clock is tickinghands of two vicious pirates. He will soon be spoken about in the past tense. He dies She hides away, so that they don't find and leaves manykill her too, many questions that his immediate family struggle and then to escape them completely she runs away to answersea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. But as She soon finds herself in the story progresses thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we discover that secrets have been kept for a long timeare caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waves. Why? Too disturbing to reveal?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907230106</amazonuk>0861547438
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Austin Wright1471180158|title=Tony and Susan|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Edward Sheffield hadn't exactly been Susan's childhood sweetheart, but after a family tragedy left him homeless he came to live with Susan and her parents for a year so that he could finish school. Susan didn't particularly want him there but accepted that it was the right thing to do. Years later they met at university when Edward was studying law and after a short relationship they married. The marriage wasn't entirely successful; Edward gave up law to become a writer, relying on Susan's teaching income to support them, but whilst he spent a month away in a remote cabin 'to find himself' Susan found Arnold instead. Many years – and three children – later Susan receives a manuscript from Edward. She was, he said, always his best critic and he would like her opinion.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848870205</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaybe Tomorrow|author=Jess Walter|title=The Financial Lives of the PoetsPenny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a certain type man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of modern fiction I just cannot get along witha half brick. ItJamie's a narrative that features a concentration on a main character that goes through his plot with unhappiness, making wrong decisions perhapsson, getting crapped on by lifeBo, and discussing 'has his woes with the readerproblems'. I get to He's asthmatic and the end and think nothing of itmore you read, until I read the blurb, where I find more you'll suspect that he's on the book was supposed autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to be hilariously funny, the character an insincere cypher for our lives and times, and take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the whole thing an ironic masterpiece - I should have been disbelieving, disagreeing local A&E and dis-everything else with the hapless herosometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. I hate such books - I always only see Missed shifts or the sincerity need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the narrative, and never the comedywrong. Thankfully, such is never the case with this bookIt was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141049138</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Carlos Ruiz ZafonB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Prince of Mist|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=During World War Two, Max's father decides to move the whole family to a seaside retreat he knows of - a wooden house far away from the city he's grown his family up in. Nobody seems too keen on the idea, neither of Max's sisters, his mother, nor he - and Max is gifted a pocket watch by his loving, talented mechanic cum engineer cum watchmaker of a father, enscribed as "Max's Time Machine". But the house they move to, and its surroundings, are full of more successful time machines - a stash of early home videos, a public clock that runs backwards, a sunken shipwreck, a yard full of statues of a stone circus... And let's not forget the mysterious, spider-eating cat that joins in with proceedings. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856421</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewRadio Free Olympia|author=Danielle Trussoni|title=AngelologyJeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Nephilim have lived among the human race since before the days of the Great FloodPetr is an orphan. Horrific creatures, Rescued by the hybrid children of humans and angelsstrange, their strengthreclusive Bear, beauty he is brought up far from bustling cities and cruelty are unmatched, and they have infiltrated busy human society completely. For centuries, a secret society, students in a branch the forests of theology known as Washington'Angelology', have studied the ways of the heavens s Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and the Nephilima brief sojourn in human company, and waged armed with only a secret war against them – pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a war that has spanned every continent. But journey through the Nephilim grow weakforest, their blood contaminated by broadcasting the blood of their human ancestorsstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155580</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanne HarrisSarah Marsh|title=Blueeyedboy|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=BB - or ''blueyedboy'' in his online persona - is a middle-aged man who lives with his mother in the Yorkshire town of Malbry. He has a dead-end job in a hospital although his mother would have it that he's of some importance. BB has a way of escaping his rather boring life; he writes murderous fantasies on his website in company with other misfits, some of whom he knows in real life. It might be fiction on ''badguysrock'' but he and Albertine share a troubled history and BB's manipulation A Sign of friends and enemies causes his past to unravel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385609507</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ned Beauman|title=Boxer, BeetleHer Own|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=According to 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 blurb for Boxeruse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Beetle, 'This Ellen issent to a novel for people with breeding… It school where she is clevertaught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. It is distinctive 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. It At the same time, Bell is entertainingworking on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage. We hope you are too.' I like about half of it, sodoes that mean I'm on the way to being those things?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340998393</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{newreview|author=Craig Silvey|title=Jasper Jones|rating=4Frontpage|genreisbn=General FictionB0BC3YTCMR|summary=The title and central character of this book, Jasper Jones is a no-user, a trouble-maker and has, for some reason in his hour of need, sought help from an unlikely source. Charlie Bucktin. Charlie is a rather bookish, quiet, unassuming teenager. And although both boys live in the town of Corrigan, until now, they haven't spoken a word to each other. They live in different worlds. Until now, that is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099537540</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGood Girls Die|author=Thomas Mullen|title=The Many Deaths of the Firefly BrothersAyura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The country is in deep recession. The economy has collapsed. The banks are hated and there's 'the next round of politicians, assuring us they were not afflicted by the same lack of vision as their predecessors'. Does this sound at all familiar? But just when you think you have strayed into the non-fiction aisle, it all becomes clear. This story is 1930s America - full of gangsters, speakeasies, tommy guns, fedoras, beautiful heiresses, bumbling cops and the newly formed FBI, daring bank robberies and kidnapsnot for everyone. Yes, the gang is all here, but 'The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers' is a lot more than your average gangster book and it's a hugely fun story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007340826</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mari Strachan1472263936|title=The Earth Hums in B FlatFigurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Choosing a child as It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the viewpoint character of family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a novel requires confidence and imaginationpity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. To succeed is Her trip to convince the reader family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of events at two levels – several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the childfamily's world within the adult world surrounding her. The very best novels about childhoodmaid, like say Harper Lee's classicDina, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, also reflect a wider cultural truthretired general Stamatis Papagiannis. In 'The Earth Hums in B Flat', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and straitjacket as the characters struggle expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to cope with their family secretsaccommodate them. If that sounds a bit tacky, fear not, because the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet His prejudices included Helena's red hair and sharp cornersgreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Brady UdallDean Koontz|title=The Lonely PolygamistAfter Death|rating=4.53
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Golden Richards bursts onto the printed page. He is the central character and let's be honestMichael Mace, without him there would be no wivesHead of Security, no childrenat a top secret biological research facility, no complicated domestic life - make that, domestic lives. Immediately I pictured Golden is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in my mind's eye, as a Homer Simpson type bio- but with lots more childrenhazard accident. He's Finding himself in a bumblingmakeshift mortuary, blusteringcovered in plastic, bear of he has a man. It's sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as if he's just 'turned sits up' for and looks around at the conception shrouded bodies of his childrendead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, just idly ambled along when they were bornhe realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224078062</amazonuk>1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Helen SlavinB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Stopping PlaceGrave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=How often do you pick up a book with no idea at all where it The village is likely to lead? How often does such isolated and poor. It's surrounded by a book still have you wondering a hundred pages in? Not bemusedWitching 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, not lostand even gallows, absolutely sure if needed. The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the village and that it is going to lead somewherethe reason Volushka, but still with no clue as to exactly where. How often do you get to the end of a book and thinkdrunken, simplyself-indulgent, "Wow!"?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391869</amazonuk>lazy lout of a man is tolerated.
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Naomi AldermanB0BYF82CXT|title=The LessonsSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone|rating=3.54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=James has been used to being very clever at school''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, and it is stuck in a shock for him when he goes to Oxford University to find there are lots depressing rut of people who are more able than he is. He is already struggling boredom and disappointment, when he falls Terry and seriously hurts his kneeFiona – glamorous, successful and he is also very lonelymuch in love – move in next door. Then he meets JessDespite their different outlooks on life, who invites him the couples befriend each other and life appears to a party at Mark’s houseimprove for both pairs. Mark soon invites JessBut all is not what it seems, James and other friends to move in to his run down mansiontheir increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670916293</amazonuk>''
}}
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set in 1980s America, ''The Girl Who Fell From The Sky'' is a story built around Alice and Seth are a tragic event match made in a young girl’s childhoodheaven. The opening scene introduces you to RachelHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, an elusive young girlaccomplished, not blackclever, not white but ''light skinnedfunny; total and utter husband-ed'' as she material. She is packed off to live with her grandma after all he could possibly want in a devastating family event. Immediatelywife; beautiful, successful, Durrow highlights race confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and identity as the primary themes, wedding is planned and we follow blueset. When the much-eyed Rachel as she struggles between two worlds – anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the white world of aisle by her Danish motherfather, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the other black congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world of implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her African-American G.I. fatherto become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1851687459</amazonuk>1662507089
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Chamberlain1787636003|title=Before the Storm|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=We're first introduced to Laurel's son, Andy. He's a teenager with some sort of mental disorder. He's the pivotal character of the story and he's also the undisputed star. I recently read ''Henry's Sisters'' by Cathy Lamb and decided that every family should have a Henry. Now I'll enlarge on that by saying that every family should have a Henry - or an Andy. Both of these teenagers are 99% innocent and adorable - it's that other 1% that is worrying. Andy's descriptions The Girls of people, places and situations are truly unique. He has a language all of his own. So immediately, as a reader, I was drawn right into the world of Andy and therefore right into the heart of the story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303381</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSummer|author=Ninni Holmqvist|title=The UnitKatie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Dorrit inhabits a world where society is split into two camps. Not male or female, or young or old, but those who are Necessary It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and an asset to their communities versus those who are Dispensable Caroline went backpacking around Greece and a drain arrived on civilization. It’s not a birth right, nor a class firmly established from childhood, and everyone gets the chance to make a good go of itisland. But Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, if you’re a childless woman of 50perhaps, or a childless man of 60naive, and not working so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in a ‘needed’ industry your time is upher, and you are quietly, and without any fuss, transported to she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a Second Reserve Bank Unit for Biological Material (‘the Unit’) where you will spend the rest of your days. Here you will participate in while before he made any number sort of psychological physical approach to her and physiological experiments, donate cells by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for research and give up your body parts one by one as Needed people require themHenry Taylor, until looking after his interests on the day of your final donation when you ultimately island and rather ironically become a valuable member of society by losing your lifein particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851687440</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue RulliereAmanda Craig|title=Cinema BlueThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Frankie is a twenty nine year old woman living in Paris and working in a supermarket while she tries to put her life back together after a split from her husbandFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. The split, There's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and what led up to capture it, was clearly distressing, and exactly what happened is revealed through a series crafting an image of flashbacks to the time when Frankie was Francesca, whose life was controlled by her husband, JPcountry as it stands in one particular moment. The news To say that JP has had an accident throws Frankie into confusion, because it seems that he turned to drink after Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she left him and she blames herself's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. In She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the meantime, Frankie is entering day into the lives of her characters in a relationship with the enigmatic Antoine, who appears to be doing something rather strange way that feels natural and lived-in the flat below hers. Will Frankie be able to retain her new identity? Will the relationship with Antoine go anywhere, or is he just as bad never making them ciphers for her as JP was?social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190452947X</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bobbie Darbyshire152915118X|title=Love, Revenge and Buttered SconesPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Three people ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are travelling on a train heading sisters and Sasha is married to Invernesstheir brother Cord. Their destination is They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the towntribe. The problem's library where exacerbated when the book group meets on clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the last Friday of each monthPineapple Street property. They each Tilda and Chip have their renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they own reasons for going . 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 none of them realise that wasn't the reality. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the weekend is going gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to have far reaching consequences for them all'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905207379</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christine Dwyer HickeyEmily Critchley|title=Last Train From LiguriaOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The heroine 84 year old Edie has lived in this novel the same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is Bellafacing 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. She's a rather unassuming young woman However, Edie is tormented by the memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who has had went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a rather unassuming childhood - save secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the fact truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy in the high street, just as she was motherless at an early age and the last time she saw her relationship with the father is a little strained, she starts to say the least. Bella needs find pockets of memories coming back to breatheher. So And yet as she leaves remembers the drizzle of England for the blue skies past, she is forgetting more and heat of Italy. Her father has propelled more in her into ''gentle'' employment thereday to day life. SheWill she uncover the truth about Lucy's tentative about the whole thing but warms to it by degrees.disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843549883</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David EaglemanMadelaine Lucas|title=Sum: Tales from the AfterlivesThirst for Salt|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=For some reason I find myself unable to start this review. So ''Love, I'll mention this book starts with the end, and see where we go from there. Of coursed read, that's the key – this book does just that – starts with the end of our human life here on Earth (or wherever you happen was supposed to be reading this) a light and posits forty possibilities of what happens thereafterweightless feeling, in the hereafter. It's not so much 'Five People You Meet in Heaven' as but I had always longed for gravity'Forty Heavens you Might Meet People In'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847674283</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Sartof0008506337|title=River of JudgementThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Finn Jackson is an oilman, an engineer The love affair between Margo Garnett and hepoet Richard O's developed a new way of extracting oil which doesn't ravage the countryside Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in the way of traditional methodslove. HeRichard was twenty-one and described by Margo's set up a company to take advantage of this along with his friend Aaron Philips, whomother as 's the money an older man'. HeHer parents worried that Richard's short of an operations manager – influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and has been for having a while – after glittering career. In the tragic death event, they eloped and Richard took her away from the Isle of Shufang Su in Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a site accidentwell-respected journalist. The couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. She Life was a geologist but had apparently flouted safety regulations lived in London and you know that there are going 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 be repercussions from her deathleave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956415202</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Assaf Gavron1914585402|title=Croc-AttackDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Eitan Enoch is known as Croc to his friends. I reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] a good reason but couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it's about to become rather more famous than Croc would likewas. It's begins on the morning that he takes his regular bus to work – the Little Number 5 – and a fellow passenger worries about the dark-skinned man with was a suit bag who's sitting at the front. Just before Croc gets off at his stop he asks why people are so paranoid gripping, emotionally wounding read, and wonders whether rereading my review of it's impossible for dark-skinned guys with suit bags to get my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on buses any moreit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007327463</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heather GudenkaufLucy Ashe|title=The Weight of SilenceClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On a hot August morning in The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the small town of Willow Creekoutside but not, Iowawe learn, Calli Clark and Petra Gregory are reported missingon the inside. They are both seven years oldAnd not on stage, live in the same streeteither. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, attention to detail – and are some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the very best of friendsclassroom. Calli has suffered from selective mutism from the age of four when she witnessed A stage presence, a charm, a traumatic event in her home''joie de vivre''. As The difference between a result Petra has become Calli’s voicehard-worker, speaking for her and is even able to tell others what Calli is thinkinga star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778303691</amazonuk>0861544080
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katherine Hall PageHeather Fawcett|title=The Body in the BasementEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The central character with 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 unforgettable name very first encyclopaedia of Pix is one of those 'apple pie' momsfaeries. The family Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is her lifenot so good with people. Every summerSo when she finds herself far, far North in the small village of Hrafvsnik, most members de-camp to having somehow offended the coastvillage matriarch, she is not sure what she has done, nor how to get away from it all, recharge redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on the batteriesright track. But this particular yearEnter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, Pix notesall charm and delight, is going much to be a Emily''summer of womens frustration.'' Pix But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is a middle-aged, middle-of-going on with the-road, ordinary person ... until she makes some gruesome discoveries.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709090390</amazonuk>0356519120
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aifric Campbell1398515388|title=The Loss AdjustorBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Caro's job is to 'adjust' people's lossesFirst of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. Working for a large insurance company, she deals day to day with people grieving for their lost or stolen belongings The result was complete and utter devastation. Digital cameras with priceless honeymoon photos The deaths were uncountable, laptops with work files and engagement rings. It's Caro's responsibility to assess the case and decide on whether to financially reimburse or notloss of livelihoods was widespread. But Caro knows well The fact that sometimes it's not about many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the moneytsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. Her job requires emotional sensitivity and He wasn't a dog person but the sort of manner convenience store owner's comment that invites people he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open up to you. Her years of experience have made her an expert his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in dealing with everyone else's loss. But not her own.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687306</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bill SheehyChristopher Bowden|title=The Argentine Kidnapping|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Son Cardonsky is the type of guy that would make even the biggest of cowards want to take on the playground bully on their behalf. Which, funnily enough, is how Bernie Gould acquires Son Cardonsky as his 'best-friend-forever'; at least, that is, Son considers Bernie to be his best friend in the world, even if Bernie can't quite see it the same way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089945</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Abbott|title=The Upright Piano PlayerMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The central character, one Mr Henry Cage (heChristopher Bowden'd approve of the courteous form of address) s latest novel is white, middle-aged and middle-class. He appears to have a perfect, enviable life. Reaping the substantial rewards patient untangling of a successful business, heseemingly ordinary woman's acquired along the way a lovely London homelife, carried out by her nephew after she has died. The aunt who always provided a wife safe harbour and a family. All boxes ticked, you'd thinklittle 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906694842</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joanna DaviesJennifer Mason|title=Freshers|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Going to Uni is meant to be one of the best times of your life...that first taste of freedom from your family, learning independence, meeting new friends and discovering who you are. Oh, and a little studying of course! This book charts the first 'fresher' year of three students, Lois, Cerys and Hywel who are studying at Aberystwyth University during 1991/1992. I was interested because I did my first degree just a couple Partitions of years after this, and also I studied a post grad at Aberystwyth. Turns out this wasn't exactly a nice happy trip down memory lane however...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784140</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=D J Taylor|title=Ask AliceUnity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The central character AliceHere at Bookbag Towers, has had 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 humble start in life but ' ... the silence series of the Kansas flat disappearances... and the distant murmur In ''Partitions of the freight trains Unity'' is not for her. She dreams of the bright lights of the big cities and although she is naive and unworldly, fancies herself as an actress. Painful and difficult decisions are made as she reaches for sets her goalmind to solving a murder.. Her talent and resourcefulness see her through; give her a modest roof above her head in this precarious profession.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099531984</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rhys ThomasWill Carver|title=The Suicide Club|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Craig Bartlett-Taylor's third attempt at killing himself is nearly successful – except when he announces in class that he's taken a whole bottle of pills, new boy Frederick Spaulding-Carter steps in and saves his life. Freddy attains instant celebrity as a hero, and our narrator Richard Harper is as impressed as anyone else.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552774979</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Flanagan|title=WantingDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Read the blurb on the back of Flanagan's ''Wanting,'' and you'll think it's the usual post colonial tale of Britain Five strangers come together in one moment as enemy number one, ''wanting'' a suicide bomber prepares to impose its rule detonate his vest on everyone elsea London tube line. In a way it is such a taleAs their fates overlap, but what makes it more interesting is the story of a little girl caught is told in backwards order, leading up in to the wider historical eventsfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848870779</amazonuk>1914585186}}
