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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nathacha Appanah1739526910|title=The Last BrotherWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Raj and his two beloved brothers live on ''One year after a Mauritian sugar plantation. World War II rages far away and close too, but Raj is blissfully unaware of anything beyond his immediate surroundings. Life is poor and hard and Rajsuicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's father takes out the privations of his life on , he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. Living with an unexpected housemate at his sons and his wife - drunken beatings are a regular occurrenceformer manager’s holiday home, he dreams of reconnecting with everything he has lost. But his mother is loving and kindas those tentative plans falter, and skilled at healinghe becomes swept up in a local world of unlikely friendships, mobile discos and his brothers are constant playmatessurprising romantic possibilities. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849164010</amazonuk>''
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom BaleJenny Lecoat|title=Terror's ReachBeyond Summerland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We're Jean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the south coast end of England in the middle of a hot summer in a very upmarket enclaveoccupation. During the war, not dissimilar Jean's father was arrested for listening to Sandbanksa banned radio and soldiers took him away one night, along the coast a bitleaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. The locals are going about their businessAs the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, about their daily lives and Bale obligingly introduces them to us one by one and also gives us an idea of their respective backgroundsthe war is finally over, their family members and even some hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the house designs ' ... each home had truth come as a private jetty' for example.. relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the war? New money is also apparent along with ostentatious taste. Who was the informer who told the Nazis about the radio? What's also apparent is that trouble's afoot. Big time.And what other secrets have been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848090765</amazonuk>1846976537
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daphne KalotayOnyi Nwabineli|title=Russian WinterAllow Me to Introduce Myself|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The novel's structure goes back and forth from the past Anuri spent her childhood on display to the present day. The book opens with Ninaworld, now elderlythanks to her step-mother Ophelia's increasingly popular presence on social media, in pain where she posted every step of Anuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and in a wheelchair: waiting to die , basically, monetary gain. And even although Now Anuri is in her twenties and she's lived an interesting is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her lifeback, now all she has for company is a daily homesuing her step-helpmother to take down the content about her. I was struck straight away by how prickly Nina Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and I could feel all those emotions seething underneath the surfacereceiving money from them for doing so. So Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the question is - why has she decided to sell some new focus of her exquisite jewelleryOphelia's online empire. Is it to help pay Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the billssame time? Or some other reason? We find out by degrees.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099553244</amazonuk>0861546873
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott Mariani1529153298|title=The Lost RelicList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Ben Hope went to Italy to visit a former SAS comrade It's 1979 and offer him a jobMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, but hehonestly...) She's not what's got marriage and happiness – and Benworrying Miv's trade is far from the front of his mindfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. ItMiv's whilst heupset because she's driving away overheard that Ben nearly runs down a small boy and unwittingly walks into a deadly heist which will see her father wants to move the boy and his mother – and many others – brutally murderedfamily 'Down South'. ItWhen you's only re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the beginning for Ben though as he find himself fleeing for his life move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and accused of murdershe'll do anything to prevent that. When She's not worried about the state needs dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to act people – even heroes – are disposableanyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847561977</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Diane Janes1035906708|title=Why Don't You Come For Me?Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over a decade ago Jo's daughter We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was abducted from born to Greek parents in front of a shop whilst Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she and her husband were on holidaywas thirteen. The pushchair Her original surname was found on a cliff edge Kalogeropoulos but there was no trace of Lauren, even on the beach below. Occasionally Jo receives postcards with an old picture of her daughter on the front simply saying that father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the writer still has LaurenStates. The police, the people who know what happened believe the cards to be a hoax. Jo believes differently. She also realises When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that as she has moved house and remarried and could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the story has faded from press attention someone is going to Nazi occupation by a great deal of trouble to keep track mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of herpreference for her elder sister, Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849011257</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=G S MattuAlexander McCall Smith|title=Sons and FascinationThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book concentrates on emotions. Take The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an impressionable young man, add alternative to all the online apps in providing a chance (?) encounter with an attractive older woman more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and then stand well back as look after the fireworks explode and business, as family, friends and colleagues get sucked in Ness is planning to their deepening relationship. I must say I'm not keen on the title (take a little pretentious trip to Canada to get away for a work while. Katie is coming out of fiction in my opinion a break up with a bad boyfriend, and more suited so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to poetry) 44 Scotland Street and even when it was ever so gently explained later on in the book (twice) I still didn't warm Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to itcharm. All Katie has no experience in running a business, or in allmatch-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, not off to the greatest of starts. lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907756000</amazonuk>1846976596
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip WildingDean Koontz|title=Cross Country Murder SongThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=The novel opens with the (unnamed) central character in Benny is having a therapy session in downtown New Yorkterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The air thing is charged and tension , Benny is present, big-timethe very last person to deserve all this bad luck. This He is one troubled human beinga nice person. And of course, childhood issues and experiences are dominant in this question and answer sessionA really nice person. We soon find So fortunately for Benny it turns out that this individual the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has secrets in his basementbeen sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. It all becomes too muchSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he packs , Benny, and Harper (a bag and hits the road and so the story starts properwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099539934</amazonuk>1662500491
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 {{newreview|author=Asa Jones|title=The Illustrated Mind of Mike Reeves|rating=3.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Mike Reeves doesn't have his troubles to seek. His wife was brutally raped some four or five years ago and whilst she might seem to be recovered she cannot stand to be touched by a man – any man, Mike included. Quite suddenly Mike was alone, in every way – until he found himself drawn to the darker arts and began to dabble in Tarot, the Runes and I Ching. He's guided by two spirits. Sean is a wise and benevolent older man and Debbie, well she… isn't. She's the one who satisfies Mike's sexual needs. If that's all sounding rather good, then hesitate a moment, for with the good comes the bad and the bad is in the form of Tony a (very) real-life gangster who's been doing his own dabbling in the spirit world. When their worlds clash Mike has a problem which could well be more than he can handle.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>160693905X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret ForsterKatherine Howe|title=Diary of an Ordinary WomanA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=After reading the introductionHannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who run an inn, I couldn't help but sneak and being made to work there from a sly read at the author's note right at the end of the novelyoung age. I don't usually do this. I'm glad I did as the information When she hears there is both surprising and revelatory. Back to be a hanging of some pirates in the beginning town, she decides to go and Chapter 1 ..watch. We meet the 13 year old Millicent Enthralled and horrified in 1914. By her written statements and recorded mannerisms, we see that she's a girl who knows her own mind. For exampleequal measure, she thinks writing Hannah finds herself embroiled in her diary every single day could be dull and boring so she's made a golden rule that sheyoung boy's only going to write something down when she feels like it. Some may call her precocious but I liked Millicent right from death at the start. Courtesy hands of her diary we find out that she's part of a large and boisterous familytwo vicious pirates. She doesnhides away, so that they don't appreciate all the noise find and chatter from kill her siblings. She craves peace too, and quiet then to think escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and to read. Shejoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a prolific readercabin boy. She also believes that she's smart soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and clever and wants to 'do' something with from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life when she grows up. She's not sure what exactly but she certainly doesn't want to be a mere housewife and motheron the ocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099449285</amazonuk>0861547438
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matt Dunn1471180158|title=The Accidental ProposalMaybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Edward Middleton seems like a pretty decent guy. He always stops to buy a Big Issues from BillyJamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a local homeless man and he takes his elderly widowed neighbour shopping once who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a weekhalf brick. These are some of the reasons why his girlfriend Jamie's son, SamBo, loves him so much'has his problems'. One night, after a friend He's weddingasthmatic and the more you read, Sam asks Ed if the more you'll suspect that he would also like 's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to get married to which Ed enthusiastically replies take time off at short notice - she'yess a frequent flier in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. However, Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the following morning, whilst nursing his hangover, he cannot work out if it wrong. It was going to come to a hypothetical question or an actual proposal. His best mate Dan is no help at all and is quite incredulous that anyone should ever want to marry Edhead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847395244</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William StyronB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Suicide RunRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=A WW2 naval soldier, guarding a prison island for those found guilty at courtmartials, is forced to wonder if he is winning his own battles against those arriving and leaving. A soldier remembers calming memories, and those causing tension, as he rests up before action. And for a highly-charged young man, there may be too much risk to be found in his high-octane downtime.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532220</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Molly Carr
|title=The Sign of Fear
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mary Watson - a distant second to John WatsonPetr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, who in the forests of course was Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and a distant second to Sherlock Holmes. Fed up brief sojourn in human company, and armed with staying at home while her new husband spends too much time at 221b Baker Streetonly a pirate radio transmitter, or away with Holmes sleuthingPetr goes on a journey through the forest, she gets to dabble her own feet in broadcasting the underworld waters when a certain Professor Moriarty comes callingstrange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685006</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon Stephen FinkSarah Marsh|title=A Storm In The BloodSign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''A Storm In The Blood'' is based on 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 true story involving time when the police force and the government use of the day trying sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to suppress racial tensions lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in early 20th century Londonanother school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. It has resonance for our modern times as we grapple with similar situations At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and problemsEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956544517</amazonuk>1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BC3YTCMR
|title=Good Girls Die
|author=Ayura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''This story is not for everyone.''
{{newreview|author=Allegra Goodman|title=Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Cookbook Collector|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=''The Cookbook CollectorIncident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It' s not easy being a black girl whose skin is all about emotions84% white. Concentrating She had a crush on two, young, American women who are vastly different in many areas of their lives seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to his house and also on their outlook on lifehe raped her. In shock, Goodman digs deeper she even allowed him to find out what makes them tick - what makes them get up in the morninggive her a lift home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848875398</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Craig Smith1472263936|title=Cold RainThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life It was pretty good for Dr David Alboin 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. HeShe was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena'd just had fifteen months away from his job as an associate professor of English at s parents) felt that it would be a university pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the mid-western USAfirst of several annual visits. He lived on a plantationShe grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary -style farmhouse with a beautiful and intelligent wife and a stepfrightened -daughter who adored himof her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was even going back proud of his close connections to work in the expectation that he might well be offered a full professorship in the not-too-distant future Junta and just expected his family to put the icing on the cake heuphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's been clear of alcohol for two years. Yes; life was very goodScottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190580234X</amazonuk>
}}
{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna GavaldaB0BVDC2VWH|title=ConsolationThe Grave Listeners|author=William Frank|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We meet Charles, the main character right at the startThe village is isolated and poor. And straight away, it's no secret that, as a middle-aged professional (heIt's an architect and surrounded by a successful one at that) he's jadedWitching Forest. BeenAnd the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants -there, doneits bread-that like fruit provides nutrition and got-its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of the-bloody-tee-shirt just about sums him up pretty well. He's acquired (somehow) a beautifulforest provides heat and warmth, roofs on homes, witty and clever partner and also a step-daughter whom he adoreseven gallows, if needed. As The fear of being buried alive is an existential superstition in the story deepens, I soon acknowledged village and that is the stepreason Volushka, a drunken, self-daughter seems to be about the only true love in his life. He's luke-warm about the rest indulgent, lazy lout of his family and that includes his partner and his ageing parents. Is this a man going through some mid-life crisis, would be an obvious question to askis tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531925</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sam HawkenB0BYF82CXT|title=The Dead Women of JuarezSemi-Detached|author=Deborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Although the story related here is ''Bill and Amanda are living in a semi-detached house, stuck in a work depressing rut of fictionboredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, the situation is based on fact. The Mexican border city of Juárez has a shocking problem with female homicides (usually young successful and invariably pretty)very much in love – move in next door. Official statistics put the number of murders at 400 since 1993 whileDespite their different outlooks on life, we are told, residents believe that the true number of disappeared women is closer couples befriend each other and life appears to 5000improve for both pairs. But attention to this problem all is diverted by drug crimenot what it seems, although the two may not be entirely unrelatedand their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy. Anything that raises public awareness of this terrible situation, such as Hawken's book, is to be encouraged. So much for the fact, what about the fiction?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668773X</amazonuk>'
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pamela KlaffkeShalini Boland|title=SnappedThe Silent Bride
|rating=3
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=They say that Alice and Seth are a good idea is to write about what you knowmatch made in heaven. WellHe is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, Klaffke seems to have heeded that piece of adviceclever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She writes here about is all he could possibly want in a fictional fashion writer called Sara B (note wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the pretentious second capital letter) who inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the central character. And although Sara B wedding is now in her middle years, she's still acting like a teenagerplanned and set. She's got When the younger boyfriend/lovermuch-anticipated day arrives, got Alice is walked down the latest fashion look which she can deftly put aisle by her stamp onfather, got the invites to the best parties in the best venues beaming with the must-be-seen-with minor celebrities. But - is pride and excitement as she happy? I know, it seems a silly question, but is it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778304337</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Diane Chamberlain|title=Breaking surveys the Silence|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=As I've reviewed several of Chamberlain's previous books and enjoyed them, I was looking forward to getting stuck in congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this one. We meet the central character; wife joyful day and mother when Seth turns to five-year-old Emmaface his approaching bride, Laura. SheAlice's distraught. Her father (Emma's grandfather) has just passed away but his dying wish has really upset Laura. It's a strange request and world implodes because she doesn't know what to make of it. She confides in her husband thinking that two heads are better than one. He's a brilliant academic and could give some much-needed advice. But he doesn't. In fact, he behaves like a five-year-old himself and almost has a tantrum. Odd. Now poor Laura's doubly confusedabsolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, upset and doesn't know how who is waiting for her to handle her grief. Tough timesbecome his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0778304140</amazonuk>1662507089
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lola Shoneyin1787636003|title=The Secret Lives Girls of Baba Segi's WivesSummer|author=Katie Bishop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is one of those books It was the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that you read with a smile on your face. It's full of gloriously unsavoury characters caught in a terrible web of deceit. We are promised 'four women, one husband she and a devastating secret' Caroline went backpacking around Greece and it delivers arrived on all three countsthe island. Sure the secret is quite well signposted and Shoneyin doesn Rachel wasn't really make much of an effort to divert the reader from putting two and two togetherexactly innocent but she was, although it takes wife number fourperhaps, Bolanlenaive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an inordinate amount interest in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and by that time she was obsessed by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the penny to drop, but it's not about discovering island and in particular in the deception - it's about bar where all the glorious journey of how things unfoldgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687497</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cornelius MedveiAmanda Craig|title=Caroline: A MysteryThree Graces|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Mr ShawFew styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. HeThere's an insurance worker something so utterly compelling about any writer who takes his wife can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and son off on their annual vacation one yearcapture it, and finds himself indulging crafting an image of the country as it stands in a surprisingly platonic holiday romanceone particular moment. The subject of his infatuation, Caroline, has eyes, ears, hair and more To say that easily combine with Mr ShawAmanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's fondness practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for classical Persian love poetry. At weaving the end ongoing issues of the holiday he lets his wife and son depart while he takes day into the lives of her characters in a further week off to walk all the way home with Caroline. Who isthat feels natural and lived-in, as it happensnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, a donkeygrappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846553881</amazonuk>140871468X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Martin152915118X|title=An Object of BeautyPineapple Street|author=Jenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Leave aside ''Pineapple Street'' is the title story of the book for a minutethree women: Sasha, the book itself is also 'an object of beauty' with its striking front cover Darley and primary colours artfully arrangedGeorgiana. And then I turned the book over Darley and George are sisters and said Sasha is married to myself, ohtheir brother Cord. They're Stocktons, itonly Sasha isn's t a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribe. The problem'thats exacerbated when the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'' Steve Martind like to move into the Pineapple Street property. I knew he was - Tilda and is - Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a very funny actor but I didnstreet or so away, which they own. They won't know that he was also a writerneed any of the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. SoNominally, before Ithey had a choice but that wasn'd even opened t the book I was thinking - will he be as good a writer as he is an actorreality. I was about Darley and Georgiana start to find out call Sasha 'the gold digger'. She's living in ''their'' family home.They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297863290</amazonuk>
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom CampbellEmily Critchley|title=FoldOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Five men 84 year old Edie has lived in Reading circulate their monthly poker evenings around their respective housesthe same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is starting to lose her memory. None However, Edie is tormented by the memory of them like all her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the others, none of them seem to completely like worry that there was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the game, but they're more-or-less happy with thing that reveals the habittruth of what happened all that time ago. ItAfter 's seeing' Lucy in the way the five different personalities approach the evenings that we are concerned with, and enjoy principallyhigh street, especially when just as she was the poorest playerlast time she saw her, Nick, decides she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to clash with his polar opposite, Dougher. And what might happen if a non-playing character were yet as she remembers the past, she is forgetting more and more in her day to enter thingsday life. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and make them even feistierbefore her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408807602</amazonuk>1804181250
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Madelaine Lucas
|title=Thirst for Salt
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, I'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for gravity''
{{newreview|author=Francois Lelord|title=Hector and the Secrets of Love|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Professor Cormorant has gone AWOL. Tasked with developing drugs to cure Told from a lot of illsretrospective view, by making us fall in love, he has fled with his secrets, his prototypes, and a few samples young woman unravels the year-long relationship that may or may not be dangerousonce defined her. It is down to HectorOverlaid with later wisdom, the narrator relives the affair with a psychiatrist, man twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to chase him down, work out where Cormorant is in his researches, and if possible help bring its sorrowful end the trade secrets back to summer after. Set against the company his girlfriend, and now himself, works backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town ''Thirst for. With Salt'' details the exotic far East his destination24-year-old narrator's deepening relationship with her older lover, a partner left behinddepicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and familial relationships and time on his hand to muse on the subject of love, will Hector find more than just a bunch of chemicals in a syringe?how it altered her irrevocably.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906040338</amazonuk>0861546490
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Edward Wright0008506337|title=From BloodThe Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=45
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=While IThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'm not mad about the titleLeary was all-consuming, the bookapparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in love. Richard was twenty-one and described by Margo's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's cover is atmospherically good influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - it says going to the reader 'please pick me up Oxford and read mehaving a glittering career.' So I did. In the event, The book opens in 1960s America with they eloped and Richard took her away from the Prologue. A bunch Isle of radical thinkers are angryWight. They turn this pent-up anger into Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a well-oiled, well-ordered act of violencerespected journalist. Lives are lostThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sasha. But Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at Sandcove, the family home on the perpetrators are clever and most Isle of them escape justiceWight. They do what many around Even then the world have done before them; they go underground. But several key members are still at large ..doubts about Richard's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0752891774</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=David Lindsley|title=The Darkfall Switch|rating=3Then Richard left them.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens on a sultry, hot summer's day in central London. Imagine the stifling heat is the subliminal message here, especially for those passengers on the underground - ' ... as if they were all joined in some macabre dance as the train rattled along the tunnel. Everybody pressed against others.' Suddenly there's a problem with the infrastructure. A big problem. As the experts frantically work behind the scenes to get London moving again - the unthinkable happens. People lose their lives in what appears to be a power cut.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070909146X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Lorber1914585402|title=Benny Allen Was A Star: A New York Music StoryDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alan Lorber has written a fictional and I suspect a semi autobiographical account of his years as a top music arranger in the 1950reviewed David F Ross's book [[There's and early 1960Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's, Only One Danny Garvey]] a period couple of huge change in the music industry culminating with the breakthrough of the Beatles in Americayears back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was. Rather than simply writing It was a factual narrative of his involvement during this period he decided to tell the story of the fictional Benny Allengripping, emotionally wounding read, a classically trained musician who almost by accident gets involved in the music publishing business and then goes rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not have lavished enough praise on to produce some hugely successful orchestrations on many of the top hit records of the timeit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0041VXCTA</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah HarknessLucy Ashe|title=A Discovery of WitchesClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=The back cover is full of praise for this debut novel which has been involved in a publishing 'tussle', no less. Impressive. I was looking forward to reading what all the fuss was about. The title is terrific too. But was the book a terrific read?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755374029</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Elfriede Jelinek
|title=The Piano Teacher
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Erika is a single woman in her thirties, who, despite the best efforts of her mother, did not succeed as a concert musician, but instead works as a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory. I say best efforts, I mean outright pressure. Erika and her mother make for an unusual relationship - the older relying on the glory, company and complete obedience of the younger, the daughter sharing a bed with her mother even at this stage of her life. All this is until a young student at the school decides he will be a younger lover for Erika, and forces his will into the household. But who, should such a relationship actually form, is going to be the power-maker?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687373</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Maria Angels Anglada
|title=The Auschwitz Violin
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In Poland in The year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the early 1990soutside but not, we learn, a violin singson the inside. The maestro who owns it produces such a music from itAnd not on stage, people are forced to take noteeither. TheyBecause there'd s a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be even more amazed if she could bring herself taught or learnt – discipline, attention to state exactly how detail – and some things, that ''je ne sais quoi'', that don't come from the instrument came to beclassroom. For this was the work of DanielA stage presence, a charm, suffering in a subsidiary camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau''joie de vivre''. Stumbles, chances, halfThe difference between a hard-liesworker, all conspire to allow Daniel to take time off his enforced labour and engage in his real-world careera star. But is there a price to pay in doing something you love, just for a man you can only hate?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849016437</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bethan DarwinHeather Fawcett|title=Two Times TwentyEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You can tell from 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 beginning very first encyclopaedia of this novel that you're in Walesfaeries. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. The young Anna (as we travel back So when she finds herself far, far North in time) the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the village matriarch, she is meeting not sure what will be long-term friendsshe has done, Bob nor how to redeem herself and Janeput her final investigations for her book back on the right track. We find Anna rather proudly introducing Enter Wendell Bambleby, her two young sons dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and Bob butting in with delight, much to Emily'Duw, good-sized boys for their age ... Make good rugby players one days frustration.' But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the Welsh location and all things Welsh is given a subtle touch.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190678423X</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Adrian Dawson1398515388|title=CODEXThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=When I read First of all, it was the resume on earthquake, deep in the back cover I immediately thought that it was going to be one of those high-octaneocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, action every second paragraphin turn, type of thrillerscaused the nuclear meltdown. All action The result was complete and perhaps very little substanceutter devastation. I The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was happily proved wrongwidespread. And very early on The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience store. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the dog jumped in the novel, as well, which was good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956577008</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter DurantineChristopher Bowden|title=The Chocolate AssassinMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the final days Christopher Bowden's latest novel is a patient untangling of the Second World War as the allied guns came ever closer a young German was sent on a secret mission to Americaseemingly ordinary woman's life, carried out by her nephew after she has died. He was only in his late teens but still resisted telling anyone, including the U-boat captain The aunt who took him across the Atlantic, about the nature always provided a safe harbour and a little bit of his mission. Fifty five years later the U-boat captain, Eric Hoest, long settled in the States, was murdered at his beach home. Samuel Grey, police detective and part-time student was called in indulgence to investigate the murder. The local police chief thought a young nephew had had a much more interesting life than that the most likely murderer was the neighbour who nephew Stephen had reported the crime, but Grey suspected that the truth was hidden somewhere in Hoest's backgroundever realised and it seems to him an obligation to find it all out.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1451579527</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sheila O'FlanaganJennifer Mason|title=A Season to RememberPartitions of Unity
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We Here at Bookbag Towers, we first meet the Lodge ownersmet Elizabeth Cromwell, a likable couple. They find running their upmarket country house type hotel both exhilarating dominatrix and exhausting. The novel is bang up to date so O'Flanagan gets unintentional detective in the whole recession/banker-bashing thing early on. As the festive season looms[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], the unthinkable has happenedwhen she investigated and unravelled a series of disappearances. Empty rooms. TheyIn ''Partitions of Unity''re not used , she sets her mind to empty rooms, at any time of the yearsolving a murder. Normally the Lodge is a full house. But then a slow and steady trickle starts as our characters book in - and the story starts proper, so to speak.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755375157</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack Everett and David ColesWill Carver|title=Last Mission: the last hours of the Third Reich|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We first meet a couple of characters living in the United States. A husband and wife and a relation of theirs called Paul. On the surface, they appear to be enjoying happy, normal lives. But all is not what is seems. We soon find out that the husband, Carl has some secrets. Pretty big ones. He keeps a picture of Adolph Hitler on display - somewhere - in his home, for example. Links with Germany and his past life are often talked about, or rather whispered about, with a handful of trusted 'acquaintances' over a beer or two.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095653421X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary E Martin|title=The Drawing Lesson: The First in the Trilogy of RemembranceDaves Next Door
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander Wainwright is the UK's premier artist. He's just won the Turner with ''The Hay Wagon'' – Five strangers come together in one moment as a painting with suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a luminous, moonlit landscapeLondon tube line. He should be at the peak of his powers, but he's about to lose his muse and, more worryinglyAs their fates overlap, there seems to be something wrong with his sight and the year to come is going to be traumatic. The story of it is told by his friendin backwards order, art dealer Jamie Helmsworth, who has pieced together what he knows, what he's heard – and used a little artistic licence leading up to fill in the gaps. It's a most unusual story which will take you deep into the world of artists and writersfateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1450229360</amazonuk>1914585186}}
{{newreview|author=Cathleen Schine|title=The Three Weissmanns of Westport|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The novel begins with Joseph Weissmann, or Josie as he is known, deciding at the age of 78 that he no longer wants to be married to Betty after 48 years together. In an attempt to save Betty's feelings he cites irreconcilable differences, but the truth is he has fallen head over heels in love. Betty is devastated, her life in tatters, with even the beautiful Central Park apartment she adores soon lost to her.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015716</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Irving|title=Last Night in Twisted River|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We start in 1954, in the middle of nowhere, in a log-cutters' encampment. The cook lives alone with his twelve year old son, in some kind of comfort - a decent job, familiarity with the harsh surroundings and the hardened people inhabiting it. But a pair of tragedies - one involving a fatal work accident with a young teenager new to the job, force the pair to flee. They leave behind a red herring that they hope will force the local brutal policeman to get the wrong impression, and a best friend in the shape of Ketchum, the most hardened logger in the camp as a kind of safety-net, but their destiny, spread over the next few generations, will prove to still be populated with tragedy, romance, despair - and the constant look over their shoulder to the tiny settlement of Twisted River.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552776572</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tony Bayliss|title=Past Continuous|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The author's note tells the reader that this book 'was inspired by the suicide of the author's son.' Chapter 1 opens with the reader being in no doubt that the schoolboy Matthew has a knack with computers. He's a bit of a whiz-kid. He's also shy and tongue-tied which makes him a bit of a loner as well. He stands out at school for all the wrong reasons but he's coping with it - just. And early Move on in the book we meet Sophie. She's a big part of this book. She's around Matthew's age. She is bright and clever. Her adoptive parents would probably say that she's too clever for her own good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907230173</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Hayes|title=Someone Else's Son|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The book opens with Carrie Kent. Successful television presenter and mother of teenager, Max. Ms Kent immediately comes across as hard-headed, business-like, aloof and rather distant but that's the whole point, of course. Very good at her day job. But as a mother? Her television show is a reality programme, dealing with well, basically the dregs of society: single, young mums, drug addicts etc. Carrie knows that these people keep her in designer shoes and bags but she keeps them at arm's length. She wouldn't want to catch something. Carrie sails through her life with a self-satisfied smile on her face. You can just tell.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755349873</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Graphic Novels Reviews]]

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