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[[Category:General Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|General Fiction]]==General fiction==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andrea Eames1739526910|title=The Cry of the Go-Away BirdWhere I've Not Been Lost|author=Glen Sibley|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary='The Cry of the Go-Away Bird' is the debut novel from Andrea EamesOne year after a suicide attempt blows apart musician Brian O’Malley's life, he arrives in an unfamiliar Devon town to recover. It revolves around EliseLiving with an unexpected housemate at his former manager’s holiday home, a white Zimbabwean girl living through her teens on the eve he dreams of the Mugabe-sponsored farm invasions at the beginning of this centuryreconnecting with everything he has lost. The author herself grew But as those tentative plans falter, he becomes swept up in Zimbabwe before moving to New Zealand with her family at the age of seventeen and there is a strong sense local world of memoir and personal experience in the novelunlikely friendships, which has both positive mobile discos and negative effects on the narrativesurprising romantic possibilities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846553733</amazonuk>''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithJenny Lecoat|title=The Saturday Big Tent Wedding PartyBeyond Summerland|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Alexander McCall Smith makes it look so easyJean lives on Jersey with her mother where they are celebrating the end of the occupation. During the war, churning out book after delightful book that continue Jean's father was arrested for listening to delight a banned radio and amuse his loyal readerssoldiers took him away one night, leaving Jean and her mother waiting for years for news of him. His writing seems effortlessAs the British finally free the Channel islands from the Nazis, and in this storythe war is finally over, once againtheir hopes rise that they will finally learn what became of him. But will the truth come as a relief, or will it raise further questions around what else happened during the characters remain war? Who was the wonderful friends we informer who told the Nazis about the radio? And what other secrets have always known and expected them to be, as if they really are alive and living these stories somewhere and AMS is simply transcribing them for our pleasure.been kept throughout the occupation?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0349123136</amazonuk>1846976537
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rosie DastgirOnyi Nwabineli|title=A Small FortuneAllow Me to Introduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Harris Anwar is truly a man who is split between two worlds. HeAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, thanks to her step-mother Ophelia's a British Pakistaniincreasingly popular presence on social media, proud where she posted every step of his Eastern rootsAnuri's childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, but when he came monetary gain. Now Anuri is in her twenties and she is slowly trying to the UK he changed his name from Haaris - with a longregain her confidence and to get her life back, flat vowel suing her step- mother to take down the more acceptable Harris and his clothing was that favoured by an English gentlemancontent about her. He's proud Anuri is battling alcoholism, failing to start her PhD, undergoing therapy and secretly abusing people online and he would say many reasons to be proudreceiving money from them for doing so. Some of Most importantly, she is desperately worried about her little sister, who is the things new focus of which heOphelia's proud are relatively small - the vacuum cleaner which he's had for twenty years might not work particularly well, but he's proud that he's hung on to itonline empire. He's proud of his car Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and her relationship with her father at the central heating which he installed himself and most of all he's proud of his daughter.same time?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857383736</amazonuk>0861546873
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Nicholls1529153298|title=One DayThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I knew within the first ten pages that I was going to love ''One Day'It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. It is the only book that has kept me up at night (A woman? I mean, distracted me throughout the day and woken me up early in the morninghonestly... I couldn) She's not what's worrying Miv't put it downs family, and didn't want to eitherthough. I Women have always found it difficult to settle on a favourite type of story, or even a specific genre that I like, but this novel made me realise that what I want in a book is realismbeen disappearing. As Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley enjoyed their late night conversation in the opening moments of the book Well, Nicholls pulled me into his world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340896981</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Green|title=The Fault in Our Stars|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Having they've been diagnosed at age 12 with stage 4 thyroid cancermurdered, Hazel was prepared but to diehave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Then at age 14, a miracle treatment shrunk the tumours in her lungs...for the time being. Hazel could live for years, or Miv's upset because she could die at any time, but 's overheard that her days are spent tethered father wants to an oxygen tank and under constant surveillance and treatment to keep move the cancer at bayfamily 'Down South'. Hazel When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is now 16. With her life in a constant holding patternfrightening, Hazel meets Augustus Waters at a cancer support groupforeign place, best avoided. Augustus is gorgeous For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, sharp-wittedSharon, in remission and completely attracted she'll do anything to Hazelprevent that. As their relationship blossoms and grows, Hazel finds she has to re-examine her attitude She's not worried about life and death, illness and wellness and love. Their brief journey together leaves a lasting legacy behind the dangers or that will change everythingher Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0525478817</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Aaron's wife, DorothyWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was killed born to Greek parents in an accident. An oak tree fell on their homeManhattan, New York, demolishing the sun porch where Dorothy happened in December 1923 and only moved to be at the timeAthens when she was thirteen. He worried that if he had done things differently (a matter of some biscuits and a television set) Dorothy might not have been where she Her original surname was and might still be alive and for a while he camped out Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the wrecked house until further damage forced him to move in with his sisterStates. It When she was then back in Athens - supposedly so that he realised that Dorothy wasn't really dead - well, not dead as we understand it she could get appropriate training for her voice - as she materialised in odd places, wearing was raised under the clothes she used to wear Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and eventually staying with Aaron made no secret of her preference for longer periods of time. And gradually they began to bickerher elder sister, just like a long-married couple..Jackie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701187190</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elizabeth HaynesAlexander McCall Smith|title=Revenge of the TideThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maud Perifanis wasn't unduly worried when her husband didn't return home one evening as he often stayed The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in his office when he was working Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the news that he had been killed online apps in providing a car accidentmore personal, well out of Athens on tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the Saronic Gulfbusiness, was as Ness is planning to take a shock trip to everyone in the house on Paradise Street where the extended family livedCanada to get away for a while. Nikitas had been brought Katie is coming out of a break up by his aunt Alexandra with a bad boyfriend, and her husband 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 44 Scotland Street and she now lived in one apartmentthe Isabel Dalhousie novels, Orestes (his son from his second marriage) but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in the studio and herunning a business, Maud and their daughter Tig lived or in a third apartment. There was someone missing though. Antigone was Alexandra's sister - and Nikitas' mother match- making, but she'd left Greece for Russia when he was three Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and he hadnthere't seen s always her since. She was over eighty when she heard the news very helpful (and she came back for the funeral.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595694</amazonuk>1846976596
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francois LelordDean Koontz|title=Hector Finds Time (Hector's Journeys)The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Meet, if you haven't already, Hector the psychiatristBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He's like a champagne corkloses his job, he loses his fiancee, and when something prays on his mind a lot POP he's off on a global trip to set things righthouse gets trashed. AndOh, like a champagne cork let off in and someone has delivered a posh placereally weird, he'll likely crash through a chandelier of scintillating, interesting little points, scattering them leftdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, right and centreit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, and creating Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a pretty, if random, pattern on the book pagenice person. A really nice person. This time So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house isa new friend, er, time. From patients worried they've none lefta bad weather friend called Spike, to those who want has been sent to grow up faster, and those putting anti-ageing cream on crows'-feethelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. What Spike is the best approach going to spendingtake care of Benny, passing and perhaps not worrying aboutwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, time?Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906040893</amazonuk>1662500491
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithKatherine Howe|title=The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 13A True Account|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Those of you Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having been sent to live with a family who are frequent visitors run an inn, and being made to work there from a young age. When she hears there is to The Bookbag will know that I am be a big fan hanging of Alexander McCall Smithsome pirates in the town, she decides to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's writingdeath at the hands of two vicious pirates. I am supremely happy She hides away, so that he continues to write so regularly they don't find and reliablykill her too, providing me with much looked forward and then to escape them completely she runs away to reading matter several times through sea, dressing as a boy and joining the yearnotorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. This time it's She soon finds herself in the turn thick of Mma Ramotswe to slip back into my mind as things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we read are caught up in her rip roaring tale of her detecting adventures in this, the thirteenth book in life on the seriesocean waves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408702606</amazonuk>0861547438
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Deborah Moggach1471180158|title=The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel|rating=3|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=When Ravi and his cousin Sonny decide to open the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in Bangalore as a retirement home, they don't know whether they will get any takers. However, by advertising it as a newly restored palatial hotel that will provide a life of leisure, good weather and mango gin, they soon get a great deal of interest and are welcoming their new residents. Evelyn, Madge, Dorothy, Norman and all of the others who decide to move to the hotel have their own reasons for leaving Britain but they are all excited by the new opportunity and the lease of new life that it could provide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572028</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMaybe Tomorrow|author=Anuradha Roy|title=The Folded EarthPenny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Set Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a remote hill top town in control freak with all the Himalayas where the earth subtlety of a half brick. Jamie's son, Bo, 'has folded to create his problems'. He's asthmatic and the majestic scenery, a young woman, Mayamore you read, recently widowed arrives to be closer to the scene of her husbandmore you'll suspect that he's climbing accidenton the autistic spectrum. There, she encounters a rich variety of characters who seem Sometimes Jamie needs to leap of the page, foremost of which two take time off at opposite ends both of society and lifeshort notice - she's journey - Charu, a young peasant girl whose emerging relationship with a young cook is touching frequent flier in the local A&E and sweet, and Mayasometimes Bo's eccentric landlord, a relict of not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the Raj who may or may not need to be in possession of some intriguing personal letters that pertain away on time to India's history pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the departing Britishwrong. It was going to come to a head.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857388312</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick AlexanderB0CKD1L5JL|title=The Case of the Missing BoyfriendRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that CC had it allPetr is an orphan. At thirty nine she was near Rescued by the top of the advertising businessstrange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, owned her own flat in north London and had a group the forests of close, party-going friends. ThatWashington's what you saw from the outside, looking inOlympic Peninsula. What CC saw was a life that lacked that one essential which she seemed unable to acquire. She was desperate to find the man of her dreams After Bear dies and preferably one who would whisk her off to a farm house brief sojourn in Devon where she'd live ''The'' ''Good'' ''Life''. In the meantime she was stuck human company, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on a journey through the memories of too many heartbreaksforest, a mother whose current lifestyle brought a very unfortunate word to mind and being on broadcasting the periphery of her friends' dramas - strange, wild and as they were all gay she didn't have a lot of chance of meeting that elusive manrarely heard voices he encounters.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085789630X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BauerSarah Marsh|title=Rocks in the BellyA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Jon Bauer's first novelAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, ''Rocks everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the Belly''use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is an emotional journeysent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. The narrator is a man From here, she ends up in his late 20s who has returned from Canada to visit his mother another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has cancer of been teaching the braindeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. The narrator himself is emotionally damaged from At the relationship that he had with his mother from childhood when she and her husband fostered children and, interspersed with the narrativesame time, Bell is the voice of narrator at eight years old working on other inventions and in particular telling the experience of one foster boyideas, Robert, who we know from early on and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in the book suffered a significant tragedy while in their care. What that event was will be revealed in due course, but it is clear that the young boy suffered hugely from jealousy complicated tangle of his mother's love for these foster childrenespionage.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846688450</amazonuk>1035401614
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Aifric CampbellB0BC3YTCMR|title=On The FloorGood Girls Die|author=Ayura Ayira|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Geri Molloy, the central character in Aifric Campbell's ''On The FloorThis story is not for everyone.'', may be earning a six figure salary working at a London investment bank just prior to the outbreak of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait, but she's seriously messed up. Drinking heavily, sleeping lightly and mourning the end of a relationship, she may be a mathematical genius with a direct line to a mysterious Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager with whom she trades, but her life is increasingly being controlled by other people.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688086</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Matthew Green1472263936|title=Memoirs of an Imaginary FriendThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Max is 8 years oldIt was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. He likes Lego She was alone: her mother, Greek by birth, had left the family home and Star Wars refused to return, but Mary and playing with toy soldiersHamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. He can tell you 102 words that rhyme with tree Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. He scarfs down grilled cheese sandwiches She grew to love her grandmother and chicken the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and rice. He does not like physical contactfrightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He lives with was proud of his mum close connections to the Junta and dad who argue about what is best for him and why he’s not normal like other boys expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and girlsgreen eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751547875</amazonuk>
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{{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=William NicholsonB0BVDC2VWH|title=The Secret Intensity of Everyday LifeGrave Listeners|author=William Frank
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=William NicholsonThe village is isolated and poor. It's ''surrounded by a Witching Forest. And the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The Secret Intensity black wood of Everyday Life'' is an ensemble story focussing predominantly the forest provides heat and warmth, roofs on middle class homes, and mainly middle age people living in a Sussex villageeven gallows, if needed. The cover fear of the book suggests that it being buried alive is little more than a superior chic-lit style story of how Laura reacts when an ex-lover from her past appears from out of existential superstition in the blue to disrupt her marriage village and two children, but while this that is a central issue that runs throughout the bookreason Volushka, this is only a small part drunken, self-indulgent, lazy lout of the story. It's far better than that might suggesta man is tolerated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184916195X</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Grace McCleenB0BYF82CXT|title=The Land of Decoration|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Grace McCleen's debut novel, ''The Land of Decoration'' paints an original, unsettling, sometimes dark and generally rather wonderful picture. Narrated by ten year old Judith, raised by her father who is a fundamental religious follower of the end of the world is nigh variety, it looks at bullying, both at school and in more general society, faith and the possible rejection thereof and the strength of childhood imagination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>070118681X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSemi-Detached|author=Marlene S Lewis|title=RuthDeborah Stone
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The late 1950s saw a lot of changes in society but they were late in coming to Ruth's home 'Bill and Amanda are living in the Owen Stanley range a semi-detached house, stuck in Papua New Guinea. Rutha depressing rut of boredom and disappointment, the only daughter of plantation owner John Madisonwhen Terry and Fiona – glamorous, was still in her late teens successful and away at boarding school for very much of the yearin love – move in next door. Despite their different outlooks on life, but when she returned home one of the first people she wanted couples befriend each other and life appears to see was her great friend Tommyimprove for both pairs. They'd grown up together but there was no possibility of the relationship being taken any further as Tommy - despite being light skinned - was the son of one of the black plantation workers But all is not what it seems, and certain their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.'standards' were expected of Ruth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848766238</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annabelle R CharbitShalini Boland|title=A Life Lived RidiculouslyThe Silent Bride|rating=43
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Maxine Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is from a Jewish family who think that as her 20s are nearing their endeverything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, she should be marriedfunny; total and utter husband-material. MaxineShe is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, for her partsuccessful, hasn't found anyone to interest her confident… and so the inevitable proposal is more concerned with combining her job and her studies eagerly accepted by Alice and getting away from the yoke of her parents. She wedding is also worried about her possessions planned and worries that she has too many and that they make her flat look untidyset. She just can't get her flat organised When the way she likes itmuch-anticipated day arrives, eitherAlice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the light not being quite right congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and never quite being able when Seth turns to decide which room face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her television should be into become his wife.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0984642862</amazonuk>1662507089
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Henning Mankell1787636003|title=The Troubled ManGirls of Summer|author=Katie Bishop|rating=45|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Hakan von Enke It was a retired naval officer the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and a man of routinearrived on the island. Each morning he went for a long walk Rachel wasn't exactly innocent but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest in the forest near his Stockholm homeher, but one day he failed to returnshe was flattered rather than wary. It's was quite a long way from Ystad, Kurt Wallander's home town while before he made any sort of physical approach to her and the only reason he became involved in the case was the fact by that von Enke's son Hans time she was the partner of Wallander's daughter Lindaobsessed by him. Wallander became concerned about von Enke some months before when they had a long discussion at Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his seventy-fifth birthday party. He'd seemed worried interests on the island and wary of a stranger in particular in the street. Von Enke's disappearance hit bar where all the family hard - and then his wife disappeared as wellgirls either worked or partied.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099548402</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam BourneAmanda Craig|title=PantheonThree Graces
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The year is 1940Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. Oxford don James Zennor wants to serve his countryThere's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture it, but due to crafting an injury sustained while fighting image of the country as it stands in the Spanish Civil War heone particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: she's rejected as unfitpractically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. When his wife and young son disappear, though, She has such a gift for weaving the ongoing issues of the day into the trail leads to America lives of her characters in a journey which will plunge him into a world of secret societiesway that feels natural and lived-in, clandestine dealsnever making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, and the chance to play his part in the war effort after all. If he survives..grappling with issues far larger than themselves.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007413637</amazonuk>140871468X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bethan Roberts152915118X|title=My Policeman|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=The story opens with two schoolfriends Sylvie and Marion doing what teenagers do best - talking and giggling about boys. Sylvie has a rather dishy and handsome older brother called Tom - and Marion has developed a bit of a crush on him. But it's nothing to worry about, she'll grow out of it. Except she doesn't. Even although, deep down, she has misgivings about this rather lukewarm romance. She's actually sizzling hot for some action, a bit of kissing, a bit of harmless snogging - but Tom's the one who is lukewarm. Why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185848</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewPineapple Street|author=Suzanne Bugler|title=The Child InsideJenny Jackson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Rachel Morgan feels that ''Pineapple Street'' is the story of three women: Sasha, Darley and Georgiana. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha is married to their brother Cord. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't a Stockton by birth so she does not fit in anywhereisn't readily accepted into the tribe. Certainly not with all of the other mums at her son Jono The problem's posh school. Certainly not with all exacerbated when the happy jolly families on clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord and Sasha if they'd like to move into the beaches when Pineapple Street property. Tilda and Chip have renovated and downsized to another property, a street or so away, which they are on holidayown. And most They won't need any of allthe furniture from Pineapple Street, she no longer feels so Sasha and Cord can move straight in. Nominally, they had a choice but that she fits in with her own little familywasn't the reality. Nothing ever feels right Darley and she continually feels isolated on Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the outside looking gold digger'. She's living in''their'' family home. Of course, these feelings lead They use it so often that they abbreviate it to an increasing sense of dissatisfaction which she can only deal with by dwelling on what she perceives as her happier past'the GD'.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330510916</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jack SheffieldEmily Critchley|title=Educating JackOne Puzzling Afternoon
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=September 1982 sees 84 year old Edie has lived in the beginning of Jack Sheffield's sixth year same small town for almost her whole life, but now she is facing a move as head of Ragley-on-the-Forest village school her son wants to move to another house and some of the village regulars are realising that this bring Edie to live with his family, as Edie is going to be a year starting to remember toolose her memory. Nora Pratt has been in However, Edie is tormented by the coffee shop for a quarter memory of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 years ago, and the worry that there was a century now. Ronnie Smith decides secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the world truth of employment might be for him after what happened all - but is sacked from one job after a matter of secondsthat time ago. At the cinema itAfter 's ET whoseeing's pulling Lucy in the crowds and Prince William comes into high street, just as she was the world along with the 20p piece (well - not at ''exactly'' last time she saw her, she starts to find pockets of memories coming back to her. And yet as she remembers the same time)past, but it's Jack Sheffield who she is going forgetting more and more in her day to face day life. Will she uncover the biggest change.truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0593065697</amazonuk>1804181250
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{{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''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon McGregor0008506337|title=This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The clue is in the Christopher Brookmyre-styled title. If the events, characters and circumstances in these stories are known to you, then you have my sympathies. A man causes an embarrassment trying to watch his daughter's first school nativity play. Another has a phobia of eggs containing an avian foetus when he puts knife and fork to them. There's a car crash here - and there, a drowning, some arson, some theft... and a lot of clues that point to some national disaster. Take all those clues as one and you eventually see this is more than just a collection of disparate short stories, but a very fractured, obfuscated novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809265</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewGarnett Girls|author=Wendy Jones|title=The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior FuneralsGeorgina Moore
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=ItThe love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O's Spring 1924 Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sides. Margo was just sixteen when they fell in South Wales, and young undertaker Wilfred is going to learn the hard way how serious the trivial can belove. Fascinated Richard was twenty-one and described by a girlMargo's dress - worn very seductively by Grace, who he has met but twice mother as 'an adult - he blurts out a marriage proposalolder man'. As much as wants to Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take it back, her away from what they felt she won't let himcould achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering career. He tries to move onIn the event, leaving they eloped and Richard took her disappointed, especially when he falls for away from the daughter Isle of Wight. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a man he buries, but..well-respected journalist. There are things dangerously spoken, dangerously left unsaidThe couple had three children: Rachel, Imogen and a complex web of divided loyalties Sasha. Life was lived in London and enforced connectionsholidays 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 leave him in this brilliant debut novelcharge''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780330561</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1914585402|title=The Growing Pains of Adrian MoleDashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F Ross
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The country might be at war over the Falklands but life is hardly straight-forward in the Mole household. AdrianI reviewed David F Ross's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs and itbook [[There's not long before Adrian is shocked to learn that his mother is pregnant. HeOnly One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (Only One Danny Garvey]] acouple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it was.k.It was a. the 'stick insect') along a path which isn't particularly slippygripping, emotionally wounding read, although he does notice and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that she seems to I might not have put lavished enough praise on quite a bit of weightit. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickle, but adorable, as ever and Adrian's hormones are still playing hop-scotch with his brain. So, what's new?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Susan HillLucy Ashe|title=A Kind ManClara and Olivia
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet EveThe year is 1933. The place? Sadler's Wells. Ballerinas Clara and Olivia are sisters, twins no less. Identical on the outside but not, and her husbandwe learn, on the title characterinside. And not on stage, Tommyeither. SheBecause there's at a bit of lot that builds a sticky wicket in lifedancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline, for however much they want a baby, her sister and his feckless husband churn out son after son after son, and go no lengths at all attention to love them. So when Eve detail – and Tommy do at last have a childsome things, itthat ''je ne sais quoi''s a tragedy for it to die when only three years old. But in this plot, which youthat don'll thank me for not going into furthert come from the classroom. A stage presence, there will be a lot more swings and roundaboutscharm, of torment and ecstasya ''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, doldrums and delights, hell and heaven, to comea star.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099555441</amazonuk>0861544080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John NivenHeather Fawcett|title=The Second ComingEmily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries
|rating=4
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=God Emily Wilde is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has come back from a holiday travelled extensively, and has some catching up researched meticulously, to do. What’s been happening on Earth for write her life's work, the last couple very first encyclopaedia of hundred years? faeries. The realisation hits him hard... it makes him sick in factWhilst she is brilliant at research and speaking to faeries, she is not so good with people. So what’s when she finds herself far, far North in the answer? To quote small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended the religious clichévillage matriarch, Jesus she is. After a board meeting with the senior saintsnot sure what she has done, God decides that his son must be torn away from jamming with Hendrix nor how to go redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back to on the streets of the world right track. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to remind Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the sinners of the way.faerie folk around Hravsnik?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>0356519120
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=R J Palacio1398515388|title=WonderThe Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=August Pullman First of all, it was born with a rare genetic defect that has the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused extreme facial disfigurationthe nuclear meltdown. He has undergone 27 surgeries since he The result was born complete and has always been vulnerable to illnessutter devastation. In order to deal with his medical needs The deaths were uncountable, and to shield him from the staring and cruelty loss of the world, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents for his entire lifelivelihoods was widespread. But Auggie is stronger now and all of The fact that is about to change. Auggie is about to enter school for the first time – and he’s petrified. ‘Wonder’ is many pets were separated from their owners came far down the story list of Auggie’s first year at Beecher Prep and his first journey alone into priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside worlda convenience store. But can he confront He wasn't a dog person but the challenges convenience store owner's comment that wait for him there and convince he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his classmates, new friends, family car door and himself that, underneath his unusual appearance, he is just Tamon the same as everybody else?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370332288</amazonuk>dog jumped in.
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kaui Hart HemmingsChristopher Bowden|title=The DescendantsMr Magenta
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=On the face of it Matt King is very lucky. He's descended from one of HawaiiChristopher Bowden's largest landowners and latest novel is a wealthy man as well as being an attorney. He's married to the flighty, flirtatious Joanie and has two daughters, teenager Alex, a model who might just have a bit patient untangling of a drug problem and ten year old Scottie. Sheseemingly ordinary woman's feistylife, clever and - for me - stole the bookcarried out by her nephew after she has died. Have you ever noticed that when luck changes it doesn't do it in baby steps? It does it in ''lumps''. Joanie is involved in The aunt who always provided a powerboat accident safe harbour and sinks into an irreversible coma as a result little bit of indulgence to a head injury. But there's young nephew had had a much more piling up. Matt discovers interesting life than that Joanie has been having nephew Stephen had ever realised and it seems to him an affairobligation to find it all out. Does the man who's been - er - enjoying his wife have the right to say his goodbyes too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570246</amazonuk>B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WomersleyJennifer Mason|title=Bereft|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Quinn Walker, a young Australian man fresh from fighting on the European front in World War One, returns to the very town he was drummed out Partitions of ten years before, after being accused of raping and killing his own younger sister. Two things have beaten him to the small settlement - one, the global flu pandemic; two a telegram saying he died bravely in action earlier in the war. And the less you know of what he meets and does back in Flint the better, the more to keep this fresh and brilliant book's many intrigues as secret as they were for me.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857386549</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Schulman|title=This Beautiful LifeUnity|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Richard and Liz are new in town which is always a bummer, except this town is Manhattan so really nothing else could ever compare. They’ve only moved from upstate New York but it seems a world away now. Liz has given up her post Here at the university to concentrate on kids Coco and Jake and is finding juggling their social lives a full time job in itself but is just about making a space for herself among the other mothers at the school gates. Things are going ok. And then, one dayBookbag Towers, their nicewe first met Elizabeth Cromwell, comfortable world starts to crumble. Jake receives an explicit email from a classmate dominatrix and unintentional detective in disbelief[[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]], forwards it straight on to when she investigated and unravelled a friendseries of disappearances. Except rather than coming back to him with advice on what the heck to do nextIn ''Partitions of Unity'', the friend chooses she sets her mind to send it on to another friend, who does the samesolving a murder. Round and round it goes, round the school, round the city, round the online world. Everyone knows where it came from and soon Jake’s academic future, his father’s career and his whole family’s social standing are hanging in the balance.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857896237</amazonuk>B09LQR9FRF
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Courtney SullivanWill Carver|title=MaineThe Daves Next Door|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Kellehers' beach-front holiday home Five strangers come together in Maine was built on a plot of land won in a bar-room bet at the end of World War II. It's not in the same league one moment as the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port but there are a couple of substantial properties suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on the plot and there's still room to sparea London tube line. It's a place of indulgenceAs their fates overlap, secrets and the sort of burning cruelty which you only get story is told in families who care for each other - some of backwards order, leading up to the time. ''Maine'' is essentially the story of a summer at the property - but the seeds of what happens were, of course, planted long agofateful moment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085789496X</amazonuk>1914585186}}
