|summary=There is a reason why Gwendoline Riley has something of a cult following. She is technically innovative and very good at what she does, but the subject matter is invariably dark and downbeat which prevents mass market appeal. In that respect Opposed Positions is very much business as usual then. The subject matter most evident here is misogyny and the damaging impact it has both directly and indirectly on people. It's painful to read at times; it feels as if the narrator, an occasional novelist, Aislinn Kelly, is picking at the scab of her life and her family in a way that feels shocking and, for all the wry observations, remains uncomfortable to read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224094238</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Evelyn Eaton
|title=Go Ask the River
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In ninth century China, Hung Tu was almost unique as a woman breaking into the restricted male preserve of education, particularly the fields of poetry and calligraphy, and becoming a highly respected and renowned writer. Eaton constructs a fascinating narrative around her poems, imagining Hung Tu’s idyllic childhood which turns to potential chaos as she is sold into prostitution, followed by her rise to Official Hostess for the Governor.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848190921</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Bruno Portier
|title=This Flawless Place Between
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you fancy reading something a bit different, writer and filmmaker Bruno Portier may have written just the book.
Americans Anne and her partner, Evan, leave Anne's small daughter with the grandparents so that the couple can go on a 3 week motorbike tour of Tibet. Whilst away, things go awry for the two holidaymakers and so ''The Flawless Place Between'' traces their respective onward journeys.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851688501</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Naomi Benaron
|title=Running the Rift
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Jean Patrick Nkumba has a sheltered, comparatively privileged upbringing in Rwanda. Although far from opulent, life in the school compound where his father is headmaster is safe and Jean Patrick is loved and encouraged by his family to aim high both at school and in his passion for running. Despite being of the Tutsi tribe, he has also been encouraged to think of himself as Rwandan first, a nationality and ethos encompassing the rival Hutus. However not all feel the same and a series of tragic events lead to world news and personal hell. For this is the land where, in 1994, 800,000 people would be killed during a mere 100 days.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1851689214</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexandra Singer
|title=Tea at the Grand Tazi
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Seeking solitude, peace to paint, and solace from a failed relationship, Maia finds a job assisting the Historian, a shadowy academic, in return for life in the centre of Marrakesh. And with her duties light, she sets off to explore her surroundings, attempting to examine the women in this culture. But as a European female she is treated as an item of sexual prey by the men, and ostracised by the women, so she finds herself isolated and alone.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908248238</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=M L Stedman
|title=The Light Between Oceans
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Thomas Sherbourne returns to Australia after World War I. Internally scarred like many of his generation, he chooses the solitary life of a lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock to escape the world and its conflict. However, he soon learns that there is one part of the world he can't live without – the sassy, beautiful Izzy Graysmark, a local from the nearest port and country town of Partaguese. They have a happy marriage in all respects apart from one: they're haunted by their inability to have children. Therefore, one day, when a boat washes up onto Janus bearing a dead man and a crying baby, apparent salvation arrives too.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857521004</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ali Smith
|title=There but for the
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=If you are the type of reader who thinks that the mark of a good book is a plot, then step away from this book: you'll hate it. Ali Smith's intricately clever and often funny ''There but for the'' is very much at the literary end of the fiction spectrum. Not in terms of the language used though - Smith uses simple language, and a '''LOT''' of puns, and if anything, as the title suggests, she's more interested in the little words. It's playful and strangely affecting, while at the same time a little affected and often slightly irritatingly free flowing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241143403</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ros Barber
|title=The Marlowe Papers
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''Stop. Pay attention. Hear a dead man speak''
These are the attention grabbing words that Ros Barber addresses to the reader at the start of this unique tale. Marlowe was a playwright with a reputation not only for his plays but also for his lifestyle. His gory death from a stab wound through the eye is one of the many contentious points in a brief but very lively life.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444737384</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Erin Kelly
|title=The Sick Rose
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Paul had the passion and academic grades to become a teacher. However, his plans started the slow slide away from his grasp after his father died and he and his mother were forced to move to the rough, Grays Reach Estate and an even rougher school. It seemed that his days as bully's target had ended when Daniel, illiterate and street-wise, stepped in as protector. All Paul had to do was cover for Daniel's disability in class... at least that was all he needed to do at first.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444703854</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jennifer Egan
|title=The Invisible Circus
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Set in 1978, 18-year old Phoebe is living with her mother in San Francisco. Her father died some years ago, before her elder sister, Faith, a charismatic idealist and true child of the 1960s left for Europe where she died in 1970. Faith was always her father's favourite, While Phoebe's older brother, Barry, is now a computer millionaire, on leaving high school Phoebe decides on a whim to follow her sister's path to Europe in the hope of finding what happened in Italy and to finally understand her beloved sister's actions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780331223</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lauren Groff
|title=Arcadia
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Back in the seventies a group of idealists (well, hippies) founded a commune in the grounds of Arcadia House, a decaying mansion in western New York State. In the early days the renovation of the house and the funding of the commune was hopeful, ''energising'' - the American dream encapsulated in bricks, crops and hard work - but as with many, if not most, such enterprises it was not to last. Power corrupted, personalities changed and commitment waivered. We see the commune and the people who made it through the early, hard-working days to its precarious peak and into its inevitable decline.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434019623</amazonuk>
}}
