Category: Contemporary fiction
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One Last Time by Helga Flatland – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Anne’s life is rushing to an unexpected and untimely end. But her diagnosis of terminal cancer isn’t just a shock for her – and for her daughter Sigrid and granddaughter Mia – it shines a spotlight onto their fractured and uncomfortable relationships. A spur-of-the moment trip to France acts as a catalyst for…
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This is How We Are Human by Louise Beech – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Sebastian James Murphy is twenty years, six months and two days old. He loves swimming, fried eggs and Billy Ocean. Sebastian is autistic. And lonely. Veronica wants her son Sebastian to be happy, and she wants the world to accept him for who he is. She is also thinking about paying a professional…
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Everything Happens For A Reason by Katie Allen – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Mum-to-be Rachel did everything right, but it all went wrong. Her son, Luke, was stillborn and she finds herself on maternity leave without a baby, trying to make sense of her loss. When a misguided well-wisher tells her that ‘everything happens for a reason’, she becomes obsessed with finding that reason, driven by…
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There’s Only One Danny Garvey by David F. Ross – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Danny Garvey was a sixteen-year old footballing prodigy. Professional clubs clamoured to sign him, and a glittering future beckoned. And yet, his early promise remained unfulfilled, and Danny is back home in the tiny village of Barshaw to manage the struggling junior team he once played for. What’s more, he’s hiding a secret…
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How To Belong by Sarah Franklin – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB In the follow up to her acclaimed novel Shelter, Sarah Franklin returns to the Forest of Dean, this time exploring what it means to belong to a rural community in a rapidly changing world. Jo grew up in the Forest of Dean, but she was always the one destined to leave for a…
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The Pretenders by Agatha Zaza – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB ‘I’m perfectly happy lying to myself…If it means getting to stay with you.’ Jasper is ready to surprise his brother; Holly is ready to celebrate their engagement. Anne tags along for fear of missing out, and John might just be going for another drink. But Edmund and Ovidia had other plans for their…
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This Green And Pleasant Land by Ayisha Malik – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB For years Bilal Hasham and his wife Mariam have lived contented, quiet lives in the sleepy rural village of Babbel’s End. Now all that is about to change. On her deathbed, Bilal’s mother reaches for his hand. Instead of whispering her final prayers, she gives him a task: build a mosque in his…
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Everyone Dies Famous by Len Joy – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB As a tornado threatens their town, a stubborn old man who has lost his son teams up with a troubled young soldier to deliver a jukebox to the wealthy developer having an affair with the soldier’s wife. It’s July 2003 and the small town of Maple Springs, Missouri is suffering through a month-long…
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Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB You never say the right thing. You’re a disappointment to everyone. You’re a far cry from beautiful – and your thoughts are ugly too. You seem bound to fail, bound to break. But you know what it is to laugh with your best friend, to feel the first tentative tingles of attraction, to…
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Three-Fifths by John Vercher – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Pittsburgh, 1995. Twenty-two year old Bobby Saraceno is a biracial black man, passing for white. Bobby has hidden his identity from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned from prison a newly radicalized white supremacist. During the night of their reunion, Bobby witnesses Aaron mercilessly assault…
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Bad Love by Maame Blue – Audiobook Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Bad Love tells the story of Ekuah Danquah, a London-born Ghanaian who is 18 years old when she falls in love for the first time. As both narrator and protagonist now in her 30s, she delves into her memories of angst and confusion that dismantled her experience of that first, impactful romantic relationship.…
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If Cats Could Talk Would They Cry? by Anatoli Scholz – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB One morning Julie wakes up to find herself transformed into a cat. Around her nothing else seems to have changed, her little Parisian studio apartment still smelling of last night’s opened bottle of Bourgogne. The world is still turning. Julie stretches and yawns and decides to take a moment to relax in her…
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The Truants by Kate Weinberg – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB People disappear when they most want to be seen. Jess Walker, middle child of a middle-class family, has perfected the art of vanishing in plain sight. But when she arrives at a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies, her world flares with colour. Drawn into a tightly-knit group of rule…
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One Year Of Ugly by Caroline MacKenzie – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Having escaped crumbling, socialist Venezuela, Yola Palacios and her family are settling into their new under-the-radar life in Trinidad. But when the formidable* Aunt Celia dies, the Palacios discover that she’s been keeping one hell of a secret. She’s seriously in debt to a local criminal called Ugly, a debt that is now…
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Like A House On Fire by Caroline Hulse – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Things Stella and Jack have had blazing rows about: – Misquoting Jurassic Park. – Leaving a Coke can on the side of the bath. – Fitting car seats for their hypothetical kids. In other news, they’re getting divorced. But first, Stella’s mum is throwing a murder mystery party and – with her dad…
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The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Everybody lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth instead? Julian Jessop is living a lie. He’s lonely but refuses to speak to neighbours. He loved his wife when she was alive, but he didn’t tell her. (In fact, he wasn’t very kind to her at all.) He feels…
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Two Lives: Tales of Life, Love & Crime by A Yi – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Seven stories, seven whispers into the ears of life: A Yi’s unexpected twists of crime burst from the everyday, with glimpses of romance distorted by the weaknesses of human motive. A Yi employs his forensic skills to offer a series of portraits of modern life, both uniquely Chinese, and universal in their themes.…
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Happy Family by James Ellis – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Set in the near future, Happy Family is a darkly humorous tale about the filters and frames we use to shield ourselves from reality, and what might happen should we discard them. Germaine Kiecke was a foundling, an orphan, brought up by the infamous ‘Motherhood’ in a Belgian orphanage. Now she is a…
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The Last Cuckoo by Maria Frankland – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB Do you listen to your mother? Even after she’s dead? Anna Hardaker is following you … This seemingly innocent Tweet fills Jamie Hardaker with confusion and fear. After all, his mother Anna has been dead for nearly three weeks. What follows is an orchestrated Twitter campaign to lead those Anna loved, and didn’t…
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Paper Sparrows by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi – Book Review
PUBLISHERS BLURB The summer of 2006, and nineteen-year-old Layla returns to Lebanon. When she arrives she finds that her troubled younger brother is missing. She heads to Beirut to search for him, but her quest is cut short when Beirut comes under fire. A new war has begun, and she is trapped in the middle…
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