Lead Review (The Weekenders)

• Book: The Weekenders
• Location: North Carolina
• Author: Mary Kay Andrews

"No.1 in the Raskine House Trilogy A packed storyline with GLASGOW in the 1960s at its heart. It’s rough, it’s tough,..."

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Lead Review (The Other Side of Paradise)

• Book: The Other Side of Paradise
• Location: French Riviera (Cote d'Azur), Northumberland
• Author: Vanessa Beaumont

"This novel should be a real success, if there is any justice in the publishing world. It is a while since..."

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Lead Review (Nothing Else)

• Book: Nothing Else
• Location: Caribbean, Hull, New York City (NYC), The Atlantic Ocean
• Author: Louise Beech

"Nothing Else by award-winning author Louise Beech is set variously in Hull, New York and, ultimately, on a cruise ship (sailing..."

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Lead Review (Goodnight Tokyo)

• Book: Goodnight Tokyo
• Location: Tokyo
• Author: Atsuhiro Yoshida, Haydn Trowell (Translator)

"  The concept of these short, interconnected stories is interesting. Matsui drives a taxi at night and every morning (as it..."

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Lead Review (Brotherless Night)

• Book: Brotherless Night
• Location: Jaffna, Sri Lanka
• Author: V V Ganeshananthan

"Longlisted for the Women’s Prize (Fiction) 2024 AND shortlisted for the prestigious Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. I have recently visited..."

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Lead Review (Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies)

• Book: Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies
• Location: Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Rome
• Author: Catherine Mack

"2.5* This novel takes the reader at a right old clip from Rome to Pompeii, through Sorrento, stopping along the Amalfi..."

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Lead Review (Notes from an Island)

• Book: Notes from an Island
• Location: Klovharun
• Author: Thomas Teal (Translator), Tove Jansson, Tuulikki Pietilå

"Tove Jansson is probably best known as the creator of the Moomins, a family of trolls, who are white, round fairy-tale..."

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Lead Review (Split)

• Book: Split
• Location: Split
• Author: Alida Bremer, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp (Translator)

"The setting is Split, Yugoslavia in 1936. Europe is on the brink of war, though that eventuality is not yet certain...."

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Lead Review (The Djinn’s Apple)

• Book: The Djinn’s Apple
• Location: Baghdad
• Author: Djamila Morani

"Djamila Morani has set The Djinn’s Apple in Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth century. It was a time..."

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Lead Review (A Complicated Matter)

• Book: A Complicated Matter
• Location: Gibraltar, London, Witney
• Author: Anne Youngson

"Rose Dunbar is a daughter of mixed heritage and feels very much at home in Gibraltar. She looks after her mother..."

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