Review: ‘Who’s to blame?’, by Jane Marlow

Published by: River Grove Books

Publication date: 18th October 2016

I.S.B.N.: 9781632991041

Blurb

Set during the mid-1800s in the vast grain fields of Russian, Who Is to Blame? follows the lives of two star-crossed serfs, Elizaveta and Feodor, torn apart by their own families and the Church while simultaneously trapped in the inhumane life of poverty to which they were born.

At the other end of the spectrum, Count Maximov and his family struggle to maintain harmony amidst a tapestry of deception and debauchery woven by the Count’s son. The plot twists further when the Tsar emancipates twenty million serfs from bondage while the rural gentry’s life of privilege and carelessness has taken its final bow and much of Russia’s nobility faces possible financial ruin.

Review: ‘The Painted Ocean’ by Gabriel Packard

Published by: Corsair

Publication Date: 3rd March 2016

I.S.B.N: 9781472151148

Review: ‘The Private Life of Mrs Sharma’ by Ratika Kapur

 

Renuka Sharma is a dutiful wife, mother, and daughter-in-law holding the fort in a modest rental in Delhi while her husband tries to rack up savings in Dubai. Working as a receptionist and committed to finding a place for her family in the New Indian Dream of air-conditioned malls and high paid jobs at multi-nationals, life is going as planned until the day she strikes up a conversation with an uncommonly self-possessed stranger at a Metro station. Because while Mrs Sharma may espouse traditional values, India is changing all around her, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she came out of her shell a little, would it?

With equal doses of humour and pathos, The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is a sharp-eyed examination of the clashing of tradition and modernity, from a dramatic new voice in Indian fiction

ISBN: 9781408873649
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Price: £12.99

Review: Donny and Ursula Save the World by Sharon Weil

2013
Passing4Normal Press

Ursula has never had a orgasm, she has drank an awful lot of wheatgrass juice though. She belly dances badly and keeps bowls of mushrooms all over the house.
Donny lives alone with his comic book collection, and has never touched wheatgrass. Until he meets Ursula.

Review: The Bookstore by Deborah Meylar

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ)

 

Esme Garland is an English girl in New York. She is studying art history at Columbia University after gaining a first from Cambridge. After a shaky start she’s loving life in New York. She has made friends, met a wealthy boyfriend, Mitchell van Leuven, and more importantly found a great second hand book shop, The Owl. Unfortunately she gets pregnant and dumped before she can tell Mitchell. Desperate for work she gets a job at The Owl. Staff and regular customers help her through the trials and tribulations of the next year.