Changes

|isbnauthor=B0CDZRGT1MDavid Chadwick|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C WallfischHeadload of Napalm

|genre=Short StoriesThrillers|summary=It''Got a minute to be amused, entertaineds September 1973 in Hicks, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super shortCalifornia. None Hicks is more than 300 words. You can read one in a flash.''''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give Mojave desert town of a flavour few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a fully rounded little story if that story is told significant drive away. Not much happens in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the flash fictions in a book of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that main local employers but otherwise, there really isn't a fixed definition s not much of flash fiction but that for this collectionnote other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limituntil... That's about a single page in your average paperback.|isbn= B0D321VJ76

|isbnauthor=1732898766Tom Percival|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Wrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus theyWill're running for their lives s life is difficult, in the Forest a multitude of Fine Reputeways. Their greatest fear He is bullied because he has come about: 'the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. Hewrong shoes's right behind them, spewing hot, sour milk from he has the wrong shoes because his nostrils. (Please dondad can't try this at home: it wonwork and doesn't end well.) Fortunatelyhave enough money for even the most basic of things like food, they were nearly and his dad can't work because he lost his job at Nobby Lobthe college, was working a cash-lolly in- hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and when dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a ladder tiny amount of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escapedhope. They climbed up He is good at art, and clings to the Tree Wee homes high up in moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Weesend of a long, Nester Nook and Granny Crannydark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122

|isbnauthor=1472263936Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria HislopA Letter to the Luminous Deep

|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to Greecea compelling premise. And this is one of them. She was alone: her mother|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008517061|title=Death in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= Former Metropolitan Police detective, Greek by birthJake Johnson, had left has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the family home future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and refused to returnher daughter Diana, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it as moving in together would be mean a pity if Helena grew lot of compromise: does Jake give up without knowing his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her grandparents reservations about whether or understanding not this is the future she wants for herself and her Greek heritage. daughter? Her trip to For the family apartment moment they’re enjoying life in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother present and putting the family's maid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to future on the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestorsback burner.

|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow1786482126|title=VerticalThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. Therewas no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's something about tall buildings that just captures my imagination. Who difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't love , that she is pregnant with his child as a good view from up highresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, after all? Even the drabbest office building not least because Ruth is somewhere I'm intrigued prone to get inside if it's 40 stories tallsudden bouts of sickness. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued.|isbn= 1803363991

|authorisbn=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold0008551324|title=Finding BearThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called BearIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Back home, things on Neither side likes or has any respect for the domestic other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and family front are he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a bit advanced, but not perfect missing person is buried and who was responsible for herdeath. This person, he promises, is someone big and so can easily it will be ignored when word comes through from worth the islands Bear was last left onpolice doing what he wants. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and woundedto get an early parole date. Desperate Not much to make sure heask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's OK, she and her father return even prepared to do the Arctic and hope other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that in a world of very white DS Max Craigie and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continueanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=0008582017

|isbn=18041832100008405026|title=No ReserveA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Felix FrancisJane Casey|rating=45|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Thirty-fourIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up for auctioninvestigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, but Peter RadwayHelena, the chairmanand her father are dead in their bed. Initially, hadnit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there't arrived, so he continued his sessions something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. To say that he What looked as though it was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would going to be an understatement. A lovely animal open- but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industryshut case is now a complex double murder. Jennings was in one of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed Kerrigan is convinced that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figure. Both were happy that they had insurance explanation lies in place. The following morningRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, the horse was dead in its stallUna Burt) are less convinced.

|authorisbn=Sarah Wilson0571379877|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet

|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line Edward Jevons is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do a working-class young man, obsessed with your one wild his upper-class friends, Robert and precious life?Stanza. Robert'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely thiss a theatre director.'' IHe'm lucky enough to be living my one wild s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and precious life the way I want uses Edward torun errands for him. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes OliverEdward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us drunkenly confided how he feels to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be livingRobert. Her answer is an unequivocal Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he'no, we are s not''. Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the fact that we are nottwo of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1785633848

|isbnauthor=1839948493Jo Callaghan|title=A World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa UribeLeave No Trace|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=In When a man is found crucified on the interests top of full disclosure, I must tell you that I'm a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decadeshill in Nuneaton, I've never met one I didn't trust and I've loved most of them. I wish I felt DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the same about human beings. Socase alongside her sidekick, any book about dogs, I'm going to sit down and devourthe AI detective Lock. Then IIt'm going to go back and read it properlys their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. And so it was But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with ''A World a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of Dogs'', with ninety-six pages devoted entirely unwanted attention to my four-legged friendstheir AI Future Policing project. Author Carlie Sorosiak found Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the accidental owner case and, potentially, out of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since then.career?|isbn=139851120X

|isbn=14059516801399613073|title=The Safe HouseMoral Injuries|author=Cameron WardChristie Watson|rating=4.5

|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OKOlivia, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friendLaura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, Rupert) which is a bonus when you aim to caretake be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a luxury property in the Australian outback for perfectionist and a couple of monthstrauma doctor. After Anjali is the free spirit of the problems group and shebecomes a GP. When we first meet them they'd had re at work, a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it seemed like just the break she needed's going to end in tragedy. She was no longer a data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess We don't know who was returning to suffered the country of her birth and in need of tragedy or the space to get over consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the traumatic end of her relationship with Charlesthree friends. A few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the ticketThis time, it's their teenage children who are involved.

|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison0241636604|title=Bad DollsThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=ItIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you's been some time since I've read any horrorre unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing A hoodie and jeans replaces the books from a boy I fancied at school pin-stripe suit and scaring myself half silly his background is the East End, where he was familiar with them violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear London School of the vampires outside! Economics. Don't worry Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - this short story collection isn't like and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that! most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It doesnwas his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter't have those jump scares, and I didns Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It't have s twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to read it during daylight hours only! the English country village where she grew up. But it is creepyShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womenCarole's close friend, living normal livesArthur Crockleford, is dead and that at the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least . Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in partbusiness together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the horrors arises from very normal situations such as man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a breakupcafe, trying a new dieting appmet and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, going to a hen party who was murdered) and Freya and a coping with griefJames have now divorced.|isbn=1803363932

|isbn=1394159544AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Recycling for DummiesAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Sarah WinklerBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=''Recycling one ton of plastic can save Opening up to 16.3 barrels new ways of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton thinking about the shape of paper can save 17 trees from being cut downthings to come.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years.

As a just-post-WWII babyI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I faced must confess that there have been more than a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part few decades of technology in my DNAlifetime. NEVER throw away anything that might I've kept up reasonably well with what'possiblys advantageous to me but I'' come in handy now or in m left with the future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something feeling that would serve the purposeit's all getting away from me. Almost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test Some of 'Is this absolutely essential?' it is - frankly - quite frightening. On the other handOf course, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm looking at you) and dropping it in reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the kerbside binlatest conspiracy theorist. Yes, I needed people I knew I could go searching on the internet - trust and get conflicting advice - but what who could deliver information in a way I needed was a recycling biblecould understand.s

|author=Lauren St JohnSunny Singh|title=Finding WonderHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Roo's life The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has become almost impossibly difficultsuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Her mum died when she was youngHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and now she finds herself awoken Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the middle of the night hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by the police banging events, and keeps on venturing out of her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way room to the corner shop try to buy a lottery ticket. When asked capture what other family she has, she can only name 's happened through her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly ofphotography. But she has no one elseAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, and so off she goes their friendship grows as Abhi tries to live with help her unreliable aunt. Things continue keep safe and they both wait to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!terrorists.|isbn=0571376169086154742X

|isbn=14483097431529153298|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)List of Suspicious Things|author=Caro RamsayJennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of ScotlandIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, five members of a wealthy honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family are found , though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says Miv's upset because she's overheard that if her father wants to move the stone family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is removed from Otterburn Housea frightening, foreign place, death will followbest avoided. The only suspects are known Satanists but in many waysFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's an easy conclusion given not worried about the dangers or that two of them her Mum'discovered' the body. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in s stopped talking - to 'shadow' himanyone.

|authorisbn= Kay Chronister1398524085|title= Desert Creatures|rating= 4|genre= Dystopian Fiction|summary= With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is a robotic takeover, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaust, this genre is a way for humans to cathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hope.|isbn=1803364998}}{{FrontpageHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Christopher Fowler|title=Word MonkeyNicci French

|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary= ItCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Angliafiftieth birthday party but never turned up. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour of going to my beach hutHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. The weather closed inare all worried but - strangely - her husband, rain arrivedAlec, and I decided is not to do that either. When I finished reading this bookShortly afterwards, I realised it was because (a) I wanted to finish reading this book Etty and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alertsGreg, find the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler body of Greg'was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosiss father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. There is something very strange about being made It was an easy assumption for the police to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you make that he is dying, Duncan had murdered Charlie and you know then committed suicide when he actually is at that point, because he doescouldn't stand the guilt. He didThe Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|isbn=0857529625

|isbn=15290776991035906708|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)Diva|author=Ann CleevesDaisy Goodwin

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''It's all bloody peculiarWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, isn't itbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, Sir?'' Well yesNew York, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked December 1923 and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close only moved to the village of Greystone, in DevonAthens when she was thirteen. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrityHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas'to make it more manageable in the States. I ''nearly'' said 'allWhen she was back in Athens -round good egg' but as we'll find out, he supposedly so that she could be more than get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a little bit close with money mother who mercilessly exploited her and his background isn't exactly an open bookmade no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?

|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRChristopher Edge|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Kit Lucas and Teal were just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at home, bored but warmtheir local cinema, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab place that has the nickname of silvery ice drifted onto the shoreline'The Black Hole'. On top All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of the ice was a polar bear. exciting films, and many, many snacks! As the ice bumped onto the sandHowever, as the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the ice. Kit was all for making a run for itmovie starts, but Teal knew they very quickly realise that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple something about this new film format is very different, and then anotherthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. He obviously needed But as they lurch from one film genre to be taken home the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on ? Will they ever get back to the bus cinema, and given a good meal and somewhere to sleep. What else would you dotheir real lives?|isbn=1839942738

|author=Claire NorthRachel Greenlaw|title=House of OdysseusCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre= Literary Fiction Teens|summary= ''What could matter more than love?I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.''

The follow-up to Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left offwrecks. In the palace of OdysseusMira, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without like her mother before her husband, is one of the seven who sailed swim out to war at Troy survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and then by divine intervention never returned homeany treasure that lies within. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the throne of wrecking, they capture the Western Isles. Having survived – politically island's leader and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to IthacaMira's shoresfather. Desperate to save him from death, Queen Penelope Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is on the brink as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a fragile peacefamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. One that shatters however with With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the return heart of Orestesthe smuggler's territory, King Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of Mycenae, her home and his sister Elektra, seeking refugethe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=03565160750008664730

|isbnauthor=1529427045James Sherwood Metts|title=The Girl in the Eagle's Talons|author=Karin SmirnoffPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they''Life has more re paid to do and other tasks that took time to offer than people - prime numbers for example''accomplish. Lisbeth Salander has headed north Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to the small town think of Gasskasother, where the so-far-untapped natural resources of the area have sparked a gold rush. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forward. Salander's niece's mother is the latest woman in the area new ways to have vanished without tracespend time, along came an awful pandemic. It Life was only pretty much shut down and, along with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware of , all the part Salander played in her father's deathmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finns. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to throw around on be different from his father, a Rolex watch, vintage wines drunk and a state-chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends his artistic passions all failed miserably and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns who had no intention endless crises of going on to University, unlike our storyteller who had a place at Wolverton College in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious universityself confidence. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation So Tim applied himself to visit Ralph at his homestudies, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetcultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|author=Dean KoontzA G Slatter|title=The House at the End of the World|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there is no one on your side, you can either suck it up, saddle up and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly in a small chain of tiny dots on the map and live out your days in peace and solitude. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name Briar Book of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankind.|isbn=1662453159}}{{Frontpage|author=T Kingfisher|title=ThornhedgeDead

|summary=''You had There's a right part of me that wants to retake your placekeep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''

T KingfisherWithin a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's latest novella is , a lovely reimagining family of a fairytale that is well known witches who protect the town and well belovedthe wider world from the Darklands. But whilst there Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a princess trapped in a towersteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, sleeping under an eternal enchantmentthe town's leader, Thornhedge is not and Ellie takes her place beside her story. InsteadAs challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, our protagonist is Toadlingputting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who was stolen away by fairies when she was a new-born baby to trust and secreted away determine what to do as the land of fairie where her childhood was spent being taught how Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to draw magic from her veins and cast spellssurvive, is under threat.|isbn=18033642381803364548

|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX1529900360|title=Stories 2The Ghost Orchid|author=Richard F WalkerJonathan Kellerman

|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary= This is Richard F WalkerIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's second volume of short storiesfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. There are thirteen in all His assertions that there were only open-and I took something from each -shut cases which didn't need the help of thema psychologist only worked for a while. There isn Finally, it was Robin, Delaware't a single one s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that doesn't deserve to be among the others or brings down man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the overall qualityswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. It can be tricky He was the heir to review short stories without giving too much away, so I'll just pick two an Italian shoe empire and she is married to talk about an extremely rich man and I think they give a general flavourit's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|isbn=17876366071529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The TrapSecret Life of a Vet|author=Catherine Ryan HowardSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for His father was a way to get home. Some are lucky GP and manage Rowlands didn't want to get one of follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus strain that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesbeing on-call put on his father's life. The woman all regret When he was seventeen he took the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light opportunity of 'doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the missing women'job for him. For one young womanBefore long, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her homehe was at Liverpool University. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her It hadn't - as with so many students - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use been hisdream since he was a child. ThereIf anything, he's no option but d wanted to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoesbe a professional footballer.

|isbn=14059571740861541774|title=A Death at the PartyNye of Pheasants|author=Amy StuartSteve Burrows

|summary=From the first page, we know that Nadine WalshDCI Domenic Jejeune's party will not end wellclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. The victim Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to call murder the ambulance he so desperately needsman. What we don't know is who Now he could be facing the man is or why Nadine prefers to have him diedeath penalty. I'd better give you Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a little more background so that you can understand whatdiplomatic incident and wouldn's happeningt help Danny at all.

|author=Tania UnsworthAlexander McCall Smith|title=Nowhere IslandThe Perfect Passion Company

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet GilThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Just twelveNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, he as Ness is so determined planning to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find take a home trip to Canada to get away for himselfa while. He Katie is en route coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to yet another fosterercome home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, when he jumps into bringing us to an anonymous carEdinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and lets it ride him the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to his futurecharm. That future seems to be Katie has no experience in running a business, or in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – match-making, but that someone lives with his brother Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a camp on an island between collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the two directions 'long, cosy afternoons in front of a motorwaythe fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough ten to provide for their safety twenty hours and seclusionmore than twenty hours. ThemAll the projects are attractive, modern and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullyuseable. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=1804540080I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.

|isbnauthor=0008530025Dean Koontz|title=Murder in the Family|author=Cara HunterThe Bad Weather Friend

|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather, Luke Ryder, in the garden of their West London homeBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He had an injury on the back of loses his head which could have happened if job, he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating loses his fiancee, and his face had taken was obviously deliberatehouse gets trashed. Twenty years laterOh, no one and someone has been charged with delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his murder home, and it's now possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the subject of ''Infamous''thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a true-crime shownice person. A group of experts really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been brought together sent to review the evidence and to take the investigation furtherhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. More to the point, they're Spike is going to do this live on cameratake care of Benny, episode by episode. Thereand will certainly take care of Benny's no dump of the whole box set - enemies, if he, Benny, and no shortage of cliffhangers. ItHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's compelling viewingwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491

|author=Judith EagleAdam Stower|title=The Stolen SongbirdMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Caro's mother, Murray is supposed to be a world-famous whistlerhumble, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad tidy and is now missing. Her other motherfriendly cat, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So one who is going able to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated sleep and eat and eat and confused sleep and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boywell, Albie, who is living there toowhatever takes his fancy next of the two. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of he's a bird hidden away inside her mumbad magician's old suitcasecat, and all across London so his favourite bun has been turned into a fearsome gang hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the Snakes are thieving artworks regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and terrorising peoplewhiffs. Is the painting somehow linked This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to the gang? And what has happened to Carobe honest, but he's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=05713631480008561249

|isbn=1529195977B0C47LV1PC|title=None of this is TrueFragility|author=Lisa JewellMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=On her 45th birthdayCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in is the question should you make it? Or is the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fair. Shequestion if you did, too, was out celebrating her 45th birthday, only she was just with her husband, Walter. It turns out would it land? The catch is that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins, they were the answer for both born in St Mary's hospitalcould well be.... no. That's where the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are in the midst of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst they 're not 'Fragility'exactly'' rowdyis set as the city of Portland, they're enjoying themselves. JosieOregon, on cautiously begins to emerge from the other hand, holds her handbag close to her tummy and you get restrictions imposed during the sense that Walter's not too happy. He's not used to spending this much money on a meal - but it is Josie's birthday after all.covid pandemic