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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
{{Frontpage
|author=David Chadwick
|title=Headload of Napalm
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is a Mojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. Not much happens in Hicks. A silver mine and a defence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, there's not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is quiet, until....
|isbn= B0D321VJ76
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{{Frontpage
|author=V CastroTom Percival|title=The Haunting of AlejandraWrong Shoes|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorConfident Readers|summary=Will''This was s life is difficult, in a part multitude of her past that had to stop with herways. She would be He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the one to confront this.wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesnAt some point during her lifet have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, Alejandra and his dad can't work because he lost herself. She feels as if she is playing parts for others his job at the college, was working a cash-in her life – her husband -hand job on a building site and her children – without ever giving any thought to her own desires, her own future, her own identityhad an accident. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing Throw into that there is something fundamentally wrongmix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. For invisible to all but Alejandra And yet, there is he still has a darkness threatening to consume hertiny amount of hope. More He is good at art, and more she clings to the moments of joy when he is visited by a ghostdrawing, that feel like a weeping woman in light at the end of a fraying white gown dripping with waterlong, who leaves distress in her wakedark tunnel.|isbn=18033656171398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard KadreySylvie Cathrall|title=The Pale House DevilA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=HorrorScience Fiction|summary=Ford and Neuland There are few greater joys than a couple of, well, guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as which lives up to a couple of strange detectives! One of them compelling premise. And this is living, you see, and the other is undead, and so one of them kills the living, and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). They're on a job in New York that goes badly, and so they head out to the West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to keep them going. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, and a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=18033638940356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Cooper0008517061|title=The Taming of the CatDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=3.54|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Once againFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, mice are pitched against cathas settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. In this case, principally, we have Brie There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the mousefuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, up against Gorgonzola the cat – Livia and in case you're seeing a connectionher daughter Diana, they live as moving in together would mean a cheese shop lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and therefore all the names used here seem relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese future she wants for bedding – he displays it as art herself and makes stories based on the visuals on it. her daughter? And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie For the top dog moment they’re enjoying life in the mouse community, though, as all present and putting the others had future on the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distractedback burner. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M1786482126|title=Super Short Stories: Flash FictionThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Mark C WallfischElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Short StoriesCrime|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'Got apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a minute to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super shortdoorway. None is more than 300 words There was no skull. You can read one in Was this a flashritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn'''Some are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if t, that story she is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions in pregnant with his child as a book result of them? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn't a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a the one night they spent together some three hundred word limitmonths ago. That's about a single page in your average paperback Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17328987660008551324|title=The Adventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk DragonDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus theyIt're running s unusual for their lives in anyone from the Hardie family to approach the Forest of Fine Reputepolice. Their greatest fear Neither side likes or has come about: any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the Sour Milk Dragon police where the body of a missing person is chasing themburied and who was responsible for her death. He's right behind themThis person, spewing hothe promises, sour milk from is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his nostrilssentence and to get an early parole date. (Please don't try this at home: Not much to ask, is it won? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't end well.) Fortunately, they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - think so and when a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escaped. They climbed up she's even prepared to do the Tree Wee homes high up in the tangled woods where they lived other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook and Granny Crannyhim is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14722639360008405026|title=The FigurineA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Victoria HislopJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made 's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her first trip to Greecebed one summer night. She was alone: never found and the investigation ground to a halt. Now, her mother, Greek by birthHelena, had left the family home and refused to returnher father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but Mary and Hamish (Helenathere's parents) felt something about the positioning of the bodies that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritageboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Her trip What looked as though it was going to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the first of several annual visits. She grew to love her grandmother and the family's maid, Dina, but was wary an open- and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannisshut case is now a complex double murder. He was proud of his close connections to Kerrigan is convinced that the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helenaexplanation lies in Rosalie's red hair and green eyes - inherited from her fatherdisappearance: others (such as Derwent's Scottish ancestorsboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow0571379877|title=VerticalThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= ThereEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's something about tall buildings that just captures my imaginationa theatre director. Who doesn He't s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a good view from up high, after all? Even relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the drabbest office building two of them kissing in a dark passageway.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jo Callaghan|title=Leave No Trace|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=When a man is somewhere I'm intrigued found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to get inside if itthe case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's 40 stories talltheir first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. So But when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intriguedthere is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn= 1803363991139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold1399613073|title=Finding BearMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]Olivia, April had been Laura and Anjali met on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people the first day of medical school and their friendship would venture, and finding keep them inseparable for a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with quarter of a polar bear – that she called Bearcentury. Back homeOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, things on the domestic and family front are which is a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily bonus when you aim to be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left ona cardiothoracic surgeon. For Laura is a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot perfectionist and woundeda trauma doctor. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to Anjali is the Arctic and hope that in a world free spirit of very white the group and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and dangerous thing – alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the friendship can continuethree friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=0008582017
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18041832100241636604|title=No ReserveThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Felix FrancisGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldnIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you't have been on re unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the rostrum when the colt pin- as yet unnamed - came up for auction, but Peter Radway, stripe suit and his background is the chairmanEast End, hadn't arrivedwhere he was familiar with violence, so he continued his sessionpoverty and injustice. To say that he There was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatement. A lovely animal no posh public school on his CV - but three million pounds? Two men he had been bidding against each otherto the London School of Economics. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were wellStevenson is bright - extremely bright -known and respected in the racing industryhe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Jennings was in one of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and their conversation revealed He also realised that the horse had been deliberately bid up most rich people expect poor people to that figurebe stupid. Both were happy that they had insurance in placeIt was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. The following morningEventually, the horse was dead in its stallthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Wilson1035021803|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back The Antique Hunter's Guide to connection in a fractured worldMurder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the one in which English country village where she asks grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya'What is it you plan to do with your one wild s former mentor and precious life?Carole'' I get to love that line so much because my answer s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild dead and precious life the way I want circumstances seem suspicious, tosay the least. Sarah Wilson is equally luckyArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. In her book that takes Oliver's words Even though they were in business together as her title (though I can't see that antique hunters, she acknowledges the source) she pushes us has not felt able to think about whether we really ''are'' living be near the life we want – man or pursue the best life that we could be livingprofession she loved. Her answer is an unequivocal ''noAfter the split, we are not''. Don't care what you're doingshe worked in a cafe, she thinks you met and married James (weon the rebound from the love of her life, Iwho was murdered) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are notand Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=1785633848
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1839948493AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=A World of DogsAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Carlie Sorosiak Benjamin Greenaway and Luisa UribeStephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Science Fiction|summary=In ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the interests shape of full disclosure, I must tell you that Ithings to come.''m a sucker for dogs. In nearly eight decades,  I've never met one I didnheard it said that 'technology't trust and Iis what happens after you've loved most of themre eighteen. Well, I wish I felt the same about human beingsmust confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. So, any book about dogs, I'm going ve kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to sit down and devour. Then me but I'm going to go back and read left with the feeling that it properly's all getting away from me. And so Some of it was with ''A World of Dogs'', with ninetyis -six pages devoted entirely to my fourfrankly -legged friendsquite frightening. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself Of course, I could research the accidental owner of an American Dingo - shepossibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they's learned quite re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a lot about dogs since thenway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405951680Sunny Singh|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friend, Rupert) to caretake The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury property hotel in the Australian outback for an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a couple of monthsterrorist group. After Hiding from the problems she'd had at workterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, it seemed like just the break she neededhotel manager. She was no longer a data analyst As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the Metropolitan police residents who are still alive in London: she was Jess the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who was returning refuses to the country be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her birth and in need of the space room to try to get over the traumatic end of capture what's happened through her relationship with Charlesphotography. A few weeks in Although they only ever talk over the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the ticketterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rachel Harrison1529153298|title=Bad DollsThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesGeneral Fiction|summary=It's been some time since 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Imean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv've read any horrors family, though. Women have been disappearing. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen KingWell, they've been murdered, borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them but to the point that I couldnhave 'disappeared' doesn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! sound quite so frightening. DonMiv't worry - this short story collection isns upset because she't like s overheard that! her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. It doesnWhen you't have those jump scaresre from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, and I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! best avoided. But it is creepyFor Miv, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that these are stories about womenmove would mean leaving her best friend, living normal livesSharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that at least in part, . She's not worried about the horrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, going dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to a hen party and a coping with griefanyone.|isbn=1803363932
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13941595441398524085|title=Recycling for DummiesHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Sarah WinklerNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''Recycling one ton of plastic can save s fiftieth birthday party but never turned up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill Her children, sons Niall, it will take between 6 months Paul and 2 years to decomposeOllie and her daughter, Etty. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a justare all worried but -poststrangely -WWII babyher husband, I faced a dilemma: reducingAlec, reusing and recycling is part of my DNAnot. NEVER throw away anything that might Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg''possibly'' come in handy now or s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the futureriver. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something It was an easy assumption for the police to make that would serve the purpose. Almost everything can be used one more time Duncan had murdered Charlie and any purchase must pass the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?' On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - Ithen committed suicide when he couldn'm looking at you) and dropping it in t stand the kerbside binguilt. Yes, I could go searching The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on the internet - with their lives and get conflicting advice - but wonder about what I needed was a recycling biblereally happened.s
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lauren St John1035906708|title=Finding WonderDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was youngborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and now only moved to Athens when she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her door father changed it to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the corner shop to buy a lottery ticketStates. When asked what other family she has, was back in Athens - supposedly so that she can only name could get appropriate training for her aunt, Joni, voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who she knows mercilessly exploited her dad didn't think very highly and made no secret of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse preference for Rooher elder sister, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1448309743Christopher Edge|title=The Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)|author=Caro RamsayBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=In Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the village nickname of Cronchie on the West coast 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of Scotlandexciting films, five members of a wealthy family are found murdered. and many, many snacks! The only item missing from However, as the home is the Devil Stone: myth says movie starts, they very quickly realise that if the stone something about this new film format is removed from Otterburn Housevery different, death will follow. The only suspects and they are known Satanists but in many ways, that's swept up into an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discoveredadventure they couldn' t even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the body. The Senior Investigating Office next, can they figure out what on earth is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappearsgoing on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in and to 'shadow' him.their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kay ChronisterRachel Greenlaw|title= Desert CreaturesCompass and Blade|rating= 43.5|genre= Dystopian FictionTeens|summary= With ''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanityremote and partially forgotten island, post-apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrillsurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Whether it is a robotic takeoverMira, a world devoid of water or a nuclear holocaustlike her mother before her, this genre is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a way for humans trap to cathartically experience their most existential fears. end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira'Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister s father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a new work family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many foreign islands to the heart of the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to find hopesave the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=18033649980008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher FowlerJames Sherwood Metts|title=Word MonkeyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= It's the first of August in the middle of Things have been a cool wet summer in East Anglia. I decided not to swim at bit sticky for the pool in favour of going to my beach hutEarthlings. The weather closed inAI and automation have been proceeding apace, rain arrived, and I decided not often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that eithertook time to accomplish. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted Just as they were beginning to get used to finish reading all this book technological change and (b) I did not want starting to think of other, new ways to do so anywhere near my shackspend time, along came an awful pandemic. No spoiler alerts, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'Life was' – pretty much shut down and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that pointalong with it, because he does. He didall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=08575296251736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699Matthew Tree|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yesTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening in the middle of an autumn gale, stayed for about a month drunk and then turned up, naked chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and dead, in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to the village of Greystone, in Devon. Rosco who had the status endless crises of a national treasure: a renowned adventurer, round the world sailor and all round ''celebrity''self confidence. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll find outSo Tim applied himself to his studies, he could be more cultivated his abilities rather than a little bit close with money his daydreams and his background isn't exactly an open bookset himself high but achievable ambitions. Where did he get the money for his first boat? How did he finance the trip?|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRA G Slatter|title=On The Briar Book of the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaDead
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingFantasy|summary=Kit and Teal were '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just beginning to wonder whether it was better to be at home, bored but warm, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when a large slab of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinemyself for however long I can. On top This secret magic of the ice was a polar bear. As the ice bumped onto the sandmy own, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from the ice. Kit was all for making a run for itmine, but Teal knew that the bear was hungry and gave him one apple and then anotherat last. He obviously needed I just want to be taken home on the bus and given enjoy it for a good meal and somewhere to sleepwhile. What else would you do?}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire North|title=House of Odysseus|rating=5|genre= Literary Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?''
The follow-up to Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the excellent Briar''Ithaca'' picks up s, a few months after where we left offfamily of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. In Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the palace of Odysseus, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues first non-witch to rule without be born into her husbandfamily for generations and as such since she was young, who sailed to war at Troy her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and then by divine intervention never returned homepotions. As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the throne of Briar Witch, the Western Islestown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Having survived – politically As challenges come her way left, right and physical – centre, Ellie uncovers the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought rare ability to Ithaca's shorescommunicate with the dead, Queen Penelope is on putting her at the brink heart of a fragile peacemaelstrom of chaos. One that shatters however with Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the return of OrestesBriar witches' legacy, King of Mycenaeeverything they have sacrificed to survive, and his sister Elektra, seeking refugeis under threat.|isbn=03565160751803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451529900360|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsGhost Orchid|author=Karin SmirnoffJonathan Kellerman|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'Life has more s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to offer than people ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open- prime numbers for example'and-shut cases which didn'. Lisbeth Salander has headed north to t need the small town help of Gasskasa psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, where Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the so-far-untapped natural resources of involvement was something that the area have sparked a gold rushman she loved needed. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardnext case did look simple, though. Salander's niece's mother is Two lovers were murdered in the latest woman swimming pool of a remote property in the area to have vanished without traceBel Air. It He was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian but the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is a remarkably gifted teenager who's unaware not the Italian. But which of them was the part Salander played in her father's death.primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Last Person in the WorldSecret Life of a Vet|author=Matthew TreeSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Our narrator was a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph FinnsSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph His father was a boarder GP and had money Rowlands didn't want to throw around on a Rolex watchfollow in his footsteps, vintage wines and a state-of-particularly when he considered thestrain that being on-art sound systemcall put on his father's life. Both were probably quite surprised when they became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns had no intention When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of going on to University, unlike our storyteller doing work experience with a family friend who had was a place at Wolverton College in Wellingford, vet and was convinced this was the UK's third most prestigious universityjob for him. Before going uplong, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his homedream since he was a child. If anything, Clouds Manor in West Dorsethe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0861541774|title=The House at the End A Nye of the WorldPheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and feel that there is no one on your sideformer colleague, you can either suck it upDanny Maik, saddle has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on with an island old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that sits snugly in he was facing a man armed with a small chain of tiny dots on the map knife - and live out your days in peace and solitudehe killed a Ghurka. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to start afresh on Jacob's Ladder; and all would light that suggested that he might have been planned to murder the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for man. Now he could be facing the pesky US Government occupying Ringrock, the neighbouring island death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science and quite possibly bringing about the end of wouldn't help Danny at all mankind.|isbn=1662453159
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|author=T KingfisherAlexander McCall Smith|title=ThornhedgeThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=''You had The Perfect Passion Company is a right dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to retake your placeall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service.'' T Kingfisher's latest novella Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a lovely reimagining of trip to Canada to get away for a fairytale that is well known and well belovedwhile. But whilst there Katie is coming out of a princess trapped in break up with a towerbad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, sleeping under bringing us to an eternal enchantmentEdinburgh we already love, Thornhedge is not her story. Instead, our protagonist is Toadlingthanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who was stolen away by fairies when she was quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a newbusiness, or in match-born baby making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and secreted away to the land of fairie where there's always her childhood was spent being taught how very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to draw magic from her veins and cast spells.lend a hand…|isbn=18033642381846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B0CCCVRSGX0811771741|title=Stories 2InstaKnits for Baby|author=Richard F WalkerMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesCrafts|summary= This is Richard F WalkerMelissa Leapman's second volume ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of short storiesknits from toys to blankets. There Some will be quick knits - others are thirteen of the 'long, cosy afternoons in all and I took something from each front of themthe fire' variety. There isn The projects are divided by the time they't a single one that doesn't deserve ll take to be among the others or brings down the overall quality. It can be tricky complete - less than five hours, five to review short stories without giving too much awayten hours, so I'll just pick two ten to talk about twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I think they give a general flavourwonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787636607Dean Koontz|title=The Trap|author=Catherine Ryan HowardBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=It's Benny is having a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs Oh, and looking for someone has delivered a way really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to get his home. Some are lucky , and manage to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the night bus thing that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. has trashed his house! The woman all regret the 'taxi problem'thing is, particularly in Benny is the light of 'the missing women'very last person to deserve all this bad luck. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her He is a long way short of her homenice person. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's deadA really nice person. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the bus driver delivery to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1405957174|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy Stuart|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=From the first pagehouse is a new friend, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well. The victim - a man - bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he so desperately needsclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. What we don't know Spike is who the man is or why Nadine prefers going to have him die. Itake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny'd better give you s enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a little more background so that you can understand whatwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's happeningwild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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|author=Tania UnsworthAdam Stower|title=Nowhere IslandMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelve, he Murray is so determined supposed to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – be a humble, tidy and find a home for himself. He friendly cat, one who is en route able to yet another fosterersleep and eat and eat and sleep and, when he jumps into an anonymous carwell, and lets it ride him to whatever takes his futurefancy next of the two. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals But he's a bad magician's cat, so his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in favourite bun has been turned into a camp on an island between hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the two directions of a motorwaycatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a place inaccessible world of frightening adventure and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusionwhiffs. ThemThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, and where a mute girl also finding a home theretroll hunter is expected – well, albeit so one much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combinebigger than Murray was, to be honest, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=18045400800008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008530025B0C47LV1PC|title=Murder in the FamilyFragility|author=Cara HunterMosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather, Luke RyderCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, in is the garden of their West London home. He had an injury on question should you make it? Or is the back of his head which could have happened question if he'd slipped down you did, would it land? The catch is that the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberateanswer for both could well be.... Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it. 's now the subject of ''InfamousFragility''is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, a true-crime show. A group of experts has been brought together to review the evidence and to take the investigation further. More cautiously begins to emerge from the point, they're going to do this live on camera, episode by episode. There's no dump of restrictions imposed during the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangers. It's compelling viewing.covid pandemic
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