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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean KoontzDavid Chadwick|title=The Bad Weather FriendHeadload of Napalm
|rating=4.5
|genre=ParanormalThrillers|summary=Benny It's September 1973 in Hicks, California. Hicks is having a terrifically bad dayMojave desert town of a few thousand people with its nearest neighbours of LA and Las Vegas both a significant drive away. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashedNot much happens in Hicks. Oh, A silver mine and someone has delivered a really weirddefence contractor are the main local employers but otherwise, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and itthere's possible that whoever or whatever was inside not much of note other than dive bars and Joshua trees. Life is the thing that has trashed his house! quiet, until....|isbn= B0D321VJ76}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The thing Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will's life isdifficult, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luckin a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a nice personcash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out Throw into that mix the delivery to fact that his house is a new friendmum and dad are separated, a bad weather friend called Spikeand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, who he still has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good persontiny amount of hope. Spike He is going to take care of Bennygood at art, and will certainly take care clings to the moments of Benny's enemies, if joy when heis drawing, Bennythat feel like a light at the end of a long, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they aredark tunnel.|isbn=16625004911398527122
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{{Frontpage
|author=Adam StowerSylvie Cathrall|title=Murray and BunA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers Science Fiction|summary=Murray is supposed There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, compelling premise. And this is one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=00085612490356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC0008517061|title=FragilityDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Mosby WoodsStig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= Can you make Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you couldlittle uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you didLivia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would it land? The catch mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is that the answer future she wants for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from present and putting the restrictions imposed during future on the covid pandemicback burner.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294317351786482126|title=The Winter VisitorJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=James HenryElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkinsluxury' return all apartments - when they discovered the more surprisingbones of a child beneath a doorway. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decadeThere was no skull. The return has come about because he's had Was this a letter from his ex-wiferitual killing or murder? Inevitably, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to liveDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is abducted, stripped to pregnant with his underwear and sent to child as a watery grave in result of the boot of a stolen Ford Sierraone night they spent together some three months ago. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to home?sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh0008551324|title=The Glorious Race of Magical BeastsDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in It's unusual for anyone from the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in Hardie family to approach the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runspolice. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – Neither side likes or has any respect for there the other. But Davie Hardie is a generation missing struggling in the family. A few short years ago, Eliprison and he's parents were both lost prepared to tell the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure police where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company body of a magical beastmissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This has made person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the race anathema police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to a confession from granask, Eli knows his only hope is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at do the end – the only other thing to possibly save his granthat Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763681X0008405026|title=Knife Skills for BeginnersA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Orlando MurrinJane Casey|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in BelgraviaIt's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. He didn't really want She was never found and the investigation ground to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and women to do what he wantedher father are dead in their bed. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist PaulInitially, who had it looks like a broken arm, straightforward murder/suicide but it didnthere't turn out s something about the positioning of the bodies that way. The teaching - makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and the problems - are all his ownher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. The one thing he hadn't expected What looked as though it was for someone going to turn up deadbe an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows Kerrigan is convinced that the police consider that person to be the prime suspectexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Marsh0571379877|title=A Sign of Her OwnThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet
|rating=3.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=After Edward Jevons is a bout of scarlet fever as a childworking-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Ellen Lark loses her hearingRobert and Stanza. Suddenly plunged into Robert's a world of silence, everything about her life changestheatre director. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages doHe's also self-obsessed, demanding, Ellen is sent handsome and entitled and uses Edward to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signingrun errands for him. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who Edward has been teaching the deaf in love with Stanza since their university days - and using a system called Visible Speechhe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. At Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up two of them kissing in a complicated tangle of espionagedark passageway.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1803816759Jo Callaghan|title=The Unravelling|author=Will GibsonLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the top of a hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's 2038 and Joe their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a bored cop policing the wealthy potential serial killer and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit very high profile case that draws a lot of adventure and unwanted attention to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the their AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spreadFuture Policing project. Finally, Joe gets Will they be able to do some real policing. In solve the aftermath of case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped case and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, potentially, out of a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connectedcareer?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294212841399613073|title=Laying Out the BonesMoral Injuries|author=Kate WebbChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeThrillers|summary=It was one Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwavecentury. In a gullyOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a human skeleton came bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the surface free spirit of the group and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earliershe becomes a GP. HeWhen we first meet them they'd been re at a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so alcohol-fuelled party and it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinceds going to end in tragedy. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to We don't know who suffered the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at tragedy or the timeconsequences. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the Major Crimes Review Unit (thatthree friends. This time, it's cold cases to you and me) investigatetheir teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713795590241636604|title=The House of Broken BricksTrading Game: A Confession|author=Fiona WilliamsGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=''The House If you were to bring up an image of Broken Bricksa city banker in your mind, you'' is the story re unlikely to think of four peoplesomeone like Gary Stevenson. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in A hoodie and jeans replaces the house on pin-stripe suit and his background is the riverbankEast End, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of timewhere he was familiar with violence, storms poverty and floodsinjustice. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow There was no posh public school on his vegetables, CV - but he had been to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient moneyLondon School of Economics. They have twin boys Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twinshe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritageHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. Max takes after It was his fatherability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. People don't believe that they're relatedEventually, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nannythis turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294258671035021803|title=Lost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Simon MasonC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I WilkinsIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. Raymond Wilkins is She's back now because of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryana request for help from her beloved aunt, is notCarole. HeFreya's not any of those things. Heformer mentor and Carole's whiteclose friend, originated from a trailer parkArthur Crockleford, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) is dead and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced the circumstances seem suspicious, to a police procedural written for laughs. Well, you're not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes say the combination works brilliantly wellleast. Sometimes it's problematic.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once Arthur was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how reason why Freya had not been back to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war herevillage: Arthur, she feels, a push for climate action therelet her down badly. A feeling that nobody is Even though they were in actual charge. Imagine thenbusiness together as antique hunters, there was a she has not felt able to be near the man with precognitionor pursue the profession she loved. Imagine After the strategic advantage split, she worked in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuablecafe, right? Perhaps met and married James (on the rebound from the most valuable asset in history. Imagine thenlove of her life, that this man loses this abilitywho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alastair HumphreysAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=LocalAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Travel Science Fiction|summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt Opening up new ways of thinking about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys shape of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1805141872|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job..come.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760381267Sunny Singh|title=Verdura: Living a Garden Life|author=Perla Sofia Curbelo-SantiagoHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=LifestyleThrillers |summary=''The most important part of Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a garden terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the one hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who enjoys it''. I've 'gardened' are still alive in the hotel, he forms a vaguebond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, indefinite sort and keeps on venturing out of way for more than half a centuryher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. I know (most of) Although they only ever talk over the basics but life has changed phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and I needed 'projects' rather than a general commitment they both wait to gardening. ''Verdura'' with its promise of projects for both indoors and outdoors of varying complexity seemed like see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the answerterrorists. So, how did it stack up?|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CP95J1CG1529153298|title=Of Ghosts & Broken PromisesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Mark LinganeJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=Science General Fiction|summary= RonanIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not entirely sure why he decides what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to go have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the party but his interest is piqued by the way it arrivedfamily 'Down South'. And it seems like a good opportunity to get out of his room and away When you're from the online activities he makes Yorkshire, Down South is a living atfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. So he makes his way there For Miv, dodging the buses move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that make up most of . She's not worried about the traffic and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefullydangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14549555461398524085|title=SugarlessHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicole M AvenaNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''This isn't a diet books fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. The last thing anyone needs Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is another diet booknot. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg'' There was a times father, not that long agoDuncan Ackerley, when it was thought that sugary food was better for you than food with high-fat contentin the river. Fat It was an easy assumption for the demon food which was going police to elevate your cholesterol make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and cause heart disease. Sugar was a carbohydrate, so goodthen committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. ThereThe Salter children are not convinced but there's a problemlittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035906708|title=Diva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, thoughin December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Sugar is addictive and can hijack your brain Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in much the same way as drugs like heroin and cocaineStates. Does When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that sound over she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the top? WellNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, it isn'tJackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1521129886Christopher Edge|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)|author=Keith RedfernBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Greg Mason's just beginning to get Lucas and his confidence as an investigator to friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the point where henickname of 'The Black Hole'll warn someone about how much he charges. It's a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and All big movie fans, they're both delighted. Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness. Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-in-law appears looking forward to have killed himself. Stuart's concerned about his sisterlots of exciting films, Lucyand many, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thriving. many snacks! LucyHowever, he saysas the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasnvery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't in his natureeven imagine. The police and the coroner have accepted that But as they lurch from one film genre to the death was suicidenext, but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find can they figure out what happened on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the night Gil died.cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CK3MYJ56Rachel Greenlaw|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)|author=Ann MacarthurCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=It's 'I can hear the song of the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years oldsea. He used to have a high-flying job The call of the deep, the answering beat in the city but it wasnmy heart.'t satisfying so he's now set himself up as Rosevear, a private investigatorremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. 'Shades of Cameron Strike'Mira, you might be thinking. Nice blokelike her mother before her, but where's is one of the seven who swim out to survey the life experience ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that backs up this profession? On lies within. But when the other hand, he has been asked Council Watch lays a trap to look into something. Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or ratherend the wrecking, they were until Helen was killed in whatcapture the island's leader and Mira's been written off father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall sets off in front search of a trainfamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. GregWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's been asked territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to investigatesave the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Katherine HoweJames Sherwood Metts|title=A True AccountPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Hannah Masury is living in Boston, having Things have been sent to live with a family who run an innbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and being made other tasks that took time to work there from a young ageaccomplish. When she hears there is Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to be a hanging think of some pirates in the townother, she decides new ways to go and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measurespend time, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious piratesalong came an awful pandemic. She hides away, so that they don't find Life was pretty much shut down and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to seaalong with it, dressing as a boy and joining all the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny many daily social interactions on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean waveswhich they depend so heavily.|isbn=08615474381736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tananarive DueMatthew Tree|title=The Reformatory|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the schoolWe's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkesll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery storeTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, for a man drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who's a control freak with all the subtlety had endless crises of a half brickself confidence. Jamie's sonSo Tim applied himself to his studies, Bo, 'has cultivated his abilities rather than his problems'. He's asthmatic and the more you read, the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the local A&E daydreams and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It was going to come to a headset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Harry AllenA G Slatter|title=Children The Briar Book of the SunDead
|rating=5
|genre=TeensFantasy|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in '' There's a North Korean part of me that wants to keep 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.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. 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 talented singersteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. Life is hard When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and food is difficult to Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come byher way left, so Seo right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her friends Nari and Min go foraging every eveningat the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, looking for tree bark Ellie must decide who to trust and edible grasses determine what to supplement do as the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at homeBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=18051404931803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Edel Rodriguez1529900360|title=Worm: A Cuban American OdysseyThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic NovelsCrime|summary=WeIt hadn're in childhoodt been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault 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. His assertions that there were only open-and we-shut cases which didn're in Cubat need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. The revolution has happenedFinally, and Castroit was Robin, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a CommunistDelaware's partner, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field who nudged Milo into asking for allhelp again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. WellThe next case did look simple, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time awaythough. Our narrator's family weren't Two lovers were murdered in the happiest swimming pool of places here, an uncle refusing to be a remote property in Bel Air. He was the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off heir to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) an Italian shoe empire and the father being watched and watched, she is married to an extremely rich man and it's not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponthe Italian. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some But which of them was the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=K P O'Donnell1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science FictionAnimals and Wildlife|summary=VL-15, Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a prototype robot, is desperate GP and Rowlands didn't want to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answersfollow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over halfstrain that being on-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her call put on his father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down againlife. Craig Anderson, leader When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a group of salvagers called vet and was convinced this was the Exhumersjob for him. Before long, has he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his entire life turned upside down when dream since he unearths was a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herselfchild. Even after being buried for 65 years If anything, her determination hasnhe't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZMd wanted to be a professional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18389544810861541774|title=The MisperA Nye of Pheasants|author=Kate LondonSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: thereDCI Domenic Jejeune's no doubt about thatclose friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. He Maik was the fifteeninvolved in a street brawl -yearhe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shawhe killed a Ghurka. He pulled the trigger Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but due evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the vagaries of man. Now he could be facing the jury system he was found not guilty of both death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the murder online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the manslaughter business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the officerchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so lives must go onbegins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for Katie has no experience in running a quieter life business, or in the countryside match-making, but when a missing teenager is found on Ness has full confidence in her territory sheabilities, and there's drawn into always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=10350252990811771741|title=Went to London, Took the DogInstaKnits for Baby|author=Nina StibbeMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyCrafts|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning to London Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearscollection of knits from toys to blankets. SheSome will be quick knits - others are of the 's been at Victorialong, cosy afternoons in front of the fire's smallholding in Leicestershire which isnvariety. The projects are divided by the time they't all that conducive ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to writingten hours, as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expectten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. The other side of All the decision was sealed projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rentI wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CKD1L5JLDean Koontz|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey DunnThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary= Petr Benny is an orphanhaving a terrifically bad day. Rescued by the strange He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, reclusive Bearand his house gets trashed. Oh, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human societysomeone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, in the forests of Washingtonand it's Olympic Peninsulapossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. After Bear dies and He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a brief sojourn in human companynew friend, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitterbad weather friend called Spike, Petr goes on who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a journey through the forestgood person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, broadcasting the strangeBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild and rarely heard voices he encountersadventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866243Adam Stower|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook|author=Kristina McGrath Murray and Sarah Walworth Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=CraftsConfident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician'I quickly discovered that putting words s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and numbers on the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a page wasn't enoughworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. Creating This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a pattern that troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was correct, clear, conciseto be honest, but he's turned up and consistent required he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a great deal of trial and error''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, patienceis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, and perseverancewould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy)
}}