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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|isbn=07603812670008517061|title=Verdura: Living Death in a Garden LifeLonely Place|author=Perla Sofia Curbelo-SantiagoStig Abell|rating=3.54|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=''The most important part Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a garden 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 the one who enjoys it''future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the future on the back burner.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1786482126|title=The Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeI|summary=Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 've luxury'gardened' in apartments - when they discovered the bones of a vague, indefinite sort of way for more than half child beneath a centurydoorway. There was no skull. I know (most of) the basics but life has changed and I needed 'projects' rather than Was this a general commitment to gardeningritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn'Verdura'' t, that she is pregnant with its promise his child as a result of projects for both indoors and outdoors of varying complexity seemed like the answerone night they spent together some three months ago. SoHer condition will be obvious before long, how did it stack up?not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CP95J1CG0008551324|title=Of Ghosts & Broken PromisesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Mark LinganeNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary= RonanIt's not entirely sure why unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he decides to go 's prepared to tell the police where the party but his interest body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, is piqued by someone big and it will be worth the way it arrivedpolice doing what he wants. And it seems like a good opportunity what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to get out serve the remainder of his room sentence and away from the online activities he makes a living atto get an early parole date. So he makes his way there Not much to ask, dodging is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the buses other thing that Hardie demanded - make up most of the traffic certain that DS Max Craigie and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefullyanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14549555460008405026|title=SugarlessA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Nicole M AvenaJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=It''This isn't a diet books sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. The last thing anyone needs is another diet book.'' There She was never found and the investigation ground to a timehalt. Now, not that long agoher mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, when it was thought looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that sugary food was better for you than food with high-fat contentmakes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Fat was the demon food which What looked as though it was going to elevate your cholesterol be an open-and cause heart disease. Sugar was -shut case is now a carbohydrate, so goodcomplex double murder. ThereKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's a problem, though. Sugar is addictive and can hijack your brain in much the same way disappearance: others (such as drugs like heroin and cocaine. Does that sound over the top? WellDerwent's boss, it isn'tUna Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15211298860571379877|title=They Had It Coming (Greg Mason mysteries)The Kellerby Code|author=Keith RedfernJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Greg MasonEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where he'll warn someone about how much he chargesa theatre director. ItHe's a good job too because Greg also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and Joyce will soon have a baby entitled and they're both delighted. Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sicknessuses Edward to run errands for him. Greg is approached by an old friend whose brother-Edward has been inlove with Stanza since their university days -law appears and he's drunkenly confided how he feels to have killed himselfRobert. StuartMost men in Robert's concerned about his sister, Lucy, who's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thriving. Lucy, he says, is convinced that Gil position would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and the coroner have accepted stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that the death was suicide, a relationship had begun between them but Stuarthe's prepared to pay Greg not like most men: Edward is left to find out what happened on stumble upon the night Gil diedtwo of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CK3MYJ56Jo Callaghan|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)|author=Ann MacarthurLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's When a man is found crucified on the 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have top of a high-flying job hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the city but it wasn't satisfying so heAI detective Lock. It's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike'their first live case together, you might be thinkinghaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. Nice bloke But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, but where's the life experience Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that backs up this profession? On the other hand, he has been asked draws a lot of unwanted attention to look into somethingtheir AI Future Policing project. Joyce and Helen are half-sistersWill they be able to solve the case in time, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written will Kat find herself taken off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - the case and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front potentially, out of a train. Greg's been asked to investigate.career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Katherine Howe1399613073|title=A True AccountMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Hannah Masury is living in BostonOlivia, having been sent to live with Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a family who run an inn, and being made to work there from quarter of a young agecentury. When she hears there Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to be a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and watchcardiothoracic surgeon. Enthralled Laura is a perfectionist and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at trauma doctor. Anjali is the hands free spirit of two vicious piratesthe group and she becomes a GP. She hides away, so that When we first meet them they don't find re at a drug and kill her too, alcohol-fuelled party and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Lowit's pirate ship as a cabin boygoing to end in tragedy. She soon finds herself in We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the thick of things when consequences. Twenty-five years later there is a mutiny on boardwill be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, and from there we it's their teenage children who are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean wavesinvolved.|isbn=0861547438
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tananarive Due0241636604|title=The ReformatoryTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionAutobiography|summary= GracetownIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, Floridayou're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-old Robbie Stephens Jr stripe suit and his background is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for BoysEast End, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place where he was familiar with a brutal violence, poverty and dark reputationinjustice. But There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the segregated reformatory London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a chamber facility with numbers which most of horrors, haunted by the boys us can only envy. He also realised that have died theremost rich people expect poor people to be stupid. In order to survive the school governor and It was his Funhouseability at what was, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivationsessentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader..|isbn=1803366532}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711801581035021803|title=Maybe TomorrowThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Penny ParkesC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man whoIt's a control freak with all twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the subtlety of a half brickEnglish country village where she grew up. JamieShe's son, Boback now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, 'has his problems'Carole. HeFreya's asthmatic former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the more you readcircumstances seem suspicious, to say the more you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrumleast. Sometimes Jamie needs Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to take time off at short notice - the village: Arthur, she's a frequent flier feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in the local A&E and sometimes Bo's business together as antique hunters, she has not fit enough felt able to go to schoolbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Missed shifts or After the need to be away split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on time to pick Bo up the rebound from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the wrong. It love of her life, who was going to come to a headmurdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Harry AllenAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Children of the SunAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a talented singerfew decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Life Some of it is hard and food is difficult to come by- frankly - quite frightening. Of course, so Seo I could research the possibilities and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark the probabilities and edible grasses to supplement end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the meagre rations of rice latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and kimchi at homewho could deliver information in a way I could understand.|isbn=1805140493
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{{Frontpage
|author=Edel RodriguezSunny Singh|title=Worm: A Cuban American OdysseyHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Graphic NovelsThrillers |summary=We're The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in childhood, and we're in Cubaan unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. The revolution has happenedHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, and Castrokilling everyone on site, first thought of as a saviour of the countrythere is Sam, has proven himself a Communist, wartime photographer and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. WellAbhi, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time awaythe hotel manager. Our narrator's family weren't As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the happiest of places herehotel, an uncle refusing he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmishcowed by events, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography business, success being frowned upon. The mother gets Although they only ever talk over the couple jobs with the party phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to ease some of see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…terrorists.|isbn=1474616720086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=K P O'Donnell1529153298|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher isPrime Minister. Unfortunately (A woman? I mean, before she could find any answershonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, the world endedthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century laterthey've been murdered, civilisation is starting but to rebuildhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue Miv's upset because she's overheard that her fatherwants to move the family 's legacyDown South'. When you're from Yorkshire, building Down South is a world where machines and humans can live together in harmonyfrightening, foreign place, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down againbest avoided. Craig Anderson For Miv, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, move would mean leaving her determination hasn't diminished in the slightestbest friend, and no errant machineSharon, no savage human tribe and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not even Drexelworried about the dangers or that her Mum's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZMstopped talking - to anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18389544811398524085|title=The MisperHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Kate LondonNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: thereCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's no doubt about thatfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. He was the fifteenHer children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but -yearstrangely -old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shawher husband, Alec, is not. He pulled the trigger but due to Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the vagaries body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the jury system he river. It was found not guilty of both an easy assumption for the murder police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the manslaughter of the officerguilt. And so lives must go on. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside The Salter children are not convinced but when a missing teenager is found on her territory shethere's drawn into a wider investigation - little else they can do but get on with their lives and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedywonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=10350252991035906708|title=Went to London, Took the DogDiva|author=Nina StibbeDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearsAthens when she was thirteen. SheHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's been at VictoriaCallas's smallholding to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Leicestershire which isn't all Athens - supposedly so that conducive to writing, as there's always something smallholding happening she could get appropriate training for her voice - as you might expect. The other side of she was raised under the decision was sealed when Nazi occupation by a room became available (courtesy mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable renther preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CKD1L5JLChristopher Edge|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey DunnBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= Petr is an orphan. Rescued by the strange, reclusive Bear, he is brought up far from bustling cities Lucas and busy human societyhis friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, in a place that has the forests nickname of Washington's Olympic PeninsulaThe Black Hole'. After Bear dies All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and a brief sojourn in human companymany, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitterthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, Petr goes can they figure out what on earth is going on a journey through ? Will they ever get back to the forestcinema, broadcasting the strange, wild and rarely heard voices he encounters.to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866243Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook|author=Kristina McGrath Compass and Sarah Walworth Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CraftsTeens|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enoughcan hear the song of the sea. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a great deal The call of trial and error, patiencethe deep, and perseverancethe answering beat in my heart.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy)
A friend recently showed me Rosevear, a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good moneyremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. The first line Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the instructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitchesseven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within...'' It was clear that no good could come of this - But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the instructions didnisland't get any better - s leader and (finally) PayPal obliged Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a refund when the seller refused wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she couldn't afford sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the repaymentsea. The pattern looked prettyWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, but as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the creator didnheart of the smuggler't have the basic knowledge and skills s territory, Mira must be determined to enable her stop at nothing to connect with save the future of her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Adam Baron and Benji DaviesJames Sherwood Metts|title=Oscar's LionPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to Things have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book been a couple of times before he has to be ready bit sticky for schoolthe Earthlings. But when he enters his parentsAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, re paid to do and admitting other tasks that he won't be hungry for another two daystook time to accomplish. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown Just as an unspoken threat they were beginning to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it get used to school all this technological change and it can get him out starting to think of a problem. And it's wonderful other, new ways to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intakespend time, being along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much more lax about the rules, shut down and so on. OK, along with it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=00085967511736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BC3YTCMRMatthew Tree|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura AyiraWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright studentTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, drunk and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy chronic underachiever whose dreams of being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good exceptional at math any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and Reggie asked if she would tutor himwho had endless crises of self confidence. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went So Tim applied himself to his house studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift homeset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=V CastroA G Slatter|title=The Haunting Briar Book of Alejandrathe Dead|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorFantasy|summary=''This was There's a part of her past me that had wants to keep this just to stop with hermyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. She would be the one I just want to confront thisenjoy it for a while.''
At some point during her lifeWithin a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, Alejandra lost herselfa family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. She feels as if Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is playing parts the first non-witch to be born into her family for others in generations and as such since she was young, her life – training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her husband grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her children – without ever giving any thought to place beside her. As challenges come her own desiresway left, right and centre, her own futureEllie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her own identity. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrongat the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. For invisible Reeling from one family secret to all but Alejandraanother, there is a darkness threatening Ellie must decide who to consume her. More trust and more she is visited by a ghostdetermine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with watereverything they have sacrificed to survive, who leaves distress in her wakeis under threat.|isbn=18033656171803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Richard Kadrey1529900360|title=The Pale House DevilGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Ford It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and Neuland are a couple ofeven after Alex recovered, well, guys Sturgis was reluctant to ask for hire I guess, though really his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the way I thought help of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! psychologist only worked for a while. One of them is livingFinally, you seeit was Robin, and the other is undeadDelaware's partner, and so one of them kills who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the living, and the other kills involvement was something that the undeadman she loved needed. (Only not each otherThe next case did look simple, obviously)though. They're on Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a job remote property in New York that goes badly, and so they head out to Bel Air. He was the West coast heir to try an Italian shoe empire and she is married to lay low for a while an extremely rich man and find some other work to keep them goingit's not the Italian. But when a young woman called Tilda hires which of them to kill was 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=1803363894primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Cooper1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Taming Secret Life of the Cata Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in case you're seeing a connectionhis footsteps, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all particularly when he considered the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mousstrain that being on-tracised, for the way call put on his habits donfather't match s life. When he was seventeen he took the other mice he lives opportunity of doing work experience with. They nibble up paper wrapping from a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the cheese job for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on ithim. And that story-telling will come in handy one nightBefore long, when he feels all alone and cast outwas at Liverpool University. Ithadn's almost t - as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to halfwith so many students -inch some cheese while the cat been his dream since he was distracteda child. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CDZRGT1M|title=Super Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Mark C Wallfisch|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=If anything, he''Got a minute d wanted to be amused, entertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None 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 a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the flash fictions in a book 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 three hundred word limit. That's about a single page in your average paperbackprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17328987660861541774|title=The Adventures A Nye of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk DragonPheasants|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they're running for their lives in the Forest of Fine Repute. Their greatest fear has come about: the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. HeDCI Domenic Jejeune's right behind themclose friend and former colleague, spewing hotDanny Maik, sour milk from his nostrilshas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. (Please don't try this at home: it won't end well.) Fortunately, they were nearly at Nobby LobMaik was involved in a street brawl -lolly he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and when he killed a ladder of moss and vines was lowered for them, they escapedGhurka. They climbed up Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the Tree Wee homes high up in man. Now he could be facing the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and Granny Crannywouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1472263936Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Figurine|author=Victoria HislopPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to Greeceall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She was alone: Ness has asked her motheryounger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, Greek by birth, had left the family home and refused as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to return, but Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be get away for a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritagewhile. Her trip to the family apartment in Katie is coming out of a break up-market Kolonaki would be with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the first of several annual visitschance to come home to Edinburgh. She grew And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love her grandmother , thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the family's maidIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, Dinaor in match-making, but was wary - and frightened - of Ness has full confidence in her grandfatherabilities, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helenathere's red hair always her very helpful (and green eyes - inherited from her father's Scottish ancestors.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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|authorisbn=Cody Goodfellow0811771741|title=VerticalInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary= ThereMelissa Leapman's something about tall buildings that just captures my imagination. Who doesn't love 'InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a good view collection of knits from up hightoys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, after all? Even cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the drabbest office building is somewhere Itime they'm intrigued ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to get inside if it's 40 stories talltwenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. So I perhaps show my age when I picked up this book – wonder about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn= 1803363991
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi PinfoldDean Koontz|title=Finding BearThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venturehe loses his fiancee, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bearhis house gets trashed. Back homeOh, things on the domestic and family front are someone has delivered a bit advancedreally weird, but not perfect for herdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the islands Bear was very last left onperson to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. For So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a bear doing very Bear-y things new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been shot and woundedsent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Desperate Spike is going to make sure hetake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's OKenemies, if he, Benny, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in Harper (a world of very white and very dangerous things, she waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continuefigure out who exactly they are.|isbn=00085820171662500491
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|isbnauthor=1804183210Adam Stower|title=No Reserve|author=Felix FrancisMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary=Thirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up for auctionMurray is supposed to be a humble, but Peter Radwaytidy and friendly cat, the chairmanone who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, hadn't arrivedwell, so he continued whatever takes his sessionfancy next of the two. To say that But he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitchs a bad magician' Mitchell were well-known s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and respected in the racing industry. Jennings was in one catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in frightening adventure and their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figurewhiffs. Both were happy that they had insurance in place. The following morningThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, the horse one much bigger than Murray was dead in its stall., to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn=Sarah WilsonB0C47LV1PC|title=This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured worldFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=3.54|genre= LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks Can you make a ''Yo birthing person''What joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer Or is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson question if you did, would it land? The catch is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the best life that we answer for both could well be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''... no, we are not. ''. DonFragility't care what you're doingis set as the city of Portland, she thinks you (weOregon, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the fact that we are not.|isbn=1785633848covid pandemic
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|isbn=18399484931529431735|title=A World of DogsThe Winter Visitor|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa UribeJames Henry|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=In the interests of full disclosureIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, I must tell you that Iwhich made Bruce Hopkins'm a sucker for dogsreturn all the more surprising. In nearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't trust and IHe've loved most of them. I wish I felt d been exiled on the same about human beingsCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. So, any book The return has come about dogsbecause he's had a letter from his ex-wife, Isaying that she'm going to sit down s ill and devour. Then Ihasn'm going t long to go back and read it properlylive. And so it was with ''A World of Dogs'It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, with ninety-six pages devoted entirely stripped to his underwear and sent to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself a watery grave in the accidental owner boot of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since thenstolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|isbnauthor=1405951680Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Safe House|author=Cameron WardGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Jess Walker accepted Eli is a busy lad – by day an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it apprentice in the wondrous library we start by her friendvisiting with him, Rupert) to caretake and in the evening a luxury property in helper at the Australian outback dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a couple of monthsgeneration missing in the family. After A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the problems she'd had at worktitular race, it seemed like just a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the break she neededcompany of a magical beast. She was no longer a data analyst for This has made the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning race anathema to the country of her birth and in need of pair – but when a bad incident at the space eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to get over enter what he most hates, with the traumatic end sole aim the prize of her relationship with Charles. A few weeks in magic at the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just end – the ticketonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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