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==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews . Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of books about weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to be published]]''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->|isbn=1804271454}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de FrestonSamantha Harvey|title=Julia and the SharkOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroineIn 2024, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from Samantha Harvey won the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a summer, compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the far NE lives of a group of astronauts aboard the Scottish islandsInternational Space Station. Here be Vikings, Through a narrative lens that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating mirrors the lanternastronauts' orbital perspective, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career Harvey invites readers to see our planet in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one nighta wholly new light.|isbn=15101077891529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Freya Sampson295967572X|title=The Last LibraryPale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=I am always a little nervous Our unnamed narrator is about to start a story about begin a library, since I am a librariantrain journey with his companion Django. I always grit my teeth slightly at Where they're going and what the thought purpose of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this storyjourney is, is uncertain. Django found the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didntickets ''t immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used to be a librarian at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local library. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mumfloor somewhere''s favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum's old bookshas persuaded our narrator to accompany him. June Why not? Not much else is stuck, clear either - but little does she know, everything we are probably in her life the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is about the changea steam locomotive.|isbn=183877369X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083709820008551324|title=Rock Paper ScissorsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Alice FeeneyNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotlandpolice. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on Neither side likes or has any respect for the ideaother. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a screenwriter missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he's never shy of making promises, is someone big and it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with will be worth the novels police doing what he's hoping to adapt than with herwants. Amelia's annoyed that And what he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the dogs, many remainder of whom have been abusedhis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, is never easy. it? Still - The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in prepared to do the passenger seat other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days lateranyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Doug JohnstoneJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=The Great SilenceVaim
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of whoAll was strange''s who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is This haunting phrase encapsulates the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinctpervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, she married a scot and ended up helping to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been fictional fishing village in the family Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for generations. Recently widowed Jatgeir and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter JennyEline, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join two of the academic staff next termprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=19131938371804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=19015149781035043092|title=There's a Problem With DadThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Carlos AlbaAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Life is different for George Lovelace and he I can't really understand whyhave been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. HeIt's always done everything been seven years since we heard from him, but he ought to: steady worker's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, husband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports daysthe daughter of his former partner. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such a Willow's also his boss, and she 'good'should' mind unable to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It's almost become be on maternity leave, but when the body of a cliche these days to suggest that someone who popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a little different is storm, she can'on the spectrumt resist getting involved. He', but George Lovelace has all d been battered about the symptoms head with a Neolithic stone - one of Asperger's Syndrome: higha pair -functioning autismwhich had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Louise CandlishThea Lenarduzzi|title=The HeightsTower|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day'How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. SheJust as T's on sitestory is being told, visiting the story of a client for second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a lighting consultation when she spies him wealthy family in a building across the way. There are lots of things19th century, lots who died of people, you might see when you look out across Londontuberculosis after being locked in a tower, but this isncaptures T't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other days imagination. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two yearsAnnie's fate is, above all, and Ellen knows this for an enticing story to T. It is a factstory which she consumes avariciously, because she had both in a hand quest for truth and knowledge, and in his murderservice of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=14711834831804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008421714Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it Everything in this book, however sweet or had already done soseemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morningEven a kiss, Patricia askedusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, as she was wrapping becomes evidence of love lost. When the breadnarrator cries out internally, ''but isncome over here and kiss me,'t this the first time he's based it is less an invitation than a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'desperate attempt to confirm her mannerisms''emotional numbness. Perhaps The imagined recipient of this would not have matteredplea is Xavier, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes her ex- ''partner, a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchghost she conjures to test her detachment.''|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John Boyne0008405026|title=The Echo ChamberA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is selfIt's sixteen years since nine-year-defined as "old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one of summer night. She was never found and the few television personalities over the age of fifty without investigation ground to a criminal record"halt. He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child Now, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired mother, Helena, and her withfather are dead in their bed. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever Initially, it looks like a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the worldstraightforward murder/suicide but there's homeless with out-something about the positioning ofthe bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-date food, and -shut case is now a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thingcomplex double murder. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – Kerrigan is convinced that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even moreexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, however, is the fact this is bloody funnyUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=0857526219
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989094Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Perfect Life|author=Nuala EllwoodOther Girl
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling 'We were born from the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclaysame body. The boys are a bit of a handful which is why sheI's making ve never really wanted to think about this trip on her own. The house would be perfect for them.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides Reminiscences of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox seriesTolstoy, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersBiography|summary=SoBiographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. Having done the impossible I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Cryptoffers a vibrant, from which subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the Departed communicate with the Mergefirst section of this book, Archie now has ''gropTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: '' you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to think aboutbe. But before Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, thatsea, soireesor that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Soirees! ArchieWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, much giving us access to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those is. But how he manages to come through the fancy party unscathedsaw Tolstoy, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed Chekhov and Andreyev in the first volume such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of this seriesit. |isbn=B093J9TF731804271977
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07GZ81J7C1529077745|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and MendedThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Peter CottonAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Meet Fred. WellA man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, actually, you're going to be meeting Fred-Fred a care home for reasons which will become all too obvious very quicklytroubled teens. But I'm getting ahead The dead man was Josh - one of myself: I'd better tell you the care workers who was due to work a bit more about Fredshift the night before but who had never turned up. Fred D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is a snake and even those the disappearance of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to him. He arrived as a present in a box with holes so that he could breathe and immediately became part one of the familyresidents, to the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walkfourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. And Some people believe that Chloe was where responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the problem started. Fred didngirl't have any road senses diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. Or brakesShe knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaB0FK5LHKD9|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isn't, as any parent will tell you. But reallys been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, why shouldn't it be? We all have to learn about our bodily functions just as so we have were very glad to learn about everything else when we are smallsee a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Why shouldnLike all Bowden't potty training be as much fun ass stories, say, learning about why there's a mystery at the sun heart of ''The Colour of Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and the moon take turns in the sky? |isbn= B098BJZYHHatmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787634493Olga Tokarczuk|title=All Her Fault|author=Andrea MaraHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=It had seemed ''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of those serendipitous events Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which sometimes happengovern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. Marissa Irvine had been hoping But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the opportunity would arise ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for her sonsome time now, Milo, to go on a play date. She was concerned that and he didn't have any friends at his new schoolshould be doing quite well financially. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with Unfortunately, his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove daughter's defence against a little latermurder charge drained his savings. What could be better? OnlyHis wife, when Marissa arrived at the houseLaura, expecting has been trying to meet Jacobpersuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. That's motherwhat 'ordinary people do', Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or Jacob. ' The phone number sheHe'd s not been given for Jenny was not recognisedentirely up front about the state of their savings. Milo had disappeared. And so had JennyWhen Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's nannythe thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire North1836284683|title=Notes from the Burning AgeThe Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=Science Dystopian Fiction|summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North Well! This is a spy thrillermurder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, with as many double crossesit's nothing like I expected it to be, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Flemingit takes me on a wild ride. However, as And that is just what happened with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction''The Big Happy''. NorthI don's novel tells t want to ruin a similar experience for any of a world devastated by climate change where humans you reading but I'll have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of at least set the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuelsscene. Once that's done, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with I think you should simply experience this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earthwonderfully original story for yourself.|isbn=0356514757
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)Sally Rooney|title=Girls Who LieIntermezzo|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all Sally Rooney has studied the dark corners chessboard of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers life and crime books before nowis something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. You thinkHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, seeing on as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the map that we're set in Akranesmany relationships woven into this story, and finding it's only twenty kilometres from the capital city, that this author central one for readers to unravel is clutching at the few final straws leftfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. However just because the book aims for the usual small-town feelIvan, it's not just in Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date eveningsocially awkward chess prodigy, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently contrasts sharply with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl backhis older brother Peter, and a couple of delighted adopterssuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the womanFollowing their father's car was found miles away in a second place, and now, passing after six months, the body has been discovered, in a third, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself long battle with heavy post-natal depressioncancer, and very little maternal feeling in her bodythe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?|isbn=191319373X0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0925KS87N1036916375|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Neil LancasterPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Tam Hardie had been determined to find ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the grave what- and it took some finding might-have- in an overgrown old cemeterybeen. It was a strange thing for Scotland's premier criminal a book to dosettle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, but Tam was getting old and there were things he wanted to do. Onlythink of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found despite the grave - the one which said blitz that it shouldnwas a constant factor in McArdle't be opened - and his three sons began to worrys early years. Tam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldnI't normally go to the police d never heard of parachute mines before - but they weren't certain where their father had been were almost soundless and they were worriedcould appear after the all-clear was sounded.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emily Critchley1836285493|title=The Tiny Gestures Double Life of Small Flowers|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}} {{Frontpagea Wheelchair User|author=Sarah Langan|title=Good NeighboursRob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary= If you're Will is a keen player of video games, a certain vintageconscientious student, it's hard to read the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo slightly annoying brother and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbssupportive friend. They're one But most of 18 households on the crescentall, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's is an ex rockeraspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled inMarlowe Park, and it's all going okone at which he excels. Until it isnThis hasn't. One hotgone unnoticed by his headteacher, clammy, sticky, sweaty summerMrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's week at a revolting mess of dirt and chaosdifferent school, but for the residents of Maple StreetStation Road, the worst is yet to comewhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1789098211
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Thompson1009473085|title=The Small ThingsConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersPolitics and Society|summary=Although Anna has friends at schoolSometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, she feels like she never really fits inthen this isn't the book for you. Her family If that's what you're looking for, I don't have enough money to let her do after school activitiesthink Anthony Seldon's book, and so she feels like her life {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at home is boring in comparison to theirs10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. When It's a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to partner her, but things are complicated because the new girl, Ellie, politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is unwell and so canan entirely different beast. It't attend school s the seventh book in persona series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. Instead, she joins in with This book follows the class by using well-established format: a robot. Can Anna overcome series of experts from various fields review the challenge state of making friends with someone through a robotthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellie?|isbn=1781129649the situation in 2024.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008350388Jenny Valentine|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha UwagbaUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyTeens|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirableElk and Mab are best friends, less hireableor more than that even, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students their friendship is a once in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a womanlifetime connection.'' They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other'The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to s contact details at the UK from Kenya when she was five years oldtime. Her sisters were seven But then chance brings them back together, and ninethey are inseparable. It was her mother who came first Something has happened though, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-workingsomething terrible and tragic, principled and determined that now they must work through their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Oteghagrief, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New Collegetheir friendship, Oxfordtogether.|isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876318691787333175|title=The Rising TideYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Sam LloydBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=Lucy LockeI was tempted to read ''s early life hadnYou Don't been easy but sheHave to be Mad to Work Here''d built a good and decent life in the aftermath. Sheafter enjoying Adam Kay's now married first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to DanielHurt}}, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beacha glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with Danielautobiography. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friend'You Don't Have to be Mad... Nick '' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in work of a children's home but psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it's difficult was acceptable to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, a situation rather than a person and it is concernedalways delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah PeckMariana Enriquez|title=Kate on the CaseA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at Mariana Enriquez writes horror that. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idoldisturbingly real, and the author of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to the Arctic, to see achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her scientist mother for the first time in yonks. However, this is a train ride with a difference, for paranormal plots on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and gritty realities: her catsettings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, a thief – an overcrowded homeless shelter and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blinkcrime-andridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine -you'll-miss-them styleall within Argentina. It's definitely The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a case for a new young investigative journalist..similarly tangible texture.|isbn=184812970X1803511230
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1529934753|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3The Protest|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The second trilogy in ShanFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's ''Merge'' saga opens with our heromost famous living artist, Archiewas not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, back in London he arrived in the world nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the Bornprotest. It's not been easy Lexi Williams, explaining to his foster parents where he's beenan intern at the RA, or slipping back into ordinary life grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and forgetting about Inez and his other friends proceeded to spray Bruce in the Mergeface, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but Archie has done his bestthis was different.... well The can had been laced with cyanide, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awaySir Max Bruce was dead.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571365884Ariel Saramandi|title=My Mess is a Bit Portrait of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchettan Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxiousIn this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, even tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the country at one stage as ''rotting'', a child. She would worry blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about whether by the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort malignant forces of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and far betweengovernmental dysfunction. On a visit to a therapist, Each essay in this collection serves as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit kind of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the result - or so we are given to believeisland state.|isbn=1804271616
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|author=Alex CotterPekka Harju-Autti|title=The House on LoveVortex and the EdgeDrakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=FaithIt's family home is teetering on the edge of a cliffeighteenth century, literally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so time of discovery and Britain is Faith's familyexpanding its foreign trade. Her dad has disappearedCaptain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, and her mum is struggling sent to cope, barely leaving her bedthe Andaman Islands in his endeavour. So that leaves Faith in chargeAlong with his son, taking care of her little brother NoahPeter, taking care of her mumand their cat, feeding everyoneMichi, getting Noah they set off on a perilous voyage to school, these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost stunning in their scenery and the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe heislanders'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantlyleader, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold togetherAarav, or how long she can keep on keeping onis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=1788008626B0DS1VGHH3
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|isbnauthor=0008269041Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Risk of Harm|author=Lucie WhitehouseLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=DCI Robin Lyons First published in 1953 in French, this novel is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the Met. She might have been reinstated but the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouthpage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then Like the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years before. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out lives of her parent's home into a rented house but there's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young child. He's married to Nataliecharacters, now and has a young child but he's still got it in for Robinthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675
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|isbnauthor=1786332388Tom Percival|title=The First Day of Spring|author=Nancy TuckerWrong Shoes|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and Will''The First Day s life is difficult, in a multitude of Spring'' was one such occasionways. The writing He is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the plot grips you wrong shoes because his dad can't work and wondoesn't let go. Sohave enough money for even the most basic of things like food, whatand his dad can's t work because he lost his job at the problem? Wellcollege, the problem is Chrissie, the main characterwas working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. When we first meet her she's just eight years oldThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, small for her age and she readily tells us that sheWill's just killed someone - a two-year-old boylife seems bleak in every direction. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized upAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. There's a clue He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions feel like a little later in light at the book: when will Steven come backend of a long, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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|author=Catherine SteadmanSylvie Cathrall|title=The Disappearing ActA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp of success. Great success. If the rumours There are true, award season is going few greater joys than a book which lives up to treat her well, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed productiona compelling premise. She's going places but so, unfortunately, And this is her partner. And the places he's going take him towards lies, deceit and a pretty young thing in the form one of his new co-star. It's a good time for Mia to escape, and pilot season in LA provides just the excusethem.|isbn=14711897830356522776
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|authorisbn= Christophe Medler1786482126|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary= Set against Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (codesite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments -named Madrigal) is when they discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer bones of 1642a child beneath a doorway. As There was no skull. Was this a loyal servant of the Kingritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, and Head that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the Secret Serviceone night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, it not least because Ruth is Robert's duty prone to uncover the details sudden bouts of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the Kingsickness.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
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|author=Tasha SuriGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Jasmine ThroneAccidentals|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyShort Stories|summary= On the night This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on to the pyre. She is immediately sent to be imprisoned on the Hiranaword: an ancient temple that was once filled spellbinding with a community its fantastical, magical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of people who got powers from the mysterious deathless watersnature and human relationships. But now the temple is nothing more than an overgrownGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, decaying ruin. One day, Malini witnesses a girl kill someone with magic. Instead of reporting her for such stories structured by a gruesome crime, Malini claims wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the girl saved her from an attacker and begs for the girl to become her own personal maidservantworld.|isbn=03565156481804271470
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B088YWF5BC0008551375|title=The Lies We TellWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jane CorryNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisterstragic accident. It seemed to have been a lovingShe'd looked so happy, too, stable familywhen she posted her intentions on Facebook. When we first meet herHer friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she can't sleep because was living her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in bylast year. Her husbandAll were experienced climbers, Tom, is fast asleep: properly equipped for what they're moving house in were doing and sensible people. None of the morning but he's still going what a stupid thing to be going to work and he needs his sleepdo' explanations applied. He wakes, though, They were all alone when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that hethey died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's killed someone.}}{{Frontpage|author=Joseph Knox|title=True Crime Story|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary= Joseph Knox, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waits, has created a new genre with his latest novel, "True Crime Story". The story follows the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from her university halls of residence. Split into four parts, the reader is taken through the life and disappearance of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sister, other family, friends and professionals, such as the police. The various accounts help the reader get to know Zoe, or at least the Zoe she presented to others. However, the twists and turns at killer on the end of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true or fabricatedloose. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703
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