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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
|isbnauthor=1398706906Samantha Harvey|title=The Lost|author=Simon BeckettOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=The disappearance of Metropolitan police firearms officerIn 2024, Jonah ColleySamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for 's young son, Theo, just about finished him, particularly as he blamed himself for what had happened. He'd fallen asleep in the park whilst Theo was playing and when he woke, Theo had gone. It cost him his marriage and his home. Ten years later heOrbital's largely come through it and he's out with his team when he gets , a phone call from DS Gavin McKinney. Gavin used to be his best friend but it's compact yet profound work that unfolds over a long time since they've spoken. He's obviously single day in some difficulty now - Jonah can hear it in his voice - and he asks Jonah to meet him at Slaughter Quaythe lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. ''There's no one else I can trust'Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts'orbital perspective, he saysHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amanda Mason295967572X|title=The Hiding Place|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary=Needing an escape from their turbulent life, Nell Galilee takes her husband and stepdaughter to Whitby, where they rent a cliffside holiday cottage by the name of Elder House. She hopes that it will be the perfect place to sort things out. But there's something not quite right about Elder House. The atmosphere is unsettling and off – and before long Nell starts to suspect that she and her family aren't alone there…|isbn=1838771964}} {{FrontpagePale Pieces|author=Paul Cleave|title=The Quiet PeopleG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary= I am not Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a fan of "the Prologue"train journey with his companion Django. Most books are Where they're going and what the worse for them. In purpose of this case I might make an exception. We start with Luca Pittman who journey is, is in a hurryuncertain. He has to hurry because he has children that he should not have, and when he hurries, when he bundles things into Django found the tickets ''on the back of his car floor somewhere'' and tries has persuaded our narrator to run and then hears sirens behind accompany him, which he should . Why not hear because this ? Not much else is New Zealand clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and that the train is not how they do things there, he takes a risksteam locomotive. It ends badly.|isbn=1913193942
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Will Carver0008551324|title=Psychopaths AnonymousThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Maeve It's 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's prepared to tell the police where the body of a high functioning alcoholic, drinking continuously missing person is buried and alsowho was responsible for her death. This person, curiouslyhe promises, addicted to attending numerous AA groups. She is also a self-acknowledged psychopath. Whilst analysing someone big and critiquing it will be worth the AA steps she police doing what he wants. And what he wants is mainly using the groups to find targets...targets for sexual encounters, targets be transferred to feed her desire an open prison to hear serve the remainder of people's misery, his sentence and targets for her violent behaviourto get an early parole date. Yet she also seems Not much to be searching for others who ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think as she does, so and when she's unable even prepared to find likedo the other thing that Hardie demanded -minded people in any of the groups she decides to set up her own, hoping to encounter others make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who share similar obsessions, and thus Psychopaths Anonymous works with him is bornkept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1913193756
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529418100Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Bruno's Challenge and Other Dordogne Tales|author=Martin WalkerVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesLiterary Fiction|summary=I'm not usually a fan of short stories - I find it all too easy to put the book down between stories and forget to pick it up again - but I am a fan of Martin Walker's [[Martin Walker's Commissar Bruno Courreges Mysteries in Chronological Order|Bruno Courreges Mysteries]] so the temptation to read ''Bruno's Challenge'' All was hard to resist and Istrange'm rather glad that I didn't even try. For those new to .. This haunting phrase encapsulates the seriespervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, there's an excellent introduction that will tell you all you need to know about who's who a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the background to why Bruno is protagonists caught in St Denisits melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09GJW49GF1035043092|title=Buried Lies The Killing Stones (Gaby Darin Book 5Jimmy Perez)|author=Jenny O'BrienAnn Cleeves|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Hannah Thomas I can't have been the only person who was having her first night away from her sonsad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. Hunter had diabetes It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and this was controlled by a pump attached to his stomachtheir young son, so her over-protectiveness was understandableJames, but her fianceas well as Cassie, Ianthe daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, was pestering her to get married and she thought it would be a good idea for him to find out what parenting was ''reallyshould'' like. Her friendbe on maternity leave, Millybut when the body of a popular islander, had arranged to take her boyfriendArchie Stout, Liamis found, for a night in the aftermath of a posh hotel but then he dumped her and storm, she couldncan't get resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the money back, so Hannah was offered the opportunity to go in his place. She would return home to find Ian dead and fivehead with a Neolithic stone -yearone of a pair -old Hunter missingwhich had been stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09GV3WS1QThea Lenarduzzi|title=Without a Trace|author=Jane BettanyThe Tower|rating=45|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Life hadn't been easy for Ruth Prendergast'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. Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: sheAnnie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T'd just come through a divorce and right now it was raining hards imagination. All she wanted was Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to get back to her new home and settle down for a quiet eveningT. It wasn't going to be though: when is a story which she went into her bedroom she found consumes avariciously, both in a dead man on her bed with a knife quest for truth and knowledge, and in his chestservice of myth, fable and fantasy. She'd no idea who he was.|isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838774823Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: A Three Dog Problem|author=S J BennettBig Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It's 2016 and the Queen's Private SecretaryEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, Sir Simon Holcroft has decided that too much good claret is steeped in anguish and too little exercise is putting distortion. Even a strain on his waistband. Swimmingkiss, he decidesusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, is becomes evidence of love lost. When the way to go narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and he can use the Buckingham Palace pool which kiss me,'' it is how he came less an invitation than a desperate attempt to be there early one morning and discovered the body confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of Cynthia Harris at the side of the pool. There was broken glass - a crystal tumblerthis plea is Xavier, by the look at it her ex- probably one of the young royals being careless - and it looked as though Mrs Harris had slipped and cut herself so badly that she had bled out. Stillpartner, it was a shock for Sir Simonghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=057136358X0008405026|title=April A Stranger in Spainthe Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=John BanvilleJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Terry Tice It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a hitmanhalt. Now, her mother, Helena, although he didn't think of himself and her father are dead in those termstheir bed. He saw what he did as Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there''a matter s something about the positioning of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the thought bodies that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondomakes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. He enjoyed his job, something which occurred to him when he What looked as though it was in Burma with the army ''where he got the chance going to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows be an open-and had -shut case is now a fine old time''complex double murder. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know Kerrigan is convinced that the purpose of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles explanation lies in the Rosalie''morning''? It was after Percys disappearance: others (such as Derwent's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spainboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dave Letterfly KnodererAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Speedy: Hurled Through HavocThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=How to summarise ''We were born from the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, same body. I 've never really don't wanted to think I canabout this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tade Thompson1529077745|title=Far From the Light of HeavenThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of going to space. As first officer aboard a man in the sleeper ship Ragtimepark near Rosebank, bound a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be care workers who was due to work a babysitter for shift the ship's AI captainnight before but who had never turned up. However, when she wakes up at D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the end disappearance of her trip to find dozens one of her passengers butchered and the Ragtimeresidents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's AI almost non-responsive, diary makes it clear that she begins to realise adored Josh. She knows that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up has to find Chloe to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, happened to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station LagosJosh. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=0356514323
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob KeeleyB0FK5LHKD9|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating= 4|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary= Lily loves eating fruit and vegetables. She likes carrotsIt's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, broccoli, cabbage and aubergines. When her friends so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at school turn up their noses, Lily is keen to explain how good they are for you and how nice to eatBookbag Towers. One dayLike all Bowden's stories, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordan, who tells her that carrots grow on treesthere's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''. Infuriated, Lily checks with the teacher, who explains that fruits grow on trees and vegetables, We like carrots, grow this running theme in the ground. Jordan says, "I did try to tell her, Miss!" an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and everyone laughs at poor Lilyatmosphere each time.|isbn= B09HHN541V
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''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 Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=178607981X1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Bad ApplesUltimate Obsession|author=Will DeanDai Henley|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at the side of the roadmurder charge drained his savings. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of the car His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - and heard the screams from deep inside the forest''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. Determining the direction of a sound isnThat's what 'ordinary people do',''t easy when you need hearing aids and dampness is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where a woman was holding her coat over the body of a man. He'd s not been decapitatedentirely up front about the state of their savings. He was Arne Gustav PerssonWhen Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a resident miscarriage of Visbergjustice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1836284683
|title=The Big Happy
|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!
I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. Once that's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lilja SigurdadottirSally Rooney|title=Cold As HellIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary= In ''Just a red suitcase 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 bottom family history of a fissure in sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a lava fieldbook to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, there is despite the blitz that was a bodyconstant factor in McArdle's early years. And I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the man who has put her there has just discovered that he is capable of killingall-clear was sounded.|isbn=1913193888
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lucy Hope1836285493|title=FledglingThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bavaria, 1900. Our scene Will is a most peculiar hilltop housekeen player of video games, built bit by bit over the decadesa conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods belowa supportive friend. It's an eccentric houseBut most of all, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system he is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractable, there an aspiring writer. English is a steam-poweredhis favourite lesson at his school, hand-operated lift system cut through itMarlowe Park, and so onone at which he excels. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermyThis hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, a woman who does nothing but quibbleMrs Howarth, kvetch and sing opera loudly, she has suggested to Will and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, his mum that he spends a young lass who has to do all the maintenance couple of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is afternoons a cherub. And if you think such week at a heavenly arrival is going to different school, Station Road, where his ability might be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again..better extended.|isbn=183994188X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18462767721009473085|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our MindsConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Jessica NordellAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that they may no longer even recognise the extent applies to which they suffer from it''The Conservative Effect: it2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''s simply a part of everyday life. White men will always come first. The able If you're looking for an easy read which will come before deliver the disabled. Jobsinside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, promotions, higher salaries are then this isn't the preserve of the white manbook for you. Even when those who wouldnIf that's what you're looking for, I don't pass the medical become a part of an organisation itthink Anthony Seldon's rare that their views are heardbook, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, that their concerns are acknowledgedcan be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's personally appalling a compelling read and degrading should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the individuals on well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the receiving end state of the bias but it's not just nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the individuals who are negatively impactedsituation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Teresa DriscollJenny Valentine|title=Her Perfect FamilyUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=The novel begins by introducing you to GemmaElk and Mab are best friends, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisationor more than that even, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit their friendship is all wronga once in a lifetime connection. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is… They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the noveland they are inseparable. In a twist of events Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and after a change of outfitnow they must work through their grief, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a comaand their friendship, what follows is a complex whodunit with a list of suspects that continues to grow the further you readtogether.|isbn=15420287521471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=84092901031787333175|title=If OnlyYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Matthew TreeBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionPopular Science|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to send him Hurt}}, a monthly allowance. Patrick sent glorious mixture of insight into the money regularly and a correspondence - workings of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than PatrickNHS, humour and autobiography. It wasn 't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he didnYou Don't care Have to have him in this country where he might be a danger Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to his wife mental illness and other childrenthe work of a psychiatrist. The alcohol problem I did wonder whether it was obvious even before Patrick managed acceptable to get be looking for humour in this setting but the young man on his waylaughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Antti Tuomainen and David Hackston (translator)Mariana Enriquez|title=The Rabbit FactorA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is other human beingsdisturbingly real, he's perfect for his job in the insurance company – until they decide he's not a team-member, that they'd prefer everyone achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to be all open-plan, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has diedan urban planning mishap, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everything. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' is just an adventure park, overcrowded homeless shelter and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes in the finances – it runs at a steady moneycrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine -moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and the amount vanishedall within Argentina. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people The circumstances of her characters are quickly on so plausible that the scene to explain that missing money – it's been turned supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and the activities of these guys are not conducive to getting spaces adopts a cheap life insurance plan..similarly tangible texture.|isbn=191319387X1803511230
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711793111529934753|title=The UnheardProtest|author=Nicci FrenchRob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=TessFor a little while, a teacher and Jasonit looked as though Sir Max Bruce, a headmasterthe country's most famous living artist, have split was not going to show up: she and Poppy have moved out for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the family home nick of time, complete with his two wives and Jason is now married to Emilysix children, one of whom filmed what happened. The separation Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was amicable - they had just drifted aparta record of the protest. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what was Lexi Williams, an intern at the family home RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and another proceeded to spray Bruce in the flat she shares with her motherface, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It ''seemed'' to be working well until the day that Poppy came home with a menacing drawing part of an ongoing series of a woman falling from a tall building and she started swearing'blue-face' attacks, using words she but this was unlikely to have heard in either homedifferent. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns to a therapist for helpThe can had been laced with cyanide, then her doctor and finally the police but no one will take what she has to say seriouslySir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471196615Ariel Saramandi|title=Iced|author=Felix FrancisPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Miles Pussett used In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down intradermally dissect the three-quarter-mile Cresta Runsociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourtunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. He was in St Moritz Saramandi describes the same weekend country at one stage as White Turf - that's high-class horseracing on 'rotting'', a blunt yet apt metaphor for the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with systemic decay brought about by the saddling malignant forces of the horses. It's seven years since he put horseracing behind him racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and he swore that he'd never go back to itgovernmental dysfunction. But when he sees that something suspicious is going onEach essay in this collection serves as a kind of diagnostic, Miles can't help but look for answers, even when it puts him in dangercharting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=1804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=147228612XPekka Harju-Autti|title=The Late Train to Gipsy Hill|author=Alan JohnsonLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=We all know people like Gary NelsonIt's the eighteenth century, although we probably haven't taken much notice a time of themdiscovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. They live quietCaptain Julius Hawthorne, uneventful lives and stay mostly under an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the radarAndaman Islands in his endeavour. In a city like LondonAlong with his son, Peter, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himtheir cat, Michi, they set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The highlight of his day is watching a islands are beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on and stunning in their scenery and the train each morning: he'd love to ask her for a date but he doesnislanders't have the courage. Thenleader, on his homeward commuteAarav, Arina speaks is keen to him and asks for his help. Before long he finds himself on the run from mobsters, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan policeestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Claire McGowanHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=I Know YouLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=''Then:'' Casey returns First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from a walk with their proper position on the baby, Carsonpage and positions them elsewhere, and comes across three bodiesdisjointed, almost a whole family taken downtruncated. ''Now:'' Rachel is out for a walk with Like the lives of her dog, Brandycharacters, when she comes across a body in the woodsthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=15420199741804271675
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529148251Tom Percival|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela CoelThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyConfident Readers|summary=Will''How am I able to be so transparent on paper about rapes life is difficult, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? in a multitude of ways. ItHe is bullied because he has 's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from it.wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can' Before you start reading t work and doesn''Misfits'' you need to be in a certain frame t have enough money for even the most basic of mind. Youthings like food, and his dad can're not going to read t work because he lost his job at the college, was working a book of essays or cash-in-hand job on a self-help bookbuilding site and had an accident. You're going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela CoelThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festivallife seems bleak in every direction. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatreAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. The disjointedness will fade away He is good at art, and you'll be carried on clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a cloud light at the end of exquisite writinga long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Sylvie Cathrall|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=It was the sort of thing that happened every day, although not to Leila Syed. She'd never driven her nephew, Max, There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to school before but his father, Andrew Hanson, had rung her in a paniccompelling premise. He was supposed to be taking Max to school but he'd been called into work and the delay in getting there could lead to financial losses. As the school was only five minutes out And this is one of Leila's way, could she drop him off? Of course, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her car. On the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at riskthem.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1786482126|title=Everybody Toots! The Janus Stone (Everybody Potties!Dr Ruth Galloway)|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go at the wrong time. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmly, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma CurtisElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Martin CurranBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one oluxury'clock on the dot, despite apartments - when they discovered the fact that she was actually painting one bones of their properties prior to it being let. If she didn't get home, there would be troublea child beneath a doorway. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don't be too quick to be understandingno skull. He was also Was this a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment''ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. All this was in ElizaIt's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arriveddifficult as Ruth knows, unannouncedbut Nelson doesn't, at the flat just that she is pregnant with his child as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted a result of the lease of flat 2one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate not least because Ruth is prone to get in before it was advertised as being availablesudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784742775|title=A Change of Circumstance Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Simon SerraillerTranslator)|authortitle=Susan HillThe Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Drugs hadn't really been that much This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of a problem the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and charming in Lafferton its gentle portrayal of nature and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste of timehuman relationships. They still wereGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, to her stories structured by a great extent, but Serrailler knew wisdom that something had appears to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited want to transport the drugs and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldn't be the correct one) of the person who was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything teach us something about those higher up in the organisation. The police might catch a few of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upworld.|isbn=1804271470
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FS89KX90008551375|title=When Shadows Fall On Me(D S Max Craigie)|author=Penelope PottsNeil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She was just going into the final year of her veterinary degree and - three years later - was still working at BB's diner. Bob - the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good boss. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriend, Marcus: her mother thought he was great and he was doing well in his career. Hollie wasn't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted to control her and most of all he wanted her to leave her job at the diner. Then there was the fact that he would be violent, both to her and to other people.}}{{Frontpage|author=John Gwynne|title=The Shadow Of The Gods|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered for all to see. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battle.|isbn=0356514218}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09HTWX47X|title=Endless Obsession|author=Dai Henley|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItLeanne Wilson's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly a DCI in body was found at the Met but now bottom of a well-respected private investigator. He's married to LauraScottish mountain, formerly his DS in seemingly the Murder Squad but now working in result of a forensics laboratorytragic accident. FloodShe's daughtersd looked so happy, Gemma and Pippa, have flown the nest, Pippa to Australiatoo, from where when she has very little contact with the family, and Gemma to married lifeposted her intentions on Facebook. She's had mental problems since Her friends were relieved as she was abducted many years ago just out of an unpleasant relationship, but Andy and Laura hope that married it looked like she was living her best life will provide the support she needsnow. Flood's business is going well and Then it emerged that was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Black.}}{{Frontpage|author=Peter Papathanasiou|title=The Stoning|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous five other women had died in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night similar circumstances in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumpslast year. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone All were experienced climbers, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home toproperly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. An arson attack on that shows None of the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, what a higher rank from the city, stupid thing to sort everything outdo' explanations applied. Because such an aggrieved, insular community They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is really going to welcome certain there's a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down killer on the law..loose.|isbn=1529416973
}}
