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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=B0949Q1DC1Samantha Harvey|title=The Patient (A DS Cross thriller)|author=Tim SullivanOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=DS George Cross has an autistic spectrum disorderIn 2024, quite probably AspergerSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for 's Syndrome. He can be rude, difficult and awkward with people, although it's never intentional. ItOrbital''s just , a compact yet profound work that he thinks differently and social niceties simply don't occur to himunfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. There's Through a reason why he's in Bristol's Major Crime Unit and it's narrative lens that he has mirrors the best conviction rate with cases, ever. His partner is DS Josie Ottey: she regards Cross with affection (not an emotion he would recogniseastronauts' orbital perspective, or welcome being attached Harvey invites readers to himself) and even attempts to instil some of those missing social niceties into Cross's behavioursee our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529151600295967572X|title=Give Unto OthersPale Pieces|author=Donna LeonG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changedOur unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. The Django found the tickets ''pandemiaon the floor somewhere'' stripped the city of its tourists for nearly two years and a lot of businesses have closed, most never has persuaded our narrator to reopenaccompany him. There's now a cascade of money as life begins again Why not? Not much else is clear either - but even 125,000 deaths have not put an end to greed. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth we are they going probably in the past as the pair travel to launder all the money which station by coach and the train is coming their way? Whilst he's thinking about this, Brunetti encounters someone he's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he was a child. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem and she'd like Brunetti's advicesteam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Marcus Sedgwick0008551324|title=WrathThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full of frustration at himselfIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. Lockdown But Davie Hardie is only just over, struggling in prison and he should be free 's prepared to do what tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he wantspromises, to go where is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants and with whom . And what he wants, but he cannot stop himself from putting is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his foot in it when he talks sentence and to his best friend, Cassieget an early parole date. They were half of a desultory school band Not much to ask, but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done dealit? Is it some spooky The new kind of music Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out even prepared to do the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he canother thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what't..s happening.|isbn=1800900899
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635864070Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Knit 2 Socks in 1|author=Safiyyah TalleyVaim
|rating=4
|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=If you've ever started knitting a pair of socks, finished the first one and either got bored by 'All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the idea pervading sense of doing the same thing all over againotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, or started on the second sock a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and lost the first before you finished itEline, this is two of the book for you. Where is it that single socks go to hide? Safiyyah Talley has developed a system that allows you to knit two socks protagonists caught in one, divide them up and have a perfectly finished pair of socks. Sounds good? It's clever and well-thought-outits melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Olivie Blake1035043092|title=The Atlas SixKilling Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= DarkI can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, sharpBook 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and highly inquisitivetheir young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'The Atlas Six'be on maternity leave, but when the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a storm, she can't resist getting involved. He' makes its publishing debut after becoming d been battered about the head with a TikNeolithic stone -Tok sensationone of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1529095239
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008384983Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Paris Apartment|author=Lucy FoleyTower|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=''Things How unctuous are not what they seem''. It was a Friday and Jess Hadley was keen to get to her half-brother's flat in Paris. She'd come across from London on Eurostar, courtesy the fats of the money she'd stolen from The Pervert's till in the Copacabana Bar in Brighton. It wasn't likely that the police would be on to her yet but she'd like to be somewhere safe and with food and drink inside her. She'd phoned Ben and got the address - 12 Rue des Amants - and he told her that the apartment was on the third floor. She's outside whatanother's obviously a very upmarket building but she hasn't been able to get in touch with Ben.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0760373558|title=Nordic Knits|author=Sue Flanders|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=I was so delighted by Sue Flanders' [[Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the World by Sue Flanders|Cozy Knits]] that I didn't need any persuading at all to pick up her ''Nordic Knits''. This delivers forty-four patterns inspired by textiles and local traditions from Norwaylife, Sweden and Iceland. There are a few sweaters or jackets but the majority of patterns are for smaller items such as mittens, gloves, hats and bags. All are bright and cheerful and very cosy.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1916072038|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie Cresswell|rating=4.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from how dizzying their home at Ecklington, to the house sugars in the hollow. The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's strengths and weaknesses: ''She is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath a facade of respectability, the deplorable truthour bloodstream''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Matthieu AikinsClaire-Louise Bennett|title=The Naked Don't Fear the WaterBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fictionEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at timesis steeped in anguish and distortion. This is not by any means Even a criticismkiss, but rather usually a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast symbol of intimacy and at times painful journeycloseness, becomes evidence of love lost. There are tense moments When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and gripping accounts of border crossings which had kiss me on edge the whole way through,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. But it's written with The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader ghost she conjures to perfectly envisage the environments and people describedtest her detachment.|isbn= B09N9157T61804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger0008405026|title=Unhinged A Stranger in the Family (Volume 3) (Blix and RammMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=This is It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the third book in a series of stories featuring Alexander Blix, a police officer, and Emma Ramm, investigation ground to a crime journalisthalt. In this book we find that when one of Blix's colleaguesNow, Kovicher mother, uncovers a connection between several Oslo casesHelena, she tries to contact and her superior, Blixfather are dead in their bed. Before she can reach himInitially, however, she is murdered, and Blixit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's daughter Iselin who shares something about the same apartment, narrowly escapes being murdered too. We then find ourselves a few days later with Blix and Ramm, who are being interviewed by positioning of the National Criminal Investigation Service because Blix has shot bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and killed someone, and Ramm saw it all happenher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What had Kovic discovered? looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. And what did Blix and Ramm uncover Kerrigan is convinced that led to Blix killing someone?|isbn=1914585003the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel AbrahamAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Age of AshThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyAutobiography|summary= ''We meet Alys under were born from the most northerly of Oldgatesame body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's four bridgeswork is always very candid and her tone transparent, she has a knife but this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, however, this letter will never reach her hand and a meeting that she dreads. Meanwhile, the City Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of Kithamar is diphtheria at 6 years old, a point few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in the turning of France, and 2 years when before the worlds are at their thinnest author was even born. The large and all things are possible. It is the night between instant void created by the funeral jarring concept of a Prince and the coronation writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of his successor. For a night the Kithamar is un-ruledreckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=03565154271804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529095522Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Interview|author=C M EwanReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary=Kate Harding is going for an interview for her dream job at Edge CommunicationsBiographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. It's the last interview I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the day at one first section of Londonthis book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: 's newest office buildings and Edge have fitted out their part 'you write not of real life as it is, but of the building what you yourself imagine it to be something special. Maggie, Kate's recruitment agent, is keen Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that Kate approaches the interview in a good state of mind: Kate assumes sea, or that this Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is because Maggie will get it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a decent bonus if Kate gets the job - subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and she has to admit Andreyev in such privileged detail that life has not been easy for her recentlyone almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B097XNMCRK1529077745|title=The Blood Tide Dark Wives (DS Max CraigieD I Vera Stanhope)|author=Neil LancasterAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loch Torridon ''is'' A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the back body of beyond: there's not even any light pollution which is why it was a man in the perfect place to land illegal deliveries of drugspark near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. Jimmy McLeish thought that he The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was onto due to work a nice little earner, only to find that Macca, shift the man he thought he was working with, is dead. His remains would night before but who had never be foundturned up. The delivery D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is hijacked by Davie and Callumthe disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. As Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the story progresses wegirl'll get s diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to know them quite wellJosh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09NDJ77LMB0FK5LHKD9|title=Me and My ShadowThe Colour of Memory|author=Deborah StoneChristopher Bowden
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= It's been three years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Like all Bowden's stories, there'What happens when someone is pushed too far and they begin to lose their grip on reality? How would you cope if you felt that no one loved you? And how far would you go to be happy? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off s a mystery at the shadows heart of her past and attempts to repair decades worth ''The Colour of pain.Money'' Rachel is . We like this running theme in a current conversation with her psychiatrist, who pushes her to recall her life from very young childhood onwards. But Rachel is combative with Doctor Blake, sometimes even contemptuous of her. You can see that it's not an easy therapeutic relationship. Rachelauthor's recall of her life is in remarkable detail. She remembers each minor slight work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each major betrayal in perfect detail with absolute and unforgiving claritytime.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529409659Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Locked Room (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly GriffithsHouse 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=1804271918
}}{{Frontpage
|isbn=henleyA
|title=Ultimate Obsession
|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time since her father had remarried but his wife was now keen to do some decorating , and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her motherhe should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's belongingsdefence against a murder charge drained his savings. She was intrigued by the discovery of a picture of her own house: it was an old photographHis wife, Laura, taken in misty conditions and has been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on the back it said cruises. That's what 'dawn 1963ordinary people do', some years before Ruth was born. '' It was before her parents were marriedHe's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When she returned Jack Durban tries to Norfolk she was determined persuade him to find out what was behind take his case, it's the photograph but Covid intervened and thought of the country was in lockdown. Ruth and Kate are restricted to the cottage with Ruth attempting to home school Kate and continue with her university teaching duties. The good thing was meeting Zoe, the new tenant from next door whom they got to know whilst clapping for carersmoney he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18479418341836284683|title=Atomic HabitsThe Big Happy|author=James ClearDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleDystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when Iopen a book, it've said this before but there are some books that you seek outs nothing like I expected it to be, some books that you stumble across and some books it takes me on a wild ride. And that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now! is just what happened with ''Atomic HabitsThe Big Happy'' is in the last category.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09MSC981W|title=The Woke Iliad|author=George Boreas|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Helen is I don't want to ruin a popular activistsimilar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. Or should we call her a popular influencer? Or perhaps a popular franchise owner? Anyway, Helen is so popular Once that the United States government has made her its Ambassador of Woke. Helen runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf of the government's done, including the Shaming Conference and the Permissible Entertainment Committee - ''I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for indoctrinating and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have it''yourself. Ouch!
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09D95TRKZSally Rooney|title=The Wedding Murders|author=Sarah LinleyIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=Libby Steele was hoping to get Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a permanent job with the newspaper grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and the case she was covering was so brilliantly frustrating, as her big chancecharacters never quite say exactly what they feel. It was even more important to her than Among the many relationships woven into this story, the celebrity wedding she was central one for readers to attend unravel is the following day with her ex-rock star boyfriendfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, Matthew. She was leaving her seven-year-old sona socially awkward chess prodigy, Patrick contrasts sharply with her sisterhis older brother Peter, Emma, and heading off to a grand manor house hotel successful lawyer living in the North Yorkshire countrysideDublin. Daniel AcroydFollowing their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, television presenter and former member of the rock band was marrying Vicky and Libby suspected that the wedding wasnbrothers't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phonesalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18382268341036916375|title=Carried Away With the CarnivalJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Ed BoxallPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=It was one ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of those memories we treasure and reflections from our childhoods: an outing 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 our grandparentsthe docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. They It're there s a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to undo all think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the good blitz that parents do, so the trips out were always so much funwas a constant factor in McArdle's early years. A young boy I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was going to the carnival with his Grandad, who told him:sounded.}}
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291353621009473085|title=The Long WeekendConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Gilly MacmillanAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=It was Sometimes it's simpler to explain a long drive to the weekend retreat in Northumbria, right up near the Scottish borders book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to make it worse the three husbands had all ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for one reason or another - had to delay making an easy read which will deliver the trip until inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the Saturday morningbook for you. Jane and Ruth had known each other If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for a long time but Emily was a bit of an outsiderthose tumultuous years. She It's a compelling read and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than the other two womenshould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The friendship of the group went back to school daysConservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. Paul had coached rugby It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the school where Mark, Toby impact a government has made and Rob were pupilsco-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. Mark had married JaneThis book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and Toby is Ruth's husband. And Rob? Well, Rob's deadthe situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=gareth_steelJenny Valentine|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth SteelUs in the Before and After|rating=45|genre=Animals and WildlifeTeens|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriatelifetime connection. Stories of They meet as children one day on a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other'Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not s contact details at the companion volume you've been looking fortime. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism But then chance brings them back together, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with himthey are inseparable. He says that he's written it to inform Something has happened though, something terrible and provoke thoughttragic, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivitynow they must work through their grief, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eatingtheir friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876348841787333175|title=The HerdYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Emily EdwardsBenji Waterhouse
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionPopular Science|summary=Our story opens in December 2019I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, before most a glorious mixture of us had even heard insight into the workings of Covid or realised that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be a major issueMad... We're in Farley County Court, where Elizabeth ' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony and Ash Kohlithe work of a psychiatrist. As they were best friends until just I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a few months ago we know that whatever has happened person and it is major always delivered with empathy and that, regardless of the outcome, this is not going to work out well for anyoneunderstanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Annabel AbbsMariana Enriquez|title=The Language of FoodA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionShort Stories|summary=Eliza Acton Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirbyurban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a local woman with a troubled home lifecrime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. Together, they test, craft, refine and reshape the world The circumstances of domestic cookery, reinventing her characters are so plausible that the recipe book and changing the face of cookery writing foreversupernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=13985022271803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell1529934753|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodThe Protest|author=Rob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble againFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, so the other gods have decided therecountry's only one thing most famous living artist, was not going to show up for it – the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both arrived in exile the nick of time, complete with his two wives and in the physical form 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 middle-school kid here on Earthrecord of the protest. He's guarded by Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a giant chair and a god proceeded to spray Bruce in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as wellthe face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to be the more suavepart of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, more popular and more successful brother Sir Max Bruce was dead.}}{{Frontpage|author=Ariel Saramandi|title=Portrait of the twoan Island on Fire|rating=4. Loki has a month 5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to redeem his reputationintradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, and get his moral compass pointing tunneling deep into the right way again, or else, wounds left by colonialism and slavery to prove it he has to write expose how these legacies still shape modern life. Saramandi describes the text we read in country at one stage as ''rotting'', a sentient notebookblunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, that is able to cry foul of his liespatriarchy, environmental degradation and judge his progressgovernmental dysfunction. But Loki is the Each essay in this collection serves as a kind of god who insists he can do anythingdiagnostic, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in charting the various diseases afflicting the park..island state.right?|isbn=14063997521804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008454442Pekka Harju-Autti|title=A Flicker in LoveVortex and the Dark|author=Stacy WillinghamDrakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=It's May 2019 and Dr Chloe Davisthe eighteenth century, a medical psychologist, time of discovery and Britain is completing a session with a new patientexpanding its foreign trade. Lacey Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is suffering mentally but Chloe has hopes of getting her through sent to the traumaAndaman Islands in his endeavour. You seeAlong with his son, Chloe knows what it's like to have a traumatic childhood. Her father is Richard DavisPeter, the man who murdered six girls some twenty years ago. Their bodies have never been found but Chloe found some jewellery belonging to the girls - trophies taken from and their bodies - tucked away in cat, Michi, they set off on a cupboard at home and she and her mother handed it perilous voyage to the policethese faraway lands. Dick Davis is The islands are beautiful and stunning in the Louisiana State Penitentiary their scenery and Chloie has had nothing to do with him for the last twenty years. Her mother islanders' leader, Aarav, is in a care homekeen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Escape RoomLili is Crying|rating=34.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=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 their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=IWill've seen junior variants s life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'Choose Your Own Adventure, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can' format cover escape rooms – t work because he lost his job at the process by which college, was working a character or characters start by being trapped cash-in -hand job on a specific locationbuilding site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and have to solve problems Will's life seems bleak in order to get their way outevery direction. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen And yet, he still has a prose book describing people in such an adventure, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the firsttiny amount of hope. Here He is good at art, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new clings to each other and booked into the game without any moments of their friendsjoy when he is drawing, are that feel like a team – starting out light at the game's main officesend of a long, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerdark tunnel. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?|isbn=17880079641398527122
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|isbnauthor=1732898731Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Boy Who Loved Boxes: A Children's Book for Adults|author=Michael Albanese Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleScience Fiction|summary=There was a Boy who loved boxes. He had are few greater joys than a box for everything and he was meticulous about storage: his parents probably couldn't believe their luck! It began with art supplies, stuffed toys and the like: all the things book which most children have in abundance. The Boy's delight was in the sense of order in his room: it made him feel happy. As he grew lives up and became to a Man, his life became more complicated and he dealt with compelling premise. And this by getting bigger and better boxes. Look carefully at the pictures and you'll see that is one of them has a padlock...|isbn= 0356522776
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|isbn=B09MN1526W1786482126|title=Blood Games The Janus Stone (DS Nikki Parekh 4Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Liz MistryElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury's apartments - when they discovered the third murder in the space bones of a few weeks and they've all been because of machetes used on teenagerschild beneath a doorway. DS Nikki Parekh and DC Sajid Malik are amongst the first to arrive on the scene at Chellow Dene Reservoir on the outskirts of BradfordThere was no skull. Only, Was this timea ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, itDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's going to be different. The body appears to Nikki to be that of her beloved nephewdifficult as Ruth knows, Haqibbut Nelson doesn't, and that she has is pregnant with his child as a very public meltdown. It isn't Haqib: there are similarities but result of the body is clad in designer clothes and comes from an obviously monied backgroundone night they spent together some three months ago. What it does mean though is that Nikki Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is going prone to be on sick leave for some time with anxiety and depressionsudden bouts of sickness.
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|author=Ally WilkesGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=All the White SpacesThe Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=HorrorShort Stories|summary=In post-WWI England, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Arctic expedition led by the famous Australis Randall. For Jonathan, this adventure represents a chance for a fresh start, and This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the opportunity to live life as his authentic self and true genderword: spellbinding with its fantastical, without the disapproval magical elements and constraints charming in its gentle portrayal of his parents. However, Jonathan isn't the only one fleeing the confines of his past nature and the shadow of the war hangs like a funeral shroud over the expeditionhuman relationships. Guilt, mistrust and grief stalk the party Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently andprecisely, when disaster strikes and they are forced to overwinter on land, her stories structured by a menacing presence waits wisdom that appears to prey on their darkness. If Jonathan is to make it out of the Arctic winter alive, he will have want to face his demons once and for all, or risk making teach us something about the barren, icy landscape his tombworld.|isbn=17890978351804271470
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|authorisbn=Dean Koontz0008551375|title=QuicksilverWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=24.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Meet Quinn Quicksilver. HeLeanne Wilson's not had body was found at the chance to get to be bottom of a mercurial character yetScottish mountain, for heseemingly the result of a tragic accident. She's lived in a nun-run orphanage since he was a three-day old foundlingd looked so happy, too, and now is starting a career when she posted her intentions on a needless magazine's staffFacebook. But when this book starts he IS now ''subject to sudden or unpredictable changes Her friends were relieved as she was just out of mood or mind''an unpleasant relationship, for something – call but it unearthly intuition, call looked like she was living her best life now. Then it mind-control, call it a supernatural urge – has demanded of him emerged that he go to a derelict dinerfive other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. All were experienced climbers, find a gold coin worth a fortune, cash the value of it out properly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. None of his bank and prepare for going on the lam'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. And They were all this alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is just in time for two of those typical Men in Black types to turn up and suggest hecertain there's of interest to them. Helped to escape, he finds his flight is interrupted by other instances of him acting without being in control, a killer on the discovery that he is not unique in having some kind of burgeoning power – and a whole lot more besidesloose.|isbn=1542019885
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