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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= 1806344777|title=Arthur and the Land of Nimbostratus: Arthur's Able Adventures|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary= Arthur dreams of adventures. He looks out of his window each day and thinks of all the escapades he could have, the places he could go and the things he could see. His favourite day is Saturday because that's the day his friend Maxine - she of the booming laugh and silver bangles - comes to visit. Maxine is a great believer in the power of imagination.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035043092|title=The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=I can't have 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. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' 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'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.}}{{Frontpage|author=Vanda SymonPolly Barton|title=FacelessWhat Am I, A Deer?
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=In this book told Polly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from multiple viewpointsLondon to Berlin, several troubled people are thrown works translating video games into Japanese through the same story thanks to just one mis-step. Set in New Zealand, the first process of our characters is Bradley, a middle aged man struggling with an overbearing bosslocalisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a weighty mortgage, and what he feels is an unappreciative wifenew audience. Then there’s Billy, a homeless teenage girl who is a street artist working Barton treats this as a prostitute sometimes paradoxical act: arguably, in order to pay striving for the materials she needsuniversality, language is endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of disappearing altogether. And then we have MaxFrom this, who is also living on the streets and who keeps an eye on Billy. He is novel opens out into a shell of a manwider, barely able resonant question: to take any care of himself, and yet what extent do we can sense that he was once something more than he is now. One nighttranslate ourselves in order to be understood, Bradley finds himself half-crazed with stress and anxiety, driving down the street looking for a prostitute. He picks up Billyaccepted, and then with one thoughtless decision finds his life thrown into turmoil and a spiral away from the person he thought he was into someone very different.or loved?|isbn=19145850461804272175
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0760373531Zabriskie1|title=Cozy KnitsA Village Where Many Ways Meet: 30 HatA Story of Belonging and Community, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the WorldRooted in Indigenous Wisdom|author=Sue FlandersStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Just occasionally you encounter a book of knitting patterns which seems to meet your every need. Right now, it's bitterly cold 'Across many African and we're Indigenous systems, differences in the sandwich filling between two storms: I need sockshow children learn, scarvessense , hats and mittensor process the world were not treated as disorders to be corrected. They have to look stylishwere understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, keep me warm and be so cheerful that they make me feel bettereach holding value within the community. If that sounds like a lot to ask, have a look at ''Cozy Knits'': it has thirty designs for those necessary items and I don't think This lovely story is a synthesis of that there tradition, which was one of them which I couldn't see myself wearing. We start with an introduction carried down through generations by Nancy Bush which gives some of the history of knittingoral retellings. It's shows that a community or society is not essential made up from interchangeable building blocks of human beings but it's by a range of people with different skills and different personalities, all contributing to a nice extrawhole that combines them all and to the benefit of them all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17765740281787333175|title=Bumblebee GrumblebeeYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=David ElliottBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=For SharingPopular Science|summary=I love a good board book! was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'Bumblebee Grumblebee'after enjoying Adam Kay' s first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is aimed at quite Going to Hurt}}, a niche market: it's for glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the child who still enjoys board books (erNHS, see my first sentence) but has mastered sufficient language skills to have realise that you can ''play'' with words humour and make something quite different from each oneautobiography. We have the elephant who dons a tutu - and becomes a ''balletphantYou Don't Have to be Mad...''. The buffalo who has had a bath (complete with yellow duck) promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and then dries off with a hair drier becomes the work of a ''fluffalo''psychiatrist. The rhinoceros who drops his ice cream cone 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 ''crynoceros'' (think about person and it!) The pelican who sits on his potty changes into a ''sm.....is always delivered with empathy and understanding..'' OK, let's not go there Some people are eating!
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09V1NQ5SXMaria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=Death at Friar's Inn|author=Rob KeeleyThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Nat Webber Despite her anonymisation of place names and Tom Barton were people, Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the finals town of the Moots F for a literary festival she is to take place be a guest speaker at The Honourable Society . Detoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of Friar's Inn. For aspiring barristersevents, moots test M eventually offers to step in for a circus performer who has unexpectedly left the participants' knowledge of several areas of law as well show. The train functions as their advocacy skills: it's a great way motif of getting invaluable practice transience and impermanence, while the circus embodies the reshaping of getting yourself noticed. Tom identity and Nat are from 'a provincial university' and they're ''almost'' looked down on because of this. The other contestants - Becca Decker-Hamilton and Lucia 'Mouse' Dawes have no such disadvantage and Becca has retreat into fantasy, an abundance impulse that lies at the very heart of confidence. Tom's £30 supermarket suit doesn't make him feel any betterthe novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529125944B0GFQ81YQK|title=City How the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of the DeadMalagasy Elders|author=Jonathan KellermanStephanie Zabriskie|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=When you drive large vehicles for a livingBefore people came and joined the animals, you're careful there was only the sky and it's not just about the way that you driveearth. You restrict your alcohol intake Everything was quiet until the earth and if it's a trip that needs overnight stays you make certain you get your sleepthe sky began to tal to each other. When you're taking a removals truck through a residential neighbourhood you head off at 5 aFirst, the earth created bodies.mAnd then, the sky breathed life into them. when These were the roads are quieterfirst humans and they belonged to both earth and sky. And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, especially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, even if you have their bodies returned to wait up when you get the earth and their life returned to where you're goingthe sky. And it was going well until that is why the earth and the men hit something in Westwood Villagesky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to, an upmarket neighbourhood of Los Angeles. The man was stark naked and couldn't be identifiedcare for, both.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)B0GHPMNF6P|title=I May Be WrongThe Zookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre= AutobiographyFantasy|summary= When the Dalai Lama adds Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his words to your frontispiece, I'm inclined Canary Wharf finance job to think it doesn't really matter how take over the rest running of the world responds to your bookfamily's farm zoo. I knowHe's not expecting much excitement, having read the book until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in questionNew Zealand, that Lindeblad would disagree with that thought. He knows (and at core so do I) that suddenly life is no longer quite what it matters very much how seems. Then the rest of egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he, Edgar, his mother Abi, and the world responds zoo's part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this booklittle bundle of scales and joy, because despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and not being able to tell anyone about it tells the truth as it is, . But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in the early 21st century.|isbn=1526644827ways they had never before imagined…
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0949Q1DC1Stephanie Zabriskie|title=The Patient (A DS Cross thriller)|author=Tim SullivanHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=DS George Cross has an autistic spectrum disorder''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, quite probably Asperger's SyndromeTanzania. He can be rude, difficult and awkward with people, although it's never intentional. It's just that he thinks differently The Maasai are a cattle-herding people and social niceties simply don't occur this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to himbe so. There's a reason why he's Cattle are status and wealth in BristolMaasai culture but this doesn's Major Crime Unit t tell the whole story of the intimate and symbiotic connection its people, and especially its women, have with their cows and it's that he has for the best conviction rate with cases, evernatural world. His partner is DS Josie Ottey: she regards Cross The oral tradition retelling the many conversations Maasai women have had with affection (not an emotion he would recognisetheir cows, or welcome being attached to himself) and even attempts to instil some of those missing social niceties into Cross's behaviourdoes.|isbn=B0G9WTGY6J
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529151600Livi Michael|title=Give Unto Others|author=Donna LeonElizabeth and Ruth|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeHistorical Fiction|summary=Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changed. The ''pandemiaElizabeth and Ruth'' stripped is a work of historical fiction wrought from the city life of its tourists the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for nearly two years and her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a lot radical critique of businesses have closed, most never to reopen. There's now the treatment of the working class published under a cascade of money as life begins again but even 125,000 deaths have not put an end to greedpseudonym. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth are they going to launder all the money which is coming their way? Whilst he''Ruth'' from Livi Michael's thinking about thistitle appears in her novel as Pasley, Brunetti encounters someone he's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he a young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem and she'd like Brunettifinds herself in Manchester's adviceNew Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life.Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and interrogates the extent to which the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices.|isbn=1784633682
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{{Frontpage
|author=Marcus SedgwickMakenna Goodman|title=WrathHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet FitzIt could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a young Scottish lad full disgraced professor on the brink of frustration at himselflosing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. Lockdown However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which is only just overseductive, radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and the protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the former owner of the countryside house he should be free 's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to do what he wantshis potential fresh start. The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, to go where he wants and with whom he wantsdescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot beyond form''. Although she lives in it when he talks an assisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=1804272205}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0GCB1MQ7D|title=Why My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy|rating=5|genre=Autobiography|summary=I have often wondered how prominent people came to his best friendhold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, Cassiewhich might or might not tell the true story. They were half of It's not often that you find a desultory school bandbook that gives the full backstory, but Cassie was also and rarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you'll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one hundred per cent of those rare exceptions. It's the enigmatic – saying she could hear story of how a subhuman hum coming boy from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying Midlands, born at the end beginning of the world is already Second World War, would become a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind Professor of music she's dreaming Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was one of the founders of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can'tdepartment...|isbn=1800900899
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635864070Jeremy Cooper|title=Knit 2 Socks in 1|author=Safiyyah TalleyDiscord|rating=43.5|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=If you've ever started knitting Discord: a pair lack of socksagreement or harmony (as between persons, things, finished or ideas) The principal example of discord within the first one and either got bored by the idea novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of doing the same thing all over againnovel, or started on the second sock Rebekah Rosen and lost the first before you finished itEvie Bennet, this is the book for youare as different as they come. Where Rebekah is it that single socks go an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to hide? Safiyyah Talley has developed retirement, while Evie is a system that allows you force of nature, bounding onto the musical scene as a precocious saxophonist, oozing with talent and charm. The two, predictably, don't always see eye to knit two socks in oneeye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, divide something connects them up and have beyond just their musical project: a perfectly finished pair sort of socks. Sounds good? It's clever and well-thought-outfragile alliance formed within the clamour.|isbn=1804272264
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{{Frontpage
|author=Olivie BlakeTom Percival|title=The Atlas SixWrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary= DarkWill's life is difficult, sharpin a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and highly inquisitivedoesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will'The Atlas Six'' makes its publishing debut after becoming s life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a Tik-Tok sensationlong, dark tunnel.|isbn=15290952391398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008384983Edward W Said|title=The Paris Apartment|author=Lucy FoleyRepresentations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Edward Said's ''Things are not what they seemRepresentations of the Intellectual''. It was is less a Friday strict theory of what intellectuals are and Jess Hadley was keen to get to her half-brother's flat in Parismore a passionate argument for what they should be. She'd come across from London on Eurostar, courtesy Said clearly rejects the comfortable image 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 intellectual as a detached expert speaking only to be somewhere safe and with food and drink inside herother specialists. She'd phoned Ben and got the address - 12 Rue des Amants - and Instead, he told her that the apartment was insists on the third floor. She's outside what's obviously intellectual as a very upmarket building but she hasn't been able public figure, often awkward, abrasive, and unpopular, who speaks truth to get in touch with Benpower even when it is inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760373558Sylvie Cathrall|title=Nordic Knits|author=Sue FlandersA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=CraftsScience Fiction|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 Norway, Sweden and Iceland. There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a few sweaters or jackets but the majority compelling premise. And this is one of patterns are for smaller items such as mittens, gloves, hats and bags. All are bright and cheerful and very cosythem.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19160720381786482126|title=The House in the Hollow Janus Stone (The Talbot SagaDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Allie CresswellElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=We meet part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire Builders were demolishing an old house in November 1811. TwentyNorwich -seventhe site was going to hold seventy-yearfive 'luxury' apartments -old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklington, to when they discovered the house in the hollowbones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. The two women are angry Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her motherDCI Harry Nelson. It's strengths and weaknesses: difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn''She t, that she is practiced at subterfuge, at concealing, beneath pregnant with his child as a facade result of respectability, the deplorable truth''one night they spent together some three months ago. Hester Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is furious about Jocelyn's refusal prone to do as she was asked, which has precipitated ''this violent and unexpected removal''. Then we are told sudden bouts of the birth of a child and, soon after, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshiresickness.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Matthieu Aikins0008551375|title=The Naked Don't Fear the WaterWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=ItLeanne Wilson's easy to forget body was found at times that The Naked Don't Fear the Water isnbottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a tragic accident. She't actually fictiond looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, because but it reads very much looked like a well-paced thriller at timesshe was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. This is not by any means a criticism All were experienced climbers, but rather 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 properly equipped for what they were doing and at times painful journeysensible people. There are tense moments and gripping accounts None of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through'what a stupid thing to do' explanations applied. But it They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage killer on the environments and people describedloose.|isbn= B09N9157T6
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas EngerPaul B Preciado|title=Unhinged (Volume 3) (Blix and Ramm)Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=This ''It is never too late to embrace the third book in a series revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of stories featuring Alexander Blixarias, a police officerletters, essays and Emma Rammautofiction, a crime journalist. In this book we find that when one of Blix's colleaguesPreciado expresses his own hybrid self, Kovic, uncovers and brings forth a connection between several Oslo cases, she tries new sensorium as an offering to contact her superiorthe new generation, Blixa new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Before she can reach himRather, howeverit is the proportional, she is murderedvalid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and Blixthe tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present's daughter Iselin who shares ' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the same apartmentCovid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, narrowly escapes being murdered toowhen dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''. We then find ourselves Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a few days later with Blix and Rammsign of weakness, who are being interviewed by the National Criminal Investigation Service because Blix has shot and killed someoneor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, and Ramm saw it all happenPreciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''. What had Kovic discovered? And what did Blix and Ramm uncover that led to Blix killing someone?|isbn=19145850031804271454
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{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel AbrahamSamantha Harvey|title=Age of AshOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary= We meet Alys under In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the most northerly of OldgateBooker Prize for ''Orbital''s four bridges, she has a knife compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in her hand and a meeting that she dreads. Meanwhile, the City lives of Kithamar is at a point in the turning group of years when astronauts aboard the worlds are at their thinnest and all things are possibleInternational Space Station. It is the night between the funeral of Through a Prince and narrative lens that mirrors the coronation of his successor. For astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a night the Kithamar is un-ruledwholly new light.|isbn=03565154271529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529095522295967572X|title=The InterviewPale Pieces|author=C G M EwanStevens|rating=45|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Kate Harding Our unnamed narrator is going for an interview for her dream job at Edge Communicationsabout to begin a train journey with his companion Django. ItWhere they's re going and what the last interview purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the day at one of Londontickets ''on the floor somewhere''s newest office buildings and Edge have fitted out their part of the building has persuaded our narrator to be something specialaccompany him. Maggie, Kate's recruitment agent, Why not? Not much else is keen clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to see that Kate approaches the interview in a good state of mind: Kate assumes that this station by coach and the train is because Maggie will get a decent bonus if Kate gets the job - and she has to admit that life has not been easy for her recentlysteam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B097XNMCRK0008551324|title=The Blood Tide Devil You Know (DS D S Max Craigie)
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loch Torridon '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 isstruggling in prison and he'' s prepared to tell the police where the back body of beyond: there's not even any light pollution which a missing person is why it buried and who was the perfect place to land illegal deliveries of drugsresponsible for her death. Jimmy McLeish thought that This person, he was onto a nice little earnerpromises, only to find that Macca, is someone big and it will be worth the man police doing what he thought wants. And what he was working with, wants is deadto be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. His remains would never be found. Not much to ask, is it? The delivery is hijacked by Davie new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and Callum. As the story progresses weshe'll get s even prepared to know them quite do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept wellaway from what's happening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B09NDJ77LMThea Lenarduzzi|title=Me and My Shadow|author=Deborah StoneThe Tower|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary= ''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 unctuous are the shadows fats of her past and attempts to repair decades worth of pain.another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934}}{{Frontpage|isbn=15294096590008405026|title=The Locked Room A Stranger in the Family (Dr Ruth GallowayMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Elly GriffithsJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was some time 's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her father had remarried but his wife was now keen to do some decorating and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her mother's belongingsbed one summer night. She was intrigued by never found and the discovery of investigation ground to a picture of halt. Now, her own house: it was an old photographmother, Helena, taken in misty conditions and on the back it said 'dawn 1963', some years before Ruth was born. It was before her parents were marriedfather are dead in their bed. When she returned to Norfolk she was determined to find out what was behind the photograph Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but Covid intervened and there's something about the country was in lockdown. Ruth and Kate are restricted to positioning of the cottage with Ruth attempting to home school Kate bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and continue with her university teaching dutiesboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. The good thing What looked as though it was meeting Zoe, going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the new tenant from next door whom they got to know whilst clapping for carersexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1847941834Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleAutobiography|summary=''We were born from the same body. I've said never really wanted to think about this before .'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read them. Ernaux writes in direct address to her sister, likehowever, right now! this letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the vaccine was made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the author was even born. The large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux'Atomic Habits'' is s process of reckoning with this giant absence in the last categoryher life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09MSC981WMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Woke Iliad|author=George BoreasReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionBiography|summary=Helen is a popular activistBiographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. Or should we call her a popular influencer? Or perhaps I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a popular franchise owner? Anywayvibrant, Helen is so popular that the United States government has made her its Ambassador subjective yet informed portrait of three of Wokehis literary contemporaries. Helen runs all sorts In the first section of initiatives on behalf this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of the governmentreal life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, including the Shaming Conference and the Permissible Entertainment Committee or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''for indoctrinating . Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it''. Ouch!|isbn=1804271977
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09D95TRKZ1529077745|title=The Wedding MurdersDark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Sarah LinleyAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Libby Steele was hoping to get A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a permanent job with man in the newspaper and the case she was covering was her big chancepark near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. It The dead man was even more important to her than Josh - one of the celebrity wedding she care workers who was due to attend work a shift the following day with her ex-rock star boyfriend, Matthewnight before but who had never turned up. She was leaving D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her sevenonly clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old son, Patrick with her sister, Emma, and heading off to a grand manor house hotel in the North Yorkshire countrysideChloe Spencer. Daniel Acroyd, television presenter and former member of Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the rock band was marrying Vicky and Libby suspected that death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the wedding wasngirl't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phoness diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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|isbnauthor=1838226834Olga Tokarczuk|title=Carried Away With the Carnival|author=Ed BoxallHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=45|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=It was one of those memories we treasure from our childhoods: an outing with our grandparents. They're there to undo all 'What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that parents do, so the trips out were always so much fun. A young boy was going to the carnival with his Grandad, who told him:? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''ItHouse of Day, House of Night'll be brilliant', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, just remembersubtle changes which govern our lives, don't let go of my handlike 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
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291353621836284683|title=The Long WeekendBig Happy|author=Gilly MacmillanDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=It was Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a long drive book, it's nothing like I expected it to the weekend retreat in Northumbriabe, right up near the Scottish borders and to make it worse the three husbands had all - for one reason or another - had to delay making the trip until the Saturday morning. Jane and Ruth had known each other for a long time but Emily was takes me on a bit of an outsiderwild ride. She and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than the other two womenAnd that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. The friendship I don't want to ruin a similar experience for any of the group went back you reading but I'll have to school days. Paul had coached rugby at least set the school where Mark, Toby and Rob were pupilsscene. Mark had married Jane, and Toby is RuthOnce that's husband. And Rob? Welldone, Rob's deadI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
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|isbnauthor=gareth_steelSally Rooney|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth SteelIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Animals and WildlifeGeneral Fiction |summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking forsomething of a grandmaster at putting it into words. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realismHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as do other similar programmesher characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Gareth Steel says that Among the book is not suitable many relationships woven into this story, the central one for younger readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and - after reading - I agree Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with himhis older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. He says that heFollowing their father's written it to inform and provoke thoughtpassing after a long battle with cancer, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesnthe brothers't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eatingalready strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17876348841836285493|title=The HerdDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Emily EdwardsRob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Our story opens in December 2019Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, before a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of us had even heard of Covid or realised that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come to be a major issueall, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. WeThis hasn're in Farley County Courtt gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, where Elizabeth and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony and Ash Kohli. As they were best friends until just a few months ago we know that whatever she has happened is major suggested to Will and his mum thathe spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, regardless of the outcomeStation Road, this is not going to work out well for anyonewhere his ability might be better extended.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Annabel Abbs1009473085|title=The Language of FoodConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Eliza Acton is Sometimes it's simpler to explain a poet who has never had the slightest inclination book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to boil ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you're looking for an eggeasy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. When tasked with writing a cookery If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, she recruits Ann Kirby{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a local woman with compelling read and 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 troubled home lifeseries which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. Together, they test, craft, refine and reshape This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the world state of domestic cookerythe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, reinventing the recipe book changes that occurred and changing the face of cookery writing foreversituation in 2024.|isbn=1398502227
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{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellJenny Valentine|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile Elk and in the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be the more suaveMab are best friends, or more popular and more successful brother of the two. Loki has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, or else, and to prove it he has to write the text we read in a sentient notebook, than that is able to cry foul of his lieseven, and judge his progress. But Loki their friendship is the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk once in the park...right?|isbn=1406399752}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008454442|title=A Flicker in the Dark|author=Stacy Willingham|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=It's May 2019 and Dr Chloe Davis, a medical psychologist, is completing a session with a new patientlifetime connection. Lacey is suffering mentally They meet as children one day on a trip out but Chloe has hopes of getting her through the trauma. You see, Chloe knows what itunfortunately they don't get each other's like to have a traumatic childhood. Her father is Richard Davis, 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 their bodies - tucked away in a cupboard contact details at home and she and her mother handed it to the policetime. Dick Davis is in the Louisiana State Penitentiary and Chloie has had nothing to do with him for the last twenty years. Her mother is in a care home.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title=Escape Room|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by which a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific locationBut then chance brings them back together, and have to solve problems in order to get their way outthey are inseparable. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure Something has happened though, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami something terrible and four other tweenagerstragic, all new to each other and booked into the game without any of now they must work through their friendsgrief, are a team – starting out at the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerfriendship, together. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?|isbn=17880079641471196585
}}
