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==The Best New Books==
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{{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''
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760379912Samantha Harvey|title=Super Easy Quilting for Beginners|author=Editors of Quarry BooksOrbital|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsGeneral Fiction|summary=I learned patchworking from necessity: old or outgrown clothes needed to be turned into something new and usable when I was in my twenties. It would be In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a while before it became compact yet profound work that unfolds over a pleasure rather than single day in the lives of a chore but I've never felt completely at home with quiltinggroup of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. I needed something Through a little more stylish than my usual buttons or knots. narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts''Super Easy Quilting for Beginners'' seemed like orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a good place to startwholly new light. So, how did it stack up?|isbn=1529922933
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1788360737295967572X|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era of PostmodernismPale Pieces|author=Alexander AdamsG M Stevens|rating=25|genre= Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary= Can art ever be apolitical? All art Our unnamed narrator is political because art is not made in about to begin a vacuumtrain journey with his companion Django. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in Where they're going and what the Era purpose of Postmodernism’ this journey is adamant that art is freer when it , is art for art’s sakeuncertain. The recent trend of so-called artivism Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has caused artists persuaded our narrator to become more overtly political (read: left wing)accompany him. Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by large “left-wing” donors coach and media elites hoping to create the train is a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believessteam locomotive.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14087121720008551324|title=The Cliff HouseDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Chris BrookmyreNeil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It''Many of them didn't know each other, one of them didn't know anybody, including Jen, one of them quite possibly hated her, and two of them definitely hated each others unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. What could possibly go wrong?'' That's Neither side likes or has any respect for the round-up for Jenother. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's hen party which is prepared to take place on Clachan Geal an island just south tell the police where the body of Barraa missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. They're all staying in The Cliff HouseThis person, hosted by Laurenhe promises, is someone big and it's will be worth the utmost in luxury living but then Jen can afford itpolice doing what he wants. She's just sold her muffin business for millions but And what he wants is staying on to run it. She's got her doubts about be transferred to an open prison to serve the long weekend: fiance Zaki Hussain has been acting a little strangely remainder of late his sentence and wouldn't explain to her what the email he was hurriedly deleting was aboutget an early parole date. Added Not much to thatask, heis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's just about forced her even prepared to bring his sister, Samira, whom Jen's never met, on do the trip, on the grounds other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that sheDS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's been stuck at home with newborn twins for the last six months and desperately needs the breakhappening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1788360702Jon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography|author=Edzard ErnstVaim
|rating=4
|genre=BiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=For over forty years, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapies. ''Charles, The Alternative PrinceAll was strange'' critically assesses ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the Prince's opinionspervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, beliefs a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and aims against the background Eline, two of the scientific evidence. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitionsprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=1804271829
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer MasonThea Lenarduzzi|title=Partitions of UnityThe Tower|rating=45|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary= Here at Bookbag Towers''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, we first met Elizabeth Cromwellhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]]Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, when she investigated and unravelled a series the protagonist of disappearancesthis tale. In Just as T''Partitions s story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of Unitytuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she sets her mind to solving consumes avariciously, both in a murder...quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=B09LQR9FRF1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona Parashar Claire-Louise Bennett|title=A Beautiful Way to Coach Big Kiss, Bye-Bye |rating=4.5|genre=Business and FinanceLiterary Fiction|summary= So what am I doing reading Everything in this book, using this bookhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and being audacious enough to review it? Truth is I bought it out closeness, becomes evidence of curiositylove lost. I was at an on-line launch for When the book narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and Fiona’s description 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 Vision Days appealed to me. I wanted to see if there were things in there that I could use with someone I am currently helping / supporting / trying to mentor – without committing them to a full dayex-partner, which I know would send them scurrying for their burrow. I also wanted to see if I could give myself a Vision Day, ghost she conjures to bring me away from their vision and back to my owntest her detachment.|isbn=103211603X1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19137503530008405026|title=Britannica's Word of A Stranger in the DayFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Patrick Kelly, Renee Kelly and Sue MacyJane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=''BritannicaIt's Word of the Day'' has a subsixteen years since nine-year-title: ''366 Elevating Utterances to Stretch Your Cranium old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and Tickle Your Humerus'' which probably tells you all that you need the investigation ground to know about this brilliant booka halt. It starts on January 1st with ''Razzmatazz'' Now, her mother, tells you how to pronounce it (''raz-muh-TAZ'')Helena, gives you a definition and then includes the word her father are dead in their bed. Initially, it looks like a sentence so straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that you know how makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it should was going to be used. You also get an engaging open-and frequently amusing illustration too-shut case is now a complex double murder. I donKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie't think Is disappearance: others (such as Derwent've ever encountered a word which uses the letter Z four times before!s boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|author=A C WiseAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=HookedThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=It’s been twenty-two years since Captain Hook''We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, now going by just ‘James’, has been in Neverlandbut this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Living a new life Ernaux writes in Londondirect address to her sister, he has however, this letter will never completely escaped his pastreach her. But now he senses the edges Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, a few months before the beast circling around his life vaccine was made compulsory in LondonFrance, and when suddenly he finds himself face to face in 2 years before the street with Wendy, he knows that the line between this world and Neverland is growing thinauthor was even born. The beast is finally coming to get him, large and in instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process will pull Wendy and of reckoning with this giant absence in her daughter Jane back into their past once againlife, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=17890968391804271845
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787301745Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Confidence|author=Denise MinaReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersBiography|summary=We're back in Biographies are often seen as the world form of podcasters Anna life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and Finoffers a vibrant, whom we first met in [[Conviction by Denise Mina|Conviction]]subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. It was Anna who'd organised In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: 'family' holiday: her ex, Hamish, you write not of real life as it is now with her best friend, Estelle and her children are living with thembut of what you yourself imagine it to be. Fin (who was married Whom would it help to Estelle) know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is there too and it was Anna who invited his girlfriend, Sofia. It?''s not long before everyone realises that was a bad mistake. Sofia's difficult and with everyone trapped inside their holiday accommodation - a lighthouseWell, in Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a storm - she begins talking about Anna's pastsubjective account, including her real name and the rape. This was something which Anna had intended giving us access to tell the girls - twelve-tear-old Jess how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and ten-year-old Lizzie - when the time was right. And this wasn't the right timeAndreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763566X1529077745|title=Listen to MeThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Tess GerritsenAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=We're A man walking his dog in Boston with Amy. When she set out for university this the early morning it was discovered the body of a spring day and she wore her newman in the park near Rosebank, butterya care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh -leather pumps but as she comes out one of the library she knows that they're going care workers who was due to be ruined - and unsafe - in work a shift the snow that's now fallingnight before but who had never turned up. As she crosses D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the road, a car comes out of nowhere and hits murder - but her. It doesn't stop. Two months later, we're with Angela Rizzoli, mother only clue is the disappearance of Detective Jane Rizzoli, and a keen defender one of the suburb of Revereresidents, north of Boston, where 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 diary makes it clear that she livesadored Josh. Nothing gets past her and whilst her boyfriend, Vince Korsak, is in California, looking after his sister, She knows that she has the time to watch find Chloe to discover what's happening in the neighbourhood. The people who are moving in at no 2533 have aroused her suspicionshappened to Josh.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008395632B0FK5LHKD9|title=One Last SecretThe Colour of Memory|author=Adele ParksChristopher Bowden|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Natalya is an escort. Well, her name's not ''actually'' Natalya: thatIt's her professional name but it is been three years since we last reviewed a nod book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to her Serbian heritagesee a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. SheLike all Bowden's actually thirty-one-year-old Teodora Dziewulskistories, usually known as Dora Wulski. If youthere're thinking s a mystery at the heart of 'escort' as being a polite description The Colour of a prostitute, run by a pimp, whoMoney''s turning tricks to fund a drug habit, forget it. Dora is a professional We like this running theme in all senses of the word. She has an agent, Elspeth, who takes 30% of her income and deals with the payments but checks out the clients to see that Dora is going to be safe. Dora describes herself as a self-employed clairvoyant to Her Majestyauthor's Revenue work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and Customsatmosphere each time.
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{{Frontpage
|author=David SolomonsOlga Tokarczuk|title=A BeginnerHouse of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's Guide 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 Ruling night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the Galaxyancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=henleyA|title=Ultimate Obsession|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Gavin is being followedEx-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, seemingly constantly, by the new (very annoying) girl at schooland he should be doing quite well financially. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl storyUnfortunately, his daughter's defence against a murder charge drained his savings. Because in this instanceHis wife, the girl in question is NikiLaura, and she is a galactic princess (no, really, she is!) has been trying to persuade him to retire - ''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. So That's what will Gavin 'ordinary people do when he becomes embroiled in a situation where', potentially'' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, Earth and everyone on it will be blown to smithereens, all because 's the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of Niki?|isbn=0857639935justice that he really should put right.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter1836284683|title=The Mermaid CallBig Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersDystopian Fiction|summary=Vivien knows 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 mermaids is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't exist. But she also knows they want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to exist – at least in set the public eyescene. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without them. A hundred years and change ago, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return to help out with the Great War effort. They also showed female emancipation, which helped create the townOnce that's tourism industrydone, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story. Alice, a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her huntyourself. When the shy, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?|isbn=1839941901
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1739805100Sally Rooney|title=Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew MarchIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyGeneral Fiction |summary= ''Loving Sally Rooney has studied the Enemy'' tells 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 quite extraordinary many relationships woven into this story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went the central one for readers to Dresden to teach in unravel is the early days of the Nazi regime in the 1930sfraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. FredIvan, a sensitive and thoughtful mansocially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" which may guard against the growing hostilities between nations unfolding a successful lawyer living in Europe at the timeDublin. FredFollowing their father's attempts to separate individual people from ideology werenpassing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetimealready strained relationship faces new trials. |isbn=0571365469
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B575J99N1036916375|title=Beneath the PorticoesJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Brooke AdamsPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Women's FictionAutobiography|summary=Elizabeth Miller was thirty-four and a teacher at a prestigious girl's school in York. It was 'Just a Liverpool Lad 'comfortable'' but she longed for something more is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in lifeand around Liverpool. She'd ''still not found Some are factual, such as the right vocation nor met family history of a sea-going family, with the right man'' and now was docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the time to make a changewhat-might-have-been. She needed challenges. There was It's a little trepidation book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when she applied for life seemed less constrained, despite the professoressa job blitz that was a constant factor in BolognaMcArdle's early years. After a telephone interview, she was offered the position and it wasnI't long d never heard of parachute mines before she - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was exploring the beautiful city. There were some natural doubts before her first class but it went surprisingly wellsounded.
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|isbn=15291258981836285493|title=Godmersham ParkThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Gill HornbyRob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary=''If it were not for the casual dereliction Will is a keen player of the odd gentleman's dutyvideo games, a conscientious student, there would no women to teach well-bred daughters at a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer.'' Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived English is his favourite lesson at Godmersham his school, Marlowe Park to take up the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austen. She had no experience of teaching but this was a case of necessity. Until the death of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and was loved one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the household. When her mother diedhis headteacher, Mrs Howarth, her father cast her off and would have nothing more she has suggested to do with her. No explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity Will and his mum that he spends a couple of £35 afternoons a week at a year. Her maiddifferent school, AgnesStation Road, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighbourswhere his ability might be better extended.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lev Parikian 1009473085|title=Light Rains Sometimes FallThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Animals Politics and WildlifeSociety|summary= Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you’re a writer yourself, or you're looking for an aspiring writer, or someone who pretends to writeeasy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you know . If that there are unnumbered types of books. Some 's what you read 're looking for fun, some I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for distraction, some those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for vicarious emotion, some anyone who thinks Johnson should return to learn from politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a random way, some for focussed research, series which looks at the impact a government has made and some because they are, broadly speaking, co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of experts from various fields review the kind state of thing you think you might like to write. Orthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, indeed, are actually trying to writethe changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.|isbn=1783966386
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0751581577Jenny Valentine|title=Lying Beside You|author=Michael RobothamUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=Elias Haven murdered his parents Elk and his twin sisters two days after his nineteenth birthday. Voices told him to do it. Only two people survived the carnage - EliasMab are best friends, who was sent to Ramptonor more than that even, and his thirteen-year-old brother, Cyrus, who hid their friendship is a once in a shed until the police found himlifetime connection. Twenty years later, Cyrus is They meet as children one day on a forensic psychologist and hetrip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's been told that his brother is being releasedcontact details at the time. Can Cyrus forgive the sinner whilst having to live on a daily basis with the results of the crime? Can he bear to have Elias living in the same house? How will his lodgerBut then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, twenty-one-year-old Evie Cormacand their friendship, cope?together.|isbn=1471196585
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=140595115X1787333175|title=A Stranger on BoardYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Cameron WardBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=Right from the beginning, we know this will not turn out well. Eight days into the trip I was tempted to deliver the superyacht read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'Escape'after enjoying Adam Kay' s first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to AntiguaHurt}}, all 300 tonnes and six decks will be floundering without power in a glorious mixture of insight into the Atlantic. Those workings of the crew who are left will be cowering in fear a fellow crew member tries to pick them offNHS, one by onehumour and autobiography. Some are already dead''You Don't Have to be Mad... They are three days '' promised the same elements but moved from shore physical problems to mental illness and there is no way the work of making contacta psychiatrist. But let's go back I did wonder whether it was acceptable to when all be looking for humour in this started, in Southamptonsetting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398508632Mariana Enriquez|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo WildeA Sunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleShort Stories|summary=It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of NovemberMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated achieving this uncanny familiarity by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantagesbasing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety settings include an abandoned field full of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her disused refrigerators due to run a fridgean urban planning mishap, freezer an overcrowded homeless shelter and dehydrator. She had a car crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - and fuelall within Argentina. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its producesimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
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|isbn=16358646741529934753|title=Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Salads, Sauces, Stews, and MoreThe Protest|author=Joy HowardRob Rinder|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryCrime|summary=''Think of For a little while, it looked as no-whining dining.'' We know itthough Sir Max Bruce, the country's a fruit rather than a vegetable but the fact that so many people get confused just goes most famous living artist, was not going to show how versatile up for the opening of his retrospective at the tomato isRoyal Academy. Then there are all Still, he arrived in the different typesnick of time, not to mention the cultivars - complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you begin tend to understand why Joy Howard says do things like that she hasn't met one she didn't love, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. I'd argue with her there - I have no affection for Lexi Williams, an intern at the ones you find RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the supermarket face, whilst shouting ''nextStop the War'' . It seemed to the ones labelled be part of an ongoing series of 'grown for flavourblue-face' to distinguish them from the ones that have obviously just been grown for profitattacks, but this was different. PersonallyThe can had been laced with cyanide, I'd prefer a tin of tomatoes to those - and Howard makes good use of these. She's not at all precious if you get the tasteSir Max Bruce was dead.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989027Ariel Saramandi|title=We All Have Our Secrets|author=Jane CorryPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Harold Gentle advertised for live-in help as he was failing In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to cope at Willowmead House on his own. His advert was fairly specific: he was a retired lawyer needing help but he also spoke intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the ability wounds left by colonialism and slavery to cook a good steak, enjoy decent wine and be free from any food fadsexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. The first person who came to Saramandi describes the house was Francoisecountry at one stage as ''rotting'', a French woman in her early twenties, who fit blunt yet apt metaphor for the bill perfectly. She got the job but Francoise didn't know systemic decay brought about by the advert: she was there for a completely different reasonmalignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Emily Gentle is Harold's daughter and she came to Willowmead House because she was running away from a problem Each essay in London. Emily's this collection serves as a midwife and her last shift had seen her lacking concentration and a complaint had been madekind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=1804271616
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|author=Ewald Arenz and Rachel Ward (translator)Pekka Harju-Autti|title=Tasting SunlightLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=Sally It's the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and Britain is a teenager who has run away from expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an anorexia treatment clinicexperienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to the Andaman Islands in his endeavour. She just wants spaceAlong with his son, Peter, and for people to stop questioning hertheir cat, tiptoeing around herMichi, and trying to fix her without ever truly understanding her. She finds herself they set off on some farmland with a woman called Liss who is in her forties and seems perilous voyage to live alonethese faraway lands. Liss is unlike any other adult Sally has ever met. She just accepts Sally as she is, giving her a room to sleep The islands are beautiful and stunning in, their scenery and the space to just be. As they work together on the farmislanders' leader, a closeness develops between themAarav, becoming a beautiful, powerful friendshipis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=1914585143B0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer MasonHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell MysteryLili is Crying|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=''A struggling poetry zine, a mom-and-pop mobile diner First published in 1953 in the Northern California redwoodsFrench, this novel is a 400-meter hurdler who just missed timeless text which wrenches the 2004 Olympics, a women's track coach with a yen for bullwhips, a billionaire with a state-hearts of-its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the-art S&M dungeonpage and positions them elsewhere, a man serving a life sentence in Alabamadisjointed, an enigmatic signature, K(s, x), on a cheap oil painting, an erotic art dealer in Georgia..truncated.'' This is just a sample of Like the cast lives of her characters and settings in Preposterous. As you can see, some keeping up will be required! The basic premise of this mystery story goes like this..they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=B09STS96HS1804271675
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{{Frontpage
|author=Will BrookerTom Percival|title=The Truth About Lisa JewellWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=BiographyConfident Readers|summary=Meet [[:Category:Lisa Jewell|Lisa Jewell]], one of the most successful British authors IWill've never knowingly read. Now meet Will Brookers life is difficult, one of the thousands in a multitude of less successful authors I quite confidently never have readways. This book starts with He is bullied because he has 'the two meeting each otherwrong shoes', as well, and shows how 2021 drew he has the two closer wrong shoes because his dad can't work and closer together. The meeting was some unspecified combination, it seems, of her anecdote about cup cakes, doesn't have enough money for even the words most basic of her latest book she was recitingthings like food, and her being in a his dad can''black lace mini-dress with gold brocade'' (certainly a get-up never commonly worn t work because he lost his job at the author events I get to attend), but pulled Brookercollege, was working a professor of cultural studies who has swallowed Roland Barthes, down the rabbitcash-in-hole that is Jewell's diverse outputhand job on a building site and had an accident. Brooker decides he'd like nothing more than to follow her through a year in Throw into that mix the published authorfact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's lifeseems bleak in every direction. And yet, working to make he still has a success tiny amount of the latest titlehope. He is good at art, and struggling with clings to the next in line. Jewellmoments of joy when he is drawing, due diligence appropriately donethat feel like a light at the end of a long, agrees. And this is the resultdark tunnel.|isbn=15291360241398527122
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|isbnauthor=1801109265Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Companion|author=Lesley ThomsonA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=James Ritchie thought of himself as ''There are few greater joys than a punctual man who was inexplicably never on time'' and he was - as usual - late to pick book which lives up his son, Wilbur, for their 'boys' day out'. These were always days which appealed more to James than to Wilbur and, competing for the boy's attention, his mother, Anna, promised him a roast dinner when he returnedcompelling premise. The dinner would never be served, as James and Wilbur are the victims And this is one of a double stabbing on the beach. The case falls to DI Toni Kemp of Sussex police. She's feeling the pressure. You can always tell - she shoplifts Snickers Bars when the going gets toughthem.|isbn= 0356522776
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|isbn=152941363X1786482126|title=To Kill a Troubadour The Janus Stone (A Bruno, Chief of Police NovelDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Martin WalkerElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Nobody knows what Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the truth is any more.site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' Bruno Courrèges is the police chief for St Denis and much of the Vézère valley and works closely with Commissaire Jeanapartments -Jaques Jalipeau (known as 'JJ'), when they discovered the head bones of detectives for the départment of the Dordognea child beneath a doorway. They're not just policemen - they're both deeply committed to the well-being and prosperity of this most beautiful part of FranceThere was no skull. The discovery of an old, stolen Peugeot, crashed and abandoned in Was this a ditch wouldn't normally have worried them so much had it not been for the strange bulletritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with Russian letters stamped on the base, which they found in the carDCI Harry Nelson. Oh, and there was a golf ball tooIt's difficult as Ruth knows, which didnbut Nelson doesn't belong to the owner , that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the carone night they spent together some three months ago. A golf bag would Her condition will be a good place obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to hide a sniper's weaponsudden bouts of sickness. Was there going to be an attempt to kill someone, or were the detectives being pushed in a certain direction?
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|isbnauthor=0241542405Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Meredith Alone|author=Claire AlexanderThe Accidentals
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=When we first meet Meredith Maggs it's Wednesday 14 November 2018 and she's not left her home for 1,214 days. She'd ''like'' to: This collection was truly enchanting in fact, she so nearly does. Her outdoor clothes are on and she's even considered which shoes to wear if she's going to catch her train. Then, she can't. She simply can't force herself to leave all senses of the safety of her home. She's fortunate that she has a good friend, Sadie, who visits regularly word: spellbinding with her two childrenits fantastical, James magical elements and Matilda. Sadie's a cardiac nurse charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and full of sound common sense. In fact it was Sadie who gave Meredith her cat, Fredhuman relationships. Groceries are online deliveries Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and there's also an internet-based support group where you'll find Meredith as JIGSAWGIRLprecisely, so you can guess what she does in her spare time. Then Tom McDermott arrives. He's from Holding Hands, stories structured by a charity which supports people with problems such as Meredith'swisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the world.|isbn=1804271470
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|isbn=B09Y451X9K0008551375|title= Greetings, aliens!: When Shadows Fall (do pop in for teaD S Max Craigie)|author=Richard F Walker|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary= ''Anything can happen at a birthday party, particularly when the birthday boy is the young Lord of the Manor. But when an eerie signal is picked up in the early hours, George and his new girlfriend, the vivacious Lady Antonia, embark on a quest to uncover its incredible message. Things get complicated when some total spoilsport lets the cat out of the bag and the world goes into a state of panic.'' Could it be? Could it? Have aliens reached out and contacted Earth? George and Antonia find themselves lifted out of their privileged lives of parties and drunken shenanigans and catapulted into the world of advanced science, secret agents.and politicians hungry for power.}}{{Frontpage|author=Darren Shan|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary= So. WeLeanne Wilson're back to s body was found at the Merge with the first chapter in bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the third volume result of Darren Shana tragic accident. She's saga of Archibald Loxd looked so happy, too, a young man who can pick the locks when she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of portals from our world to anotheran unpleasant relationship, called but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the ''Merge''last year. Since his last adventure All were experienced climbers, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce on the topic of his regular disappearancesproperly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. They don't ask too many questions and Archie has settled into a fairly peaceful routine None of visiting Winston, his lock-picking mentor in the 'what a stupid thing to do'Mergeexplanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there'' and showing Kojo, the young guardian, around our world of s a killer on the Bornloose. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD
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