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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= Zabriskie1
|title=A Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in Indigenous Wisdom
|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''Across many African and Indigenous systems, differences in how children learn, sense , or process the world were not treated as disorders to be corrected. They were understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, each holding value within the community.''
{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419961041787333175|title=Coming You Don't Have to be Mad to Find YouWork Here|author=Jane CorryBenji Waterhouse|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersPopular Science|summary=NancyI was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brotherfirst book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, Martin, has been convicted a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of their murder. We first meet Nancy outside the courtNHS, after Martin receives a life sentencehumour and autobiography. The barrister tells her that she's received a 'silent sentenceYou Don' - she's not been found guilty of anything but will have t Have to live with what happened for the rest of her lifebe Mad... Of course, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds promised the same elements but moved from her mother - physical problems to mental illness and the papers are making the most work of ita psychiatrist. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is one favourite epithet directed at a situation rather than a person and ''rich bitch'' might not be printed but it is undoubtedly spokenalways delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529413680|title=A Chateau Under Siege Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (A Bruno, Chief of Police NovelTranslator)|authortitle=Martin WalkerThe Disappearing Act
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=One Despite her anonymisation of the main events place names and people, Stepanova's message in this short work of the Sarlat tourist season autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the re-enactment town of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and Bruno's there F for a literary festival she is to see the show with some friendsbe a guest speaker at. It's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong whenDetoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, Kerquelin, the man playing one her journey slowly bends toward a traveling circus. Swept up in this series of the main characters is seriously injured when he departs from the script. Luckilyevents, his doctor is there and the man is whisked away M eventually offers to step in for a helicoptercircus performer who has unexpectedly left the show. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - The train functions as he's a senior government employeemotif of transience and impermanence, while the man who runs Frenchelon - circus embodies the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby reshaping of identity and anothera retreat into fantasy, who lives in California, is flying in with some an impulse that lies at the very heart of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holidaythe novel form itself.|isbn=1804272329
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529196388B0GFQ81YQK|title=The TrialHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Rob RinderStephanie Zabriskie
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Grant Cliveden was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good Before people came and honest and looked up to by just about everyonejoined the animals, so there was public uproar when he only the sky and the earth. Everything was murdered in plain sight at quiet until the earth and the Old Baileysky began to tal to each other. There's just one man in First, the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in courtearth created bodies. And then, charged with Cliveden's murderthe sky breathed life into them. Knight was told that These were the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor-Cameron of Stag Court Chambers first humans and they belonged to both earth and sky. And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and it's Taylor-Cameron learned and his pupilremembered, Adam Greenespecially how they came to be. When they grew old and died, who eventually represent himtheir bodies returned to the earth and their life returned to the sky. Knight's determined And that is why the earth and the sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And that is why people must pay attention to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contraryand care for, both.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Essie FoxB0GHPMNF6P|title=The FascinationZookeeper's Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by the Second World War) which has often led to more than a few writers mishandling itrunning of the family's farm zoo. ThereHe's such not expecting much excitement, until he receives an unidentified egg that his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a glut of media set cave in New Zealand, and suddenly life is no longer quite what it seems. Then the era that egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a bird, but a dragon! Now he, Edgar, his mother Abi, and the hallmarks wezoo've come s part-time café waitress Pearl have to associate with it are familiar raise this little bundle of scales and joy, despite having no idea how to the point of actually raise dragons and not being cliched, hackneyed even. All this is simply able to illustrate that tell anyone about it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite that, something about it still grabs me – this tiny little dragon may show them love and something about this book's description did as well.|isbn=1914585526connection in ways they had never before imagined…
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew CartmelStephanie Zabriskie|title=Death in Fine ConditionHow Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders|rating=35|genre=CrimeChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, and in particular a series called Sleuth HoundTanzania. She spends her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profit, sometimes 'tweaking' them, The Maasai are a cattle-herding people and this story writes down its oral tradition explaining how they came to add value, in somewhat fraudulent waysbe so. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them Cattle are status and wealth in Maasai culture but this doesn't tell the background whole story of a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wall, the intimate and so she sets about discovering where this collection issymbiotic connection its people, and how she can steal it! It's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too farespecially its women, have with their cows and what will happen when for the owner of natural world. The oral tradition retelling the collection comes looking for many conversations Maasai women have had with their books?cows, does.|isbn=1789098947B0G9WTGY6J
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529507987Livi Michael|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books Elizabeth and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Ruth|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-Historical Fiction|summary=I love ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a work of historical fiction wrought from the life of the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, best known for her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the working class published under a pseudonym. The Repair Shop''. ItRuth'' from Livi Michael's my go-to programme when I want to be cheered up. After title appears in her novel as Pasley, a young Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a hard day, therechild and finds herself in Manchester's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worthNew Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. You seeSet in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the value is in what these possessions are worth to novel examines the people who own them and harsh conditions endured by the memories they hold. No expense appears to be spared Victorian working poor and interrogates the experts spend as much time and effort as is required extent to achieve which the desired resultwealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for addressing these injustices. Regular viewers know the experts and they're all brilliant at explaining what it is they're doing. But how did they start?|isbn=1784633682
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nicole JarvisMakenna Goodman|title=A Portrait in ShadowHelen of Nowhere
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=''I want all It could be argued that the pervading theme of Florence this book is malaise - a hard-to know my name'' Cast out from Rome-place feeling that something in your life is not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a force which her art can find a home is seductive, radical and where her future can thrive rather than stagnateunnerving: Helen. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition from The connection between Helen and the powerful Accademia, protagonist is indirect yet intimate. As the self-proclaimed guardians former owner of the healing magics that through paintings have the power countryside house he's considering, Helen represents a volta in his life, her past tied to protect the city and its citizens from plagues and curseshis potential fresh start. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and architecture for centuries and guard it above all elsedescribes her as ''an entity that is pure consciousness, beyond form''. To themAlthough she lives in an assisted living facility now, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble and change – Helen has no place amongst them and their societypowers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|isbn=18033623401804272205
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWHB0GCB1MQ7D|title=The Grave ListenersWhy My Mother Went Away|author=William FrankAlan Kennedy|rating=45|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=The village is isolated and poorI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', there's frequently a book they might or might not have written, which might or might not tell the true story. It's surrounded by not often that you find a Witching Forest. And book that gives the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants - its bread-like fruit provides nutrition full backstory, and its blossom provides herbal medicines. The black wood of rarely do you discover a memoir where the forest provides heat telling is so perfect that you'll go back and warmth, roofs on homes, reread paragraphs and even gallowssentences, if neededjust for the pleasure the words give. ''Why My Mother Went Away'' is one of those rare exceptions. The fear It's the story of being buried alive is an existential superstition in how a boy from the Midlands, born at the village and that is beginning of the reason VolushkaSecond World War, would become a drunkenProfessor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, self-indulgent, lazy lout he was one of the founders of a man is toleratedthe department.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Cooper
|title=Discord
|rating= 3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Discord: a lack of agreement or harmony (as between persons, things, or ideas)
The principal example of discord within the novel, as with most instances of discord, is easily located. The two protagonists of the novel, Rebekah Rosen and Evie Bennet, are as different as they come. Rebekah is an uptight, traditional and no-nonsense composer close to retirement, while Evie is a 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 eye, their approaches different and Evie's progressive views at odds with Rebekah's conservative leaning. However, something connects them beyond just their musical project: a sort of fragile alliance formed within the clamour.
|isbn=1804272264
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=024162343XTom Percival|title=Stolen History|author=Sathnam SangheraThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at schoolWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. I was disruptive in religious education classes He is bullied because I disputed he has 'the existence of a wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can'godt work and doesn'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after t have enough money for even the end most basic of WWIIthings like food, I didnand his dad can't so much want to learn about work because he lost his job at the British army's successes (and occasional failurescollege, but we didn't dwell was working a cash-in-hand job on those) in what came to be called 'a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the coloniesfact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there s life seems bleak in the first placeevery direction. Looking backAnd yet, I he still believe I was right - but I regret has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that I lacked feel like a light at the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Amanda CraigEdward W Said|title=Three GracesRepresentations of the Intellectual
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like the state-of-the-nation novel. ThereEdward Said's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold ''Representations of the atmosphere Intellectual'' is less a strict theory of the day what intellectuals are and capture it, crafting an image of the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would more a passionate argument for what they should be embarrassingly inadequate: she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this point. She has such a gift for weaving Said clearly rejects the ongoing issues comfortable image of the day into the lives of her characters in intellectual as a way that feels natural and lived-in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselvesdetached expert speaking only to other specialists.|isbn= 140871468X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1448309379|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)|author=David Mark|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's something of a surprise to find that you're deadInstead, particularly when you're thinking that you're actually he insists on the intellectual as a break with your wife and childrenpublic figure, but that's what happened to DS Aector McAvoy. Whilst he was relieved to find that he was stilloften awkward, officiallyabrasive, aliveand unpopular, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed from her flat in the early hours of the morning speaks truth to power even when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her car, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aectoris inconvenient or risky.|isbn=1804272248
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0957181167Sylvie Cathrall|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian Lewis|author=Alan MarshallA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=ArtScience Fiction|summary=There are few positive things greater joys than a book which can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this time, in trying lives up to avoid looking at a problem I found myself looking more closely at a couple of pictures on the walls - and was completely taken by the work of Brian Lewiscompelling premise. I searched online and could only find ‘used’ versions of And this book and the print I wanted was ‘not available’. Oh, dear - then a few doors down from the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack is one of brand new books - and a framed print of the picture I wantedthem.|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Simon Fox1786482126|title=DeadlockThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a secret placeritual killing or murder? Inevitably, and join him on the runDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. They get togetherIt's difficult as Ruth knows, but barely begin to smell the whiff Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of Southern trains when the father one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined prone to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap sudden bouts of questionssickness.|isbn=1839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Shalini Boland0008551375|title=The Silent BrideWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Alice and Seth are Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a match made in heaventragic accident. He is everything she has been searching for; handsomeShe'd looked so happy, accomplishedtoo, cleverwhen she posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, funny; total and utter husband-materialbut it looked like she was living her best life now. She is all he could possibly want Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and setlast year. When the much-anticipated day arrivesAll were experienced climbers, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride properly equipped for what they were doing and excitement as she surveys sensible people. None of the congregation – their friends assembled 'what a stupid thing to celebrate this joyful day and do' explanations applied. They were all alone when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alicethey died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who a killer on the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wifeloose.|isbn=1662507089
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Mark EdwardsPaul B Preciado|title=Keep Her SecretDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary= Matthew and Helena are in Iceland''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, rekindling their university romance some twenty-odd years after they first met. The alien-landscape consisting of the lava fields arias, letters, essays and black beaches is breath-taking autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and Helena seems intent on getting the perfect photograph brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to encapsulate the joy she is new generation, a new feeling mechanism in this momentwhich detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, even if it kills her… which it nearly does when is the edge of a ravine gives way and Helena finds herself clinging proportional, valid response to ''the rockface with just epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the snagged strap of her rucksack tension between her emancipatory forces and a 500 foot drop to certain death belowconservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. Convinced she The whole text is going to die, Helena must purge herself framed against the backdrop of the shocking secret she Covid-19 pandemic as that which has been keeping and makes catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a panickedglobal scale, cryptic declaration to Matthewor as ''pangea covidica''. Just moments later their heroicRather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, and frankly very well preparedor mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Icelandic tour guide swoops in and hauls Helena Preciado urges his readers to safety and Matthew is left wondering what he just learned about Helena''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.|isbn=166250893X1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BYF82CXTSamantha Harvey|title=Semi-Detached|author=Deborah StoneOrbital|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Bill and Amanda are living in Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a semi-detached house, stuck single day in the lives of a depressing rut group of boredom and disappointment, when Terry and Fiona – glamorous, successful and very much in love – move in next doorastronauts aboard the International Space Station. Despite their different outlooks on lifeThrough a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, the couples befriend each other and life appears Harvey invites readers to improve for both pairssee our planet in a wholly new light. But all is not what it seems, and their increasingly interconnected relationships are fated for tragedy.''|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787636003295967572X|title=The Girls of SummerPale Pieces|author=Katie BishopG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=It was Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the summer when Rachel Evans turned eighteen that she and Caroline went backpacking around Greece and arrived purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the islandfloor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Rachel wasn't exactly innocent Why not? Not much else is clear either - but she was, perhaps, naive, so when thirty-four-year-old Alistair Wright started to take an interest we are probably in her, she was flattered rather than wary. It was quite a while before he made any sort of physical approach the past as the pair travel to her and by that time she was obsessed the station by him. Alistair worked for Henry Taylor, looking after his interests on the island coach and in particular in the bar where all the girls either worked or partiedtrain is a steam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291353890008551324|title=The FallDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Gilly MacmillanNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Nicole Booth had spent It's unusual for anyone from the morning at Hardie family to approach the county fair before she returned homepolice. There was no sign of her husband but opera was playing on Neither side likes or has any respect for the state-of-the-art music system installed other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in The Glass Barn. Theyprison and he'd not been in s prepared to tell the police where the architect-designed house on Lancaut Peninsula body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for long her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and were still getting used to all it will be worth the high-tech systems Tom had insisted uponpolice doing what he wants. Some And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of them fought with each other his sentence and didn't work as reliably as they shouldto get an early parole date. It had all come about through a ten-million-pound lottery win and they were still getting used Not much to having that sort of moneyask, too. is it? Eventually, Nicole found Tom dead in The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the swimming pool other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with a wound to his headhim is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alan Parks1035043092|title=To Die in JuneThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=What first seems like I can't have been the unfortunateonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, accidental death of Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a homeless man new life on the streetsOrkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, suddenly starts to feel like something more sinister as another body is discoveredwell as Cassie, and then anotherthe daughter of his former partner. This is worrying enough for detective Harry McCoyWillow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but all when the more so because his own father is body of a down-and-out alcoholic, with no fixed abodepopular islander, and he has been for years. At the same time as facing these possible murdersArchie Stout, Harry is also dealing with a move to a different police stationfound, and in the arrival there aftermath of a woman who claims her little boy has gone missingstorm, only no record of the boy having existed she can be found't resist getting involved. Something feels wrong - not just with He'd been battered about the woman’s story but also head with the other officers where he has a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stationed, but can Harry uncover just what is going on?|isbn=1805300784stolen from a museum.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Laura NoakesThea Lenarduzzi|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|isbn=0008579059}}{{Frontpage|author=Thomas D Lee|title=Perilous Times|rating=3|genre= Fantasy|summary= ''Hate is the path of least resistance'' Set in the near-distant future, in a world on the verge of climate collapse, Britain is in great peril. The British Isles desperately needs a hero (or several) to save the day and rescue what little remains. What no one expected was that one of the Knights of the Round Table would answer the call.|isbn=0356518523}}{{Frontpage|author=Madelaine Lucas|title=Thirst for SaltTower
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= ''Love, IHow unctuous are the fats of another'd read, was supposed to be a light and weightless feelings life, but I had always longed for gravityhow dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529382823Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Last Passenger|author=Will DeanBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Caroline Riley (she prefers 'Caz') is middle-aged and has found herself somewhat surprisingly Everything in love with Pete. They're off on a cruise to New York on ''Atlantica''. Caz's sisterthis book, Gemmahowever sweet or seemingly innocent, reckons that Pete is going to propose but Caz hasn't spotted a ring-shaped bulge steeped in his suit pocket anguish and she doesn't know whether she's relieved or disappointeddistortion. They've not been Even a kiss, usually a couple for that long symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the trip will be an excellent opportunity to get to know him a bit better. Meanwhilenarrator cries out internally, Gemma is looking after Caz's cafe as well as their mother who has dementia. It's going to be goodcome over here and kiss me, isn't ' 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
|authorisbn=Lex Croucher0008405026|title=Gwen and Art Are Not A Stranger in Lovethe Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=TeensCrime|summary=Who knew that what I really needed It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to read right now was a gay Arthurian RomCom? halt. But honestlyNow, her mother, it lifted my spirits in a most delightful way. In this storyHelena, Gwen and Arthur have been betrothed since they were tiny, much to her father are dead in their mutual disgust! bed. GwenInitially, you see, is in love with Bridget (the kingdomit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's only female knight) - something about the positioning of the bodies that Art discovers from makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her private diariesboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. And then when Gwen then catches Art kissing What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a boy they find themselves becoming reluctant allies, creating complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the subterfuge of falling explanation lies in love with each otherRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, when really they Una Burt) are enabling their own other romantic attachmentsless convinced. But as their impending wedding draws ever closer, will they find a way in which they can both truly be themselves, or are they destined to live a lie their whole lives?|isbn=1526651793
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Emily CritchleyAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=One Puzzling AfternoonThe Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=84 year old Edie has lived in ''We were born from the same small town for almost body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her whole lifetone transparent, but now she is facing a move as this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to her son wants to move to another house and bring Edie to live with his familysister, however, as Edie is starting to lose this letter will never reach her memory. However, Edie is tormented by the memory Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of her childhood friend, Lucy, who went missing over 60 diphtheria at 6 years agoold, and a few months before the worry that there vaccine was a secret she was keeping for Lucy that somehow might be the thing that reveals the truth of what happened all that time ago. After 'seeing' Lucy made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the high street, just as she author was even born. The large and instant void created by the last time she saw her, she starts jarring concept of writing to find pockets an imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of memories coming back to reckoning with this giant absence in her. And yet as she remembers the pastlife, an absence that she is forgetting more and more in her day to day lifehas always felt but often denied. Will she uncover the truth about Lucy's disappearance before her move, and before her memories are gone forever?|isbn=18041812501804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jenny Lund Madsen Maxim Gorky and Megan E Turney Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Thirty Days Reminiscences of DarknessTolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers Biography|summary=Hannah presents Biographies are often seen as an unlikeablethe form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, bitter womanand offers a vibrant, an author subjective yet informed portrait of three of failing if well-regarded his literary short novelscontemporaries. Sorry to leave her bottles In the first section of red wine behind her for an afternoon at a this book fair, she flukes her way into a public argument with the latest hot shot in the world Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of crime fictionreal life as it is, saying he's populist trash and only writing but of what anyone could writeyou yourself imagine it to be. Cue the bet Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that she cannot live up to sea, or that accusationTartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Her publisher duly books her flights Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from Denmark a subjective account, giving us access to Icelandhow he saw Tolstoy, where she is put up Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=1804271977}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529077745|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in the park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a wintry month away from it allshift the night before but who had never turned up. Just on D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the point of despairing – about murder - but her writing, about only clue is the people and disappearance of one of the lack of stimulus for her plotresidents, more or less about everything – word comes fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the landladydeath but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's nephew diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has been found dead…|isbn=1914585615to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1804545600Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Monk|author=Tim SullivanHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=The body in ''What's the woods near Bristol was good of a nasty shock 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 - a monk strapped the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to a chair and dumped night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in a ditchthat image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived. He'd been savagely beaten|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1836284683|title=The Big Happy|author=David Chadwick|rating=4. It5|genre=Dystopian Fiction|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be, and it takes me on a while before D S George Cross and the Major Crime Unit establish wild ride. And that this is Father Dominicjust what happened with ''The Big Happy''. HeI don'd been missing t want to ruin a similar experience for a few days and certainly hadnany of you reading but I't asked permission ll have to leave his abbeyat least set the scene. As the team gradually unpick the monkOnce that's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment bankerdone, brother, neighbour and friend. He'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for his faithyourself. Why would someone savagely murder him?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lauren BravoSally Rooney|title=PrelovedIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=Women's General Fiction|summary= Gwen Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is pressing gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her middle-aged bosom on characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for readers to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a big number that starts socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a four and ends with an oh-my-God-I'm-nearly-fortysuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. Having been made unexpectedly redundant - any HR officer worth Following their salt would argue the toss - Gwen finds herself having father's passing after a bit of a mid-life crisis. Catharsis is key and Gwen has decided now is long battle with cancer, the time to take back her lifebrothers'already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=13985106290571365469
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Cath Howe1836285493|title=My The Double Life on Fireof a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ren's family home Will is destroyed in a fire. Shekeen player of video games, her parentsa conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and her little brother lose everythinga supportive friend. She doesn't have any But most of her clothesall, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboardMarlowe Park, and now she is living one at her grandmother's house where they canwhich he excels. This hasn't touch anythinggone unnoticed by his headteacher, or do anythingMrs Howarth, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When and she goes back has suggested to school she discovers Will and his mum that the class are doing he spends a special art project, creating boxes couple of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as afternoons a person. But Ren has nothing to put in week at a boxdifferent school, and so she finds herself starting to steal things. Small thingsStation Road, things that people where his ability might not really miss, not when they have so much alreadybe better extended. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=1839942835
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085170101009473085|title=Death Under a Little SkyThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Stig AbellAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=CrimePolitics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The marriage had run its courseConservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. It might have been different if If you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the pregnancies hadninside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't ended in miscarriages but no one else was involved - certainly not on Jakethe book for you. If that's side and he didnwhat you're looking for, I don't think there was Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for Faye eitherthose tumultuous years. They were still polite to each other It's a compelling read and wished each other well - but didn't wish should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to remain marriedpolitics. ''The perfect solution arrived in the form of a legacy from JakeConservative Effect''s Uncle Arthuris an entirely different beast. HeIt'd been left s the seventh book in a secluded property in series which looks at the hamlet of Caelum Parvum impact a government has made and co- Little Sky 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 state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.}}{{Frontpage|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the Before and enough money to live there without After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the need to time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must workthrough their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}