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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787636607B0CK3MYJ56|title=The TrapResponsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)|author=Catherine Ryan Howard|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morning. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for a way to get home. Some are lucky and manage to get one of the few taxis available. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villages. The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light of 'the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her a long way short of her home. She had intended to ring someone to come and collect her - but her phone's dead. The bus had driven off before she had the chance to beg the bus driver to let her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed and in high-heeled shoes.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1405957174|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartAnn Macarthur
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=From It's the first page, we know that Nadine Walsh1990s and Greg Mason's party will not end welltwenty-eight years old. The victim - He used to have a man high- is dying when we first meet him and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call flying job in the ambulance city but it wasn't satisfying so he so desperately needs's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession? What we don't know is who On the man is or why Nadine prefers other hand, he has been asked to have him dielook into something. IJoyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what'd better give you s been written off as a little more background so that you tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can 't understand whatshe was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train. Greg's happeningbeen asked to investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthKatherine Howe|title=Nowhere IslandA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelveHannah Masury is living in Boston, he is so determined having been sent to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – live with a family who run an inn, and find being made to work there from a home for himselfyoung age. He When she hears there is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous carbe a hanging of some pirates in the town, she decides to go and lets it ride him to his futurewatch. That future seems to be Enthralled and horrified in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a camp on an island between young boy's death at the hands of two directions of a motorwayvicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don't find and kill her too, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough then to provide for their safety escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and seclusionjoining the notorious Ned Low's pirate ship as a cabin boy. ThemShe soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and a mute girl also finding a home from there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life as we would want it just would not work…on the ocean waves.|isbn=18045400800861547438
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tananarive Due|title=The Reformatory|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber of horrors, haunted by the boys that have died there. In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=00085300251803366532}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Murder in the FamilyMaybe Tomorrow|author=Cara HunterPenny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It was Jamie Matson works in December 2003 that fifteenan upper-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfatherclass grocery store, Luke Ryder, in for a man who's a control freak with all the garden subtlety of their West London homea half brick. He had an injury on the back of Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his head which could have happened if heproblems'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberate. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and itHe's now asthmatic and the subject of more you read, the more you'll suspect that he'Infamous'', a true-crime shows on the autistic spectrum. A group of experts has been brought together Sometimes Jamie needs to review take time off at short notice - she's a frequent flier in the evidence local A&E and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to take the investigation furthergo to school. More to Missed shifts or the point, they're going need to do this live be away on camera, episode by episode. There's no dump of time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangerswrong. It's compelling viewingwas going to come to a head.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleHarry Allen|title=The Stolen SongbirdChildren of the Sun|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersTeens|summary=Caro's mother, Ra Eun Seo lives in a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad North Korean town and she is now missinga talented singer. Her other mother, Ronnie, Life is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who hard and food is going to look after Caro? Sent difficult to stay with Gamcome by, someone Caro has heard so Seo and her mother despisesfriends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, she feels frustrated looking for tree bark and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment edible grasses to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting supplement the meagre rations of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, rice and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplekimchi at home. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=05713631481805140493
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529195977Edel Rodriguez|title=None of this is True|author=Lisa JewellWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=54|genre=ThrillersGraphic Novels|summary=On her 45th birthdayWe're in childhood, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends and we're in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie FairCuba. SheThe revolution has happened, tooand Castro, was out celebrating her 45th birthdayfirst thought of as a saviour of the country, only she was just with her husbandhas proven himself a Communist, Walterand not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. It turns out that not only are Alix and Josie birthday twins Well, they those hours-long speeches of his were both born in St Mary's hospitalkind of taking his time away. ThatOur narrator's where family weren't in the similarities endhappiest of places here, though: Alixan uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, with her husband, Nathan, are in such as Angola) and the midst of a joyfulfather being watched and watched, monied group of friends and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdyliked for his successful photography business, they're enjoying themselvessuccess being frowned upon. Josie, on The mother gets the couple jobs with the other hand, holds her handbag close party to her tummy and you get ease some of the sense that Walter's not too happy. He's not used to spending heat, but in this much money on a meal - but sultry island country, it is Josie's birthday after all.remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1803365110|author=Chuck TingleK P O'Donnell|title=Camp DamascusThe Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorScience Fiction|summary=Love VL-15, a prototype robot, is love; although humans continue desperate to be confused by this sentimentunderstand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Gay conversion therapy Over half-a-century later, civilisation is ongoingstarting to rebuild. The UK government ruled out plans Dr Amelia Wong is determined to make it continue her father's legacy, building a crime world where machines and, humans can live together in the USharmony, nearly 700 000 adults have received but internal frictions and external enemies might bring itall crashing down again. Although it is both Craig Anderson, leader of a secular and group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a religious prejudice, Chuck Tingleprototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in his new horrorthe slightest, ''Camp Damascus''and no errant machine, peels back the skin of Christian no savage human tribe and not even Drexel''pray the gay away'' camps to show the reader the horror lurking within.s ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18031363831838954481|title=Tin SoldiersThe Misper|author=David ChadwickKate London|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something of Ryan Kennedy killed a cloud. What actually happened out police officer: there is gossiped 's no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and nobody is sure exactly what took place, pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but an act due to the vagaries of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice the jury system he was found not guilty of both the murder and disgrace seems to be the consensusmanslaughter of the officer. Wat himself And so lives must go on. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the capital and hoping for a quieter life in the countryside but when a missing teenager is keeping his cards close to his chest, as he always doesfound on her territory she's drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of Ryan Kennedy.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C7J9D21B1035025299|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)Went to London, Took the Dog|author=A J LewisNina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionAutobiography|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name Nina Stibbe is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsreturning to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty years. Idyllic as this might sound, itShe's a bordello and Ettorebeen at Victoria's mother died when he was born. Hesmallholding in Leicestershire which isn's not been short of motherst all that conducive to writing, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, itas there's difficult to obtain decent employmentalways something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The stint working with other side of the preparation of anchovies didn't work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore decision was nothing if not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had sealed when a successful business as room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneyvery reasonable rent.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean KoontzB0CKD1L5JL|title=After DeathRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn|rating=34
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, Petr is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accidentan orphan. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryRescued by the strange, covered in plasticreclusive Bear, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits is brought up far from bustling cities and looks around at busy human society, in the shrouded bodies forests of his dead friends and former colleagues. As he recovers his senses, he realises that there is something different about him; he can ''feel'' everything. ''Everything'Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{Frontpage|author=Jamie Littler|title=Arkspire|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Two sisters, Juniper After Bear dies and Elodie, born fifteen minutes aparta brief sojourn in human company, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magicarmed with only a pirate radio transmitter, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent Petr goes on getting closer to power in one of a journey through the religious districts of Arkspireforest, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit broadcasting the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district hasstrange, wild and one of the five major victors in said earlier warrarely heard voices he encounters. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Thiago de Moraes1635866243|title=Old Gods New TricksThe Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks ''I quickly discovered that putting words and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought numbers on a young goddess of nuisancepage wasn't enough. But just when she's being told Creating a pattern that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacherwas correct, clear, the world changes. Suddenlyconcise, practically everything electronic stops working – and consistent required a power-outgreat deal of trial and error, even of electric carspatience, hits not just the town the schooland perseverance.''s in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for our conveniencewhich she's sake)d paid good money. Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – The first line of the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from usinstructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitches... '' And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people It was clear that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semino good could come of this -deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|isbn=178845295X}}{{Frontpage|author=Alexia Casale|title=Sing if you Caninstructions didn't Dance|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you're having to navigate a lifeget any better -changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing and (finally) PayPal obliged with after collapsing on stage in the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her life. But she comes back fighting, desperate to avoid refund when the pity stares, and desperate to get back to a life that's as normal seller refused as she can possibly managecouldn't afford the repayment. Meanwhile thereThe pattern looked pretty, but the creator didn's a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, t have the basic knowledge and just the day-skills to-day traumas of all the challenges enable her body continues to throw at connect with her to navigateknitters. So even though she canShe should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''t dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Helen PetersAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Friends and TraitorsOscar's Lion
|rating=3
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=EnglandWe start incredibly bluntly, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is Nancy, destined more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before herready for school. The other But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is Sidneya mahoosive male lion on their bed, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheeselooking sheepish, and if we hadnadmitting that he won't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it sobe hungry for another two days. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the Lord Evesham must be bully that ruined a rum 'unbirthday party for Oscar the other month. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecyAnd it can shapeshift, talk is made so he can take it to school and it can get him out of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attackedproblem. But surely And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the girls are wrongrules, and the upper class could never be so underhand?on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|isbn=17880046470008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241996104B0BC3YTCMR|title=Coming to Find YouGood Girls Die|author=Jane CorryAyura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Nancy's mother 'This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and stepsuffered from vitiligo -father people were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and afraid to hug her step-brother, Martin, has been convicted of their murderin case it's contagious. We first meet Nancy outside the court, after Martin receives It's not easy being a life sentenceblack girl whose skin is 84% white. The barrister tells She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her that . Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she's received a 'silent sentence' - would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she's not been found guilty of anything but will have gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to live with what happened for the rest of his house and he raped her life. Of courseIn shock, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from even allowed him to give her mother - and the papers are making the most a lift home.}} {{Frontpage|author=V Castro|title=The Haunting of itAlejandra|rating=3. 5|genre=Horror|summary=''Farmhouse slaughter daughterThis was a part of her past that had to stop with her. She would be the one to confront this.''  At some point during her life, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she is one favourite epithet playing parts for others in her life – her husband and ''rich bitch'' might not be printed her children – without ever giving any thought to her own desires, her own future, her own identity. Day by day she goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to all but Alejandra, there is undoubtedly spokena darkness threatening to consume her.More and more she is visited by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in her wake.|isbn=1803365617
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529413680Richard Kadrey|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)|author=Martin WalkerThe Pale House Devil
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeHorror|summary=One Ford and Neuland are a couple of , well, guys for hire I guess, though really the main events way I thought of them through the Sarlat tourist season book was as a couple of strange detectives! One of them is living, you see, and the re-enactment other is undead, and so one of them kills the liberation of living, and the town from other kills the English undead. (Only not each other, obviously). They're on a job in 1370 New York that goes badly, and Bruno's there so they head out to see the show with West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some friendsother work to keep them going. ItBut when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong whenhouse they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, and a terrifyingly powerful creature that they've never come across before!|isbn=1803363894}}{{Frontpage|author=Helen Cooper|title=The Taming of the Cat|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, Kerquelinwe have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the man playing one of cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the main characters is seriously injured when he departs from names used here seem to be the scriptnames of cheeses. LuckilyAnyway, his doctor Brie is there shunned, scorned and , if you must, mous-tracised, for the man is whisked away in a helicopterway his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. A local doctor (They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story- as telling will come in handy one night, when hefeels all alone and cast out. It's a senior government employee, the man almost as if there were another character from fable who runs Frenchelon - had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the military has stepped top dog in. One daughter lives nearby and anotherthe mouse community, who lives in Californiathough, is flying in with as all the others had the chance to half-inch some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holidaycheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529196388B0CDZRGT1M|title=The TrialSuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Rob RinderMark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Grant Cliveden was ''Got a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good and honest and looked up minute to by just about everyonebe amused, entertained, so there was public uproar when he was murdered or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in plain sight at the Old Baileya flash. There's just one man in the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and it's not too long before Knight appears in court, charged with Cliveden''s murderSome are funny. Some are poignant. All are short. Knight was '' Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a flavour of a fully rounded little story if that story is told that in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to draw out themes from all the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylor-Cameron flash fictions in a book of Stag Court Chambers and itthem? I don't know! Perhaps we could start by explaining that there really isn's Taylor-Cameron and his pupilt a fixed definition of flash fiction but that for this collection, Adam Green, who eventually represent himauthor Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. KnightThat's determined to plead not guilty, despite all Taylor-Cameron's recommendations to the contraryabout a single page in your average paperback.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Essie Fox1732898766|title=The FascinationAdventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionFor Sharing|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting When we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they're running for historical fiction (matched only, perhaps, by their lives in the Second World War) which Forest of Fine Repute. Their greatest fear has often led to more than a few writers mishandling itcome about: the Sour Milk Dragon is chasing them. There He's such a glut of media set in the era that the hallmarks weright behind them, spewing hot, sour milk from his nostrils. (Please don've come to associate with t try this at home: it are familiar to the point won't end well.) Fortunately, they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a ladder of being clichedmoss and vines was lowered for them, hackneyed eventhey escaped. All this is simply They climbed up to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite thatthe Tree Wee homes high up in the tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, something about it still grabs me – Nester Nook and something about this book's description did as wellGranny Cranny.|isbn=1914585526
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Cartmel1472263936|title=Death in Fine ConditionThe Figurine|author=Victoria Hislop|rating=35|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fiction, and It was in particular a series called Sleuth Hound1968 that Helena McCloud made her first trip to Greece. She spends was alone: her time hunting out copies that she can sell on for profitmother, sometimes 'tweaking' themGreek by birth, had left the family home and refused to add valuereturn, in somewhat fraudulent waysbut Mary and Hamish (Helena's parents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them Her trip to the family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the background first of a photograph on several annual visits. She grew to love her drug dealergrandmother and the family's living room wallmaid, Dina, but was wary - and so she sets about discovering where this collection isfrightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. He was proud of his close connections to the Junta and how she can steal it! expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. ItHis prejudices included Helena's a nextred hair and green eyes -level step in inherited from her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner of the collection comes looking for their books?|isbn=1789098947father's Scottish ancestors.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529507987Cody Goodfellow|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)Vertical|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionThrillers|summary=I love ''The Repair Shop''. ItThere's something about tall buildings that just captures my go-to programme when I want to be cheered upimagination. After Who doesn't love a hard daygood view from up high, thereafter all? Even the drabbest office building is somewhere I'm intrigued to get inside if it's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worth40 stories tall. You see, the value is in what these possessions are worth to the So when I picked up this book – about people who own them and the memories they holdscale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued. No expense appears to be spared and the experts spend as much time and effort as is required to achieve the desired result. Regular viewers know the experts and they're all brilliant at explaining what it is they're doing. But how did they start?|isbn= 1803363991
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nicole JarvisHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=A Portrait in ShadowFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary=''I want all of Florence to know my name'' Cast out from Rome[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking an oasis in which her art can find and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home , things on the domestic and where family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her future , and so can thrive rather than stagnate. But as some as she enters Florentine society she faces great opposition easily be ignored when word comes through from the powerful Accademiaislands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, the self-proclaimed guardians of the healing magics that through paintings have the power she and her father return to protect the city Arctic and its citizens from plagues and curses. The all-male Accademia has hoarded power over art hope that in a world of very white and architecture for centuries and guard it above all else. To themvery dangerous things, Artemisia – an ambitious young woman who promises trouble she can find one specific white and change dangerous thing has no place amongst them and their societythat the friendship can continue.|isbn=18033623400008582017
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BVDC2VWH1804183210|title=The Grave ListenersNo Reserve|author=William FrankFelix Francis
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=The village is isolated and poor. ItThirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up for auction, but Peter Radway, the chairman, hadn's surrounded by a Witching Forestt arrived, so he continued his session. And To say that he was shocked when the villagers subsist largely by farming Uphegia plants bidding reached three million pounds would be an understatement. A lovely animal - its breadbut three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were well-like fruit provides nutrition known and its blossom provides herbal medicinesrespected in the racing industry. The black wood Jennings was in one of the forest provides heat cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and warmth, roofs on homestheir conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to that figure. Both were happy that they had insurance in place. The following morning, the horse was dead in its stall.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Wilson|title=This One Wild and even gallows, if neededPrecious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=3. The fear of being buried alive 5|genre= Lifestyle|summary= My favourite Mary Oliver line is an existential superstition the one in the village which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and precious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. In her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are'' living the life we want – the reason Volushkabest life that we could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, a drunkenwe are not''. Don't care what you're doing, self-indulgentshe thinks you (we, lazy lout of a man is toleratedI) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not. |isbn=1785633848
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=024162343X1839948493|title=Stolen HistoryA World of Dogs|author=Sathnam SangheraCarlie Sorosiak and Luisa Uribe
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=I was In the bad company other people got into at school. interests of full disclosure, I was disruptive in religious education classes because must tell you that I disputed the existence of 'm a 'god'sucker for dogs. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWIInearly eight decades, I've never met one I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (trust and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first placesame about human beings. Looking backSo, any book about dogs, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity 'm going to approach 'the problem' politelysit down and devour. I wish Then I'd had Sathnam Sangheram going to go back and read it properly. And so it was with 's 'A World of Dogs'Stolen History', with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she's learned quite a lot about dogs since then.
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|authorisbn=Amanda Craig1405951680|title=Three GracesThe Safe House|author=Cameron Ward|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary= Few styles of contemporary fiction interest me like Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her friend, Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in the state-Australian outback for a couple of-months. After the-nation novel. Thereproblems she's something so utterly compelling about any writer who can catch hold of the atmosphere of the day and capture d had at work, it, crafting an image of seemed like just the country as it stands in one particular moment. To say that Amanda Craig is skilled at doing this would be embarrassingly inadequate: break she's practically synonymous with the genre of contemporary social fiction at this pointneeded. She has such was no longer a gift data analyst for weaving the ongoing issues Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to the country of her birth and in need of the day into space to get over the lives traumatic end of her characters relationship with Charles. A few weeks in a way that feels natural and lived-the Otway Ranges in, never making them ciphers for social commentary but instead fully realised people, grappling with issues far larger than themselvesVictoria sounded like just the ticket.|isbn= 140871468X
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|isbnauthor=1448309379Rachel Harrison|title=Flesh and Blood (DS McAvoy 11)|author=David MarkBad Dolls|rating=3.54|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=It's something been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the books from a surprise boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to find the point that youI couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the vampires outside! Don're dead, particularly when yout worry - this short story collection isn're thinking t like that you! It doesn're actually on a break with your wife t have those jump scares, and children, but thatI didn's what happened t have to DS Aector McAvoy. read it during daylight hours only! Whilst he was relieved to find But it is creepy, and I found most of that feeling came from the fact that he was stillthese are stories about women, officiallyliving normal lives, aliveand that at least in part, it was difficult for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharoah. Her protegee - McAvoy - was still alive but the partially clad man who'd dashed horrors arises from her flat in the early hours of the morning when it was obvious that someone was tampering with her carvery normal situations such as a breakup, trying a new dieting app, was not. Thor Ingolfsson was Aector McAvoy's doppelganger - going to a hen party and not everyone who commented on this was doing so kindly. It had always been suspected that Pharoah was sweet on Aectora coping with grief.|isbn=1803363932
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|isbn=09571811671394159544|title=Blue Skies and Boat Trips: The Norfolk of Brian LewisRecycling for Dummies|author=Alan MarshallSarah Winkler
|rating=5
|genre=ArtLifestyle|summary=There are few positive things which ''Recycling one ton of plastic can save up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can be said about a substandard apartment when you’re on holiday but this timesave 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, in trying it will take between 6 months and 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to avoid looking at 1 million years. As a problem just-post-WWII baby, I found myself looking more closely at faced a couple dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part of pictures on my DNA. NEVER throw away anything that might ''possibly'' come in handy now or in the walls - and was completely taken by future. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve the work of Brian Lewispurpose. I searched online Almost everything can be used one more time and could only find ‘used’ versions any purchase must pass the test of 'Is this book and absolutely essential?' On the print other hand, I suspected I wanted was ‘not available’guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes - I'm looking at you) and dropping it in the kerbside bin. OhYes, dear - then a few doors down from I could go searching on the apartment, I found a gift shop with a stack of brand new books internet - and get conflicting advice - but what I needed was a framed print of the picture I wantedrecycling bible.s
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|author=Simon FoxLauren St John|title=DeadlockFinding Wonder|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Late one Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night Graham Blake is late back from by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his shift on way to the forcecorner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, and then suddenly rings Archieshe can only name her aunt, Joni, demanding he fetch something from a secret placewho she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and join him on the runso off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. They Things continue to get togetherworse for Roo, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains as when the father is arrestedshe and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, leaving Archie on it breaks down in the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, middle of nowhere and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=18399444200571376169
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|authorisbn=Shalini Boland1448309743|title=The Silent Bride|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Alice and Seth are a match made in heaven. He is everything she has been searching for; handsome, accomplished, clever, funny; total and utter husband-material. She is all he could possibly want in a wife; beautiful, successful, confident… and so the inevitable proposal is eagerly accepted by Alice and the wedding is planned and set. When the much-anticipated day arrives, Alice is walked down the aisle by her father, beaming with pride and excitement as she surveys the congregation – their friends assembled to celebrate this joyful day and when Seth turns to face his approaching bride, Alice's world implodes because she has absolutely no idea who the man at the altar is, who is waiting for her to become his wife.|isbn=1662507089}}{{FrontpageDevil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)|author=Mark Edwards|title=Keep Her SecretCaro Ramsay|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Matthew and Helena In the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, five members of a wealthy family are in Iceland, rekindling their university romance some twenty-odd years after they first metfound murdered. The alien-landscape of only item missing from the lava fields and black beaches home is breath-taking and Helena seems intent on getting the perfect photograph to encapsulate Devil Stone: myth says that if the joy she stone is feeling in this momentremoved from Otterburn House, even if it kills her… which it nearly does when the edge of a ravine gives way and Helena finds herself clinging to the rockface with just the snagged strap of her rucksack between her and a 500 foot drop to certain death belowwill follow. Convinced she is going to dieThe only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, Helena must purge herself that's an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the shocking secret she has been keeping and makes a panicked, cryptic declaration to Matthewbody. Just moments later their heroic The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, and frankly very well prepared, Icelandic tour guide swoops DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in and hauls Helena to safety and Matthew is left wondering what he just learned about Helena'shadow' him.|isbn=166250893X
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