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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763681X1786482126|title=Knife Skills for BeginnersThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Orlando MurrinElly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a teaching job at child beneath a residential cookery school in Belgraviadoorway. There was no skull. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had Was this a way of getting both men and women to do what he wantedritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. Paul It''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arms difficult as Ruth knows, but it didnNelson doesn't turn out , that way. The teaching - and she is pregnant with his child as a result of the problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up deadnight they spent together some three months ago. UnfortunatelyHer condition will be obvious before long, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person not least because Ruth is prone to be the prime suspectsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Marsh0008551375|title=A Sign of Her OwnWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=After Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a bout Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of scarlet fever as a childtragic accident. She'd looked so happy, too, Ellen Lark loses when she posted her hearingintentions on Facebook. Suddenly plunged into a world Her friends were relieved as she was just out of silencean unpleasant relationship, everything about but it looked like she was living her best life changesnow. Living Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages dolast year. All were experienced climbers, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signingproperly equipped for what they were doing and sensible people. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching None of the deaf and using 'what a system called Visible Speechstupid thing to do' explanations applied. At the same time, Bell They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is working certain there's a killer on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionagethe loose.|isbn=1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1803816759Paul B Preciado|title=The Unravelling|author=Will GibsonDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionPolitics and Society|summary=''It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing never too late to embrace the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of adventure arias, letters, essays and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everythingautofiction, making life easier for manyPreciado expresses his own hybrid self, and riots start brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to spreadthe new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. FinallyRather, it is the proportional, Joe gets valid response to do some real policing. In ''the aftermath of epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped tension between emancipatory forces and Joe conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't framed against the backdrop of the only one trying to save Suki Covid- Dylan19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a British superfan and tech nerdglobal scale, is also on the caseor as ''pangea covidica''. What went wrong? Did the system fail Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or was it hacked? And how is Sukiwithdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''s kidnapping connected?. |isbn=1804271454
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529421284Samantha Harvey|title=Laying Out the Bones|author=Kate WebbOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully2024, a human skeleton came to Samantha Harvey won the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee GearyBooker Prize for ''Orbital'', who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been compact yet profound work that unfolds over a simple case single day in the lives of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide group of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at astronauts aboard the timeInternational Space Station. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of Through a narrative lens that mirrors the Major Crimes Review Unit (thatastronauts's cold cases orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to you and me) investigatesee our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571379559295967572X|title=The House of Broken BricksPale Pieces|author=Fiona WilliamsG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they''The House re going and what the purpose of Broken Bricksthis journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets '' is on the story of four peoplefloor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Tess Hembry's roots Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives probably in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial past as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, pair travel to complete the delivery rounds - station by coach and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max train is out with his mother that she's his nannya steam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294258670008551324|title=Lost and Never Found The Devil You Know (A D I Wilkins MysteryS Max Craigie)|author=Simon MasonNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Oxford, there are two D I WilkinsIt's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Raymond Wilkins Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated a missing person is buried and always exquisitely dressedwho was responsible for her death. D I Ryan WilkinsThis person, son of Ryan and father of Ryanhe promises, is notsomeone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. He's not any And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of those things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) sentence and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackiesto get an early parole date. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced Not much to a police procedural written for laughs. Wellask, you're not. is it? The two men are just different sides of new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works brilliantly with him is kept well. Sometimes itaway from what's problematichappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Mosby WoodsJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=A Whirly Man Loses His TurnVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once 'All wasstrange''... Nobody in This haunting phrase encapsulates the West is quite sure how to mend pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war herestory set in Vaim, a push fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine thenJatgeir and Eline, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set two of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset protagonists caught in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this abilityits melancholic current. What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R11804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alastair Humphreys1035043092|title=LocalThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Travel Crime|summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over I can't have been the worldonly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. And then written about it. For this book It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he walked 's now living with Willow Reeves and cycled very close to home and then wrote about ittheir young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. As he says in Willow's also his introductionboss, the book is an attempt and she ''should''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from be on maternity leave, but when the body of a year exploring a small map. Nature losspopular islander, pollutionArchie Stout, land use and access, agricultureis found, in the food systemaftermath of a storm, rewilding…she can't resist getting involved. He' One of d been battered about the joys head with a Neolithic stone - one of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and that there are some hard choices aheadpair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1785633678
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1805141872Thea Lenarduzzi|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too MuchTower|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= ''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, the protagonist of this tale. Just as T'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 tuberculosis 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 consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799}}{{Frontpage|author=Rob KeeleyClaire-Louise Bennett|title=Big Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the narrator cries out internally, ''Seventeen banks come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a jeweller’s have been raideddesperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The police are baffledimagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, but only Ben knows a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008405026|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the truth – his Maths teacherinvestigation ground to a halt. Now, Miss Judsonher mother, Helena, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on father are dead in their trailbed. Initially, Miss Judson it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and Ben go on her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the runexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced. But Al needs them for one last job}}{{Frontpage|author=Annie Ernaux and Alison L.Strayer (translator)|title=The Other Girl|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''We were born from the same body.I've never really wanted to think about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760381267Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Verdura: Living a Garden Life|author=Perla Sofia Curbelo-SantiagoReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=LifestyleBiography|summary=''The most important part Biographies are often seen as the form of a garden is the one who enjoys life-writing which offers less colour; it''can be seen as more objective and less personal. I've 'gardened' in think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vaguevibrant, indefinite sort subjective yet informed portrait of way for more than half a centurythree of his literary contemporaries. I know (most In the first section of) the basics but life has changed and I needed this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: 'projects' rather than a general commitment you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to gardeningbe. ''VerduraWhom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?'' with its promise of projects for both indoors and outdoors of varying complexity seemed like the answer. SoWell, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how did he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it stack up?.|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CP95J1CG1529077745|title=Of Ghosts & Broken PromisesThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Mark LinganeAnn Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionCrime|summary= Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides 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 go work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the party death but his interest Vera thinks this is piqued by unlikely as the way girl's diary makes it arrivedclear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh. And it seems like }}{{Frontpage|isbn= B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been three years since we last reviewed a good opportunity book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to get out of his room and away from the online activities he makes see a living new novel arrive here atBookbag Towers. So he makes his way Like all Bowden's stories, there, dodging 's a mystery at the buses that make up most heart of ''The Colour of the traffic Money''. We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefullyatmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1454955546Olga Tokarczuk|title=Sugarless|author=Nicole M AvenaHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary=''This isnWhat't s the good of a diet book. The last thing anyone needs is another diet book.world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Greg Mason's just beginning to get his confidence as an investigator to the point where Ex-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he'll warn someone about how much he chargesshould be doing quite well financially. ItUnfortunately, his daughter's defence against a good job too because Greg and Joyce will soon have a baby and they're both delightedmurder charge drained his savings. Joyce will be more delighted about the baby when she gets past the morning sickness. Greg is approached by an old friend whose brotherHis wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire -in-law appears to have killed himself''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. StuartThat's concerned about his sisterwhat 'ordinary people do', Lucy, who'' He's struggling to make ends meet and her son is not thrivingbeen entirely up front about the state of their savings. Lucy, he saysWhen Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, is convinced that Gil would never have killed himself - it simply wasn't in his nature. The police and s the thought of the coroner have accepted money he could make that convinces him that the death was suicide, but Stuart's prepared to pay Greg to find out what happened on the night Gil diedthis is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CK3MYJ561836284683|title=Responsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)The Big Happy|author=Ann MacarthurDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeDystopian Fiction|summary=ItWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, it's the 1990s nothing like I expected it to be, and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have a high-flying job in the city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as takes me on a private investigatorwild ride. And that is just what happened with 'Shades of Cameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but whereThe Big Happy's the life experience that backs up this profession? On the other hand, he has been asked to look into something. Joyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in what's been written off as a tragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. Joyce - and her parents, Oliver and Pam Hetherington - canI don't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come want to fall in front ruin a similar experience for any of a trainyou reading but I'll have to at least set the scene. GregOnce that's been asked to investigatedone, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Katherine HoweSally Rooney|title=A True AccountIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction|summary=Hannah Masury Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is living in Boston, having been sent to live with something of a family who run an inngrandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, and being made to work there from a young ageas her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in Among the townmany relationships woven into this story, she decides the central one for readers to go unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and watchPeter Koubek. Enthralled and horrified in equal measureIvan, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides awaysocially awkward chess prodigy, so that they don't find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to seacontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Lowsuccessful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's pirate ship as passing after a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a mutiny on boardlong battle with cancer, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the ocean wavesbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=08615474380571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1036916375|title=Just a Liverpool Lad|author=Tananarive DuePeter McArdle|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.}} {{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The ReformatoryDouble Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= GracetownWill is a keen player of video games, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boyconscientious student, 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 slightly annoying brother and a brutal and dark reputationsupportive friend. But the segregated reformatory is a chamber most of horrorsall, haunted by the boys that have died therehe is an aspiring writer. In order to survive the English is his favourite lesson at his school governor , Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his Funhouseheadteacher, Mrs Howarth, Robert must enlist the help and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of the afternoons a week at a different school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations.., Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1803366532}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711801581009473085|title=Maybe TomorrowThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Penny ParkesAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Jamie Matson works in 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 looking for an upper-class grocery storeeasy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, for a man whothen this isn's a control freak with all t the subtlety of a half brickbook for you. JamieIf that's son, Bowhat you're looking for, I don'has his problemst think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. HeIt's asthmatic a compelling read and the more you read, the more youshould be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrumis an entirely different beast. Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - sheIt's the seventh book in a frequent flier in series which looks at the local A&E impact a government has made and sometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to schoolco-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. Missed shifts or This book follows the need to be away on time to pick Bo up well-established format: a series of experts from school are occasions various fields review the state of the nation when Jamie can be controlled the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and put the situation in the wrong. It was going to come to a head2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Harry AllenJenny Valentine|title=Children of Us in the SunBefore and After
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a North Korean town and she is lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a talented singertrip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the time. Life is hard But then chance brings them back together, and food is difficult to come bythey are inseparable. Something has happened though, so Seo something terrible and her friends Nari tragic, and Min go foraging every eveningnow they must work through their grief, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at hometheir friendship, together.|isbn=18051404931471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Edel Rodriguez1787333175|title=Worm: A Cuban American OdysseyYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=Graphic NovelsPopular Science|summary=WeI was tempted to read 're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The revolution has happenedYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, and Castro, first thought a glorious mixture of as a saviour insight into the workings of the country, has proven himself a CommunistNHS, humour and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for allautobiography. Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren'You Don't in the happiest of places here, an uncle refusing Have to be Mad...'' promised the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off same elements but moved from physical problems to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) mental illness and the father being watched and watched, and not liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned uponwork of a psychiatrist. The mother gets the couple jobs with the party I did wonder whether it was acceptable to ease some of the heat, but be looking for humour in this sultry island country, setting but the laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it remains the kind of heat forcing you out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=K P O'DonnellMariana Enriquez|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=3.5|genre=Science FictionShort Stories|summary=VL-15Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, a prototype robot, is desperate achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to understand who she is. Unfortunatelyan urban planning mishap, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel overcrowded homeless shelter and Renada. Over half-acrime-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world ridden neighbourhood where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it safety meetings are routine - all crashing down againwithin Argentina. Craig Anderson, leader The circumstances of a group of salvagers called her characters are so plausible that the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herselfsimilarly tangible texture. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18389544811529934753|title=The MisperProtest|author=Kate LondonRob Rinder|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed For a police officer: therelittle while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's no doubt about that. He most famous living artist, was the fifteen-year-old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. He pulled the trigger but due not going to show up for the vagaries opening of his retrospective at the jury system Royal Academy. Still, he was found not guilty arrived in the nick of both the murder time, complete with his two wives and the manslaughter six children, one of the officerwhom filmed what happened. And so lives must go onBeing an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a record of the protest. For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving Lexi Williams, an intern at the capital RA, grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and hoping for a quieter life proceeded to spray Bruce in the countryside but when a missing teenager is found on her territory sheface, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. It seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 's drawn into a wider investigation blue- face' attacks, but this was different. The can had been laced with cyanide, and back into the orbit of Ryan KennedySir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1035025299Ariel Saramandi|title=Went to London, Took the Dog|author=Nina StibbePortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=Nina Stibbe is returning In this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to London for a sabbatical after being away for twenty yearsintradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life. SheSaramandi describes the country at one stage as 's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isnrotting''t all that conducive to writing, a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as there's always something smallholding happening - as you might expect. The other side a kind of diagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the decision was sealed when a room became available (courtesy of Deborah Moggach) at a very reasonable rentisland state.|isbn=1804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CKD1L5JLPekka Harju-Autti|title=Radio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey DunnLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary= Petr It's the eighteenth century, a time of discovery and Britain is an orphanexpanding its foreign trade. Rescued by the strangeCaptain Julius Hawthorne, reclusive Bearan experienced Scottish sea captain, he is brought up far from bustling cities and busy human society, sent to the Andaman Islands in the forests of Washington's Olympic Peninsulahis endeavour. After Bear dies Along with his son, Peter, and a brief sojourn in human companytheir cat, and armed with only a pirate radio transmitterMichi, Petr goes they set off on a journey through perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the forestislanders' leader, broadcasting the strangeAarav, wild and rarely heard voices he encountersis keen to establish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1635866243Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth Lili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=''I quickly discovered that putting First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and numbers sentences from their proper position on a the page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a great deal of trial and errorpositions them elsewhere, patiencedisjointed, and perseverancetruncated.'' (Introduction byFrancoise Danoy) A friend recently showed me a knitting pattern for which she'd paid good money. The first line of Like the instructions began: ''Cast off 100 stitches...'' It was clear that no good could come lives of this - the instructions didn't get any better - and (finally) PayPal obliged with a refund when the seller refused as she couldn't afford the repayment. The pattern looked prettyher characters, but the creator didn't have the basic knowledge and skills to enable her to connect with her knitters. She should have read ''The Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook''they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675
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{{Frontpage
|author=Adam Baron and Benji DaviesTom Percival|title=Oscar's LionThe Wrong Shoes|rating=35
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or fatherWill's life is difficult, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book in a couple multitude of times before ways. He is bullied because he has to be ready for school. But when 'the wrong shoes', he enters has the wrong shoes because his parentsdad can' bedroomt work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, all and his dad can't work because he sees is lost his job at the college, was working a mahoosive male lion cash-in-hand job on their bed, looking sheepish, a building site and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two dayshad an accident. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to Throw into that mix the bully fact that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other monthhis mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And it can shapeshiftyet, so he can take it to school and it can get him out still has a tiny amount of a problemhope. And it's wonderful He is good at art, and clings to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intakemoments of joy when he is drawing, being much more lax about that feel like a light at the rulesend of a long, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful timedark tunnel.|isbn=00085967511398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0BC3YTCMRSylvie Cathrall|title=Good Girls Die|author=Ayura AyiraA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=''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, There are few greater joys than a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid book which lives up to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a black girl whose skin is 84% white. She had a crush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and Reggie asked if she would tutor himcompelling premise. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: And this was just an extension. She went to his house and he raped her. In shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift homeis one of them.|isbn= 0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|author=V CastroGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Haunting of AlejandraAccidentals|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorShort Stories|summary=''This collection 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 playing parts for others truly enchanting in her life – her husband and 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 a 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}}{{Frontpage|author=Richard Kadrey|title=The Pale House Devil|rating=4|genre=Horror|summary=Ford and Neuland are a couple senses of, well, guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! One of them is living, you seeword: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and the other is undead, and so one of them kills the living, and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). They're on a job charming in New York that goes badly, and so they head out to the West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to keep them going. But when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman's house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot its gentle portrayal of family history, nature 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=3human relationships.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and in case you're seeing a connectionprecisely, they live in her stories structured by a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And wisdom that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had appears to tell stories want to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie teach us something about the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distractedworld. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=05713760101804271470
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