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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085513241786482126|title=The Devil You Know Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=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 child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551375|title=When Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItLeanne Wilson's unusual for anyone from body was found at the Hardie family to approach bottom of a Scottish mountain, seemingly the policeresult of a tragic accident. Neither side likes or has any respect for the otherShe'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her intentions on Facebook. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body Her friends were relieved as she was just out of a missing person is buried and who an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was responsible for living her deathbest life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. This personAll were experienced climbers, he promises, is someone big properly equipped for what they were doing and it will be worth sensible people. None of the police doing 'what he wantsa stupid thing to do' explanations applied. And what he wants They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a killer on the loose.}}{{Frontpage|author=Paul B Preciado|title=Dysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''It is never too late to be transferred to an open prison to serve embrace the remainder revolutionary optimism of childhood'' Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his sentence own hybrid self, and to get brings forth a new sensorium as an early parole date. Not much offering to askthe new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it? is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The new Deputy Police Constable doesnwhole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica't think so and she's even prepared . Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to do ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''. |isbn=1804271454}}{{Frontpage|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the other thing Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that Hardie demanded - make certain unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from whatmirrors the astronauts's happeningorbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008405026295967572X|title=A Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)Pale Pieces|author=Jane CaseyG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=ItOur unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer nightre going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. She was never Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and the investigation ground has persuaded our narrator to a haltaccompany him. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are dead probably in their bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of past as the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going pair travel to be an open-the station by coach and-shut case the train is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convincedsteam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713798770008551324|title=The Kellerby CodeDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Jonny SweetNeil Lancaster|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Edward Jevons It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert struggling in prison and Stanza. Roberthe's prepared to tell the police where the body of a theatre directormissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. He's also self-obsessedThis person, demandinghe promises, handsome is someone big and entitled it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and uses Edward to run errands for himget an early parole date. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and heshe's drunkenly confided how he feels even prepared to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but hewhat's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passagewayhappening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jo CallaghanJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Leave No TraceVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.
|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035043092
|title=The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a man is found crucified on I can't have been the top of a hill in Nuneatononly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lockstart a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their first live case togetheryoung son, James, as well as Cassie, having previously been very successful with several cold casesthe daughter of his former partner. But Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when there the body of a popular islander, Archie Stout, is a second body found crucified , in the aftermath of a few days laterstorm, Kat is suddenly struggling she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a potential serial killer and Neolithic stone - one of a very high profile case that draws pair - which had been stolen from a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectmuseum. Will they be able to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1399613073Thea Lenarduzzi|title=Moral Injuries|author=Christie WatsonThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Olivia''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, Laura and Anjali met on the first day story of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter 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. Olivia Annie's fate is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim above all, an enticing story to be a cardiothoracic surgeonT. Laura It is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the free spirit of the group and story which she becomes consumes avariciously, both in a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug quest for truth and alcohol-fuelled party knowledge, and it's going to end in tragedyservice of myth, fable and fantasy. We don't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involved.|isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker Everything in your mindthis book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty steeped in anguish and injusticedistortion. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School Even a kiss, usually a symbol of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - intimacy and he has a facility with numbers which most closeness, becomes evidence of us can only envylove lost. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what wasWhen the narrator cries out internally, essentially''come over here and kiss me, '' it is less an invitation than a card game which got him an internship with Citibankdesperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. EventuallyThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, this turned into permanent employment as a traderghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=10350218030008405026|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to MurderA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=C L MillerJane Casey|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's twenty sixteen years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew upnine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She's back now because of was never found and the investigation ground to a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carolehalt. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friendNow, her mother, Arthur CrocklefordHelena, is and her father are dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the leastin their bed. Arthur was Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the reason why Freya had not been back to positioning of the village: Arthur, she feels, let bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her down badlyboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Even What looked as though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able it was going to be near the man or pursue the profession she lovedan open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. After Kerrigan is convinced that the split, she worked explanation lies in a cafe, met and married James Rosalie's disappearance: others (on the rebound from the love of her lifesuch as Derwent's boss, who was murderedUna Burt) and Freya and James have now divorcedare less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=AllTomorrowsFutureCoverAnnie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)The Other Girl|rating=54|genre=Science FictionAutobiography|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about We were born from the shape of things same body. I've never really wanted to comethink about this.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sunny SinghMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Hotel ArcadiaReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers Biography|summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that has suddenly been violently taken over by Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a terrorist groupvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. Hiding from In the terrorists who are rampaging throughfirst section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, killing everyone on sitethat sea, there or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is Samit?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a wartime photographer subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Abhi, 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 hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for early morning discovered the residents who are still alive body of a man in the hotelpark near Rosebank, he forms a bond with Sam care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who refuses was due to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room work a shift the night before but who had never turned up. D I Vera Stanhope is called in to try to capture what's happened through investigate the murder - but her photographyonly clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Although they only ever talk over Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the phone, their friendship grows death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as Abhi tries the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to help her keep safe and they both wait discover what happened to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terroristsJosh.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529153298B0FK5LHKD9|title=The List Colour of Suspicious ThingsMemory|author=Jennie GodfreyChristopher Bowden|rating=54
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Wellthree years since we last reviewed a book by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, they've been murdered, but so we were very glad to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frighteningsee a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. MivLike all Bowden's upset because shestories, there's overheard that her father wants to move a mystery at the family heart of 'Down South'. When youThe Colour of Money're from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her MumWe like this running theme in an author's stopped talking work - to anyonetake a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398524085Olga Tokarczuk|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci FrenchHouse of Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?''
The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.
|isbn=1804271918
}}{{Frontpage
|isbn=henleyA
|title=Ultimate Obsession
|author=Dai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husbandEx-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's fiftieth birthday party but never turned updefence against a murder charge drained his savings. Her childrenHis wife, sons NiallLaura, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but has been trying to persuade him to retire - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. Shortly afterwardsThat's what 'ordinary people do', Etty and Greg, find '' He's not been entirely up front about the body state of Gregtheir savings. When Jack Durban tries to persuade him to take his case, it's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for thought of the police to money he could make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happenedshould put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=10359067081836284683|title=DivaThe Big Happy|author=Daisy GoodwinDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Dystopian Fiction|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as GreekWell! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, but she was born it's nothing like I expected it to Greek parents in Manhattan, New Yorkbe, in December 1923 and only moved it takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''The Big Happy''. I don't want to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but her father changed it to 'CallasI' ll have to make it more manageable in at least set the Statesscene. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so Once that she could get appropriate training 's done, I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for her voice - she was raised under yourself.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sally Rooney|title=Intermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction |summary=Sally Rooney has studied the Nazi occupation by chessboard of life and is something of a mother who mercilessly exploited her grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is gripping and made no secret of so brilliantly frustrating, as her preference characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story, the central one for her elder sisterreaders to unravel is the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, Jackiethe brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Edge1036916375|title=Black Hole Cinema ClubJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersAutobiography|summary=Lucas ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and his friends around Liverpool. Some are all booked in for factual, such as the family history of a movie marathon at their local cinemasea-going family, a place that has with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the nickname of 'The Black Hole'what-might-have-been. All big movie fans, theyIt're looking forward s a book to lots of exciting films, settle into and manyallow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, many snacks! Howeverto think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, as despite the movie starts, they very quickly realise blitz that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldnwas a constant factor in McArdle't even imagines early years. But as I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they lurch from one film genre to were almost soundless and could appear after the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738all-clear was sounded.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=James Sherwood Metts1836285493|title=Planet StorylandThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Things have been Will is a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apacekeen player of video games, a conscientious student, often replacing jobs they're paid to do a slightly annoying brother and other tasks that took time to accomplisha supportive friend. Just as they were beginning to get used to But most of all this technological change , he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and starting to think of otherone at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, new ways and she has suggested to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down Will andhis mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, along with itStation Road, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavilywhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Matthew Tree1009473085|title=We'll Never KnowThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionPolitics and Society|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than 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 easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different from his father, beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a drunk government has made and chronic underachiever whose dreams co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of being exceptional at any experts from various fields review the state of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his studiesthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams the changes that occurred and set himself high but achievable ambitionsthe situation in 2024.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=A G SlatterJenny Valentine|title=The Briar Book of Us in the DeadBefore and After
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyTeens|summary='' There's a part of me Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my owneven, all mine, at lasttheir friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. I just want to enjoy it for They meet as children one day on a while.trip out but unfortunately they don'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briart get each other's, a family of witches who protect contact details at the town and the wider world from the Darklandstime. Though she has always wished for magic But then chance brings them back together, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potionsthey are inseparable. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader Something has happened though, something terrible and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way lefttragic, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to anothernow they must work through their grief, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survivetheir friendship, is under threattogether.|isbn=18033645481471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15299003601787333175|title=The Ghost OrchidYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Jonathan KellermanBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=CrimePopular Science|summary=It hadnI was tempted to read ''You Don't been Lt Milo SturgisHave to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult casesautobiography. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn''You Don't need Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the help work of a psychologist only worked for a whilepsychiatrist. Finally, I did wonder whether it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking acceptable to be looking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered humour in this setting but the swimming pool of laughter is directed at a situation rather than a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire person and she it is married to an extremely rich man always delivered with empathy and it's not the Italianunderstanding. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529395224Mariana Enriquez|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion RowlandsA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and WildlifeShort Stories|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footstepsMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, particularly when he considered the strain that being achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of doing work experience with disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't crime- as with so many students ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - been his dream since he was a childall within Argentina. If anything, he'd wanted to be The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a professional footballersimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08615417741529934753|title=A Nye of PheasantsThe Protest|author=Steve BurrowsRob Rinder|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic JejeuneFor a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's close friend and former colleaguemost famous living artist, Danny Maikwas not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, has taken a short holiday he arrived in Singapore to meet up the nick of time, complete with an old allyhis two wives and six children, Guy Truemanone of whom filmed what happened. Maik Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain fortunate that he there was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurkarecord of the protest. InitiallyLexi Williams, he faced an intern at the RA, grabbed a charge spray can of manslaughter but evidence came blue paint from under a chair and proceeded to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder spray Bruce in the face, whilst shouting ''Stop the manWar''. Now he could It seemed to be facing the death penaltypart of an ongoing series of 'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. Domenic Jejeune The can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident had been laced with cyanide, and wouldn't help Danny at allSir Max Bruce was dead.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall SmithAriel Saramandi|title=The Perfect Passion CompanyPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in EdinburghIn this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, run tunneling deep into the wounds left by Ness colonialism and operating as an alternative slavery to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored serviceexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after Saramandi describes the businesscountry at one stage as ''rotting'', as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away blunt yet apt metaphor for a while. Katie is coming out the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of a break up with a bad boyfriendracism, patriarchy, environmental degradation and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburghgovernmental dysfunction. And so begins Each essay in this new story from Alexander McCall Smithcollection serves as a kind of diagnostic, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and charting the various diseases afflicting the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charmisland state. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=18469765961804271616
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0811771741Pekka Harju-Autti|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa LeapmanLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CraftsFantasy|summary=Melissa LeapmanIt's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us the eighteenth century, a collection time of knits from toys discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to blanketsthe Andaman Islands in his endeavour. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'longAlong with his son, Peter, and their cat, Michi, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' varietythey set off on a perilous voyage to these faraway lands. The projects islands are divided by beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the time theyislanders'll take to complete - less than five hoursleader, five to ten hoursAarav, ten is keen to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being pickyestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean KoontzHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The Bad Weather FriendLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you couldFirst published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the question should you make it? Or is hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the question if you didpage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.truncated... no. ''Fragility'' is set as Like the city lives of Portlandher characters, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemicthey are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Eli Will's life is difficult, in a busy lad – by day an apprentice in multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wondrous library we start by visiting with himwrong shoes', and in the evening a helper at he has the dessert cafe wrong shoes because his gran owns dad can't work and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – doesn't have enough money for there is a generation missing in even the family. A few short years agomost basic of things like food, Eliand his dad can's parents were both t work because he lost to his job at the titular racecollege, was working a globecash-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the world fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in the company of a magical beastevery direction. This And yet, he still has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident tiny amount of hope. He is good at the eatery leads to a confession from granart, Eli knows his only hope is and clings to dare to enter what the moments of joy when he most hatesis drawing, with the sole aim the prize of magic that feel like a light at the end – the only thing to possibly save his granof a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=05713822311398527122
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|isbnauthor=178763681XSylvie Cathrall|title=Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando MurrinA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took There are few greater joys than a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want book which lives up to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wantedcompelling premise. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. The And this is one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspectof them.|isbn= 0356522776
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|author=Sarah MarshGuadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=A Sign of Her OwnThe Accidentals|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionShort Stories|summary=After a bout This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of scarlet fever as a childthe word: spellbinding with its fantastical, Ellen Lark loses her hearingmagical elements and charming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Suddenly plunged into a world of silenceGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, everything about her life changes. Living in stories structured by a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent wisdom that appears to a school where she is taught want to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching teach us something about the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionageworld.|isbn=10354016141804271470
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