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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)
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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher FowlerB0CK3MYJ56|title=Word MonkeyResponsibilities (Greg Mason mysteries)|author=Ann Macarthur|rating=54|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary= It's the first of August 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have a high-flying job in the middle of city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a cool wet summer in East Angliaprivate investigator. I decided not to swim at the pool in favour 'Shades of going to my beach hutCameron Strike', you might be thinking. Nice bloke, but where's the life experience that backs up this profession? The weather closed inOn the other hand, rain arrived, and I decided not he has been asked to do that eitherlook into something. When I finished reading this bookJoyce and Helen are half-sisters, or rather, I realised it they were until Helen was because (killed in what's been written off as a) I wanted to finish reading this book and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shacktragic accident at an unmanned level crossing. No spoiler alertsJoyce - and her parents, the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was' – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosis. There is something very strange about being made doing there - or how she could come to laugh by fall in front of a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he doestrain. He didGreg's been asked to investigate.|isbn=0857529625
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529077699Katherine Howe|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)|author=Ann CleevesA True Account
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''It's all bloody peculiarHannah Masury is living in Boston, isn't ithaving been sent to live with a family who run an inn, Sir?'' Well yes, it isand being made to work there from a young age. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening When she hears there is to be a hanging of some pirates in the middle of an autumn galetown, stayed for about a month she decides to go and then turned up, naked watch. Enthralled and deadhorrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to young boy's death at the village hands of Greystone, in Devontwo vicious pirates. Rosco had the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurerShe hides away, round the world sailor and all round so that they don''celebrity''. I ''nearly'' said 'all-round good egg' but as we'll t find outand kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, he could be more than dressing as a little bit close with money boy and his background isnjoining the notorious Ned Low't exactly an open books pirate ship as a cabin boy. Where did he get She soon finds herself in the money for his first boat? How did he finance thick of things when there is a mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the trip?ocean waves.|isbn=0861547438
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRTananarive Due|title=On the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaReformatory
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingHistorical Fiction|summary=Kit and Teal were just beginning Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to wonder whether it was better to be six months at homethe Gracetown School for Boys, bored but warm, or frozen cold otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's a place with a brutal and building sand sculptures on a snowy beach when dark reputation. But the segregated reformatory is a large slab chamber of silvery ice drifted onto horrors, haunted by the shorelineboys that have died there. On top In order to survive the school governor and his Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the ice was school's ghosts – only they have their own motivations...|isbn=1803366532}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1471180158|title=Maybe Tomorrow|author=Penny Parkes|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Jamie Matson works in an upper-class grocery store, for a man who's a control freak with all the subtlety of a polar bearhalf brick. As Jamie's son, Bo, 'has his problems'. He's asthmatic and the ice bumped onto the sandmore you read, the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from more you'll suspect that he's on the iceautistic spectrum. Kit was all for making Sometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice - she's a run for it, but Teal knew that frequent flier in the bear was hungry local A&E and gave him one apple and then anothersometimes Bo's not fit enough to go to school. He obviously needed Missed shifts or the need to be taken home away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the bus and given wrong. It was going to come to a good meal and somewhere to sleephead. What else would you do?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire NorthHarry Allen|title=House Children of Odysseusthe Sun
|rating=5
|genre= Literary Fiction Teens|summary= Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and food is difficult to come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.|isbn=1805140493}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary= We're in childhood, and we'What could matter more than love?'' re in Cuba. The followrevolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as a saviour of the country, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. Well, those hours-up to the excellent ''Ithacalong speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren' picks up a few months after where we left off. In t in the palace happiest of Odysseusplaces here, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to rule without her husbandsome minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the father being watched and watched, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned homenot liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. As ever she The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains surrounded by suitors vying for the throne kind of heat forcing you out of the Western Isleskitchen…|isbn=1474616720}}{{Frontpage|author=K P O'Donnell|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)|rating=3. Having survived – politically 5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to Ithacacontinue her father's shoreslegacy, Queen Penelope is on building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the brink of Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a fragile peaceprototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. One that shatters however with Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the return of Orestesslightest, King of Mycenaeand no errant machine, no savage human tribe and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=0356516075B0CKRYFRZM
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451838954481|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsMisper|author=Karin SmirnoffKate London|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there''Life has more to offer than people s no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year- prime numbers for example''old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. Lisbeth Salander has headed north He pulled the trigger but due to the small town vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of Gasskas, where both the so-far-untapped natural resources murder and the manslaughter of the area have sparked a gold rushofficer. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardAnd so lives must go on. Salander's niece's mother is For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the latest woman capital and hoping for a quieter life in the area to have vanished without trace. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian countryside but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is when a remarkably gifted missing teenager whois found on her territory she's unaware drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of the part Salander played in her father's deathRyan Kennedy.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B1035025299|title=The Last Person in Went to London, Took the WorldDog|author=Matthew TreeNina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=Our narrator was Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnssabbatical after being away for twenty years. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to throw around on a Rolex watchwriting, vintage wines and a stateas there's always something smallholding happening -as you might expect. The other side of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised decision was sealed when they a room became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns had no intention available (courtesy of going on to University, unlike our storyteller who had a place Deborah Moggach) at Wolverton College in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious university. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetvery reasonable rent.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean KoontzB0CKD1L5JL|title=The House at the End of the WorldRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there Petr is no one on your sidean orphan. Rescued by the strange, you can either suck it upreclusive Bear, saddle he is brought up far from bustling cities and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly busy human society, in a small chain the forests of tiny dots on the map Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and live out your days a brief sojourn in peace human company, and solitude. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life to start afresh armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been a journey through the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for forest, broadcasting the pesky US Government occupying Ringrockstrange, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science wild and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankindrarely heard voices he encounters.|isbn=1662453159
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher1635866243|title=ThornhedgeThe Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth |rating=4.5|genre=FantasyCrafts|summary=''You had I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a right to retake your placegreat deal of trial and error, patience, and perseverance.''(Introduction byFrancoise Danoy)
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B0CCCVRSGXAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerOscar's Lion|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers|summary= This We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is Richard F Walker's second volume more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of short storiestimes before he has to be ready for school. There are thirteen in But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one admitting that doesnhe won't deserve be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be among shown as an unspoken threat to the others or brings down bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the overall qualityother month. It And it can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much awayshapeshift, so Ihe can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it'll just pick two s wonderful to talk have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and I think they so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a general flavourwonderful time.|isbn=0008596751
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787636607B0BC3YTCMR|title=The TrapGood Girls Die|author=Catherine Ryan HowardAyura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral 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, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningblack girl whose skin is 84% white. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for She had a way to get homecrush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Some are lucky Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and manage Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to get one of the few taxis availablehis house and he raped her. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesIn shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. }} {{Frontpage|author=V Castro|title=The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light Haunting of Alejandra|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary='the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her This was a long way short part of her homepast that had to stop with her. She had intended would be the one to ring someone confront this.'' At some point during her life, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she is playing parts for others in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought to come and collect her - but own desires, her own future, her phone's deadown identity. The bus had driven off before Day by day she had the chance goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to beg the bus driver all but Alejandra, there is a darkness threatening to let consume her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed More and more she is visited by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in high-heeled shoesher wake.|isbn=1803365617
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Richard Kadrey|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartThe Pale House Devil
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeHorror|summary=From the first pageFord and Neuland are a couple of, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well. , guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! The victim - a man - One of them is dying when we first meet him living, you see, and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he other is undead, and so desperately needsone of them kills the living, and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). What we donThey't know is who re on a job in New York that goes badly, and so they head out to the man is or why Nadine prefers West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to have him diekeep them going. IBut when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman'd better give you s house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, and a little more background so terrifyingly powerful creature that you can understand whatthey's happening.ve never come across before!|isbn=1803363894
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthHelen Cooper|title=Nowhere IslandThe Taming of the Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet GilOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. Just twelveIn this case, he is so determined to escape principally, we have Brie the care system – mouse, up against Gorgonzola the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes cat – and find in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a home for himselfcheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. He Anyway, Brie is en route to yet another fosterershunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, when 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 jumps into an anonymous car, displays it as art and lets makes stories based on the visuals on it ride him to his future. That future seems to be And that story-telling will come in jeopardy when someone steals his handy one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorwaynight, a place inaccessible when he feels all alone and definitely ignored enough cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to provide for their safety and seclusiontell stories to keep themselves alive. ThemThis makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, and a mute girl also finding a home therethough, albeit so much more successfullyas all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want But will the story have the successful sequel it just would not work…needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=18045400800571376010
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008530025B0CDZRGT1M|title=Murder in the FamilySuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Cara HunterMark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather''Got a minute to be amused, Luke Ryderentertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in the garden of their West London homea flash. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if he'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 it's now the subject of ''InfamousSome are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'', Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a true-crime show. A group flavour of experts has been brought together a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to review draw out themes from all the evidence and to take the investigation further. More to the point, theyflash fictions in a book of them? I don're going to do this live on camera, episode t know! Perhaps we could start by episode. Thereexplaining that there really isn's no dump t a fixed definition of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangersflash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. ItThat's compelling viewingabout a single page in your average paperback.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Judith Eagle1732898766|title=The Stolen SongbirdAdventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersFor Sharing|summary=CaroWhen we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingre running for their lives in the Forest of Fine Repute. Her other mother, Ronnie, Their greatest fear has come about: the Sour Milk Dragon is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellchasing them. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with GamHe's right behind them, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesspewing hot, she feels frustrated and confused and worriedsour milk from his nostrils. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside (Please don't try this staid old Victorian ladyat home: it won's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there toot end well. ) But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryFortunately, as she discovers they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a painting ladder of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcasemoss and vines was lowered for them, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplethey escaped. Is the painting somehow linked They climbed up to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved Tree Wee homes high up in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook and Granny Cranny.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291959771472263936|title=None of this is TrueThe Figurine|author=Lisa JewellVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=On It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairfirst trip to Greece. She, too, was out celebrating alone: her 45th birthdaymother, only she was just with her husbandGreek by birth, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix had left the family home and Josie birthday twinsrefused to return, they were both born in St but Maryand Hamish (Helena's hospitalparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. That's where Her trip to the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the midst first of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdy, they're enjoying themselvesseveral annual visits. Josie, on the other hand, holds her handbag close She grew to love her tummy grandmother and you get the sense that Walterfamily's not too happymaid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Hewas proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's not used to spending this much money on a meal red hair and green eyes - but it is Josieinherited from her father's birthday after allScottish ancestors.
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{{Frontpage
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting in Vietnam under There's something of about tall buildings that just captures my imagination. Who doesn't love a cloud. What actually happened out there is gossiped about and nobody is sure exactly what took placegood view from up high, but an act of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice and disgrace seems to be after all? Even the consensus. Wat himself drabbest office building is keeping his cards close somewhere I'm intrigued to his chest, as he always doesget inside if it's 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued. |isbn= 1803363991
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0C7J9D21BHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=A Captive in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J LewisFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary=When we first meet our hero[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, his name is Ettore and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsfinding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Idyllic as this might soundBack home, it's things on the domestic and family front are a bordello bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and Ettore's mother died so can easily be ignored when he word comes through from the islands Bear was bornlast left on. HeFor a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's not been short of mothersOK, though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, it's difficult she and her father return to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the preparation Arctic and hope that in a world of anchovies didn't work out very white and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats. Ettore was nothing if not resourceful - very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and determined - dangerous thing – and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors. He was even saving some moneythat the friendship can continue.|isbn=0008582017
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1804183210|title=After Death|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head of Security, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when a virus is released in a bio-hazard accident. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuary, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – and only him – as he sits up and looks around at the shrouded bodies 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''. Michael isn't ''Michael'' anymore.|isbn=1662500467}} {{FrontpageNo Reserve|author=Jamie Littler|title=ArkspireFelix Francis
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Two sistersThirty-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, Juniper and Elodiethe chairman, born fifteen minutes aparthadn't arrived, are growing to so he continued his session. To say that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be chalk and cheesean understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Juniper is an eager hunter Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out respected in the Badlandsracing industry. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power Jennings was in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child cubicles in line to inherit the power of toilets when the Watcher, two men came in and their conversation revealed that the closest horse had been deliberately bid up to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warthat figure. Being trained Both were happy that they had insurance in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole familyplace. But The following morning, the horse was dead 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=0241586143its stall.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de MoraesSarah Wilson|title=Old Gods New TricksThis One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersLifestyle|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding My favourite Mary Oliver line is the school aircon one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to do with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisanceyour one wild and precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this. '' But just when sheI's being told that by her m lucky enough to be living my one-last-chance-giving headteacher, wild and precious life the world changesway I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the schoolIn her book that takes Oliver's in but the entire planet words as her title (apart from mobile phones, and all though I can't see that powers she acknowledges the Internet, just for our convenience's sakesource). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from she pushes us. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all think about whether we really ''are'' living the people that can steal it back life we want – namely the characters from myth best life that have past form in stealing from the Godswe could be living. Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, ie the semi-deitieswe are not''. Don't care what you're doing, giantsshe thinks you (we, half-gods and so on known as I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the trickstersfact that we are not.|isbn=178845295X1785633848
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alexia Casale1839948493|title=Sing if you Can't DanceA World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa Uribe
|rating=5
|genre=TeensChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's hard enough to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that youI're having to navigate m a life-changing disability toosucker for dogs. In nearly eight decades, but thatI've never met one I didn't trust and I's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in ve loved most of them. I wish I felt the middle of a dance performance that was going to change her lifesame about human beings. But she comes back fightingSo, any book about dogs, desperate I'm going to avoid the pity stares, sit down and desperate devour. Then I'm going to get go back to a life that's as normal as she can possibly manageand read it properly. Meanwhile thereAnd so it was with ''s a new (cute!) boy in school, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort outWorld of Dogs'', and just the daywith ninety-six pages devoted entirely tomy four-day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigatelegged friends. So even though Author Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801s learned quite a lot about dogs since then.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Helen Peters1405951680|title=Friends and Traitors|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=1788004647}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241996104|title=Coming to Find YouSafe House|author=Jane CorryCameron Ward|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Nancy's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and Jess Walker accepted an offer (OK, actually she was gently nudged into it by her step-brotherfriend, Martin, has been convicted Rupert) to caretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple of their murdermonths. We first meet Nancy outside After the courtproblems she'd had at work, after Martin receives a life sentenceit seemed like just the break she needed. The barrister tells her that she's received She was no longer a 'silent sentence' - data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she's not been found guilty of anything but will have was Jess who was returning to live with what happened for the rest country of her life. Of course, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - birth and in need of the papers are making space to get over the most traumatic end of ither relationship with Charles. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' is one favourite epithet and ''rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spokenA few weeks in the Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the ticket.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529413680Rachel Harrison|title=A Chateau Under Siege (A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel)|author=Martin WalkerBad Dolls
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=One It's been some time since I've read any horror. I had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, borrowing the main events books from a boy I fancied at school and scaring myself half silly with them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of the Sarlat tourist season is the revampires outside! Don't worry -enactment of the liberation of the town from the English in 1370 and Brunothis short story collection isn's there to see the show with some friends. t like that! Itdoesn's all been very carefully choreographed but goes badly wrong whent have those jump scares, Kerquelinand I didn't have to read it during daylight hours only! But it is creepy, the man playing one and I found most of the main characters is seriously injured when he departs that feeling came from the script. Luckilyfact that these are stories about women, living normal lives, his doctor is there and that at least in part, the man is whisked away in horrors arises from very normal situations such as a helicopter. A local doctor (and friend of Bruno) wonders about his chances of survival but - as he's breakup, trying a senior government employeenew dieting app, the man who runs Frenchelon - the military has stepped in. One daughter lives nearby going to a hen party and another, who lives in California, is flying in a coping with some of her father's friends for a pre-arranged holidaygrief.|isbn=1803363932
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291963881394159544|title=The TrialRecycling for Dummies|author=Rob RinderSarah Winkler|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLifestyle|summary=Grant Cliveden was a hero: a policeman who stood for all that was good ''Recycling one ton of plastic can save up to 16.3 barrels of oil.'' ''Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees from being cut down.'' If you send an apple core to landfill, it will take between 6 months and honest and looked 2 years to decompose. A glass bottle will take up to by 1 million years. As a just about everyone-post-WWII baby, I faced a dilemma: reducing, so there was public uproar when he was murdered reusing and recycling is part of my DNA. NEVER throw away anything that might ''possibly'' come in handy now or in plain sight at the Old Baileyfuture. NEVER buy anything if you can cobble together something that would serve the purpose. There's just Almost everything can be used one man in more time and any purchase must pass the frame for his murder - Jimmy Knight - and ittest of 'Is this absolutely essential?'s not too long before Knight appears in court On the other hand, charged with Cliveden's murder. Knight I suspected I was told guilty of wishcycling: assuming that the best barrister for him was Jonathan Taylorsomething must be recyclable (toothpaste tubes -Cameron of Stag Court Chambers I'm looking at you) and dropping it's Taylor-Cameron and his pupil, Adam Green, who eventually represent himin the kerbside bin. Knight's determined to plead not guiltyYes, despite all TaylorI could go searching on the internet - and get conflicting advice -Cameron'but what I needed was a recycling bible.s recommendations to the contrary.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Essie FoxLauren St John|title=The FascinationFinding Wonder
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= The Victorian era is incredibly over-romanticised as a setting for historical fiction (matched only, perhapsRoo'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 by the Second World War) which police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has often led dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to more than buy a few writers mishandling itlottery ticket. There When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn's such a glut t think very highly of media set in the era that the hallmarks we've come . But she has no one else, and so off she goes to associate live with it are familiar to the point of being cliched, hackneyed evenher unreliable aunt. All this is simply Things continue to illustrate that it would be an easy thing to do poorly. But despite thatget worse for Roo, something about it still grabs me – as when she and something about this bookJoni leave London in Joni's description did as well.old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=19145855260571376169
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Cartmel1448309743|title=Death in Fine ConditionThe Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)|author=Caro Ramsay|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary=Cordelia really loves classic paperback crime fictionIn the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, and in particular five members of a series called Sleuth Houndwealthy family are found murdered. She spends her time hunting out copies The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that she can sell on for profitif the stone is removed from Otterburn House, sometimes 'tweaking' them, to add value, in somewhat fraudulent waysdeath will follow. One day she discovers a near perfect collection of these books after seeing them The only suspects are known Satanists but in the background of a photograph on her drug dealer's living room wallmany ways, and so she sets about discovering where this collection is, and how she can steal it! Itthat's a next-level step in her petty crime career, but has she reached too far, and what will happen when the owner an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the collection comes looking for their books?|isbn=1789098947}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529507987|title=The Repair Shop Craft Book|author=Walker Books and Sonia Albert (Illustrator)|rating=4body.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=I love '' The Repair Shop''. It's my go-to programme Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when I want to be cheered up. After a hard dayhe disappears, there's nothing better than watching experts repair treasured items without ever mentioning what they're worth. You see, the value DCI Christine Caplan is pulled in what these possessions are worth to the people who own them and the memories they hold. 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 theyshadow're doinghim. But how did they start?
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