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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joe Thomas0241636604|title=White RiotThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, 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 and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics thereIt's always twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the danger English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of making it too reactionary; too rawa request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Knee-jerk observations Freya's former mentor and hot takes that donCarole't age well or properly capture s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the spirit of circumstances seem suspicious, to say the momentleast. It takes a truly talented writer Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to be the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to capture be near the zeitgeist of a particular event man or era of political historypursue the profession she loved. Austerity Britain, After the student riotssplit, Donald Trump, Brexit – so much of what isshe worked in a cafe, met and has been, written in married James (on the rebound from the immediate aftermath love of these phenomena has been proven by time to be frothy and insubstantial and ultimately not particularly powerful or incisive. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people her life, who do enjoy fiction of this naturewas murdered), the best writing about current political events is that which is written when the events in question are no longer current and when time Freya and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective viewJames have now divorced.|isbn= 1529423376
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Heather FawcettAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Emily WildeAll Tomorrow's Encyclopaedia of FaeriesFutures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Emily Wilde ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is an expert academic scholar on faerie lore, and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, to write her lifewhat happens after you's workre eighteen. Well, the very first encyclopaedia I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of faeriestechnology in my lifetime. Whilst she is brilliant at research and speaking I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to faeries, she me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is not so good with people- frankly - quite frightening. So when she finds herself farOf course, far North in I could research the small village of Hrafvsnik, having somehow offended possibilities and the village matriarch, she is not sure probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what she has done, nor how to redeem herself and put her final investigations for her book back on they're talking about or the right tracklatest conspiracy theorist. Enter Wendell Bambleby, her dashingly handsome I needed people I knew I could trust and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly, all charm and delight, much to Emily's frustrationcould deliver information in a way I could understand. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?|isbn=0356519120
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1848458436Sunny Singh|title=Just the Nicest Couple|author=Mary KubicaHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=''The whole thing Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has spiralled out of control, turning into someone I'm notsuddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group.'' ''Just Hiding from the Nicest Couple'' terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is the story of two couples: Christian Sam, a wartime photographer and Lily ScottAbhi, and Nina and Jake Hayesthe hotel manager. The connection between As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the two is that Lily and Nina teach residents who are still alive in the same school: Nina teaches English hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and Lily covers high school algebra. The couples have mixed as a foursome but itkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's not a regular thinghappened through her photography. Christian is a market research analyst Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and Jake is a neurosurgeon: they don't have much in common except their wives. Lily hasn't said anything yet, but she's pregnant. She has a lengthy history of miscarriages so she doesn't want both wait to tempt fate see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by making the knowledge publicterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19145854021529153298|title=Dashboard Elvis is DeadThe List of Suspicious Things|author=David F RossJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I reviewed David F Rossmean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's book [[Therefamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|Thereupset because she's Only One Danny Garvey]] overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a couple of years back and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting it wasfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. It was a gripping For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, emotionally wounding readSharon, and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was she'll do anything to prevent that I might . She's not have lavished enough praise on itworried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178563335X1398524085|title=Sea DefencesHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Hilary TaylorNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird sheCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her husbandchildren, Christophersons Niall, collects six-year-old Hannah Paul and Ollie and her elder brother, Jamiedaughter, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishionerEtty. Thelma's daughterare all worried but -instrangely -law won't let her see her grandsonhusband, Alec, is not. HolthorpeShortly afterwards, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely placeEtty and Greg, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with find the parish - and shebody of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in awe of the vicar, Gail, but river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then shecommitted suicide when he couldn's been doing t stand the job for more than thirty yearsguilt. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the beach would The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably get on with their lives and wonder about what they needed. And then Hannah went missingreally happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hadeer Elsbai1035906708|title=The Daughters of IzdiharDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, ''The Daughters of Izdihar'' explores the lives We tend to think of two women who could not be more differentMaria Callas as Greek, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women and weavers – those with magical abilities - but she was born to Greek parents in a society pitted against them. NehalManhattan, born into the upper classNew York, wishes in December 1923 and only moved to attend the Weaving Academy Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to learn 'Callas' to control make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her abilities and then join the military, but instead voice - she is forced into an arranged marriage with Nico. Giorgina on was raised under the other hand did not have Nazi occupation by a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for mother who mercilessly exploited her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings made no secret of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning her preference for women's rights. Giorgina also happens to be in love with Nico. What follows is a story of an unjust societyher elder sister, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty, from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstaclesJackie.|isbn=0356520471
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorChristopher Edge|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe Lucas and his friends are all booked in for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]], Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy and as a master movie marathon at all things French and fancy and fondanttheir local cinema, as a place that has the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on the French railwaysnickname of 'The Black Hole'. HereAll big movie fans, we start on a bateau-mouche in Paris, and even though the espionage isnthey't a complete success it proves re looking forward to Alice lots of exciting films, and her handlers that things are afoot. many, many snacks! And there will never be more feet than at However, as the World's Fairmovie starts, reviving the huge expo they very quickly realise that gave the city the Eiffel Tower something about this new film format is very different, and this time showing all her interwar glories off to the worldthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Once again Alice will have But as they lurch from one film genre to present the front to the world of being a humble yet world-class cake decoratornext, while seeking can they figure out clues. At stakewhat on earth is going on? Pioneering flight technology that Will they ever get back to the enemy just cannot be allowed cinema, and to smuggle out…their real lives?|isbn=18399409721839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=Amanthi HarrisRachel Greenlaw|title=Beautiful PlaceCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionTeens|summary= Padma''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a young Sri Lankanremote and partially forgotten island, has returned to survives on luring ships into the Villa Hibiscus on rocks and plundering the southern coast of wrecks. Mira, like her home country. This is a place she spent mother before her formative years. It , is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as homethe seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. How she came But when the Council Watch lays a trap to be at end the Villawrecking, how it became her homethey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and the machinations that have flowed through with only coordinates to guide her life ever since , she first arrived there provide sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novelsea. Padma's present fails With only nine days to escape unearth what might save her past and much like father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the musical score heart of a filmthe smuggler's territory, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the Villafuture of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=17846319300008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Nigel BainesJames Sherwood Metts|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. His father was a magicianAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooperother tasks that took time to accomplish. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and now Cooper doesn't quite know who starting to bethink of other, or how new ways to bespend time, along came an awful pandemic. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to himLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going all the many daily social interactions on anymore!which they depend so heavily.|isbn=14449602611736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1542037239Matthew Tree|title=Death in Heels|author=Kitty MurphyWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Set against the backdrop of Dublin's drag scene, ''Death in Heels'' tells the story of Fi McKinnery and her best friend, Robyn, who is about to debut as drag queen Mae B. What is meant Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a night drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of excitement soon takes a downward turn when fellow drag queen, Eve, takes to the stage to mock Mae B. As if the night could not get being exceptional at any worse, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead in a gutter. Fi is adamant that Eve was murdered, yet the drag community, of his artistic passions all failed miserably and the Guards, accept it as an accidentwho had endless crises of self confidence. Fi takes it upon herself So Tim applied himself to solve the mystery as she fears for her friendshis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeperachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800465270A G Slatter|title=The Lensky Connection|author=Conrad DelacroixBriar Book of the Dead|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersFantasy|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri Grozky, it's June 1995 and he's at the Serafimov Cemetry in St Petersburg. HeThere's a pallbearer part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for his elder brotherhowever long I can. This secret magic of my own, Timurall mine, whose death was drug-relatedat last. I just want to enjoy it for a while. Valeri and Timur's father' Within a remote mountain pass, Ketofar away from the world, is also lies Silverton; a pallbearer and hetown under the protection of the Briar's disgusted by what his son had become. Valeri thinks differently: he's determined to make his own stand against organised crime , a family of witches who protect the town and avenge Timur's deaththe wider world from the Darklands. Within a matter of monthsThough she has always wished for magic, his obsession will have cost him his marriage Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to Marisha be born into her family for generations and created a dubious link with Natassja Petrovskayaas such since she was young, her training as a journaliststeward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. SheWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's determined to expose any and all corruption - and shecousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's less concerned than she ought to be about leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her own safety. To As challenges come herway left, he's right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a good sourcemaelstrom of chaos. For himReeling from one family secret to another, itEllie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's a way legacy, everything they have sacrificed to get information publishedsurvive, which wouldn't otherwise be possibleis under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13997022891529900360|title=A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)The Ghost Orchid|author=Louise PennyJonathan Kellerman|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=After a harsh winterIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, the tiny Canadian village of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springSturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache His assertions that there were only open-and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir shut cases which didn't need the help of the Sûreté du Québeca psychologist only worked for a while. Gamache had offered Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help to a young woman after again. She knew that the involvement was something that the murder of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brotherman she loved needed. For Jean-GuyThe next case did look simple, it had always been though. Two lovers were murdered in the other way aroundswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. Now they're both in He was the village heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and neither can fathom whatit's happeningnot the Italian. Armand will soon find that they're not just in Three Pines but in his home and in his life.But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BHR8KWSK1529395224|title=DukkhaLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Martin HydeSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with 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 - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541774|title=A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Sam wakes DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up chained with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a basement. He rails against his captor and the injustice of his imprisonment? Why? ''Why?'' But of course, street brawl - he would later maintain that he knows why. Sam is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down and dirty life by going to was facing a man armed with a retreat knife - and emerging as he killed a neophyte Buddhist monkGhurka. Recently returning Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to join murder the community in his old neighbourhood, man. Now he knew his past would could be hard facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to escape but he hadnhelp as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't imagined it exploding into this new life in quite such a violent fashionhelp Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09XWSXSKYAlexander McCall Smith|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Frederick (or FredThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the ticking of online apps in providing a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfathermore personal, tailored service. He hadn't really wanted to Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come; and look after allthe business, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to him anymoreget away for a while. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do Katie is tell coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the timechance to come home to Edinburgh. And time isn't good for anything...'' And that was why he was looking at so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock Isabel Dalhousie novels, but at midnight the clock chimed only six timeswith some new characters who quickly begin to charm. There was nothing for it Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but to go Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve othere'clock?s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=37562287110811771741|title=CDC: The happy years with a spectacular IT 'Phenomena'InstaKnits for Baby|author=Hans BodmerMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=HistoryCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'The history ' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the development 'long, cosy afternoons in front of IT could fill books of several hundred pagesthe fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'' Author Hans Bodmer is quite right about that. He has chosen ll take to tell us about the shortcomplete - less than five hours, but explosivefive to ten hours, history of ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the Control Data Companyprojects are attractive, CDC, for whom he workedmodern and useable. It I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's a fascinating tale, told in a mixture of technological summary and wry anecdoteme being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529356660Dean Koontz|title=The Sanctuary|author=Emma HaughtonBad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary=It was the quiet which woke Zoey up - orBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, ratherhe loses his fiancee, the absence of the noise which was and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a constant in New York. Here really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it 's possible that whoever or whatever was silent and inside is the heat was overwhelming. thing that has trashed his house! When she looked out of The thing is, Benny is the window very last person to deserve all she could see was the desertthis bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. How did she get here? Zoey was house-sitting So fortunately for Uncle Dan and his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been Benny it turns out with Franny and Rocco last night. She knew that she'd had quite the delivery to his house is a new friend, a lot bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to drink but how could she have got to the desert help him since Benny is clearly under attack from New York? nefarious forces for being a good person. She had no memory Spike is going to take care of getting on a plane but as she thought backBenny, a memory and will certainly take care of sirensBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, flashing lights and of being pushed Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into a car snagged on the edge of her mindBenny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher GoldenAdam Stower|title=Road of BonesMurray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorConfident Readers |summary=The Kolyma Highway… the 'Road of Bones'… the R504. Stretching for over Murray is supposed to be a thousand miles across Siberiahumble, tidy and friendly cat, it's one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the world's most notorious routestwo. For months of the year itBut he's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding itbad magician's cat, while its 'spring' sees it turn so his favourite bun has been turned into a huge blodge of unremittinghyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, apocalyptic-level mudand the catflap they both use can chuck them out, which dries not into ruttedthe regular back garden, puddly dustbut into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. I don't think google streetview updates This time round it very often. Built because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted to give too many people drops them into a lessonViking land, it legendarily cost where a life every metre it covers. You can easily find documentaries about it onlinetroll hunter is expected – well, but that's a bit rich, for one of our main charactersmuch bigger than Murray was, Felix 'Teig' Teiglandto be honest, is a film-maker, doing a recce with his cameraman buddy, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds but he'd invested in the pair's prior TV projects. They pick turned up their oh-so-chatty local guide, gain the company of a local beauty, and fetch up at the guidehe's childhood village. And that's where things start ll have to go awry…do…|isbn=18033614760008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838776184B0C47LV1PC|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalFragility|author=S J BennettMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'The Queen' joke? And if you could, like is the sunrise and question should you make it? Or is the tidesquestion if you did, was generally a reliable way of marking timewould it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.''
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones1529431735|title=Conversations with NatureThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=54|genre=Spirituality and ReligionCrime|summary= One of It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the comments made when I was offered this beautiful book Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for review was a decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that itshe's not very ill and hasn't longto live. Having read the book twice over, IIt'm brought back inescapably s hard to the Spanish proverb that Life may be shortfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, but it is broad. In this case I'm brought stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the idea that the length boot of life is not the point; the point is its deptha stolen Ford Sierra. Peter Owen Jones dives deep.|isbn=1912992418Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1916459943Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Squeakily Baby|author=Beth WebbThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=May Wong Eli is a long way from her family busy lad – by day an apprentice in Hong Kong. She’s stuck in her school, Deepdeanthe wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and desperate to get away, and do something useful to help end in the evening a helper at the war dessert cafe his gran owns and to get homeruns. She just knows that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned away by the MinistryEli lives with his lovely gran, she takes matters into her own hands, along with too – for there is a boy she meets outside generation missing in the Ministry, Ericfamily. They A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both go undercover in lost to the titular race, a large country house, pretending globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to be evacuees, navigate the world in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Naziscompany of a magical beast. But there is This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly they find themselves in bad incident at the middle of eatery leads to a murder sceneconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with even more to try the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to unravel and solvepossibly save his gran.|isbn=02414298620571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1919635017178763681X|title=A Thief to Catch a KillerKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Kitt TownsendOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary= Solomon Klyne isnChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a bad lad, so why is way of getting both men and women to do what he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he learn 'd be at the school to crack safes? Youassist Paul, who had a broken arm, but it didn'll have to wait to get an answer to t turn out that way. The teaching - and the second question because I avoid spoilersproblems - are all his own. But I The one thing he hadn'll answer the first one: t expected was for his grandmother.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 suspect.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1398515388Sarah Marsh|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)A Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=First After a bout of all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turnscarlet fever as a child, caused the nuclear meltdownEllen Lark loses her hearing. The result was complete and utter devastationSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. The deaths were uncountable, and Living in a time when the loss use of livelihoods sign language was widespreadseen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered deaf and using a dog outside a convenience storesystem called Visible Speech. He wasn't a dog person but At the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Tamon the dog jumped Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up ina complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291530501803816759|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022The Unravelling|author=Tim BensonWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=HumourScience Fiction|summary=Seeking It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some light relief from really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the current political turmoil which is coming AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to seem more and more like an adrenaline sportspread. Finally, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of 2022''the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Sharp eyes will have noted that weJoe isn're not yet through t the year: only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022case. Who can imagine what there will be to come in What went wrong? Did the 2023 editionsystem fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Gray1529421284|title=The Dark RoomLaying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone It was dead, because you'd watched them die several years ago, but then you come across a photograph one of those flash downpours that seemed to show their murder happened the British weather often delivers in a different place and time? This is what happens to Leonard in this storyheatwave. He is an ex-crime reporter for In a newspapergully, a human skeleton came to the surface and since leaving journalism he's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds old, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at home. One of these photographs turns out forensic testing proved the body to show the murder scene of a young woman he met some years agobe Lee Geary, and who he ''thought'' he had watched die in front of him one night in a hoteldisappeared nine years earlier. He'd felt guilty ever since that nightbeen a known drug user and had learning disabilities, and lost everything because so it could have been a simple case of it - his fiancee and his career - misadventure but now finds himself wondering if she hadnDI Matt Lockyer wasn't really died the night she convinced. Geary was with hima townie, so what was he doing out on earth actually happenedSalisbury Plain alone?|isbn=154203535X There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith0571379559|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep.'' And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, either. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end House of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core.|isbn=0008496056}}{{FrontpageBroken Bricks|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Book of Hope Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society Literary Fiction|summary= ''The done thing House of Broken Bricks'' is to read a book all the way through before you sit down to review itstory of four people. I’m making an exception here Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, because I don’t want to lose any built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the experience passage of reading this amazing booktime, storms and floods. Her husband, I want Richard, struggles to capture it as it hits megrow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - 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. And it People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is hitting meout with his mother that she's his nanny. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15295047671529425867|title=The Christmas Doll Lost and Never Found (The Repair Shop StoriesA D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeySimon Mason|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London in 1939 In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got to her final destinationfather of Ryan, is not. She neednHe't have worried though as she went to the home s not any of Mr and Mrs Russellthose things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, who couldnbarely educated (reading't have been kinder to hers not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. She even had her own room - all to herselfThey're usually in lime green or acid yellow. Gradually she relaxed and began You might wonder if you're being introduced to enjoy her lifea police procedural written for laughs. SheWell, you'd help Mrs Russell with re not. The two men are just different sides of the baking and when it came to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on same policing coin. Sometimes the Christmas treecombination works brilliantly well. The best surprise happened the following morningSometimes it's problematic.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)Mosby Woods|title=Red as BloodA Whirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all The West isn't the evidence seems to point towards her having been kidnappeddominant force it once was. The ransom note tells him not Nobody in the West is quite sure how to have any contact with mend this or even if mending it is the police, so instead he enlists the help best course of Aroraaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, a financial investigatorpush for climate action there. She manages to persuade Flosi A feeling that they will need the help of the police, and she calls her detective friend, Danielnobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, whom she met when he there was investigating her sister’s disappearancea man with precognition. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance, trying not to arouse Imagine the suspicion strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of anyone, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might circumstances. That man would bevaluable, yet right? Perhaps the more they uncovermost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, the more confusing things becomethat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=1914585321B0C9SNG8R1
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