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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178563335X0008517061|title=Sea DefencesDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Hilary TaylorStig Abell|rating=54|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicarFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, sitting in on has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick little uncertainty about the children up. Her husband, Christopherfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, collects six-year-old Hannah Livia and her elder brotherdaughter Diana, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds as moving in together would mean a sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughterlot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in-law won't let with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her see reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her grandson. daughter? Holthorpe, on For the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with moment they’re enjoying life in the parish - present and she's in awe of putting the vicar, Gail, but then she's been doing the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk future on the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missingback burner.
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|authorisbn=Hadeer Elsbai1786482126|title=The Daughters of IzdiharJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= Drawing inspiration from Egypt, Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury'The Daughters of Izdihar'' explores apartments - when they discovered the lives bones of two women who could not be more differenta child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, yet find themselves fighting for the rights of women and weavers – those Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with magical abilities - in a society pitted against themDCI Harry Nelson. Nehal It's difficult as Ruth knows, born into the upper classbut Nelson doesn't, wishes to attend the Weaving Academy to learn to control her abilities and then join the military, but instead that she is forced into an arranged marriage pregnant with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have his child as a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings result of the Daughters of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rightsone night they spent together some three months ago. Giorgina also happens to Her condition will be in love with Nico. What follows obvious before long, not least because Ruth is a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty, from which blossoms a group prone to sudden bouts of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstaclessickness.|isbn=0356520471
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|authorisbn=Sarah Todd Taylor0008551324|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe It's unusual for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]], Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy and as a master at all things French and fancy and fondant, as anyone from the only way Hardie family to save approach the day involved being an expert baker and icer on police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the French railwaysother. Here, we start on a bateau-mouche But Davie Hardie is struggling in Paris, prison and even though he's prepared to tell the police where the espionage isn't body of a complete success it proves to Alice missing person is buried and who was responsible for her handlers that things are afootdeath. And there This person, he promises, is someone big and it will never be more feet than at worth the World's Fair, reviving the huge expo that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing all her interwar glories off to the worldpolice doing what he wants. Once again Alice will have And what he wants is to be transferred to present the front an open prison to serve the world remainder of being a humble yet world-class cake decorator, while seeking out clueshis sentence and to get an early parole date. At stakeNot much to ask, is it? Pioneering flight technology The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that the enemy just cannot be allowed to smuggle out…|isbn=1839940972Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
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|authorisbn=Amanthi Harris0008405026|title=Beautiful PlaceA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her home countrybed one summer night. This is She was never found and the investigation ground to a place she spent halt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her formative yearsfather are dead in their bed. It is not Initially, it looks like a place she was born into, straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the one she thinks positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as home. How she came though it was going to be at the Villa, how it became her home, an open-and the machinations -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the explanation lies in Rosalie''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padmas disappearance: others (such as Derwent's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a filmboss, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens at the VillaUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1784631930
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|authorisbn=Nigel Baines0571379877|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicThe Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=Emerging ReadersCrime|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. His father was Robert's a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Coopertheatre director. But sadly CooperHe's father died suddenlyalso self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and now Cooper doesnentitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he't quite know who to be, or s drunkenly confided how he feels to beRobert. And when his dadMost men in Robert's prop rabbit starts talking to him, position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|isbn=1444960261not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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|isbnauthor=1542037239Jo Callaghan|title=Death in Heels|author=Kitty MurphyLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Set against When a man is found crucified on the backdrop top of Dublin's drag scenea hill in Nuneaton, ''Death in Heels'' tells DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the story of Fi McKinnery and case alongside her best friendsidekick, Robynthe AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, who is about to debut as drag queen Mae Bhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. What But when there is meant to be a night of excitement soon takes second body found crucified a downward turn when fellow drag queenfew days later, Eve, takes Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to the stage their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to mock Mae B. As if solve the night could not get any worse, when Fi heads home she discovers Eve dead case in a gutter. Fi is adamant that Eve was murderedtime, yet or will Kat find herself taken off the drag community, case and the Guards, accept it as an accident. Fi takes it upon herself to solve the mystery as she fears for her friendspotentially, but instead ruins relationships as she delves deeper.out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004652701399613073|title=The Lensky ConnectionMoral Injuries|author=Conrad DelacroixChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When we first meet Major Valeri GrozkyOlivia, it's June 1995 Laura and he's at Anjali met on the Serafimov Cemetry in St Petersburg. He's first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a pallbearer for his elder brother, Timur, whose death was drug-relatedcentury. Valeri and Timur's father, KetoOlivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is also a pallbearer and he's disgusted by what his son had becomebonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Valeri thinks differently: he's determined to make his own stand against organised crime Laura is a perfectionist and avenge Timur's deatha trauma doctor. Within a matter Anjali is the free spirit of months, his obsession will have cost him his marriage to Marisha the group and created a dubious link with Natassja Petrovskaya, she becomes a journalistGP. SheWhen we first meet them they's determined to expose any re at a drug and all corruption alcohol- fuelled party and sheit's less concerned than she ought going to be about her own safetyend in tragedy. To her, heWe don's a good sourcet 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. For himThis time, it's a way to get information published, which wouldn't otherwise be possibletheir teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=13997022890241636604|title=The Trading Game: A World of Curiosities (Chief Inspector Gamache)Confession|author=Louise PennyGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=After If you were to bring up an image of a harsh wintercity banker in your mind, the tiny Canadian village you're unlikely to think of Three Pines is enjoying the arrival of springsomeone like Gary Stevenson. But something is worrying Chief Inspector Armand Gamache A hoodie and Inspector Jeanjeans replaces the pin-Guy Beauvoir of stripe suit and his background is the Sûreté du QuébecEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. Gamache There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had offered help been to a young woman after the murder London School of her mother: he'd been less certain about her charismatic brotherEconomics. For JeanStevenson is bright - extremely bright -Guy, it had always been the other way around. Now they're both in the village and neither he has a facility with numbers which most of us can fathom what's happeningonly envy. Armand will soon find He also realised that they're not just in Three Pines but in most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his home and in his lifeability 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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|isbn=B0BHR8KWSK1035021803|title=DukkhaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Martin HydeC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=Sam wakes It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up chained in . She's back now because of a basementrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. He rails against his captor Freya's former mentor and the injustice of his imprisonment? Why? Carole''Why?'' But of courses close friend, Arthur Crockleford, he knows why. Sam is an erstwhile drug dealer who escaped this down dead and dirty life by going the circumstances seem suspicious, to a retreat and emerging as a neophyte Buddhist monksay the least. Recently returning Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to join the community village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in his old neighbourhoodbusiness together as antique hunters, he knew his past would she has not felt able to be hard to escape but he hadn't imagined it exploding into this new life near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in quite such a violent fashioncafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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|isbn=B09XWSXSKYAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World ClockAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Robert Penee Benjamin Greenaway and Joanne GrodzinskiStephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the ticking shape of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came things to visit his grandfathercome. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
I've heard it said that 'technology'Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the timewhat happens after you're eighteen. And time isn't good for anything...'' And Well, I must confess that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bedthere have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. It was nearly twelve oI've kept up reasonably well with what'clock s advantageous to me but at midnight I'm left with the clock chimed only six timesfeeling that it's all getting away from me. There was nothing for Some of it but to go and find grandad is - frankly - but where was he? quite frightening. And why had all Of course, I could research the possibilities and the clocks stopped at twelve oprobabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they'clock?re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|rating=3.5
|genre=Thrillers|summary=It was The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the quiet which woke Zoey up - orterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, ratherthere is Sam, the absence of the noise which was a constant in New York. Here it was silent wartime photographer and Abhi, the heat was overwhelminghotel manager. When she looked out of As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the window all she could see was residents who are still alive in the desert. How did she get here? Zoey was house-sitting for Uncle Dan hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and his two Manx cats and she remembered that she'd been keeps on venturing out with Franny and Rocco last night. She knew that she'd had quite a lot of her room to drink but how could she have got try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the desert from New York? She had no memory of getting on a plane but phone, their friendship grows as she thought back, a memory of sirens, flashing lights Abhi tries to help her keep safe and of being pushed into a car snagged on they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the edge of her mindterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Golden1529153298|title=Road The List of BonesSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorGeneral Fiction|summary=The Kolyma Highway… the It'Road of Bones'… the R504s 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. Stretching for over a thousand miles across Siberia(A woman? I mean, ithonestly...) She's not what's one of the worldworrying Miv's most notorious routesfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. For months of the year itWell, they's a spread of sheet ice suspended above the permafrost surrounding itve been murdered, while its but to have 'springdisappeared' sees it turn into a huge blodge of unremitting, apocalyptic-level mud, which dries into rutted, puddly dust. I dondoesn't think google streetview updates it very oftensound quite so frightening. Built Miv's upset because Stalin wanted so much uranium and other Siberian minerals, and because he wanted she's overheard that her father wants to give too many people a lesson, it legendarily cost a life every metre it coversmove the family 'Down South'. You can easily find documentaries about it online, but that's a bit rich, for one of our main characters, Felix 'TeigWhen you' Teiglandre from Yorkshire, Down South is a film-makerfrightening, doing a recce with his cameraman buddyforeign place, John Prentiss – who's mostly there to encourage the project to fruition to claw back some of the funds he'd invested in the pair's prior TV projectsbest avoided. They pick up their oh-so-chatty local guideFor Miv, gain the company of a local beautymove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and fetch up at the guideshe's childhood villagell do anything to prevent that. And She's not worried about the dangers or thather Mum's where things start stopped talking - to go awry…|isbn=1803361476anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387761841398524085|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: Murder Most RoyalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=S J BennettNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''The Queens fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, like the sunrise Paul and Ollie and the tidesher daughter, was generally a reliable way of marking timeEtty.'' It seemed to begin as a cold. Hardly surprisingare all worried but - strangely - her husband, reallyAlec, as Prince Philip had been suffering for a couple of days but seemed to be getting betteris not. HopefullyShortly afterwards, the Queen thoughtEtty and Greg, her cold would go find the same way. Shebody of Greg'd probably caught it from one of the great-grandchildren. Unfortunatelys father, Duncan Ackerley, it didn't get better and when in the doctor called he diagnosed full-blown fluriver. She and It was an easy assumption for the Duke were due to go police to Sandringham by train make that day but Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the doctor put his foot downguilt. HeThe Salter children are not convinced but there'd have preferred that the queen have a few days' bed rest before venturing out s little else they can do but had to be satisfied get on with the thought that they'd go by helicopter the following day. It was annoying: people would be ready for her today their lives and Her Majesty did not like to disappointwonder about what really happened.
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|authorisbn=Peter Owen Jones1035906708|title=Conversations with NatureDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=Spirituality and ReligionGeneral Fiction|summary= One We tend to think of the comments made Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when I she was offered this beautiful book for review thirteen. Her original surname was that Kalogeropoulos but her father changed itto 's not very long. Having read the book twice over, ICallas'm brought back inescapably to make it more manageable in the Spanish proverb that Life may be short, but it is broadStates. In this case I'm brought to the idea When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the length Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of life is not the point; the point is its depthher preference for her elder sister, Jackie. Peter Owen Jones dives deep.|isbn=1912992418
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|isbnauthor=1916459943Christopher Edge|title=Squeakily Baby|author=Beth WebbBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Much as mothers love Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their babieslocal cinema, therea place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole's something they all dread - a squeakily baby. He's so tired but he can't - or wonAll big movie fans, they't - go re looking forward to sleep: insteadlots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, he just lies on his blanket and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn''wails''t even imagine. The sea offers But as they lurch from one film genre to help. the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? It rocks Baby gently and Will they ever get back to the waves sing ''hushcinema, hushand to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''. Think I can hear the song of gentle wavelets falling onto a sandy beach and you have the sound perfectlysea. The mermaids join call of the deep, the answering beat in - my heart.''la lou Rosevear, la lay.a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks.Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within.But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira' And for s father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a moment it seems wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to have worked as Baby closes his eyesguide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. Then a seagull '''shouts''' and we know exactly With only nine days to unearth whatmight save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's going territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to happen nextsave the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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|author=Robin StevensJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=May Wong is Things have been a long way from her family in Hong Kongbit sticky for the Earthlings. She’s stuck in her school, DeepdeanAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and desperate other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get away, and do something useful used to help end the war all this technological change and starting to get home. She just knows that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned away by the Ministrythink of other, she takes matters into her own handsnew ways to spend time, along with a boy she meets outside the Ministry, Ericcame an awful pandemic. They both go undercover in a large country houseLife was pretty much shut down and, pretending to be evacueesalong with it, in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to all the Nazis. But there is a lot more going many daily social interactions on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly which they find themselves in the middle of a murder scene, with even more to try to unravel and solvedepend so heavily.|isbn=02414298621736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1919635017Matthew Tree|title=A Thief to Catch a Killer|author=Kitt Townsend|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary= Solomon Klyne isn't a bad lad, so why is he running around London committing a series of robberies? And how did he learn to crack safes? You'll have to wait to get an answer to the second question because I avoid spoilers. But IWe'll answer the first one: for his grandmother...}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398515388|title=The Boy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=First Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all, it was the earthquake, deep in the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in turn, caused the nuclear meltdown. The result was complete failed miserably and utter devastation. The deaths were uncountable, and the loss of livelihoods was widespread. The fact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list who had endless crises of priorities but - six months after the tsunami - Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a convenience storeself confidence. He wasn't a dog person but the convenience store owner's comment that he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa So Tim applied himself to open his car door studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and Tamon the dog jumped inset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=1529153050A G Slatter|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim BensonThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=HumourFantasy|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to seem more and more like an adrenaline sportmyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I was nudged towards just want to enjoy it for a while.''Britain Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's Best Political Cartoons , a family of 2022witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, 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 potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the year: dead, putting her at the cartoons run heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from 4 September 2021 one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine trust and determine what there will be to come in do as the 2023 edition?Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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|authorisbn=Lisa Gray1529900360|title=The Dark RoomGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=What if you knew someone was dead, because youIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'd watched them die several years ago, s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but then you come across a photograph that seemed to show their murder happened in a different place he felt responsible and time? This is what happens even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to Leonard in this storyask for his help on difficult cases. He is an exHis assertions that there were only open-and-crime reporter shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a newspaperwhile. Finally, it was Robin, and since leaving journalism heDelaware's found himself an unusual hobby where he finds oldpartner, undeveloped rolls of film and develops them in his own dark room at homewho nudged Milo into asking for help again. One of these photographs turns out to show She knew that the involvement was something that the murder scene of a young woman he met some years agoman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, and who he ''thought'' he had watched die though. Two lovers were murdered in front the swimming pool of him one night a remote property in a hotelBel Air. He'd felt guilty ever since that night, was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and lost everything because of it - his fiancee and his career - but now finds himself wondering if she hadn't really died s not the night she Italian. But which of them was with him, what on earth actually happenedthe primary target?|isbn=154203535X
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|authorisbn=Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith1529395224|title=The Miraculous SweetmakersLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Frost FairSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn''The River Thames had frozen t want to death follow in its sleep.'' And thus his footsteps, particularly when he considered the Frost Fair could happen – people trading strain that being on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasinacall put on his father's father life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with his gingerbread a family friend who was a vet and confectionery shopwas convinced this was the job for him. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won'tBefore long, as he dies in Chapter Onewas at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he 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, eitherchild. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powersIf anything, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her 'd wanted to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has be a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its coreprofessional footballer.|isbn=0008496056
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|authorisbn=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams 0861541774|title=The Book A Nye of Hope Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54|genre=Politics and Society Crime|summary= The done thing is DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to read meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a book all the way through before you sit down to review itstreet brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. I’m making an exception here Initially, because I don’t want he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to lose any of light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the experience of reading this amazing book, I want death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to capture it help as it hits meany interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears. |isbn=024147857X
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|isbnauthor=1529504767Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in 1939 Edinburgh, run by Ness and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got operating as an alternative to her final destinationall the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She needn't have worried though as Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she went to could come and look after the home of Mr and Mrs Russellbusiness, who couldn't have been kinder as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to herget away for a while. She even had her own room - all Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to herselfEdinburgh. Gradually she relaxed And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and began the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to enjoy her lifecharm. SheKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there'd help Mrs Russell with the baking s always her very helpful (and when it came rather handsome) neighbour, William, to Christmas Eve Susan and Mr Russell put the decorations on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morning.lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)0811771741|title=Red as BloodInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all the evidence seems Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to point towards her having been kidnappedblankets. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with Some will be quick knits - others are of the police'long, so instead he enlists cosy afternoons in front of the help of Arora, a financial investigatorfire' variety. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of The projects are divided by the police, and she calls her detective friend, Daniel, whom she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearance. Together, time they start 'll take to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearancecomplete - less than five hours, trying not five to arouse the suspicion of anyoneten hours, since they have no idea who ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the kidnappers might beprojects are attractive, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things becomemodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=1914585321
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0861541995Dean Koontz|title=Wolf Pack|author=Will DeanThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on the road north of VisbergBenny is having a terrifically bad day. She sees blood on the road He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and a creature on its side near the pine treeshis house gets trashed. It will turn out to be BroncoOh, and someone has delivered a Swedish Elkhoundreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, who and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has been attacked by trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a wolfnice person. Tuva takes Bronco and his owner, Bengt Nyberg, to the vetA really nice person. Bronco didn't make So fortunately for Benny it but on turns out that the way, Nyberg told Tuva that he was out looking for delivery to his niecehouse is a new friend, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberga bad weather friend called Spike, who had gone missing. She'd has been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought sent to the forehelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Rose Farm Spike is now home going to a group take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of survivalists but back in 1987 the then ownerBenny's enemies, if he, Johan Svenson murdered his wifeBenny, and his two eldest children and then killed himselfHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. His newborn child, just four weeks old survived. Does this have any connection to the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesAdam Stower|title=FlyMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=This Murray is supposed to be a very impressive readhumble, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen tidy and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus friendly cat, one who is courtesy able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the first-person narration from Flytwo. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a secondary school lad with cerebral palsyhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a cleanerViking land, where a carer while at schooltroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a bundle ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of assumptions people lay on himPortland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529431735|title=The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. First they assume that with He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a broken body comes wanted drug smuggler for a broken mind, then they decide decade. The return has come about because he's had a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Flyletter from his ex-wife, which isnsaying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his real name, but everybody just uses underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it.|isbn=1525305832a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=3791388398Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and Pastries|author=Laurel KratochvilaThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryConfident Readers|summary=This Eli is probably one of a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the most unusual baking books I've encountered. It's built around 99 recipes for breadswondrous library we start by visiting with him, brioches and pastries but in the recipes are interwoven with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - and baking - have changed in evening a helper at the twentieth dessert cafe his gran owns and early twenty-first centuriesruns. We start Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the basics - the equipment you'll need (therefamily. A few short years ago, Eli's nothing extravagant or indulgent) and parents were both lost to the ingredientstitular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the author is particularworld in the company of a magical beast. You might not have realised that different salts can change This has made the flavour and sensation on race anathema to the tongue of pair – but when a bad incident at the finished product buteatery leads to a confession from gran, apparentlyEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, they dowith the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Givler178763681X|title=Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=''Matt has Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a terrible liferesidential cookery school in Belgravia. Seriously—it He didn's awful. It is so bad that Dan the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of a blissful life in exchange for his soulgetting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow''got the impression that he' Poor Dan! I knowd be at the school to assist Paul, I knowwho had a broken arm, we shouldnbut it didn't feel sorry for soulturn out that way. The teaching - and the problems -catching demonsare all his own. But The one thing he really is a terrible salesmanhadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. He never hits his targets and Unfortunately, when he fails to get even Matt was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to sign on be the dotted line, he's so desperate that he simply forges Matt's signatureprime suspect.|isbn=1958204021
}}
