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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Freya SampsonSylvie Cathrall|title=The Last LibraryA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about There are few greater joys than a library, since I am a librarian. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a bun, cat-owning, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didn't immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she did. Her mum used to be a librarian at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave which lives up on going to University and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local librarycompelling premise. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she this is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the changeone of them.|isbn=183877369X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008370982|title=Rock Paper Scissors|author=Alice Feeney|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the idea. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with the dogs, many of whom have been abused, is never easy. Still - she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days later.0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Doug Johnstone0008517061|title=The Great SilenceDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=For those whoFormer Metropolitan Police detective, like meJake Johnson, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed little uncertainty about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname future of a family of undertakers. Undertakers his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instincther daughter Diana, she married as moving in together would mean a scot lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and ended up helping relaxing life to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the family future she wants for generations. Recently widowed herself and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree ? For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and join putting the future on the academic staff next termback burner.|isbn=1913193837
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19015149781786482126|title=There's a Problem With DadThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Carlos AlbaElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Life is different for George Lovelace and he canBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 't really understand why. Heluxury's always done everything he ought to: steady worker, husband and father apartments - and when they discovered the bones of a father who child beneath a doorway. There was always there for school plays and sports daysno skull. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such Was this a ''good'' mind unable to progress at work ritual killing or to relate to his colleaguesmurder? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's almost become a cliche these days to suggest difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that someone who she is pregnant with his child as a little different is 'on result of the spectrum'one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, but George Lovelace has all the symptoms not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of Asperger's Syndrome: high-functioning autismsickness.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louise Candlish0008551324|title=The HeightsDevil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Ellen doesnIt't expect s unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to see Kieran that dayapproach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. SheBut Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's on site, visiting prepared to tell the police where the body of a client missing person is buried and who was responsible for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across her death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the waypolice doing what he wants. There are lots And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of thingshis sentence and to get an early parole date. Not much to ask, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isnis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't one Ellen expected think so and she's even prepared to do the other thing that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murderanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1471183483
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|isbn=00084217140008405026|title=Mrs MarchA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Virginia FeitoJane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George MarchIt's most successful novel to datesixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on She was never found and the last page) seemed investigation ground to either be reading it or had already done soa halt. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morningNow, her mother, Patricia askedHelena, as she was wrapping the breadand her father are dead in their bed. Initially, ''it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but isnthere't this s something about the first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned positioning of the bodies that Johanna, the principal character had 'makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her mannerisms''boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact Kerrigan is convinced that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent'a weaks boss, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchUna Burt) are less convinced.''
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|authorisbn=John Boyne0571379877|title=The Echo ChamberKellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He Edward Jevons is selfa working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a criminal record"theatre director. He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sadalso self-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoeverobsessed, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signallingdemanding, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants handsome and entitled and uses Edward to save the world's homeless run errands for him. Edward has been in love with out-ofStanza since their university days -date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thinghe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Add Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the modern worldtwo of them kissing in a dark passageway. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|isbn=0857526219
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241989094Jo Callaghan|title=The Perfect Life|author=Nuala EllwoodLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=In August 2018 we meet When a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing man is found crucified on the top of a house hill in Goring-on-Thames and telling Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the estate agent about case alongside her three childrensidekick, Lavenderthe AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, Freddie and Barclayhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. The boys are But when there is a bit of second body found crucified a handful which few days later, Kat is why she's making this trip on her ownsuddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. The house would Will they be perfect for them. It's able to solve the same month but now we're case in Wimbledon and we encounter time, or will Kat find herself taken off the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting case and living in her sister, Georgie'spotentially, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connor.out of a career?|isbn=139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1399613073|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Moral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=So. Having done Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the impossible first day of medical school and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Crypttheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, from which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Anjali is the Departed communicate with free spirit of the Merge, Archie now has ''gropgroup and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it' s going to think about. But before that, soireesend in tragedy. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn We don't even know what one of those iswho suffered the tragedy or the consequences. But he manages to come through Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the fancy party unscathedthree friends. This time, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this seriesit's their teenage children who are involved. |isbn=B093J9TF73
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B07GZ81J7C0241636604|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and MendedThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Peter CottonGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=Meet Fred. Well, actuallyIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're going unlikely to be meeting Fredthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quicklystripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. But I'm getting ahead There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of myself: I'd better tell you a bit more about FredEconomics. Fred Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a snake and even those facility with numbers which most of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to himcan only envy. He arrived as a present in a box with holes so also realised that he could breathe and immediately became part of the family, most rich people expect poor people to the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walkbe stupid. And that It was his ability at what was where the problem started, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Fred didn't have any road sense. Or brakesEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
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|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1035021803|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isn'ts twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, as any parent will tell youCarole. But really Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why shouldn't it be? We all have Freya had not been back to learn about our bodily functions just the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as we have antique hunters, she has not felt able to learn about everything else when we are smallbe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Why shouldn't potty training be as much fun as After the split, sayshe worked in a cafe, learning about why the sun met and married James (on the moon take turns in rebound from the sky? |isbn= B098BJZYHHlove of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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|isbn=1787634493AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Her FaultTomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Andrea MaraBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=It had seemed like one ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenthings to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Marissa Irvine had Well, I must confess that there have been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, Milo, to go on more than a play datefew decades of technology in my lifetime. She was concerned I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that he didnit't have any friends at his new schools all getting away from me. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob Some of it is - frankly - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little laterquite frightening. What Of course, I could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at research the possibilities and the house, expecting to meet Jacobprobabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, m reading someone who didnknows what they't know Jenny re talking about or Jacobthe latest conspiracy theorist. The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had Jenny's nannyI needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire NorthSunny Singh|title=Notes from the Burning AgeHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Science FictionThrillers |summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Flemingterrorist group. However Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, as with the best novelskilling everyone on site, it wears many masks and its most affecting one there is that of Sam, a new wartime photographer and timely genreAbhi, cli-fi, or climate change fictionthe hotel manager. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced As Abhi continues to try to start anew and live alongside nature without any of care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuelshotel, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is he forms a growing unhappiness bond with this limiting worldSam who refuses to be cowed by events, and one group, keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the Brotherhoodphone, aims their friendship grows as Abhi tries to master these processes no matter the cost help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Earthterrorists.|isbn=0356514757086154742X
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|authorisbn=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)1529153298|title=Girls Who LieThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=35|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers It's 1979 and crime books before nowMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. You think(A woman? I mean, seeing on the map that wehonestly...) She's not what're set in Akranes, and finding its worrying Miv's only twenty kilometres from the capital cityfamily, that this author is clutching at the few final straws leftthough. Women have been disappearing. However just because the book aims for the usual small-town feelWell, itthey's not just in Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed ve been murdered, but to turn up for her date evening, and was never seen againhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed Miv's upset because she's overheard that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for father wants to move the girl back, and a couple of delighted adoptersfamily 'Down South'. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the womanWhen you's car was found miles away in a second placere from Yorkshire, and now, after six months, the body has been discovered, in Down South is a thirdfrightening, even more remote foreign place, best avoided. MeanwhileFor Miv, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depressionthe move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and very little maternal feeling in her bodyshe'll do anything to prevent that. Is She's not worried about the assumption dangers or that is so easy for the reader her Mum's stopped talking - to make the right one?|isbn=191319373Xanyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0925KS87N1398524085|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Neil LancasterNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Tam Hardie had been determined to Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the grave - and it took some finding - body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in an overgrown old cemeterythe river. It was a strange thing an easy assumption for Scotland's premier criminal the police to do, but Tam was getting old make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and there were things then committed suicide when he wanted to do. Only, his family didncouldn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found the grave - stand the one which said that it shouldn't be opened - and his three sons began to worryguilt. Tam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldnThe Salter children are not convinced but there't normally go to the police s little else they can do but they weren't certain where get on with their father had been lives and they were worriedwonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emily Critchley1035906708|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small FlowersDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= The Tiny Gestures We tend to think of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I Maria Callas as Greek, but she was intrigued by the plotborn to Greek parents in Manhattan, liked the design of the bookNew York, in December 1923 and thought the author's work sounded interestingonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. From the outset Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}} {{Frontpage|author=Sarah Langan|title=Good Neighbours|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary= If youto 're of a certain vintage, itCallas's hard to read make it more manageable in the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a singStates. When she was back in Athens -song ''supposedly so that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in Nazi occupation by a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've mother who mercilessly exploited her and made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess no secret of dirt and chaos, but her preference for the residents of Maple Streether elder sister, the worst is yet to comeJackie.|isbn=1789098211
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|author=Lisa ThompsonChristopher Edge|title=The Small ThingsBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Although Anna has Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at schooltheir local cinema, she feels like she never really fits ina place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. Her family don All big movie fans, they't have enough money re looking forward to let her do after school activitieslots of exciting films, and so she feels like her life at home is boring in comparison to theirs. When a new girl joins her classmany, Anna is asked to partner hermany snacks! However, but things are complicated because as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new girl, Elliefilm format is very different, is unwell and so canthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't attend school in personeven imagine. Instead But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, she joins in with the class by using a robot. Can Anna overcome can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the challenge of making friends with someone through a robotcinema, and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellietheir real lives?|isbn=17811296491839942738
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|isbnauthor=0008350388Rachel Greenlaw|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha UwagbaCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTeens|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterpartsI can hear the song of the sea...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% The call of English Literature GCSE students the deep, the answering beat in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a womanmy heart.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021
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|isbnauthor=1787631869James Sherwood Metts|title=The Rising Tide|author=Sam LloydPlanet Storyland|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in the aftermath. She's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beach, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with Daniel. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friend. Nick and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned.}}{{Frontpage|author=Hannah Peck|title=Kate on the Case|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Kate, although I got Things have been a bit sticky for the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at thatEarthlings. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, AI and the author of our heroine's favourite possessionautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they''The Special Correspondent Manual''re paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Armed with a plucky father, that book, Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped starting to manage a train ride to the Arcticthink of other, new ways to see her scientist mother for the first spend time in yonks, along came an awful pandemic. HoweverLife was pretty much shut down and, this is a train ride along with a differenceit, for all the many daily social interactions on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist..which they depend so heavily.|isbn=184812970X1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanMatthew Tree|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our heroTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Archie, back in London in the world a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of the Bornself confidence. It's not been easy, explaining So Tim applied himself to his foster parents where he's beenstudies, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez and cultivated his other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done abilities rather than his best.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower daydreams and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=B093H8DPQZB0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=0571365884A G Slatter|title=My Mess is a Bit The Briar Book of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchettthe Dead|rating=45|genre=AutobiographyFantasy|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious'' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, even as at last. I just want to enjoy it for a childwhile. She would worry about whether '' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the monsters world, lies Silverton; a town under the bed were comfortable: it was protection of the sort Briar's, a family of life where if witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she had nothing has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to worry about be born into her family for generations and as such since she would become anxious but such occasions were few 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 far betweenEllie takes her place beside her. On a visit to a therapistAs challenges come her way left, as an adultright and centre, when she was completely unable Ellie uncovers the rare ability to speak about what was wrong communicate with the dead, putting her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is at the heart of a Bit maelstrom of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is the result - or so we are given to believeunder threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter1529900360|title=The House on the EdgeGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=FaithIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's family home is teetering fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the edge help of a cliffpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, literallywho nudged Milo into asking for help again. Is She knew that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is involvement was something that the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faith's familyman she loved needed. Her dad has disappeared The next case did look simple, and her mum is struggling to cope, barely leaving her bedthough. So that leaves Faith Two lovers were murdered in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care the swimming pool of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to school, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost remote property in Bel Air. He was the cellar? What should heir to an Italian shoe empire and she do about the house? Can she find a way is married to raise enough money to fix an extremely rich man and it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for not the house? She carries the weight Italian. But which of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer them was the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.|isbn=1788008626primary target?
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|isbn=00082690411529395224|title=Risk Letting the Cat Out of Harmthe Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Lucie WhitehouseSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in her native Birmingham after her lesshis footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-than-comfortable departure from the Metcall put on his father's life. She might have been reinstated but When he was seventeen he took the whole episode left opportunity of doing work experience with a nasty taste in her mouthfamily friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. She Before long, he was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforeat Liverpool University. She and her fifteenIt hadn't -yearas with so many students -old daughter have moved out of her parent's home into a rented house but there's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out of been his way to make life difficult for Robin dream since she he was a young child. HeIf anything, he's married d wanted to Natalie, now and has be a young child but he's still got it in for Robinprofessional footballer.
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|isbn=17863323880861541774|title=The First Day A Nye of SpringPheasants|author=Nancy TuckerSteve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and DCI Domenic Jejeune''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasion. The writing is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you s close friend and won't let go. So, what's the problem? Wellformer colleague, the problem is ChrissieDanny Maik, the main character. When we first has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet her she's just eight years up with an oldally, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a twostreet brawl -year-old boy. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being he would later maintain that whilst she he was killing facing a man armed with a knife - suffocating - her hands seized upand he killed a Ghurka. There's Initially, he faced a clue charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? death penalty. HasnDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't he been dead for long enough?help Danny at all.
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|author=Catherine SteadmanAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Disappearing ActPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= British actress Mia Eliot The Perfect Passion Company is on a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the cusp of successonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Great success. If Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the rumours are truebusiness, award season as Ness is going planning to treat her well, acknowledging her take a trip to Canada to get away for her latesta while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, critically acclaimed productionand so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. She's going places but And sobegins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, unfortunatelybringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, is her partner. And thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the places he's going take him towards liesIsabel Dalhousie novels, deceit and but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a pretty young thing business, or in the form of his new comatch-star. Itmaking, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a good time for Mia to escape, and pilot season in LA provides just the excuse.hand…|isbn=14711897831846976596
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|authorisbn= Christophe Medler0811771741|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Historical FictionCrafts|summary= Set against the backdrop Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the English Civil War'long, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse cosy afternoons in front of the summer of 1642fire' variety. As a loyal servant of The projects are divided by the Kingtime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and Head of more than twenty hours. All the Secret Serviceprojects are attractive, it is Robertmodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's duty to uncover the details of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the Kingme being picky.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ
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|author=Tasha SuriDean Koontz|title=The Jasmine ThroneBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary= On the night of her sacred burningBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses to step on to the pyrehis house gets trashed. She is immediately sent Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to be imprisoned on the Hirana: an ancient temple his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was once filled with a community of people who got powers from inside is the mysterious deathless waters. But now the temple thing that has trashed his house! The thing is nothing more than an overgrown, decaying ruinBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. One day, Malini witnesses He is a girl kill someone with magicnice person. A really nice person. Instead of reporting her So fortunately for such Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a gruesome crimenew friend, Malini claims that the girl saved her a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from an attacker and begs nefarious forces for the girl being a good person. Spike is going to become her own personal maidservanttake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=03565156481662500491
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|isbnauthor=B088YWF5BCAdam Stower|title=The Lies We Tell|author=Jane CorryMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on Murray is supposed to be a council estate in Kent humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and that she had two brothers sleep and , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two sisters. It seemed to have But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a lovinghyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, stable family. When we first meet her, she and the catflap they both use can't sleep because her sonchuck them out, Freddienot into the regular back garden, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort but into a world of half-promised he'd be in byfrightening adventure and whiffs. Her husbandThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, Tomone much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning but he's still going to be going to work turned up and he needs his sleep. He wakes, though, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someone.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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|authorisbn=Joseph KnoxB0C47LV1PC|title=True Crime StoryFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= Joseph KnoxCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waitsis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, has created a new genre with his latest novel, "True Crime Story". would it land? The story follows catch is that the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from her university halls of residenceanswer for both could well be.... no. Split into four parts, the reader ''Fragility'' is taken through set as the life and disappearance city of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sisterPortland, other familyOregon, friends and professionals, such as the police. The various accounts help the reader get cautiously begins to know Zoe, or at least emerge from the Zoe she presented to others. However, the twists and turns at restrictions imposed during the end of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true or fabricated. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1529431735|title=No, No, No!The Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=They say the best picture books are the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer of this latest from Justine Avery, a Bookbag favourite. It''Nos February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, No, No!which made Bruce Hopkins'return all the more surprising. He' is based around d been exiled on the simplest text imaginableCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he''Nos had a letter from his ex-wife, no, no! Okay, okay. Yes, you may.saying that she's ill and hasn' Thatt long to live. It's it! Buthard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, like all stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the best picture books, this tiny snippet boot of text is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on the inside that stolen Ford Sierra. Is it appears on the outside.|isbn=1638820457a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Monica ConnellAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Against a Peacock SkyThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=54|genre=TravelConfident Readers|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.D. in social anthropology. I think it Eli is important to know that. She went on a grant-supported tripbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, with and in the evening a relatively specific objectivehelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for Shangri-la. She wasn't there is a mere tourist passing throughgeneration missing in the family. She went with a fundamental aim of learning about these people and how they lived. She also wentA few short years ago, presumably, with Eli's parents were both lost to the academic discipline of how to find these things outtitular race, how a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to organise them in her mind, how to "understand" them navigate the world in the context company of her own paradigms, and how a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense of the experience after pair – but when a bad incident at the event. Fortunately, she also went with eatery leads to a sense of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muck-inconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to break her own rules and dare to truly connect enter what he most hates, with the people sole aim the prize of magic at the village where she hauled upend – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=17806004290571382231
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