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{{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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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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{{Frontpage
|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
Otegha Uwagba came to Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven rocks and nineplundering the wrecks. It was Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who came firstswim 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, with her they capture the island's leader and Mira's father joining them later. The family was hard-workingDesperate to save him from death, principled Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and determined with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that their children would have lies buried deep in the best education possiblesea. There was always a painful awareness With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of money although this did not translate into a shortage foreign islands to the heart of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten the family acquired a car. For Oteghasmuggler's territory, education meant a scholarship Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to a private school in London save the future of her home and then a place at New College, Oxfordthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787631869James Sherwood Metts|title=The Rising Tide|author=Sam LloydPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't Things have been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in bit sticky for the aftermathEarthlings. 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 AI and Fin, the child she had with Daniel. They automation have financial difficultiesbeen proceeding apace, some caused by Nick Povey, Danieloften replacing jobs they's partner re paid to do and so-called best friendother tasks that took time to accomplish. Nick Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult starting to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heartof other, new ways to spend time, particularly where Lucyalong came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, or moneyalong with it, is concernedall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah PeckMatthew Tree|title=Kate on the CaseWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet KateTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – drunk and one specific Catherine chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at that. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and the author who had endless crises of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''self confidence. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride So Tim applied himself to the Arctichis studies, to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonks. However, this is a train ride with a difference, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams 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..set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=184812970XB0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanA G Slatter|title=Archibald Lox and The Briar Book of the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's 'There'Merges 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, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'' saga opens with our hero Within a remote mountain pass, Archiefar away from the world, back in London in lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world of from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the Bornfirst 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. ItWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's not been easycousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, explaining to his foster parents where hethe town's beenleader, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and his other friends in centre, Ellie uncovers the Mergerare ability to communicate with the dead, but Archie has done his bestputting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos.... wellReeling from one family secret to another, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big BenEllie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awaylegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713658841529900360|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in AnxietyThe Ghost Orchid|author=Georgia PritchettJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been anxiousbadly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, even as 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 help of a psychologist only worked for a childwhile. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She would worry about whether knew that the monsters under involvement was something that the bed man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were comfortable: it was murdered in the sort swimming pool of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far betweena remote property in Bel Air. On a visit He was the heir to a therapist, as an adult, when Italian shoe empire and she was completely unable is married to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write an extremely rich man and it down and ''My Mess is a Bit s not the Italian. But which of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is them was the result - or so we are given to believe.primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The House on the EdgeSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Faith's family home is teetering on the edge of a cliff, literallySiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope His father was a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is FaithGP and Rowlands didn's family. Her dad has disappeared, and her mum is struggling t want to cope, barely leaving her bed. So that leaves Faith follow in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to schoolhis footsteps, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what particularly when he claims is a ghost in considered the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? Whatstrain that being on-call put on his father's happened to her dad? Why did life. When he disappear? Maybe was seventeen he'll come back if she manages to get funding for took the house? She carries opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the weight of all these worries on her constantlyjob for him. Before long, and she doesnhe was at Liverpool University. It hadn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together- as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, or how long she can keep on keeping onhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.|isbn=1788008626
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|isbn=00082690410861541774|title=Risk A Nye of HarmPheasants|author=Lucie WhitehouseSteve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in her native Birmingham after her lessSingapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl -thanhe would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -comfortable departure from the Metand he killed a Ghurka. She Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have been reinstated but planned to murder the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouthman. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then Now he could be facing the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforedeath penalty. She and her fifteen-year-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 his way Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to make life difficult for Robin since she was help as any interference from another police force could provoke a young child. He's married to Natalie, now diplomatic incident and has a young child but hewouldn's still got it in for Robint help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786332388Alexander McCall Smith|title=The First Day of Spring|author=Nancy TuckerPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and ''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasion. The writing Perfect Passion Company is superb a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and completely compellingoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. The characterisation is excellent Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the plot grips you and won't let gobusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. So, what's the problem? Well, the problem Katie is Chrissiecoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the main characterchance to come home to Edinburgh. When And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we first meet her she's just eight years oldalready love, small for her age thanks to 44 Scotland Street and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boythe Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match- making, but Ness has full confidence in her hands seized up. Thereabilities, and there's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for always her actions very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Catherine Steadman0811771741|title=The Disappearing ActInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of successknits from toys to blankets. Great success. If Some will be quick knits - others are of the rumours are true'long, award season is going to treat her well, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed productioncosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. She The projects are divided by the time they's going places but soll take to complete - less than five hours, unfortunatelyfive to ten hours, is her partnerten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. And All the places he's going take him towards liesprojects are attractive, deceit modern and a pretty young thing in the form of his new couseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-star. Itworthy projects' but that's a good time for Mia to escape, and pilot season in LA provides just the excuseme being picky.|isbn=1471189783
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{{Frontpage
|author= Christophe MedlerDean Koontz|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionParanormal|summary= Set against the backdrop of the English Civil WarBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a secret plan (codereally weird, disturbing coffin-named Madrigal) sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642very last person to deserve all this bad luck. As He is a loyal servant of nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the Kingdelivery to his house is a new friend, and Head of the Secret Servicea bad weather friend called Spike, it who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is Robert's duty going to uncover the details take care of the plan Benny, and follow the clues to uncover one will certainly take care of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the KingBenny'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=B095HY8SXQ1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tasha SuriAdam Stower|title=The Jasmine ThroneMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyConfident Readers |summary= On the night of her sacred burningMurray is supposed to be a humble, Princess Malini defies her brother tidy and refuses to step on to the pyre. She friendly cat, one who is immediately sent able to be imprisoned on the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with a community sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of people who got powers from the mysterious deathless waterstwo. But now he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the temple is nothing more than an overgrowncatflap they both use can chuck them out, decaying ruin. One daynot into the regular back garden, Malini witnesses but into a girl kill someone with magicworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. Instead of reporting her for such This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a gruesome crimetroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, Malini claims that the girl saved her from an attacker but he's turned up and begs for the girl he'll have to become her own personal maidservant.do…|isbn=03565156480008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B088YWF5BCB0C47LV1PC|title=The Lies We TellFragility|author=Jane CorryMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have been Can you make a loving, stable family. When we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasnYo birthing person't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in by. Her husbandjoke? And if you could, Tomis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is fast asleep: they're moving house in that the morning but he's still going to answer for both could well be going to work and he needs his sleep. He wakes... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, thoughOregon, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someone.cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joseph Knox1529431735|title=True Crime StoryThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Joseph KnoxIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, known which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waits, has created a new genre with his latest novel, "True Crime Story"decade. The story follows the disappearance of Zoe Nolan return has come about because he's had a letter from her university halls of residence. Split into four partshis ex-wife, the reader is taken through the life saying that she's ill and disappearance of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sister, other family, friends and professionals, such as the policehasn't long to live. The various accounts help the reader get It's hard to know Zoefeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, or at least the Zoe she presented stripped to others. However, the twists his underwear and turns at sent to a watery grave in the end boot of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or fabricated. Whose accounts can we trusta problem closer to home?|isbn=0857527703
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{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery Alex Bell and Naday MeldovaTim McDonagh|title=No, No, No!The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=They say Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the best picture books are wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer of this latest from Justine Avery, evening a Bookbag favouritehelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs''No Eli lives with his lovely gran, No, No!'' too – for there is based around a generation missing in the simplest text imaginable. ''No, no, no! Okay, okayfamily. Yes A few short years ago, you may.'' ThatEli's it! Butparents were both lost to the titular race, like a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the best picture bookseatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, this tiny snippet with the sole aim the prize of text is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on magic at the inside that it appears on end – the outsideonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=16388204570571382231
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