Changes

|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultSylvie Cathrall|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's There are few greater joys than a slight boy, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses book which lives up to let him out of his sighta compelling premise. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters, and look what happened to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point And this is one of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's death, a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''..them.|isbn=07555019420356522776

|authorisbn=Keith Gray0008517061|title=The ClimbersDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Sully is the best tree climber in the village. He Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has what's known amongst the kids as 'reach'settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. But what happens when There’s perhaps a new kid shows up in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some little uncertainty about the future of the hardest trees his life with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatenedvet girlfriend, Livia and not only thather daughter Diana, that as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his chance off-grid and relaxing life to name move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself and her daughter? For the final, unnamed big tree moment they’re enjoying life in the park by being present and putting the first to conquer it, might be snatched from his handsfuture on the back burner. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, to do so?|isbn=1781129991

|authorisbn=Emma Carroll1786482126|title=The Week at World's EndJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=First, Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the title. Wesite was going to hold seventy-five 're in Worldluxury's End Close, apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a mediocre set of housesritual killing or murder? Inevitably, where Stevie (Vie to her friends) Dr Ruth Galloway finds fun only herself working with the family dog and with the boy over the roadDCI Harry Nelson. But we could also be at World It's Enddifficult as Ruth knows, because something taking but Nelson doesn't, that she is pregnant with his child as a great chunk result of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking offone night they spent together some three months ago. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore Her condition will be obvious before long, and not much else least because Ruth is able prone to make the news. That said, Vie has news sudden bouts of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedsickness. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed to leave, and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438

|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston0008551324|title=Julia and the SharkThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for a summer, the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the far NE police where the body of the Scottish islandsa missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Here This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be Vikings, that kind of Scottish islandworth the police doing what he wants. Dad And what he wants is going to be automating transferred to an open prison to serve the lantern, which is remainder of his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind sentence and to hunt the elusive Greenland sharkget an early parole date. And Julia, wellNot much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she will be homesick 's even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and alone – until she suddenly finds company one nightanyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.|isbn=1510107789

|authorisbn=Freya Sampson0008405026|title=The Last LibraryA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about a library, It's sixteen years since I am a librariannine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. I always grit my teeth slightly at She was never found and the thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in investigation ground to a bunhalt. Now, cat-owningher mother, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this storyHelena, the main character, June, does put and her hair father are dead in a buntheir bed. Initially, and she does own it looks like 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 didnstraightforward murder/suicide but there't immediately throw s something about the book out positioning of the window, because I found I was interested in June, bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and why she lived her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as she did. Her mum used though it was going to be a librarian at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University an open-and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on -shut case is now a job as library assistant at the local librarycomplex double murder. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she Kerrigan is still working there, still eating her mumconvinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mumdisappearance: others (such as Derwent's old books. June is stuckboss, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the changeUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=183877369X

|isbn=00083709820571379877|title=Rock Paper ScissorsThe Kellerby Code|author=Alice FeeneyJonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Amelia Wright Edward Jevons is fortya working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-two class friends, Robert and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in Stanza. Robert's a converted chapel in Scotlandtheatre director. Her husbandHe's also self-obsessed, Adamdemanding, isn't so keen on the ideahandsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage Edward has been under strain: he's a screenwriter in love with Stanza since their university days - and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that drunkenly confided how he'd prefer feels to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with herRobert. AmeliaMost men in Robert's annoyed position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but 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 not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her two of them kissing in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days laterdark passageway.

|author=Doug JohnstoneJo Callaghan|title=The Great SilenceLeave No Trace

|summary=For those who, like me, haven't come across When a man is found crucified on the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis top of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory hill in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creatureNuneaton, though it sounds as though it ought DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to bethe case alongside her sidekick, it is merely the surname of a family of undertakersAI detective Lock. Undertakers and private investigators It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Dorothy But when there is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instincta second body found crucified a few days later, she married Kat is suddenly struggling with a scot potential serial killer and ended up helping a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to run solve the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the family for generations. Recently widowed case and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46potentially, is haunted by her still-living husband – out of a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and join the academic staff next term.career?|isbn=1913193837139851120X

|isbn=19015149781399613073|title=There's a Problem With DadMoral Injuries|author=Carlos AlbaChristie Watson

|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=Life is different Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for George Lovelace and he can't really understand whya quarter of a century. He's always done everything he ought Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a bonus when you aim to: steady worker, husband and father - and be a father who was always there for school plays and sports dayscardiothoracic surgeon. So why Laura is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Why Anjali is someone with such the free spirit of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it'goods going to end in tragedy. We don'' mind unable to progress at work t know who suffered the tragedy or to relate to his colleagues? the consequences. Why does he make so many breathTwenty-taking gaffes? It's almost become a cliche these days to suggest five years later there will be an eerily similar event that someone who is a little different is 'on will impact the spectrum'three friends. This time, but George Lovelace has all the symptoms of Aspergerit's Syndrome: high-functioning autismtheir teenage children who are involved.

|authorisbn=Louise Candlish0241636604|title=The HeightsTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson

|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=Ellen doesnIf you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you't expect re unlikely to see Kieran that daythink of someone like Gary Stevenson. She's on site A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, visiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the waypoverty and injustice. There are lots was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of things, lots Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor peopleto be stupid. It was his ability at what was, you might see when you look out across Londonessentially, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other daya card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years Eventually, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had turned into permanent employment as a hand in his murdertrader.|isbn=1471183483

|isbn=00084217141035021803|title=Mrs MarchThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Virginia FeitoC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George MarchIt's most successful novel twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to datethe English country village where she grew up. Everyone but Mrs March (we know She's back now because of a request for help from her first name only on beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the last page) seemed circumstances seem suspicious, to either be reading it or had already done sosay the least. Every day Mrs March went Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morningvillage: Arthur, Patricia askedshe feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she was wrapping has not felt able to be near the bread, ''but isn't this man or pursue the first time he's based a character on you?'' profession she loved. She mentioned that JohannaAfter the split, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have matteredshe worked in a cafe, except for met and married James (on the fact that Johanna is rebound from the whore love of Nantes - ''a weakher life, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.''

|authorisbn=John BoyneAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Echo ChamberAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". 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 sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-Opening up new ways of-date food, and a fit young lad doing thinking about the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections shape of things to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funnycome.|isbn=0857526219}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241989094|title=The Perfect Life|author=Nuala Ellwood|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclay. The boys are a bit of a handful which is why she's making this trip on her own. The house would be perfect for them.

ItI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's the same month advantageous to me but now weI're in Wimbledon and we encounter m left with the same young woman, only this time shefeeling that it's job hunting all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and living in her sister, Georgiethe probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's, spare room, where shem reading someone who knows what they's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connorre 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.

|author=Darren ShanSunny Singh|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Hotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=SoThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Having done Hiding from the impossible terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and unpicked Abhi, the lock hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the Forgotten Crypthotel, from which the Departed communicate he forms a bond with the MergeSam who refuses to be cowed by events, Archie now has ''grop'' and keeps on venturing out of her room to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much try to Inezcapture what's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those ishappened through her photography. But he manages to come through Although they only ever talk over the fancy party unscathedphone, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the first volume of this seriesterrorists. |isbn=B093J9TF73086154742X

|isbn=B07GZ81J7C1529153298|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and MendedThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Peter CottonJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet FredIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, actuallythey've been murdered, youbut to have 'disappeared' doesn're going to be meeting Fred-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quicklyt sound quite so frightening. But IMiv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'm getting ahead of myself: IDown South'd better tell you a bit more about Fred. Fred When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a snake and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to himfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. He arrived as a present in a box with holes so that he could breathe and immediately became part of For Miv, the familymove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to the extent prevent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walk. And She's not worried about the dangers or that was where the problem started. Fred didnher Mum't have any road sense. Or brakess stopped talking - to anyone.

|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1398524085|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isnCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband'ts 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, as any parent will tell youis not. But really Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, why shouldnfind the body of Greg't it be? We all have s father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to learn about our bodily functions just as we have to learn about everything else make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when we are small. Why shouldnhe couldn't potty training be as much fun as, say, learning about why stand the sun guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and the moon take turns in the sky? |isbn= B098BJZYHHwonder about what really happened.

|isbn=17876344931035906708|title=All Her FaultDiva|author=Andrea MaraDaisy Goodwin

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=It had seemed like one We tend to think of those serendipitous events which sometimes happen. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her sonMaria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, MiloNew York, in December 1923 and only moved to go on a play dateAthens when she was thirteen. She Her original surname was concerned that he didnKalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas't have any friends at his new schoolto make it more manageable in the States. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School When she was back in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob Athens - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. What supposedly so that she could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the house, expecting to meet Jacob's Nazi occupation by a mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or Jacob. The phone number she'd been given mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had Jenny's nannyher elder sister, Jackie.

|author=Claire NorthChristopher Edge|title=Notes from the Burning AgeBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary=At its core Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'Notes From the Burning Age. All big movie fans, they'' by Claire North is a spy thrillerre looking forward to lots of exciting films, with as and many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. many snacks! However, as with the best novelsmovie starts, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is they very quickly realise that of a something about this new film format is very different, and timely they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuelsnext, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There can they figure out what on earth is a growing unhappiness with this limiting worldgoing on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.their real lives?|isbn=03565147571839942738

|author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)Rachel Greenlaw|title=Girls Who LieCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all ''I can hear the dark corners song of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before nowthe sea. You thinkThe call of the deep, seeing on the map that weanswering beat in my heart.''re set in Akranes Rosevear, a remote and finding it's only twenty kilometres from partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the capital city, that this author is clutching at rocks and plundering the few final straws leftwrecks. However just because the book aims for the usual small-town feelMira, it's not just in Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for like her mother before her date evening, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with is one of the couple seven who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for swim out to survey the girl back, ruins – rescuing any survivors and a couple of delighted adoptersany treasure that lies within. But it left our three detectives at when the Council Watch lays a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one placetrap to end the wrecking, they capture the womanisland's car was found miles away in a second place, leader and now, after six months, the body has been discovered, in a third, even more remote placeMira's father. MeanwhileDesperate to save him from death, this narrative is interrupted by Mira makes a confessional monologue from bargain with a mother wreck survivor who found herself is as charming as he is secretive and with heavy post-natal depressiononly coordinates to guide her, and very little maternal feeling she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her body. Is from the watched streets of foreign islands to the assumption that is so easy for heart of the reader smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to make stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the right one?ones she holds most dear.|isbn=191319373X0008664730

|isbnauthor=B0925KS87NJames Sherwood Metts|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)|author=Neil LancasterPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Tam Hardie had Things have been determined to find a bit sticky for the grave - Earthlings. AI and it took some finding - in an overgrown old cemetery. It was a strange thing for Scotlandautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's premier criminal re paid to do, but Tam was getting old and there other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were things he wanted beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to dospend time, along came an awful pandemic. OnlyLife was pretty much shut down and, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found the grave - the one which said that along with it shouldn't be opened - and his three sons began to worry. Tam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldn't normally go to all the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and many daily social interactions on which they were worrieddepend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|author=Emily CritchleyMatthew Tree|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the authorWe's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}} {{Frontpage|author=Sarah Langan|title=Good Neighboursll Never Know

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= If you're of a certain vintageTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, it's hard to read the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo drunk and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like his artistic passions all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends failed miserably and their kids have settled in, and it's all going okwho had endless crises of self confidence. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, stickySo Tim applied himself to his studies, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess of dirt cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and chaos, set himself high but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to comeachievable ambitions.|isbn=1789098211B0CVFXPGP8

|author=Lisa ThompsonA G Slatter|title=The Small ThingsBriar Book of the Dead

|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Although Anna has friends at school, she feels like she never really fits in. Her family don't have enough money ' There's a part of me that wants to let her do after school activities, and so she feels like her life at home is boring in comparison keep this just to theirsmyself for however long I can. When a new girl joins her classThis secret magic of my own, Anna is asked to partner herall mine, but things are complicated because the new girl, Ellie, is unwell and so can't attend school in person. Instead, she joins in with the class by using a robotat last. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through a robot, and is she even interesting enough I just want to be enjoy it for a good friend to Ellie?|isbn=1781129649}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|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 counterparts..while.'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba

''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study Within a book by remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a writer town under the protection of colour while only 7% study the Briar's, a book by a womanfamily of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to the UK from Kenya when be born into her family for generations and as such since she was five years old. Her sisters were seven young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and ninepotions. It was When her mother who came firstgrandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, with and Ellie takes her place beside her father joining them later. The family was hard-workingAs challenges come her way left, principled right and determined that their children would have centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness heart of money although this did not translate into a shortage maelstrom of anything: it was simply carefully harvestedchaos. When Otegha was ten the Reeling from one family acquired a car. For Oteghasecret to another, education meant a scholarship Ellie must decide who to a private school in London trust and then a place at New Collegedetermine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, Oxfordis under threat.|isbn=1803364548

|isbn=17876318691529900360|title=The Rising TideGhost Orchid|author=Sam LloydJonathan Kellerman

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Lucy Locke's early life It hadn't been easy Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but she'd built a good he felt responsible and decent life in the aftermatheven after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. She's now married to Daniel, who coHis assertions that there were only open-owns Lockeand-Povey Marine on Penleith Beachshut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billieit was Robin, LucyDelaware's daughter and Finpartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the child man she had with Danielloved needed. They have financial difficultiesThe next case did look simple, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friendthough. Nick and Daniel have Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a history together from remote property in Bel Air. He was the time they both spent in a children's home but heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concernednot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|authorisbn=Hannah Peck1529395224|title=Kate on Letting the CaseCat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands

|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression she'd rather be Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a Catherine – GP and one specific Catherine at that. For Catherine Rodriguez is KateRowlands didn's idolt want to follow in his footsteps, and particularly when he considered the author of our heroinestrain that being on-call put on his father's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''life. Armed When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a plucky father, that book, family friend who was a vet and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to was convinced this was the Arctic, to see her scientist mother job for the first time in yonkshim. HoweverBefore long, this is a train ride he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a differencechild. If anything, for on board is he'd wanted to be a greedy-seeming harridan professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541774|title=A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and her catformer colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a thief – and two glowing eyesshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, shining from the darkness Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a blinkstreet brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -and-you'll-miss-them stylehe killed a Ghurka. It's definitely Initially, he faced a case for a new young investigative journalistcharge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|isbn=184812970X

|author=Darren ShanAlexander McCall Smith|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3The Perfect Passion Company

|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=The second trilogy Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our heroEdinburgh, Archierun by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, back in London in tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the world business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the Bornchance to come home to Edinburgh. It's not been easy And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, explaining bringing us to his foster parents where he's beenan Edinburgh we already love, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez thanks to 44 Scotland Street and his other friends in the MergeIsabel Dalhousie novels, but Archie with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has done his best.... wellno experience in running a business, or in match-making, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston but Ness has full confidence in Big Benher abilities, and there's clock tower always her very helpful (and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak away.rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1846976596

|isbn=05713658840811771741|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in AnxietyInstaKnits for Baby|author=Georgia PritchettMelissa Leapman

|genre=AutobiographyCrafts|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a childcollection of knits from toys to blankets. She would worry about whether Some will be quick knits - others are of the monsters under 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the bed were comfortable: it was fire' variety. The projects are divided by the sort of life where if she had nothing time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few twenty hours and far betweenmore than twenty hours. On a visit to a therapist, as an adultAll the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when she was completely unable to speak I wonder about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and 'social-media-worthy projects'My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxietybut that'' is the result - or so we are given to believes me being picky.

|author=Alex CotterDean Koontz|title=The House on the EdgeBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Faith's family home Benny is teetering on the edge of having a cliffterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, literallyand his house gets trashed. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope Oh, and someone has delivered a little? And as the house seems really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to be falling aparthis home, so is Faithand it's family. Her dad possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has disappearedtrashed his house! The thing is, and her mum Benny is struggling the very last person to cope, barely leaving her beddeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that leaves Faith in chargethe delivery to his house is a new friend, taking a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of her little brother NoahBenny, taking and will certainly take care of her mumBenny's enemies, feeding everyoneif he, getting Noah to schoolBenny, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find Harper (a way to raise enough money to fix it? Whatwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she wild adventure) can keep on keeping onfigure out who exactly they are.|isbn=17880086261662500491

|isbnauthor=0008269041Adam Stower|title=Risk of Harm|author=Lucie WhitehouseMurray and Bun

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=DCI Robin Lyons Murray is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Met. She might have been reinstated but the whole episode left supposed to be a nasty taste in her mouth. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforetwo. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out of her parentBut he's home into a rented house but therebad magician's still cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out , not into the regular back garden, but into a world of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young childfrightening adventure and whiffs. He's married This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to Nataliebe honest, now and has a young child but he's still got it in for Robin.turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249

|isbn=1786332388B0C47LV1PC|title=The First Day of SpringFragility|author=Nancy TuckerMosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and Can you make a ''The First Day of SpringYo birthing person'' was one such occasion. The writing joke? And if you could, is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation the question should you make it? Or is excellent and the plot grips question if you and won't let go. Sodid, what's the problemwould it land? Well, the problem The catch is Chrissie, that the main characteranswer for both could well be.. When we first meet her she's just eight years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy. She. no. 's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized up. ThereFragility's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in is set as the book: when will Steven come backcity of Portland, Oregon, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|authorisbn=Catherine Steadman1529431735|title=The Disappearing ActWinter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= British actress Mia Eliot It's February 1991 and Essex is on bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the cusp of successmore surprising. Great success. If He'd been exiled on the rumours are true, award season is going to treat her well, acknowledging her Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for her latest, critically acclaimed productiona decade. She The return has come about because he's going places but sohad a letter from his ex-wife, unfortunately, is her partner. And the places hesaying that she's going take him towards lies, deceit ill and a pretty young thing in the form of his new co-starhasn't long to live. It's a good time for Mia hard to escapefeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and pilot season sent to a watery grave in LA provides just the excuseboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=1471189783 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?

|author= Christophe MedlerAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts

|genre=Historical FictionConfident Readers|summary= Set against Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the backdrop of the English Civil Warwondrous library we start by visiting with him, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse and in the summer of 1642. As evening a loyal servant of helper at the Kingdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, and Head of too – for there is a generation missing in the Secret Servicefamily. A few short years ago, it is RobertEli's duty parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to uncover navigate the details world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the plan and follow pair – but when a bad incident at the clues eatery leads to uncover one a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect end – the Kingonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ0571382231