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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FFJF8YS|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)|author=Justine Avery and Kate Zhoidik|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.''  And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates a little girl's final goodbye to nappies and pull-ups and graduation to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dog, her cat, her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear super-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can the flowers, nor the fish, nor the birds. Boy's certainly can't. She's a big girl now and she wants everyone to know it!}} {{Frontpage|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettSylvie Cathrall|title=Locked Out Lily|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Lily is, or was, or has been, very ill, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need A Letter to be ousted to get the family back intact, even if it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.|isbn=1471194833}}{{Frontpage|author=Greg James and Chris Smith|title=The Great Dream RobberyLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Maya's father is There are few greater joys than a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrong, and now he can't wake book which lives up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes to a new friend, and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleepcompelling premise. Cue And this is one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really..of them.and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051X0356522776
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004644950008517061|title= 100 Ways Death in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsLonely Place|author=Emma SmithStig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=''Babies seem to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in the wombFormer Metropolitan Police detective, being aware of quantities at seven hours oldJake Johnson, assessing probability at six months old, and comprehending addition and subtraction has settled into his rustic life at nine months oldLittle Sky.'' Did you know this? I didn't! How There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about: ''Maths ability on entry to school is a strong predictor the future of later achievementhis life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, double that as moving in together would mean a lot of literacy skills.'' I didn't know compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading stories, teaching pen grips, singing rhymes - gives children a solid foundation when they start school. But do we think is the same way about maths, beyond countingfuture she wants for herself and her daughter? I don't think we do, For the moment they’re enjoying life in part because so many of us are afraid of maths. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising the present and it follows that giving our children a similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficialputting the future on the back burner.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robert Peston
|title=The Whistleblower
|rating=3
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=I'm not the first to point out how fitting it is for Robert Peston to write a political thriller, so I'll move on quickly – but this won't be winning any awards for originality. It's an interesting plot with a good pace, but it does very little to differentiate itself and I suspect before much time has passed I'll have forgotten a lot of it.
|isbn=1838775242
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293793851786482126|title=The Madness of Crowds Janus Stone (Chief Inspector GamacheDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Louise PennyElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the Canadian village of Three Pines, wesite was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury're postapartments -pandemic: when they discovered the scars are still there but life is starting to get back to normalbones of a child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro and the AubergeWas this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. TheyIt're visiting each others difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn's homes and having friends and relatives to stayt, that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is one such visitor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people prone to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in the village as the Asshole Saintsudden bouts of sickness.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09F4CTKJR0008551324|title= Flights for FreedomThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author= Steven BurgauerNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=It's the later stages of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadron. This company was the first US Aero Squadron to be trained in Canada, the first to be attached to the RAF and the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combat. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=183885410X
|title=The Dark Remains
|author=William McIlvanney and Ian Rankin
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to one of approach the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgowpolice. DC Jack Laidlaw Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is on struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the CID team charged with police where the investigationbody of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. I say ''on This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the team'' but Laidlaw never really seems police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be a part transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of ithis sentence and to get an early parole date. He does his own thingNot much to ask, goes his own way and ''is it? The Dark Remainsnew Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she' uncovers s even prepared to do the truth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgowother thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's seedier pubshappening.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19424102550008405026|title=Tokyo Zangyo A Stranger in the Family (Detective HiroshiMaeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Michael PronkoJane Casey|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''Zangyo: overtime work, often unpaid'' It's the culture, isn't it? sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. The hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of She was never found and the minimum you'll be required investigation ground to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizukaa halt. When he was found Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the way of regret or grief, even from his familytheir bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there was a mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from s something about the roof positioning of the building or been assisted in his descentbodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Gossip revolves around the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that What looked as though it was going to be an employee, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlieropen-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. SheKerrigan is convinced that the explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing her to work an unreasonable amount of overtimes boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414254250571379877|title=The Man Who Died TwiceKellerby Code|author=Richard OsmanJonny Sweet|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received the letter. It came from Edward Jevons is a working-class young man whose body she had helped to pull from the Thames , obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and who had never existed but then this is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to deal with on a regular basisStanza. When she visits the sender of the letter (he's moved into the CooperRobert's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used to be her husbandtheatre director. He's made a bad mistake also self- something obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to do run errands for him. Edward has been in love with a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twentyStanza since their university days -million pounds in diamonds and a few death threatshe's drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. HeMost men in Robert's now in hiding with position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a young woman called Polly, whorelationship had begun between them but he's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitressnot like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew SharpJo Callaghan|title=The Chef, the Bird and the BlessingLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - When a man is, in his mind, found crucified on the head chef top of a safari business catering hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to VIP guests in an unnamed African countrythe case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It's their first live case together, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. Mozzy But when there is earnest a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and dedicated to his task and he puts all a very high profile case that draws a lot of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is unwanted attention to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American citytheir AI Future Policing project. Even Will they be able to win a Michelin star. He is thwarted solve the case in this ambition by his bosstime, Mr Bin (Ben to you or will Kat find herself taken off the case and me) who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and - shockpotentially, horror - his allowing out of bush animals into the house.a career?|isbn=B09926MK8H139851120X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Foulkes1399613073|title=Rules for VampiresMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) is a Vampire. She drinks bloodOlivia, she sleeps during Laura and Anjali met on the first day, of medical school and she can Grimwalk (turning into their friendship would keep them inseparable for a flock quarter of bats to travel arounda century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, although not all of them remember which is a bonus when you aim to come back)be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Pretty cool stuff Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Now, on Anjali is the night free spirit of her hundredth birthnight, the group and she has to go out and hunt her becomes a GP. When we first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident meet them they're at a drug and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to make things worse, the ghosts of one of the orphans alcohol-fuelled party and the evil master of the orphanage come back it's going to haunt herend in tragedy. So, not only does Leo have to team up with We don't know who suffered the friendly ghost Minna to stop tragedy or the ghost of consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerfulthree friends. This time, she has to do it all while hiding it from her family. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there their teenage children who are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955Xinvolved.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tori Bovalino0241636604|title=The Devil Makes ThreeTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary= Working all summer If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in her boarding schoolyour mind, you's library is the last thing Tess Matheson wants re unlikely to do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to deliver herselfthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. What makes it worse A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the man who requested the books: Mr Birch. The boarding school's headmasterEast End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and a man Tess hatesinjustice. As a petty act There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of revenge for making her find Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and deliver such he has a large request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each facility with numbers which most of the books, scribbled with the ugliest insults she us can think ofonly envy. They're never meant He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to reach himbe stupid. It was his ability at what was, of course. Her plan is to get her anger out like thisessentially, and then take them all off before delivering thema card game which got him an internship with Citibank. No harm done… Or it would be Eventually, if someone hadn't delivered them for herthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1789098130
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09BG8V3Q61035021803|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She'Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!s back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole' s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the latest release in circumstances seem suspicious, to say the ''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Averyleast. This series of fun picture books aims Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to take the pain out of potty training children and replace it with some funvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. It's a worthy aim Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, as any frustrated parent will tell youshe has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B098FFFBH9AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=SnowcubAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Graham FulbrightBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is her schoolwhat 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 animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry advantageous to highlight me but I'm left with the way in which human beings exploit the animal worldfeeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. She gets a great deal of support from her family: father Pip HarrisonOf course, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate I could research the possibilities and her twin, Nick. Kate runs the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where weprobabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'll meet Rachelm reading someone who knows what they's main (if unsuspected) source of re talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information: five soft toysin a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Angharad WalkerSunny Singh|title= The Ash HouseHotel Arcadia|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident ReadersThrillers |summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash HouseHotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. He doesn't know his name Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, or why he is there but he is used to the systemSam, used to different places a wartime photographer and different facesAbhi, the hotel manager. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out As Abhi continues to try to teach him care remotely for the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre on a variety of Nicenesses set out by residents who are still alive in the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their choreshotel, working as he forms a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by the arrival events, and keeps on venturing out of the Doctorher room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. By the end of Although they only ever talk over the storyphone, lives will be changed forever their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and The Ash House they both wait to see if they will never be rescued before they are discovered by the same againterrorists.|isbn=1912626977086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Yancey Williams1529153298|title=Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade The List of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{FrontpageSuspicious Things|author=Philip Reeve|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the DeepJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=In a wordIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, richhonestly. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea..) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, British but way west, beyond the Scilliesthough. Women have been disappearing. There are troll people on it Well, and sea-witchesthey've been murdered, and legends of but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching 'Down South'. When you're from even further westYorkshire, where no ship dare sailDown South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. The current Darks are the Watcher For Miv, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Landsmove would mean leaving her best friend, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitionsSharon, and Andreweshe'll do anything to prevent that. She's foundling daughter, who washed up out of not worried about the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it dangers or notthat her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1788452372
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Erling Kagge1398524085|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turnedup. Her children, sons Niall, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not minePaul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. In my defenceare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why)Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South Pole Shortly afterwards, the North Pole Etty and Greg, find the summit body of Everest. He knows a thing or two about walking. HoweverGreg's father, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeysDuncan Ackerley, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means to walkin the river. It is a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and I haventhen committed suicide when he couldn't countedstand the guilt. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|isbn=0241357705
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ian Mark and Louis Ghibault1035906708|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quickWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, for he's a slight boyNew York, in December 1923 and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses only moved to let him out of his sightAthens when she was thirteen. That Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 's because JackCallas's mother knew all about monsters, and look what happened to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke was raised under the ogre's death, Nazi occupation by a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, mother who mercilessly exploited her 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 made no secret of her preference for Beginners''..her elder sister, Jackie.|isbn=0755501942
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{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayChristopher Edge|title=The ClimbersBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully 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'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the best tree climber in next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the villagecinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3. He has what5|genre=Teens|summary=''s known amongst I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the kids as answering beat in my heart.'reachRosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But what happens when the Council Watch lays a new kid shows up in town? A new kidtrap to end the wrecking, called Nottinghamthey capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status as charming as he is being threatened, secretive and not with only thatcoordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that his chance lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to name unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the final, unnamed big tree in watched streets of foreign islands to the park by being heart of the first to conquer itsmuggler's territory, might Mira must be snatched from his hands. How can Sully determined to stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all at nothing to save the future of his friends, to do so?her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=17811299910008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Emma CarrollJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Week at World's EndPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=First, Things have been a bit sticky for the titleEarthlings. WeAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're in World's End Close, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie paid to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog do and with the boy over the road. But we could also be at World's End, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact other tasks that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking offtook time to accomplish. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded Just as America tries they were beginning to reduce the risk get used to all this technological change and starting to think of nuclear missiles offshoreother, and not much else is able new ways to make the newsspend time, along came an awful pandemic. That saidLife was pretty much shut down and, Vie has news of her own – Annaalong with it, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Matthew Tree|title=We'll Never Know|rating=4. Anna has, in no short time5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted drunk and leave, chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to leavehis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and implied her life was at riskset himself high but achievable ambitions. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de FrestonA G Slatter|title=Julia and The Briar Book of the SharkDead|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Julia'' 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, our pre-teen heroineall mine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England at last. I just want to be lighthousekeepers enjoy it for a summerwhile.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, in lies Silverton; a town under the far NE protection of the Scottish islands. Here be VikingsBriar's, that kind a family of Scottish islandwitches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Dad Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is going the first non-witch to be automating born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the lanternBriar Witch, which is his specialist thingthe town's leader, while mum will be leaving and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her career in algae behind way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to hunt communicate with the dead, putting her at the elusive Greenland sharkheart of a maelstrom of chaos. And JuliaReeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, welleverything they have sacrificed to survive, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one nightis under threat.|isbn=15101077891803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Freya Sampson1529900360|title=The Last LibraryGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to start a story about a library, since I am a librarianask for his help on difficult cases. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought of the incoming cardigan His assertions that there were only open-wearing, hair in a bun, catand-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 shut cases which didn't immediately throw need the book out help of the windowa psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, because I found I it was interested in JuneRobin, Delaware's partner, and why she lived as who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case didlook simple, though. Her mum used to be Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a librarian at remote property in Bel Air. He was the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going heir to University an Italian shoe empire and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local library. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, married to an extremely rich man and still reading her mumit's old booksnot the Italian. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is about But which of them was the change.|isbn=183877369Xprimary target?
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|isbn=00083709821529395224|title=Rock Paper ScissorsLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Alice FeeneySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isnGP and Rowlands didn't so keen on the idea. Like Ameliawant to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he knows considered the strain that their marriage has been under strain: hebeing on-call put on his father's a screenwriter and life. When he was seventeen he's never shy took the opportunity of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the novels job for him. Before long, he's hoping to adapt than with herwas at Liverpool University. AmeliaIt hadn's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been t - and working as with the dogs, so many of whom have students - been abused, is never easyhis dream since he was a child. Still - sheIf anything, he'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 d wanted to come back be a couple of days laterprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Doug Johnstone0861541774|title=The Great SilenceA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=For those whoDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, like meDanny Maik, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk has taken a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory short holiday in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn't some fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought Singapore to bemeet up with an old ally, it is merely the surname of Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a family of undertakers. Undertakers knife - and private investigatorshe killed a Ghurka. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct Initially, she married he faced a scot and ended up helping charge of manslaughter but evidence came to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm light that suggested that had been in he might have planned to murder the family for generationsman. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer Now he could be facing the death penalty. Swedish by nationality. Scottish Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police. Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her still-living husband – force could provoke a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree diplomatic incident and join the academic staff next termwouldn't help Danny at all.|isbn=1913193837
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1901514978Alexander McCall Smith|title=There's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos AlbaThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Life The Perfect Passion Company is different for George Lovelace a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and he can't really understand whyoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. He's always done everything he ought Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to: steady worker, husband and father - and take a father who was always there trip to Canada to get away for school plays and sports daysa while. So why Katie is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone coming out of a break up with such a ''good'' mind unable to progress bad boyfriend, and so jumps at work or the chance to relate come home to his colleagues? Edinburgh. Why does he make And so many breath-taking gaffes? It's almost become a cliche these days begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to suggest that someone 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who is quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a little different is 'on the spectrum'business, or in match-making, but George Lovelace Ness has all the symptoms of Aspergerfull confidence in her abilities, and there's Syndrome: high-functioning autism.always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=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 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Louise CandlishDean Koontz|title=The HeightsBad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that Benny is having a terrifically bad day. She He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's on sitepossible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, visiting Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a client nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a lighting consultation when she spies new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him in since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a building across the waygood person. There are lots Spike is going to take care of thingsBenny, lots and will certainly take care of peopleBenny's enemies, you might see when you look out across Londonif he, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two yearsBenny, and Ellen knows this for Harper (a fact, because she had a hand in his murderwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=14711834831662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008421714Adam Stower|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers |summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel Murray is supposed to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morningsleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Patricia askedwell, as she was wrapping whatever takes his fancy next of the bread, ''but isn't this the first time two. But he's based a character on you?bad magician'' She mentioned that Johannas cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would catflap they both use can chuck them out, not have matteredinto the regular back garden, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore but into a world of Nantes - ''frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a weakViking land, plainwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, detestableone much bigger than Murray was, patheticto be honest, unloved, unloveable wretch.but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John BoyneB0C47LV1PC|title=The Echo ChamberFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over question should you make it? Or is the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his childquestion if you did, but then his author wife would it land? The catch is getting her kicks with that the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her withanswer for both could well be.... 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 . ''Fragility'' is set as the world's homeless with out-city of-date foodPortland, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapistsOregon, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach cautiously begins to emerge from the modern world. What suggests restrictions imposed during the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|isbn=0857526219covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02419890941529431735|title=The Perfect LifeWinter Visitor|author=Nuala EllwoodJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and sheIt's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames February 1991 and telling Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclaymore surprising. The boys are He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a bit of wanted drug smuggler for a handful which is why she's making this trip on her owndecade. The house would be perfect for them. Itreturn has come about because he's the same month but now we're in Wimbledon and we encounter the same young womanhad a letter from his ex-wife, only this time saying that she's job hunting ill and living in her sister, Georgiehasn's, spare room, where shet long to live. It's been since she broke up with her boyfriendhard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, Connorstripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 The Glorious Race of 3Magical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=So. Having done Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the impossible wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and unpicked in the lock to evening a helper at the Forgotten Cryptdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, from which too – for there is a generation missing in the Departed communicate with the Mergefamily. A few short years ago, Archie now has ''grop'Eli' s parents were both lost to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archiethe titular race, much a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one navigate the world in the company of those isa magical beast. But he manages This has made the race anathema to come through the fancy party unscathedpair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, even after an uncomfortable encounter with KurtisEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume sole aim the prize of this seriesmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. |isbn=B093J9TF730571382231
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