132,612
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Hastings and Alex T SmithSylvie Cathrall|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep.'' And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, either. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her A Letter to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core.|isbn=0008496056}}{{Frontpage|author=Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The Book of Hope Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society Science Fiction|summary= The done thing is to read There are few greater joys than a book all the way through before you sit down which lives up to review ita compelling premise. I’m making an exception here, because I don’t want to lose any of the experience of reading And this amazing book, I want to capture it as it hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tearsone of them. |isbn=024147857X0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15295047670008517061|title=The Christmas Doll (The Repair Shop Stories)Death in a Lonely Place|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyStig Abell|rating=54|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Susan was very young when she was evacuated from London in 1939 and nervous about how she would be greeted when she got to her final destinationFormer Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. She needn't have worried though as she went to There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the home future of Mr his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and Mrs Russellher daughter Diana, who couldn't have been kinder as moving in together would mean a lot of 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. She even had her own room - all to reservations about whether or not this is the future she wants for herself. Gradually she relaxed and began to enjoy her daughter? For the moment they’re enjoying life. She'd help Mrs Russell with in the baking and when it came to Christmas Eve Susan present and Mr Russell put putting the decorations future on the Christmas tree. The best surprise happened the following morningback burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=1786482126|title=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates The Janus Stone (translatorDr Ruth Galloway)|titleauthor=Red as BloodElly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=When Flosi’s wife goes missing, all Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the evidence seems site was going to point towards her having been kidnapped. The ransom note tells him not to have any contact with hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the police, so instead he enlists the help bones of Arora, a financial investigatorchild beneath a doorway. She manages to persuade Flosi that they will need the help of the police There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, and she calls her detective friendDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, Danielbut Nelson doesn't, whom that she met when he was investigating her sister’s disappearanceis pregnant with his child as a result of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Together, they start to secretly investigate Gudrun’s disappearance Her condition will be obvious before long, trying not least because Ruth is prone to arouse the suspicion sudden bouts of anyone, since they have no idea who the kidnappers might be, yet the more they uncover, the more confusing things becomesickness.|isbn=1914585321
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08615419950008551324|title=Wolf PackThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Will DeanNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The story began when Tuva Moodyson drove her Hilux pickup truck on It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the road north of Visbergpolice. She sees blood on the road and a creature on its Neither side near likes or has any respect for the pine treesother. It will turn out But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to be Bronco, tell the police where the body of a Swedish Elkhound, missing person is buried and who has been attacked by a wolfwas responsible for her death. Tuva takes Bronco and his ownerThis person, Bengt Nyberghe promises, to the vet. Bronco didn't make is someone big and it but on will be worth the way, Nyberg told Tuva that police doing what he was out looking for his niece, twenty-year-old Elsa Nyberg, who had gone missingwants. She'd been working at Rose Farm and Moodyson's journalist's instincts are soon brought And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the fore. Rose Farm is now home to a group remainder of survivalists but back in 1987 the then owner, Johan Svenson murdered his wife, sentence and his two eldest children and then killed himselfto get an early parole date. His newborn childNot much to ask, just four weeks old survived. is it? Does this have any connection The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's even prepared to do the disappearance of Elsa Nyberg?other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alison Hughes0008405026|title=FlyA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=This is It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a very impressive readhalt. Now, her mother, Helena, and her father are dead in their bed. Initially, as it does looks like a lot straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the positioning of what mainstream teen the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and tween fiction still struggles withher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Its focus is courtesy of the firstWhat looked as though it was going to be an open-person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsy, a downand-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, shut case is now a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on himcomplex double murder. First they assume Kerrigan is convinced that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide hethe explanation lies in Rosalie's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isndisappearance: others (such as Derwent't his real names boss, but everybody just uses itUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1525305832
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=37913883980571379877|title=New European Baking: 99 Recipes for Breads, Brioches and PastriesThe Kellerby Code|author=Laurel KratochvilaJonny Sweet|rating=43.5|genre=CookeryCrime|summary=This Edward Jevons is probably one of the most unusual baking books Ia working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert've encountereds a theatre director. ItHe's built around 99 recipes for breadsalso self-obsessed, demanding, brioches and pastries but the recipes are interwoven with some thought-provoking writing on how bread - handsome and baking - have changed in the twentieth entitled and early twenty-first centuriesuses Edward to run errands for him. We start Edward has been in love with the basics Stanza since their university days - the equipment youand he'll need (theres drunkenly confided how he feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's nothing extravagant position would stay away from Stanza or indulgent) and the ingredients, where the author tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he's not like most men: Edward is particular. You might not have realised that different salts can change left to stumble upon the flavour and sensation on the tongue two of the finished product but, apparently, they dothem kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrew GivlerJo Callaghan|title=Soul Fraud (The Debt Collection Book 1)Leave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=''Matt has When a terrible life. Seriously—it's awful. It man is so bad that Dan found crucified on the Demon is shocked when Matt turns down his infernal offer: 10 years top of a blissful life hill in exchange for his soulNuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lock. It'' Poor Dan! I know, I knows their first live case together, we shouldn't feel sorry for soul-catching demonshaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. But he really when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a terrible salesman. He never hits his targets potential serial killer and, when he fails a very high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to get even Matt their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to sign on solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the dotted linecase and, potentially, he's so desperate that he simply forges Matt's signature.out of a career?|isbn=1958204021139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Greg James and Chris Smith1399613073|title=Super GhostMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Paragon City has been lucky to have Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the great Doctor Extraordinary, first day of medical school and their very own superhero taking care friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of thema century. Whenever the evil Captain Chaos has come up with another cunning plan (usually involving Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there bonus when you aim to thwart her mischief be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Laura is a perfectionist and save the daya trauma doctor. But one day Anjali is the free spirit of the Doctor group and the Captain are trapped together inside she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a giant robot that then explodes, drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going to end in tragedy. We don't know who suffered the hero and tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the villain are no morethree friends. Or This time, it's their teenage children who are they…?|isbn=0241470536involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B7289HKQ0241636604|title=Conversations Across AmericaThe Trading Game: A Father and Son, Alzheimer's, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of AmericaConfession|author=Kari LoyaGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=TravelAutobiography|summary=Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, by you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the way) wanted to spend some time East End, where he was familiar with his father violence, poverty and the period between two jobs seemed like a good time to do itinjustice. The decision There was made no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to ride the Trans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon - all 4250 miles London School of it - in 2015Economics. They had 73 days to do it Stevenson is bright - slightly less than the recommended time extremely bright - but there were factors and he has a facility with numbers which pointed this up as more most of a challenge us can only envy. He also realised that it would be for most rich people expect poor people who considered taking it onto be stupid. Merv Loya It was 75 years old and he his ability at what was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Christopher Bowden1035021803|title=Mr MagentaThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Christopher BowdenIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's latest novel is a patient untangling back now because of a seemingly ordinary womanrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's lifeclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, carried out by let her nephew after down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has diednot felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. The aunt who always provided After the split, she worked in a safe harbour cafe, met and a little bit married James (on the rebound from the love of indulgence to a young nephew had had a much more interesting her life than that nephew Stephen had ever realised , who was murdered) and Freya and it seems to him an obligation to find it all outJames have now divorced. |isbn= B0B6Z9VJDW
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=22 Ideas About The FutureAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead Opening up new ways of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets thinking about the shape of things to track grandmacome.''
I've got a couple of confessions to makeheard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read must confess that there have been more than a few stories and then forget to return to the bookdecades of technology in my lifetime. ThereI've kept up reasonably well with what's got to be a very compelling hook advantageous to keep me engaged. Then therebut I's science fiction: far too often m left with the feeling that it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the worldall getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly -buildingquite frightening. ItOf course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's human beings m reading someone who fascinate me: knows what they're talking about or the technology and the world scape are purely incidentallatest conspiracy theorist. So, what did I think of needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, way I loved itcould understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405951184Sunny Singh|title=The Girls Who Disappeared|author=Claire DouglasHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeThrillers |summary=Back The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in November 1998, Olivia Rutherford was driving her three friends home after an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a night outterrorist group. As she passed Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through the darkly-wooded Devil's Corridor, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a figure appeared in wartime photographer and Abhi, the roadhotel manager. Olivia swerved As Abhi continues to try to avoid him and care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the car smashed into hotel, he forms a treebond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, leaving and keeps on venturing out of her trapped. When she regained consciousness room to try to capture what's happened through her three friends had disappearedphotography. Ralph MiddletonAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, who lived in the woods helped their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her before the police keep safe and ambulance arrived. But what had happened they both wait to Sally Thorne, Tamsin Cole and Hetty Riding? Their disappearance would see if they will be yet another mysterious happening in rescued before they are discovered by the Stafferbury area of Wiltshire. It was thought of as Avebury's poor relationterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=39496660791529153298|title=NoemaThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Dael AkkermanJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She'This is a story about some things s not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that happened her father wants to me about twelve thousand years agomove the family 'Down South'. When you'' Maya re from Yorkshire, Down South is a young girl living in a hunter-gatherer village during the Mesolithic erafrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Climate change is occurring For Miv, the Sea of Grass encroaches further move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and further into Mayashe'll do anything to prevent that. She's forest home, and food is becoming more and more scarce. What to do? Can not worried about the law givers in the federation of villages muster peaceful ways dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to cope? Can the Traveller, a spiritual figure who interprets the wisdom of All Life, provide solutions? anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=194241028X1398524085|title=Azabu Getaway (Detective Hiroshi)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Michael PronkoNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=''You can't put 'good Charlotte Salter was expected at golf' on your tombstone, can you?'' When we meet Patrick Walsh he's outside his familyher husband's home in the Azabu district of Tokyo, hoping that his key will still work fiftieth birthday party but prepared to break in if it doesn'tnever turned up. He's there to remove his daughtersHer children, sons Niall, Jenna Paul and KiriOllie and her daughter, and take them back to HonoluluEtty. It's a quick day tripare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, with just one purpose in mindis not. Patrick's employed by Nine Dragons Wealth Management Shortly afterwards, Etty and for Greg, find the past year, hebody of Greg's been working father, Duncan Ackerley, in Wyoming because the privacy laws there are conducive to the business he's inriver. His wife, Miyuki, hasn't been in Wyoming with him and is in It was an easy assumption for the process of divorcing him after photographs sent police to her anonymously suggested make that Patrick Duncan had not been faithful to hermurdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. PatrickThe Salter children are not convinced but there's plan didn't work out and he finds himself little else they can do but get on the run in Tokyo with the two girlstheir lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09SGWCXQ81035906708|title=The Night Watch (D S Max Craigie)Diva|author=Neil LancasterDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Fergus Grigor went out for a run. The lawyer was on his honeymoon We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but his body she was found dashed born to pieces below the cliffs at Dunnett Head. Was it suicideGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, or did he - for some reason - climb over the stone wall in December 1923 and fall only moved to his death? Or Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was he pushed? On balance, Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it looked like an accident but then his to 'accidentCallas' was linked to make it more manageable in the deaths of others associated with himStates. Scott Paterson When she was released after a 'notback in Athens -proven' verdict meant supposedly so that Scotland's most notorious criminal wasn't facing life imprisonment. Paterson she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was Grigor's last clientraised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0989715337Christopher Edge|title=Papa on the Moon|author=Marco NorthBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=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'Some frogs had gotten 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 next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the wellanswering beat in my heart.''
Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira'Walter stood waist-s father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the fragrant water, naked except for his beaten leather hatsea. Long strands of their eggs wove around himWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, sticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Two as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the dogs leaned over heart of the opening and barked down smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the strange noise future of her home and the buckets as he filled themones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{Frontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.''5|genre=Confident ReadersHow is that |summary= Things have been a bit sticky for an opening? The style of this novel in the form of interconnected short stories goes from succinct Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and laconic other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to wistful get used to all this technological change and musingstarting to think of other, turning on a sixpencenew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. And author Marco NorthLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it, who has all the most wonderful turn of phrase, starts as he means to go many daily social interactions onwhich they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=140639131XMatthew Tree|title=A Practical Present for Philippa Pheasant|author=Briony May SmithWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=Philippa Pheasant was ''tired'' of nearly getting squished as she tried to cross the Old Oak Road. She wrote Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to the mayor about the problem but didn't even get be different from his father, a reply. Philippa wasn't a bird to sit back on her tail feathers when there was a problem which needed solving: she saw the benefits drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of the lollipop lady being exceptional at the school crossing any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and decided that she would set up something similar herselfwho had endless crises of self confidence. Her uniform So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and lollipop stick were both a little amateur to start with set himself high but the benefits were obvious. All the animals used the crossing and Hedgehog was even trained up to provide a safe path overnightachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=000837936XA G Slatter|title=The Last Girl to Die|author=Helen FieldsBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.
|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529900360
|title=The Ghost Orchid
|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Seventeen-year-old Adriana ClarkeIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's family moved fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to Tobermory, ask for his help on the Isle of Mull, in search of a new lifedifficult cases. It was a bit His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a change from Las Vegas, but the family seemed determined and Adriana had shown signs of developing psychologist only worked for a social life - until she disappearedwhile. The local police demonstrated little interest in the case (could Finally, it have been because Adrianawas Robin, Delaware's mother is obviously Latino?) and Rob and Isabella Clarke called in Sadie Levesque from Banffpartner, who had successfully tracked down missing teenagersnudged Milo into asking for help again. Brandon, Adriana's twin, She knew that the involvement was upset and surly. Four-year-old Luna just knew something that the man she missed her big sisterloved needed. It took four daysThe next case did look simple, but Sadie found Adriana though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Mackinnon's CaveBel Air. She'd been murdered He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it looked like a ritual killing's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15098896121529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Rising Tide (D I Vera Stanhope)Secret Life of a Vet|author=Ann CleevesSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=ItSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father's fifty years since a group of teenagers went on a weekend retreat to Holy Islandlife. Some When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of them found the Only Connect course transformative and they've been coming back for doing work experience with a reunion every five years since then. There family friend who was a tragedy at the first reunion when Isobel Hall drove off the island too close to high tide vet and her car was swept away, but her younger sister, Louisa, has returned with convinced this was the group each year as her husband, Kenjob for him. Before long, he was one of the original teenagersat Liverpool University. Ken now has AlzheimerIt hadn's and t - as with so many students - been his dream since he's was a shadow of the man child. If anything, he used 'd wanted to be. Philip Robson now a priest, always gets there early as he likes to have some quiet time alone in the chapel. Annie Laidler lives locally and she provides much of the food: her deli is famous in the areaprofessional footballer.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14736808830861541774|title=The Skeleton KeyA Nye of Pheasants|author=Erin KellySteve Burrows|rating=54|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''The Golden Bones is going s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to follow me around for the rest of my lifemeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. How can I trust anyone? It all leads back to you!'' Nell didn't want to go to the reunion to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of ''The Golden Bones''. She'd had no benefit from it Maik was involved in a street brawl - in fact, it had made her life precarious and unbelievably challenging. I'd better explain. ''The Golden Bones'' he would later maintain that he was facing a treasure quest book painted man armed with a knife - and written by Frank and Cora Churcherhe killed a Ghurka. The story revolved around murdered Elinore whose golden and bejewelled bones were hidden around Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the countryman. The clues - some of them quite tortuous - were disguised in the words and pictures of Now he could be facing the book - and all the parts were discovered except for the pelvisdeath penalty. As with such quests, some people were obsessive Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and the theories became more and more outlandishwouldn't help Danny at all.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Holly WebbAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Story of GreenriverPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Silken The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and Sedge, for operating as an alternative to all their differencesthe online apps in providing a more personal, have a lot in commontailored service. Silken Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a girl whose father is the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenrivertrip to Canada to get away for a while. Unfortunately she Katie is also coming out of a kind of runt figure, and as break up with a result is patronisedbad boyfriend, and given so jumps at the most tokenistic tasks when it comes chance to fetching wood and shoring the dam up. She also stands out for the unique artistic ability come home to singEdinburgh. Otters like Sedge singAnd so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, but he toobringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, as the son of the lady of thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the holtIsabel Dalhousie novels, has pressure on him but with some new characters who quickly begin to be a bit less feckless and more attentive to classcharm. HeKatie has no experience in running a business, after allor in match-making, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters safe from the wolf that both animal species fear the mostbut Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and from dreaded events like there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a Dark Spring.hand…|isbn=15101096251846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anna Kemp and David Wyatt0811771741|title=Into Goblyn WoodInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrafts|summary=Meet Hazel. For the last nine of her eleven years, she has been stuck as a foundling in a horrid, Victorian institution, generally peeling vegetables or acting as a servant. SheMelissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'd arrived at the place at the same time as Pete, and they're inseparably good friends now, until gives us a chance for them both to escape, and enter the outside world, does not go collection of knits from toys to planblankets. There had always been the idea Some will be quick knits - others are of a life idyllic in the nearby forests, Goblyn Wood, and a tribe of Wild Children'long, but none of that comes to pass, as Hazel finds herself cosy afternoons in the care front of a professor at the Natural History Museumfire' variety. But life with him is not anything like what she might have expected it The projects are divided by the time they'll take to be – and Hazel is determined to return complete - less than five hours, five to the Woodsten hours, restore her friendship with Pete – and ten to work out just what is going on in the forest, both the light twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the shadeprojects are attractive, modern and the deathly darkuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky..|isbn=1398503835
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241990165Dean Koontz|title=Hope to Die (D I Fawley)|author=Cara HunterThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=It began rather oddlyBenny is having a terrifically bad day. There was a 999 call suggesting that a shot had been fired in an isolated He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house but the call hadn't come from the householdergets trashed. A couple of PCs went Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to make certain his home, and it's possible that everything whoever or whatever was alright and it took quite a while for inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the elderly householder very last person to answer the doordeserve all this bad luck. He somewhat reluctantly told them that they'd better come inis a nice person. A really nice person. In So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the kitchen there was delivery to his house is a new friend, a body on the floor: the head had bad weather friend called Spike, who has been blown off with a shotgun and the corpse was holding sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a knife in its right handgood person. Richard Swann told the police that he'd heard sounds Spike is going to take care of an intruder Benny, and had come downstairs to investigate. The ignorant young lout had called him ''Grandad'will certainly take care of Benny' s enemies, if he, Benny, and come at him with Harper (a knife. Swann had shot him in self-defencewaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Kit De WaalAdam Stower|title= Without Warning Murray and Only SometimesBun|rating= 4.5|genre= AutobiographyConfident Readers |summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put itMurray is supposed to be a humble, “They f*** you uptidy and friendly cat, your mum one who is able to sleep and eat and dad/ They may not mean toeat and sleep and, well, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea whatever takes his fancy next of parenthood and the bonds that bind familytwo. This book is But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a memoir focussing on hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the author’s formative years as a teenager living in regular back garden, but into a lower class area world of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family for becoming pregnant by frightening adventure and marrying a black manwhiffs. This intersectionality plays time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her racetroll hunter is expected – well, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with careone much bigger than Murray was, loveto be honest, but he's turned up and the kind of anger only a child can express he'll have to their parents.do…|isbn=14722848360008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David LagercrantzB0C47LV1PC|title=Dark MusicFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=34|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=How far from the original can Can you make a book allegedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes get before ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the allusion breaksquestion should you make it? This does have a wonder-mind at Or is the heart of what little investigating is going onquestion if you did, but there would it land? The catch is not a lot that Conan Doyle fans the answer for both could really pin down as on their exact wavelengthwell be.... For one, the main focus of the narrative, Micaela, is no John Watson MD. She ''Fragility''s a Chilean in the Stockholm police, put on a murder squad is set as she knows the prime suspect of old, in a case where a referee city of a junior football match was found stoned to death shortly after the matchPortland, and just outside the stadium. BeppeOregon, the suspect, was drunkenly antagonistic cautiously begins to emerge from the ref restrictions imposed during the closing minutes, but refuses to admit anything, through days and weeks of interrogation. When some disreputable coppers (the kind who dismiss anything their superior comes up with, the kind who think they can judge Micaela from her fringe and how she might dress – that kind) are told to go and see what brainbox Professor Rekke thinks of it all, she can only smirk when he says Beppe is innocent and the investigation is a shambles. But taken off the case, she can no longer help solve the crime, and with Rekke the most erratic, irregular kind of guy, she can't get his full verdict on it all. Until, that may be, she manages to stop him in the middle of an apparent suicide attempt...|isbn=1529413192covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0B2N7MVYM1529431735|title=The Calculations of Rational MenWinter Visitor|author=Daniel GodfreyJames Henry|rating=54|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the 10th of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marrmore surprising. Just to put what happens in context, He'd been exiled on the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh in people's mindsCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The world return has barely come about because he's had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marrletter from his ex-wife, it's not the missile crisis saying thatshe's at the front of his mind. Heill and hasn's been convicted of murdert long to live. With the current state of medical knowledge, itIt's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days in HMP Queen's Benchfeel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, a relatively new prison. He's just getting used stripped to his roommate, Mervyn, underwear and learning sent to be wary a watery grave in the boot of the McArthur brothersa stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Patch Eli is a little girl who has been passed from one relation to another, until it seems that there is nobody left for her to go to. Her father died when she was very youngbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and her mother ran awayin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. The family lawyer, after consultation Eli lives with ‘someone’his lovely gran, arranges too – for her to go to there is a school generation missing in Liverpoolthe family. A few short years ago, but on her arrival thereEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, she gets caught up a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in an adventure with the company of a little boy called Turo who works on a steamshipmagical beast. During a chase with him (when she is both trying This has made the race anathema to get her rollerskate back and running away from the police!) she winds up on pair – but when a bad incident at the steamship hiding in eatery leads to a lifeboatconfession from gran, and before she Eli knows ithis only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the ship has left sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the docks and she is an accidental stowaway!only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=05713631210571382231
}}
