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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|author=Merryn GloverSylvie Cathrall|title=The Hidden FiresA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=TravelScience Fiction|summary= It is always about the book, not the writer, but there There are times when the author's hinterland is also the background to the few greater joys than a book and so it is necessary which lives up to understand that context, in order to appreciate the booka compelling premise. Merryn Glover And this is of Australian parentage, was born in Kathmandu, grew up in the Annapurna and Himalayan and now lives in Badenoch in Scotland. I can think of no-one better a combination to give us a re-appraisal of Nan Shepherds work than the first Writer in Residence in the Cairngorms National Park. Merryn walks, not so much in the shadow of Shepherd, but in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famouslythem.|isbn=18469757510356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alice M Ross0008517061|title=The Nowhere ThiefDeath in a Lonely Place|author=Stig Abell|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has stolen itsettled into his rustic life at Little Sky. She also knows she should be free from worries There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this worldfuture of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worldsher daughter Diana, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty as moving in together would mean a lot of humans compromise: does Jake give up his off-grid and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to actually generate custom at Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the shopfuture she wants for herself and her daughter? Well yes, is For the moment they’re enjoying life in the present and putting the answer, but future on the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769back burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15295047751786482126|title=The Toy Bus Janus Stone (The Repair Shop StoriesDr Ruth Galloway)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie HickeyElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Elsie and her little brother David loved to go Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the park and watch the red buses drive pastbones of a child beneath a doorway. Elsie would race the buses along the side of the park but David couldn't - he'd been born with cerebral palsy and even just standing up There was very difficultno skull. One day Elsie spotted Was this a bus in the toy shop window which would help David - and was happy to use the coins from her money box to pay for it as cash was tight at homeritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. GraduallyIt's difficult as Ruth knows, David learned to stand upbut Nelson doesn't, use that she is pregnant with his child as a result of the bus for support, and walk behind itone night they spent together some three months ago. Many decades later, Elsie brought the bus, now damaged and rustedHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to the Repair Shop, hoping that the experts there could make it so that her grandchildren could play with itsudden bouts of sickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18479418340008551324|title=Atomic HabitsThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=James ClearNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleCrime|summary=IIt've said this before but there are some books that you seek outs unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. This person, he promises, some books that you stumble across is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read themto get an early parole date. Not much to ask, like, right now! is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she'Atomic Habitss even prepared to do the other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what'' is in the last categorys happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Natasha Farrant0008405026|title=The Rescue of RavenwoodA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=This story is another excellent adventure It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''her bed one summer night. Ravenwood is an old house, in She was never found and the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their livesinvestigation ground to a halt. They are part of a complexNow, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leomother, and Raffy is there with his mumHelena, and they her father are living together as a familydead in their bed. They have grown up swimming in the coveInitially, roaming through it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the trees, completely at one with all positioning of the nature around the house bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and loving every inch of the placeher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the house explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is under threata working-class young man, as Leo is under pressure from obsessed with his other two brothers to sell the property to upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a developer as ittheatre director. He's becoming more also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and more expensive entitled and uses Edward to maintainrun errands for him. The children find themselves worrying not only about where theyEdward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he're going s drunkenly confided how he feels to live, Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but if theyhe'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn downs not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=0571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick BrooksJo Callaghan|title=Promise BoysLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime|summary=When a man is found crucified on the principal (headmaster) top of Urban Promise Prep school is murdereda hill in Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, three boys find themselves called into the police station as suspectsAI detective Lock. Each, seemingly, has a grudge of some description against Principal MooreIt's their first live case together, and each could have having previously been there at the time of his murdervery successful with several cold cases. But who killed himwhen there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and why, and if any a very high profile case that draws a lot of the boys are innocent, will unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. Will they be able to clear their namessolve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out of a career?|isbn=1035003155139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=G K Holloway1399613073|title=In the Shadows of CastlesMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical FictionThrillers|summary= We begin after the momentous battle in 1066 Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of William medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of Normandy's coronation as King of Englanda century. William's position Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is not secure and the new king has many challenges. Imposing authority through a coronation is importantbonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. And William Laura is right to worrya perfectionist and a trauma doctor. While the previous king, Harold, Anjali is dead and the likelihood free spirit of more pitched battles is over, the rebels are stirring group and much of the country does not wish to recognise she becomes a new overlord.|isbn=1800422466}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008506337|title=The Garnett Girls|author=Georgina Moore|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The love affair between Margo Garnett and poet Richard O'Leary was all-consuming, apparently on both sidesGP. Margo was just sixteen when When we first meet them they fell in love. Richard was twenty're at a drug and alcohol-one fuelled party and described by Margoit's mother as 'an older man'. Her parents worried that Richard's influence would take her away from what they felt she could achieve - going to Oxford and having a glittering careerend in tragedy. In We don't know who suffered the event, they eloped and Richard took her away from tragedy or the Isle of Wightconsequences. Margo did go to Oxford and went on to become a wellTwenty-respected journalist. The couple had five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three children: Rachel, Imogen and Sashafriends. Life was lived in London and holidays were spent at SandcoveThis time, the family home on the Isle of Wight. Even then the doubts about Richardit's drinking were never far from Margo's mind: ''she would never be able to leave him in charge''. Then Richard left themtheir teenage children who are involved.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Vanda Symon0241636604|title=Expectant (Detective Sam Shephard)The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Detective Sam Shepherd is approaching the start If you were to bring up an image of her maternity leave when there is a brutalcity banker in your mind, shocking murder you're unlikely to think of an expectant woman in Dunedinsomeone like Gary Stevenson. Suddenly she finds herself embroiled in A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the hunt for a killer targeting pregnant womenEast End, where he was familiar with all violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the extra pressure that entails being pregnant herselfLondon School of Economics. Finding herself put on desk duties, Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which she rails against, she just most of us can't let the case go and she starts only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to follow every thread to uncover be stupid. It was his ability at what's actually happeningwas, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, and the increasingly disturbing worry of just what might happen nextthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1914585577
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291259601035021803|title=Unnatural HistoryThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Jonathan KellermanC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Donny Klement was a photographer. Well, it was Adonis, actually, but Donny had stuck unless he got Danny but whichever - itIt's past tense as his PA found him dead in his bedtwenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. Three shots were placed neatly through his heartShe's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. The PAFreya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Mel GornickArthur Crockleford, is distraught dead and it falls the circumstances seem suspicious, to psychologist Alex Delaware say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to calm the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down whilst Lieutenant Milo Sturgis gets more agitated as he tries to establish what's happened. Donny had just finished a series of photographs called ''The Wishers''badly. He'd taken eight homeless people off the streets and asked them what Even though they'd really like were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to benear the man or pursue the profession she loved. They were then dressed up as their fantasyAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, photographed met and sent married James (on their way with a generous gift in dollarsthe rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Robin Birch and Jobe AndersonAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Secret Beast ClubAll Tomorrow's Futures: The Unicorns of Silver StreetFictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot 'Opening up new ways of thinking about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns shape of the world, for examplethings to come. Aisha '' I've heard it said that 'technology' is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out therewhat happens after you're eighteen. The problemWell, as their mothers see it, is I must confess that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world have been more than a few decades of Hackney, Londontechnology in my lifetime. But when a narrowboat turns I've kept up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and reasonably well with a past involving Jaydenwhat's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including advantageous to me but I'm left with the one Aisha thinks shefeeling that it's seen on a bit all getting away from me. Some of local footageit is - frankly - quite frightening. The crew of the boatOf course, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving I could research the rare critters – possibilities and the kids unknowingly have probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the magical sight needed to join inlatest conspiracy theorist. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, I needed people I knew I could trust and her relative who lives as a figure could deliver information in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|isbn=0241573483way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1913839656Sunny Singh|title=Let's Celebrate Being Different|author=Lainey DeeHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary=Todd was excited about spending The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the weekend with his grandmotherterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, not least because she made the best beetle juicehotel manager. He packed two pairs of dungarees and his favourite hat and then gathered together his button collection As Abhi continues to show his grandmother. She had promised to take him try to care remotely for the Friday Night Club at residents who are still alive in the local community centre hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and Todd was pleased about this as he wanted keeps on venturing out of her room to try to make new friendscapture what's happened through her photography. At homeAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, his only friend was his mum their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and he wondered why that could they both wait to see if they will berescued before they are discovered by the terrorists. Grandma thought that it might be because he looked different.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17873010361529153298|title=What July KnewThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Emily KochJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=When we first meet July Hooper on 20 July 1995 sheIt's just ten years old1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly.. .) She's a carefulnot what's worrying Miv's family, meticulous childthough. The care has Women have been taught by her fatherdisappearing. Well, Mick Hooperthey've been murdered, who is not prepared but to discuss the death of his wife, Julyhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's mother, and any hint overheard that her father wants to move the conversation family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is heading that way will lead to the necessity of a Lessonfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Other infractions of his requirements also lead For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to these Lessons and heprevent that. She's not even careful worried about whether the dangers or not the injuries are visible. Julythat her Mum's teacher is concerned and brings up the possibility of abuse with the head but her worries are dismissed: Mick has been good stopped talking - to the school, has he not? The playground wouldn't have been resurfaced but for himanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lucy Ashe1398524085|title=Clara and OliviaHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=The year is 1933. The place? SadlerCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's Wellsfiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Ballerinas Clara Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and Olivia are sistersher daughter, twins no lessEtty. Identical on the outside are all worried but not- strangely - her husband, we learnAlec, on the inside. And is not on stage, either. Because there's a lot that builds a dancer. Some things that can be taught or learnt – discipline Shortly afterwards, attention to detail – Etty and some thingsGreg, that ''je ne sais quoi'find the body of Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that donDuncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't come from stand the classroomguilt. A stage presence, a charm, a The Salter children are not convinced but there''joie de vivre''. The difference between a hard-worker, s little else they can do but get on with their lives and a starwonder about what really happened.|isbn=0861544080
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084544931035906708|title=All the Dangerous ThingsDiva|author=Stacy WillinghamDaisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Isabelle Drake hasn't really slept for a year - wellWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, apart from the odd occasion when but she lost track of time or drifted off for a moment. It's now a year since her sonwas born to Greek parents in Manhattan, MasonNew York, was stolen from his bed in the middle of the night December 1923 and Izzy is consumed with guilt that she heard nothing and particularly about her relief in the morning only moved to Athens when she thought he was sleeping inthirteen. In that year sheHer original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's done everything she could to raise awareness about make it more manageable in the caseStates. She does interviews and when we meet her, When she's just been to TrueCrimeCon where she gave a keynote presentation. On the plane was back, she's approached by a podcaster, Waylon Spencer, who points out in Athens - supposedly so that she could do a podcast and get to so many more people than appropriate training for her voice - she could was raised under the Nazi occupation by giving speeches to a few hundred people at conferencesmother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy GreeneChristopher Edge|title=Fritz and KurtBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their muckerslocal cinema, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market a place, helping that has the neighboursnickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, being dutiful when it comes they're looking forward to the synagogue choir lots of exciting films, and at a vocational school. many, many snacks! Kurt has to make sure However, as the lamps movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are turned on at their very Orthodox neighboursswept up into an adventure they couldn' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switcht even imagine. But this is as they lurch from one film genre to the time just before the Austrian leader next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to cave the cinema, and to Hitlertheir real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Rachel Greenlaw|title=Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''s will, and instead I can hear the song of the sea. The call of having a national vote to keep the Nazis outdeep, invite them the answering beat in with open armsmy heart. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, as did all survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the round-ups wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of Jewsthe seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. These in their turn leave But when the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation Council Watch lays a trap to Britain or end the USwrecking, while Fritz they capture the island's leader and his Mira's father are. Desperate to save him from death, unknown initially Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to each otherguide her, packed she sets off on in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the same train sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how heart of the titular event for smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the adult variant future of all this could come about…her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=024156574X0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529421241James Sherwood Metts|title=Stay Buried|author=Kate WebbPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=DI Matt Lockyer is on Major Crime Review which sounds quite grand until you realise that it's actually Things have been a cold case unit and there are just two of them doing bit sticky for the jobEarthlings. Lockyer's not unduly worriedAI and automation have been proceeding apace, though although heoften replacing jobs they's not quite so sure about DC Gemma Broad: she's probably capable re paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of something betterother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. It Life was a bit of a shock when he got the phone call from Hedy Lambert: she's in H M Prison Eastwood Park for murder - pretty much shut down and , along with it was Lockyer who put her there, fourteen years ago. She's keen to see him and to tell him that all the man everyone thought she'd murdered - but the body turned out to be someone else - has returned home after being away for decadesmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0BQXSYYTF
|title=Just Looking
|author=Matthew Tree
|title=We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian Literary Fiction|summary=It was the summer Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of 2035 and on a cruise ship in Marseilles, Jim was celebrating his new-found wealth artistic passions all failed miserably and the end who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to his marriage - not two celebrations generally found in the same sentence by a man! He's watching the tornado - they're more common in Europe these days - that's keeping the cruise ship in port and falls into conversation with Jean-Pierrestudies, a French journalist in cultivated his abilities rather than his thirties. He writes for a relatively new paper, the right-wing ''La Tribune Gauloise'' and he's interesting if a little wordy on subjects such as the difference between 'France' daydreams and 'the French'. His partner, Helen, who's English and Jewish, keeps him in check to some extentset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=057137493XA G Slatter|title=The Other Half|author=Charlotte VassellBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=''The room was full There's a part of the sort me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of people ''Tatler'' thinks you should knowmy own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.''
''The Other Half'' is Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the story protection of two menthe Briar's, both with what looks like a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the same surnameDarklands. Rupert Beauchamp Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the heir first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a baronetcy steward revolved around letters and his thirtieth birthday party is a catered-with-butler event at McDonalds in Camden Town. Think Bollinger administration rather than spells and cocainepotions. His surname is pronounced When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie'Beechams cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. Caius Beauchamp is a detective inspector As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the Metropolitan police and is bi-racial. His surname is pronounced as you see it. The two encounter each other when Caiusdead, out for putting her at the heart of a runmaelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, stumbles across Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the body of Clemmie OBriar witches'Haralegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, Rupert's girlfriend. Rupert thought that she was being deliberately late for his party. She was dead is under a bushthreat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joe Thomas1529900360|title=White RiotThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary= Whenever anyone writes fiction about politics thereIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's always the danger of making it too reactionary; too rawfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. Knee His assertions that there were only open-jerk observations and hot takes that don-shut cases which didn't age well or properly capture need the spirit help of the moment. It takes a truly talented writer to be able to capture the zeitgeist of psychologist only worked for a particular event or era of political historywhile. Austerity Britain Finally, the student riotsit was Robin, Donald TrumpDelaware's partner, Brexit – so much of what iswho nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, and has been, written though. Two lovers were murdered in the immediate aftermath swimming pool of these phenomena has been proven by time a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to be frothy an Italian shoe empire and insubstantial she is married to an extremely rich man and ultimately it's not particularly powerful or incisivethe Italian. Inevitably (and perhaps disappointingly for people who do enjoy fiction But which of this nature), the best writing about current political events is that which is written when them was the events in question are no longer current and when time and experience has afforded the writer the benefit of a more objective view.|isbn= 1529423376primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Heather FawcettSion Rowlands|titlerating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Emily WildeSiôn 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 Encyclopaedia life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of Faeriesdoing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a 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 former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=The Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Emily Wilde The Perfect Passion Company is an expert academic scholar on faerie lorea dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and she has travelled extensively, and researched meticulously, operating as an alternative to write her life's workall the online apps in providing a more personal, the very first encyclopaedia of faeriestailored service. Whilst Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she is brilliant at research could come and speaking to faerieslook after the business, she as Ness is not so good with peopleplanning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. So when she finds herself far, far North in the small village Katie is coming out of Hrafvsnika break up with a bad boyfriend, having somehow offended and so jumps at the village matriarchchance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, she is not sure what she has donebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, nor how thanks to redeem herself 44 Scotland Street and put her final investigations for her book back on the right trackIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Enter Wendell BamblebyKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her dashingly very helpful (and rather handsome and insufferable rival who arrives unexpectedly) neighbour, all charm and delightWilliam, much to Emily's frustration. But why is he here? What does he want? And what exactly is going on with the faerie folk around Hravsnik?lend a hand…|isbn=03565191201846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18484584360811771741|title=Just the Nicest CoupleInstaKnits for Baby|author=Mary KubicaMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's 'The whole thing has spiralled out of control, turning into someone I'm not.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'Just variety. The projects are divided by the Nicest Coupletime they'' is ll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the story of two couples: Christian and Lily Scottprojects are attractive, modern and Nina and Jake Hayesuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The connection between the two Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is that Lily and Nina teach in the same school: Nina teaches English having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and Lily covers high school algebrahis house gets trashed. The couples have mixed as Oh, and someone has delivered a foursome but really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's not possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a regular thingnice person. A really nice person. Christian So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a market research analyst and Jake new friend, 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 neurosurgeon: they don't have much in common except their wivesgood person. Lily hasn't said anything yetSpike is going to take care of Benny, but sheand will certainly take care of Benny's pregnant. She has enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a lengthy history of miscarriages so she doesnwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny't want to tempt fate by making the knowledge publics wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1914585402Adam Stower|title=Dashboard Elvis is Dead|author=David F RossMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers |summary=I reviewed David F RossMurray is supposed to be a 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 two. But he's book [[Therea bad magician's Only One Danny Garvey by David F Ross|There's Only One Danny Garvey]] cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a couple world of years back frightening adventure and remember being absolutely floored by how powerful and affecting whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was. It was a gripping, emotionally wounding readto be honest, but he's turned up and rereading my review of it my main takeaway was that I might not he'll have lavished enough praise on it.to do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178563335XB0C47LV1PC|title=Sea DefencesFragility|author=Hilary TaylorMosby Woods|rating=54
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=When we first meet Rachel Bird sheCan you make a 's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to pick the children up. Her husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a sobbing parishioner. ThelmaYo birthing person's daughter-in-law won't let her see her grandson. Holthorpejoke? And if you could, on is the Norfolk coast, question should you make it? Or is a lovely placethe question if you did, but Rachel would it land? The catch is struggling to develop a real bond with that the parish - and sheanswer for both could well be.... no. ''s in awe Fragility'' is set as the city of the vicarPortland, GailOregon, but then she's been doing cautiously begins to emerge from the job for more than thirty years. Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on restrictions imposed during the beach would do them some good - it was stormy but it was probably what they needed. And then Hannah went missing.covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hadeer Elsbai1529431735|title=The Daughters of IzdiharWinter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= Drawing inspiration from EgyptIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'return all the more surprising. He'The Daughters of Izdihar'' explores d been exiled on the lives of two women who could not be more different, yet find themselves fighting Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for the rights of women and weavers – those with magical abilities - in a society pitted against themdecade. Nehal The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, born into the upper class, wishes saying that she's ill and hasn't long to attend the Weaving Academy live. It's hard to learn feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to control her abilities his underwear and then join the military, but instead she is forced into an arranged marriage with Nico. Giorgina on the other hand did not have sent to a privileged upbringing like Nehal and feels great pressure to provide for her family and maintain their reputation, whilst secretly attending meetings of watery grave in the Daughters boot of Izdihar – a group campaigning for women's rightsstolen Ford Sierra. Giorgina also happens to be in love with Nico. What follows is Is it a story of an unjust society, filled with hypocrisy and cruelty, warning from which blossoms a group of admirable women fighting for their rights and overcoming their personal obstacles.|isbn=0356520471Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful The Glorious Race of SpyingMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]]visiting with him, Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy and as in the evening a master helper at all things French and fancy and fondant, as the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker dessert cafe his gran owns and icer on the French railwaysruns. HereEli lives with his lovely gran, we start on too – for there is a bateau-mouche generation missing in Paris, and even though the espionage isn't a complete success it proves to Alice and her handlers that things are afootfamily. And there will never be more feet than at the WorldA few short years ago, Eli's Fairparents were both lost to the titular race, reviving the huge expo that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing a globe-trotting adventure where all her interwar glories off entrants have to navigate the worldin the company of a magical beast. Once again Alice will have to present This has made the front race anathema to the world of being pair – but when a humble yet world-class cake decorator, while seeking out clues. At stake? Pioneering flight technology that bad incident at the enemy just cannot be allowed eatery leads to smuggle out…|isbn=1839940972}}{{Frontpage|author=Amanthi Harris|title=Beautiful Place|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= Padma, a young Sri Lankanconfession from gran, has returned Eli knows his only hope is to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as home. How she came dare to be at the Villa, how it became her homeenter what he most hates, and with the machinations that have flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide sole aim the ''score'' for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. Padma's present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score prize of a film, that strand weaves its way through everything that happens magic at the Villa.|isbn=1784631930}}{{Frontpage|author=Nigel Baines|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic|rating=4.5|genre=Emerging Readers|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a magician, and named Cooper after end – the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who only thing to be, or how to bepossibly save his gran. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|isbn=14449602610571382231
}}

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