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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1804545600Sylvie Cathrall|title=The Monk|author=Tim SullivanA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008517061
|title=Death in a Lonely Place
|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=The body Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Little Sky. There’s perhaps a little uncertainty about the future of his life with his vet girlfriend, Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in the woods near Bristol was together would mean a nasty shock lot of compromise: does Jake give up his off- a monk strapped grid and relaxing life to a chair and dumped move in a ditch. He'd been savagely beaten. It's a while before D S George Cross and the Major Crime Unit establish that with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is Father Dominic. He'd been missing the future she wants for a few days herself and certainly hadn't asked permission to leave his abbey. her daughter? As For the team gradually unpick moment they’re enjoying life in the monk's past it becomes clear that he'd been well-loved as an investment banker, brother, neighbour present and friendputting the future on the back burner. He'd also been very wealthy but had given it all up for his faith. Why would someone savagely murder him?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lauren Bravo1786482126|title=PrelovedThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary= Gwen is pressing her middleBuilders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments -aged bosom on when they discovered the bones of a big number child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, but Nelson doesn't, that starts she is pregnant with his child as a four and ends with an oh-my-God-Iresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. Her condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008551324|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It'm-nearly-fortys unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Having been made unexpectedly redundant - Neither side likes or has any HR officer worth their salt would argue respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the toss - Gwen finds herself having a bit body of a mid-life crisismissing person is buried and who was responsible for her death. Catharsis This person, he promises, is key someone big and Gwen has decided now 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 time remainder of his sentence and to take back her lifeget an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she's 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'|isbn=1398510629s happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Cath Howe0008405026|title=My Life on FireA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=RenIt's family home is destroyed in 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 firehalt. SheNow, her parentsmother, Helena, and her little brother lose everythingfather are dead in their bed. She doesn't have any of her clothesInitially, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmotherit looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat something about the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that positioning of the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things bodies that are important to them makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and show who they are as a personher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. But Ren has nothing What looked as though it was going to put in be an open-and-shut case is now a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal thingscomplex double murder. Small things, things Kerrigan is convinced that people might not really missthe explanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, not when they have so much alreadyUna Burt) are less convinced. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=1839942835
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085170100571379877|title=Death Under a Little SkyThe Kellerby Code|author=Stig AbellJonny Sweet|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The marriage had run its courseEdward Jevons is a working-class young man, obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. It might have been different if the pregnancies hadnRobert't ended in miscarriages but no one else was involved - certainly not on Jakes a theatre director. He's side also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and he didn't think there was entitled and uses Edward to run errands for Faye eitherhim. They were still polite to each other Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and wished each other well - but didnhe't wish s drunkenly confided how he feels to remain marriedRobert. The perfect solution arrived Most men in the form of Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or tell Edward that a legacy from Jakerelationship had begun between them but he's Uncle Arthur. He'd been not like most men: Edward is left a secluded property in to stumble upon the hamlet two of Caelum Parvum - Little Sky - and enough money to live there without the need to workthem kissing in a dark passageway.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jennifer SaintJo Callaghan|title=AtalantaLeave No Trace|rating=54|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=''I was as worthy as any one When a man is found crucified on the top of them. I would get on board that shipa hill in Nuneaton, I vowed. I would take my placeDCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, not just in the name of the goddessAI detective Lock. It was for the sake of my name's their first live case together, toohaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. Atalanta'' Princess. Warrior. Lover. Hero. Abandoned at birth for being born But when there is a daughter rather than second body found crucified a sonfew days later, Atalanta Kat is raised under the protective eye of the goddess Athemis suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventurevery high profile case that draws a lot of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing project. When the opportunity comes – Will they be able to join solve the Argonautscase in time, a fierce band of warriors, descendent from or will Kat find herself taken off the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the chance to fight in Artemis' name case and carve , potentially, out her own legendary place in history. What follows is of a whirlwind of challenges and discovery and through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.career?|isbn=1472292154139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=152915118X1399613073|title=Pineapple StreetMoral Injuries|author=Jenny JacksonChristie Watson
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=''Pineapple Street'' is Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the story first day of three women: Sasha, Darley medical school and Georgianatheir friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Darley and George are sisters and Sasha Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is married a bonus when you aim to their brother Cordbe a cardiothoracic surgeon. They're Stocktons, only Sasha isn't Laura is a perfectionist and a Stockton by birth so she isn't readily accepted into the tribetrauma doctor. The problem's exacerbated when Anjali is the free spirit of the clan matriarch, Tilda, asks Cord group and Sasha if she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they'd like to move into the Pineapple Street property. Tilda re at a drug and Chip have renovated alcohol-fuelled party and downsized it's going to another property, a street or so away, which they ownend in tragedy. They wonWe don't need any of know who suffered the tragedy or the furniture from Pineapple Street, so Sasha and Cord can move straight inconsequences. Nominally, they had a choice but Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that wasn't will impact the realitythree friends. Darley and Georgiana start to call Sasha 'the gold digger'. SheThis time, it's living in ''their'' family home. They use it so often that they abbreviate it to 'the GD'teenage children who are involved.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085512780241636604|title=Blood Runs Cold (D S Max Craigie)The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Neil LancasterGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Affi Smith was snatched from It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the bottom of Fyrish, English country village where she'd been doing her traininggrew up. She'd been a bit s back now because of a wayward teenager until she discovered athletics - and it now looks as though she could be heading request for the national squadhelp from her beloved aunt, Carole. ThatFreya's former mentor and Carole's quite an achievement for someone with her background: you seeclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, Affo came to Scotland from Albania as Afrodita Dushku at say the age of twelveleast. She Arthur was rescued when the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she was carrying a kilo of drugs and three years later has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she's happy with her foster familyloved. There's just one cloud on her horizon: her little sisterAfter the split, Melodi is she worked in a children's home in Tirana - cafe, met and anyone could get to married James (on the rebound from the love of herlife, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emily TeshAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Some Desperate GloryAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''While Earth's children live, Opening up new ways of thinking about the enemy shall fear usshape of things to come.''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sunny Singh|title=Hotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=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 terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=08615440561529153298|title=Twin TruthsThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jacqueline SutherlandJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Belle and DavidIt's twin daughters are just coming to the end of their first term at university1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) KitShe's been at Bristol and Jessnot what's worrying Miv's in Exeterfamily, though. It's not only the first time Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been away from their parents for any length of time - murdered, but theyto have 'disappeared' doesn've also been apart from each othert sound quite so frightening. Belle canMiv's upset because she't wait s overheard that her father wants to have them all to herself for move the family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a whilefrightening, foreign place, best avoided. Then Kit rings up - can For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she bring her boyfriend home with her? Belle would prefer that he didn't come but doesn't want ll do anything to upset Kitprevent that. IvoShe's apparently 'older': henot worried about the dangers or that her Mum's twentystopped talking -four to Kit's eighteen but Belle figures that she can cope with that. And they'll be sharing a bedroomanyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17856334571398524085|title=Charging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric CarHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Clive WilkinsonNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=TravelCrime|summary=Clive Wilkinson has a history of travelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travelCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. As he neared his eightieth birthday Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the idea body of exploring Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the edges of England in river. It was an electric car was not totally outrageous. In fact, it should be a pleasant holiday easy assumption for Clive the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and his wife, Joan, shouldnthen committed suicide when he couldn't it?stand the guilt. 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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Frederic Seager1035906708|title= Jesus, the Man and the Myth: A Jewish Reading of the New TestamentDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre= Spirituality and ReligionGeneral Fiction|summary= I We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was brought up born to Greek parents in a family where religion played little or no part. Culturally Irish Catholic on one side and Welsh Methodist on the otherManhattan, New York, nobody really discussed religion in December 1923 and the adults around me ranged from lapsed only moved to agnostic Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to atheist'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. Other than When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the odd church wedding or baptism or the school nativity playNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, I didn't think too much about faith or what people did or didn't believeJackie.|isbn=B092BWWG9Y
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571370977Christopher Edge|title=The Lock-Up|author=John BanvilleBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)Confident Readers|summary=It's six months since the dramatic events which we read about in [[April in Spain by John Banville|April in Spain]] Lucas and Dr Quirke is now back his friends are all booked in Dublin and living (if somewhat uneasily) with his daughterfor a movie marathon at their local cinema, Phoebe. The worst of his grief is over but he irrationally blames DI St John Strafford for what happened and this a place that has made the already strained relationship between them more difficultnickname of 'The Black Hole'. TheyAll big movie fans, they're brought together by Chief Inspector Hackett when the body looking forward to lots of a youngexciting films, and many, Jewish scholarmany snacks! However, Rosa Jacobsas the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is found in a lock-very different, and they are swept upinto an adventure they couldn't even imagine. At firstBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, it looked as though she'd gassed herself but Quirke can they figure out what on earth is convinced that it was murder rather than suicide.going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Julia BartzRachel Greenlaw|title=The Writing RetreatCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary= Roza Vallo''I can hear the song of the sea. Anyone The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the world of publishing knows rocks and plundering the namewrecks. Writers want to be Mira, like her mother before her, agents want is one of the seven who swim out to represent hersurvey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. SheBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's something of leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a legend bargain with an impressive, if compact, back catalogue of works that started a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her breakthrough novel, published when she was barely out sets off in search of childhooda family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. AlexWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, a writer-slash-editoras her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, is more than Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{Frontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been a little obsessed with Rozabit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and is stunned when, following a series 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 unexpected eventsother, she is invited new ways to be part of her month-long writers' retreatspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=08615444391736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Patrick Ness and Tea BendixMatthew Tree|title=Different for BoysWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens Literary Fiction|summary=Ant is in Year Eleven at quite a standard school, and is surprised Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to find be different from his geography class (within which it seems absolutely nothing about geography is ever learnt) has been restructuredfather, so his desk is one a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of four with both his best buddy from the football team, artistic passions all failed miserably and two other old muckers – in fact they all go back to primary school days togetherwho had endless crises of self confidence. As they're all fired up, straining at the leash only a single-sex school can form, the talk in class and out often turns So Tim applied himself to sex. Which is confusing for Anthis studies, as he doesn't know what cultivated his score is, where abilities rather than his achievements in that regard lie. He's had a casual relationship, a secret one, for several months now, daydreams and so has effectively progressed up the ladder headed by 'experienced', set himself high but whether that's set in stone, he can't be sure. And that's mostly because of who he's been having the relationship and the sex withachievable ambitions.|isbn=1529509491B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=M R CareyA G Slatter|title=Infinity GateThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=Science FictionFantasy|summary= I'm annoyingly picky when it comes ' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to science fictionmyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. Not because I just want to enjoy itfor a while.'s ' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a genre I dislike – nothing town under the protection of the sort. My standards are high precisely because itBriar's , a hard genre 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 get right – 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 when itpotions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's badcousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, itthe town's often terribleleader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. But As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the premise heart of a maelstrom of Infinity Gate had me hookedchaos. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it was done wellReeling from one family secret to another, itEllie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches'd be fantastic. So this legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is where I sum up that premiseunder threat.|isbn=03565180431803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=13985095821529900360|title=The FavourGhost Orchid|author=Nicci FrenchJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was 2 am, not long hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after A levelsAlex recovered, when Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the car crash happenedhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. It would cause problems Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for Liam Birch but then no one could really understand why he and Jude Winter were togetherhelp again. She knew that the involvement was utterly driven by her determination to go to medical schoolsomething that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Liam was Two lovers were murdered in the reverseswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He just acted ''as if life just rolled him over was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and carried him along'it's not the Italian. A bit of weed here, a few drinks there: the legal effects But which of them was the car crash really didn't worry him at all. The relationship broke up soon after that - or rather, Liam simply didn't see Jude any more.primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=08570517411529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Sins Secret Life of Our Fathers: A Rebecka Martinsson Investigationa Vet|author= Asa Larsson and Frank Perry (Translator)Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Lars Pohjanen has only Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a few weeks GP and Rowlands didn't want to live but follow in his footsteps, particularly when heconsidered the strain that being on-call put on his father's determined that Rebecka Martinsson is going to investigate life. When he was seventeen he took the case opportunity of doing work experience with a body found in family friend who was a freezer at vet and was convinced this was the home of a deceased alcoholicjob for him. The problem is that the case has Before long passed the statute of limitations. Raimo Koskela disappeared without a trace in 1962. He , he was the father of Olympic boxing champion Borje Stromat Liverpool University. Rebecka wants nothing to do It hadn't - as with a fiftyso many students -year-old case on which she can take no action: the problem is that this is been his dream since he was a dying man's wishchild. The situation changes when If anything, he'd wanted to be a post-mortem establishes that Henry Pekkari, the dead alcoholic, was also murderedprofessional footballer. Is there a connection between the two deaths?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Robert Dugoni0861541774|title=Her Deadly GameA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary= Patrick Duggan & Associates has been the lifeDCI Domenic Jejeune's work of Patsy Duggan – rather charmingly nicknamed 'The Irish Brawler' due close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to his reputation for no holds barred courtroom performances meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in defence of his clientsa street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Along with an indisputable talent for the lawInitially, Patsy also has he faced a gift for drinking himself charge of manslaughter but evidence came to oblivion and inevitably the latter was beginning light that suggested that he might have planned to overshadow murder the formerman. Enter Keera Duggan, former competitive chess prodigy and proven Seattle Prosecutor who finds herself in Now he could be facing the hideous position of asking her father for death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a job diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at the family firm because a romantic entanglement with a senior colleague, Miller Ambrose, had gone, rather spectacularly, southall.|isbn=1662500181
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Rob KeeleyAlexander McCall Smith|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other StoriesPerfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley The Perfect Passion Company is back a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a return bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to the short Edinburgh. And so begins this new story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to eleven an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new talescharacters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, each as fun to read as his previous offerings.lend a hand…|isbn= B0BVW69N1G1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Michael Grothaus0811771741|title=Beautiful Shining PeopleInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre= Literary FictionCrafts|summary= Melissa Leapman's 'But fearing something and having it come 'InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to pass blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are two different thingsof the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. And I The projects are divided by the time they'm willing ll take to bet most of what we fear will never happencomplete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, or we can take steps ten to change ittwenty 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' ''Beautiful Shining People'but that' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be humans me being picky. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.|isbn=191458564X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09BLBP3P8Dean Koontz|title=Neville Chamberlain's War: How Great Britain Opposed Hitler, 1939-1940|author=Frederic SeagerThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=HistoryParanormal|summary=Received wisdom Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and simplified narrative often lead someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to misconceptions about history. One such his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the scrubbing from the popular imagination of the early days of World War II from 1939-40thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, known as Benny is the ''Phoney War''very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. We remember Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, war breaking outa bad weather friend called Spike, and Churchill coming in who has been sent to save the dayhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Very little time Spike is spent on this period in cultural reflections going to take care of Benny, and yetwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, as Frederic Seager argues in this bookBenny, it was of vital significance in how the war played and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure outwho exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760378134Adam Stower|title=The First-Time Gardener: Container Food Gardening|author=Pamela FarleyMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Home and FamilyConfident Readers |summary=If you've ever thought how good it would be Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to pop out into the garden sleep and eat and eat and pick some fruit sleep and vegetables for a meal – but realised that you wouldn't know where to start, this is well, whatever takes his fancy next of the book you needtwo. ItBut he's comprehensive: youa bad magician'll cover everything from why you should grow your own foods cat, what you're going to growso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, what you'll grow it in (and the catflap they both containers and soil)use can chuck them out, where you'll put these containersnot into the regular back garden, how you'll water but into a world of frightening adventure and fertilise them and you finish the main part of the book with a handy section on troubleshootingwhiffs. There's also a good glossary. So, is This time round it any good?}}{{frontpage|isbn=1803363002|author= Eric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary= Horror taps drops them into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and process them. Most horror fiction feature Viking land, where a ''Big Bad'', whether that troll hunter is a home invaderexpected – well, a monster or a ghostone much bigger than Murray was, it usually something tangible andto be honest, by the end of the story, beatable. Eric LaRoccabut he's turned up and he''The Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the horrors of illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and are harder ll have to defeat than any ''Big Bad''.do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Amelia Estelle DellosB0C47LV1PC|title=Delilah RecoveredFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary= We meet Dee at Can you make a point when her life isn't going as planned but things might, just might, be about to look up. Out of work'Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, about to lose her flat, Dee is up for an accountant's job. But the question should you make it's not to be. Dee ? Or is attacked by two men calling themselves witch hunters. She survives the attack but not unscathed. Witch huntersquestion if you did, would it land? What on earth has The catch is that to do with Dee? She's just an ordinary woman, living an ordinary lifethe answer for both could well be. Slivers of memory of things that are not ordinary at all return to her and things will never be the same...no.|isbn=B0BKYFDLLV''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084049761529431735|title=The Close (DS Maeve Kerrigan)Winter Visitor|author=Jane CaseyJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was because of Rula Jacques that DS Maeve Kerrigan 's February 1991 and DI Josh Derwent were living together in Jellicoe CloseEssex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. If you He're a regular reader of d been exiled on the [[Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan series in Chronological Order|Maeve Kerrigan series]] you'll have read that sentence twice and wondered if it's Costa del Sol as a massive spoiler because there is wanted drug smuggler for a delicious sexual chemistry between the two which seems very, very realdecade. But (thereThe return has come about because he's always had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she'but', isns ill and hasn't there?) Josh has a partner and he dotes on her son, even if the relationship with Melissa can be a little rockylong to live. As for Maeve, sheIt's just come out hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the boot of an abusive relationship which has left her more than a little uncertainstolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Merryn GloverAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Hidden Fires|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary= It is always about the book, not the writer, but there are times when the author's hinterland is also the background to the book and so it is necessary to understand that context, in order to appreciate the book. Merryn Glover 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 Glorious Race of Shepherd, but in her spirit. I think the two would have gotten along famously.|isbn=1846975751}}{{Frontpage|author=Alice M Ross|title=The Nowhere ThiefMagical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=At last there Eli is new stock a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and her mother run in the evening a seaside townhelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen itEli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found outA few short years ago, because she has Eli's parents were both lost to the ability to leave this worldtitular race, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to enter other worlds, where navigate the sea levels are rising dramatically and world in the buildings are generally empty company of humans and ripe for plundera magical beast. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything This has made the race anathema to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, pair – but when a bad incident at the fact eatery leads to a mysterious man confession from gran, Eli knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres his only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529504775|title=The Toy Bus (The Repair Shop Stories)|author=Amy Sparkes and Katie Hickey|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Elsie and her little brother David loved hope is to go dare to the park and watch the red buses drive past. Elsie would race the buses along the side of the park but David couldn't - enter what he'd been born most hates, with cerebral palsy and even just standing up was very difficult. One day Elsie spotted a bus in the toy shop window which would help David - and was happy to use sole aim the coins from her money box to pay for it as cash was tight prize of magic at home. Gradually, David learned to stand up, use the bus for support, and walk behind it. Many decades later, Elsie brought end – the bus, now damaged and rusted, only thing to the Repair Shop, hoping that the experts there could make it so that her grandchildren could play with itpossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
}}
