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=='''24 JUNE9 MAY'''==
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786332388Tom Percival|title=The First Day of Spring|author=Nancy Tucker|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and ''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasion. The writing is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let go. So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is Chrissie, the main character. When we first meet her she's just eight years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized up. There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?}} =='''1 JULY'''=={{Frontpage|author=Darren Shan|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The second trilogy in ShanWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'Merge, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in t have enough money for even the world most basic of the Born. It's not been easythings like food, explaining to and his foster parents where dad can't work because he's beenlost his job at the college, or slipping back was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into ordinary life that mix the fact that his mum and forgetting about Inez dad are separated, and his other friends in the MergeWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, but Archie he still has done his best...a tiny amount of hope. well He is good at art, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling with clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayfeel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1398527122
}}
=='''23 MAY'''==
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterOnyi Nwabineli|title=The House on the Edge|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Faith's family home is teetering on the edge of a cliff, literally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faith's family. Her dad has disappeared, and her mum is struggling to cope, barely leaving her bed. So that leaves Faith in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to school, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.|isbn=1788008626}} =='''8 JULY'''=={{Frontpage|author=Hannah Peck|title=Kate on the Case|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at that. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, and the author of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to the Arctic, Allow Me to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonks. However, this is a train ride with a difference, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist...|isbn=184812970X}} =='''13 JULY'''=={{Frontpage|author=Sarah Langan|title=Good NeighboursIntroduce Myself
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= If you're of a certain vintageAnuri spent her childhood on display to the world, it's hard thanks to read the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a singher step-song mother Ophelia''thats increasingly popular presence on social media, where she posted every step of Anuri's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''childhood for sponsorships and influencer deals and, basically, monetary gain. Maple Street Now Anuri is no Ramsay Streetin her twenties and she is slowly trying to regain her confidence and to get her life back, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from suing her step-mother to take down the Melbourne suburbscontent about her. They're one of 18 households on the crescent Anuri is battling alcoholism, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rockerfailing to start her PhD, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends undergoing therapy and their kids have settled in, secretly abusing people online and it's all going okreceiving money from them for doing so. Until it isn't. One hot Most importantly, clammyshe is desperately worried about her little sister, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in who is the park across the way. Itnew focus of Ophelia's a revolting mess of dirt online empire. Can she save her sister, and perhaps herself and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, her relationship with her father at the worst is yet to come.same time?|isbn=17890982110861546873
}}
=='''14 JULY4 JUNE'''==
{{Frontpage
|author=Eshman SmithStuart Douglas|title=Word of Another NatureLowe and Le Breton Mysteries - Death at the Dress Rehearsal
|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyCrime|summary=During location filming for his 1970's sitcom 'Why does mass protest continually fail to fundamentally change thedirection Floggit and Leggit', leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the dead body of a woman on the modern world?'' This is the question Eshman Smith asks in Word edge of an Other Naturea reservoir. He's right The police seem happy to wonder since we assign it as humans often seem to be making an accidental death, but something about the whole thing bothers Lowe, and he enlists the help of a pretty bad job of our efforts fellow actor, John Le Breton to create a world of peacehelp him investigate matters further. They travel across the country during their days off filming, stability uncovering more possible murders and prosperity for all, seemingly, a link to death during the Second World War. But is there really a link between the deaths? And will they manage to uncover who is responsible before more people lose their lives?|isbn=B093B2L1Z41803368209
}}
=='''15 JULY6 JUNE'''==
{{Frontpage
|author=Emily Critchley|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}} =='''22 JULY'''=={{Frontpage|author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)|title=Girls Who Lie|rating=3|genre=Thrillers|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before now. You think, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranes, Kieran Larwood and finding it's only twenty kilometres from the capital city, that this author is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because the book aims for the usual smallJoe Todd-town feel, it's not just in Akranes that our interests lie. Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date evening, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl back, and a couple of delighted adopters. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the woman's car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six months, the body has been discovered, in a third, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in her body. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?|isbn=191319373X}}{{Frontpage|author=Claire NorthStanton|title=Notes from the Burning AgeDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or FlemingMeet Kit. However, as with Like most of the best novelspeople in his world, it wears many masks and its most affecting one seems, he is that an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a new team of warrior, mage and timely genrehealer enter specially prepared, clicentury-fiold, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or climate change fictionthe big bad and the points they grant you along the way. North Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's novel tells seen of a world devastated by climate change where humans have the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been forced to start anew retired, eaten, and live alongside nature without any a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the modern goading from the token bully of his world and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming)stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. There is a growing unhappiness with What chance does this limiting worldfriendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims how could he possibly hope to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.succeed?|isbn=03565147571839945184
}}
=='''3 AUGUST13 JUNE'''==
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1635866847|title=Archibald Lox The Lavender Companion|author=Jessica Dunham and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Terry Barlin Vesci
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersLifestyle|summary=So. Having done the impossible and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten CryptIt's strange, from which the Departed communicate with things that make you ''immediately'' feel that this is the Merge, Archie now has book for you. Before I started reading ''gropThe Lavender Companion'' to think about, I visited the author's [https://www. But before that, soireespinelavenderfarm. Soirees! Archie, much to Inezcom/ website] and there's amusement, doesna picture of a slice of chocolate cake on the homepage. I don't even know what one of those iseat cakes and desserts - but I wanted that cake viscerally. But he manages to come through (There's a recipe in the fancy party unscathedbook, even after an uncomfortable encounter which I'm avoiding with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez some difficulty!!) Then I started reading the book and I was crushed told to make a mess of it. Notes in the first volume margins are sanctioned. You get to fold down the corners of pages. You suspect that smears of butter would not be a problem. I ''loved'' this seriesbook already. |isbn=B093J9TF73
}}
=='''5 AUGUST4 JULY'''=={{Frontpage|author=John Boyne|title=The Echo Chamber|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|isbn=0857526219}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Louise CandlishMax Boucherat|title=The HeightsLast Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=JuliaWe meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, our prebabysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-teen heroinebreaking eleven year old, has been packed off with on her parents and their cat from the family home lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summerblanket fort, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikingsshe has one main intention, and that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating log on to Voxminer, the lanternworld-building, which critter-collecting game that is his specialist thinga hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, while mum will and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be leaving her career in algae behind able to hunt the elusive Greenland sharkenter shows signs of tampering. And JuliaWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.where is a girl to turn?|isbn=15101077890008666482
}}
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