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Book Reviews From The Bookbag (view source)
Revision as of 10:43, 24 November 2023
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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=In It's the village of Cronchie on 1990s and Greg Mason's twenty-eight years old. He used to have a high-flying job in the West coast city but it wasn't satisfying so he's now set himself up as a private investigator. 'Shades of ScotlandCameron Strike', five members of a wealthy family are found murderedyou might be thinking. The only item missing from Nice bloke, but where's the home is the Devil Stone: myth says life experience that if backs up this profession? On the stone is removed from Otterburn Houseother hand, death will followhe has been asked to look into something. The only suspects Joyce and Helen are known Satanists but half-sisters, or rather, they were until Helen was killed in many ways, thatwhat's been written off as a tragic accident at an easy conclusion given that two of them 'discovered' the bodyunmanned level crossing. The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears Joyce - and her parents, DCI Christine Caplan is pulled Oliver and Pam Hetherington - can't understand what she was doing there - or how she could come to fall in front of a train. Greg's been asked to 'shadow' himinvestigate.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kay ChronisterKatherine Howe|title= Desert CreaturesA True Account|rating= 4.5|genre= Dystopian General Fiction|summary= With a world that Hannah Masury is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanityliving in Boston, post-apocalyptic fiction can become having been sent to live with a family who run an almost masochistic thrillinn, and being made to work there from a young age. Whether it When she hears there is to be a robotic takeover, a world devoid hanging of water or a nuclear holocaustsome pirates in the town, this genre is a way for humans she decides to cathartically experience their most existential fearsgo and watch. Enthralled and horrified in equal measure, Hannah finds herself embroiled in a young boy's death at the hands of two vicious pirates. She hides away, so that they don'Desert Creaturest find and kill her too, and then to escape them completely she runs away to sea, dressing as a boy and joining the notorious Ned Low'' by Kay Chronister s pirate ship as a cabin boy. She soon finds herself in the thick of things when there is a new work of post-apocalyptic fiction that aligns many mutiny on board, and from there we are caught up in her rip roaring tale of life on the fears that exist for humanity today. It is a shocking novel that still manages to find hopeocean waves.|isbn=18033649980861547438
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher FowlerTananarive Due|title=Word MonkeyThe Reformatory
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyHistorical Fiction|summary= Gracetown, Florida. June 1950. After a scuffle with a white boy, twelve year-old Robbie Stephens Jr is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, otherwise known as the Reformatory. It's the first of August in the middle of a cool wet summer in East Angliaplace with a brutal and dark reputation. I decided not to swim at But the pool in favour segregated reformatory is a chamber of going to my beach hut. The weather closed inhorrors, rain arrived, and I decided not to do haunted by the boys that eitherhave died there. When I finished reading this book, I realised it was because (a) I wanted In order to finish reading this book survive the school governor and (b) I did not want to do so anywhere near my shack. No spoiler alertshis Funhouse, Robert must enlist the help of the dust jacket tells us who Christopher Fowler 'wasschool' s ghosts – and his first chapter tells us about his terminal diagnosisonly they have their own motivations. There is something very strange about being made to laugh by a man who repeatedly reminds you that he is dying, and you know he actually is at that point, because he does. He did.|isbn=08575296251803366532}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15290776991471180158|title=The Raging Storm (Two Rivers)Maybe Tomorrow|author=Ann CleevesPenny Parkes
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''It's all bloody peculiar, isn't it, Sir?'' Well yes, it is. Jem Rosco blew into the local pub one evening Jamie Matson works in the middle of an autumn galeupper-class grocery store, stayed for about a month and then turned up, naked and dead, in man who's a small boat, anchored in Scully Cove close to control freak with all the village subtlety of Greystonea half brick. Jamie's son, in DevonBo, 'has his problems'. Rosco had He's asthmatic and the status of a national treasure: a renowned adventurermore you read, round the world sailor and all round ''celebritymore you'll suspect that he's on the autistic spectrum. I ''nearly'' said 'allSometimes Jamie needs to take time off at short notice -round good eggshe' but as we'll find out, he could be more than s a little bit close with money frequent flier in the local A&E and his background isnsometimes Bo't exactly an open books not fit enough to go to school. Where did he get Missed shifts or the need to be away on time to pick Bo up from school are occasions when Jamie can be controlled and put in the money for his first boat? wrong. How did he finance the trip?It was going to come to a head.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0CC9W7GLRHarry Allen|title=On Children of the Beach: The Winter Visitor|author=Chris Green and Jenny FiondaSun
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=Kit Ra Eun Seo lives in a North Korean town and she is a talented singer. Life is hard and Teal were just beginning food is difficult to wonder whether it was better come by, so Seo and her friends Nari and Min go foraging every evening, looking for tree bark and edible grasses to be supplement the meagre rations of rice and kimchi at home.|isbn=1805140493}}{{Frontpage|author=Edel Rodriguez|title=Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, bored but warmand we're in Cuba. The revolution has happened, or frozen cold and building sand sculptures on Castro, first thought of as a snowy beach when a large slab saviour of silvery ice drifted onto the shorelinecountry, has proven himself a Communist, and not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. On top Well, those hours-long speeches of his were kind of the ice was a polar beartaking his time away. As Our narrator's family weren't in the ice bumped onto the sandhappiest of places here, an uncle refusing to be the bear woke and with wobbly legs moved from good soldier the ice. Kit was all for making a run for itcountry demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, but Teal knew that such as Angola) and the bear was hungry father being watched and gave him one apple watched, and then anothernot liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. He obviously needed The mother gets the couple jobs with the party to be taken home on ease some of the heat, but in this sultry island country, it remains the bus and given a good meal and somewhere to sleep. What else would kind of heat forcing you do?out of the kitchen…|isbn=1474616720
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{{Frontpage
|author=Claire NorthK P O'Donnell|title=House of OdysseusThe Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)|rating=3.5|genre= Literary Science Fiction |summary= ''What could matter more than love?'' The followVL-up to the excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up 15, a few months after where we left off. In the palace of Odysseusprototype robot, with delicate care Queen Penelope continues is desperate to rule without her husband, understand who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned homeshe is. As ever Unfortunately, before she remains surrounded by suitors vying for could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the throne nations of the Western IslesDrexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Having survived – politically and physical – the chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought Dr Amelia Wong is determined to Ithacacontinue her father's shoreslegacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, Queen Penelope is on but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the brink of Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a fragile peaceprototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. One that shatters however with Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the return of Orestesslightest, King of Mycenaeand no errant machine, no savage human tribe and his sister Elektra, seeking refuge.not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=0356516075B0CKRYFRZM
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294270451838954481|title=The Girl in the Eagle's TalonsMisper|author=Karin SmirnoffKate London|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Ryan Kennedy killed a police officer: there''Life has more to offer than people s no doubt about that. He was the fifteen-year- prime numbers for example''old holding the gun and pointing it at DI Kieran Shaw. Lisbeth Salander has headed north He pulled the trigger but due to the small town vagaries of the jury system he was found not guilty of Gasskas, where both the so-far-untapped natural resources murder and the manslaughter of the area have sparked a gold rushofficer. The criminal underworld has not been slow in coming forwardAnd so lives must go on. Salander's niece's mother is For DI Sarah Collins that means leaving the latest woman capital and hoping for a quieter life in the area to have vanished without trace. It was only with reluctance that Salander became her niece's guardian countryside but it quickly becomes obvious that Svala is when a remarkably gifted missing teenager whois found on her territory she's unaware drawn into a wider investigation - and back into the orbit of the part Salander played in her father's deathRyan Kennedy.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0CCCPJJ5B1035025299|title=The Last Person in Went to London, Took the WorldDog|author=Matthew TreeNina Stibbe
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=Our narrator was Nina Stibbe is returning to London for a scholarship day boy at the London-based public school where he met Ralph Finnssabbatical after being away for twenty years. It was an unusual relationship as Ralph was a boarder and had money She's been at Victoria's smallholding in Leicestershire which isn't all that conducive to throw around on a Rolex watchwriting, vintage wines and a stateas there's always something smallholding happening -as you might expect. The other side of-the-art sound system. Both were probably quite surprised decision was sealed when they a room became almost friends and certainly more than acquaintances. Finns had no intention available (courtesy of going on to University, unlike our storyteller who had a place Deborah Moggach) at Wolverton College in Wellingford, the UK's third most prestigious university. Before going up, he took up a loose invitation to visit Ralph at his home, Clouds Manor in West Dorsetvery reasonable rent.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean KoontzB0CKD1L5JL|title=The House at the End of the WorldRadio Free Olympia|author=Jeffrey Dunn
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=When you experience overwhelming tragedy and feel that there Petr is no one on your sidean orphan. Rescued by the strange, you can either suck it upreclusive Bear, saddle he is brought up far from bustling cities and ride on or you can retreat to your own private fortress on an island that sits snugly busy human society, in a small chain the forests of tiny dots on the map Washington's Olympic Peninsula. After Bear dies and live out your days a brief sojourn in peace human company, and solitude. That's what Katie thought she was doing when she shut down her old life to start afresh armed with only a pirate radio transmitter, Petr goes on Jacob's Ladder; and all would have been a journey through the aforementioned peace and solitude were it not for forest, broadcasting the pesky US Government occupying Ringrockstrange, the neighbouring island and perpetrating all manner of mischief in the name of science wild and quite possibly bringing about the end of all mankindrarely heard voices he encounters.|isbn=1662453159
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=T Kingfisher1635866243|title=ThornhedgeThe Knitting Pattern Writing Handbook|author=Kristina McGrath and Sarah Walworth |rating=4.5|genre=FantasyCrafts|summary=''You had I quickly discovered that putting words and numbers on a page wasn't enough. Creating a pattern that was correct, clear, concise, and consistent required a right to retake your placegreat deal of trial and error, patience, and perseverance.''(Introduction byFrancoise Danoy)
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor= B0CCCVRSGXAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Stories 2|author=Richard F WalkerOscar's Lion|rating=43|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers|summary= This We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is Richard F Walker's second volume more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of short storiestimes before he has to be ready for school. There are thirteen in But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and I took something from each of them. There isn't a single one admitting that doesnhe won't deserve be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be among shown as an unspoken threat to the others or brings down bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the overall qualityother month. It And it can be tricky to review short stories without giving too much awayshapeshift, so Ihe can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it'll just pick two s wonderful to talk have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and I think they so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a general flavourwonderful time.|isbn=0008596751
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787636607B0BC3YTCMR|title=The TrapGood Girls Die|author=Catherine Ryan HowardAyura Ayira
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=''This story is not for everyone.'' Lavender Daniels was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday when The Incident happened. She was a very bright student, a bit too nerdy if truth be told, and suffered from vitiligo - people were afraid to hug her in case it's contagious. It's not easy being a scene replicated all too often in the early hours of the morningblack girl whose skin is 84% white. Drunken revellers spilling out of clubs and looking for She had a way to get homecrush on seventeen-year-old Reggie Anderson but never thought he would notice her. Some are lucky Then he did: Lavender was very good at math and manage Reggie asked if she would tutor him. She readily agreed: tutoring was something she gladly did at church: this was just an extension. She went to get one of the few taxis availablehis house and he raped her. Others squash onto the night bus that will only go as far as one of the outlying villagesIn shock, she even allowed him to give her a lift home. }} {{Frontpage|author=V Castro|title=The woman all regret the 'taxi problem', particularly in the light Haunting of Alejandra|rating=3.5|genre=Horror|summary='the missing women'. For one young woman, the final stop on the bus leaves her This was a long way short part of her homepast that had to stop with her. She had intended would be the one to ring someone confront this.'' At some point during her life, Alejandra lost herself. She feels as if she is playing parts for others in her life – her husband and her children – without ever giving any thought to come and collect her - but own desires, her own future, her phone's deadown identity. The bus had driven off before Day by day she had the chance goes through quotient motions without anyone seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong. For invisible to beg the bus driver all but Alejandra, there is a darkness threatening to let consume her use his. There's no option but to start walking - unsuitably clothed More and more she is visited by a ghost, a weeping woman in a fraying white gown dripping with water, who leaves distress in high-heeled shoesher wake.|isbn=1803365617
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1405957174Richard Kadrey|title=A Death at the Party|author=Amy StuartThe Pale House Devil
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeHorror|summary=From the first pageFord and Neuland are a couple of, we know that Nadine Walsh's party will not end well. , guys for hire I guess, though really the way I thought of them through the book was as a couple of strange detectives! The victim - a man - One of them is dying when we first meet him living, you see, and Nadine consciously makes no effort to call the ambulance he other is undead, and so desperately needsone of them kills the living, and the other kills the undead. (Only not each other, obviously). What we donThey't know is who re on a job in New York that goes badly, and so they head out to the man is or why Nadine prefers West coast to try to lay low for a while and find some other work to have him diekeep them going. IBut when a young woman called Tilda hires them to kill the 'something' that appears to be haunting a wealthy gentleman'd better give you s house they find themselves uncovering a whole lot of family history, and a little more background so terrifyingly powerful creature that you can understand whatthey's happening.ve never come across before!|isbn=1803363894
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthHelen Cooper|title=Nowhere IslandThe Taming of the Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet GilOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. Just twelveIn this case, he is so determined to escape principally, we have Brie the care system – mouse, up against Gorgonzola the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes cat – and find in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a home for himselfcheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. He Anyway, Brie is en route to yet another fosterershunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, when for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he jumps into an anonymous car, displays it as art and lets makes stories based on the visuals on it ride him to his future. That future seems to be And that story-telling will come in jeopardy when someone steals his handy one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorwaynight, a place inaccessible when he feels all alone and definitely ignored enough cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to provide for their safety and seclusiontell stories to keep themselves alive. ThemThis makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, and a mute girl also finding a home therethough, albeit so much more successfullyas all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want But will the story have the successful sequel it just would not work…needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=18045400800571376010
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008530025B0CDZRGT1M|title=Murder in the FamilySuper Short Stories: Flash Fiction|author=Cara HunterMark C Wallfisch
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=It was in December 2003 that fifteen-year-old Maura Howard came home and found the body of her stepfather''Got a minute to be amused, Luke Ryderentertained, or challenged?''''These 100 stories are super short. None is more than 300 words. You can read one in the garden of their West London homea flash. He had an injury on the back of his head which could have happened if he'd slipped down the steps but the vicious beating his face had taken was obviously deliberate. Twenty years later, no one has been charged with his murder and it's now the subject of ''InfamousSome are funny. Some are poignant. All are short.'', Question: how do you review flash fiction? How do you give a true-crime show. A group flavour of experts has been brought together a fully rounded little story if that story is told in fewer than three hundred words? Or do you try to review draw out themes from all the evidence and to take the investigation further. More to the point, theyflash fictions in a book of them? I don're going to do this live on camera, episode t know! Perhaps we could start by episode. Thereexplaining that there really isn's no dump t a fixed definition of the whole box set - and no shortage of cliffhangersflash fiction but that for this collection, author Mark C Wallfisch has gone for a three hundred word limit. ItThat's compelling viewingabout a single page in your average paperback.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Judith Eagle1732898766|title=The Stolen SongbirdAdventures of Birpus and Bulbus: Book One: The Sour Milk Dragon|author=Wynn Everett-Albanese, Michael Albanese and Indre Ta (Illustrator)
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersFor Sharing|summary=CaroWhen we first meet Birpus and Bulbus they's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingre running for their lives in the Forest of Fine Repute. Her other mother, Ronnie, Their greatest fear has come about: the Sour Milk Dragon is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellchasing them. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with GamHe's right behind them, someone Caro has heard her mother despisesspewing hot, she feels frustrated and confused and worriedsour milk from his nostrils. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside (Please don't try this staid old Victorian ladyat home: it won's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there toot end well. ) But she soon finds herself caught up in a mysteryFortunately, as she discovers they were nearly at Nobby Lob-lolly - and when a painting ladder of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcasemoss and vines was lowered for them, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising peoplethey escaped. Is the painting somehow linked They climbed up to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved Tree Wee homes high up in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148tangled woods where they lived with their Grand Wees, Nester Nook and Granny Cranny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291959771472263936|title=None of this is TrueThe Figurine|author=Lisa JewellVictoria Hislop
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=On It was in 1968 that Helena McCloud made her 45th birthday, Alix Summer celebrated with a crowd of friends in the Landsdown pub on Salisbury Road when she encountered Josie Fairfirst trip to Greece. She, too, was out celebrating alone: her 45th birthdaymother, only she was just with her husbandGreek by birth, Walter. It turns out that not only are Alix had left the family home and Josie birthday twinsrefused to return, they were both born in St but Maryand Hamish (Helena's hospitalparents) felt that it would be a pity if Helena grew up without knowing her grandparents or understanding her Greek heritage. That's where Her trip to the similarities end, though: Alix, with her husband, Nathan, are family apartment in up-market Kolonaki would be the midst first of a joyful, monied group of friends and whilst they're not ''exactly'' rowdy, they're enjoying themselvesseveral annual visits. Josie, on the other hand, holds her handbag close She grew to love her tummy grandmother and you get the sense that Walterfamily's not too happymaid, Dina, but was wary - and frightened - of her grandfather, retired general Stamatis Papagiannis. Hewas proud of his close connections to the Junta and expected his family to uphold his values but saw no reason to accommodate them. His prejudices included Helena's not used to spending this much money on a meal red hair and green eyes - but it is Josieinherited from her father's birthday after allScottish ancestors.
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{{Frontpage
|rating=3.5
|genre=HorrorThrillers|summary=Love is There's something about tall buildings that just captures my imagination. Who doesn't love; although humans continue to be confused by this sentiment. Gay conversion therapy is ongoing. The UK government ruled out plans to make it a crime andgood view from up high, in after all? Even the US, nearly 700 000 adults have received it. Although it drabbest office building is both a secular and a religious prejudice, Chuck Tingle, in his new horror, somewhere I'm intrigued to get inside if it'Camp Damascus'', peels back the skin of Christian ''pray the gay away'' camps to show the reader the horror lurking withins 40 stories tall. So when I picked up this book – about people who scale tall buildings for fun – I was instantly intrigued.|isbn= 1803363991
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1803136383Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=Tin Soldiers|author=David ChadwickFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|isbn=0008582017
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1804183210
|title=No Reserve
|author=Felix Francis
|rating=4
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Wat Tyler has returned from fighting in Vietnam under something of a cloud. What actually happened out there is gossiped about and nobody is sure exactly what took placeThirty-four-year-old Theo Jennings shouldn't have been on the rostrum when the colt - as yet unnamed - came up for auction, but Peter Radway, the chairman, hadn't arrived, so he continued his session. To say that he was shocked when the bidding reached three million pounds would be an act understatement. A lovely animal - but three million pounds? Two men had been bidding against each other. Brian Kitman and Elliot 'Mitch' Mitchell were well-known and respected in the racing industry. Jennings was in one of heroism leading to a rare battlefield commission followed by rank cowardice the cubicles in the toilets when the two men came in and disgrace seems their conversation revealed that the horse had been deliberately bid up to be the consensusthat figure. Both were happy that they had insurance in place. Wat himself is keeping his cards close to his chest The following morning, as he always doesthe horse was dead in its stall.
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|isbnauthor=B0C7J9D21BSarah Wilson|title=A Captive This One Wild and Precious Life: the path back to connection in Algiers (Muhammed Amalfi Mysteries)|author=A J Lewisa fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=Historical FictionLifestyle|summary=When we first meet our hero, his name My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is Ettore it you plan to do with your one wild and he lives at The House of Beautiful Swallowsprecious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this. '' Idyllic as this might sound, itI's a bordello m lucky enough to be living my one wild and Ettore's mother died when he was bornprecious life the way I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. HeIn her book that takes Oliver's not been short of mothers, words as her title (though - but for someone of his background in late-eighteenth-century Amalfi, itI can's difficult t see that she acknowledges the source) she pushes us to obtain decent employment. The stint working with the preparation of anchovies didnthink about whether we really ''t work out and bastards are considered bad luck on fishing boats'' living the life we want – the best life that we could be living. Ettore was nothing if Her answer is an unequivocal ''no, we are not resourceful - and determined - and it was not long before he had a successful business as a guide for visitors''. He was even saving some moneyDon't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be doing more…And she's effing furious about the fact that we are not.|isbn=1785633848
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|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1839948493|title=After DeathA World of Dogs|author=Carlie Sorosiak and Luisa Uribe|rating=35|genre=General Children's Non-Fiction|summary= Michael Mace, Head In the interests of Securityfull disclosure, at a top secret biological research facility, is among 55 people who die when I must tell you that I'm a virus is released in a bio-hazard accidentsucker for dogs. Finding himself in a makeshift mortuaryIn nearly eight decades, covered in plastic, he has a sense that something very, very bad has happened to him – I've never met one I didn't trust and only him – as he sits up and looks around at I've loved most of them. I wish I felt the shrouded bodies of his dead friends and former colleaguessame about human beings. As he recovers his sensesSo, he realises that there is something different any book about him; he can dogs, I'm going to sit down and devour. Then I'feel'' everythingm going to go back and read it properly. And so it was with ''EverythingA World of Dogs'', with ninety-six pages devoted entirely to my four-legged friends. Michael isnAuthor Carlie Sorosiak found herself the accidental owner of an American Dingo - she't ''Michael'' anymores learned quite a lot about dogs since then.|isbn=1662500467}}
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|authorisbn=Jamie Littler1405951680|title=ArkspireThe Safe House|author=Cameron Ward
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary=Two sistersJess Walker accepted an offer (OK, Juniper and Elodieactually she was gently nudged into it by her friend, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing Rupert) to be chalk and cheesecaretake a luxury property in the Australian outback for a couple of months. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magicAfter the problems she'd had at work, including relics from prior major wars left out in it seemed like just the Badlandsbreak she needed. Elodie is intent on getting closer She was no longer a data analyst for the Metropolitan police in London: she was Jess who was returning to power in one of the religious districts country of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child her birth and in line to inherit the power need of the Watcher, the closest space to a ruler get over the district has, and one traumatic end of the five major victors in said earlier warher relationship with Charles. Being trained A few weeks in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of Otway Ranges in Victoria sounded like just the whole familyticket. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=0241586143
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|author=Thiago de MoraesRachel Harrison|title=Old Gods New TricksBad Dolls|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=Meet TrixieIt's been some time since I've read any horror. Forever getting into scrapesI had a couple of misspent teen years reading Stephen King, larks and adventures involving flooding borrowing the books from a boy I fancied at school aircon and scaring myself half silly with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess them to the point that I couldn't shut my bedroom curtains at night for fear of nuisance. the vampires outside! But just when sheDon't worry - this short story collection isn's being told t like that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. ! Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the schoolIt doesn's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phonest have those jump scares, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenienceI didn's sake). t have to read it during daylight hours only! TrixieBut it is creepy, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power and I found most of power that feeling came from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people fact that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth these are stories about women, living normal lives, and that have past form at least in stealing from the Godspart, ie the semi-deitieshorrors arises from very normal situations such as a breakup, giantstrying a new dieting app, half-gods going to a hen party and so on known as the trickstersa coping with grief.|isbn=178845295X1803363932
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|authorisbn=Alexia Casale1394159544|title=Sing if you Can't DanceRecycling for Dummies|author=Sarah Winkler
|rating=5
|genre=TeensLifestyle|summary=It's hard enough 'Recycling one ton of plastic can save up to navigate your teenage years without suddenly finding that you16.3 barrels of oil.'' 're having to navigate a life-changing disability too, but that's what Ven is dealing with after collapsing on stage in the middle Recycling one ton of a dance performance that was going to change her lifepaper can save 17 trees from being cut down. But she comes back fighting, desperate '' If you send an apple core to avoid the pity stareslandfill, it will take between 6 months and desperate 2 years to get back decompose. A glass bottle will take up to 1 million years. As a life just-post-WWII baby, I faced a dilemma: reducing, reusing and recycling is part of my DNA. NEVER throw away anything thatmight ''possibly''s as normal as she come in handy now or in the future. NEVER buy anything if you can possibly managecobble together something that would serve the purpose. Meanwhile thereAlmost everything can be used one more time and any purchase must pass the test of 'Is this absolutely essential?'s a new On the other hand, I suspected I was guilty of wishcycling: assuming that something must be recyclable (cute!toothpaste tubes - I'm looking at you) boy and dropping it in schoolthe kerbside bin. Yes, her music A Level performance piece to try to sort out, and just I could go searching on the dayinternet -toand get conflicting advice -day traumas of all the challenges her body continues to throw at her to navigatebut what I needed was a recycling bible. So even though she can't dance anymore, might she be able to sing her way through instead?|isbn=0571373801s
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|author=Helen PetersLauren St John|title=Friends and TraitorsFinding Wonder|rating=34
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=England, WW2Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Two Her mum died when she was young girls are new at , and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the country pile called Stanbrookcorner shop to buy a lottery ticket. One is NancyWhen asked what other family she has, destined to be in service all she can only name her life it seemsaunt, Joni, like the female generations before who she knows herdad didn't think very highly of. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that But she has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheeseno one else, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour so off she goes to live with each other over their first encounters would only prove it soher unreliable aunt. But something is amissThings continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and first separately and then Joni leave London in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum Joni'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecys old campervan, talk is made it breaks down in the middle of meetings with Germans, nowhere and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. then bursts into flames! But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?Poor Roo!|isbn=17880046470571376169
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|isbn=02419961041448309743|title=Coming to Find YouThe Devil Stone (DCI Christine Caplan)|author=Jane CorryCaro Ramsay|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Nancy's mother and step-father were brutally stabbed at their Sussex farmhouse and her step-brotherIn the village of Cronchie on the West coast of Scotland, Martin, has been convicted five members of their murdera wealthy family are found murdered. We first meet Nancy outside The only item missing from the home is the Devil Stone: myth says that if the courtstone is removed from Otterburn House, after Martin receives a life sentencedeath will follow. The barrister tells her only suspects are known Satanists but in many ways, that she's received a 'silent sentencean easy conclusion given that two of them ' - shediscovered's not been found guilty of anything but will have to live with what happened for the rest of her lifebody. Of course The Senior Investigating Office is DCI Bob Oswald but when he disappears, it's made worse because Nancy's rich - she inherited five million pounds from her mother - and the papers are making the most of it. ''Farmhouse slaughter daughter'' DCI Christine Caplan is one favourite epithet and pulled in to 'shadow'rich bitch'' might not be printed but is undoubtedly spokenhim.
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