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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=057136358XPaul B Preciado|title=April in Spain|author=John BanvilleDysphoria Mundi|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Politics and Society|summary=Terry Tice was a hitman, although he didn't think of himself in those terms. He saw what he did as ''a matter of making things tidy''. I couldn't resist the thought that he was an extreme version of Marie Kondo. He enjoyed his job, something which occurred It is never too late to him when he was in Burma with the army ''where he got the chance to kill a lot of the little yellow fellows and had a fine old time''. He was spending a lot of time with Percy Antrobus - who couldn't understand why Terry didn't know embrace the purpose revolutionary optimism of a swizzle stick - surely he wouldn't drink champagne with bubbles in the ''morningchildhood''? It was after Percy's death that he saw the benefits of taking up a job in Spain.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dave Letterfly Knoderer|title=Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=How to summarise the life of Dave Letterfly Knodererv in a pithy sentence to kick off a review of his memoir? Do you know, I really don't think I can.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tade ThompsonSamantha Harvey|title=Far From the Light of HeavenOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship RagtimeIn 2024, bound for Samantha Harvey won the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter Booker Prize for the ship's AI captain. However'Orbital'', when she wakes up at a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the end lives of her trip to find dozens a group of her passengers butchered and astronauts aboard the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on mirrors the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shellastronauts's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in toworbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagosour planet in a wholly new light. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=03565143231529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rob Keeley295967572X|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!Pale Pieces|author=G M Stevens|rating= 45|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary= Lily loves eating fruit and vegetables. She likes carrots, broccoli, cabbage and aubergines. When her friends at school turn up their noses, Lily Our unnamed narrator is keen about to explain how good begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they are for you 're going and how nice to eat. One daywhat the purpose of this journey is, poor Lily gets tricked by Jordan, who tells her that carrots grow on treesis uncertain. Infuriated, Lily checks with Django found the teacher, who explains that fruits grow tickets ''on trees the floor somewhere'' and vegetables, like carrots, grow has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the ground. Jordan says, "I did try past as the pair travel to tell her, Miss!" the station by coach and everyone laughs at poor Lilythe train is a steam locomotive.|isbn= B09HHN541V
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178607981X0008551324|title=Bad ApplesThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Will DeanNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at It's unusual for anyone from the side of Hardie family to approach the roadpolice. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of Neither side likes or has any respect for the car - other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and heard he's prepared to tell the screams from deep inside police where the forest. Determining the direction body of a sound isn't easy when you need hearing aids missing person is buried and dampness is causing interference but Tuva made her way to where a woman who was holding responsible for her coat over death. This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the body of a manpolice doing what he wants. He'd been decapitatedAnd what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and to get an early parole date. He was Arne Gustav PerssonNot much to ask, a resident of Visbergis 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's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lilja SigurdadottirJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Cold As HellVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=''All was strange''... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and Eline, two of the protagonists caught in its melancholic current.
|isbn=1804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035043092
|title=The Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary= In I can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a red suitcase new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he's now living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the daughter of his former partner. Willow's also his boss, and she ''should'' be on maternity leave, but when the bottom body of a fissure popular islander, Archie Stout, is found, in the aftermath of a lava fieldstorm, there is a bodyshe can't resist getting involved. And He'd been battered about the man who has put her there has just discovered that he is capable head with a Neolithic stone - one of killinga pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1913193888
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeThea Lenarduzzi|title=FledglingThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Bavaria''How unctuous are the fats of another's life, 1900how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house In this compelling novel, built bit by bit over Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the decadesidentity of T, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods belowprotagonist of this tale. ItJust as T's an eccentric house, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system story is not as we'd know itbeing told, the roof story of a second protagonist is retractableunveiled: Annie, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and daughter of a passion for the long-standing wealthy family hobby of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and in the dying grandma to our heroine19th century, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all the maintenance died of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but ittuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassieimagination. Annie's bedroom window one stormy day fate is a cherub, above all, an enticing story to T. And if you think such It is a heavenly arrival is going to be story which she consumes avariciously, both in a completely great quest for truth and knowledge, and wonderful thingin service of myth, think again..fable and fantasy. |isbn=183994188X1804271799
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica NordellBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLiterary Fiction|summary=Anyone who Everything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is not an ablesteeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply usually a part symbol of everyday life. White men will always come firstintimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. The able will come before When the disabled. Jobsnarrator cries out internally, promotions''come over here and kiss me, higher salaries are the preserve of the white man. Even when those who wouldn't pass the medical become ' it is less an invitation than a part desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of an organisation it's rare that their views are heardthis plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, that their concerns are acknowledged. It's personally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's not just the individuals who are negatively impacteda ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Teresa Driscoll0008405026|title=Her Perfect A Stranger in the Family(Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=The novel begins by introducing you It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to Gemmaa halt. Now, who at first instance appears to be your average studenther mother, faced with the familiar horrifying realisationHelena, at the eleventh hour, that and her graduation outfit is all wrongfather are dead in their bed. Suddenly Initially, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is…'it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there', paving s something about the way for positioning of the sinister tone bodies that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremonyboss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a complex whodunit with a list of suspects double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that continues to grow the further you readexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1542028752
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=8409290103Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=If Only|author=Matthew TreeThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that ''We were born from the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was same body. I've never really wanted to send him a monthly allowancethink about this. Patrick sent the money regularly '' Ernaux's work is always very candid and a correspondence - her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has most intimate accounts I've read. Ernaux writes in direct address to say than Patrickher sister, however, this letter will never reach her. It wasnWhy? Because Annie Ernaux't that Lowry senior didn't care for his sons sister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, it a few months before the vaccine was that he didn't care to have him made compulsory in this country where he might be a danger to his wife France, and other children2 years before the author was even born. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed large and instant void created by the jarring concept of writing to get the young man on his wayan imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied.|isbn=1804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Antti Tuomainen Maxim Gorky and David Hackston Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=The Rabbit FactorReminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=Biographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a vibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be. Whom would it help to know how I see this tower, that sea, or that Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a subjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.
|isbn=1804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529077745
|title=The Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)
|author=Ann Cleeves
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths and calculations than it is other human beings, he's perfect for A man walking his job dog in the insurance company – until they decide he's not early morning discovered the body of a team-memberman in the park near Rosebank, that they'd prefer everyone to be all open-plan, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshopping. This is when he finds his brother has died, having a heart attack while busy changing his Volvo's radio channel, and has left Henri everythingcare home for troubled teens. Unfortunately (or otherwise) that 'everything' is just an adventure park, and nothing else. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to occupy his mind, work a shift the night before but he perks who had never turned up a little when he sees huge holes . D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the finances – it runs at a steady moneymurder -moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and her only clue is the disappearance of one of the amount vanishedresidents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Fortunately (or otherwise) some Some people are quickly on believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the scene girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to explain that missing money – itJosh.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B0FK5LHKD9|title=The Colour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's been turned into three years since we last reviewed a gambling debt that has also now been inherited book by Henrifavourite regular Christopher Bowden, and the activities of these guys are not conducive so we were very glad to getting see a cheap life insurance plannew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers.Like all Bowden's stories, there's a mystery at the heart of ''The Colour of Money''.We like this running theme in an author's work - take a mystery but give it different flavour and atmosphere each time.|isbn=191319387X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Olga Tokarczuk|title=House of Day, House of Night|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''What's the good of a world that keeps changing like that? How can one go on calmly living in it?'' The title of this spellbinding work, ''House of Day, House of Night'', somewhat reflects this notion of shifting realities - the small, subtle changes which govern our lives, like the shift from day to night, however quotidian, causing chaos. But, the constant in that image is the house, stoic against the ancient diurnal cycle which nonetheless controls how it is perceived.|isbn=1804271918}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1471179311henleyA|title=The UnheardUltimate Obsession|author=Nicci FrenchDai Henley|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=TessEx-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, a teacher and Jasonhe should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's defence against a headmastermurder charge drained his savings. His wife, have split up: she and Poppy have moved out of the family home and Jason is now married Laura, has been trying to persuade him to Emily. The separation was amicable retire - they had just drifted apart''maybe go travelling or go on cruises. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in That's what was the family home and another in the flat she shares with her mother. It 'ordinary people do','seemed' He' to be working well until s not been entirely up front about the day that Poppy came home with a menacing drawing state of a woman falling from a tall building and she started swearing, using words she was unlikely their savings. When Jack Durban tries to have heard in either home. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns persuade him to a therapist for helptake his case, then her doctor and finally it's the thought of the police but no one will take what she has to say seriouslymoney he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that he really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711966151836284683|title=IcedThe Big Happy|author=Felix FrancisDavid Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersDystopian Fiction|summary=Miles Pussett used Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a book, it's nothing like I expected it to be , and it takes me on a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down the three-quarter-mile Cresta Run, occasionally reaching eighty miles an hourwild ride. He was in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf - And thatis just what happened with ''The Big Happy''s high-class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling of the horses. ItI don's seven years since he put horseracing behind him and he swore that het want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'd never go back ll have to itat least set the scene. But when he sees Once that something suspicious is going on's done, Miles can't help but look I think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for answers, even when it puts him in dangeryourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=147228612XSally Rooney|title=The Late Train to Gipsy Hill|author=Alan JohnsonIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction |summary=We all know people like Gary Nelson, although we probably haven't taken much notice Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of thema grandmaster at putting it into words. They live quiet, uneventful lives Her dialogue is gripping and stay mostly under the radar. In a city like Londonso brilliantly frustrating, that's as her characters never quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himsay exactly what they feel. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes to work on Among the many relationships woven into this story, the train each morning: he'd love central one for readers to ask her for a date but he doesn't have unravel is the couragefraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. ThenIvan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, on contrasts sharply with his homeward commuteolder brother Peter, Arina speaks to him and asks for his helpa successful lawyer living in Dublin. Before Following their father's passing after a long he finds himself on the run from mobstersbattle with cancer, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan policebrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire McGowan1036916375|title=I Know YouJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Peter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=''Then:Just a Liverpool Lad '' Casey returns is a collection of memories and reflections from the years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the family history of a walk sea-going family, with the baby, Carson, docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. It's a book to settle into and comes allow your mind to roam across three bodiesyour childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost a whole family taken downsoundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded.}}
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291482511009473085|title=Misfits: A Personal ManifestoThe Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Michaela CoelAnthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Sometimes it''How am I able s simpler to be so transparent on paper about rape, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? It's as though I were telling the truth whilst simultaneously running away from explain a book by describing what it.'' Before you start reading isn't'Misfits'and that applies to ' you need to be in a certain frame of mind. You're not going to read a book of essays or a selfThe Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 -help book14 Wasted Years?''. YouIf you're going to looking for an easy read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coelwill deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within t the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festivalbook for you. You might be If that's what you'readingre looking for, I don't think Anthony Seldon' the s book but you need , {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'listen'is an entirely different beast. It' to s the seventh book in a series which looks at the words impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as though you're in the lecture theatremost important. The disjointedness will fade away and you'll be carried on This book follows the well-established format: a cloud series of experts from various fields review the state of exquisite writingthe nation when the coalition took over in 2010, the changes that occurred and the situation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Jenny Valentine|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahUs in the Before and After
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=It was the sort of thing Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that happened every dayeven, although not to Leila Syed. She'd never driven her nephew, Max, to school before but his father, Andrew Hanson, had rung her their friendship is a once in a paniclifetime connection. He was supposed to be taking Max to school They meet as children one day on a trip out but heunfortunately they don'd been called into work and t get each other's contact details at the delay in getting there could lead to financial lossestime. As the school was only five minutes out of Leila's wayBut then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, could she drop him off? Of coursesomething terrible and tragic, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped into the back of her car. On the way Leila took a phone call - there was panic at her now they must work toothrough their grief, and their friendship, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at risktogether.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova1787333175|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=For SharingPopular Science|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny I was tempted to talk about and joke about, that is. But horribly embarrassing if you let one go at the wrong time. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her read ''Everybody Potties!You Don'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmly, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: t Have to be Mad to Work Here''Everybody Tootsafter enjoying Adam Kay''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} s first book {{Frontpageamazonurl|isbn=17841652631509858636|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma Curtis|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had This is Going to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on the dotHurt}}, despite a glorious mixture of insight into the fact that she was actually painting one workings of their properties prior to it being letthe NHS, humour and autobiography. If she didn't get home, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair, but don'You Don't be too quick Have to be understandingMad... He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a disappointment''psychiatrist. All this I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, this setting but the laughter is directed at the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road a situation rather than a person and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being availableis always delivered with empathy and understanding.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1784742775Mariana Enriquez|title=A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)|author=Susan HillSunny Place for Shady People
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeShort Stories|summary=Drugs hadn't really been Mariana Enriquez writes horror that much of a problem in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops as a bit of a waste is disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of time. They still were, disused refrigerators due to a great extentan urban planning mishap, but Serrailler knew that something had to be done. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport the drugs an overcrowded homeless shelter and the operation running the county lines was tighta crime-ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all within Argentina. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldn't be the correct one) The circumstances of her characters are so plausible that the person who was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in the organisation. The police might catch supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a few of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upsimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09FS89KX91529934753|title=Fall On MeThe Protest|author=Penelope PottsRob Rinder|rating=34.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She For a little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was just not going into to show up for the opening of his retrospective at the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in the final year nick of her veterinary degree time, complete with his two wives and - three years later - was still working at BB's dinersix children, one of whom filmed what happened. Bob - the owner - regarded her fondly: he Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but it was fortunate that there was a good bossrecord of the protest. Hollie had moved in with her boyfriendLexi Williams, an intern at the RA, Marcus: her mother thought he was great grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a chair and he was doing well proceeded to spray Bruce in his careerthe face, whilst shouting ''Stop the War''. Hollie wasn't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted It seemed to control her and most be part of an ongoing series of all he wanted her to leave her job at the diner'blue-face' attacks, but this was different. Then there was the fact that he would be violentThe can had been laced with cyanide, both to her and to other peopleSir Max Bruce was dead.
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{{Frontpage
|author=John GwynneAriel Saramandi|title=The Shadow Of The GodsPortrait of an Island on Fire|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyPolitics and Society|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment In this powerful collection of the Bloodsworn Sagaessays, set in the era of the Vikings in Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the shadow sociopolitical fabric of RagnarokMauritius, when tunneling deep into the Gods have battled wounds left by colonialism and their bones lie scattered for all slavery to seeexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. This story is Saramandi describes the ultimate in High Fantasycountry at one stage as ''rotting'', and John Gwynne certainly does justice to a blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the genremalignant forces of racism, with mythical creaturespatriarchy, archaic language environmental degradation and battles galoregovernmental dysfunction. This is Each essay in this collection serves as a thick bookkind of diagnostic, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battlecharting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=03565142181804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09HTWX47XPekka Harju-Autti|title=Endless Obsession|author=Dai HenleyLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=It's some years since we last caught up with Andy Floodthe eighteenth century, formerly a DCI in the Met but now a well-respected private investigatortime of discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. He's married Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to Laura, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working Andaman Islands in a forensics laboratoryhis endeavour. Flood's daughtersAlong with his son, Peter, Gemma and Pippatheir cat, have flown the nestMichi, Pippa they set off on a perilous voyage to Australia, from where she has very little contact with the family, these faraway lands. The islands are beautiful and Gemma to married life. She's had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy stunning in their scenery and Laura hope that married life will provide the support she needs. Floodislanders's business leader, Aarav, is going well and that was why he felt able keen to turn down the case of Lisa Blackestablish good relations.|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Peter PapathanasiouHelene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=The StoningLili is Crying|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous First published in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night 1953 in a shopping trolleyFrench, and she's been taped to this novel is a tree timeless text which wrenches the hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come sentences from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack their proper position on that shows the feeling – page and it's only fairpositions them elsewhere, is the general opiniondisjointed, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditionstruncated. Cue Like the arrival lives of George Manolisher characters, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law..they are often left tragically incomplete.|isbn=15294169731804271675
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|isbnauthor=B08Z8BMZ7HTom Percival|title=The Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrathWrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=Crime (Historical)Confident Readers|summary=We meet Solon Will's life is difficult, in Pergamon in the second century a multitude of the common era and ways. He is bullied because hehas 's the physician on duty at wrong shoes', he has the munus - the games put on wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the amusement most basic of the populace. The remuneration isnthings like food, and his dad can't high but the work gives because he lost his job at the doctor college, was working a feeling of virtue cash-in-hand job on a building site and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to livehad an accident. It's quite a spectacle: Throw into that mix the magistri fact that his mum and dad are the charge hands separated, and when we first see themWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressivehe still has a tiny amount of hope. The sagitarii are the archers He is good at art, and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going clings to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Todaymoments of joy when he is drawing, it's that feel like a light at the crocodilesend of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie BlackallSylvie Cathrall|title=The Beatryce ProphecyA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises in them'', we There are told here. And none more so few greater joys than in this wondrous story, a book which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group of monks, the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach lives up to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memorycompelling premise. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate to find the girl, for it And this is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great changeone of them. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=15295008930356522776
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|isbn=B09FFJF8YS1786482126|title=You Can't Wear Panties! The Janus Stone (No More Nappies!Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Justine Avery and Kate Zhoidik|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.'' And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates a little girl's final goodbye to nappies and pull-ups and graduation to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dog, her cat, her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear super-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can the flowers, nor the fish, nor the birds. Boy's certainly can't. She's a big girl now and she wants everyone to know it!}} {{Frontpage|author=Nick Lake and Emily Gravett|title=Locked Out LilyElly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Lily is, or Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a doorway. There was, no skull. Was this a ritual killing or has beenmurder? Inevitably, very ill, and to give her parents relief sheDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need the relief difficult as LilyRuth knows, but Nelson doesn's baby sibling t, that she is just about to be born – pregnant with his child as a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do with. But on tracking back home for word result of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and the babe-in-arms, already installedone night they spent together some three months ago. These devilish interlopers need to Her condition will be ousted to get the family back intactobvious before long, even if it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has least because Ruth is prone to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snakesudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1471194833
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|author=Greg James Guadalupe Nettel and Chris SmithRosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Great Dream RobberyAccidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=Maya's father is a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrongThis collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the word: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and now he can't wake upcharming in its gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Or at leastGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes her stories structured by a new friend, and discovers wisdom that appears to want to teach us something about the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really..world.and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051X1804271470
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004644950008551375|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Emma SmithNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=Leanne Wilson''Babies seem to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in s body was found at the womb, being aware bottom of quantities at seven hours old, assessing probability at six months old, and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months old.'' Did you know this? I didn't! How about: ''Maths ability on entry to school is a strong predictor of later achievementScottish mountain, double that seemingly the result of literacy skillsa tragic accident. She'' I didn't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading storiesd looked so happy, teaching pen gripstoo, singing rhymes - gives children a solid foundation when they start schoolshe posted her intentions on Facebook. But do we think the same way about maths Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, beyond counting? I don't think we do, in part because so many of us are afraid of mathsbut it looked like she was living her best life now. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising and Then it follows emerged that giving our children a five other women had died in similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficialcircumstances in the last year.}}{{Frontpage |author=Robert Peston |title=The Whistleblower |rating=3 |genre=Thrillers|summary=I'm not the first to point out how fitting it is for Robert Peston to write a political thriller All were experienced climbers, so I'll move on quickly – but this won't be winning any awards properly equipped for originalitywhat they were doing and sensible people. It None of the 's an interesting plot with what a good pace, but it does very little stupid thing to differentiate itself and I suspect before much time has passed Ido' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there'll have forgotten s a lot of itkiller on the loose. |isbn=1838775242
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