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==The Best New Books==
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''
{{Frontpage
|author=Paul B Preciado
|title=Dysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=''It is never too late to embrace the revolutionary optimism of childhood''
Through this hybrid text, consisting of arias, letters, essays and autofiction, Preciado expresses his own hybrid self, and brings forth a new sensorium as an offering to the new generation, a new feeling mechanism in which detachment is not considered a sign of political apathy. Rather, it is the proportional, valid response to ''the epistemological and political crack we are living through, and the tension between emancipatory forces and conservative resistances that characterize our present'' which Preciado calls ''dysphoria mundi''. The whole text is framed against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic as that which has catalysed this revolution, when dysphoria began to emerge on a global scale, or as ''pangea covidica''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews . Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of books about weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to be published]]''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''.<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->|isbn=1804271454}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Samantha Harvey|title=Orbital|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In 2024, Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for ''Orbital'', a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Through a narrative lens that mirrors the astronauts' orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241990165295967572X|title=Hope to Die (D I Fawley)Pale Pieces|author=Cara HunterG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Where they're going and what the purpose of this journey is, is uncertain. Django found the tickets ''on the floor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and the train is a steam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008551324
|title=The Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)
|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It began rather oddly. There was a 999 call suggesting that a shot had been fired in an isolated house but the call hadn't come s unusual for anyone from the householderHardie family to approach the police. A couple of PCs went to make certain that everything was alright and it took quite a while Neither side likes or has any respect for the elderly householder other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to answer tell the door. He somewhat reluctantly told them that they'd better come in. In police where the kitchen there was a body on the floor: the head had been blown off with of a shotgun missing person is buried and the corpse who was holding a knife in its right handresponsible for her death. Richard Swann told This person, he promises, is someone big and it will be worth the police that doing what he wants. And what he'd heard sounds wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of an intruder his sentence and had come downstairs to investigateget an early parole date. Not much to ask, is it? The ignorant young lout had called him ''Grandadnew 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 come at him anyone who works with a knife. Swann had shot him in self-defenceis kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Kit De WaalJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title= Without Warning and Only SometimesVaim|rating= 4|genre= AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary= As Philip Larkin so eloquently put it, “They f*** you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do” Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit De Waal focuses on this idea of parenthood and the bonds that bind family''All was strange''... This book is a memoir focussing on haunting phrase encapsulates the author’s formative years as a teenager living pervading sense of otherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a lower class area of Birmingham. Her father is from St. Kitts fictional fishing village in the Caribbean and her mother is an Irish woman ostracized by her family Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for becoming pregnant by Jatgeir and marrying a black man. This intersectionality plays a large role in the autobiography. Kit De Waal faces multiple hurdles due to her raceEline, her class and her gender. Her parents loom large and are written with care, love, and two of the kind of anger only a child can express to their parentsprotagonists caught in its melancholic current.|isbn=14722848361804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David Lagercrantz1035043092|title=Dark MusicThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=35
|genre=Crime
|summary=How far from the original I can a book allegedly inspired by Sherlock Holmes get before the allusion breaks? This does 't have a wonder-mind at been the heart of what little investigating is going ononly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, but there is not Book 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a lot that Conan Doyle fans could really pin down as new life on their exact wavelengthOrkney. For oneIt's been seven years since we heard from him, the main focus of the narrative, Micaela, is no John Watson MD. Shebut he's a Chilean in the Stockholm policenow living with Willow Reeves and their young son, James, put on a murder squad as she knows the prime suspect of oldwell as Cassie, in a case where a referee of a junior football match was found stoned to death shortly after the match, and just outside the stadium. Beppe, the suspect, was drunkenly antagonistic to the ref during the closing minutes, but refuses to admit anything, through days and weeks daughter of interrogationhis former partner. When some disreputable coppers (the kind who dismiss anything their superior comes up withWillow's also his boss, the kind who think they can judge Micaela from her fringe and how she might dress – that kind) are told to go and see what brainbox Professor Rekke thinks of it all''should'' be on maternity leave, she can only smirk but when he says Beppe is innocent and the investigation is body of a shambles. But taken off the casepopular islander, Archie Stout, she can no longer help solve the crimeis found, and with Rekke in the most erratic, irregular kind aftermath of guya storm, she can't get his full verdict on it allresist getting involved. Until, that may be, she manages to stop him in He'd been battered about the middle head with a Neolithic stone - one of an apparent suicide attempt..a pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=1529413192
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B0B2N7MVYMThea Lenarduzzi|title=The Calculations of Rational Men|author=Daniel GodfreyTower
|rating=5
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=It's 'How unctuous are the 10th fats of December 1962 when we first meet Dr Joseph Marr. Just to put what happens in contextanother's life, the Cuban missile crisis is still very fresh how dizzying their sugars in peopleour bloodstream''s minds. The world has barely had a chance to breathe out. But for Joe Marr In this compelling novel, it's not Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the missile crisis that's at identity of T, the front protagonist of his mindthis tale. HeJust as T's been convicted story is being told, the story of murder. With a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the current state daughter of medical knowledgea wealthy family in the 19th century, it's hard to think otherwise than that the prosecution would never have been brought but Joe Marr has spent his first few days who died of tuberculosis after being locked in HMP Queena tower, captures T's Bench, a relatively new prisonimagination. HeAnnie's just getting used fate is, above all, an enticing story to his roommateT. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, Mervynboth in a quest for truth and knowledge, and learning to be wary in service of the McArthur brothersmyth, fable and fantasy. |isbn=1804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846976146Claire-Louise Bennett|title=The Bone Road|author=N E SolomonsBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Heather BishopEverything in this book, the former Olympic cyclist, flew to Bosnia to surprise her boyfriendhowever sweet or seemingly innocent, cycling journalist Ryan Mackinnon. She even took their bikes so they could have a few days' break is steeped in the regionanguish and distortion. It was Even a little worrying that he didn't seem exactly pleased to see her: she even wondered if he had kiss, usually a woman in the hotel roomsymbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. Heather had to give up competitive cycling after a traumatic brain injury four years before: she was still fit but her reactions and her memory were not up to When the standard she would need to race again. Sometimes she couldnnarrator cries out internally, 't be certain about what she had or hadn't done come over here and she simply couldnkiss me,''t cope in difficult situationsit is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to confirm her emotional numbness. She didn't entirely trust herselfThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, her ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn=1804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Judith Eagle0008405026|title=The Accidental StowawayA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Patch is a little girl who has been passed It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one relation to another, until it seems that there is nobody left for her to go summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground toa halt. Her father died when she was very youngNow, and her mother ran away. The family lawyer, after consultation with ‘someone’Helena, arranges for and her to go to a school father are dead in Liverpooltheir bed. Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but on there's something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her arrival there, she gets caught up in boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it was going to be an adventure with a little boy called Turo who works on open-and-shut case is now a steamshipcomplex double murder. During a chase with him (when she Kerrigan is both trying to get her rollerskate back and running away from convinced that the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding explanation lies in a lifeboatRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, and before she knows it, the ship has left the docks and she is an accidental stowaway!|isbn=0571363121Una Burt) are less convinced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0760379874Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Super Easy Knitting for Beginners|author=Carri HammettThe Other Girl|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsAutobiography|summary=''We were born from the same body. I learned 've never really wanted to knit in think about this.'' Ernaux's work is always very candid and her tone transparent, but this raw epistolary text must be one of the nineteen-fifties: it wasnmost intimate accounts I't a choice, it was a requirementve read. Girls learned Ernaux writes in direct address to knit and to embroider and boys did wood and metal workher sister, however, this letter will never reach her. My knitting wa accompanied by a lot Why? Because Annie Ernaux's sister died of criticism and quite diphtheria at 6 years old, a few tears: it was a long time months before I realised that there the vaccine was pleasure to be had made compulsory in the skill. Nearly seventy France, and 2 years later it's before the only thing that keeps my hands at all suppleauthor was even born. The turning point was a booklet published large and instant void created by Patons which gave all the basics and some patterns. I've been looking for something simple to recommend jarring concept of writing to people whoan imaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux'd like to master the skills process of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied. So, how did ''Super Easy Knitting For Beginners'' work out?|isbn=1804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Alice EclairReminiscences of Tolstoy, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleChekhov and Andreyev|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersBiography|summary=Meet Alice Eclair. A perfect eye and very careful hands have made her one Biographies are often seen as the form of Paris's best young cake makers life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and decorators, making sure her mother's establishment is a classy affairless personal. Not bad for a thirteen year old. OhI think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a perfect eye and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spyvibrant, subjective yet informed portrait of three of his literary contemporaries. Her In the first section of this book, Tolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''you write not of real mission will life as it is, but of what you yourself imagine it to be . Whom would it help to chase a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes on a posh sleeper train to the south of Franceknow how I see this tower, that sea, and hoping against hope or that she Tartar - why should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. Well, Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can prevent documents allowing foreign agents to creep into the country be gained from getting into nefarious hands. But while nobody would have her down as a spysubjective account, giving us access to how he saw Tolstoy, can she possibly leave behind her rookie status Chekhov and find the baddy?Andreyev in such privileged detail that one almost feels unworthy of it.|isbn=18399409561804271977
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=07603799121529077745|title=Super Easy Quilting for BeginnersThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Editors of Quarry BooksAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=I learned patchworking from necessity: old or outgrown clothes needed to be turned into something new and usable when I was A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a man in my twentiesthe park near Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. It would be The dead man was Josh - one of the care workers who was due to work a while shift the night before it became a pleasure rather than a chore but I've who had never felt completely at home with quiltingturned up. D I needed something a little more stylish than my usual buttons or knotsVera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. ''Super Easy Quilting Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for Beginnersthe death but Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl'' seemed like a good place s diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to startJosh. So, how did it stack up?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1788360737B0FK5LHKD9|title= Artivism: The Battle for Museums in the Era Colour of PostmodernismMemory|author=Alexander AdamsChristopher Bowden|rating=24|genre= Politics and SocietyGeneral Fiction|summary= Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in It's been three years since we last reviewed a vacuum. It is made book by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes favourite regular Christopher Bowden, so we were very glad to modifying the social environment in which he develops’’see a new novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Therefore, Like all art must be politicalBowden's stories, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in there's a mystery at the Era heart of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is freer when it is art for art’s sake. ''The recent trend Colour of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: left wing)Money''. Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by large “leftWe like this running theme in an author's work -wing” donors and media elites hoping to create take a more globalist mystery but give it different flavour and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what Alexander Adams believesatmosphere each time.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1408712172Olga Tokarczuk|title=The Cliff House|author=Chris Brookmyreof Day, House of Night
|rating=5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=''Many of them didnWhat't know each other, one s the good of them didn't know anybody, including Jen, a world that keeps changing like that? How can one of them quite possibly hated her, and two of them definitely hated each other. What could possibly go wrongon calmly living in it?''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17883607021836284683|title=Charles, The Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised BiographyBig Happy|author=Edzard ErnstDavid Chadwick|rating=4.5|genre=BiographyDystopian Fiction|summary=For over forty yearsWell! 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, Prince Charles has been an ardent supporter of alternative medicine and complementary therapiesit takes me on a wild ride. And that is just what happened with ''Charles, The Alternative PrinceBig Happy'' critically assesses the Prince. I don's opinions, beliefs and aims against the background t want to ruin a similar experience for any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the scientific evidencescene. There are few instances of his beliefs being vindicated and his relentless promotion of treatments which have no scientific support has Once that's done considerable damage to the reputation of a man who is proud of his refusal to apply evidence-based, logical reasoning to his ambitionsI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Will CarverSally Rooney|title=The Daves Next DoorIntermezzo|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Five strangers come together in one moment as Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a suicide bomber prepares to detonate his vest on a London tube linegrandmaster at putting it into words. As their fates overlapHer dialogue is gripping and so brilliantly frustrating, as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the many relationships woven into this story , the central one for readers to unravel is told the fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and Peter Koubek. Ivan, a socially awkward chess prodigy, contrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, a successful lawyer living in backwards orderDublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, leading up to the fateful momentbrothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn= 19145851860571365469}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291257901036916375|title=The Family RemainsJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Lisa JewellPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=In July 2019, Jason Mott was mud larking on the banks of the River Thames when he came across ''Just a Liverpool Lad '' is a bag collection of what appeared to be human bones. Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu memories and Saffron Brown reflections from forensics were there to investigatethe years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. The bones were indeed human: Some are factual, such as the family history of a young woman had been killed by a blow to sea-going family, with the docks dominating lives. Other stories blend seamlessly into the head many years ago what- probably as long as twentymight-five have- but the bones had not been in . It's a book to settle into and allow your mind to roam across your childhood memories, to think of simpler times when life seemed less constrained, despite the river longer than blitz that was a yearconstant factor in McArdle's early years. There was no identification I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the bag contained vegetation, some of which all-clear was quite unusualsounded.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jennifer Mason1836285493|title=Partitions The Double Life of Unitya Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=45|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= Here Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at Bookbag Towershis school, we first met Elizabeth CromwellMarlowe Park, dominatrix and unintentional detective in [[Preposterous: An Elizabeth Cromwell Mystery one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by Jennifer Mason|Preposterous]]his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, when and she investigated has suggested to Will and unravelled his mum that he spends a series couple of disappearances. In ''Partitions of Unity''afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, she sets her mind to solving a murderwhere his ability might be better extended....|isbn=B09LQR9FRF
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Fiona Parashar 1009473085|title=A Beautiful Way to Coach The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Business Politics and FinanceSociety|summary= So Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what am I doing reading this book, using this book, it ''isn't'' and being audacious enough that applies to review it''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years? ''. Truth is I bought it out of curiosityIf you're looking for an easy read which will deliver the inside story about what ''really'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the book for you. If that's what you're looking for, I was don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at an on-line launch 10}}, can be bettered for the those tumultuous years. book It's a compelling read and Fiona’s description of her Vision Days appealed should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to mepolitics. I wanted to see if there were things ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in there that I could use with someone I am currently helping / supporting / trying to mentor – without committing them to a full day, series which I know would send them scurrying for their burrowlooks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. I also wanted to see if I could give myself This book follows the well-established format: a Vision Dayseries of experts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, to bring me away from their vision the changes that occurred and back to my ownthe situation in 2024.|isbn=103211603X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1913750353Jenny Valentine|title=Britannica's Word of Us in the Day|author=Patrick Kelly, Renee Kelly Before and Sue MacyAfter
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionTeens|summary=''Britannica's Word of the Day'' has a sub-title: ''366 Elevating Utterances to Stretch Your Cranium Elk and Tickle Your Humerus'' which probably tells you all Mab are best friends, or more than that you need to know about this brilliant book. It starts on January 1st with ''Razzmatazz''even, tells you how to pronounce it (''raz-muh-TAZ''), gives you their friendship is a definition and then includes the word once in a sentence so that you know how it should be used. You also get an engaging and frequently amusing illustration toolifetime connection. I They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't think Iget each other've ever encountered a word which uses s contact details at the letter Z four times before!time. But then chance brings them back together, and they are inseparable. Something has happened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|isbn=1471196585
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=A C Wise1787333175|title=HookedYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Benji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=General FictionPopular Science|summary=It’s been twenty-two years since Captain Hook, now going by just ‘James’I was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is Going to Hurt}}, has been in Neverland. Living a new life in London, he has never completely escaped his past. But now he senses glorious mixture of insight into the edges workings of the beast circling around his life in LondonNHS, humour and when suddenly he finds himself face autobiography. ''You Don't Have to face in be Mad...'' promised the street with Wendy, he knows that same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the line between this world and Neverland is growing thinwork of a psychiatrist. The beast is finally coming I did wonder whether it was acceptable to get him, and be looking for humour in this setting but the process will pull Wendy laughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and her daughter Jane back into their past once againit is always delivered with empathy and understanding.|isbn=1789096839
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787301745Mariana Enriquez|title=Confidence|author=Denise MinaA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=3.5|genre=ThrillersShort Stories|summary=We're back in the world of podcasters Anna and FinMariana Enriquez writes horror that is disturbingly real, whom we first met in [[Conviction achieving this uncanny familiarity by Denise Mina|Conviction]]. It was Anna who'd organised the 'family' holidaybasing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her ex, Hamish, is now with her best friendsettings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an urban planning mishap, Estelle and her children are living with them. Fin (who was married to Estelle) is there too an overcrowded homeless shelter and it was Anna who invited his girlfriend, Sofia. It's not long before everyone realises that was a bad mistake. Sofia's difficult and with everyone trapped inside their holiday accommodation crime- a lighthouse, in a storm ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - she begins talking about Anna's past, including all within Argentina. The circumstances of her real name and characters are so plausible that the rape. This was something supernatural or otherworldly horror which Anna had intended to tell the girls - twelve-tear-old Jess and ten-year-old Lizzie - when the time was right. And this wasn't the right timeseeps into these spaces adopts a similarly tangible texture.|isbn=1803511230
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763566X1529934753|title=Listen to MeThe Protest|author=Tess GerritsenRob Rinder
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=We're in Boston with Amy. When she set out for university this morning it was For a spring day and she wore her newlittle while, buttery-leather pumps but it looked as she comes out of though Sir Max Bruce, the library she knows that theycountry're s most famous living artist, was not going to be ruined - and unsafe - in show up for the opening of his retrospective at the snow that's now fallingRoyal Academy. As she crosses Still, he arrived in the road, a car comes out nick of nowhere and hits her. It doesn't stop. Two months latertime, we're complete with Angela Rizzolihis two wives and six children, mother one of Detective Jane Rizzoliwhom filmed what happened. Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, and but it was fortunate that there was a keen defender record of the suburb of Revereprotest. Lexi Williams, an intern at the RA, north grabbed a spray can of Boston, where she lives. Nothing gets past her blue paint from under a chair and whilst her boyfriend, Vince Korsak, is proceeded to spray Bruce in Californiathe face, looking after his sister, she has whilst shouting ''Stop the time War''. It seemed to watch whatbe part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face's happening in the neighbourhoodattacks, but this was different. The people who are moving in at no 2533 have aroused her suspicionscan had been laced with cyanide, and Sir Max Bruce was dead.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008395632Ariel Saramandi|title=One Last Secret|author=Adele ParksPortrait of an Island on Fire
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersPolitics and Society|summary=Natalya is an escort. WellIn this powerful collection of essays, Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of Mauritius, her name's not ''actually'' Natalya: that's her professional name but it is a nod tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to her Serbian heritageexpose how these legacies still shape modern life. She's actually thirty-Saramandi describes the country at one-year-old Teodora Dziewulski, usually known stage as Dora Wulski. If you're thinking of 'escortrotting'' as being , a polite description blunt yet apt metaphor for the systemic decay brought about by the malignant forces of a prostituteracism, run by a pimppatriarchy, who's turning tricks to fund a drug habit, forget itenvironmental degradation and governmental dysfunction. Dora is Each essay in this collection serves as a professional in all senses kind of the word. She has an agent, Elspethdiagnostic, who takes 30% of her income and deals with charting the payments but checks out various diseases afflicting the clients to see that Dora is going to be safe. Dora describes herself as a self-employed clairvoyant to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customsisland state. |isbn=1804271616
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{{Frontpage
|author=David SolomonsPekka Harju-Autti|title=A BeginnerLoveVortex and the Drakor's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyCurse
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=Gavin is being followed, seemingly constantly, by It's the new (very annoying) girl at school. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl story. Because in this instance, the girl in question is Nikieighteenth century, a time of discovery and she Britain is a galactic princess (noexpanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, reallyan experienced Scottish sea captain, she is!) So what will Gavin do when he becomes embroiled sent to the Andaman Islands in a situation wherehis endeavour. Along with his son, potentiallyPeter, Earth and everyone their cat, Michi, they set off on it will be blown a perilous voyage to smithereens, all because of Niki?|isbn=0857639935}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Cotter|title=these faraway lands. The Mermaid Call|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Vivien knows that mermaids don't exist. But she also knows they have to exist – at least islands are beautiful and stunning in the public eye. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without them. A hundred years their scenery and change ago, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return to help out with the Great War effort. They also showed female emancipation, which helped create the townislanders's tourism industryleader, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success story. AliceAarav, a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids is keen to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her huntestablish good relations. When the shy, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?|isbn=1839941901B0DS1VGHH3
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1739805100Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Loving the Enemy: Building bridges in a time of war|author=Andrew MarchLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=BiographyLiterary Fiction|summary= ''Loving the Enemy'' tells the quite extraordinary story of author Andrew March's grandparents, who first met when grandfather Fred Clayton went to Dresden to teach First published in the early days of the Nazi regime 1953 in the 1930s. FredFrench, this novel is a sensitive and thoughtful man, had some vague ideas of "building bridges" timeless text which may guard against wrenches the growing hostilities between nations unfolding in Europe at hearts of its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the timepage and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Fred's attempts to separate individual people from ideology weren't universally successful but he did make friendships and connections that lasted for a lifetimeLike the lives of her characters, they are often left tragically incomplete. |isbn=1804271675
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|isbnauthor=B0B575J99NTom Percival|title=Beneath the Porticoes|author=Brooke AdamsThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=Elizabeth Miller was thirty-four and a teacher at a prestigious girlWill's school life is difficult, in Yorka multitude of ways. It was He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes'comfortable, he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn' but she longed t have enough money for something more in life. Sheeven the most basic of things like food, and his dad can'd ''still not found t work because he lost his job at the right vocation nor met the right man'' and now college, was the time to make working a cash-in-hand job on a changebuilding site and had an accident. She needed challengesThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. There was And yet, he still has a little trepidation when she applied for the professoressa job in Bolognatiny amount of hope. After He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a telephone interview, she was offered light at the position and it wasn't end of a long before she was exploring the beautiful city. There were some natural doubts before her first class but it went surprisingly well, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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|isbnauthor=1529125898Sylvie Cathrall|title=Godmersham Park|author=Gill HornbyA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Science Fiction|summary=''If it were not for the casual dereliction of the odd gentleman's duty, there would no women to teach well-bred daughters at all.'' Anne Sharpe was thirty-one years old when she arrived at Godmersham Park to take There are few greater joys than a book which lives up the position of governess to twelve-year-old Fanny Austena compelling premise. She had no experience of teaching but And this was a case is one of necessity. Until the death of her mother, Anne had a comfortable life and was loved by both parents although her father was frequently absent from the household. When her mother died, her father cast her off and would have nothing more to do with her. No explanation was offered but she would receive an annuity of £35 a year. Her maid, Agnes, would receive nothing but was fortunately taken in by some neighboursthem.|isbn= 0356522776
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|authorisbn=Lev Parikian 1786482126|title=Light Rains Sometimes FallThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths
|rating=4.5
|genre=Animals and WildlifeCrime|summary= If you’re a writer yourself, or Builders were demolishing an aspiring writer, or someone who pretends old house in Norwich - the site was going to write, then you know that there are unnumbered types hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of booksa child beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Some you read for fun Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, some for distractionDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. It's difficult as Ruth knows, some for vicarious emotionbut Nelson doesn't, some to learn from in that she is pregnant with his child as a random way, some for focussed research, and result of the one night they spent together some because they are, broadly speaking, the kind of thing you think you might like to writethree months ago. OrHer condition will be obvious before long, indeed, are actually trying not least because Ruth is prone to writesudden bouts of sickness.|isbn=1783966386
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|isbnauthor=0751581577Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=Lying Beside You|author=Michael RobothamThe Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersShort Stories|summary=Elias Haven murdered his parents and his twin sisters two days after his nineteenth birthday. Voices told him to do it. Only two people survived This collection was truly enchanting in all senses of the carnage - Elias, who was sent to Ramptonword: spellbinding with its fantastical, magical elements and his thirteen-year-old brother, Cyrus, who hid charming in a shed until the police found himits gentle portrayal of nature and human relationships. Twenty years laterGuadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and precisely, Cyrus is her stories structured by a forensic psychologist and he's been told wisdom that his brother is being released. Can Cyrus forgive the sinner whilst having appears to live on a daily basis with the results of the crime? Can he bear want to have Elias living in teach us something about the same house? How will his lodger, twenty-one-year-old Evie Cormac, cope?world.|isbn=1804271470
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=140595115X0008551375|title=A Stranger on BoardWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Cameron WardNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Right from the beginning, we know this will not turn out well. Eight days into the trip to deliver the superyacht ''Escape'' to Antigua, all 300 tonnes and six decks will be floundering without power in the Atlantic. Those of the crew who are left will be cowering in fear a fellow crew member tries to pick them off, one by one. Some are already dead. They are three days from shore and there is no way of making contact. But letLeanne Wilson's go back to when all this started, in Southampton.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1398508632|title=The Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde|rating=5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=It had been on the cards for a while but it body was found at the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end bottom of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate changeScottish mountain, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: seemingly the area around her was a known habitat with result of a variety of terrainstragic accident. She had electricity which allowed 'd looked so happy, too, when she posted her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydratorintentions on Facebook. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, Her friends were relieved as she had shelter: this was not a plan to ''live'' wild just to live off its produce.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1635864674|title=Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Saladsout of an unpleasant relationship, Sauces, Stews, and More|author=Joy Howard|rating=4|genre=Cookery|summary=''Think of but it as no-whining dininglooked like she was living her best life now.'' We know Then it's a fruit rather than a vegetable but the fact emerged that so many people get confused just goes to show how versatile five other women had died in similar circumstances in the tomato islast year. Then there are all the different typesAll were experienced climbers, not to mention the cultivars - properly equipped for what they were doing and you begin to understand why Joy Howard says that she hasn't met one she didn't lovesensible people. I'd argue with her there - I have no affection for the ones you find in None of the supermarket ''next'' what a stupid thing to the ones labelled 'grown for flavourdo' to distinguish them from the ones that have obviously just been grown for profitexplanations applied. Personally, IThey were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there'd prefer s a tin of tomatoes to those - and Howard makes good use of these. She's not at all precious if you get killer on the tasteloose.
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