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==The Best New Books==
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Jo Callaghan1786482126|title=Leave No TraceThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a man is found crucified on Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the top bones of a hill in Nuneatonchild beneath a doorway. There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, DCS Kat Frank Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself assigned to the case alongside her sidekick, the AI detective Lockworking with DCI Harry Nelson. It's their first live case togetherdifficult as Ruth knows, having previously been very successful with several cold cases. But when there is a second body found crucified a few days laterbut Nelson doesn't, Kat that she is suddenly struggling pregnant with his child as a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that draws a lot result of unwanted attention to their AI Future Policing projectthe one night they spent together some three months ago. Will they Her condition will be able obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to solve the case in time, or will Kat find herself taken off the case and, potentially, out sudden bouts of a career?|isbn=139851120Xsickness.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=13996130730008551375|title=Moral InjuriesWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Christie WatsonNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on Leanne Wilson's body was found at the first day bottom of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter Scottish mountain, seemingly the result of a centurytragic accident. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitiousShe'd looked so happy, too, which is a bonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeonshe posted her intentions on Facebook. Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but it looked like she was living her best life now. Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in the last year. Laura is a perfectionist All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and a trauma doctorsensible people. Anjali is the free spirit None of the group and she becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at what a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and it's going stupid thing to end in tragedy. We dondo't know who suffered the tragedy or the consequencesexplanations applied. Twenty-five years later They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the three friends. This time, it's their teenage children who are involveda killer on the loose.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241636604Paul B Preciado|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary StevensonDysphoria Mundi
|rating=4.5
|genre=AutobiographyPolitics and Society|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able never too late to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about embrace the shape revolutionary optimism of things to come.childhood''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sunny SinghSamantha Harvey|title=Hotel ArcadiaOrbital|rating=34.5|genre=Thrillers |summary=The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529153298|title=The List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I meanIn 2024, honestly...) SheSamantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for 's not what's worrying MivOrbital's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard a compact yet profound work that her father wants to move unfolds over a single day in the lives of a group of astronauts aboard the family 'Down South'International Space Station. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is Through a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent narrative lens that. She's not worried about mirrors the dangers or that her Mumastronauts's stopped talking - orbital perspective, Harvey invites readers to anyonesee our planet in a wholly new light.|isbn=1529922933
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1398524085295967572X|title=Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?Pale Pieces|author=Nicci FrenchG M Stevens
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, Our unnamed narrator is notabout to begin a train journey with his companion Django. Shortly afterwards, Etty Where they're going and Greg, find what the body purpose of Greg's fatherthis journey is, Duncan Ackerley, in the riveris uncertain. It was an easy assumption for Django found the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldntickets ''t stand on the guiltfloor somewhere'' and has persuaded our narrator to accompany him. The Salter children are Why not convinced but there's little ? Not much else they can do is clear either - but get on with their lives we are probably in the past as the pair travel to the station by coach and wonder about what really happenedthe train is a steam locomotive.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=10359067080008551324|title=DivaThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Daisy GoodwinNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=We tend It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to think tell the police where the body of Maria Callas as Greek, but she a missing person is buried and who was born to Greek parents in Manhattanresponsible for her death. This person, New Yorkhe promises, in December 1923 is someone big and it will be worth the police doing what he wants. And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to serve the remainder of his sentence and only moved to Athens when she was thirteenget an early parole date. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed Not much to ask, is it to ? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn'Callast think so and she' s even prepared to make it more manageable in do the States. When she was back in Athens other thing that Hardie demanded - supposedly so make certain that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother DS Max Craigie and anyone who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackieworks with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeJon Fosse and Damion Searls (translator) |title=Black Hole Cinema ClubVaim
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, theywas strange''re looking forward to lots ... This haunting phrase encapsulates the pervading sense of exciting filmsotherworldliness which permeates this story set in Vaim, a fictional fishing village in Norway which paradoxically could not feel more real for Jatgeir and manyEline, many snacks! However, as two of the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagineprotagonists caught in its melancholic current. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=18399427381804271829
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Rachel Greenlaw1035043092|title=Compass and BladeThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=3.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=''I can hear 't have been the song of the sea. The call of the deeponly person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, the answering beat in my heartBook 8) by Ann Cleeves|left Shetland]] to start a new life on Orkney. It's been seven years since we heard from him, but he' Rosevear, a remote s now living with Willow Reeves and partially forgotten islandtheir young son, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. MiraJames, like her mother before heras well as Cassie, is one the daughter of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies withinhis former partner. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island Willow's leader also his boss, and Mirashe 's father. Desperate to save him from death'should'' be on maternity leave, Mira makes but when the body of a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he popular islander, Archie Stout, is secretive and with only coordinates to guide herfound, she sets off in search the aftermath of a family secret that lies buried deep in the seastorm, she can't resist getting involved. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler He's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save d been battered about the future head with a Neolithic stone - one of her home and the ones she holds most deara pair - which had been stolen from a museum.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=James Sherwood MettsThea Lenarduzzi|title=Planet StorylandThe Tower|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for ''How unctuous are the Earthlingsfats of another's life, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. AI and automation have been proceeding apace In this compelling novel, Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the identity of T, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplishthe protagonist of this tale. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a wealthy family in the 19th century, who died of othertuberculosis after being locked in a tower, captures T's imagination. Annie's fate is, new ways to spend timeabove all, along came an awful pandemicenticing story to T. Life was pretty much shut down It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth andknowledge, along with itand in service of myth, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavilyfable and fantasy. |isbn=17361284261804271799
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Matthew TreeClaire-Louise Bennett|title=We'll Never KnowBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary= Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his fatherEverything in this book, however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and distortion. Even a kiss, usually a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams symbol of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably intimacy and who had endless crises closeness, becomes evidence of self confidencelove lost. So Tim applied himself When the narrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me,'' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to his studiesconfirm her emotional numbness. The imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitionsher ex-partner, a ghost she conjures to test her detachment.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP81804271934
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=A G Slatter0008405026|title=The Briar Book of A Stranger in the DeadFamily (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary='' ThereIt'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 a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I canhalt. This secret magic of my own Now, her mother, all mineHelena, at lastand her father are dead in their bed. I just want to enjoy Initially, it for looks like a while.straightforward murder/suicide but there'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under s something about the protection positioning of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and the wider world from the Darklandsher boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch What looked as though it was going to be born into her family for generations an open-and as such since she was young, her training as -shut case is now a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potionscomplex double murder. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes Kerrigan is convinced that the Briar Witch, the townexplanation lies in Rosalie's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do disappearance: others (such as the Briar witchesDerwent' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survives boss, is under threatUna Burt) are less convinced.|isbn=1803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529900360Annie Ernaux and Alison L. Strayer (translator)|title=The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan KellermanOther Girl
|rating=4
|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'We were born from the same body. I've never really wanted to think about this.'' Ernaux's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible work is always very candid and even after Alex recoveredher tone transparent, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didnbut this raw epistolary text must be one of the most intimate accounts I't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a whileve read. FinallyErnaux writes in direct address to her sister, it was Robinhowever, Delawarethis letter will never reach her. Why? Because Annie Ernaux's partnersister died of diphtheria at 6 years old, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that a few months before the involvement vaccine was something that made compulsory in France, and 2 years before the man she loved neededauthor was even born. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in large and instant void created by the swimming pool jarring concept of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married writing to an extremely rich man and itimaginary recipient emphasises Ernaux's not the Italianprocess of reckoning with this giant absence in her life, an absence that she has always felt but often denied. But which of them was the primary target?|isbn=1804271845
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529395224Maxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Letting the Cat Out Reminiscences of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion RowlandsTolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev
|rating=3.5
|genre=Animals and WildlifeBiography|summary=Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentallyBiographies are often seen as the form of life-writing which offers less colour; it can be seen as more objective and less personal. His father was I think that Gorky completely rejects this perspective, and offers a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footstepsvibrant, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on subjective yet informed portrait of three of his father's lifeliterary contemporaries. When he was seventeen he took In the opportunity first section of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before longbook, he was at Liverpool University. It hadnTolstoy complains to his friend Gorky that: ''t - you write not of real life as with so many students 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 - been his dream since he was a childwhy should it interest anyone? Of what use is it?''. If anythingWell, he'd wanted to Maxim Gorky shows exactly what can be gained from a professional footballersubjective 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=08615417741529077745|title=A Nye of PheasantsThe Dark Wives (D I Vera Stanhope)|author=Steve BurrowsAnn Cleeves|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken A man walking his dog in the early morning discovered the body of a short holiday man in Singapore to meet up with an old allythe park near Rosebank, Guy Truemana care home for troubled teens. Maik The dead man was involved in a street brawl Josh - he would later maintain that he one of the care workers who was facing due to work a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurkashift the night before but who had never turned up. Initially, he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned D I Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate the murder - but her only clue is the disappearance of one of the manresidents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. Now he could be facing Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death penaltybut Vera thinks this is unlikely as the girl's diary makes it clear that she adored Josh. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at allJosh.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alexander McCall SmithB0FK5LHKD9|title=The Perfect Passion CompanyColour of Memory|author=Christopher Bowden|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The Perfect Passion Company is It's been three years since we last reviewed a dating agency in Edinburghbook by favourite regular Christopher Bowden, run by Ness and operating as an alternative so we were very glad to all the online apps in providing see a more personal, tailored servicenew novel arrive here at Bookbag Towers. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the businessLike all Bowden's stories, as Ness is planning to take there's a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps mystery at the chance to come home to Edinburghheart of ''The Colour of Money''. And so begins We like this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a business, or theme in matchan author's work -making, take a mystery but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, give it different flavour and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596atmosphere each time.
}}
{{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=0811771741henleyA|title=InstaKnits for BabyUltimate Obsession|author=Melissa LeapmanDai Henley
|rating=4
|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=Melissa LeapmanEx-DCI Andy Flood has been a Private Investigator for some time now, and he should be doing quite well financially. Unfortunately, his daughter's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us defence against a collection of knits from toys to blanketsmurder charge drained his savings. Some will be quick knits His wife, Laura, has been trying to persuade him to retire - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' varietymaybe go travelling or go on cruises. The projects are divided by the time theyThat's what 'ordinary people do'll take to complete - less than five hours, five '' He's not been entirely up front about the state of their savings. When Jack Durban tries to ten hours, ten persuade him to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractivetake his case, modern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about it'social-media-worthy projects' but s the thought of the money he could make that convinces him that this is a miscarriage of justice that's me being pickyhe really should put right.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1836284683|title=The Bad Weather FriendBig Happy|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=ParanormalDystopian Fiction|summary=Benny Well! This is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered murder mystery unlike any other! I do love it when I open a really weirdbook, disturbing coffin-sized object it's nothing like I expected it to his homebe, and it's possible takes me on a wild ride. And that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! just what happened with ''The thing is, Benny is the very last person Big Happy''. I don't want to deserve all this bad luck. He is ruin a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately similar experience for Benny it turns out that any of you reading but I'll have to at least set the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good personscene. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of BennyOnce that's enemiesdone, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they areI think you should simply experience this wonderfully original story for yourself.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Adam StowerSally Rooney|title=Murray and BunIntermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers General Fiction |summary=Murray Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is supposed to be something of a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who grandmaster at putting it into words. Her dialogue is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep gripping andso brilliantly frustrating, well, whatever takes his fancy next of as her characters never quite say exactly what they feel. Among the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned many relationships woven into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bunthis story, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into central one for readers to unravel is the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure fraternal connection—or lack thereof—between Ivan and whiffsPeter Koubek. This time round it drops them into a Viking landIvan, where a troll hunter is expected – wellsocially awkward chess prodigy, one much bigger than Murray wascontrasts sharply with his older brother Peter, to be honest, but hea successful lawyer living in Dublin. Following their father's turned up and hepassing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers'll have to do…already strained relationship faces new trials.|isbn=00085612490571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0C47LV1PC1036916375|title=FragilityJust a Liverpool Lad|author=Mosby WoodsPeter McArdle
|rating=4
|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing personJust a Liverpool Lad '' joke? And if you could, is a collection of memories and reflections from the question should you make it? Or is years Peter McArdle spent growing up in and around Liverpool. Some are factual, such as the question if you didfamily history of a sea-going family, would it land? The catch is that with the answer for both could well bedocks dominating lives.Other stories blend seamlessly into the what-might-have-been. 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 blitz that was a constant factor in McArdle's early years. I'd never heard of parachute mines before - but they were almost soundless and could appear after the all-clear was sounded. no.}}
{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= 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 his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1009473085|title=The Conservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Sometimes it's simpler to explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that applies to ''The Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If 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 don't think Anthony Seldon's book, {{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. ''FragilityThe Conservative Effect'' is set an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the city most important. This book follows the well-established format: a series of Portlandexperts from various fields review the state of the nation when the coalition took over in 2010, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during changes that occurred and the covid pandemicsituation in 2024.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jenny Valentine|title=Us in the Before and After|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Elk and Mab are best friends, or more than that even, their friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't get each other's contact details at the 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|isbn=15294317351787333175|title=The Winter VisitorYou Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=James HenryBenji Waterhouse|rating=45|genre=CrimePopular Science|summary=ItI was tempted to read ''You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here'' after enjoying Adam Kay's February 1991 and Essex first book {{amazonurl|isbn=1509858636|title=This is bitingly coldGoing to Hurt}}, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all a glorious mixture of insight into the more surprising. He'd been exiled on workings of the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decadeNHS, humour and autobiography. The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasnYou Don't long Have to livebe Mad... It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped ' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to his underwear mental illness and sent to a watery grave in the boot work of a stolen Ford Sierrapsychiatrist. Is I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the laughter is directed at a warning from a Spanish gang or situation rather than a problem closer to home?person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonaghMariana Enriquez|title=The Glorious Race of Magical BeastsA Sunny Place for Shady People|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersShort Stories|summary=Eli Mariana Enriquez writes horror that is a busy lad – disturbingly real, achieving this uncanny familiarity by day basing her paranormal plots on gritty realities: her settings include an abandoned field full of disused refrigerators due to an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with himurban planning mishap, an overcrowded homeless shelter and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globecrime-trotting adventure ridden neighbourhood where safety meetings are routine - all entrants have to navigate the world in the company within Argentina. The circumstances of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at her characters are so plausible that the eatery leads to supernatural or otherworldly horror which seeps into these spaces adopts a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gransimilarly tangible texture.|isbn=05713822311803511230
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=178763681X1529934753|title=Knife Skills for BeginnersThe Protest|author=Orlando MurrinRob Rinder|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Chef Paul Delamare took For a teaching job little while, it looked as though Sir Max Bruce, the country's most famous living artist, was not going to show up for the opening of his retrospective at a residential cookery school the Royal Academy. Still, he arrived in Belgraviathe nick of time, complete with his two wives and six children, one of whom filmed what happened. He didn't really want Being an influencer, you tend to do things like that, but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had it was fortunate that there was a way record of getting both men and women to do what he wantedthe protest. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be Lexi Williams, an intern at the school to assist PaulRA, who had grabbed a spray can of blue paint from under a broken armchair and proceeded to spray Bruce in the face, but it didnwhilst shouting ''t turn out that way. The teaching - and Stop the problems - are all his ownWar''. The one thing he hadnIt seemed to be part of an ongoing series of 'blue-face't expected attacks, but this was for someone to turn up deaddifferent. UnfortunatelyThe can had been laced with cyanide, he and Sir Max Bruce was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspectdead.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah MarshAriel Saramandi|title=A Sign Portrait of Her Ownan Island on Fire|rating=34.5|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=After a bout In this powerful collection of scarlet fever as a childessays, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world Saramandi seeks to intradermally dissect the sociopolitical fabric of silenceMauritius, everything about her tunneling deep into the wounds left by colonialism and slavery to expose how these legacies still shape modern life changes. Living in a time when Saramandi describes the use of sign language was seen country at one stage as something only savages do''rotting'', Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching blunt yet apt metaphor for the deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. At systemic decay brought about by the same timemalignant forces of racism, Bell is working on other inventions and ideaspatriarchy, environmental degradation and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up governmental dysfunction. Each essay in this collection serves as a complicated tangle kind of espionagediagnostic, charting the various diseases afflicting the island state.|isbn=10354016141804271616
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1803816759Pekka Harju-Autti|title=The Unravelling|author=Will GibsonLoveVortex and the Drakor's Curse
|rating=4
|genre=Science FictionFantasy|summary=It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for eighteenth century, a bit time of adventure discovery and Britain is expanding its foreign trade. Captain Julius Hawthorne, an experienced Scottish sea captain, is sent to get stuck into some really gritty crime detectionthe Andaman Islands in his endeavour. But then something goes horribly wrong Along with the AI system that now runs everythinghis son, making life easier for manyPeter, and riots start to spread. Finallytheir cat, Michi, Joe gets they set off on a perilous voyage to do some real policingthese faraway lands. In The islands are beautiful and stunning in their scenery and the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isnislanders't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylanleader, a British superfan and tech nerdAarav, is also on the casekeen to establish good relations. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?|isbn=B0DS1VGHH3
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529421284Helene Bessette and Kate Briggs (translator)|title=Laying Out the Bones|author=Kate WebbLili is Crying
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=It was one First published in 1953 in French, this novel is a timeless text which wrenches the hearts of those flash downpours that its readers just as Bessette wrenches words and sentences from their proper position on the page and positions them elsewhere, disjointed, truncated. Like the British weather lives of her characters, they are often delivers left tragically incomplete.|isbn=1804271675}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Wrong Shoes|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a heatwavemultitude of ways. In a gullyHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', a human skeleton came to he has the surface wrong shoes because his dad can't work and forensic testing proved doesn't have enough money for even the body to be Lee Gearymost basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, who was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had disappeared nine years earlieran accident. He'd been a known drug user Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and had learning disabilitiesdad are separated, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasnand Will't convinceds life seems bleak in every direction. Geary was a townieAnd yet, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? still has a tiny amount of hope. There are connections He is good at art, and clings to the suicide moments of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad end of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and me) investigatea long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571379559Sylvie Cathrall|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona WilliamsA Letter to the Luminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Science Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is the story one of four peoplethem. Tess Hembry's roots are |isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|author=Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey (Translator)|title=The Accidentals|rating=4.5|genre=Short Stories|summary=This collection was truly enchanting in Jamaicaall senses of the word: temperamentally she might be happier therespellbinding with its fantastical, but instead, she lives magical elements and charming in the house on the riverbank, built its gentle portrayal of broken bricksnature and human relationships. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms Guadalupe Nettel writes intelligently and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetablesprecisely, her stories structured by a wisdom that appears to complete the delivery rounds - and want to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, teach us something about the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nannyworld.|isbn=1804271470
}}