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'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=P J Parrish1035043092|title=Dead of WinterThe Killing Stones (Jimmy Perez)|author=Ann Cleeves|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loon LakeI can't have been the only person who was sad when Inspector Jimmy Perez [[Wild Fire (Shetland, Michigan is picture-postcard pretty – an idyll that sits serenely Book 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's now living with Willow Reeves and snugly in their young son, James, as well as Cassie, the midst daughter of a pine-peppered winter wonderlandhis former partner. Louis Kincaid needs a little serenity in Willow's also his life boss, and she ''should'' be on arrival in Loon Lake he feels almost as if he has come home. Life has not been easy for Kincaid. A troubledmaternity leave, unhappy child but when the body of mixed racea popular islander, passed around various institutions and foster homesArchie Stout, Louis figures that if he is going to put some integrity back into found, in the worldaftermath of a storm, he will need to wear she can't resist getting involved. He'd been battered about the head with a Neolithic stone - one of a pair - which had been stolen from a badge to do itmuseum.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847391346</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Russell Celyn JonesPolly Barton|title=The Ninth Wave (New Stories from the Mabinogion) What Am I, A Deer?|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Pwyll rules a medieval-style fiefdom in a post-climate change Wales. Life is different in many ways - therePolly Barton's debut novel is an intellectually playful yet emotionally exposed work that uses translation as both subject and governing metaphor. The narrator, newly relocated from London to Berlin, works translating video games into Japanese through the process of localisation, rewriting language until it feels comfortably familiar to a new-but-old social order built on feudalism and horsepower audience. Barton treats this as a paradoxical act: arguably, in striving for universality, language is the main means endlessly repackaged, its originality at risk of transportdisappearing altogether. But From this, the novel opens out into a wider, resonant question: to what extent do we translate ourselves in many ways it's much the same - people still fight one anotherorder to be understood, towns still have sink estatesaccepted, rich boys still have too much time on their hands and precious little meaning in their lives. or loved?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115146</amazonuk>1804272175
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= Zabriskie1
|title=A Village Where Many Ways Meet: A Story of Belonging and Community, Rooted in Indigenous Wisdom
|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''Across many African and Indigenous systems, differences in how children learn, sense , or process the world were not treated as disorders to be corrected. They were understood as natural variations of human intelligence and awareness, each holding value within the community.''
This lovely story is a synthesis of that tradition, which was carried down through generations by oral retellings. It shows that a community or society is not made up from interchangeable building blocks of human beings but by a range of people with different skills and different personalities, all contributing to a whole that combines them all and to the benefit of them all.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1787333175|title=You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here|author=Owen SheersBenji Waterhouse|rating=5|genre=Popular Science|summary=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=White Ravens (New Stories This is Going to Hurt}}, a glorious mixture of insight into the workings of the NHS, humour and autobiography. ''You Don't Have to be Mad...'' promised the same elements but moved from physical problems to mental illness and the work of a psychiatrist. I did wonder whether it was acceptable to be looking for humour in this setting but the Mabinogionlaughter is directed at a situation rather than a person and it is always delivered with empathy and understanding. }}{{Frontpage|author=Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale (Translator)|title=The Disappearing Act|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=In the old taleDespite her anonymisation of place names and people, Branwen Stepanova's message in this short work of autofiction is unmistakable. A novelist named M travels from B (ostensibly Berlin) to the sister town of Bendigeidfran - the giant King of BritainF for a literary festival she is to be a guest speaker at. She marries the King of IrelandDetoured by erratic train schedules and nudged by forces beyond her control, who doesn't treat her well. She manages to send Bendigeidfran a message via journey slowly bends toward a tamed starling and war and killings ensuetraveling circus. In Swept up in this new taleseries of events, M eventually offers to step in for a young girl circus performer who has just walked away from her brothers who, in unexpectedly left the wake show. The train functions as a motif of the devastating foot transience and mouth outbreakimpermanence, are despoiling their heritage by rustling and illegally slaughtering sheep. She meets an old man who tells her a story involving the superstitions about while the ravens in circus embodies the Tower reshaping of London, propaganda work during World War IIidentity and a retreat into fantasy, and an equally doomed love affairimpulse that lies at the very heart of the novel form itself. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1854115030</amazonuk>1804272329
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jennifer BohnetB0GFQ81YQK|title=Follow Your StarHow the Sky and the Earth Made People: From the Oral Stories of Malagasy Elders|author=Stephanie Zabriskie|rating=34.5|genre=WomenChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=It's three years since Nanette Weston left Monaco. She'd been engaged to a Formula 1 racing driver Before people came and had lived joined the life of animals, there was only the wealthy but a serious car accident had ended all that. The accident could have killed her fiancé sky and she lost her driving licence because of the alcohol she'd consumedearth. Her slow recovery Everything was hindered by quiet until the earth and the end of her engagement but she's found some contentment in being a nanny sky began to tal to two young childreneach other. When her friend and employerFirst, Vanessathe earth created bodies. And then, remarries and takes an extended honeymoon in the Amazon Nanette is asked to take sky breathed life into them. These were the children back first humans and they belonged to Monaco where their father livesboth earth and sky.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709089090</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=J R Stephenson|title=Crooked Justice|rating=2And so people lived between sky and soil and they planted and learned and remembered, especially how they came to be.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Barry Johns. You'll see him coming - he's five hundred pounds if he's an ounce. Just don't ever lend him money - he won't pay it back. A businessman with a share of a nightclub on Cyprus, he goes there for a customary breakWhen they grew old and died, their bodies returned to the earth and finds his sort-of moll-type sort-of girlfriend has been installed as their life returned to the bar dancersky. He manages to tread both on And that is why the toes of his local colleague earth and some Greek rivalsthe sky are both revered. Only together can they create human beings. And when a rival in London chases him up for thousands of pounds owed he decides that is why people must pay attention to pack up , and shut up. It's a big stone that hides himcare for, but he leaves a very awkward trail for everyone wanting to upturn it and get their revengeboth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0955855713</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen BakerB0GHPMNF6P|title=TheyThe Zookeeper've Got Your Numbers Dragon: A Magical Modern Fantasy Tale for Grown-Ups|author=Carolyn Mathews
|rating=4.5
|genre=Popular ScienceFantasy|summary=If you are in When Phil's father unexpectedly dies, he quits his Canary Wharf finance job to take over the running of the slightest bit paranoidfamily's farm zoo. He's not expecting much excitement, worry until he receives an unidentified egg that ''Big Brother'' his new-age stoner uncle Edgar found in a cave in New Zealand, and suddenly life is always watching or like to believe that you are not no longer quite what it seems. Then the egg hatches into neither a reptile nor a numberbird, but a free man (or woman), then this may not be the book for youdragon! Now he, as it will do nothing to dispel any of those worries. IfEdgar, on the other handhis mother Abi, you think 'and the mathematical modelling of humanityzoo' sounds like one s part-time café waitress Pearl have to raise this little bundle of the sexiest things everscales and joy, despite having no idea how to actually raise dragons and are chomping at the bit not being able to learn more tell anyone about it, then you might well be interested . But this tiny little dragon may show them love and connection in what Business Week journalist Baker has to say.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099507021</amazonuk>ways they had never before imagined…
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephanie Zabriskie
|title=How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows: From the Oral Stories of Maasai Elders
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''How Maasai Women Spoke to Cows is a children’s nonfiction book drawn from the oral traditions of Maasai elders in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tad TulejaLivi Michael|title=A Dictionary of Foreign Words Elizabeth and PhrasesRuth|rating=3.5|genre=Home and FamilyHistorical Fiction|summary=Take ''Elizabeth and Ruth'' is a look at work of historical fiction wrought from the cover design life of this bookthe Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell, and you'd be mistaken best known for thinking this was her first novel Mary Barton (1848), a radical critique of the treatment of the working class published under a trivia compendium for all those foreign words that have taken part in our English language since whenever they crossed over pseudonym. The ''Ruth'' from their original homes. But the Livi Michael's title is definitely honestappears in her novel as Pasley, for this is a dictionary book first, for referenceyoung Irish prostitute who was abandoned as a child and finds herself in Manchester's New Bailey Prison after a difficult and unjust hand at life. Set in Manchester between 1839 and 1842, the novel examines the harsh conditions endured by the Victorian working poor and a browser interrogates the extent to which the wealthy (including Gaskell herself) were responsible for the trivia buff secondaddressing these injustices.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709089562</amazonuk>1784633682
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne RiceMakenna Goodman|title=Angel TimeHelen of Nowhere|rating=24.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Toby O'Dare It could be argued that the pervading theme of this book is malaise - a hard-to-place feeling that something in your life is an extremely efficient hit man not quite right. The protagonist, a disgraced professor on the brink of losing both his career and his relationship, embodies this feeling. However, Goodman counteracts his discomfort with a passion for musicforce which is seductive, history radical and unnerving: Helen. The connection between Helen and playing his beloved lutethe protagonist is indirect yet intimate. HeAs the former owner of the countryside house he's also something of considering, Helen represents a lost soul having turned volta in his back on God many years agolife, her past tied to his potential fresh start. One day while on a The realtor who shows the protagonist around the house shares stories about Helen, and describes her as 'job' he an entity that is visited by an Angel who offers him a chance at redemptionpure consciousness, beyond form''. Toby agrees to become the Angel's human instrument and help save Although she lives rather than take them. He is sent on in an assignment to help a Jewish couple accused of murder in 13th Century Englandassisted living facility now, Helen has powers beyond comprehension which the reader gets the sense are not altogether innocuous.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0701178140</amazonuk>1804272205
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian MortimerB0GCB1MQ7D|title=1415: Henry V's Year of GloryWhy My Mother Went Away|author=Alan Kennedy
|rating=5
|genre=HistoryAutobiography|summary=The medievalI have often wondered how prominent people came to hold their positions. With 'celebrities', in fact time-honouredthere's frequently a book they might or might not have written, view of King Henry V as one of Englandwhich might or might not tell the true story. It's greatest heroes was propagated though not originated by Shakespeareoften that you find a book that gives the full backstory, and again more recently to some extent by Olivierrarely do you discover a memoir where the telling is so perfect that you's portrayal in filmll go back and reread paragraphs and sentences, just for the pleasure the words give. At least one historian has called him ''the greatest man that ever ruled EnglandWhy My Mother Went Away''is one of those rare exceptions. It's the story of how a boy from the Midlands, born at the beginning of the Second World War, would become a Professor of Psychology at Dundee University. In fact, he was one of the founders of the department.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224079921</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Deborah GregoryJeremy Cooper|title=Dancing With The DeadDiscord|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=I wanted to read ''Dancing with the Dead'', because I'm interested in family history. The blurb on the back of the book also mentioned Gill – our heroine Discord: a lack of the piece – was moving from Bristol agreement or harmony (my current homeas between persons, things, or ideas) to Lincolnshire (where I was born and brought up). I felt with all these links, the novel could not fail to interest me – but this was not the case.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904529305</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt and DaveTom Percival|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ItWill's concerned me for a while that it's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls – princesseslife is difficult, magic soft toys, mermaids and pets abound – but there's in a much smaller choice for boysmultitude of ways. ItHe is bullied because he has 's important too with early readers that the content is ''interestingwrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can' t work and reading becomes more than just something which you 'doesn't haveenough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can'' to do t work because he lost his job at school the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and moves had an accident. Throw into being funthat mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. Matt And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and Dave have found clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the answer in Yuckend of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John E SmelcerEdward W Said|title=The Great DeathRepresentations of the Intellectual |rating=4.5|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Edward Said's ''Representations of the Intellectual'As Western Europeans settled Alaska, ' is less a strict theory of what intellectuals are and more a passionate argument for what they brought with them diseases against which the indigenous people had no natural immunityshould be. At Said clearly rejects the beginning comfortable image of the twentieth centuryintellectual as a detached expert speaking only to other specialists. Instead, fully two thirds of all Alaska natives perished from he insists on the intellectual as a pandemic of measlespublic figure, often awkward, smallpoxabrasive, and influenza. No community was spared. In most cases, half of a village's population died within a week. In some casesunpopular, there were no survivors. It was the end of an ancient way of life. Natives still refer who speaks truth to the dreadful period as the Great Deathpower even when it is inconvenient or risky.'|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709194</amazonuk>1804272248
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Maxine BarrySylvie Cathrall|title=River A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=3.5|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=Two young women both have There are few greater joys than a love of the Thames. Melisande Ray's beloved hotel, the Ray of Sunshine is on the river bank. It's here that guests come who want book which lives up to be pampered and looked after in the way that only the best hotels can do well, but when Wendell James checks in to the hotel it's not pampering he's looking for. He's buying a piece of land not far from the Ray of Sunshine and he's sussing out the competitioncompelling premise. There's something personal in there too – if his new hotel means that the Ray And this is one of Sunshine goes under then that would be an added bonus. There's just a slight doubt in his mind when a red-haired maid catches his eyethem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0709088930</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joe Gores1786482126|title=Spade and ArcherThe Janus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Sam Spade decides, bravely, Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to set up his onehold seventy-man detective agency. Itfive 'luxury's the 1920s in San Francisco so we have apartments - when they discovered the prohibition era and all that that entails. Many locals, bones of course, choose to disobey the law, stick two fingers up, so to speak and as a result there's lots of bootleg liquorchild beneath a doorway. Straight away, it's evident that Sam is a man of few wordsThere was no skull. He has the mannerisms of Was this a cat - stealthyritual killing or murder? Inevitably, quick on his feetDr Ruth Galloway finds herself working with DCI Harry Nelson. HeIt's also a compulsive chain-smokerdifficult as Ruth knows, but then againNelson doesn't, most people were. In that era, holding she is pregnant with his child as a cigarette was an elegant, almost essential accessoryresult of the one night they spent together some three months ago. How times have changedHer condition will be obvious before long, not least because Ruth is prone to sudden bouts of sickness.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140911323X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester Clark0008551375|title=The Best of TimesWhen Shadows Fall (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Most children enjoy Leanne Wilson's body was found at the bottom of a good traditional tale and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to have all Scottish mountain, seemingly the right ingredients – result of a handsome prince and a beautiful princess who fall in love, get married and live happily ever aftertragic accident. Or do they? Sadly She'd looked so happy, not long after Prince Frederico marries the lovely Princess Serafinatoo, when she becomes very sadposted her intentions on Facebook. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness Her friends were relieved as she was just out of an unpleasant relationship, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate to find a cure for his wife's miseryit looked like she was living her best life now. He tries everything Then it emerged that five other women had died in similar circumstances in his power the last year. All were experienced climbers, properly equipped for what they were doing and eventually decides to offer his kingdom to anyone who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heartsensible people. Lots None of people come to the palace 'what a stupid thing to try and help but in the end the solution do' explanations applied. They were all alone when they died: DS Max Craigie is certain there's a simple one provided by some very kind travellerskiller on the loose.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>
}}
{{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''. Rather than taking this extreme dysphoria as a sign of weakness, or mistaking detachment or withdrawal for political paralysis, Preciado urges his readers to ''use dysphoria as your revolutionary platform''. |isbn=1804271454}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shirley JacksonSamantha Harvey|title=We Have Always Lived In The CastleOrbital
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Mary Katherine BlackwoodIn 2024, also known as Merricat, is eighteen, and lives with her older sister Constance in Samantha Harvey won the family home where Booker Prize for ''Orbital'Blackwoods had always lived'. Merricat quickly draws , a compact yet profound work that unfolds over a single day in the reader into her world by lives of a series group of matter of fact but bizarre statements – her likes include her sister and death cap mushrooms, and everyone else in her family is deadastronauts aboard the International Space Station. The wealthy Blackwood family has always kept the house 'steady against the world', shutting out other people, and they live near Through a village. Merricat believes narrative lens that 'The people of mirrors the village have always hated usastronauts'orbital perspective, and tells us that she hates them tooHarvey invites readers to see our planet in a wholly new light.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141191457</amazonuk>1529922933
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Weston295967572X|title=Nelson to the Rescue|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the Milk's milk float, but he has now retired. He lives in the stable at the back of the dairy along with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and Rhys, a pigeon who has no sense of direction, a frog who thinks he's a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleeping. Rhodri and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mike's fridge and the animals believe that Mike has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE. Somehow our hero, Nelson, finds himself travelling down to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about his experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewPale Pieces|author=Elizabeth Baines|title=Too Many MagpiesG M Stevens|rating=45
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Becoming Our unnamed narrator is about to begin a mother brings a whole new world of fear into your lifetrain journey with his companion Django. Suddenly you see Where they're going and what the danger in every situation, and fear and trepidation can be become your constant companions. In purpose of this novellajourney is, we meet a young mother who is married to a logical scientistuncertain. They attempt to control their childrenDjango found the tickets ''s futures on a scientific basis, growing their own fruit the floor somewhere'' and vegetables, giving their children nothing sugary, eating no eggs for a whole year until any adverse affects from them were disproved. But after meeting with an enigmatic stranger has persuaded our young mother begins narrator to struggle accompany him. Why not? Not much else is clear either - but we are probably in the past as he introduces ideas of freedom into her world. She begins an affair with him, begins the pair travel to let things slip at home the station by coach and with the children, yet finds she train is still continuously haunted by the sense of an ever-present dangera steam locomotive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844717216</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Katherine May0008551324|title=Burning OutThe Devil You Know (D S Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionCrime|summary=Violet It's unusual for anyone from the Hardie family to approach the police. Neither side likes or has it all – a well-paid job, any respect for the other. But Davie Hardie is struggling in prison and he's prepared to tell the police where the body of a luxurious apartment all to herself. Everything missing person is catered buried and who was responsible for; her mealsdeath. This person, her clotheshe promises, is someone big and her health are all how she would like them to it will beworth the police doing what he wants. But the life she And what he wants is leading is beginning to take its toll. On be transferred to an open prison to serve the verge remainder of snapping, a drained his sentence and somewhat out-of-sorts Violet, withdraws back to her home townget an early parole date. There, she meets someone familiar, a ghost reminding her of how she used Not much to be ten years earlier – a young carefree girlask, full of life. Only this isnis it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't a ghost, but a girl living think so and she's even prepared to do the life Violet once lived – exactly the same. Haunted by the past Violet realizes history is repeating itself other thing that Hardie demanded - make certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is convinced events will happen again. Events that will in turn haunt the girlkept well away from what's happening.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906727392</amazonuk>
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Most people ''How unctuous are the fats of my age will have come across Janssonanother's work unwittinglylife, how dizzying their sugars in our bloodstream''. In this compelling novel, via Thea Lenarduzzi assumes the televised renditions identity of T, the Moomin talesprotagonist of this tale. The readers amongst us would then have been entranced Just as T's story is being told, the story of a second protagonist is unveiled: Annie, the daughter of a few years ago to discover that at last Thomas Teal had set about wealthy family in the translation into English19th century, first of The Summer Book and then who died of tuberculosis after being locked in a collection of short stories which were published as tower, captures T'A Winter Books imagination. Annie's fate is, above all, an enticing story to T. It is a story which she consumes avariciously, both in a quest for truth and knowledge, and in service of myth, fable and fantasy. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954899571</amazonuk>1804271799
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel Kehlmann Claire-Louise Bennett|title=Me and KaminskiBig Kiss, Bye-Bye
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=After reviewing several long booksEverything in this book, it's been refreshing to read such a fluent yet pared down story as 'Kaminski however sweet or seemingly innocent, is steeped in anguish and Me'distortion. In itEven a kiss, Sebastian Zollnerusually a symbol of intimacy and closeness, becomes evidence of love lost. When the obnoxious main characternarrator cries out internally, ''come over here and kiss me, shoves himself forward in '' it is less an invitation than a desperate attempt to research a best seller which will re-ignite his career as an art criticconfirm her emotional numbness. KaminskiThe imagined recipient of this plea is Xavier, the proposed subjecther ex-partner, was a fashionable painter long ago, but now, ancient and chronically ill, has virtually slid into oblivion. So the second-rate writer is on a loser unless he can dig up some juicy details ghost she conjures to hook the art world and general publictest her detachment.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847249892</amazonuk>1804271934
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Louis Barfe0008405026|title=Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light EntertainmentA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=45|genre=EntertainmentCrime|summary=Light entertainment is often looked down upon, as if itIt'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 bit naffhalt. Now, her mother, Helena, tepid and ignorableher father are dead in their bed. What Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's often forgotten is something about the positioning of the bodies that makes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. What looked as though it's hugely popular, enjoyable was going to be an open-and much of it -shut case is now a complex double murder. Kerrigan is of convinced that the highest quality. Louis Barfeexplanation lies in Rosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's Turned Out Nice Again tells the complete story of British light entertainmentboss, Una Burt) are less convinced.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843543818</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jim Helmore Annie Ernaux and Karen WallAlison L. Strayer (translator)|title=Oh No, Monster Tomato!The Other Girl
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=Marvin is entering the Great Grislygust Grow-Off, but just like him, his tomatoes aren't growing very big. He takes 'We were born from the only sensible course of action: he sings his tomatoes a songsame body. The results are spectacularI've never really wanted to think about this. Victory is surely within his grasp.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524741X</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lisa UngerMaxim Gorky and Bryan Karetnyk (translator)|title=Die For YouReminiscences 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=Best-selling novelist Isabel Connelly is married to successful video game designer Marcus Raine. Or so she thinks. But when her husband fails to return from work, she realises something is wrong. Going to A man walking his office to try to find out what happens to him, she gets attacked and ends up dog in hospital, while his co-workers are killed. Things get worse for her, however, when investigating detective Grady Crowe reveals that Marcus Raine has been dead for several years, and the early morning discovered the body of a man she married was using a false identity. Infuriated by in the betrayalpark near Rosebank, and the realisation that she's been living a lie care home for troubled teens. The dead man was Josh - one of the past five years, Izzy takes matters into her own hands and sets out care workers who was due to find her husband and work out why he lied to her for so long. Ignoring police warnings, she delves deeper and deeper into a nasty underworld, and finds a tale which has its roots in Prague and rivals anything she could have plotted in one of her novelsshift the night before but who had never turned up.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099522179</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lisa McMann|title=Wake|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Janie D I Vera Stanhope is seventeen and studying hard for college. She's also working lots of hours at a local nursing home called in to earn money for college as it's unlikely investigate the murder - but her alcoholic mother only clue is going to provide much in the way disappearance of resourcesone of the residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spencer. College Some people believe that Chloe was responsible for the death but Vera thinks this is Janieunlikely as the girl's only chance at a life better than the one diary makes it clear that she's lived so far and so you can't blame her for being so single-minded in the pursuit of her goal. Only one thing stands in her way.adored Josh.She knows that she has to find Chloe to discover what happened to Josh.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385036</amazonuk>
}}
{{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?''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1836284683
|title=The Big Happy
|author=David Chadwick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dystopian Fiction
|summary=Well! This is a murder mystery unlike any other!
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleySally Rooney|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Intermezzo
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Sally Rooney has studied the chessboard of life and is something of a grandmaster at putting it into words. Her 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 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 Dublin. Following their father's passing after a long battle with cancer, the brothers' already strained relationship faces new trials.
|isbn=0571365469
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn= 1836285493
|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User
|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I shall start with Will is a word keen player of advice. When you're being hounded by a circus mastervideo games, and a magicianconscientious student, for the soul of a tiger that's contained in slightly annoying brother and a tiger's egg that's contained in the brain supportive friend. But most of your teddy bearall, and your best friend - a fallen angel - he is trying her best to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogyan aspiring writer. Still - never mindEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, the angelMarlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn's efforts will involve you entering t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a dream world couple of flight and cloud citiesafternoons a week at a different school, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world to desert oases and backStation Road, and friends new and old will where his ability might be on board to helpbetter extended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue Townsend1009473085|title=Adrian Mole: The Prostrate YearsConservative Effect 2010 - 2024|author=Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionPolitics and Society|summary=Adrian Mole is now 39¼ and living, quite literally, in a pigsty, sharing an all too thin party wall with his parents and working in a bookshop. ItSometimes it's not quite how life was supposed simpler to turn out. As he spends his days wrestling his strong willed 5 year old Gracie into her school uniform, trying to reassure glamorous wife Daisy explain a book by describing what it ''isn't'' and that life in the provinces is not as bad as she would like applies to believe, and desperately attempting to talk his mother out of her quest to appear on the vile ''Jeremy KyleThe Conservative Effect: 2010-2024 - 14 Wasted Years?''. If you' show, worrying over his increasingly frequent visits to re looking for an easy read which will deliver the toilet is inside story about what ''really the last thing he needs. And yet'' happened on certain occasions, then this isn't the worst is still to comebook for you. Think a crumbling economy If that's what you're looking for, redundancyI don't think Anthony Seldon's book, affairs, death{{amazonurl|isbn=B0BH7SKG2S|title=Johnson at 10}}, can be bettered for those tumultuous years. It's a family member challenging him compelling read and should be compulsory for anyone who thinks Johnson should return to politics. ''The Conservative Effect'' is an entirely different beast. It's the seventh book in a series which looks at the novel writing stakes impact a government has made and co-editor Sir Anthony Seldon regards this as the most important. This book follows the well-established format: a query over series of experts from various fields review the state of the big C – it's going to be a tough year for nation when the Molescoalition took over in 2010, and there's little the changes that ol' Adrian can do except sit back occurred and watch his life spin out of control around himthe situation in 2024.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718153707</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren KateJenny Valentine|title=FallenUs in the Before and After|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=A 17 year old girl at a new school meets a mysterious Elk and impossibly good-looking boyMab are best friends, who she's immediately drawn to. He seems determined to either ignore her or be outright rude to hermore than that even, until he saves her life, and the two of them end up drawn togethertheir friendship is a once in a lifetime connection. This isn They meet as children one day on a trip out but unfortunately they don't Stephenie Meyerget each other's ''Twilight''contact details at the time. But then chance brings them back together, but it certainly and they are inseparable. Something has striking similaritieshappened though, something terrible and tragic, and now they must work through their grief, and their friendship, together.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385738935</amazonuk>1471196585
}}