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|author= Dominic SmithThomas Dolby|title= The Last Painting Speed of Sara de VosSound|rating= 4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary= From struggling post-punk musician to pop star, from Silicon Valley innovator to university professor, Thomas Dolby has had a remarkable if not unique career, often reinventing himself on the way. This memoir is based on his extensive notes and journals.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785781952</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Ron Butlin|title= Steve and Frandan Take on the World|rating= 4.5|genre= Teens|summary= Like many books for confident readers and teens, our heroes are the victims of cruel bullies – to be precise, as we are well into the twenty-first century here, of the cyber kind. But this isn't some worthy self-help, tell-an-adult book, nor is it a gloomy book about young people who can't see the point of going on. Nope – these guys take the unusual (and, in the light of later events, utterly daft) decision to simply sail away into the sunset, to take a break from civilisation, online Thor and his idiot Viking horde, and the insanities in general of all adults. In their defence, it seems a sensible move at the time... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780274394</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Elaine Everest|title= The Butlins Girls|rating= 4

|summary= If you find the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, ''The Last Painting of Sara de Vos'' provides a masterclass Fresh-faced Molly Missons has just arrived in how Skegness to work up a canvas in stages. Framing the novel start her new job as the story of a seventeenth century Dutch painting, Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the main contours of his characters and the three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the way throughButlins auntie. Sara is one of Behind the few women artists of the period smiles and her painting is of children skating on confident appearance, she hides a frozen canal, her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting secret; she has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born and he is taken the patent lawyer from whom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattanjob to escape escalating problems at home. Ellie Shipley forged a copy of the painting She soon finds good friends in her postgraduate student years chalet-mates Bunty and in 2000 finds herself at the centre of Plum, and it turns out that they each have their own reasons for wanting a gathering storm which threatens fresh start. Meanwhile, Molly is shocked to destroy discover that her reputation movie-star crush Johnny Johnson is working as one of Sydney's foremost fine art academicsan entertainment adviser at the camp. Satisfying though those first descriptions areIs he really as suave as his on-screen persona? And why is he working at the camp anyway? As hidden secrets become discovered, we then understand these are merely the author's equivalent of the delicate chalk lines used by painters of the Dutch Golden Age to mark out the composition which will followMolly and her new friends face new threats and dangers that may threaten their new-found freedom. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>192526680X1447295536</amazonuk>

|author=Deirdre Osborne (Editor)Benjamin Ludwig|title=The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010)Original Ginny Moon|rating=5|genre=ReferenceGeneral Fiction|summary=This literary companion offers fifteen essays addressing To Ginny, a child with autism, the contribution of black and Asian authors to word Forever means until the British literary canon since 1945police come. It covers not just fictionFive years ago the police forcibly removed her from the home of her abusive birth mother, but also poetryGloria. Now fourteen, plays and performance works. It sits as a kind of joyful cuckoo in the nesther fourth Forever Home, interrupting the usual narratives Ginny remains hell-bent on finding her way back to Gloria's apartment. She has no illusions about her mother's addictions or lack of literary waves and movements in Britain parenting skills. She knows that it might be dangerous – that take little notice of any perspective other than the dominant white - and posh! - direction of travelit might even kill her. ItStill she plots, obsessed with returning to Gloria's a disparateto find something she insists she left behind, varied collection of essayssomething she hid under her bed. Her teachers, covering spoken word performance poetrytherapist, black British urban fictionand new Forever Parents are in turn frustrated, LGBTQ writinginfuriated, liberationist writing and much moreperplexed. I was really happy As Gloria returns to see children's authors such as Malorie Blackmanher life, Jamila Gavin the reader follows Ginny on a journey filled with danger and Catherine Johnson discussed and respecteddiscovery, in her quest to find a place she can truly call her Forever Home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>13165048081848456611</amazonuk>

|author=Dr SeussHolly Webb|title=Dr Seuss's ABCThe Homeless Kitten|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingEmerging Readers|summary=No one who has read his work can deny that Dr Seuss had a powerful imaginationLily loves their rescue dog, Hugo. He was able to pluck from his brainpan not only interesting takes on old ideasHowever, but Lily also new creatures and worlds that had never been seen beforereally wants a cat – or better still a kitten. His books are often madder than a box She, therefore, can't believe her luck when Hugo sniffs out three abandoned kittens while out of March hares, but even he must have had his limits? The humble ABC book walk with Lily and her dad. Better still (dare I say from Lily's point of view at least) the animal shelter is full so Lily's mum and dad reluctantly offer to hand-rear the tiny kittens until they're old enough to be rehomed. Lily's in heaven looking after the dull ABC book)kittens, surely he could not bring his sense of anarchic fun to this staple of especially the childrenlittle fluffy white one whom she names Stanley. There is just one problem – it's education market?going to break her heart when the time comes to say goodbye.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00074877541847157831</amazonuk>

|author= Stewart O'NanHarriet Cummings|title= Last Night at the LobsterWe All Begin As Strangers

|summary=In the summer of 1984, a Chilterns village was gripped with fear and suspicion as a mysterious intruder known as ''The Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain is closing some Fox'' broke into the homes of its poorly-performing branches just before Christmasseveral residents in the area. Amid the Christmas lightsDespite an increased police presence, office parties regular patrols and forced jollity Manny DeLeonvigilante groups, the manager of one of these failing outlets, has this slippery character still managed to keep it all together for one last dayevade detection. Short-handedA huge police ''Foxhunt'' followed, with most of the staff who've bothered to turn up facing unemploymentand finally, he tries forensic evidence led to make the best eventual capture of a bad job, all the while knowing this will be perpetrator. This real-life news story sparked the last day he'll spend with the waitress he shouldn't still be in love withimagination of a young Harriet Cummings, particularly not now he's about who went on to be create a dad. Ohfictional version of events, which invites the reader to turn detective and try and thereunmask ''The Fox''s from a blizzard on the wayrange of possible suspects.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17602938651409169049</amazonuk>

|author=Tom Malmquist and Henning Koch (translator)Malcolm Devlin|title=In Every Moment We Are Still AliveYou Will Grow Into Them|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionShort Stories|summary=Tom Malmquist ''You Will Grow Into Them'' is a poet from Swedenthrilling collection of ten short stories all centred on the nature of transition and change. Originally published in Swedish in 2015The often grisly, this is his first work macabre and ghoulish nature of prose. While it's being marketed as a novel, it reads more like a stylized memoir. Similar to Karl Ove Knausgaardthe stories included in Devlin's books, it features the author as the central character and narrator, debut collection are intoxicatingly illicit and the story of grief it tells darkness within each tale is a highly personal onedeviously addictive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14736400081907389431</amazonuk>

|author= Michel DeonTove Jansson|title= Your Father's RoomLetters From Klara|rating= 4.5

|summary= Famed in the UK for her creation of the Moomin family, Jansson is rather belatedly beginning to gather the richly deserved esteem for her adult writings. For that I don't feel altogether qualified offer my heart-felt thanks to review Michel Déonpublishers 's 2004 fictionalised memoir ''Your Father's RoomSort of books''and Thomas Teal, translated here into English who has been responsible for most of the first timetranslations. Receiving this one, two things strike: firstly I hadn't heard somehow seem to have missed one of Déon before receiving my copythe series, let alone read any of his books, published over and secondly there'll come a 70 year period time sooner rather than later when there'll be no more to much acclaim in his homelandbe had. But it's part of the pleasure of book reviewing to read with no prior knowledge or prejudice The former will be rectified, all the more so if you discover an absolute gemlatter is a sad thought.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19104773461908745614</amazonuk>

|author=Andrew WilsonJane Menczer|title= A Talent for MurderAn Unlikely Agent|rating=4.5

|summary= Agatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back London, 1905. Margaret Trant lives with her ailing, irascible mother in her daya dreary boarding house in St John's Wood. The pair have fallen on hard times, and here Andrew Wilson makes with only Margaret's meagre salary from a ramshackle import-export company keeping them afloat.When a stranger on the tram hands her a victim newspaper open at the recruitment page, Margaret spots an advertisement that promises to 'open new horizons beyond your wildest dreams!'. After a plot not unlike one of her owngruelling interview, she finds herself in a new position as a secretary in a dingy backstreet shop. It's But all about the mystery, and is not as it really drives the story forward. Agatha seems; she is ambushed by in fact working for a strange man at highly secret branch of the train station; she intelligence service, Bureau 8, whose mission is given to track down and neutralise a proposition that confuses ruthless band of anarchists known as the Scorpions.Margaret's guilty love of detective fiction scarcely prepares her for the reality of true criminality, and secretly intrigues her. Indeedjourney of self-discovery forms the heart of this remarkable novel, as she discovers in herself resourcefulness, courage, for this man wants her to commit a murderindependence and the first stirrings of love. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>14711482111846973805</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Contagion: Book 1 (Dark Matter)Henry Marsh|authortitle=Teri TerryAdmissions: A Life in Brain Surgery

|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=It's not a spoiler if more than two years since I tell you that Callie dies because she does die read [[Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh|Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and she dies in Brain Surgery]] but the first few pages of ''Contagion''memories have stayed with me. Callie - Calista - disappeared more than I had thought then that a year ago. Her brother Kai is still looking for herbook about brain surgery might sound as though I was taking my pleasures too sadly, hopeful that she will be found alive but the book was superb - and very easy reading and well. But Callie isnwhen I heard about ''Admissions't alive and well. She's been taken I decided to treat myself to a secretive medical facility on the island of Shetlandan audio download, experimented onparticularly as Henry Marsh was narrating. I knew that my expectations were unreasonably high, and then burned to death. But Callie survived but how did the burning in non-corporeal form. Howbook do?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14083417271474603866</amazonuk>

|author=Delia EphronDK|title=SiracusaChildren's Illustrated Thesaurus|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=One of the most valuable literary skills which children can learn is how to use reference books. As a child every question which I began with ''how do you spell...?'' would be answered with ''EXACTLY as it says in the dictionary''. This was fine, but the family's Collins Little Gem Dictionary didn't encourage exploration, not least because the font was small and difficult to read. Fortunately those times have now changed and reference book for children are now much more inviting. Not every book comes with a set of instructions but it's worth studying the ''How to...'' section, not least because similar systems are used in other reference books.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241286972</amazonuk>}}{{newreview <!-- remove 28/5 -->|author=Val Harris|title=Hunting Ground

|summary= Michael Nyara Camp is one of the newest camps in the Masai Mara and Lizzie are a writer–journalist couple from New York City; Finn it's run by James and Taylor live with their ten-year-old daughter, SnowAlexia Sackville. The guests might sleep in tents, but it's still luxury accommodation in Portland, Maine, where Finn (an old flame of Lizzieanybody's) owns a restaurantbook. After meeting up by chance Chui Camp, on a trip to London last yearthe other hand, they decide to go away together for a proper holiday in Italysticks with the traditional way that safaris were run, to the Sicilian island of Siracusa via Romeincluding bucket showers. In alternating chapters, Owner Ralph Somerton is convinced that's what the narrative moves fluidly between the perspectives guests ''should'' want and he won't listen to any of his wife Tessa's suggestions for updating the four adults, all of whom are reflecting – with the help of hindsight and therapy – on what ended up being a disastrous triptired venue. Although we don It't learn until very late on s beginning to be reflected in the book exactly what went wrongprofits Chui makes, therebut instead of upping his own game Somerton would rather see Nyara as unfair competition and it's only a sense small step from that it might be something reasoning to do with Snowlooking at ways of ensuring Nyara's failure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17860715410955599717</amazonuk>

|author=Nick CleggMarian Veevers|title=PoliticsJane and Dorothy: Between the ExtremesA True Tale of Sense and Sensibility|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyBiography|summary=The political landscape is changing rapidly at the moment. A little more than two years ago we were facing the end idea of the UK's first coalition government since World War II and fully expecting that we would see another. Instead we saw a Conservative government elected with a workable majority. Brexit saw the end dual biography of two contemporaries who never met throughout their lives is an intriguing one Prime Minister and another elected by a few members of parliament. As I write we're facing another general electionHowever, there were several unifying factors, with a Conservative landslide predictedwhich makes it seem logical enough. In two Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth were both renowned writers though one was much more famous than the other, and both were born just four years we've seen the Liberal Democrats collapse from being part of apart, in the ruling coalition to a party whose MPs could hold a meeting in a decent-sized car1770s.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17847041641910985775</amazonuk>

|author=Alan GibbonsGeraint Jones|title=The Beautiful GameBlood Forest|rating=45|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyHistorical Fiction|summary=Football is all about its coloursFelix. And even if I write in the season when The lucky one team in blue knocks another team in blue from the throne of English football, it's common knowledge that red is the more successful colour to wear. But is that flame red? Blood red? The red of He doesn't feel especially lucky when he staggers out into the Sun cover banner when it falsely declared 96 Liverpool FC fans were fatally caught up in a tragedy – grove and that it had been one finds twelve of their own making? And while we're on about colour, where were the people of colour in football his comrades butchered and mutilated in the olden days? worst possible ways. There are so many darker sides to footballHe felt even less lucky when the soldiers arrived, Roman cavalry. He might have run, but he knew he's history d never make it's enough . He stepped out to make a young lad question the whole game…face whatever came next.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17811269170718184815</amazonuk>

|author=Bernard AshleyDorling Kindersley|title=Lena Lenik S.O.S.First Science Encyclopedia|rating=45|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=LenaI wasn't introduced to 's mother seems very illscience' until I was eleven and went on to senior school: I wasn't alone in this, but it really was too late. Scary noises Thankfully, times have changed and children at primary school are coming getting to grips with plants and animals, atoms and molecules and even outer space from the bathroom, shea very young age. What's off food and completely listlessneeded is a good, complaining of basic reference book which will introduce all the effort involved in sewing a patch onto subjects and give a cub scout uniformgood grounding. It might needs to be something which would sit proudly in the classroom library and comfortably on a surprise to the young reader of this book when we learn what the reason is – certainly it was obvious from page two for me – but there are definitely more surprises to comechild's bookshelf. Mother makes a slightly unusual decision about her condition – leaving Lena with a lot on her plate when fate sets in with a surprise of its own…The ''First Science Encyclopedia'' would do both well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781125716024118875X</amazonuk>

|author= Naomi AldermanSue Hendra and Paul Linnet|title= The PowerSupertato Run Veggies Run|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary FictionFor Sharing|summary=It started with the girls and spread. From younger woman I've heard of these so called superfoods, they are reported to older woman, it was awoken boost your immune system and everything changed. Womankind now has the power flush out areas of electricity in their fingertips andyour body that have gone unnoticed for decades, slowly at firstbut does this make them super? In my mind to be a superfood you need to do something spectacular; lift a car from a trapped child, the balance of power or leap over a building in the world starts shiftingone bound. We follow the stories of different people, The vegetable and fruit in different walks my house can't do any of lifethis, who see this from the very beginning and hurtle towards but then they aren'the event'. One thing in this startling new development is certaint Supertato; a spectacular spud that, more than once, patriarchal archetypes and chauvinist thinkers are in for has saved the shock of their lives. Literallyday with his powers. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>06709199691471121038</amazonuk>

|author= Caro FraserThe British Museum|title= The Summer House PartyOrigami, Poems and Pictures|rating= 4.5|genre= General Fiction Crafts|summary= In the gloriously hot summer of 1936, Sometimes you find a group delight of people meet at a country house partybook. Within three years On an afternoon when it was unseasonably cold and decidedly wet I discovered ''Origami, England will be Poems and Pictures'' and I was transported to Japan. As the title suggests we're looking at warthree celebrated arts and crafts: the ancient art of paper folding, but for now, time stands stillhaiku poetry and painting. Dan Ranscombe is clever and good-looking I'll confess that it was the origami which caught my attention, but he resents I was surprised by the extent to which the wealth and easy savoir-faire rest of fellow guest, Paul Latimerthe book caught my imagination. Surely We begin with something very simple: a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's beautiful sister, Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider, Madeleine, restless boat and dissatisfied with her role as childrenin case you's nanny? And artist Henry Haddon, their host, no longer young, but secure in his power as a practised seducer. As these guests gatherre worried, none has any inkling all the choices they make will entries have fateful consequences, lasting a degree of difficulty (from 'simple' through to 'tricky') and this one is at the war and beyondlowest level. Or that the first unforeseen event will be a shocking death… |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17866914850857639382</amazonuk>

|author=Matt SewellWarner Brothers|title=Harry Potter Colouring Book Celebratory Edition: The Big Bird SpotBest of Harry Potter colouring

|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrafts|summary=Recently I stood on a viewing platform at Imagine pages and pages of images from the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs Harry Potter books and films for you to colour as a very helpful volunteer guided my sight line to one you wish. You ''might'' have seen some of the puffins whoimages before - I know I have - as they'd arrived on the cliffs ve appeared in the last few days. Finally''Harry Potter Colouring Book'', I found one''Harry Potter Magical Creatures Colouring Book'', after visually sorting through all the other birds on the precipitous cliff face. It was great fun and very rewarding. The third double-page spread in wild-life author and artist Matt Sewell's first book for children, ''The Big Bird SpotHarry Potter Magical Places and Characters Colouring Book'', shows some cliffs very like those at Bempton, but this time you're going to be looking for twenty three Little Auks, in amongst there are several exclusive never-before-seen images which will please the guillemots, puffins, herring gulls and razorbillscollector of Harry Potter memorabilia. Oh, and If you're looking for a pair in need of binoculars too: our bird watcher is very careless, because inspiration as to colours then you're going to have to find them in every picturell enjoy the sixteen pages of film stills, unit photography and concept art at the back of the book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18436532651783708255</amazonuk>

|authortitle= Richard AskwithThe Secret of the Wooden Chest (Roman Magic)|titleauthor= Today We Die a Little: Emil Zatopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War HeroCatherine Rosevear|rating= 43.5|genre= Sport Confident Readers|summary= As Hannah lives with her parents in a runner myself, I often look for sources of inspirationflat above the nursing home where her mother is matron. Training Hannah is rewarding, but every an only child and so often a day comes along she enjoys making friends with some of the home's residents. So when I question whether it Mrs Oberto moves in, Hannah is all worth it or notkeen to make her acquaintance - Hannah has never met anyone Italian before. Zatopek proves that Mrs Oberto is, indeed, all worth itquite standoffish at first but Hannah persists and soon they are the best of friends. He put copious amounts of effort into his training, Mrs Oberto is particularly keen on helping Hannah with her school project about ancient Rome and relates many interesting stories about her Sicilian childhood. But she remains tight-lipped about the number of races he won over his career as a professional athlete clearly shows mysterious wooden chest, the results of itkey to which she keeps around her neck... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>02241003511788032535</amazonuk>

|author= David GrannDominic Smith|title= Killers The Last Painting of the Flower MoonSara de Vos

|genre= True CrimeHistorical Fiction|summary=Killers If you find the techniques used by Rembrandt and Vermeer fascinating, ''The Last Painting of Sara de Vos'' provides a masterclass in how to work up a canvas in stages. Framing the Flower Moon tells novel as the story of the Osage tribea seventeenth century Dutch painting, forced to settle in Dominic Smith vividly sketches out the rocky, uninhabitable wilds main contours of Oklahoma in what would become Osage County. In an unexpected turn of fortune, prospectors struck oil, instantly catapulting his characters and the Osage into unimaginable wealth and fortune making them some three time periods they inhabit before we are even one fifth of the richest people in the worldway through. Then members Sara is one of the tribe start to die, slowly at first few women artists of apparently natural causes then in increasingly violent ways. Investigation into the matter stalls period and her painting is beset by incompetence of children skating on a frozen canal, her now dead daughter its central figure. The painting has been in Marty de Groot's family since before Isaac Newton was born and he is the patent lawyer from whom it is stolen in 1950s Manhattan. Ellie Shipley forged a general lack copy of interest the painting in her postgraduate student years and in 2000 finds herself at the fate centre of the Osage until the FBI becomes involved and draws together a team gathering storm which threatens to destroy her reputation as one of battle scarred, unorthodox agents led by former Texas Ranger Tom WhiteSydney's foremost fine art academics. As pressure on White increases Satisfying though those first descriptions are, from both we then understand these are merely the FBI and author's equivalent of the increasingly angry Osage, delicate chalk lines used by painters of the race Dutch Golden Age to find mark out the truth becomes increasingly difficult, with more twists and double crosses than any murder mysterycomposition which will follow.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857209027192526680X</amazonuk>

|author=Tanya LandmanDeirdre Osborne (Editor)|title=Passing for WhiteThe Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010)

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyReference|summary=In 1847, in Macon, Georgia, Benjamin was a slave. He was a talented carpenter too, but on November This literary companion offers fifteen essays addressing the 19th he was unnerved: a white woman was looking at him, smiling contribution of black and being politeAsian authors to the British literary canon since 1945. What was going on? He wasn't It covers not just unnervedfiction, but nervous: you seealso poetry, Benjamin was looking at plays and performance works. It sits as a kind of joyful cuckoo in the white womannest, looking ''her'' interrupting the usual narratives of literary waves and movements in Britain that take little notice of any perspective other than the eye dominant white - and a slave could get himself killed for less than thatposh! - direction of travel. Only this wasnIt't s a white woman: this was Rosadisparate, varied collection of essays, covering spoken word performance poetry, black British urban fiction, LGBTQ writing, who was mixed raceliberationist writing and much more. She could pass for white, but she too I was a slave. Rosa and Benjamin eventually married, but it didn't stop Rosareally happy to see children's master from taking sexual advantage of her authors such as Malorie Blackman, Jamila Gavin and Catherine Johnson discussed and when she found that she was pregnant she had no way of knowing who the father wasrespected.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178112681X1316504808</amazonuk>

|author= Johana Gustawsson and Maxim Jakubowski (Translator)Dr Seuss|title= Block 46 Dr Seuss's ABC|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers For Sharing|summary= Jewellery designer Linnéa Blix fails to appear at No one who has read his work can deny that Dr Seuss had a Cartier event presenting some of her new creationspowerful imagination. Her friend Alexis Castells knows something must be wrong; nothing would have kept the talented young artist He was able to pluck from attending this prestigious functionhis brainpan not only interesting takes on old ideas, but also new creatures and worlds that had never been seen before. When a young woman's mutilated body is discovered in a Swedish marina near Linnéa's holiday home, Alexis' worst fears His books are confirmed. But Linnéa's death is not unique; in fact, she is only the latest in often madder than a string box of similar gruesome murders that have occurred in both London and Falkenberg. Up until nowMarch hares, the bodies but even he must have all belonged to young boys, so what has caused the killer to change had his or her MOlimits? How can Alexis help to find justice for her friend The humble ABC book (dare I say the dull ABC book), and stop a serial killer before surely he strikes againcould not bring his sense of anarchic fun to this staple of the children's education market?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19106337040007487754</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=The Harder They FallStewart O'Nan|authortitle=Bali RaiLast Night at the Lobster|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyGeneral Fiction|summary=Cal loves comic booksThe Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain is closing some of its poorly-performing branches just before Christmas. He also dreams of being a superhero Amid the Christmas lights, office parties and saving forced jollity Manny DeLeon, the manager of one of these failing outlets, has to keep it all together for one last day while simultaneously winning . Short-handed, with most of the staff who've bothered to turn up facing unemployment, he tries to make the heart best of a bad job, all the while knowing this will be the girl (Freya being last day he'll spend with the girlwaitress he shouldn't still be in love with, hopefully). Batman is his favourite superhero. But Calparticularly not now he's world outside his daydreams is not particularly superhero-like. Because Cal is about to be a bit of a geek and he is being bullied by mean girl Anu, who makes him complete homework assignments which she then sells on to lazy classmatesdad. StillOh, itand there's not all bad. Cal's parents are lovely and a blizzard on the gorgeous Freya is making friendly overtures..way.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17811268281760293865</amazonuk>

|author= Matthew HarffyTom Malmquist and Henning Koch (translator)|title= The Serpent SwordIn Every Moment We Are Still Alive|rating= 4.5|genre= Historical Fiction|summary= It's AD 633 and Albion is a divided island made up of petty warlords who want to be treated like honourable royalty but act like gangsters. Romans are a memory that have entered into myth and the souls of Albion are torn between the old Gods and the new Christ. It is in this world that we follow the adventures of Beobrand as he undertakes the classic hero’s journey. Beobrand moves from wide-eyed teenager to hardened and honourable warrior through a brutal rite of passage as he hunts the killer of his brother and seeks to become a true warrior.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786692406</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Anna Pitoniak|title=The Futures|rating=4

|summary=When we first meet Evan Peck, he has just started at Yale College, where he plays ice hockeyTom Malmquist is a poet from Sweden. Like lots of the other playersOriginally published in Swedish in 2015, he this is actually Canadianhis first work of prose. While it's being marketed as a novel, from small-town British Columbia. One night after it reads more like a party Evan meets Julia Edwards at their dorm and they go out for pizzastylized memoir. She technically has a boyfriend from her Boston boarding school daysSimilar to Karl Ove Knausgaard's books, but they soon break up it features the author as the central character and before long Julia narrator, and Evan have become inseparable, as they will remain for the rest story of their college yearsgrief it tells is a highly personal one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07181845641473640008</amazonuk>

|author= Lee ChildMichel Deon|title= No Middle NameYour Father's Room|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime Literary Fiction|summary= There is a theory, I don't feel altogether qualified to which those who regularly read my reviews will know I sometimes subscribe, which says that the short storyreview Michel Déon's heyday has passed and it has now put itself out to grass. This is particularly true, some say, and I have been known to concur, of the crime and thriller genres. Tosh! I can only apologise to all authors involved and own up: I simply haven2004 fictionalised memoir 't been paying attention. Not even to shorter offerings my by favourite authors. So: big thanks to Lee Child and publishers Bantam Press for putting me straight with 'Your Father'No Middle Names Room'' : a collection of short stories about my favourite latter-day, American-style, Robin Hood by translated here into English for the name of ''Jack Reacher''first time.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593079019</amazonuk>}}{{newreview <!-- remove 21/5 -->|author=Lizzy Mumfrey|title=Fall Out|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=CharltonI hadn's the sort t heard of village where people aspire to liveDéon before receiving my copy, despite its apparent ordinariness. There's the usual mix let alone read any of commuters (it's not ''too'' far from London) and those who make their lives in the village. Richard Hughes is a commuter, but his wife Jessica works at the local academybooks, where both their children - Alfie and Hannah - are pupils. Pete Cole is published over a newly-promoted police superintendent and clearly still fond of 70 year period to much acclaim in his voluptuous wife, Susiehomeland. Actually, some of that voluptuousness might be better described as fat - Pete suspects that he might need longer arms to hug her before long. Less popular is Gary Webber. HeBut it's part of the sort pleasure of man who causes people book reviewing to heave a sigh of relief when he joins someone else for a drink at read with no prior knowledge or prejudice, all the golf clubmore so if you discover an absolute gem.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19110798401910477346</amazonuk>

|author= Cath StaincliffeAndrew Wilson|title= The Silence Between BreathsA Talent for Murder|rating= 4.5|genre= Crime(Historical)|summary= I'm always wary of author endorsements, even those from people I rate as writersAgatha Christie wrote some tantalising crime thrillers back in her day, but the ''harrowing and humane'' quote from Ian Rankin on the front cover here Andrew Wilson makes her a victim to a plot not unlike one of her own. It''The Silence Between Breaths'' does not overstate s all about the case. This is an extremely powerful book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472118014</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jill Armitage|title= Arbella Stuart: The Uncrowned Queen |rating= 4.5|genre= Biography|summary= Lady Arbella Stuartmystery, cousin to both Elizabeth I of England and James VI of Scotland, was one of it really drives the unfortunate figures of English history who might have been Queen – and who, like story forward. Agatha is ambushed by a strange man at the even more tragic Lady Jane Grey, might have paid the ultimate price. This train station; she is given a sad but engrossing story of one whose only crime was proposition that confuses her and secretly intrigues her. Indeed, for this man wants her to have royal blood coursing through her veinscommit a murder.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14456501931471148211</amazonuk>