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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008269041183885410X|title=Risk of HarmThe Dark Remains|author=Lucie WhitehouseWilliam McIlvanney and Ian Rankin|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back Bobby Carter was a lawyer and consigliere to one of the major crime families in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Metnineteen seventies Glasgow. She might have been reinstated but DC Jack Laidlaw is on the CID team charged with the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouthinvestigation. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then I say ''on the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years before. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out of her parentteam''s home into a rented house but there's still Laidlaw never really seems to be a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out part of his way to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young childit. Hedoes his own thing, goes his own way and ''The Dark Remains'' uncovers the truth of why Bobby Carter's married to Natalie, now and has a young child but hebody was found behind one of Glasgow's still got it in for Robinseedier pubs.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17863323881942410255|title=The First Day of SpringTokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)|author=Nancy TuckerMichael Pronko
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and ''The First Day of SpringZangyo: overtime work, often unpaid'' It's the culture, isn' was one such occasion. t it? The writing is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and hours for which you're paid are really just a statement of the plot grips minimum you'll be required to do: you 'll work more hours to get the job done and won't let godone to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizuka. So, whatWhen he was found dead in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there was nothing in the problem? Wellway of regret or grief, even from his family, but there was a mild curiosity as to whether he'd jumped from the problem is Chrissie, roof of the main characterbuilding or been assisted in his descent. When we first meet her she's just eight Gossip revolves around the fact that he left the roof at the exact same spot that an employee, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boyearlier. She's completely cold about what she's done with d accused Onizuka of bullying her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - and forcing her hands seized upto work an unreasonable amount of overtime. There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Catherine Steadman0241425425|title=The Disappearing ActMan Who Died Twice|author=Richard Osman
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on Elizabeth Best was a little surprised when she received the cusp of successletter. Great success. If It came from a man whose body she had helped to pull from the rumours are true, award season Thames and who had never existed but then this is going the sort of conundrum which retired spies have to treat her well, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed productiondeal with on a regular basis. She When she visits the sender of the letter (he's going places but so, unfortunately, is moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone with whom she has a long professional history - and who used to be her partnerhusband. And the places he He's going take him towards lies, deceit and made a bad mistake - something to do with a pretty young thing in mask being removed within the form range of his new coa CCTV camera on a raid, a missing twenty-starmillion pounds in diamonds and a few death threats. It He's now in hiding with a good time for Mia to escapeyoung woman called Polly, and pilot season in LA provides just the excusewho's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitress.|isbn=1471189783
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{{Frontpage
|author= Christophe MedlerAndrew Sharp|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded SecretThe Chef, the Bird and the Blessing
|rating=4
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary= Set against Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy to his employer - is, in his mind, the backdrop head chef of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African country. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated to his task and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the English Civil Warguests at BOD-W safaris but his dream is to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Even to win a Michelin star. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss, a secret plan Mr Bin (code-named MadrigalBen to you and me) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse who incurs Mozzy's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and - shock, horror - his allowing of bush animals into the summer of 1642house.|isbn=B09926MK8H}}{{Frontpage|author=Alex Foulkes|title=Rules for Vampires|rating=4. As 5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) is a loyal servant of Vampire. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the Kingday, and Head she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock of bats to travel around, although not all of them remember to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Now, on the Secret Servicenight of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, it is Robert's duty instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to uncover make things worse, the details ghosts of one of the plan orphans and follow the clues evil master of the orphanage come back to haunt her. So, not only does Leo have to uncover one of team up with the most guarded secrets in history—especially since friendly ghost Minna to stop the plot could affect ghost of the KingOrphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has to do it all while hiding it from her family.Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=B095HY8SXQ147119955X
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tasha SuriTori Bovalino|title=The Jasmine ThroneDevil Makes Three|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyTeens|summary= On Working all summer in her boarding school's library is the night of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses last thing Tess Matheson wants to step on do — especially when she gets a request for over a hundred books that she has to the pyredeliver herself. She What makes it worse is immediately sent to be imprisoned on the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with a community of people man who got powers from requested the mysterious deathless watersbooks: Mr Birch. But now the temple is nothing more than an overgrownThe boarding school's headmaster, decaying ruinand a man Tess hates. One day, Malini witnesses As a girl kill someone with magic. Instead petty act of reporting revenge for making her for find and deliver such a gruesome crimelarge request, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of the books, Malini claims that scribbled with the girl saved ugliest insults she can think of. They're never meant to reach him, of course. Her plan is to get her from an attacker anger out like this, and begs then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadn't delivered them for the girl to become her own personal maidservant.|isbn=03565156481789098130
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B088YWF5BCB09BG8V3Q6|title=The Lies We TellWho Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)|author=Jane CorryJustine Avery and Seema Amjad|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersFor Sharing|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have been a loving, stable family. When we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasnWho Needs Nappies? Not Me!'t come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in by. Her husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house the latest release in the morning but he's still going 'Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Avery. This series of fun picture books aims to be going to work take the pain out of potty training children and he needs his sleepreplace it with some fun. He wakes, thoughIt's a worthy aim, when Freddie does come in and overhears him as any frustrated parent will tell his mother that he's killed someoneyou. .
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joseph KnoxB098FFFBH9|title=True Crime StorySnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= Joseph Knox, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waits, has created Fourteen-year-old Rachel is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a new genre with his latest novel, "True Crime Story"competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. The story follows the disappearance She gets a great deal of Zoe Nolan support from her university halls of residence. Split into four partsfamily: father Pip Harrison, a lecturer at Imperial College, London, the reader is taken through the life mother Kate and disappearance of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sister, other family, friends and professionals, such as the policeNick. The various accounts help Kate runs the reader get to know Zoefamily business, or at least the Zoe she presented to others. Howevera toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, the twists and turns at the end which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true or fabricatedinformation: five soft toys. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703
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{{Frontpage
|author=Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaAngharad Walker|title=No, No, No!The Ash House|rating=45|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=They say A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to the best picture books are system, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the simplest onesrules of The Ash House. And nothing could be truer These rules centre on a variety of this latest from Justine AveryNicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a Bookbag favouritehive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. ''No, No, No!'' But soon their easy peace is based around shattered by the arrival of the simplest text imaginableDoctor. ''No, no, no! Okay, okay. Yes, you may.'' That's it! But, like all By the best picture books, this tiny snippet end of text is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on the inside that it appears on story, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the outsidesame again.|isbn=16388204571912626977
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{{Frontpage
|author=Monica ConnellYancey Williams|title=Against Crosshairs of the Devil|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a Peacock Skytrusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|author=Philip Reeve|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|rating=5
|genre=TravelConfident Readers|summary= Monica Connell went to Nepal to do the fieldwork for her Ph.DIn a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in social anthropology. I think it is important to know that. She went this story set on a grant-supported trippeculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing throughbeyond the Scillies. She went with a fundamental aim of learning about these There are troll people on it, and how they lived. She also wentsea-witches, presumably, with and legends of the academic discipline of how Dark family that has to find these things outkeep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, how to organise them in her mindwhere no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, how to "understand" them in the context of her own paradigmsAndrewe, and how who has to keep enough notes and files and photos to help her create some greater sense of activity from the experience after the event. FortunatelyHidden Lands, she also went his brother Will who lives in London with a sense too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muck-inthe sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, to break her own rules both his sullen brother and to truly connect with his curious ward are thrust into the people world of the village where she hauled upprotecting their island, like it or not.|isbn=17806004291788452372
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1409181669Erling Kagge|title=The Maidens|author=Alex MichaelidesWalking: One Step At A Time
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeLifestyle|summary=Mariana was convinced Those who have read my reviews before will know that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away how much I loved a book is evidenced by the number of pages with them both. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed. Everything - or corners turned, so she thought - had begun let me start this one with an apology to the death Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say that as a reader of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge. She'd been brutally stabbed and Marianathis type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – I's niecell allow creased corners, Zoe, had telephoned her in distress. Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to copedo as soon as I have finished telling you why). Mariana wasn't ''entirely'' happy about having Erligg Kagge is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to go to Cambridgethe South Pole, but she caught the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana North Pole and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death summit of MarianaEverest. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn's husband, Sebastiant a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, in it is instead a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlierthoughtful exploration of what it means to walk. Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death It is a plenitude of Zoeunnumbered essays about walking. There is no 's mother contents' page and MarianaI haven's sistert counted. In small format paperback, Elizaeach essay is only a few pages long.Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essay.|isbn=0241357705
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{{Frontpage
|author=Maisie ChanIan Mark and Louis Ghibault|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsMonster Hunting For Beginners
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Danny is eleven years oldMeet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's a slight boy, and what although he really, really loves wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to do is draw. He creates fantastical comics, whilst let him out of his best friend Ravi adds the wordssight. DannyThat's because Jack's dad, however, wants Danny to concentrate on his maths, and forget mother knew all about the drawingmonsters, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! At least Danny has his own room, where he can draw in secret and in peacelook what happened to her – she died. But Luckily or unluckily then one day his parents tell him they have a surprise for him, and this surprise turns out to be his grandmother who has come over from China to live with themdepending on your point of view, and who a giant ogre will not only be sharing Dannythreaten his aunt when Jack's bedroom but she will father also be sleeping on the top bunk of his bunk bed! Danny is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no Englishgoes AWOL, and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitter, and showing her around Jack will fluke the town. Poor Dannyogre's death, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situationdwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and then he even has 'll be given a falling out book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with Ravi. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''...how on earth will things ever get better?!|isbn=180078001X0755501942
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{{Frontpage
|author=Terry MilesKeith Gray|title=RabbitsThe Climbers|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary=Welcome to Sully is the world of The Game. Or should that be best tree climber in the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this bookvillage. ItHe has what's also called Rabbits, although only known amongst the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knowsnew kid shows up in town? A new kid, it has no official titlecalled Nottingham, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to who clambers up some of the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracybeing threatened, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our heroand not only that, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying chance to be historians of name the gamefinal, and have studied amongst many things unnamed big tree in the most unique of high score boards, for park by being the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar placesfirst to conquer it, and are still very shortmight be snatched from his hands. However this time How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doingcost him his best friend, if it's or maybe even being played, and how all of his loved ones might be kept safefriends, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...do so?|isbn=15290169321781129991
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{{Frontpage
|author=C J CareyEmma Carroll|title=WidowlandThe Week at World's End
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=ItFirst, the title. We's April 1953, and Adolf Hitlerre in World's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to LondonEnd Close, parading around a bitmediocre set of houses, and watching over the sanctioned return where Stevie (Vie to her friends) finds fun only with the throne of Edward VIII family dog and with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to boy over the road. But we could also be at World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know its End, and we are now because something taking a protectorate – well, we share enough great chunk of the same blood as fun away is the Germanic peoples on ''fact that the mainland''Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the drudgesrisk of nuclear missiles offshore, and beyond those, right on down not much else is able to make the childless, the husbandless and the widowsnews. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existenceThat said, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task Vie has news of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it her own – after allAnna, not every book can be banneda secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna has, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisationin no short time, and so they just get taken a hefty tweak towards strong interest in the American airforce base behind the party line before theyClose, said she're stamped ready for reprint. That is d locate something she wanted and leave, failed to leave, and implied her job, life was at least, until the first emerging signs risk. But surely this bit of female protest come intrigue has got nothing to light, do with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=152941198X0571364438
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{{Frontpage
|author=Louise BeechKiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston|title=This Is How We Are HumanJulia and the Shark
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Veronica is a devoted single mother to her sonJulia, Sebastian our pre- but she can't give him everything he wants. Sebastian teen heroine, has decided that it's time been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for him to have sexa summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. But as an autistic 20 year-old Here be Vikings, that's easier said than donekind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And it's starting to cause them both problemsJulia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night. |isbn=19131937131510107789
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B093VPBL5LFreya Sampson|title=Cape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker BittickThe Last Library
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Bosner, or, I am always a little nervous to give him his full titlestart a story about a library, Petty Officer Third Class Bosnersince I am a librarian. We never really find out if he has I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought of the incoming cardigan-wearing, hair in a first name: there's merely bun, cat-owning, glasses on a hint that he had chain stereotypes! In this story, the nickname 'Secretary' at one point. He's simply Bosner to one main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), and she has barely any friends and all. When we first encounter him hespends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didn's exploring his memories t immediately throw the book out of 2008 when he the window, because I found I was a greaser on helicopters (or helosinterested in June, and why she lived as they were called) at a naval establishmentshe did. The hours could Her mum used to be long a librarian at the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University and he was often working nights but stayed at the age home to take care of twenty-oneher mum, there was always as well as taking on a way to work job as library assistant at the local library. And even though her mum sadly died some fun (think drinking years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and eating) into his daystill reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the change.|isbn=183877369X
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{{Frontpage
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Megan Melvick's earliest memory Amelia Wright is of forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the pondidea. Like Amelia, only he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to find Amelia that he'd hanged himself. Twenty years later sheprefer to spend time with the novels he's back home again and this time the occasion is no less sadhoping to adapt than with her. SheAmelia's there to say annoyed that he never enquires about how her final farewells to her sisterday has been - and working with the dogs, Melissamany of whom have been abused, who is dying of anorexianever easy. As Still - she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of thingss won the weekend away, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was it even a question? Was she asking if Megan was sorry it does mean driving for sleeping eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything Adam beside her in the passenger seat - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of and then doing the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem same thing to be come back a curse. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years beforecouple of days later. Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241400120Doug Johnstone|title=The Girl Who Died|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria CribbGreat Silence
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Una was not thriving For those who, like me, haven't come across the Skelfs before, I'll risk a quick synopsis of who's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in Reykjavik: without being heavy handed about it was . Skelf isn't some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then she'd given up her medical studies and retrained fantastic creature, though it sounds as though it ought to be, it is merely the surname of a teacherfamily of undertakers. She was thirty years old Undertakers and money was tightprivate investigators. Her friendDorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinct, Sara, showed her an advert for she married a job in Skalar on scot and ended up helping to run the Langanes Peninsula. There were only ten people Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been in the village but a teacher was required family for two children: generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a salary would be paid and accommodation providedblack Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Una was the only applicant and the job meant that she could let Daughter Jenny, 46, is haunted by her flat in Reykjavik still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about to graduate with a first-class physics degree and, hopefully, save some money over join the winter which her contract coveredacademic staff next term.|isbn=1913193837
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18469757191901514978|title=For Any Other Truth (DCI Jim Daley)There's a Problem With Dad|author=Denzil MeyrickCarlos Alba|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=We learn that MI5 Life is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward placesdifferent for George Lovelace and he can't really understand why. But thatHe's Londonalways done everything he ought to: steady worker, isn't ithusband and father - and a father who was always there for school plays and sports days. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? What's happening in KinlochWhy does he upset people? When Why is someone with such a light aircraft crash lands ''good'' mind unable to progress at Machrie airport, DCI Jim Daley and work or to relate to his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off for the airport straight away. colleagues? It soon becomes evident though that both occupants of the plane were dead before take off. How could that beWhy does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? The sort of tech which would make It's almost become a cliche these days to suggest that possible isnsomeone who is a little different is 't available to on the paying public. And why have spectrum', but George Lovelace has all the man no identification on them symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome: high- or even labels in their clothes?functioning autism.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard BrookLouise Candlish|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to LifeThe Heights
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleThrillers|summary= I am a firm believer Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that sometimes we choose booksday. She's on site, and sometimes books choose usvisiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the way. In my caseThere are lots of things, this is one lots of the latter. Not so very long agopeople, if I had come you might see when you look out across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interestingLondon, but it would not have 'hit homethis isn' t one Ellen expected that day or in the way that it does nowfact any other day. I believe it came to me not just because I was likely to give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomlyWhy? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, so there is and Ellen knows this for a predisposition towards expecting to like the bookfact, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is she had a book I needed to read, right nowhand in his murder.|isbn=18004616821471183483
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B095CY7NBN0008421714|title=Autumn CampMrs March|author=Barry FowlerVirginia Feito
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.''
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{{Frontpage
|author=John Boyne
|title=The Echo Chamber
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was to be Brian's last campMeet George Cleverley. He'd founded is self-defined as "one of the organisation some four years ago and had done all few television personalities over the organisation since age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but he was leaving school and then his author wife is getting her kicks with the time had come to hand the reins to someone elseUkrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. The obvious person was GaryThey have three children, whoare a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world'd always been the fun element s homeless with out-of -date food, and a fit young lad doing the camps and Brian had said gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that on this campall have two very different connections to his life, Gary should act as the leader and he'd just be there to observe. The problem with this was you have something that Gary wasn't really suggests an organiser, an administrator if you likealmost farcical approach to the modern world. He was What suggests the entertainerfarcical approach even more, however, is the person who basked in the spotlight and made things fun - so Brian stepped in and did the organising. He handed the camp over - and then took it back. And Gary determined to have his revenge. This should have been ''his'' campfact this is bloody funny.|isbn=0857526219
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=194812467X0241989094|title=The Farm ShopPerfect Life|author=Devon Avery, Justine Avery and Ema TepicNuala Ellwood
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingThrillers|summary=Kirelle In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and her best friend Sam the cat decide to go for she's viewing a walk. Kirelle is dressed for all weathers house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her bright yellow wellies three children, Lavender, Freddie and Sam is perfectly turned out as ever in his smart grey fur coatBarclay. As they walk to the top The boys are a bit of the hill, they see a big barn with a sign outside. Ithandful which is why she's a farm shop! But making this is a farm shop with a difference: all the stallholders and customers are farmyard animalstrip on her own. There are sheep and ducks and cows, goats and chickens, and even some mice. Excited, Kirelle and Sam go shopping The house would be perfect for them.
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|isbn=0008404925B07GZ81J7C|title=The Killing KindWhen Fred the Snake Got Squished and Mended|author=Jane CaseyPeter Cotton|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeFor Sharing|summary=Difficult clients were nothing new to barrister Ingrid Lewis but John Webster came as something of a surpriseMeet Fred. After allWell, actually, it was her crossyou're going to be meeting Fred-examination of the 'victim' Fred for reasons which saved him from a lengthy prison sentencewill become all too obvious very quickly. HeBut I'd been accused m getting ahead of stalking the woman but it didnmyself: I't take long to establish that - if anything - it was the other way aroundd better tell you a bit more about Fred. Soon Ingrid never seemed Fred is a snake and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to be free of John Webster and then she came warm to see him . He arrived as a threat present in a box with holes so that he could breathe and was forced immediately became part of the family, to remember that the police officer at his trial had told her extent that this was the best chance they'd had to put Webster away would take Fred out with them when they went out for a long time: he walk. And that was a very dangerous manwhere the problem started. Fred didn't have any road sense. Or brakes.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008395594Justine Avery and Naday Meldova|title=Both of You|author=Adele ParksEverybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isn't, as any parent will tell you. But really, why shouldn't it be? We all have to learn about our bodily functions just as we have to learn about everything else when we are small. Why shouldn't potty training be as much fun as, say, learning about why the sun and the moon take turns in the sky?
|isbn= B098BJZYHH
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787634493
|title=All Her Fault
|author=Andrea Mara
|rating=4.5
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adoresIt had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happen. ThenMarissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, one MondayMilo, she went to work and never came homego on a play date. Mark, Oli and Seb are shattered. Well, Mark and Seb are but OliShe was concerned that he didn's sixteen and t have any friends at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best looknew school. He's been a bit off Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with Leigh for a while but she put it down to his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him growing up and starting to become independentfrom 14 Tudor Grove a little later. SebWhat could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at the house, expecting to meet Jacob's only twelve and Leighmother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or Jacob. The phone number she's absence hits him hardd been given for Jenny was not recognised. Then Daan Janssen, a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missingMilo had disappeared. She too has vanished without traceAnd so had Jenny's nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1473685745Claire North|title=Unbreak Your Heart|author=Katie MarshNotes from the Burning Age
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Science Fiction|summary=When Beth Carlyle and Simon Withers first met they were on opposite ends of an angry exchange - well, Simon was angry and Beth was doing her best to apologise for having knocked SimonAt its core 's son, Jake, off his bike. He wasn't hurt but Jake has history. He has HLHS - that's Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome for those of you who are not ''au faitNotes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with your medical acronymsas many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. When he was bornHowever, as with the left side best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of his heart hadn't developed properly a new and he needed opentimely genre, cli-heart surgery when he was fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a few days oldworld devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). SoThere is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, Simon has every right aims to master these processes no matter the cost to be over-protective particularly when someone isn't looking where they're drivingthe Earth.|isbn=0356514757
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{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellEva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)|title=OtherlandGirls Who Lie|rating=53|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers|summary= Myra You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loudcrime books before now. You think, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranes, bright and hates rulesfinding it's only twenty kilometres from the capital city, while Rohan that this author is very polite, serious and worries about clutching at the tiniest thingsfew final straws left. Their only connection? Being born and briefly dying at However just because the same time at book aims for the same hospital on Midsummerusual small-town feel, it's daynot just in Akranes that our interests lie. And so Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date evening, every year their families get together to celebrate and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the two's birthday/deathdaygirl back, and a couple of delighted adopters. But when Rohanit left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the woman's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queencar was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six months, they must journey to the Otherlandbody has been discovered, in a magical realm full of fairiesthird, vampireseven more remote place. Meanwhile, dragonsthis narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, and Godsvery little maternal feeling in her body. It's going Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to be make the worst night of their lives.right one?|isbn=1788000463191319373X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=walker14B0925KS87N|title=The Coldest Case Dead Man's Grave (A Bruno, Chief of Police NovelDS Max Craigie)|author=Martin WalkerNeil Lancaster
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was when he saw Elisabeth Daynes' work in the prehistory museum at Les Eyzies that chief of police Bruno Courreges Tam Hardie had been determined to find the idea which he thought might help his boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as Jgrave - and it took some finding -J, to solve a case that had haunted him for thirty yearsin an overgrown old cemetery. The body of It was a young male was found in the woods strange thing for Scotland's premier criminal to do, but he Tam was never identified getting old and his killer never brought there were things he wanted to justicedo. What if an artist could recreate the face Only, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found the skull and grave - the resulting publicity one which said that it shouldn't be used opened - and his three sons began to identify the young man? worry. J-J calls the skull 'Oscar' Tam Junior, Frankie and has a picture on his door: he sees it every time he leaves his office: he doesnDave wouldn't want normally go to forget Oscar until his killer has the police but they weren't certain where their father had been brought to justiceand they were worried.
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{{Frontpage
|author= Martha LeighEmily Critchley|title= Invisible Ink: A Family MemoirThe Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating= 53|genre= BiographyGeneral Fiction|summary= Martha Leigh begins her book talking about a childhood spent in a slightly eccentric, immediately recognisable upper middle class English family. Her father is a Cambridge don, forever clacking away on his typewriter as he edits The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the complete correspondence hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseauplot, his life's work. Her mother is a concert pianist who practises for hours every day. Neither parent is hugely interested in liked the practicalities design of life. There is love in the house but also darker undercurrents that a child does not fully understand but knows is there.|isbn=1800460384}}{{Frontpage|author=Darren Shan|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2book, book 2 of 3|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=So. Having done the impossible and unpicked thought the lock to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has ''grop'' to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inezauthor's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those iswork sounded interesting. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in From the first volume of this seriesoutset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn=B093J9TF731911427091
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