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Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Agnes Ravatn and Rosie Hedger (translator)0241636604|title=The Seven DoorsTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeAutobiography|summary=Come here for a thriller that interestingly doesn't even try If you were to suggest bring up an image of a genre of any kind until wecity banker in your mind, you're a full fifth unlikely to think of the way throughsomeone like Gary Stevenson. We start with our couple, she a literature lecturer, he big in medical provision A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and decisions at his background is the councilEast End, being forced to move out of their homewhere he was familiar with violence, a building that had existed throughout her life since childhood poverty and which they'd occupied for over thirty yearsinjustice. The building There was no posh public school on his CV - but he's inherited, meanwhile, and which they let out had been to a single mother, the London School of Economics. Stevenson is needed by their adult daughter, who quite blatantly says to its occupant 'take bright - extremely bright - and he has a hike, I'm moving in and you're moving out'facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Now, at this stage you may well, if you know this is a genre read, think it's going He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be a throwback to those 'home invasion' thrillers Hollywood gave us in the 1980s, but nostupid. We avoid genre completelyIt was his ability at what was, as I say – instead learning about Greek tragedyessentially, in case that has any bearing on what happens here, and seeing how a card game which got him an older-middle aged couple live their livesinternship with Citibank. Until at that twenty per cent stage we find something that raises an eyebrow Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as any crime book should – until the point where the evicted tenant is found to have completely vanisheda trader.|isbn=1913193381
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Michael J Malone1035021803|title=A Song of IsolationThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Film star Amelie Hart throws It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up . She's back now because of a career that request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is only beginning dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to hit say the heights to retire least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the highlands with an ordinary guy…an accountant of all thingsvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to his credit he would rather be working in forestrynear the man or pursue the profession she loved. They have found After the split, she worked in a hideaway cafe, met and married James (on a small Scottish estatethe rebound from the love of her life, but things are starting to feel wrong between themwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced. |isbn=1913193365
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Christopher PaoliniAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title= To Sleep in a Sea of StarsAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating= 5|genre= Science Fiction|summary= On ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the moon shape of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is helping with the efforts to make the planet habitable to human lifewhat happens after you're eighteen. However Well, I must confess that there have been more than a discovery few decades of an ancient alien bunker under the moontechnology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's surface leaves her bonded advantageous to me but I'm left with a strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and kills half the staff of the research station, the United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system to take Kira in for examination. Things go feeling that it's all getting away from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is attacked and destroyed by an alien ship, and she has to flee to the 61 Cygnus star systemme. She Some of it is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and a rag-tag bunch of misfitsfrankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the news is grim. The same aliens that destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, probabilities and only a mythical weapon known as end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the Staff of Blue can stop themlatest conspiracy theorist. As the death toll climbs I needed people I knew I could trust and more players are introduced into this war, Kira slowly begins to realise that she may have had who could deliver information in a greater hand in the conflict than she way I could've possibly imagined…|isbn=1529046505understand.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Carlie SorosiakSunny Singh|title=My Life as a CatHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=This The Hotel Arcadia is the story of a luxury hotel in an alien who unnamed city that has come down to spend some time on earth living as suddenly been violently taken over by a humanterrorist group. It's something that each member in Hiding from the alien collective terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is allowed to doSam, for 1 montha wartime photographer and Abhi, once they reach a certain agethe hotel manager. Leonard comes As Abhi continues to try to earth but gets distracted en routecare remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, and so something goes wrong he forms a bond with his arrival and he finds that instead of landing in Yellowstone Park, ready Sam who refuses to work as a park rangerbe cowed by events, he is instead in the body of a cat and keeps on the other side venturing out of the country! This is not her room to try to capture what he had planned! 's happened through her photography. Not Although they only is he in the wrong place and ever talk over the wrong bodyphone, he is also in the middle of a storm, stuck in a tree! And so he meets Olive, the little girl who rows out in a boat their friendship grows as Abhi tries to rescue him, help her keep safe and who names him Leonardthey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=1788006089086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Tahi Saihate1529153298|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating= 3.5|genre= Literary General Fiction|summary= We long for our past even though it It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is a place to which we can never returnPrime Minister. Tahi Saihate (A woman? I mean, in her debut novel honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'Astral Seasons family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, Beastly Seasonthey've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lie. Her novel When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a meditation on youth frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and how she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the things we do as a teenager can seem intensely important and often lifedangers or that her Mum's stopped talking -alteringto anyone.|isbn= 1916277101
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Andrea Stewart1398524085|title= The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire)Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre= FantasyCrime|summary=Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband''I could s fiftieth birthday party but never be what he wanted if I did not take what I wanted'' In an empire controlled by a bone shard magic that powers animal-like constructsturned up. Her children, an heir to the throne, a smugglersons Niall, Paul and Ollie and a warrior will fight to find their place in the world. Lin is the emperor's forgotten her daughter, kept locked away in a palace of secrets and closed doorsEtty. When are all worried but - strangely - her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the thronehusband, Alec, she vows to show him she is capable of reviving a dying empire not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and in secretGreg, she begins to unlock one door after another, searching for find the mysteries body of her past and Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in the forbidden art of bone shard magicriverYet Lin is playing a deadly game and her quest It was an easy assumption for power will come at great cost. With revolution in the air police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and creeping closer and closer to then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the gates of the palace, Lin must decide just how far she will to go to become a catalyst of change guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and save her peoplewonder about what really happened.|isbn=0356514943
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sharon Doering1035906708|title=She Lies CloseDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary= Ava Boone We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was five years old born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she went missing, around 6 months agowas thirteen. There has been no sign of Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her since, and no arrests have been madefather changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. And yet, this book is not about Ava. Not really. This book is about Grace, who has just discovered her neighbour When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her new house is a suspect in Ava's disappearance. As voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a single mother to two young childrenwho mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, she's really wishing this sort of information had come to light before they moved inJackie.|isbn=1789094194
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{{Frontpage
|author=Yara Evans and Luciana BettiChristopher Edge|title=The Adventures of an Urban Fox: Maggie ArrivesBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Black Cat Lucas and Tabby Cat his friends are minding their own business all booked in for a movie marathon at their own house when local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very alarming thing happens. A creature - a largedifferent, dog-like creature - appears in their houseand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Black Cat, always But as they lurch from one film genre to take chargethe next, challenges this fearsome creature with all the courage he can muster. Tabby Cat backs him.... from a rather safe distance. The creature they figure out what on earth is indignant - ''I'm not a dog. I'm a fox!''going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1511658649 1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1712435728Rachel Greenlaw|title=Jamie's Keepsake|author=Michael GallagherCompass and Blade|rating=43.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=When we first meet Alex Hannah, he's just being released from 'I can hear the song of the Southern General Hospitalsea. The nurse thinks hecall of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'ll come back to visit the other patients but Alex has no intention of doing that: he's been there for  Rosevear, a yearremote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the same ward where his brother died rocks and nowplundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, with his hair all shorn offis one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, hethey capture the island's going home in his dead brotherleader and Mira's clothesfather. He wants Desperate to get outside save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and back with his friends: his brotheronly coordinates to guide her, Forbesshe sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, says that as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the fresh air will do him good and his mother tells him that hesmuggler's not territory, Mira must be determined to mention TB stop at nothing to save the future of her home and to say it was tonsillitis. Good luck with that one, Alexthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alice OsemanJames Sherwood Metts|title=SolitairePlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary= Victoria Spring has returned Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to Year 12 following Christmas break do and feels dead other tasks that took time to the worldaccomplish. Nothing is interesting. People are stupid Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and boring. She has one real friend; the rest are just people she sits near so she's not a complete loner. She hates a lot starting to think of things - including herself. But suddenlyother, new ways to spend time, a blog called Solitaire has arrived and is pulling pranks throughout the schoolalong came an awful pandemic. And Michael Holden has appeared Life was pretty much shut down and is showing up everywhere in Tori's life. Tori doesn't know (or care) why she's involved, but suddenly she is. What does Solitaire want? Who's behind it? Why does along with it , all seem to be linked to Tori? Why does Michael want to be in Tori's life the many daily social interactions on which they depend so badly and who is he, really? Things are only getting stranger and darker, and only one thing is certain – Tori isn't bored anymoreheavily.|isbn=97800075592201736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha FarrantMatthew Tree|title=Voyage of the SparrowhawkWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Set in England in the aftermath Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of World War One, this is the story being exceptional at any of two children, Lotti his artistic passions all failed miserably and Ben, who have lost everyone they love, but don't want to let go had endless crises of their last, tiny glimpses of hopeself confidence. Ben is living on a narrowboat on the canal, lying So Tim applied himself to the police about his brother's imminent return from the battlefields to take care of him. Lottistudies, meanwhile, has been expelled from school cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and is back at home; it's a beautiful house that belongs to her set himself high but that her terrible Aunt and Uncle currently have guardianship for. The day Lotti meets Ben (the day she steals a dog!) is the beginning of a deep, and powerful friendship. It sees them become each other's family, and undertake a perilous trip to France, in the boat, to try to find out the truth of the people they both loveachievable ambitions.|isbn=0571348769B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1471179273A G Slatter|title=House The Briar Book of Correction|author=Nicci Frenchthe Dead
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=When we first meet Tabitha Hardy, she'' There's in prisona part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, on remandall mine, at last. SheI just want to enjoy it for a while.''s sharing  Within a cell with Michaelaremote mountain pass, far away from the world, wholies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's more caring than , a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first appears. She delivers tough love non-witch to be born into her family for generations and gets Tabitha eating as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and drinking - administration rather than spells and encourages potions. When her to have a showergrandmother suddenly dies, unpleasant as Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the whole processes might be. And how did Tabitha get here? WellBriar Witch, on 21 December the body of Stuart Robert Rees was discovered in town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her garden shed by Andrew Kaneway left, who was helping with right and centre, Ellie uncovers the renovations rare ability to Tabitha's house. So far as communicate with the police are concerneddead, Tabitha is putting her at the only person heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who could have killed Rees - to trust and when determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they arrived at her house she was covered in his bloodhave sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1529900360|title=Archibald Lox and the Vote of Alignment The Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=This third It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and final book in even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the first volume help of Darren Shana psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's new ''Archibald Lox'' series sees Archie partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and Inez make it almost all the way to the Cuckoo's Nest, where not the Vote of Alignment will be heldItalian. But how will they get inwhich of them was the primary target?|isbn=B086LLWP4V
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083147211529395224|title=Truth Be ToldLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Kia AbdullahSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=The Hadids are an Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father'effortful'' familys life. Flowers are sent for When he was seventeen he took the slightest problem or achievement: letters are sent to thank opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this prompts a phone call in returnwas the job for him. There are two sons of the familyBefore long, seventeen-year-old Kamran and sixteen-year-old Adamhe was at Liverpool University. Their mother, Sofia, regrets that she didnIt hadn't name them the other way round: 'Adam and Kamran' trips off the tongue - as with so much more easily than 'Kamran and Adam'many students - been his dream since he was a child. Sofia worries about that sort of thing. Both boys go to the prestigious Hampton schoolIf anything, where they board, despite the school being less than ten miles from their Belsize Park home. Kamran has a place at Oxford next year and all seemed he'd wanted to be going well until the night when he was rapeda professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15098895150861541774|title=The Darkest Evening (D I Vera Stanhope)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Ann CleevesSteve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a mercy that DI Vera Stanhope took the wrong turning as she drove home short holiday in the blizzard. If she hadn't the car might not have been found until the morning and who knows what would have happened Singapore to the toddler strapped into the car seatmeet up with an old ally, particularly as the car door had been left openGuy Trueman. Vera took the boy and drove to the nearest habitation. She ''thought'' it Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would be the village but it later maintain that he was Brockburn, the ancestral home of the Stanhopes: her father had been the younger brother of the facing a man who inherited armed with a knife - and Hector was the black sheep of the familyhe killed a Ghurka. Calling there unannouncedInitially, particularly as they seemed he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have guests was going planned to murder the man. Now he could be embarrassing, but there was little else that she facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could do in the circumstancesprovoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241425441Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Thursday Murder Club|author=Richard OsmanPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=The first member of The Thursday Murder Club we encounter Perfect Passion Company is Joyce Meadowcrofta dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. She used to be a nurse Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is thus the perfect person for Elizabeth planning to consult about how long it would take a person who has been stabbed trip to Canada to bleed outget away for a while. Details Katie is coming out of where a break up with a bad boyfriend, and how are exchanged and Joyce confirms that it would have taken about forty-five minutes so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and that the victim could have been saved if she'd received prompt medical helpIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. It didn't put Joyce off Katie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her shepherdabilities, and there's pie (which tells us that it was a Monday) but it does get always her interested in The Thursday Murder Club. They meet each Thursday very helpful (as you might have guessedand rather handsome) in the Jigsaw Room at Coopers Chase Retirement Village.neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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|isbn=19481244400811771741|title=What Wonders Await OutdoorsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Justine Avery and Liuba SyrotiukMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary=The second book in Justine AveryMelissa Leapman's Wonders series is the perfect antidote ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to long summer days with bored children blankets. Some will be quick knits - or, indeed, as weothers are of the 've found recentlylong, for those long lockdown days when an awful pandemic is rolling across cosy afternoons in front of the worldfire' variety. What do you do when every book has been read The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and every toy has been played with, repurposedmore than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and played with again?useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.
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|author= Samira AhmedDean Koontz|title= Mad, The Bad and Dangerous to KnowWeather Friend|rating= 34.5|genre=TeensParanormal|summary=''In the endBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, we all become stories'' Spending the summer in Paris sounds like and someone has delivered a dream for most peoplereally weird, especially artdisturbing coffin-loverssized object to his home, but Khayyam canand it't relax and stop thinking about s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the mess she left behind in Chicagovery last person to deserve all this bad luck. On He is a chance encounter with nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a descendant of Alexandre Dumasnew friend, Khayyam finds herself on a historical journey with bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to unveil the truth about the 19th century Muslim woman who may have crossed paths with Alendre Dumastake care of Benny, Eugene Delacroix and Lord Byron. As the two teenagers travel the city they not only discover themselveswill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, but uncover the true story of the woman and why it was one that should never have been forgottenHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=03490035561662500491
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|author=Alice OsemanAdam Stower|title=LovelessMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary= Georgia Murray is supposed to be a teenager humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who's embarking on her first year of university and is in a desperate struggle able to figure herself out. She's always been in love with love. With the idea sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of love, the idea of falling madly for someone and finding blisstwo. But the reality for her has always been different. Shehe's never had a crush. Shebad magician's never cat, so his favourite bun has been kissed. And she's desperate to feel something turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and fall for someone. But when the opportunity presents itself in any kind catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of real, tangible frightening adventure and physical way for her - she's disgusted by whiffs. This time round it. But isn't that what shedrops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's supposed to want? Isnturned up and he't that what everyone is supposed ll have to do? How come everyone else can do it? Why can't she?do…|isbn=000824412X0008561249
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|isbn=B086LLRZFHB0C47LV1PC|title=Archibald Lox and the Empress of SuanpanFragility|author=Darren ShanMosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=ArchieCan you make a 's second foray into 'the MergeYo birthing person' opens with a fantastic vista. All of the Born's most famous buildings and monuments - Big Benjoke? And if you could, is the Taj Mahal,  question should you make it? Or is the Eiffel Tower - are collected togetherquestion if you did, joined by those clever Merge vines. But there's no time to waste in admiration: Archie would it land? The catch is carrying an urgent cry that the answer for help from Inez to a venerable locksmith called Winston.Winston is a darling but is afraid to help - what is to both could well be done? Despite yearning to go home and worry for his foster parents, Archie feels an obligation to take Winston's place. And so Archie embarks on a new, and even more dangerous, adventure...no''Fragility'' is set as the city of Portland, Oregon, cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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|isbn=14087122881529431735|title=Still Life (DCI Karen Pirie)The Winter Visitor|author=Val McDermidJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was the middle of 's February 1991 and bitterly Essex is bitingly cold when a fishing boat out of St Monans pulled , which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a body out the Firth of Forth instead of wanted drug smuggler for a lobster potdecade. It fell to DCI Charlie Todd The return has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and DS Daisy Mortimer to investigate and it didnhasn't take too long to establish that the man was Paul Allard, ostensibly a Frenchman, but in reality James Auld of Edinburghlive. A decade earlier heIt's gone missing hard to feel any sympathy when he was the prime suspect Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the disappearance and possible murder boot of his brother, prominent civil servant, Iain Aulda stolen Ford Sierra. DCI Karen Pirie, as head of Police Scotland Historic Crimes Unit, had been the last person to review the case, Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a couple of years earlier and it seemed sensible problem closer to bring her into the case at an early stage.home?
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|author= Adrian TchaikovskyAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title= The Doors Glorious Race of EdenMagical Beasts|rating= 4.5|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary= Wow Eli is a busy lad this novel is giganticby day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in every sense of the wordevening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. "Epic" Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a word thatgeneration missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's thrown around parents were both lost to the titular race, a lot these days, globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but if when a book ever earned bad incident at the name it's this one. It's eatery leads to a doorstopper full confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of big ideas, and magic at times it almost felt too big for my brainthe end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=15098658880571382231
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|authorisbn=Will Carver178763681X|title=Hinton Hollow Death TripKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Hinton Hollow, population 5,120Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. It sounds like one He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of those signs you see on improbably wide highways in Americagetting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he's mid-westd be at the school to assist Paul, but this particular Hinton Hollow is who had a small town in Berkshirebroken arm, Englandbut it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the problems - are all his own. Detective Sergeant Pace grew The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up heredead. Unfortunately, until something happened and he ran away to was the person who discovered the city. He's running away again…only this time evil is following him body and is going everyone knows that the police consider that person to touch just about everyone in townbe the prime suspect.|isbn=1913193306
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|author=Jacqueline WilsonSarah Marsh|title=Love FrankieA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary= Frankie After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is nearly fourteen. Being nearly fourteen sent to a school where she is not easy when your mum has been diagnosed with MS when your dad has decided taught to leave her for lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another woman, when your older sister school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has turned into been teaching the girliest girl who ever lived, deaf and, above all when Sally and her mates are bullying you at schoolusing a system called Visible Speech. Oh At the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and when Samideas, your best friend since forever, suddenly starts sending out signs that he might fancy you - and you don't fancy him backEllen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionagePoor Frankie! |isbn= 0857535897 1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17765728581803816759|title=How Do You Make a Baby?The Unravelling|author=Anna Fiske and Don Bartlett (translator)Will Gibson|rating=54|genre=Home and FamilyScience Fiction|summary=It's more than sixty years since I asked how babies were made2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. My mother was deeply embarrassed Joe longs for a bit of adventure and told me to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that she'd get me a book about itnow runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. A couple In the aftermath of days later I was handed a pamphlet (which delivered nothing more than the basics, in clinical language which had never been used in our house before) rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and I was told that it wouldnJoe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't be discussed any further as it ''wasn't something which nice people talked about''the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. I ''knew'' more, but What went wrong? Did the system fail or was little it hacked? And how is Suki''wiser''. Thankfully, times have changed.s kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15420174321529421284|title=The Nidderdale MurdersLaying Out the Bones|author=J R EllisKate Webb|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a Friday in mid-September when the shoot was held on the grouse moor near Niddersgillheatwave. The shooters at the butts were In a gully, a strange mixture: Alexander Fraser (Sandy human skeleton came to his friends) was the owner of surface and forensic testing proved the moor and a retired judgebody to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. James Symonds was He'd been a local landowner known drug user and Henry Saunders was had learning disabilities, so it could have been a banker. He and Fraser had known each other since their school dayssimple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. The fourth member Geary was Gideon Rawnsleya townie, who dealt in exclusive cars in nearby Ripon. so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? Rawnsley had a gripe with Fraser: he'd sold him an expensive car There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and Fraser was being slow to paytwo other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Other people had reason to comment on FraserLockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's attitude cold cases to money: his gamekeeper, Ian Davis thought he was stingy you and very difficult to work forme) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=02414335680571379559|title=Eight DetectivesThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Alex PavesiFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=It''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's 1930 and Megan and Henry roots are staying with Bunny at his in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house in Spainon the riverbank, built of broken bricks. ItInsubstantial as it might look, it's unbearably hot stood the passage of time, storms and Bunny drank too much at lunch: he's going floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to have a rest complete the delivery rounds - and then he wants to talk to Megan bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Henry about something seriousMax, the rainbow twins. Only it never gets that far: when Bunny doesnSonny's colouring reflects his mother't emerge s Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his siesta his guests find father. People don't believe that hethey're related, much less twins and there's been murdered. How can an assumption when Max is out with his mother that have happened? Thereshe's no one else in the house, so one of them must be the killerhis nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15263627591529425867|title=Dosh: How to Earn It, Save It, Spend It, Grow It, Give ItLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Rashmi SirdeshpandeSimon Mason|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=What a relief! In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. A book about money, for children, with clear explanations Raymond Wilkins is of what it isNigerian descent, why it mattersBalliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, how to acquire more son of it (nope - robbing banks is out) Ryan and what you can do with it when you've managed to get hold father of itRyan, is not. Your reasons for wanting money donHe't matter: we all need it to some extents not any of those things. You might want to go into businessHe's white, be originated from a clever shoppertrailer park, a saver barely educated (you might even become an reading's not ''investorreally''his thing) and there his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might be something wonder if you really, ''really'' want re being introduced to buya police procedural written for laughs. ThereWell, you's also re not. The two men are just different sides of the possibility of using to do good in same policing coin. Sometimes the worldcombination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008378363Mosby Woods|title=One Perfect Morning|author=Pamela CraneA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=3.54|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=A husband The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is about quite sure how to have his throat cut in his own bedmend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. To find out who - and why - we need to go back nine days and twenty yearsGovernments are flailingMackenzieA war here, Robin and Lily met when they all went to the same college a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in Monroevilleactual charge. Imagine then, Pennsylvania and twenty years later they're still the best of friendsthere was a man with precognition. When they first met they called themselves Imagine the Spicier Girls as strategic advantage in this asset; a nod to the famous girl band man who can tell you what will happen given any set of the daycircumstances. Lily That man would be Adventure Spicevaluable, Robin right? Perhaps the Homemaker and Mackenzie - well, Mackenzie would be the supporting actress most valuable asset in her own lifehistory. She married Owen, her college sweetheart and they have a daughterImagine then, Aria, who's now fifteen-year-oldthat this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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