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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
|isbn=18497669200241636604|title=Everything is MINEThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Andrea D'AquinoGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingAutobiography|summary=Marcello Von Cauliflower Bonaparte Jackson is a schnauzer: what else could If you be with were to bring up an image of a name like that? He knows that city banker in your mind, you'll realise that he's kind, clever and loyalre unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. You'll also need to know that everything A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is '''MINE'''. And the East End, where he means ''everything''. It begins was familiar with the slipper: mum still has oneviolence, poverty and injustice. Why would she need more? You sense that Marcello feels that There was no posh public school on his CV - but he's being generous in allowing that. Then it was had been to the pork chopLondon School of Economics. Well, did you see anyone's name on it? ''And'' Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he left the carrots for Leohas a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. That's another example of Marcello's generosityHe also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. There was the acorn which squirrel It was gnawing his ability at: there what was no documentation to prove ownership, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. And talking of ownership the tree would provide all the sticks he could ever want to chewEventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader. There's nothing unreasonable in any of that, is there?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18497670091035021803|title=It IsnThe Antique Hunter't Rude s Guide to be NudeMurder|author=Rosie HaineC L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=This could have It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been one of those books which 'preaches back to the choirEnglish country village where she grew up. She': the only people whos back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya'll buy it are the people who know that nudity is OK s former mentor and the ones who ''know'' that itCarole's shameful will avoid it like they avoid the hot-close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and-bothered person in the supermarket who is coughing fit circumstances seem suspicious, to bustsay the least. ButArthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly... Rosie Haines makes it into something so much more than a book about Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not wearing clothesfelt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. It's After the split, she worked in a celebration cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of bodies: bodies large her life, who was murdered) and small Freya and of every possible hue. Bodies with disabilities and markings. They're fine. In fact, they're wonderfulJames have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241295955AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=TrioAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=William BoydBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=General Science Fiction|summary=It was 1968: ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the year when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinatedshape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. It's also the year when YSK Films are making Well, I must confess that there have been more than a movie few decades of technology in Brightonmy lifetime. It's called 'I'Emily Bracegirdleve kept up reasonably well with what's Extremely Useful Ladder advantageous to the Moon'', or 'me but I'Ladder m left with the Moon'' as feeling that it's known on setall getting away from me. Anny Viklund Some of it is the female star in a production which is proving to be just a little bit rackety- frankly - quite frightening. There are odd pressures on Of course, I could research the producer, Talbot Kydd, to employ this old actor friend for a couple of days because he needs possibilities and the money, allow a fading star to use his catchphrase, probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or include the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a song from the leading man, whose musical star is fadingway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B08B39QNRHSunny Singh|title=The Curious History of Writer's Cramp: Solving an age-old problem|author=Michael PritchardHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Popular ScienceThrillers |summary=''Society The Hotel Arcadia is based on speech but civilisation requires the written word''. I came to Michael Pritchard's ''The Curious History of Writer's Cramp'' a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a rather strange routeterrorist group. I have problems with my hands which orthopaedic surgeons refer to as 'interesting': I prefer Hiding from the word 'painful' but I have an interest in terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the way that hands workhotel manager. An exploration of As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the history of hotel, he forms a problem which has defeated some bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. Although they only ever talk over the best medical minds for some three-hundred-years seemed liked excellent background reading and so it provedphone, with the book being their friendship grows as much about the doctors treating the sufferers Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the changing medical attitudes as the problem itselfterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Blake Nuto and Charlotte Ager1529153298|title=Child The List of GalaxiesSuspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=What does it It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean to be alive? , honestly...) What are we made ofShe's not what's worrying Miv's family, and where are we going? though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'Child of Galaxiesdisappeared'doesn' is a lovely childrent sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's picture book overheard that deals with all her father wants to move the big questionsfamily 'Down South'. Written as When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a poemfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the lyrical words donmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she't shy away from darkness, nor talk down ll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the children you are reading dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to, but rather than work beautifully together with the illustrations to create a powerful, uplifting reading experienceanyone.|isbn=1912497425
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)1398524085|title=BetrayalHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=35
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Ursula, the stand-in minister, drafted in from outside the leading Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party to cover the post for a yearbut never turned up. You might get to meet Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her hunky husband she can't believe she deservesdaughter, and the children who Etty. are ignorant of just how she spent all worried but - strangely - her empathy for them on previous jobs in the foreign aid charity sectorhusband, Alec, is not. You'll meet her ministry's cleanerShortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, who bizarrely has fallen into find the task body of helping a famous newsreader with her Tinder profile. YouGreg'll certainly meet a homeless tramp, who has taken one look at a newspaper image of Ursulas father, andDuncan Ackerley, knowing her of old, decided she needs saving from in the devil posing beside herriver. You'll meet It was an easy assumption for the ministerial bodyguard police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and driver then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the tramp almost immediately forces Ursula to acceptguilt. But as for the first ministerial case, of a woman demanding her daughterThe Salter children are not convinced but there's rape little else they can do but get looked at on with their lives and pronto, nobody can say, for all records of Ursula's meeting with the woman have been wiped…|isbn=1913193403wonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1035906708|title=The Time Traveller and the TigerDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Elsie is an ordinary sort We tend to think of girl. The sort of small girl who often gets overlookedMaria Callas as Greek, and forgotten. She is quietbut she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, and compliantNew York, in December 1923 and makes the best of whatever happens only moved to herAthens when she was thirteen. So when Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her parents forget that her school holidays have started before they are free father changed it to take care of her, they have to arrange for her to go and stay with her Great Uncle for a week. Poor Elsie, forgotten again, just decides 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the best of thingsStates. On investigating the house When she finds was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her Great Uncle had lived in India as a boy, and he has an enormous tiger rug on the floor of one of the rooms. When Elsie asks him about the rug he seems unhappy, and he says he has to keep it because he voice - she was raised under the one Nazi occupation by a mother who shot the tiger when he was 12 years old, mercilessly exploited her and he says it was the worst thing he ever did. So when Elsie suddenly finds herself magically transported back many, many years, to the time in India when made no secret of her preference for her Great Uncle was 12 years oldelder sister, she believes that she must try to stop him from killing the tiger, in order to put something right that happened a long time agoJackie.|isbn=1788541707
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1472127013|title=Agatha Raisin: Hot to Trot|author=M C Beaton and R W Green|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Raisin Investigations had quite a bit of work on hand. The chairman of Philpott Electronics was concerned about his managing director, Harold Cheeseman, who had apparently returned from Australia because his wife did not like it there. This was unusual, as his wife had died before Cheeseman went to Australia. Then there was the Chadwick divorce: Chadwick was convinced that his wife, Sheraton, was seeing another man. Mr Gutteridge wanted Raisin Investigations to instal listening devices in the staff canteen: he wanted to know what the staff were saying about him and his secretary, who was from Geneva. Apparently, the staff called her The Swiss Roll. Then there was the murder. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008420386Christopher Edge|title=Failosophy: A handbook for when things go wrong|author=Elizabeth DayBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=What do Malcolm GladwellLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, Alain de Bottona place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, Phoebe Waller-Bridgethey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, Lemn Sissayand many, Nigel Slatermany snacks! However, Emeli Sandéas the movie starts, Meera Syalthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, Dame Kelly Holmes and Andrew Scott have in commonthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? They've all failed and - more importantly - Will they've been willing ever get back to appear on Elizabeth Day's podcast the cinema, and to discuss their failures and how life worked out for them afterwards. You'll find the results of these discussions in ''Failosophy''real lives?|isbn=1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0571362672Rachel Greenlaw|title=Snow|author=John BanvilleCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Crime (Historical)Teens|summary=''WellI can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, at least you're a Wexford manthe answering beat in my heart.''
So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford to Ballyglass House just Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before Christmas 1957. Osborne was master her, is one of the Keelmore Hounds seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and had done something memorable with the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirkany treasure that lies within. The niceties had to be established even But when there was the Council Watch lays a Catholic priest dead on trap to end the wrecking, they capture the library floor with some precious bits of his anatomy missingisland's leader and Mira's father. Strafford was Desperate to save him from Roslea at Bunclody death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and thiswith only coordinates to guide her, along with his good-but-shabby suitshe 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, marked him out as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of Osbornethe smuggler's class and obviously Protestant. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless from Scallanstownterritory, who - despite Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the different religions - was in future of her home and the habit of spending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled thereones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787477630James Sherwood Metts|title=The Postscript Murders|author=Elly GriffithsPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=When Things have been a 90-year-old-woman with a heart condition dies peacefully in her armchairbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, it really shouldnoften replacing jobs they't be suspicious re paid to do and other tasks that was the view taken by DS Harbinder Kaur until she spoke took time to Peggy Smith's careraccomplish. Natalka Kolisnyk was adamant that there was more Just as they were beginning to get used to Peggy's death than met the eye - particularly as she knew that there was no heart condition all this technological change and that Peggy had worried that she was being followedstarting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Then there Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the fact that Peggy was a 'murder consultant' who helped authors with knotty plot lines in their books: she knew more about murder than any elderly woman should need to knowmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008330131Matthew Tree|title=The Stolen Sisters|author=Louise JensenWe'll Never Know|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=When we start ''The Stolen Sisters'' we know that twenty-years on Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a dreadful event they are all healthy adults. Well, they're healthy in the physical sense, but Carly has trust issues, Leah has OCD drunk and Marie drinks. They're the Sinclair sisters and one day they were chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all stolen. Carly was thirteen-years-old failed miserably and she was in charge who had endless crises of her sisters, the eight-year-old twinsself confidence. Much as she loved them Carly was desperate So Tim applied himself to get a text from Dean Malden his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and her mobile phone held her attention. Leah and Marie were nattering about a lost ball and a fleece which had been left outside. The gate wasn't shut properly and Bruno, their boxer dog, escaped. As the three girls went to chase after him they were snatched by two menset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen FabesA G Slatter|title=Signs The Briar Book of Lifethe Dead
|rating=5
|genre=TravelFantasy|summary= '' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives can. This secret magic of tales of far away placesmy own, all mine, at last. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosityjust want to enjoy it for a while. Unfortunately'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, I didnlies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar't inherit what Drs, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the guts first non-witch to simply go out be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and do itadministration rather than spells and potions. I also didnWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie't inherit s cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the kind of steady nervetown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted communicate with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not dead, putting her at the sort heart of a maelstrom of person chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who will get on a bike outside a London hospital to trust and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely thatdetermine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=17881612111803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Arvin Ahmadi1529900360|title=How It All Blew UpThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=TeensCrime| summary=18It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-yearand-old Amir is American Iranian, shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a Muslim, and gaywhile. He struggles with his identityFinally, unable to face telling his parents who he really isit was Robin, so when another student at his school starts blackmailing himDelaware's partner, threatening to show his parents photographs of Amir kissing his boyfriend Amir panics and runs awaywho 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.to Italy! So begins Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a journey for Amir, remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and his family, where they all discover more about him, and who he really she is, married to an extremely rich man and who he really wants to beit's not the Italian.|isbn=1471409929 But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Antoine Laurain1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Readers RoomSecret Life of a Vet|genreauthor=General FictionSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=Violaine's publishing house has had Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a great success, GP and it was through the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts. The three people who work in the ReadersRowlands didn' Room t want to sift through what is ninety-nine per cent dross – plus the fourth advisor follow in her rarefied mansion up his footsteps, particularly when he considered the road – all agreed strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the book would be opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a huge smash, vet and so it has provenwas convinced this was the job for him. But there are several 'howevers' to thatBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. As in, however – Violaine herself is not having life all her own way, for she has It hadn't - as with so many students - been involved in a near-fatal accident, and starts this book coming round from his dream since he was a comachild. AndIf anything, however – despite all urging, the author of the book has never once made themselves known he'd wanted to the publishers in person, and in fact offered up be a most peculiar statement-come-threat in their last emailprofessional footballer. What is going to befall Violaine, her memory, her staff – and how much is any of it due to the hit novel? And just where the heck did that come from?|isbn=1910477974
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19481245720861541774|title=Think Outside the BoxA Nye of Pheasants|author=Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=''Whenever you find a problem <br>''Wherever there's a puzzle to solve <br>''However you get stuck in a sticky situation <br>''Just think outside the box'' And so begins the latest picture book from Justine Avery and Liuba Syrotiuk. It's a clarion call to children to use their imaginations and not logic alone when it comes to solving problems.}}{{Frontpage|author=Agnes Ravatn and Rosie Hedger (translator)|title=The Seven DoorsSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Come here for a thriller that interestingly doesnDCI Domenic Jejeune't even try to suggest a genre of any kind until we're a full fifth of the way through. We start with our couples close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, she has taken a literature lecturer, he big short holiday in medical provision and decisions at the council, being forced Singapore to move out of their homemeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a building street brawl - he would later maintain that had existed throughout her life since childhood he was facing a man armed with a knife - and which they'd occupied for over thirty yearshe killed a Ghurka. The building Initially, he's inherited, meanwhile, and which they let out faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to a single mother, is needed by their adult daughter, who quite blatantly says light that suggested that he might have planned to its occupant 'take a hike, I'm moving in and you're moving out'murder the man. Now, at this stage you may well, if you know this is a genre read, think it's going to he could be a throwback to those 'home invasion' thrillers Hollywood gave us in facing the 1980s, but nodeath penalty. We avoid genre completely, Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as I say – instead learning about Greek tragedy, in case that has any bearing on what happens here, interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and seeing how an older-middle aged couple live their lives. Until wouldn't help Danny at that twenty per cent stage we find something that raises an eyebrow as any crime book should – until the point where the evicted tenant is found to have completely vanishedall.|isbn=1913193381
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michael J MaloneAlexander McCall Smith|title=A Song of IsolationThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Film star Amelie Hart throws up The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a career that more personal, tailored service. Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is only beginning planning to hit take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the heights chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to retire an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the highlands Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with an ordinary guy…an accountant of all things, though some new characters who quickly begin to his credit he would rather be working in forestrycharm. They have found Katie has no experience in running a hideaway on a small Scottish estatebusiness, or in match-making, but things are starting Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to feel wrong between them. lend a hand…|isbn=19131933651846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Christopher Paolini0811771741|title= To Sleep in a Sea of StarsInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating= 54|genre= Science FictionCrafts|summary= On the moon Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the efforts knits from toys to make blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the planet habitable to human life. However'long, a discovery cosy afternoons in front of an ancient alien bunker under the moonfire's surface leaves her bonded with a strange alien entityvariety. After The projects are divided by the entity bonded time they'll take to her loses control and kills half the staff of the research stationcomplete - less than five hours, the United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system five to take Kira in for examination. Things go from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is attacked and destroyed by an alien shipten hours, and she has ten to flee to the 61 Cygnus star system. She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi twenty hours and a rag-tag bunch of misfits, and the news is grimmore than twenty hours. The same aliens that destroyed All the Extenuating Circumstances projects are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied spaceattractive, modern and only a mythical weapon known as the Staff of Blue can stop themuseable. As the death toll climbs and more players are introduced into this war, Kira slowly begins to realise I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that she may have had a greater hand in the conflict than she could've possibly imagined…|isbn=1529046505s me being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Carlie SorosiakDean Koontz|title=My Life as a CatThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=This Benny is the story of an alien who has come down to spend some time on earth living as having a humanterrifically bad day. It's something that each member in the alien collective is allowed to do He loses his job, for 1 monthhe loses his fiancee, once they reach a certain ageand his house gets trashed. Leonard comes to earth but gets distracted en routeOh, and so something goes wrong with someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his arrival home, and he finds it's possible that instead of landing in Yellowstone Park, ready to work as a park ranger, he whoever or whatever was inside is instead in the body of a cat on the other side of the countrything that has trashed his house! This The thing is, Benny is not what he had planned! the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Not only He is he in a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the wrong place and the wrong body, he delivery to his house is also in the middle of a stormnew friend, stuck in a tree! And so he meets Olivebad weather friend called Spike, the little girl who rows out in has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a boat good person. Spike is going to rescue himtake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who names him Leonardexactly they are.|isbn=17880060891662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author= Tahi SaihateAdam Stower|title= Astral Season, Beastly SeasonMurray and Bun|rating= 34.5|genre= Literary FictionConfident Readers |summary= We long for our past even though it Murray is supposed to be a place humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to which we can never returnsleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. Tahi Saihate, in her debut novel But he's a bad magician'Astral Seasons cat, Beastly Season'' illustrates how these rose-tinted glasses often lie. Her novel is so his favourite bun has been turned into a meditation on youth hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and how the things we do as catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a teenager can seem intensely important world of frightening adventure and often life-alteringwhiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn= 19162771010008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Andrea StewartB0C47LV1PC|title= The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire)Fragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre= FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''I Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could never be what he wanted , is the question should you make it? Or is the question if I you did not take what I wanted'', would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.
In an empire controlled by a bone shard magic that powers animal-like constructs, an heir to the throne, a smuggler, and a warrior will fight to find their place in the world. Lin ''Fragility'' is set as the emperor's forgotten daughter, kept locked away in a palace city of secrets and closed doors. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the thronePortland, she vows to show him she is capable of reviving a dying empire and in secretOregon, she cautiously begins to unlock one door after another, searching for emerge from the mysteries of her past and the forbidden art of bone shard magic. Yet Lin is playing a deadly game and her quest for power will come at great cost. With revolution in restrictions imposed during the air and creeping closer and closer to the gates of the palace, Lin must decide just how far she will to go to become a catalyst of change and save her people.|isbn=0356514943covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sharon Doering1529431735|title=She Lies CloseThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary= Ava Boone was five years old when she went missingIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, around 6 months agowhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. There has He'd been no sign of her since, and no arrests have been madeexiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. And yet, this book is not The return has come about Ava. Not really. This book is about Grace, who has just discovered her neighbour in her new house is a suspect in Avabecause he's disappearance. As had a single mother to two young childrenletter from his ex-wife, saying that she's really wishing this sort of information had come ill and hasn't long to live. It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to light before they moved a watery grave inthe boot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=1789094194 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Yara Evans Alex Bell and Luciana BettiTim McDonagh|title=The Adventures Glorious Race of an Urban Fox: Maggie ArrivesMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Black Cat Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and Tabby Cat are minding their own business in their own house when the evening a very alarming thing happenshelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. A creature - Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a large, dog-like creature - appears generation missing in their housethe family. Black Cat A few short years ago, always one Eli's parents were both lost to take chargethe titular race, challenges this fearsome creature with a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the courage he can muster. Tabby Cat backs him...company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from a rather safe distance. The creature gran, Eli knows his only hope is indignant - ''I'm not a dogto dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. I'm a fox!''|isbn=1511658649 0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1712435728178763681X|title=Jamie's KeepsakeKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Michael GallagherOrlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=TeensCrime|summary=When we first meet Alex Hannah, he's just being released from the Southern General HospitalChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. The nurse thinks heHe didn'll come back t really want to visit the other patients but Alex has no intention celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of doing getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that: he's been there for d be at the school to assist Paul, who had a yearbroken arm, on but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the same ward where problems - are all his brother died and now, with his hair all shorn off, own. The one thing hehadn's going home in his t expected was for someone to turn up dead brother's clothes. He wants Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and everyone knows that the police consider that person to get outside and back with his friends: his brotherbe the prime suspect.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sarah Marsh|title=A Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, ForbesEllen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, says that everything about her life changes. Living in a time when the fresh air will use of sign language was seen as something only savages do him good and his mother tells him that he's not , Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to mention TB lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and to say it was tonsillitisusing a system called Visible Speech. Good luck with that oneAt the same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, Alexand Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alice Oseman1803816759|title=SolitaireThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary= Victoria Spring has returned to Year 12 following Christmas break It's 2038 and feels dead to Joe is a bored cop policing the world. Nothing is interesting. People are stupid wealthy and boring. She has one real friend; the rest are just people she sits near so she's not a complete lonerpeaceful New York City. She hates Joe longs for a lot bit of things - including herselfadventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But suddenlythen something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, a blog called Solitaire has arrived and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is pulling pranks throughout the school. And Michael Holden has appeared kidnapped and Joe is showing up everywhere in Tori's lifeassigned to bring her home. Tori doesnJoe isn't know (or care) why she's involvedthe only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, but suddenly she isalso on the case. What does Solitaire wantwent wrong? WhoDid the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's behind itkidnapping connected? Why does it all seem }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529421284|title=Laying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to be linked to Tori? Why does Michael want the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be in ToriLee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn's life t convinced. Geary was a townie, so badly and who is what was he, reallydoing out on Salisbury Plain alone? Things There are only getting stranger connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and darker, to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and only one thing is certain – Tori isnDC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that't bored anymores cold cases to you and me) investigate.|isbn=9780007559220
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Natasha Farrant0571379559|title=Voyage The House of the SparrowhawkBroken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Set in England in the aftermath ''The House of World War One, this Broken Bricks'' is the story of two childrenfour people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, Lotti and Benbut instead, who have lost everyone they love, but don't want to let go of their lastshe lives in the house on the riverbank, tiny glimpses built of hopebroken bricks. Ben is living on a narrowboat on the canalInsubstantial as it might look, lying to the police about his brotherit's imminent return from stood the battlefields to take care passage of himtime, storms and floods. LottiHer husband, meanwhileRichard, has been expelled from school struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and is back at home; it's a beautiful house that belongs to her but that her terrible Aunt and Uncle currently have guardianship forbring in sufficient money. The day Lotti meets Ben (They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the day she steals a dog!) is the beginning of a deep, and powerful friendshiprainbow twins. It sees them become each otherSonny's familycolouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and undertake a perilous trip to France, in the boat, to try to find there's an assumption when Max is out the truth of the people they both lovewith his mother that she's his nanny.|isbn=0571348769
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711792731529425867|title=House of CorrectionLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Nicci FrenchSimon Mason|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=When we first meet Tabitha HardyIn Oxford, shethere are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's in prison, on remandnot any of those things. SheHe's sharing white, originated from a cell with Michaelatrailer park, whobarely educated (reading's more caring than she first appearsnot ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. She delivers tough love and gets Tabitha eating and drinking - and encourages her You might wonder if you're being introduced to have a showerpolice procedural written for laughs. Well, unpleasant as you're not. The two men are just different sides of the whole processes might besame policing coin. And how did Tabitha get here? Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Well, on 21 December Sometimes it's problematic.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the body of Stuart Robert Rees dominant force it once was discovered . Nobody in her garden shed by Andrew Kane, who was helping with the renovations West is quite sure how to Tabitha's housemend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. So far as the police Governments are concernedflailing. A war here, Tabitha a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the only person strategic advantage in this asset; a man who could have killed Rees - and when they arrived at her house she was covered can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in his bloodhistory. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}

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