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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Claire McGowan0241636604|title=The PushTrading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating= 4.5|genre= General FictionAutobiography|summary= Six mums-If you were to-be meet at bring up an image of a prenatal classcity banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. It's NCT ''style'', but not A hoodie and jeans replaces the proper NCT. This bit pin-stripe suit and his background is importantthe East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but you have he had been to wait a little to see whythe London School of Economics. This being London, such Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a class attracts a wide variety facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor peopleto be stupid. It was his ability at what was, from all sorts of backgroundsessentially, but for most of the ladies the thing they have in common is it's their first babya card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Probably after the first one Eventually, you don't have time for classes, or think you've got child-rearing down patthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=1542019990
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14722559171035021803|title=The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner)Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Quintin JardineC L Miller|rating=43.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=On New YearIt's Eve, Sir Robert Morgan Skinner was celebrating at the golf club with his wife, Professor Sarah Grace, daughter Alex Skinner and twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the man with whom English country village where she shares grew up. She's back now because of a houserequest for help from her beloved aunt, Dominic JacksonCarole. Jackson would be better-known to the criminal fraternity of Edinburgh as Lennie Plenderleith but heFreya's former mentor and Carole's reformed close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the new name reflects a new mancircumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. The Skinners don't stay much after midnight at Arthur was the clubhouse and are dropped home reason why Freya had not long into been back to the new yearvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Skinner's tempted Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to let be near the phone ring but knows that he cannot: it's Mario McGuire asking for his presence at a crime scene in man or pursue the centre of Edinburghprofession she loved. Skinner's not technically with After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the police now - he's chairman love of InterMedia UK - but the police value his knowledge her life, who was murdered) and Freya and experienceJames have now divorced.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B087JXQ3JQAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Long Dark Road|author=P R Black|rating=4|genre=Thrillers|summary=Two years ago Dr Georgia's HealeyAll Tomorrow's nineteen-year-old university-student daughter went missing as she walked along the lonely A928 at Ferngate Bridge. There was a furious storm going on and she'd already refused the offer of help from one man in a big vehicle. We'll see - but no one else will know - Futures: Fictions that another car stops and Stephanie is bundled into the car and driven off. There has been no sign of her - or her body - in the two years since. Georgia is back is Ferngate, determined to find out what happened and she's not going to be stopped.}} {{FrontpageDisrupt|author= Katharine Orton|title= Glassheart|rating= 4|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Nona and her Uncle Antoni have lived together ever since the Blitz claimed the lives of her family. Now, in the aftermath of the war, they travel all over the country, replacing stained-glass windows in buildings destroyed by bombs. Their latest job takes them out to the wilds of Dartmoor, where Nona discovers that her world is full of ancient and powerful magic. She also discovers that a mysterious entity, known only as The Soldier, is hell-bent on using Nona's innate magic for his own ends, Benjamin Greenaway and will not stop until he has her…|isbn=1406385239}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B08KKQ85FN|title=But Never For Lunch|author=Sandra AragonaStephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Short StoriesScience Fiction|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock Opening up new ways of thinking about to be released into the company shape of carrion crows or, more things to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas billscome.''
You donI't get many better opening sentences than ve heard it said that'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, do you? I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. We first met His Excellency and The AmbassadorI've kept up reasonably well with what's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like advantageous to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government me but I'm left with the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of Former Ambassador..it is - frankly - quite frightening. They have left The Career Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and settled in Rome. Well end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'settledm reading someone who knows what they' rather overstates re talking about or the situation latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deafwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Susi Holliday Sunny Singh|title= The Last Resort Hotel Arcadia|rating= 3.5 |genre= Thrillers|summary=A group of strangers gather on The Hotel Arcadia is a private island. They have luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been invited to an all-expenses paid retreat to test violently taken over by a brand-new product terrorist group. Hiding from the mysterious Timeo Technology company. The group includes a games designerterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, social media influencerthere is Sam, gossip columnist a wartime photographer and hedge fund Abhi, the hotel manager. Everyone seems As Abhi continues to have an area of expertise that makes their attendance necessary. All except Amelia whose presence is a mystery. We follow try to care remotely for the group as they explore residents who are still alive in the islandhotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and each otherkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's histories and it becomes clear that happened through her photography. Although they all have a dark secret they would rather keep hidden. As only ever talk over the clock ticks downphone, these well-kept secrets are revealed, and it soon becomes clear that this luxury retreat is really a gilded cage. In a race against time, Amelia must struggle their friendship grows as Abhi tries to uncover the reason for help her attendance keep safe and protect the rest of they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the guests from the increasingly sinister accidents that befall themterrorists. |isbn=1542020018086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ1529153298|title=The Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd|rating=4|genre=Women's Fiction|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008333173|title=Hungry: A Memoir List of Wanting MoreSuspicious Things|author=Grace DentJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? Imean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv'm always relieved when Grace Dent is one of the judges on s family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'Masterchefdisappeared'doesn't sound quite so frightening. You know Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. When you're going to get an honest opinion from someone whom you sense does real food rather than fine dining most of the timeYorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. You also ponder on how For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she can look so elegant with all 'll do anything to prevent that good food in front of her. IShe've often wondered s not worried about the woman behind the media image and dangers or that her Mum''Hungry: A Memoir of Wanting More'' is a stunning read which will make you laugh and break your heart in equal measuress stopped talking - to anyone.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18387731691398524085|title=Her Majesty the Queen Investigates: The Windsor KnotHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=S J BennettNicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's early 2016 fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is at Windsor for the Easter Courtnot. She's having a dine Shortly afterwards, Etty and sleep at Greg, find the request body of Prince Charles, whoGreg's attempting to raise money from some rich Russians for one of his pet projects. There'd been a distinctly Russian flavour to the evening and one of the performers brought father, Duncan Ackerley, in to play the piano has been found dead in what can only be called embarrassing circumstancesriver. The immediate reaction is that one of It was an easy assumption for the guests is responsible. The Queen mentally rules out her racing manager, an ex-ambassador police to Moscow, the Archbishop of Canterbury make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and Sir David Attenborough. One then committed suicide when he couldn't bear to go down any of stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there''those'' roadss little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Matt Haig1035906708|title=The Midnight LibraryDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= Between life and death there is a library. And so, 38 minutes after Nora decided We tend to diethink of Maria Callas as Greek, but she finds herself was born to Greek parents in the Midnight Library. Everything that could've gone wrong Manhattan, New York, in Nora's life hasDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her cat died, she lost original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her job, her brother wonfather changed it to 'Callas't speak to her, her parents are dead, make it more manageable in the boy States. When she teaches piano to no longer cares about piano, was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she called off was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her wedding, and old Mr Banerjee next door made no longer needs secret of her helppreference for her elder sister, Jackie. She gave up on }}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title=Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Lucas and his friends are all the things booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that would've let her escape has the wet, cold town nickname of Bedford and given her life some purposeful direction'The Black Hole'. So at 23:22 All big movie fans, she realises that she isnthey't made for life and decides re looking forward to die. But instead lots of deathexciting films, and many, she finds many snacks! However, as the library. Each infinite shelf movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is filled with booksvery different, each book providing a chance and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to try another life she could have livedthe next, in a parallel time. And so, just after midnight can they figure out what on earth is going on Tuesday ? Will they ever get back to the 18th of Aprilcinema, Nora Seed begins and to live every life she could've.their real lives?|isbn=17868927311839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0349423083Rachel Greenlaw|title=Death Compass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=''I can hear the Brewery Queen (Kate Shackleton Mysteries)song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is 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, they capture the island's leader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she 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, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}{{Frontpage|author=Frances BrodyJames Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)Confident Readers|summary=Kate Shackleton runs her investigation agency from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugden. She's Things have been approached by William Lofthouse of a bit sticky for the Barleycorn Brewery in MashamEarthlings. Something is going wrong with his business AI and heautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they'd like Kate re paid to look into it discreetly: he's hoping do and other tasks that his nephew and right-hand man, James Lofthouse, will be back from a trip took time to Germany before longaccomplish. James went Just as they were beginning to see what the continental brewers were doing get used to all this technological change and what changes Barleycorn might need starting to think of other, new ways to makespend time, along came an awful pandemic. William is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit ''too'' Life was pretty much or is going to bring back a German bride but he'd like shut down and, along with it, all the business to be ship-shape before his nephew returnsmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Caroline ScottMatthew Tree|title=When I Come Home AgainWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Literary Fiction|summary=1918 Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a drunk and a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedralchronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. He refuses So Tim applied himself to give his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8}}{{Frontpage|author=A G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary='' There's a name, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he ispart of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. EventuallyThis secret magic of my own, they determine this isn't willful obstinanceall mine, he doesnat last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'t answer because he doesn't know. He remembers being on  Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the road for world, lies Silverton; a long time and being frightenedtown under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and some of the faces wider world from the roadDarklands. Though she has always wished for magic, but other Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than that – everything that came before has gonespells and potions. They need a name for When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the forms town's leader, and so they call him Adam Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right andcentre, because he was found in Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the Galilee Chapeldead, it becomes Adam Galileeputting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. A fanciful name for a tired young man in a dishevelled uniform Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who doesnto trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches't know who he islegacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, where he is or how he got thereunder threat.|isbn=14711921721803364548
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15294103471529900360|title=Death Awaits in Durham (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)The Ghost Orchid|author=Helen CoxJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kitt HartleyIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's assistantfault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Grace Edwards, has left her library job and taken a place Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on the Venerable Bede Academy's vocational library studies course in Durhamdifficult cases. ItHis assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn's an unusual place to study as students with government grants are not accepted, so most of t need the people attending are scions help of the seriously rich, scholarship students - or they've managed, somehow, to scrape together the moneya psychologist only worked for a while. GraceFinally, whoit was Robin, Delaware's 22partner, comes who nudged Milo into the last categoryasking for help again. Her parents agreed to fund She knew that the course but told her involvement was something that if that was what the man she chose to do then they loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were finished with hermurdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. Not long after she started He was the course, Kitt Hartley came for a visit - heir to an Italian shoe empire and immediately discovered she is married to an unsolved disappearance extremely rich man and it's not the Italian. But which of a student from a year ago.them was the primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Vincent PanettiereSion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=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's life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. If anything, he'd wanted to be a professional footballer.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0861541774|title=These Thy GiftsA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''2006 is s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a tumultuous year for the Catholic Churchshort holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Reports of horrific sexual abuse are becoming widespread Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Monsignor Steven Trimboli is troubled. He worries for the future Initially, he faced a charge of the church—and rightly so. A new crime will soon reverberate throughout his church and hit closer manslaughter but evidence came to home than light that suggested that he ever imagined.'' As ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins might have planned to try to make sense of murder the child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his beloved Catholic church, man. Now he discovers that one child in his own parish has been abused by a priest sent by his bishopcould be facing the death penalty. And this isn't just Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any boy: this is Steve's grandson whose mother is the offspring of interference from another police force could provoke a long past relationship between Steve diplomatic incident and a gangsterwouldn's widow. Steve is determined to seek justice for this boy and t help Danny at all children victimised by priests who have been protected by his church. But he must also face up to his own failings, going right back to his breaking of the celibacy vows.|isbn=1503199886}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800321104Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Body on the Island|author=Nick LouthPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=A prison transport left HMP WakefieldThe 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 more personal, heading for HMP Spring Hilltailored service. Steve and Aaron were accompanying Neil Wright who was 67 years old Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and had served six years for look after the manslaughter of his wife. Only that wasn't who he was. Sixty-three-years-old Neville Rollaston had served thirty years business, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for the murder of five boys between the ages of ten and seventeena while. He was being ghosted Katie is coming out of Wakefield and into a new identity set break up in with a deal whereby he divulged bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the whereabouts of the body of one of his victimschance to come home to Edinburgh. The Bogeyman was going And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to be set free on 2 July 2019charm. He appeared to be Katie has no experience in running a reformed character business, or in match-making, but he had Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a list of people upon whom he wished to exact revenge.hand…|isbn=1846976596
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=14736924070811771741|title=The Book of Two WaysInstaKnits for Baby|author=Jodi PicoultMelissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary=Dawn Edelstein is a death doula: thatMelissa Leapman's someone who is there ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the person who is dying'long, to make their passage to whatever they believe cosy afternoons in as easy as possible and to support their carersfront of the fire' variety. ItThe projects are divided by the time they's a rewardingll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, caring occupation ten to twenty hours and Dawn puts her heart and soul into it but this wasn't always her lifemore than twenty hours. Some fifteen years ago she was a graduate student at Yale working towards her doctorate: as an EgyptologistAll the projects are attractive, she was working with her supervisor, Professor Ian Dumphries, on the Djehutyakht tombs at Deir el-Bersha on the Nile in Middle Egyptmodern and useable. Then she was Dawn McDowell: I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that was her maiden name, the name she published under's me being picky.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Delia OwensDean Koontz|title=Where The Crawdads SingBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary= In 1952, Kya's mother disappeared up the dirt track to townBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, wearing her alligator heelshe loses his fiancee, and never came homehis house gets trashed. Then one by one her siblings left Oh, ran from the shack on the North Carolina marsh that served as home and the life that would lead someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to nothing but sufferinghis home, leaving 7-year-old Kya with her drunken father. Years pass and Kya - now nicknamed it'Marsh-Girl' – still yearns for a mother s possible that would never return and grew up far too fast for a girl who can neither read nor write. Finally, one night her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone to survive on whoever or whatever was inside is the marsh. Eventuallything that has trashed his house! The thing is, as Benny is the years drift painfully by, the time comes when Kya, now an emotional and vastly intelligent young woman, yearns for company besides the gulls and the land, yearning very last person to be loved and to be helddeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So, when 2 boys from fortunately for Benny it turns out that the town of Barkley Cove find their way delivery to herhis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, she finds who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a new way good person. Spike is going to take care of life. But in 1969Benny, the body of former star quarterback and new husband Chase Andrews is found lying in the mud will certainly take care of the marshBenny's enemies, and everyone in town immediately suspects the mysteriousif he, run-down Marsh-Girl. Who is Kya nowBenny, after years of isolation and Harper (a broken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of murder?waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=14721546651662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David C MasonAdam Stower|title=Pandora's GardenerMurray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary= John Cranston Murray is supposed to be a gardenerhumble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, although what whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he did before he became 's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a gardenerhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, he claimsnot into the regular back garden, is classifiedbut into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. That This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is just as expected – well because he is about , one much bigger than Murray was, to be caught honest, but he's turned up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only and he can save the day. 'll have to do…|isbn=09561805230008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0356512479B0C47LV1PC|authortitle= Alix E HarrowFragility|titleauthor= The Once and Future WitchesMosby Woods|rating= 54|genre= FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'There's no such thing as witchesjoke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, but there used to would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.''... no.
In 1893, after the purges and ''Fragility'' is set as the burningscity of Portland, witching has been reduced to little more than weak charms and simple spells. If women want to hold power in their handsOregon, cautiously begins to have their voices heard, it is now through women's suffrage.emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Onjali Q Rauf1529431735|title=The Night Bus HeroWinter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Hector It's February 1991 and Essex is a bullybitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Egged He'd been exiled on by his two 'friends', he takes other children's sweets, harasses and threatens, plays pranks at school, and gets into trouble at every turnthe Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Yet The return has come about because he finds himself frustrated when something actually isn't s had a letter from his faultex-wife, but then he isnsaying that she's ill and hasn't believed as everyone expects him long to be telling lieslive. Nothing seems fair. His parents are barely homeIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, and seem stripped to only care about his perfect sister underwear and his annoying little brother when they are, and his teachers have abandoned him as sent to a watery grave in the boot of a lost causestolen Ford Sierra. So what happens when, in trying to tell the truth & fight to be believed, Hector finds himself embroiled with the police; first trying to accuse, and then trying to save Is it a homeless man warning from his local parka Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?|isbn=1510106774
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849767343Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Count on Me|author=Miguel TancoThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=The title Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and format of this book might lead you to think that it's either about responsibility - or it's in the evening a basic 1-2-3 book helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for those just starting out on there is a generation missing in the numbers journeyfamily. It isn't: itA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a hymn globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of praise to mathsa magical beast. It's about why maths This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is so wonderful and how you meet it in everyday lifeto 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.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1849766920178763681X|title=Everything is MINEKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Andrea D'AquinoOrlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=Marcello Von Cauliflower Bonaparte Jackson is Chef Paul Delamare took a schnauzer: what else could you be with teaching job at a name like that? residential cookery school in Belgravia. He knows that youdidn'll realise that he's kind, clever t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and loyal. You'll also need women to know that everything is '''MINE'''do what he wanted. And he means Paul ''everythingsomehow''. It begins with got the slipper: mum still has one. Why would she need more? You sense that Marcello feels impression that he's being generous in allowing that. Then it was d be at the pork chop. Wellschool to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, did you see anyone's name on but it? didn''And'' he left t turn out that way. The teaching - and the carrots for Leoproblems - are all his own. ThatThe one thing he hadn's another example of Marcello's generosityt expected was for someone to turn up dead. There Unfortunately, he was the acorn which squirrel was gnawing at: there was no documentation to prove ownership. And talking of ownership person who discovered the tree would provide all body and everyone knows that the sticks he could ever want police consider that person to chewbe the prime suspect. There's nothing unreasonable in any of that, is there?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849767009Sarah Marsh|title=It Isn't Rude to be Nude|author=Rosie HaineA Sign of Her Own|rating=5|genre=For Sharing|summary=This could have been one of those books which 'preaches to the choir': the only people who'll buy it are the people who know that nudity is OK and the ones who ''know'' that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid the hot-and-bothered person in the supermarket who is coughing fit to bust. But... Rosie Haines makes it into something so much more than a book about not wearing clothes. It's a celebration of bodies: bodies large and small and of every possible hue. Bodies with disabilities and markings3. They're fine. In fact, they're wonderful.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0241295955|title=Trio|author=William Boyd|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It was 1968: the year when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinatedAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. It's also the year when YSK Films are making Suddenly plunged into a movie in Brightonworld of silence, everything about her life changes. It's called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to Living in a time when the Moon''use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, or ''Ladder the Moon'' as it's known on set. Anny Viklund Ellen is the female star in sent to a production which school where she is proving taught to be just 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 using a little bit racketysystem called Visible Speech. There are odd pressures on At the producersame time, Talbot KyddBell is working on other inventions and ideas, to employ this old actor friend for and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a couple complicated tangle of days because he needs the money, allow a fading star to use his catchphrase, or include a song from the leading man, whose musical star is fadingespionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08B39QNRH1803816759|title=The Curious History of Writer's Cramp: Solving an age-old problemUnravelling|author=Michael PritchardWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceFiction|summary=It''Society s 2038 and Joe is based on speech but civilisation requires a bored cop policing the written word''wealthy and peaceful New York CityI came Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to Michael Pritchard's ''The Curious History of Writer's Cramp'' by a rather strange routeget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. I have problems But then something goes horribly wrong with my hands which orthopaedic surgeons refer to as 'interesting': I prefer the word 'painful' but I have an interest in the way AI system that hands worknow runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. An exploration Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the history of a problem which has defeated some of rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the best medical minds for some threeonly one trying to save Suki -hundred-years seemed liked excellent background reading Dylan, a British superfan and so it provedtech nerd, with is also on the book being as much about case. What went wrong? Did the doctors treating the sufferers and the changing medical attitudes as the problem itself.system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Blake Nuto and Charlotte Ager1529421284|title=Child of GalaxiesLaying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=What does it mean It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be alive? What are we made ofLee Geary, and where are we going? who had disappeared nine years earlier. He''Child d been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been a simple case of Galaxiesmisadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn'' is a lovely children's picture book that deals with all the big questionst convinced. Written as Geary was a poemtownie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the lyrical words don't shy away from darkness, nor talk down suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the children you are reading to, but rather than work beautifully together with time. Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the illustrations Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to create a powerful, uplifting reading experienceyou and me) investigate.|isbn=1912497425
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)0571379559|title=BetrayalThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=35|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet Ursula, ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the stand-in minister, drafted in from outside the leading party to cover the post for a yearstory of four people. You might get to meet her hunky husband she canTess Hembry't believe s roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she deservesmight be happier there, and but instead, she lives in the children who are ignorant of just how she spent all her empathy for them house on previous jobs in the foreign aid charity sectorriverbank, built of broken bricks. You'll meet her ministryInsubstantial as it might look, it's cleaner, who bizarrely has fallen into stood the task passage of helping a famous newsreader with her Tinder profiletime, storms and floods. You'll certainly meet a homeless trampHer husband, who has taken one look at a newspaper image of UrsulaRichard, andstruggles to grow his vegetables, knowing her of old, decided she needs saving from to complete the devil posing beside herdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. You'll meet the ministerial bodyguard They have twin boys - Sonny and driver Max, the tramp almost immediately forces Ursula to acceptrainbow twins. But as for the first ministerial case, of a woman demanding her daughterSonny's colouring reflects his mother's rape get looked at Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and pronto, nobody can say, for all records of Ursulathere's meeting an assumption when Max is out with the woman have been wiped…|isbn=1913193403his mother that she's his nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tania Unsworth1529425867|title=The Time Traveller Lost and the TigerNever Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Elsie is an ordinary sort of girlIn Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. The sort Raymond Wilkins is of small girl who often gets overlookedNigerian descent, Balliol educated and forgottenalways exquisitely dressed. She is quietD I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and compliantfather of Ryan, and makes the best of whatever happens to heris not. So when her parents forget that her school holidays have started before they are free to take care He's not any of her, they have to arrange for her to go and stay with her Great Uncle for a weekthose things. Poor ElsieHe's white, forgotten againoriginated from a trailer park, just decides to make the best barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of thingsshell suits and trackies. On investigating the house she finds that her Great Uncle had lived They're usually in India as lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a boypolice procedural written for laughs. Well, and he has an enormous tiger rug on the floor of one you're not. The two men are just different sides of the roomssame policing coin. When Elsie asks him about the rug he seems unhappy, and he says he has to keep it because he was the one who shot the tiger when he was 12 years old, and he says it was Sometimes the worst thing he ever didcombination works brilliantly well. So when Elsie suddenly finds herself magically transported back many, many years, to the time in India when her Great Uncle was 12 years old, she believes that she must try to stop him from killing the tiger, in order to put something right that happened a long time agoSometimes it's problematic.|isbn=1788541707
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1472127013Mosby Woods|title=Agatha Raisin: Hot to Trot|author=M C Beaton and R W GreenA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=Raisin Investigations had The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite a bit sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of work on handaction. The chairman of Philpott Electronics was concerned about his managing directorGovernments are flailing. A war here, Harold Cheeseman, who had apparently returned from Australia because his wife did not like it a push for climate action there. This was unusualA feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, 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 a manwith precognition. Mr Gutteridge wanted Raisin Investigations to instal listening devices Imagine the strategic advantage in the staff canteen: he wanted to know this asset; a man who can tell you what the staff were saying about him and his secretary, who was from Genevawill happen given any set of circumstances. ApparentlyThat man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the staff called her The Swiss Rollmost valuable asset in historyThen there was the murderImagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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