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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B0925KS87N|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)|author=Neil Lancaster|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary=Tam Hardie had been determined to find the grave - and it took some finding, in an overgrown old cemetery. It was a strange thing for Scotland's premier criminal to do, but Tam was getting old and there were things he wanted to do. Only, his family didn't hear from him again after he'd said that he'd found the grave - the one which said that it shouldn't be opened - and his three sons began to worry. Tam Junior, Frankie and Dave wouldn't normally go to the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and they were worried.}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Critchley0241636604|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=3Trading Game: A Confession|genre=General Fiction|summary= The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers had all the hallmarks of something good. I was intrigued by the plot, liked the design of the book, and thought the author's work sounded interesting. From the outset it all looked incredibly promising. So what on earth went wrong here?|isbn= 1911427091}} {{Frontpage|author=Sarah Langan|title=Good NeighboursGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary= If you're were to bring up an image of a certain vintagecity banker in your mind, ityou's hard re unlikely to read think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a singpin-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street stripe suit and his background is no Ramsay Streetthe East End, thoughwhere he was familiar with violence, Arlo poverty and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbsinjustice. They're one of 18 households There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlierLondon School of Economics. They're not quite like all the other families ( Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he's an ex rocker, she's has a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going okfacility with numbers which most of us can only envy. Until it isn't He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. One hot, clammy, sticky It was his ability at what was, sweaty summeressentially, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the waycard game which got him an internship with Citibank. It's Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to cometrader.|isbn=1789098211
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lisa Thompson1035021803|title=The Small ThingsAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Although Anna It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has friends at school, been back to the English country village where she feels like she never really fits ingrew up. Her family don She't have enough money to let s back now because of a request for help from her do after school activitiesbeloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and so she feels like her life at home Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is boring in comparison dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to theirssay the least. When a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to partner her, but things are complicated because the new girlvillage: Arthur, Ellieshe feels, is unwell and so can't attend school let her down badly. Even though they were in personbusiness together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Instead After the split, she joins worked in with a cafe, met and married James (on the class by using a robot. Can Anna overcome rebound from the challenge love of making friends with someone through a robother life, who was murdered) and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellie?|isbn=1781129649Freya and James have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008350388AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=We Need to Talk About MoneyAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Otegha UwagbaBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyScience Fiction|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterpartscome...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba
I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you'0re eighteen.7% Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of English Literature GCSE students technology in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a womanmy lifetime.'' I've kept up reasonably well with what'The Booksellers advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to the UK s all getting away from Kenya when she was five years oldme. Her sisters were seven and nineSome of it is - frankly - quite frightening. It was her mother who came firstOf course, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled I could research the possibilities and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the family acquired a carlatest conspiracy theorist. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in London and then a place at New College, Oxfordway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1787631869Sunny Singh|title=The Rising Tide|author=Sam LloydHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been easy but she'd built violently taken over by a good and decent life in the aftermathterrorist group. She's now married to DanielHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine killing everyone on Penleith Beachsite, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billiethere is Sam, Lucy's daughter a wartime photographer and FinAbhi, the child she had with Danielhotel manager. They have financial difficultiesAs Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, some caused he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by Nick Poveyevents, Danieland keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's partner and so-called best friendhappened through her photography. Nick Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult wait to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concernedsee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Hannah Peck1529153298|title=Kate on the CaseThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression sheIt'd rather be a Catherine – s 1979 and one specific Catherine at thatMargaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... ) For Catherine Rodriguez is KateShe's not what's idol, and the author of our heroineworrying Miv's favourite possessionfamily, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'The Special Correspondent Manualdisappeared'doesn't sound quite so frightening. Armed with a plucky father, Miv's upset because she's overheard that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride father wants to move the Arctic, to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonksfamily 'Down South'. HoweverWhen you're from Yorkshire, this Down South is a train ride with a differencefrightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and the move would mean leaving her catbest friend, a thief – and two glowing eyesSharon, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-youshe'll-miss-them styledo anything to prevent that. ItShe's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's definitely a case for a new young investigative journaliststopped talking - to anyone...|isbn=184812970X
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1398524085|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The second trilogy in ShanCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the body of Greg''Merge'' saga opens with our heros father, ArchieDuncan Ackerley, back in London in the world of the Bornriver. It's not been was an easy, explaining assumption for the police to his foster parents where make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when hecouldn's been, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in t stand the Merge, guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but Archie has done his best.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Benthere's clock tower little else they can do but get on with their lives and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awaywonder about what really happened.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713658841035906708|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in AnxietyDiva|author=Georgia PritchettDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxiousWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it but she was the sort of life where if she had nothing born to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and far between. On a visit only moved to a therapist, as an adult, Athens when she was completely unable to speak about what thirteen. Her original surname was wrong with Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it was suggested that she should write it down and to 'Callas'My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures to make it more manageable in Anxiety'' is the result States. When she was back in Athens - or supposedly so we are given to believethat she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterChristopher Edge|title=The House on the EdgeBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Faith's family home is teetering on the edge of Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a cliffmovie marathon at their local cinema, literally. Is a place that crack in has the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faithnickname of 'The Black Hole's family. Her dad has disappeared All big movie fans, and her mum is struggling they're looking forward to copelots of exciting films, barely leaving her bed. So that leaves Faith in chargeand many, taking care of her little brother Noahmany snacks! However, taking care of her mumas the movie starts, feeding everyonethey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, getting Noah and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to schoolthe next, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with can they figure out what he claims on earth is a ghost in the cellargoing on? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come Will they ever get back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantlycinema, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.to their real lives?|isbn=17880086261839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008269041Rachel Greenlaw|title=Risk of Harm|author=Lucie WhitehouseCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from ''I can hear the song of the Metsea. She might have been reinstated but The call of the deep, the whole episode left a nasty taste answering beat in her mouthmy heart. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then '' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the man who had broken rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her heart nearly twenty years mother before. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved , is one of the seven who swim out of her parentto 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 home into a rented house but thereleader and Mira's still father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a difficult situation bargain with her brother Luke a wreck survivor who has gone out of his way is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to make life difficult for Robin since guide her, she was sets off in search of a young childfamily secret that lies buried deep in the sea. HeWith 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 married territory, Mira must be determined to Natalie, now stop at nothing to save the future of her home and has a young child but he's still got it in for Robinthe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1786332388James Sherwood Metts|title=The First Day of Spring|author=Nancy TuckerPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasion. The writing is superb re paid to do and completely compellingother tasks that took time to accomplish. The characterisation is excellent Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and the plot grips you and won't let go. Sostarting to think of other, what's the problem? Wellnew ways to spend time, the problem is Chrissie, the main characteralong came an awful pandemic. When we first meet her she's just eight years oldLife was pretty much shut down and, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy. She's completely cold about what she's done along with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized upit, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough?|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Catherine SteadmanMatthew Tree|title=The Disappearing ActWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp of success. Great success. If the rumours are true, award season is going Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to treat her wellbe different from his father, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed production. She's going places but so, unfortunately, is her partner. And the places he's going take him towards lies, deceit a drunk and a pretty young thing in the form chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his new co-starartistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. It's a good time for Mia So Tim applied himself to escapehis studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and pilot season in LA provides just the excuseset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn=1471189783B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author= Christophe MedlerA G Slatter|title=Madrigal: A Closely Guarded Secret|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary= Set against the backdrop of the English Civil War, a secret plan (code-named Madrigal) is discovered by Sir Robert Douse in the summer of 1642. As a loyal servant The Briar Book of the King, and Head of the Secret Service, it is Robert's duty to uncover the details of the plan and follow the clues to uncover one of the most guarded secrets in history—especially since the plot could affect the King.|isbn=B095HY8SXQ}}{{Frontpage|author=Tasha Suri|title=The Jasmine ThroneDead|rating=45
|genre=Fantasy
|summary= On the night '' There's a part of her sacred burning, Princess Malini defies her brother and refuses me that wants to step on keep this just to the pyremyself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. She is immediately sent I just want to be imprisoned on enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once filled with Briar's, a community family of people witches who got powers protect the town and the wider world from the mysterious deathless watersDarklands. But now Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the temple is nothing more 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 an overgrownspells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, decaying ruin. One daythe town's leader, Malini witnesses a girl kill someone with magicand Ellie takes her place beside her. Instead of reporting As challenges come her for such a gruesome crimeway left, right and centre, Malini claims that Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the girl saved dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from an attacker one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and begs for determine what to do as the girl Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to become her own personal maidservantsurvive, is under threat.|isbn=03565156481803364548
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B088YWF5BC1529900360|title=The Lies We TellGhost Orchid|author=Jane CorryJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that she Alex Delaware had two brothers been badly injured but he felt responsible and two sisterseven after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. It seemed to have been His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a loving, stable familywhile. When we first meet her, she can't sleep because her sonFinally, Freddieit was Robin, whoDelaware's nearly sixteenpartner, hasn't come home by who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in byman she loved needed. Her husbandThe next case did look simple, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house though. Two lovers were murdered in the morning but he's still going to be going to work and he needs his sleepswimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He wakes, though, when Freddie does come in was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and overhears him tell his mother that heit's killed someonenot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Joseph Knox1529395224|title=True Crime StoryLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary= Joseph Knox, known for his series surrounding Detective Aidan Waits, has created Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a new genre with GP and Rowlands didn't want to follow in his latest novelfootsteps, "True Crime Story". The story follows particularly when he considered the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from her university halls of residencestrain that being on-call put on his father's life. Split into four parts, the reader is taken through When he was seventeen he took the life and disappearance opportunity of Zoe through the eyes of her twin sister, other doing work experience with a family, friends friend who was a vet and professionals, such as was convinced this was the policejob for him. The various accounts help the reader get to know Zoe Before long, or he was at least the Zoe she presented to othersLiverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. However If anything, the twists and turns at the end of each chapter leave you shocked, confused and unsure of what is true or fabricatedhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer. Whose accounts can we trust?|isbn=0857527703
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Justine Avery and Naday Meldova0861541774|title=No, No, No!A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=They say the best picture books are the simplest ones. And nothing could be truer of this latest from Justine Avery, a Bookbag favourite. DCI Domenic Jejeune''Nos close friend and former colleague, NoDanny Maik, No!'' is based around the simplest text imaginable. ''Nohas taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, no, no! Okay, okayGuy Trueman. Yes, you may 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.'' That's it! But Initially, like all the best picture books, this tiny snippet he faced a charge of text is a veritable tardis - so much bigger on manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the inside that it appears on man. Now he could be facing the outsidedeath penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.|isbn=1638820457
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{{Frontpage
|author=Monica ConnellAlexander McCall Smith|title=Against a Peacock SkyThe Perfect Passion Company|rating=4.5|genre=TravelGeneral Fiction|summary= Monica Connell went The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to Nepal to do all the fieldwork for her Ph.D. online apps in social anthropologyproviding a more personal, tailored service. I think it Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is important planning to know that. She went on take a grant-supported trip, with a relatively specific objective. She wasn't a hippy wanderer looking to Canada to get away for Shangri-la. She wasn't a mere tourist passing throughwhile. She went Katie is coming out of a break up with a fundamental aim of learning about these people bad boyfriend, and how they lived. She also went, presumably, with so jumps at the academic discipline of how chance to find these things out, how come home to organise them in her mindEdinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, how bringing us to "understand" them in the context of her own paradigmsan Edinburgh we already love, and how thanks to keep enough notes and files 44 Scotland Street and photos to help her create some greater sense of the experience after the event. FortunatelyIsabel Dalhousie novels, she also went but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a sense of open-ness and curiosity and a willingness to muckbusiness, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence inher abilities, to break and there's always her own rules very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to truly connect with the people of the village where she hauled up.lend a hand…|isbn=17806004291846976596
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14091816690811771741|title=The MaidensInstaKnits for Baby|author=Alex MichaelidesMelissa Leapman|rating=54|genre=CrimeCrafts|summary=Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to get away with them bothblankets. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed. Everything - or so she thought Some will be quick knits - had begun with the death others are of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge. She'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niecelong, Zoe, had telephoned her cosy afternoons in distressfront of the fire' variety. Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling to cope. Mariana wasn't The projects are divided by the time they''entirely'' happy about having ll take to go complete - less than five hours, five to Cambridgeten hours, but she caught the first fast train from King's Crossten to twenty hours and more than twenty hours. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by All the death of Mariana's husbandprojects are attractive, Sebastian, in a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earliermodern and useable. Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of ZoeI perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects's mother and Marianabut that's sister, Elizame being picky.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Maisie ChanDean Koontz|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary=Danny Benny is eleven years old, and what he really, really loves to do is drawhaving a terrifically bad day. He creates fantastical comicsloses his job, whilst he loses his fiancee, and his best friend Ravi adds the wordshouse gets trashed. Danny's dadOh, howeverand someone has delivered a really weird, wants Danny disturbing coffin-sized object to concentrate on his mathshome, and forget about it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the drawing, because he says nobody can make a living from drawingthing that has trashed his house! At least Danny has his own roomThe thing is, where he can draw in secret and in peaceBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. But then one day his parents tell him they have He is a surprise nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for him, and this surprise Benny it turns out that the delivery to be his grandmother house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has come over been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from China nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to live with themtake care of Benny, and who will not only be sharing Dannycertainly take care of Benny's bedroom but she will also be sleeping on the top bunk of his bunk bed! Danny is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no Englishenemies, and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitterif he, and showing her around the town. Poor Danny, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situationBenny, and then he even has Harper (a falling waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out with Raviwho exactly they are...how on earth will things ever get better?!|isbn=180078001X1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Terry MilesAdam Stower|title=RabbitsMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers |summary=Welcome Murray is supposed to the world of The Game. Or should that be the gamea humble, tidy and friendly cat, for while it ought one who is able to be capitalised to high heavensleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, it never leaves lower case throughout this bookwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. It But he's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knowsbad magician's cat, it so his favourite bun has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for been turned into a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, Khyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the gamecatflap they both use can chuck them out, and have studied amongst many things not into the most unique of high score boardsregular back garden, for the lists but into a world of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, frightening adventure and are still very shortwhiffs. However this This time round it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerousdrops them into a Viking land, nay lethalwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for Kone much bigger than Murray was, in trying to sort out what the game is doingbe honest, if itbut he's even being played, turned up and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only 'll have to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...do…|isbn=15290169320008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=C J CareyB0C47LV1PC|title=WidowlandFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=ItCan you make a ''Yo birthing person's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to Londonjoke? And if you could, parading around a bit, and watching over is the sanctioned return to question should you make it? Or is the throne of Edward VIII with his wifequestion if you did, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved in would it land? The catch is that the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and we are now a protectorate – answer for both could well, we share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on be.... no. ''the mainlandFragility''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas set as the city of female purposePortland, has put all of that gender into a caste systemOregon, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs cautiously begins to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately emerge from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That is her job, at least, until restrictions imposed during the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.|isbn=152941198Xcovid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louise Beech1529431735|title=This Is How We Are HumanThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Veronica It's February 1991 and Essex is a devoted single mother to her sonbitingly cold, Sebastian - but she canwhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He't give him everything he wantsd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Sebastian The return has decided that itcome about because he's time for him to have sex. But as an autistic 20 yearhad a letter from his ex-oldwife, saying thatshe's easier said than doneill and hasn't long to live. And it It's starting hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to cause them both problemsa watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. |isbn=1913193713 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B093VPBL5LAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Cape Henry House|author=Jolly Walker BittickThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Meet BosnerEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, or, to give him and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his full title, Petty Officer Third Class Bosnergran owns and runs. We never really find out if he has a first name: Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there's merely is a hint that he had generation missing in the nickname 'Secretary' at one pointfamily. HeA few short years ago, Eli's simply Bosner parents were both lost to one and the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where allentrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. When we first encounter him he's exploring his memories of 2008 This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when he was a greaser on helicopters (or helos, as they were called) bad incident at the eatery leads to a naval establishment. The hours could be long and confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he was often working nights but most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the age of twenty-one, there was always a way end – the only thing to work some fun (think drinking and eating) into possibly save his daygran.|isbn=0571382231
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|authorisbn=Hannah Whitten178763681X|title=For the WolfKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=54|genre=FantasyCrime|summary=In RedChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn's family, the first daughter becomes queen, t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and the second daughter becomes a sacrificewomen to do what he wanted. To Red Paul ''somehow''s misfortune, she is got the second daughter. Sent alone into impression that he'd be at the woods with nothing but the cape on her backschool to assist Paul, Red knows what to expect: within the woods is who had a wolfbroken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and he is the problems - are all his own. The one who will decide the fate of their kingdomthing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead. If she is not a worthy sacrifice Unfortunately, he was the monsters he keeps contained to person who discovered the woods will be released, body and everyone knows that the fabled kings he keeps hostage will never be returned—or so the stories go. But when Red enters the woods, expecting nothing more than police consider that person to be killed within the hour, she finds that the legends are lies. The wolf is not a monster—he's a manprime suspect.|isbn=0356516369
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|author=M G LeonardSarah Marsh|title=TwitchA Sign of Her Own|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Twitch is After a bout of scarlet fever as a boy who loves birdschild, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. He keeps pigeons at homeSuddenly plunged into a world of silence, and chickens, and even has swallows nesting everything about her life changes. Living in his bedroom! His a time spent watching and helping birds when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is easy compared sent to that of his time in a schoolwhere she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. But things are about to change for Twitch From here, she ends up in all aspects of his life as there is another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and using a dangerous bank robber on system called Visible Speech. At the runsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and it's possible that the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere in Aves Woodideas, the place where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of his hand! Can Twitch solve the mystery, and find the missing millions?espionage.|isbn=14063893741035401614
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|isbn=18388538041803816759|title=The Cursed GirlsUnravelling|author=Caro RamsayWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=Megan MelvickIt's earliest memory 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the pondAI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, only Joe gets to find that he'd hanged himselfdo some real policing. Twenty years later she's back home again In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and this time the occasion Joe is no less sadassigned to bring her home. SheJoe isn's there t the only one trying to say her final farewells to her sistersave Suki - Dylan, Melissaa British superfan and tech nerd, who is dying of anorexiaalso on the case. As she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she meanWhat went wrong? There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - Did the system fail or was it even a questionhacked? Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem to be a curse. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before. Would she come back for her elder daughterAnd how is Suki's funeralkidnapping connected?
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|isbn=02414001201529421284|title=The Girl Who DiedLaying Out the Bones|author=Ragnar Jonasson and Victoria CribbKate Webb|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=Una It was not thriving one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in Reykjavik: it was some a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then sheearlier. He'd given up her medical studies been a known drug user and retrained as had learning disabilities, so it could have been a teachersimple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. She Geary was thirty years old and money a townie, so what was tight. Her friend, Sara, showed her an advert for a job in Skalar he doing out on the Langanes Peninsula. Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were only ten people in not considered suspicious at the village but a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid and accommodation providedtime. Una was the only applicant Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the job meant Major Crimes Review Unit (that she could let her flat in Reykjavik 's cold cases to you and, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract coveredme) investigate.
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|isbn=18469757190571379559|title=For Any Other Truth The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529425867|title=Lost and Never Found (DCI Jim DaleyA D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Denzil MeyrickSimon Mason|rating=34.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=We learn that MI5 In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is having its problems with environmental terrorists supergluing themselves to awkward placesof Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. But thatHe's London, isn't it? not any of those things. WhatHe's happening in Kinloch? When white, originated from a light aircraft crash lands at Machrie airporttrailer park, DCI Jim Daley barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his thing) and his colleague, Acting DI Brian Scott, head off wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to a police procedural written for the airport straight awaylaughs. It soon becomes evident though that both occupants of the plane were dead before take offWell, you're not. How could that be? The sort two men are just different sides of tech which would make that possible isn't available to the paying publicsame policing coin. And why have Sometimes the man no identification on them - or even labels in their clothes?combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.
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|author=Richard BrookMosby Woods|title=Understanding Human Nature: A User's Guide to LifeWhirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary= I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, and sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of The West isn't the latterdominant force it once was. Not so very long ago, if I had come across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, but it would not have 'hit home' Nobody in the way that it does now. I believe it came West is quite sure how to me not just because I was likely to give mend this or even if mending it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's uis the best course of action.sGovernments are flailing.pA war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is that people chose their own books rather than getting them randomlyin actual charge. Imagine then, so there is was a predisposition towards expecting to like man with precognition. Imagine the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – but also because it is strategic advantage in this asset; a book I needed to readman who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right now? Perhaps the most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=1800461682B0C9SNG8R1
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