Changes

|authorisbn=Erling Kagge0241636604|title=WalkingThe Trading Game: One Step At A TimeConfession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre= LifestyleAutobiography|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved If you were to bring up an image of a book is evidenced by the number of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was city banker in your book not mine. In my defencemind, I will say that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – Iyou'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about re unlikely to do as soon as I have finished telling you why)think of someone like Gary Stevenson. Erligg Kagge A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South PoleEast End, the North Pole where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the summit London School of EverestEconomics. He knows a thing or two about walking. However, this isn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it Stevenson is instead bright - extremely bright - and he has a thoughtful exploration facility with numbers which most of what it means us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to walkbe stupid. It is a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page and I haven't counted. In small format paperbackwas his ability at what was, essentially, each essay is only a few pages longcard game which got him an internship with Citibank. Perhaps then Eventually, better thought of this turned into permanent employment as a meditation rather than an essaytrader.|isbn=0241357705

|authorisbn=Ian Mark and Louis Ghibault1035021803|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet JackIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he She's back now because of a slight boyrequest for help from her beloved aunt, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of his sightCarole. That Freya's because Jackformer mentor and Carole's mother knew all about monstersclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and look what happened the circumstances seem suspicious, to her – she diedsay the least. Luckily or unluckily then Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, depending on your point of viewshe feels, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOLlet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, Jack will fluke she has not felt able to be near the ogre's deathman or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster huntercafe, met and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about married James (on the rebound from the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced...|isbn=0755501942

|authorisbn=Keith GrayAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The ClimbersAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Sully is ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the best tree climber in the villageshape of things to come. He has what's known amongst the kids as 'reach I've heard it said that 'technology'. But is what happens when after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a new kid shows up few decades of technology in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers my lifetime. I've kept up some of the hardest trees reasonably well with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatened, and not only that, that his chance what's advantageous to name me but I'm left with the final, unnamed big tree in the park by being the first to conquer feeling that it, might be snatched 's all getting away from his handsme. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will Some of it cost him his best friendis - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or maybe even all of his friends, to do so?|isbn=1781129991the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.

|author=Emma CarrollSunny Singh|title=The Week at World's EndHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=FirstThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, the title. We're in World's End Closekilling everyone on site, there is Sam, a mediocre set of houseswartime photographer and Abhi, where Stevie (Vie the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to her friends) finds fun only with try to care remotely for the family dog and with the boy over residents who are still alive in the road. But we could also be at World's Endhotel, because something taking he forms a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries bond with Sam who refuses to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshorebe cowed by events, and not much else is able keeps on venturing out of her room to try to make the news. That said, Vie has news of capture what's happened through her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedphotography. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in Although they only ever talk over the American airforce base behind the Closephone, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed their friendship grows as Abhi tries to leave, help her keep safe and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing they both wait to do with what see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Cold War is doing miles away?terrorists.|isbn=0571364438086154742X

|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston1529153298|title=Julia and the SharkThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=JuliaIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, our pre-teen heroinehonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, has though. Women have been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islandsdisappearing. Here be VikingsWell, they've been murdered, that kind of Scottish islandbut to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Dad is going Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to be automating move the lanternfamily 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, which Down South is his specialist thinga frightening, while mum will be foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Juliabest friend, wellSharon, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.|isbn=1510107789

|authorisbn=Freya Sampson1398524085|title=The Last LibraryHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about a libraryCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, since I am a librarianEtty. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought of the incoming cardiganare all worried but -wearing, hair in a bun, catstrangely -owningher husband, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this storyAlec, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bunis not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett)Greg, and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating find the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didnbody of Greg't immediately throw the book out of the windows father, Duncan Ackerley, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she didthe river. Her mum used to be a librarian at It was an easy assumption for the village library, but when she got sick, June gave up on going police to University make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and stayed at home to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the local libraryguilt. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working The Salter children are not convinced but there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, little else they can do but get on with their lives and still reading her mum's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is wonder about the changewhat really happened.|isbn=183877369X

|isbn=00083709821035906708|title=Rock Paper ScissorsDiva|author=Alice FeeneyDaisy Goodwin

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away born to Greek parents in a converted chapel Manhattan, New York, in ScotlandDecember 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the idea. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels heCallas's hoping to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with make it more manageable in the dogs, many of whom have been abused, is never easyStates. Still When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving could get appropriate training for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat voice - and then doing she was raised under the same thing to come back Nazi occupation by a couple mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of days laterher preference for her elder sister, Jackie.

|author=Doug JohnstoneChristopher Edge|title=The Great SilenceBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=For those whoLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, like me, haven't come across a place that has the Skelfs before, Inickname of 'll risk a quick synopsis of whoThe Black Hole's who – although Johnstone does a good job of bringing the backstory in without being heavy handed about it. Skelf isn All big movie fans, they't some fantastic creaturere looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, though it sounds as though it ought to bethe movie starts, it they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is merely the surname of a family of undertakers. Undertakers and private investigators. Dorothy is the matriarch – Californian by birth and instinctvery different, she married a scot and ended they are swept up helping into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to run the Edinburgh undertaking firm that had been in the family for generations. Recently widowed and now involved with a black Swedish police officer. Swedish by nationality. Scottish police. Daughter Jenny, 46next, can they figure out what on earth is haunted by her still-living husband – a violent escaped prisoner. And grand-daughter is about going on? Will they ever get back to graduate with a first-class physics degree the cinema, and join the academic staff next term.to their real lives?|isbn=19131938371839942738

|isbnauthor=1901514978Rachel Greenlaw|title=There's a Problem With Dad|author=Carlos AlbaCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionTeens|summary=Life is different for George Lovelace and he ''I canhear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'t really understand why. He's always done everything he ought to: steady worker Rosevear, husband a remote and father - partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and a father plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the seven who was always there for school plays swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and sports daysany treasure that lies within. So why is he never quite in tune with those around him? Why does he upset people? Why is someone with such But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira'good'' mind unable s father. Desperate to progress at work or to relate to his colleagues? Why does he make so many breath-taking gaffes? It's almost become save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a cliche these days to suggest that someone wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a little different is 'on family secret that lies buried deep in the spectrum'sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, but George Lovelace has all as her journey takes her from the symptoms watched streets of Aspergerforeign islands to the heart of the smuggler's Syndrome: high-functioning autismterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730

|author=Louise CandlishJames Sherwood Metts|title=The HeightsPlanet Storyland

|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on site, visiting Things have been a client bit sticky for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the wayEarthlings. There are lots of thingsAI and automation have been proceeding apace, lots often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of peopleother, you might see when you look out across Londonnew ways to spend time, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other dayalong came an awful pandemic. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two yearsLife was pretty much shut down and, and Ellen knows this for a factalong with it, because she had a hand in his murderall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=14711834831736128426

|isbnauthor=0008421714Matthew Tree|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoWe'll Never Know

|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to either be reading it or different from his father, a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had already done soendless crises of self confidence. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie So Tim applied himself to buy olive bread but on that particular morninghis studies, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and set himself high but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretchachievable ambitions.''|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|author=John BoyneA G Slatter|title=The Echo ChamberBriar Book of the Dead

|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=Meet George Cleverley'' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. He is self-defined as "one This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the few television personalities over world, lies Silverton; a town under the age protection of fifty without the Briar's, a criminal record"family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him Though she's carrying his childhas always wished for magic, but then his author wife Ellie Briar is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired first non-witch to be born into her with. They have three childrenfamily for generations and as such since she was young, who are her training as a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoeversteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signallingEllie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the worldtown's homeless with out-of-date foodleader, and a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thingEllie takes her place beside her. Add in a few other characters – therapistsAs challenges come her way left, right and centre, lawyersEllie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to his lifeanother, Ellie must decide who to trust and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach determine what to do as the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even moreBriar witches' legacy, howevereverything they have sacrificed to survive, is the fact this is bloody funnyunder threat.|isbn=08575262191803364548

|isbn=02419890941529900360|title=The Perfect LifeGhost Orchid|author=Nuala EllwoodJonathan Kellerman

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and sheIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's viewing a house in Goring-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 ondifficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-Thames and telling -shut cases which didn't need the estate agent about her three childrenhelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, Lavenderit was Robin, Freddie and BarclayDelaware's partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. The boys are a bit of a handful which is why She knew that the involvement was something that the man she's making this trip on her ownloved needed. The house would be perfect for themnext case did look simple, though. It's Two lovers were murdered in the same month but now we're swimming pool of a remote property in Wimbledon Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and we encounter the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting is married to an extremely rich man and living in her sister, Georgieit's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connornot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|authorisbn=Darren Shan1529395224|title=Archibald Lox and Letting the Slides Cat Out of Bon Repellthe Bag: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 The Secret Life of 3a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=SoSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. Having done the impossible His father was a GP and unpicked the lock Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the Forgotten Crypt, from which strain that being on-call put on his father's life. When he was seventeen he took the Departed communicate opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the Merge, Archie now has ''grop'' to think aboutjob for him. But before that Before long, soireeshe was at Liverpool University. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn It hadn't even know what one of those is- as with so many students - been his dream since he was a child. But If anything, he manages 'd wanted to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this seriesbe a professional footballer. |isbn=B093J9TF73

|isbn=B07GZ81J7C0861541774|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and Mended|author=Peter Cotton|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Meet Fred. Well, actually, you're going to be meeting Fred-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quickly. But I'm getting ahead A Nye of myself: I'd better tell you a bit more about Fred. Fred is a snake and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are going to warm to him. He arrived as a present in a box with holes so that he could breathe and immediately became part of the family, to the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walk. And that was where the problem started. Fred didn't have any road sense. Or brakes.}}{{FrontpagePheasants|author= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)Steve Burrows

|genre=For SharingCrime|summary= Can potty training ever be joyous? It often isnDCI Domenic Jejeune'ts close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, as any parent will tell youGuy Trueman. 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. But really Initially, why shouldn't it be? We all have he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to learn about our bodily functions just as we light that suggested that he might have planned to learn about everything else when we are smallmurder the man. Why shouldn't potty training Now he could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as much fun as, say, learning about why the sun any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and the moon take turns in the sky? |isbn= B098BJZYHHwouldn't help Danny at all.

|isbnauthor=1787634493Alexander McCall Smith|title=All Her Fault|author=Andrea MaraThe Perfect Passion Company

|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenThe 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, tailored service. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the opportunity would arise for her son, Milobusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to go on get away for a play datewhile. She was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new school. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb Katie is coming out of a break up with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. What could be better? Onlybad boyfriend, when Marissa arrived and so jumps at the housechance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, expecting bringing us to meet Jacob's mother, Jennyan Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the door was answered by EstherIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who didn't know Jenny or Jacobquickly begin to charm. The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had JennyKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's nanny.always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596

|authorisbn=Claire North0811771741|title=Notes from the Burning AgeInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman

|genre=Science FictionCrafts|summary=At its core Melissa Leapman's ''Notes From the Burning AgeInstaKnits for Baby'' by Claire North is gives us a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Flemingcollection of knits from toys to blankets. However, as with Some will be quick knits - others are of the best novels'long, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that cosy afternoons in front of a new and timely genrethe fire' variety. The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, cli-fifive to ten hours, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced ten to start anew twenty hours and live alongside nature without any of more than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming)useable. There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=0356514757

|author=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)Dean Koontz|title=Girls Who LieThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and crime books before nowhis house gets trashed. You thinkOh, seeing on the map that we're set in Akranesand someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and finding it's only twenty kilometres from possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the capital citything that has trashed his house! The thing is, that Benny is the very last person to deserve all this author bad luck. He is clutching at the few final straws lefta nice person. A really nice person. However just because the book aims So fortunately for the usual small-town feel, Benny it's not just in Akranes turns out that our interests lie. Six months ago the delivery to his house is a woman failed to turn up for her date eveningnew friend, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple bad weather friend called Spike, who had given her foster care before her mother had asked has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for the girl back, and being a couple of delighted adoptersgood person. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all Spike is going to take care of a suddenBenny, in one place, the womanand will certainly take care of Benny's car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six monthsenemies, the body has been discoveredif he, in a thirdBenny, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue from and Harper (a mother waitress slash Private Investigator who found finds herself with heavy post-natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in her bodyroped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make the right one?|isbn=191319373X1662500491

|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 CritchleyAdam Stower|title=The Tiny Gestures of Small Flowers|rating=3|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, Murray 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 NeighboursBun

|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary= If you're of Murray is supposed to be a certain vintagehumble, tidy and friendly cat, it's hard one who is able to read sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the words two. But he''Good Neighbours'' without adding s a sing-song ''thatbad magician's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Streetcat, thoughso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescentcatflap they both use can chuck them out, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all into the other families (he's an ex rockerregular back garden, she's but into a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, world of frightening adventure and it's all going okwhiffs. Until This time round it isn't. One hotdrops them into a Viking land, clammywhere a troll hunter is expected – well, stickyone much bigger than Murray was, sweaty summerto be honest, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. Itbut he's a revolting mess of dirt turned up and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet he'll have to come.do…|isbn=17890982110008561249

|authorisbn=Lisa ThompsonB0C47LV1PC|title=The Small ThingsFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=54|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Although Anna has friends at school, she feels like she never really fits in. Her family donCan you make a ''Yo birthing person''t have enough money to let her do after school activitiesjoke? And if you could, and so she feels like her life at home is boring in comparison to theirs. When a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked to partner her, but things are complicated because the new girl, Ellie, question should you make it? Or is unwell and so can't attend school in person. Instead, she joins in with the class by using a robot. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through a robotquestion if you did, and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Elliewould it land?|isbn=1781129649}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=''To be a dark-skinned Black woman The catch is to that the answer for both could well be seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba. no.

''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students in England study a book by a writer of colour while only 7% study a book by a woman.'' ''The BooksellerFragility'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came to is set as the UK from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came firstcity of Portland, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-workingOregon, principled and determined that their children would have cautiously begins to emerge from 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 restrictions imposed during the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxford.covid pandemic

|isbn=17876318691529431735|title=The Rising TideWinter Visitor|author=Sam LloydJames Henry

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Lucy LockeIt's early life hadnFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins't been easy but shereturn all the more surprising. He'd built been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a good and decent life in the aftermathwanted drug smuggler for a decade. SheThe return has come about because he's now married to Daniel, who cohad a letter from his ex-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beachwife, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucysaying that she's daughter ill and Fin, the child she had with Danielhasn't long to live. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, DanielIt's partner hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and so-called best friendsent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Nick and Daniel have Is it a history together warning from the time they both spent in a children's Spanish gang or a problem closer to home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned.?

|author=Hannah PeckAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Kate on the CaseThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=3.54

|summary=Meet KateEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, although I got and in the impression she'd rather be evening a Catherine – helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and one specific Catherine at thatruns. For Catherine Rodriguez Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is Kate's idol, and a generation missing in the author of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''family. Armed with a plucky fatherA few short years ago, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride Eli's parents were both lost to the Arctictitular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to see her scientist mother for navigate the first time world in yonksthe company of a magical beast. However, this is This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a train ride with bad incident at the eatery leads to a differenceconfession from gran, for on board Eli knows his only hope is a greedy-seeming harridan and her catto dare to enter what he most hates, a thief with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist..only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=184812970X0571382231

|authorisbn=Darren Shan178763681X|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=The second trilogy Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in ShanBelgravia. He didn's t really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''Mergesomehow'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in got the world of impression that he'd be at the Born. It's not been easyschool to assist Paul, who had a broken arm, explaining to his foster parents where hebut it didn's been, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez t turn out that way. The teaching - and his other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done problems - are all his best.own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to turn up dead.. well Unfortunately, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower he was the person who discovered the body and except for fiddling with everyone knows that the police consider that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayperson to be the prime suspect.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ

|isbnauthor=0571365884Sarah Marsh|title=My Mess is a Bit A Sign of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia PritchettHer Own|rating=43.5|genre=AutobiographyGeneral Fiction|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. She would worry Suddenly plunged into a world of silence, everything about whether her life changes. Living in a time when the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it use of sign language was the sort of life seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where if she had nothing is taught to worry about lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she would become anxious but such occasions were few ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and far betweenusing a system called Visible Speech. On a visit to a therapistAt the same time, as an adultBell is working on other inventions and ideas, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a Bit complicated tangle of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believeespionage.|isbn=1035401614

|authorisbn=Alex Cotter1803816759|title=The House on the EdgeUnravelling|author=Will Gibson

|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=FaithIt's family home 2038 and Joe is teetering on a bored cop policing the edge wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of a cliffadventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, literallyJoe gets to do some real policing. Is that crack in In the garden getting bigger? Is aftermath of the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so rioting global pop star Suki is Faith's family. Her dad has disappeared, kidnapped and her mum Joe is struggling assigned to cope, barely leaving bring her bedhome. So that leaves Faith in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah Joe isn't the only one trying to schoolsave Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why tech nerd, is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in also on the cellarcase. What went wrong? What should she do about Did the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix system fail or was ithacked? WhatAnd how is Suki's happened to her dadkidnapping connected? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.|isbn=1788008626

|isbn=00082690411529421284|title=Risk of HarmLaying Out the Bones|author=Lucie WhitehouseKate Webb

|summary=DCI Robin Lyons is back It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from a heatwave. In a gully, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the Metbody to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. She might He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been reinstated a simple case of misadventure but the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouthDI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. She Geary was a townie, so what was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforetime. She Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's cold cases to you and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out me) investigate.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of her parentfour people. Tess Hembry's home into a rented roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house but thereon the riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out stood the passage of time, storms and floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his way vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and to make life difficult for Robin since she was a young childbring in sufficient money. They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the rainbow twins. HeSonny's colouring reflects his mother's married to NatalieJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, now much less twins and has a young child but hethere's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's still got it in for Robinhis nanny.

|isbn=17863323881529425867|title=The First Day of SpringLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Nancy TuckerSimon Mason

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Sometimes In Oxford, there are two D I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and ''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasionWilkins. The writing Raymond Wilkins is superb of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and completely compellingalways exquisitely dressed. The characterisation D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let gonot. So, whatHe's the problem? Well, the problem is Chrissie, the main characternot any of those things. When we first meet her sheHe's just eight years oldwhite, originated from a trailer park, small for her age and she readily tells us that shebarely educated (reading's just killed someone - a two-year-old boynot ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. SheThey's completely cold about what shere usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you's done with her main memory re being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized upintroduced to a police procedural written for laughs. ThereWell, you's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in re not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? combination works brilliantly well. HasnSometimes it't he been dead for long enough?s problematic.

|author=Catherine SteadmanMosby Woods|title=The Disappearing ActA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary= British actress Mia Eliot The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is on the cusp best course of successaction. Great successGovernments are flailing. If the rumours are trueA war here, award season is going to treat her well, acknowledging her a push for her latest, critically acclaimed productionclimate action there. She's going places but so, unfortunately, A feeling that nobody is her partnerin actual charge. And the places he's going take him towards liesImagine then, deceit and there was a pretty young thing man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in the form this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of his new co-starcircumstances. It's a good time for Mia to escapeThat man would be valuable, and pilot season right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in LA provides just the excusehistory. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=1471189783B0C9SNG8R1