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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Yancey Williams0241636604|title=Crosshairs of the DevilThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary FictionAutobiography|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in years your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and, despite his strenuous objections jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and thanks to his daughterbackground is the East End, finds himself living - or imprisonedwhere he was familiar with violence, from Eddie's point of view poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - in room 315 of but he had been to the Garden London School of Eden nursing home, Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable companyenvy. Nothing is going He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to keep Eddie from be stupid. It was his stock-in-trade of writing thoughability at what was, so hereessentially, for his readersa card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, are his wanderings through his life's workthis turned into permanent employment as a trader.|isbn=0986031658}}
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|authorisbn=Philip Reeve1035021803|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the DeepThe Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=In a word, richIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. There is certainly an abundance She's back now because of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way westrequest for help from her beloved aunt, beyond the ScilliesCarole. There are troll people on it Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, and sea-witchesArthur Crockleford, is dead and legends of the Dark family that has circumstances seem suspicious, to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sailsay the least. The current Darks are Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the Watchervillage: Arthur, Andreweshe feels, who let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to keep notes of activity from be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the Hidden Landssplit, his brother Will who lives she worked in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitionsa cafe, met and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of married James (on the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into rebound from the world love of protecting their islandher life, like it or notwho was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.|isbn=1788452372
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|authorisbn=Erling KaggeAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=WalkingAll Tomorrow's Futures: One Step At A TimeFictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre= LifestyleScience Fiction|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved a book is evidenced by ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the number shape of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology things to the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not minecome. In my defence, 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 – I'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about to do as soon as I have finished telling you why).'
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|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultSunny Singh|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersThrillers |summary=Meet JackThe Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and nimble and quickAbhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, he's forms a slight boybond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him keeps on venturing out of his sight. Thather room to try to capture what's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters, and look what happened to through her – she diedphotography. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke Although they only ever talk over the ogre's deathphone, a dwarfish wizard-type their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about rescued before they are discovered by the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''..terrorists.|isbn=0755501942086154742X
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|authorisbn=Keith Gray1529153298|title=The ClimbersList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Sully It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is the best tree climber in the villagePrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly... He has ) She's not what's known amongst worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to move the kids as family 'reachDown South'. But what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kid When you're from Yorkshire, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully Down South is worried that his status is being threateneda frightening, and not only thatforeign place, that his chance to name the finalbest avoided. For Miv, unnamed big tree in the park by being the first to conquer it, might be snatched from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that. She's not worried about the dangers or maybe even all of his friends, that her Mum's stopped talking - to do so?|isbn=1781129991anyone.
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|authorisbn=Emma Carroll1398524085|title=The Week at World's EndHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=First, the title. We're in WorldCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's End Closefiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, a mediocre set of housessons Niall, where Stevie (Vie to Paul and Ollie and her friends) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the roaddaughter, Etty. But we could also be at World's Endare all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking offnot. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore Shortly afterwards, Etty and not much else is able to make Greg, find the news. That said, Vie has news body of her own – AnnaGreg's father, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna has, in no short timeDuncan Ackerley, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind river. It was an easy assumption for the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed police to leave, make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and implied her life was at riskthen committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438really happened.
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|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston1035906708|title=Julia and the Shark|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has 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 islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.|isbn=1510107789}}{{FrontpageDiva|author=Freya Sampson|title=The Last LibraryDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I am always a little nervous We tend to start a story about a library, since I am a librarian. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought think of the incoming cardigan-wearingMaria Callas as Greek, hair but she was born to Greek parents in a bunManhattan, cat-owningNew York, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main character, June, does put her hair in a bun, December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she does own a cat (called Alan Bennett), and she has barely any friends and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didn't immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested in June, and why she lived as she didthirteen. Her mum used to be a librarian at the village library, original surname was Kalogeropoulos but when she got sick, June gave up on going her father changed it to University and stayed at home 'Callas' to take care of her mum, as well as taking on a job as library assistant at make it more manageable in the local libraryStates. And even though When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her mum sadly died some years ago, voice - she is still working there, still eating was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading made no secret of her preference for her mum's old books. June is stuckelder sister, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the changeJackie.|isbn=183877369X
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|rating=4
|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
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|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
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|author=Louise CandlishJames Sherwood Metts|title=The HeightsPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|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
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|isbnauthor=0008421714Matthew Tree|title=Mrs March|author=Virginia FeitoWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|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
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|author=John BoyneA G Slatter|title=The Echo ChamberBriar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|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
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|isbn=02419890941529900360|title=The Perfect LifeGhost Orchid|author=Nuala EllwoodJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|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. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The boys are a bit next case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a handful which remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is why shemarried to an extremely rich man and it's making this trip on her ownnot the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The house would be perfect for themSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=Animals and WildlifeIt|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 same month but now we're in Wimbledon opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and we encounter was convinced this was the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting and living in her sisterfor him. Before long, Georgiehe was at Liverpool University. It hadn's, spare room, where she's t - as with so many students - been his dream since she broke up with her boyfriendhe was a child. If anything, Connorhe'd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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|authorisbn=Darren Shan0861541774|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides A Nye of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=So. Having done the impossible DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Cryptformer colleague, from which the Departed communicate with the MergeDanny Maik, Archie now has ''grop'' taken a short holiday in Singapore to think aboutmeet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. But before Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that, soireeshe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Soirees! Archie Initially, much he faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those is. But light that suggested that he manages might have planned to come through murder the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in man. Now he could be facing the first volume of this seriesdeath 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=B093J9TF73
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|isbnauthor=B07GZ81J7CAlexander McCall Smith|title=When Fred the Snake Got Squished and Mended|author=Peter CottonThe Perfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Fred. WellThe Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, actually, you're going run by Ness and operating as an alternative to be meeting Fred-Fred for reasons which will become all too obvious very quickly. But I'm getting ahead of myself: I'd better tell you the online apps in providing a bit more about Fredpersonal, tailored service. Fred Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, as Ness is planning to take a snake and even those of us who have a phobia about snakes are going trip to warm Canada to himget away for a while. He arrived as Katie is coming out of a present in break up with a box with holes bad boyfriend, and so that he could breathe and immediately became part of jumps at the family, chance to come home to the extent that they would take Fred out with them when they went out for a walkEdinburgh. And that was where so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the problem startedIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Fred didnKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there't have any road sense. Or brakes.s always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday Meldova0811771741|title= Everybody Pees! (Everybody Potties!)InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingCrafts|summary= Can potty training ever Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be joyous? It often isnquick knits - others are of the 'tlong, as any parent will tell youcosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. But really The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, why shouldn't it be? We all have five to learn about our bodily functions just as we have ten hours, ten to learn about everything else when we twenty hours and more than twenty hours. All the projects are smallattractive, modern and useable. Why shouldn I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that't potty training be as much fun as, say, learning about why the sun and the moon take turns in the sky? |isbn= B098BJZYHHs me being picky.
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|isbnauthor=1787634493Dean Koontz|title=All Her Fault|author=Andrea MaraThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersParanormal|summary=It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her sonHe loses his job, Milohe loses his fiancee, to go on a play dateand his house gets trashed. She Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was concerned inside is the thing that he didn't have any friends at has trashed his new schoolhouse! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove He is a little laternice person. What could be better? A really nice person. Only, when Marissa arrived at So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his houseis a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, expecting who has been sent to meet Jacobhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's motherenemies, Jennyif he, the door was answered by EstherBenny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who didn't know Jenny or Jacob. The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had Jennyfinds herself roped into Benny's nannywild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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|author=Claire NorthAdam Stower|title=Notes from the Burning AgeMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers |summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North Murray is supposed to be a spy thriller, with as many double crosseshumble, interrogations tidy and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, as with the best novelsfriendly cat, it wears many masks and its most affecting one who is that of a new able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and timely genre, cli-fiwell, or climate change fictionwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. North But he's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been forced to start anew turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuelscatflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, weapons but into a world of mass destructionfrightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, intensive farming). There where a troll hunter is a growing unhappiness with this limiting worldexpected – well, and one groupmuch bigger than Murray was, the Brotherhoodto be honest, aims but he's turned up and he'll have to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.do…|isbn=03565147570008561249
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|authorisbn=Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)B0C47LV1PC|title=Girls Who LieFragility|author=Mosby Woods|rating=34|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=You might be forgiven for thinking that all the dark corners of Iceland have featured in their noirish thrillers and crime books before now. You think, seeing on the map that weCan you make a ''Yo birthing person're set in Akranes, and finding it's only twenty kilometres from the capital cityjoke? And if you could, that this author is clutching at the few final straws left. However just because the book aims for question should you make it? Or is the usual small-town feelquestion if you did, would it's not just in Akranes land? The catch is that our interests liethe answer for both could well be... Six months ago a woman failed to turn up for her date evening, and was never seen again. This left a teenaged girl not at all disappointed that she could now live permanently with the couple who had given her foster care before her mother had asked for the girl back, and a couple of delighted adoptersno. But it left our three detectives at a quandary – mobile phone use was at a high level until it stopped all of a sudden, in one place, the woman ''Fragility''s car was found miles away in a second place, and now, after six months, is set as the body has been discoveredcity of Portland, in a thirdOregon, even more remote place. Meanwhile, this narrative is interrupted by a confessional monologue cautiously begins to emerge from a mother who found herself with heavy post-natal depression, and very little maternal feeling in her body. Is the assumption that is so easy for the reader to make restrictions imposed during the right one?|isbn=191319373Xcovid pandemic
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|isbn=B0925KS87N1529431735|title=Dead Man's Grave (DS Max Craigie)The Winter Visitor|author=Neil LancasterJames Henry
|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 doFebruary 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, but Tam was getting old and there were things he wanted to dowhich made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. Only, his family didn't hear from him again after heHe'd said that been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he'd found the grave s had a letter from his ex- the one which said wife, saying that it shouldnshe's ill and hasn't be opened - and his three sons began long to worrylive. Tam JuniorIt's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, Frankie stripped to his underwear and Dave wouldn't normally go sent to a watery grave in the police but they weren't certain where their father had been and they were worriedboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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|author=Emily CritchleyAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|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 Glorious Race 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 NeighboursMagical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary= If you're of a certain vintage, it's hard to read the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to come.|isbn=1789098211}}{{Frontpage|author=Lisa Thompson|title=The Small Things|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Although Anna has friends at school, she feels like she never really fits Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in. Her family don't have enough money to let her do after school activitiesthe wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and so she feels like her life at home is boring in comparison to theirs. When the evening a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked to partner her, but things are complicated because helper at the new girl, Ellie, is unwell dessert cafe his gran owns and so can't attend school in personruns. Instead Eli lives with his lovely gran, she joins too – for there is a generation missing in with the class by using a robotfamily. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through a robot A few short years ago, and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellie?|isbn=1781129649}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008350388|title=We Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Eli''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is s parents were both lost to be seen as less desirablethe titular race, less hireable, less intelligent and ultimately less valuable than my lighta globe-skinned counterparts...'' ''We Need trotting adventure where all entrants have to Talk About Money'' by Otegha Uwagba ''0.7% of English Literature GCSE students navigate the world in England study a book by a writer the company of colour while only 7% study a book by a womanmagical beast.'' ''The Bookseller'' 29 June 2021 Otegha Uwagba came This has made the race anathema to the UK pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from Kenya when she was five years old. Her sisters were seven and nine. It was her mother who came firstgran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with her father joining them later. The family was hard-working, principled and determined that their children would have the best education possible. There was always a painful awareness sole aim the prize of money although this did not translate into a shortage of anything: it was simply carefully harvested. When Otegha was ten magic at the end – the family acquired a car. For Otegha, education meant a scholarship only thing to a private school in London and then a place at New College, Oxfordpossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1787631869178763681X|title=The Rising TideKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Sam LloydOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadnChef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't been easy really want to but she'd built celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a good way of getting both men and decent life in the aftermathwomen to do what he wanted. ShePaul ''s now married somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to Danielassist Paul, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beachhad a broken arm, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucybut it didn's daughter t turn out that way. The teaching - and Fin, the child she had with Danielproblems - are all his own. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, DanielThe one thing he hadn's partner and so-called best friendt expected was for someone to turn up dead. Nick Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and Daniel have a history together from everyone knows that the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult police consider that person to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concernedbe the prime suspect.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah PeckSarah Marsh|title=Kate on the CaseA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet KateAfter a bout of scarlet fever as a child, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at thatEllen Lark loses her hearing. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, and the author Suddenly plunged into a world of our heroine's favourite possessionsilence, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''everything about her life changes. Armed with Living in a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Ruperttime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, she Ellen is all equipped sent to manage a train ride school where she is taught to the Arcticlip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, to see her scientist mother for she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the first time in yonksdeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. HoweverAt the same time, this Bell is a train ride with a difference, for working on board is a greedy-seeming harridan other inventions and her catideas, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist..complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=184812970X1035401614
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Darren Shan1803816759|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3The Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=The second trilogy in ShanIt's ''Merge'' saga opens 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with our herothe AI system that now runs everything, Archiemaking life easier for many, back in London in and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the world aftermath of the Bornrioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. ItJoe isn's not been easy, explaining t the only one trying to his foster parents where he's beensave Suki - Dylan, or slipping back into ordinary life a British superfan and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in tech nerd, is also on the Merge, but Archie has done his bestcase.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big BenWhat went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak away.|isbn=B093H8DPQZkidnapping connected?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=05713658841529421284|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in AnxietyLaying Out the Bones|author=Georgia PritchettKate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyCrime|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as It was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a childheatwave. She would worry about whether In a gully, a human skeleton came to the monsters under surface and forensic testing proved the bed were comfortable: body to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it was the sort could have been a simple case of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious misadventure but such occasions were few and far betweenDI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. On a visit to Geary was a therapist, as an adulttownie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? when she was completely unable There are connections to the suicide of Holly Gilbert and to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Lockyer and ''My Mess is a Bit DC Gemma Broad of a Life: Adventures in Anxietythe Major Crimes Review Unit (that'' is the result - or so we are given s cold cases to believeyou and me) investigate.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter0571379559|title=The House on the Edgeof Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Faith's family home 'The House of Broken Bricks'' is teetering on the edge story of a clifffour people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, literally. Is that crack she lives in the garden getting bigger? Is house on the house starting to slope a little? And riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as the house seems to be falling apartit might look, so is Faithit's family. Her dad has disappearedstood the passage of time, storms and her mum is struggling to cope, barely leaving her bedfloods. So that leaves Faith in charge Her husband, taking care of her little brother NoahRichard, taking care of her mum, feeding everyonestruggles to grow his vegetables, getting Noah to school, complete the delivery rounds - and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachersto bring in sufficient money. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in They have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? Whatrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe heJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantlyre related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping ons his nanny.|isbn=1788008626
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00082690411529425867|title=Risk of HarmLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Lucie WhitehouseSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Robin Lyons In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is back in her native Birmingham after her less-than-comfortable departure from the Metof Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. She might have been reinstated but the whole episode left a nasty taste in her mouthD I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. She was now working for Detective Chief Superintendent Samir Jaffrey - then the man who had broken her heart nearly twenty years beforeHe's not any of those things. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter have moved out of her parentHe's home into white, originated from a rented house but theretrailer park, barely educated (reading's still a difficult situation with her brother Luke who has gone out not ''really'' his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of his way shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to make life difficult a police procedural written for Robin since she was a young childlaughs. Well, you're not. The two men are just different sides of the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. HeSometimes it's married problematic.}}{{Frontpage|author=Mosby Woods|title=A Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to Nataliemend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, now and has there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a young child but he's still got it man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in for Robinhistory. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
}}
