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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17847427750241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Change Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller|rating=3.5|genre=Crime|summary=It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of Circumstance a request for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (Simon Serrailleron the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered)and Freya and James have now divorced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Susan HillBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=Drugs hadn't really been that much 'Opening up new ways of a problem in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought thinking about the shape of drugs ops as things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a bit few decades of a waste of timetechnology in my lifetime. They still were, I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to a great extent, me but Serrailler knew I'm left with the feeling that something had to be doneit's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Children as young as nine were being recruited to transport Of course, I could research the drugs possibilities and the operation running the county lines was tight. A mule might know the name (although it probably wouldnprobabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I't be the correct one) of the person m reading someone who was running him but he certainly wouldnknows what they't know anything re talking about those higher up in or the organisationlatest conspiracy theorist. The police might catch I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a few of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher upway I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Sunny Singh|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope PottsHotel Arcadia
|rating=3.5
|genre=Women's FictionThrillers |summary=Life should have The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been good for Hollie: violently taken over by a terrorist group. She was just going into Hiding from the final year of her veterinary degree terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and - three years later - was still working at BB's dinerAbhi, the hotel manager. Bob - As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the owner - regarded her fondly: residents who are still alive in the hotel, he was forms a good boss. Hollie had moved in bond with her boyfriendSam who refuses to be cowed by events, Marcus: her mother thought he was great and he was doing well in his career. Hollie wasn't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted to control her and most keeps on venturing out of all he wanted her room to try to leave capture what's happened through her job at the dinerphotography. Then there was Although they only ever talk over the fact that he would be violentphone, both their friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to other peoplesee if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John Gwynne1529153298|title=The Shadow Of The GodsList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is the first installment of the Bloodsworn SagaPrime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarokthey've been murdered, when the Gods but to have battled and their bones lie scattered for all 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that her father wants to seemove the family 'Down South'. This story When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is the ultimate in High Fantasya frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genremove would mean leaving her best friend, with mythical creaturesSharon, archaic language and battles galoreshe'll do anything to prevent that. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters She's not worried about the dangers or that are woven together her Mum's stopped talking - to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battleanyone.|isbn=0356514218
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09HTWX47X1398524085|title=Endless ObsessionHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Dai HenleyNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=ItCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's some years since we last caught fiftieth birthday party but never turned up with Andy Flood. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, formerly a DCI in the Met Etty. are all worried but now a well-respected private investigator. He's married to Laurastrangely - her husband, Alec, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in a forensics laboratoryis not. Flood's daughtersShortly afterwards, Gemma Etty and PippaGreg, have flown find the nestbody of Greg's father, Pippa to AustraliaDuncan Ackerley, from where she has very little contact with in the family, and Gemma to married liferiver. She's It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had mental problems since she was abducted many years ago but Andy murdered Charlie and Laura hope that married life will provide then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the support she needsguilt. FloodThe Salter children are not convinced but there's business is going well little else they can do but get on with their lives and that was why he felt able to turn down the case of Lisa Blackwonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Peter Papathanasiou1035906708|title=The StoningDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin|rating=34.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=In a town sleazy enough We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous Greek parents in comparisonManhattan, New York, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, December 1923 and only moved to Athens when shewas thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were make it more manageable in the world's tallest cricket stumpsStates. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on was back in Athens - supposedly so that shows she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the feeling – Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and it's only fair, is the general opinion, made no secret of her preference for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrievedher elder sister, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the lawJackie...|isbn=1529416973
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B08Z8BMZ7HChristopher Edge|title=The Mystery of Healing|author=A P McGrathBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in the second century of the common era and he's the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on for the amusement of the populace. The remuneration isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors to live. It's quite a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands and when we first see them, they're sprinkling gold dust onto the lions' manes to make them look more impressive. The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Today, it's the crocodiles.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall
|title=The Beatryce Prophecy
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Stories have joy Lucas and surprises in them'', we his friends are told here. And none more so than all booked in this wondrous storyfor a movie marathon at their local cinema, which feels an instant classic with a place that has the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportionnickname of 'The Black Hole'. We start with a group of monks All big movie fans, the Order they're looking forward to lots of the Chronicles of Sorrowingexciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the demonic goat movie starts, they very quickly realise that loves nothing more than upendingsomething about this new film format is very different, trampling on and biting the poor Brothersthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, But as they lurch from one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate film genre to find the girlnext, for it can they figure out what on earth is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowinggoing on? But how can a simpleWill they ever get back to the cinema, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat and to anyonetheir real lives?|isbn=15295008931839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FFJF8YSRachel Greenlaw|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)|author=Justine Avery Compass and Kate ZhoidikBlade
|rating=3.5
|genre=For SharingTeens|summary=''For I can hear the big, grownup girls out theresong of the sea. The call of the deep, the potty masters answering beat in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pridemy heart.''
 And so it Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a little girltrap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's final goodbye leader and Mira's father. Desperate to nappies save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and pull-ups and graduation with only coordinates to "proper" pants by following guide her around as , she proudly explains sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her dogfather, as her cat, journey takes her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear super-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can from the flowers, nor watched streets of foreign islands to the fish, nor heart of the birds. Boysmuggler's certainly can't. She's a big girl now territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she wants everyone to know it!holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettJames Sherwood Metts|title=Locked Out LilyPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lily is, or was, or has Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have beenproceeding apace, very ill, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few daysaccomplish. The parents need the relief Just as Lily's baby sibling is just about they were beginning to get used to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already all this technological change and wants nothing starting to do with. But on tracking back home for word think of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parentsother, and the babe-in-armsnew ways to spend time, already installedalong came an awful pandemic. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get the family back intactLife was pretty much shut down and, even if along with it's not the family Lily wants – and , all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snakemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=14711948331736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithMatthew Tree|title=The Great Dream RobberyWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Maya's Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father is , a professor drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who invented an amazing dream machinehad endless crises of self confidence. But something went wrongSo Tim applied himself to his studies, and now he can't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told. In a cultivated his abilities rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friend, than his daydreams and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really.set himself high but achievable ambitions..and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051XB0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800464495A G Slatter|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas The Briar Book of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of Maths|author=Emma Smiththe Dead|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionFantasy|summary=''Babies seem There's a part of me that wants to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in the womb, being aware keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of quantities at seven hours oldmy own, assessing probability at six months oldall mine, and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months oldlast.'' Did you know this? I didn't! How about: ''Maths ability on entry just want to school is enjoy it for a strong predictor of later achievement, double that of literacy skillswhile.''
I didnWithin a remote mountain pass, far away from the world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children s, a good start in literacy family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non- reading storieswitch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, teaching pen grips, singing rhymes - gives children her training as a solid foundation when they start schoolsteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. But do we think When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the same town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way about mathsleft, right and centre, beyond counting? I don't think we doEllie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, in part because so many putting her at the heart of us are afraid a maelstrom of mathschaos. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and it follows that giving our children a similar pre-school grounding will be just determine what to do as beneficialthe Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|author=Robert Peston
|title=The Whistleblower
|rating=3
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=I'm not the first to point out how fitting it is for Robert Peston to write a political thriller, so I'll move on quickly – but this won't be winning any awards for originality. It's an interesting plot with a good pace, but it does very little to differentiate itself and I suspect before much time has passed I'll have forgotten a lot of it.
|isbn=1838775242
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293793851529900360|title=The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache)Ghost Orchid|author=Louise PennyJonathan Kellerman|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=In the Canadian village of Three Pines, weIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis're post-pandemic: the scars are still there s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but life is starting he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to get back to normalask for his help on difficult cases. The villagers are beginning to return to the Bistro His assertions that there were only open-and -shut cases which didn't need the Aubergehelp of a psychologist only worked for a while. They're visiting each otherFinally, it was Robin, Delaware's homes and having friends and relatives to staypartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. A young Sudanese woman who has been nominated for She knew that the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor and she soon proves involvement was something that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbert, known in the village as the Asshole Saintman she loved needed.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= B09F4CTKJR|title= Flights for Freedom|author= Steven Burgauer|rating=4 The next case did look simple, though.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=It's Two lovers were murdered in the later stages swimming pool of World War I and the United States has just entered the conflict. Petrol Petronus is a young American who has signed up and joined the 17 Aero Squadronremote property in Bel Air. This company He was the first US Aero Squadron heir to be trained in Canada, the first an Italian shoe empire and she is married to be attached to the RAF an extremely rich man and it's not the first to be sent into the skies to fight the Germans in active combatItalian. But before that can happen, Petrol has to master flying which of them was the notoriously difficult but majestic Sopwith Camel.primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=183885410X1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Dark RemainsSecret Life of a Vet|author=William McIlvanney and Ian RankinSion Rowlands
|rating=3.5
|genre=CrimeAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Bobby Carter Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a lawyer GP and consigliere Rowlands didn't want to one of follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the major crime families in nineteen seventies Glasgowstrain that being on-call put on his father's life. DC Jack Laidlaw is on When he was seventeen he took the CID team charged opportunity of doing work experience with a family friend who was a vet and was convinced this was the investigationjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. I say It hadn''on the team'' but Laidlaw never really seems to be t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a part of itchild. He does his own thingIf anything, goes his own way and he''The Dark Remains'' uncovers the truth of why Bobby Carter's body was found behind one of Glasgow's seedier pubsd wanted to be a professional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=19424102550861541774|title=Tokyo Zangyo (Detective Hiroshi)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Michael PronkoSteve Burrows|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=DCI Domenic Jejeune''Zangyo: overtime works close friend and former colleague, often unpaid'' It's the cultureDanny Maik, isn't it? The hours for which you're paid are really just has taken a statement of the minimum you'll be required short holiday in Singapore to do: you'll work more hours to get the job done and done to the satisfaction of bullies like Shigeru Onizukameet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. When he Maik was found dead involved in front of Senden Central's headquarters in Tokyo there a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was nothing in the way facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. Initially, he faced a charge of regret or grief, even from his family, manslaughter but there was a mild curiosity as evidence came to whether light that suggested that he'd jumped from might have planned to murder the roof of the building or been assisted in his descentman. Gossip revolves around the fact that Now he left the roof at could be facing the exact same spot that an employee, Mayu Yamase, had committed suicide some three years earlierdeath penalty. SheDomenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn'd accused Onizuka of bullying her and forcing her to work an unreasonable amount of overtimet help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241425425Alexander McCall Smith|title=The Man Who Died Twice|author=Richard OsmanPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Elizabeth Best was The Perfect Passion Company is a little surprised when she received dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the letteronline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. It came from a man whose body Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she had helped to pull from could come and look after the Thames and who had never existed but then this business, as Ness is the sort of conundrum which retired spies have planning to take a trip to Canada to deal with on get away for a regular basiswhile. When she visits the sender Katie is coming out of the letter (he's moved into the Cooper's Chase Retirement Village) it comes as no surprise that it's someone a break up with whom she has a long professional history - bad boyfriend, and who used so jumps at the chance to come home to be her husbandEdinburgh. He's made a bad mistake - something And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to do 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a mask being removed within the range of a CCTV camera on a raidbusiness, a missing twentyor in match-million pounds making, but Ness has full confidence in diamonds her abilities, and a few death threats. Hethere's now in hiding with always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a young woman called Polly, who's his MI5 handler as well as being an incompetent waitress.hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Andrew Sharp0811771741|title=The Chef, the Bird and the BlessingInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionCrafts|summary= Chef Mlantushi - Mozzy Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to his employer blankets. Some will be quick knits - isothers are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in his mind, front of the head chef of a safari business catering to VIP guests in an unnamed African countryfire' variety. Mozzy is earnest and dedicated The projects are divided by the time they'll take to his task and he puts all of himself into creating fine cuisine dishes for the guests at BODcomplete -W safaris but his dream is less than five hours, five to become the head chef of a restaurant in London or a big American city. Even ten hours, ten to win a Michelin startwenty hours and more than twenty hours. He is thwarted in this ambition by his boss All the projects are attractive, Mr Bin (Ben to you modern and me) who incurs Mozzyuseable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 's disapproval for his scruffy ways, his uninterest in his guests and social- shock, horror media- his allowing of bush animals into the houseworthy projects' but that's me being picky.|isbn=B09926MK8H
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesDean Koontz|title=Rules for VampiresThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersParanormal|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) Benny is having a Vampireterrifically bad day. She drinks blood He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, she sleeps during the dayand his house gets trashed. Oh, and she can Grimwalk (turning into someone has delivered a flock of bats to travel aroundreally weird, although not all of them remember disturbing coffin-sized object to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Nowhis home, on and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the night of her hundredth birthnight, she thing that has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oopstrashed his house! And to make things worse The thing is, Benny is the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come back very last person to haunt herdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So, not only does Leo have to team up with fortunately for Benny it turns out that the friendly ghost Minna delivery to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerfulhis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, she who has been sent to do it all while hiding it help him since Benny is clearly under attack from her familynefarious forces for being a good person. Did I mention vampires Spike is going to take care of Benny, and ghosts hate each other? Yeahwill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, thereif he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's a reason why there wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are rules for vampires….|isbn=147119955X1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tori BovalinoAdam Stower|title=The Devil Makes ThreeMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary= Working all summer in her boarding school's library Murray is the last thing Tess Matheson wants supposed to do — especially when she gets be a request for over a hundred books that she has humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to deliver herself. What makes it worse is the man who requested sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the books: Mr Birchtwo. The boarding school But he's a bad magician's headmastercat, and so his favourite bun has been turned into a man Tess hates. As a petty act of revenge for making her find hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and deliver such a large requestthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, Tess sticks post-it notes on each of not into the booksregular back garden, scribbled with the ugliest insults she can think but into a world offrightening adventure and whiffs. They're never meant to reach him This time round it drops them into a Viking land, of course. Her plan where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to get her anger out like thisbe honest, but he's turned up and then take them all off before delivering them. No harm done… Or it would be, if someone hadnhe't delivered them for her.ll have to do…|isbn=17890981300008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn= B09BG8V3Q6B0C47LV1PC|title= Who Needs Nappies? Not Me! (Everybody Potties!)Fragility|author= Justine Avery and Seema AmjadMosby Woods|rating=4.5|genre=For Sharing|summary= ''Who Needs Nappies? Not Me!'' is the latest release in the ''Everybody Potties!'' series from Justine Avery. This series of fun picture books aims to take the pain out of potty training children and replace it with some fun. It's a worthy aim, as any frustrated parent will tell you. .}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B098FFFBH9|title=Snowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Rachel Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is her school's animal rights project leader and she and her friend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit question if you did, would it land? The catch is that the animal worldanswer for both could well be. She gets a great deal ... no. ''Fragility'' is set as the city of support from her family: father Pip HarrisonPortland, a lecturer at Imperial CollegeOregon, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. Kate runs cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Putney, which is where we'll meet Rachel's main (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angharad Walker1529431735|title= The Ash HouseWinter Visitor|author=James Henry|rating= 54|genre= Confident ReadersCrime|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesnIt't know his names February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, or why he is there but he is used to which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the system, used to different places and different facesmore surprising. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre 'd been exiled on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working Costa del Sol as a hive in the smouldering shadows of wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The Ash Housereturn has come about because he's had a letter from his ex-wife, saying that she's ill and hasn't long to live. But soon their easy peace It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is shattered by the arrival of the Doctor. By the end of the storyabducted, lives will be changed forever stripped to his underwear and The Ash House will never be sent to a watery grave in the same againboot of a stolen Ford Sierra.|isbn=1912626977 Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Yancey WilliamsAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Crosshairs The Glorious Race of the DevilMagical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or imprisoned, from Eddie's point of view - in room 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, with only a trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock-in-trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his life's work.|isbn=0986031658}} {{Frontpage|author=Philip Reeve|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In Eli is a word, rich. There is certainly busy lad – by day an abundance of riches apprentice in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on itwondrous library we start by visiting with him, and sea-witches, and legends of in the evening a helper at the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands dessert cafe his gran owns and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sailruns. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who Eli lives in London with his lovely gran, too much science – for there is a generation missing in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitionsthe family. A few short years ago, and AndreweEli's foundling daughterparents were both lost to the titular race, who washed up out a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the sea one day eleven years ago. But pair – but when Andrewe Dark drowns himselfa bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, both Eli knows his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the world prize of protecting their island, like it or notmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=17884523720571382231
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|authorisbn=Erling Kagge178763681X|title=Walking: One Step At A TimeKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=54|genre= LifestyleCrime|summary= Those who have read my reviews before will know that how much I loved Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a book is evidenced by the number way of pages with corners turned, so let me start this one with an apology getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the Norfolk Library Service: sorry! I forgot it was your book not mine. In my defence, I will say impression that as a reader of this type of book there is something connective about noting where prior readers were inspired (provided it is subtle – Ihe'll allow creased corners, but not scribbles – for d be at the latter we must buy our own copy – which I am about school to do as soon as I have finished telling you why). Erligg Kagge is assist Paul, who had a Norwegian explorer who has walked to the South Polebroken arm, the North Pole but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the summit of Everestproblems - are all his own. He knows a The one thing or two about walking. However, this isnhe hadn't a travelogue about any of those epic journeys, it is instead a thoughtful exploration of what it means expected was for someone to walkturn up dead. It is a plenitude of unnumbered essays about walking. There is no 'contents' page Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and I haven't counted. In small format paperback, each essay is only a few pages long. Perhaps then, better thought of as a meditation rather than an essayeveryone knows that the police consider that person to be the prime suspect.|isbn=0241357705
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|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultSarah Marsh|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's After a slight boy, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out bout of his sight. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monstersscarlet fever as a child, and look what happened to Ellen Lark loses her – she diedhearing. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point Suddenly plunged into a world of viewsilence, everything about her life changes. Living in a giant ogre will threaten his aunt time when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's deathuse of sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunterschool where she is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and he'll be given using a book that tells him all he needs to know about system called Visible Speech. At the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''..same time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=07555019421035401614
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Keith Gray1803816759|title=The ClimbersUnravelling|author=Will Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=Confident ReadersScience Fiction|summary=Sully It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the best tree climber in the villagewealthy and peaceful New York City. He has what's known amongst the kids as 'reach'Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kidthen something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, called Nottinghamand riots start to spread. Finally, who clambers up Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully rioting global pop star Suki is worried that his status kidnapped and Joe is being threatenedassigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and not only thattech nerd, that his chance to name is also on the final, unnamed big tree in case. What went wrong? Did the park by being the first to conquer system fail or was it, might be snatched from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottinghamhacked? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, to do sohow is Suki's kidnapping connected?|isbn=1781129991
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emma Carroll1529421284|title=The Week at World's EndLaying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=First, It was one of those flash downpours that the titleBritish weather often delivers in a heatwave. We're in World's End Close In a gully, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie human skeleton came to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog surface and with forensic testing proved the boy over the roadbody to be Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. But we could also be at World He's Endd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, because something taking so it could have been a great chunk simple case of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking offmisadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. The Soviet boats Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are getting blockaded as America tries connections to reduce the risk suicide of nuclear missiles offshore, Holly Gilbert and to two other deaths which were not much else is able to make considered suspicious at the newstime. That said, Vie has news Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said sheMajor Crimes Review Unit (that'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed s cold cases to leave, you and implied her life was at riskme) investigate. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438
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|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston0571379559|title=Julia and the SharkThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the family home story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in SW England to Jamaica: temperamentally she might be lighthousekeepers for a summerhappier there, but instead, she lives in the far NE house on the riverbank, built of the Scottish islandsbroken bricks. Here be VikingsInsubstantial as it might look, that kind it's stood the passage of Scottish islandtime, storms and floods. Dad is going Her husband, Richard, struggles to be automating the lantern, which is grow his specialist thingvegetables, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt complete the elusive Greenland sharkdelivery rounds - and to bring in sufficient money. And JuliaThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, wellthe rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, she will be homesick much less twins and alone – until there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she suddenly finds company one night's his nanny.|isbn=1510107789
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|authorisbn=Freya Sampson1529425867|title=The Last LibraryLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=I am always a little nervous to start a story about a libraryIn Oxford, since there are two D I am a librarianWilkins. I always grit my teeth slightly at the thought Raymond Wilkins is of the incoming cardigan-wearingNigerian descent, hair in a bunBalliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, cat-owningson of Ryan and father of Ryan, glasses on a chain stereotypes! In this story, the main characteris not. He's not any of those things. He's white, June, does put her hair in originated from a buntrailer park, and she does own a cat barely educated (called Alan Bennettreading's not ''really'' his thing), and she has barely any friends his wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and spends her evenings eating the same Chinese takeaway meal once a week whilst reading books alone! But I didntrackies. They't immediately throw the book out of the window, because I found I was interested re usually in June, and why she lived as she didlime green or acid yellow. Her mum used You might wonder if you're being introduced to be a librarian at the village librarypolice procedural written for laughs. Well, but when she got sick, June gave up on going to University and stayed at home to take care you're not. The two men are just different sides of her mum, as the same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well as taking on a job as library assistant at the local library. And even though her mum sadly died some years ago, she is still working there, still eating her mum's favourite takeaway meal, and still reading her mum Sometimes it's old books. June is stuck, but little does she know, everything in her life is about the changeproblematic.|isbn=183877369X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008370982Mosby Woods|title=Rock Paper Scissors|author=Alice FeeneyA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, The West isn't so keen on the ideadominant force it once was. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with Nobody in the novels he's hoping West is quite sure how to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with mend this or even if mending it is the dogs, many best course of whom have been abusedaction. Governments are flailing. A war here, a push for climate action there. A feeling that nobody is never easyin actual charge. Still - she's won the weekend awayImagine then, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller there was a man with Adam beside her precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the passenger seat - and most valuable asset in history. Imagine then doing the same thing , that this man loses this ability. What would governments do to come get it back a couple of days later.?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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