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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dave Letterfly Knodererv0241636604|title=SpeedyThe Trading Game: Hurled Through HavocA Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=How If you were to summarise the life bring up an image of Dave Letterfly Knodererv a city banker in a pithy sentence your mind, you're unlikely to kick off a review think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his memoir? Do you knowbackground is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, I really don't think I canpoverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Dave Stevenson is an author bright - extremely bright - and an artisthe 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. An inspirational speaker and It was his ability at what was, essentially, a professional horsemancard game which got him an internship with Citibank. And Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a recovering alcoholictrader. }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=The son 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 a Lutheran ministerrequest for help from her beloved aunt, heCarole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's struggled with a controlling fatherclose friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, run away to join say the circus (least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not a metaphor)been back to the village: Arthur, she feels, trained horseslet her down badly. Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, painted caravansshe has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. After the split, designed she worked in a cafe, met and painted theatre setsmarried James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and hit rock bottom when the bottle took overJames have now divorced.|isbn=B0965V3LLN
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Tade ThompsonAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Far From the Light of HeavenAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of going things to spacecome.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtime Well, bound for the world I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for the shiptechnology in my lifetime. I's AI captain. However, when she wakes ve kept up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtimereasonably well with what's AI almost non-responsive, she begins advantageous to realise me but I'm left with the feeling that her first mission wonit't be going as smoothly as she hoped s all getting away from me. Some of it wouldis - frankly - quite frightening. Down on Bloodroot Of course, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and his android partner Salvo are sent end up to discover exactly down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what went wrong on they're talking about or the Ragtimelatest conspiracy theorist. Meanwhile, former astronaut I needed people I knew I could trust and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes who could deliver information in a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagosway I could understand. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|isbn=0356514323
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rob KeeleySunny Singh|title= Carrots Don’t Grow On Trees!Hotel Arcadia|rating= 43.5|genre=For SharingThrillers |summary= The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Lily loves eating fruit and vegetables. She likes carrotsHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, broccolikilling everyone on site, cabbage there is Sam, a wartime photographer and auberginesAbhi, the hotel manager. When her friends at school turn up their noses, Lily is keen As Abhi continues to try to explain how good they care remotely for the residents who are for you and how nice still alive in the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to eat. One day, poor Lily gets tricked be cowed by Jordanevents, who tells and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her that carrots grow on treesphotography. Infuriated, Lily checks with Although they only ever talk over the teacherphone, who explains that fruits grow on trees and vegetables, like carrots, grow in the ground. Jordan says, "I did try their friendship grows as Abhi tries to tell help her, Miss!" keep safe and everyone laughs at poor Lilythey both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn= B09HHN541V086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=178607981X1529153298|title=Bad ApplesThe List of Suspicious Things|author=Will DeanJennie Godfrey|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Tuva Moodyson was driving up a foggy hillside towards Visberg when she discovered an Audi 4x4 parked at the side of the roadIt's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Wondering if someone needed help she got out of the car - and heard the screams from deep inside the forestWomen have been disappearing. Determining the direction of a Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound isnquite so frightening. Miv's upset because she't easy when you need hearing aids and dampness is causing interference but Tuva made s overheard that her way father wants to where a woman was holding her coat over move the body of family 'Down South'. When you're from Yorkshire, Down South is a manfrightening, foreign place, best avoided. HeFor Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she'd been decapitatedll do anything to prevent that. He was Arne Gustav Persson, a resident of VisbergShe's not worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdadottir1398524085|title=Cold As HellHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary= In a red suitcase as Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is not. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the bottom body of a fissure Greg's father, Duncan Ackerley, in a lava field, there is a bodythe river. And It was an easy assumption for the man who has put her there has just discovered police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he is capable of killingcouldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.|isbn=1913193888
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lucy Hope1035906708|title=FledglingDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. When she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, Jackie.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over place that has the decadesnickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, and now they're looking imperiously down on the village forward to lots of exciting films, and woods below. It's an eccentric housemany, to host eccentricsmany snacks! However, so the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractablemovie starts, there they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through itvery different, and so onthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has But as they lurch from one film genre to do all the maintenance of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something elsenext, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to be a completely great the cinema, and wonderful thing, think again...to their real lives?|isbn=183994188X1839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1846276772Rachel Greenlaw|title=The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica NordellCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=Politics and SocietyTeens|summary=Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise ''I can hear the extent to which they suffer from it: it's simply a part song of everyday life. White men will always come firstthe sea. The able will come before call of the deep, the disabledanswering beat in my heart. Jobs'' Rosevear, promotionsa remote and partially forgotten island, higher salaries are survives on luring ships into the preserve rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of the white manseven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. Even But when those who wouldn't pass the medical become Council Watch lays a part of an organisation ittrap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira's rare that their views are heardfather. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that their concerns are acknowledgedlies buried deep in the sea. It's personally appalling and degrading for With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the individuals on watched streets of foreign islands to the receiving end heart of the bias but itsmuggler's not just territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the individuals who are negatively impactedones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Teresa DriscollJames Sherwood Metts|title=Her Perfect FamilyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at Things have been a bit sticky for the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrongEarthlings. SuddenlyAI and automation have been proceeding apace, Gemma receives an eerie message stating often replacing jobs they''He is not who he says he is…'', paving the way for the sinister tone re paid to do and other tasks that remains throughout the noveltook time to accomplish. In a twist Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of eventsother, and after a change of outfitnew ways to spend time, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremonyalong came an awful pandemic. With Gemma then in a comaLife was pretty much shut down and, what follows is a complex whodunit along with a list of suspects that continues to grow it, all the further you readmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=15420287521736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Matthew Tree
|title=We'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked a drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his accountant, Mr Patrick, to ensure that the young man got on board the boat artistic passions all failed miserably and thereafter Patrick was to send him a monthly allowancewho had endless crises of self confidence. Patrick sent the money regularly and a correspondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has So Tim applied himself to say than Patrick. It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his sonstudies, it was that he didn't care to have him in this country where he might be a danger to cultivated his abilities rather than his wife daydreams and other children. The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the young man on his wayset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|author=Antti Tuomainen A G Slatter|title=The Briar Book of the Dead|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary='' There's a part of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. 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 world, lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and David Hackston (translator)the wider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a steward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the town's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to another, Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529900360|title=The Rabbit FactorGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=3.54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet Henri. With a mind so much more focused on maths It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and calculations than it is other human beingseven after Alex recovered, he's perfect Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his job in the insurance company – until they decide he's not a team-member, help on difficult cases. His assertions that they'd prefer everyone to be all there were only open-plan, holistic and keen on stupid-as workshoppingshut cases which didn't need the help of a psychologist only worked for a while. This is when he finds his brother has died Finally, it was Robin, having a heart attack while busy changing his VolvoDelaware's radio channelpartner, and has left Henri everythingwho nudged Milo into asking for help again. Unfortunately (or otherwise) She knew that the involvement was something that 'everything' is just an adventure parkthe man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, and nothing elsethough. ''YouMeFun'' is so not what Henri wants to occupy his mind, but he perks up a little when he sees huge holes Two lovers were murdered in the finances – it runs at swimming pool of a steady money-moving pace, despite some desultory staff ideas, but loans have been made out and the amount vanishedremote property in Bel Air. Fortunately (or otherwise) some people are quickly on He was the scene heir to explain that missing money – an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it's been turned into a gambling debt that has also now been inherited by Henri, and not the activities Italian. But which of these guys are not conducive to getting a cheap life insurance plan...|isbn=191319387Xthem was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711793111529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The UnheardSecret Life of a Vet|author=Nicci FrenchSion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Tess, Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a teacher GP and Jason, a headmasterRowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, have split up: she and Poppy have moved out of particularly when he considered the family home and Jason is now married to Emily. The separation was amicable strain that being on- they had just drifted apartcall put on his father's life. They co-parent three-year-old Poppy who has her bedroom in what When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of doing work experience with a family home friend who was a vet and another in was convinced this was the flat she shares with her motherjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn''seemed'' to be working well until the day that Poppy came home t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a menacing drawing of a woman falling from a tall building and she started swearing, using words she was unlikely to have heard in either homechild. Her behaviour deteriorated and there were problems at nursery school. Tess turns If anything, he'd wanted to be a therapist for help, then her doctor and finally the police but no one will take what she has to say seriouslyprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=14711966150861541774|title=IcedA Nye of Pheasants|author=Felix FrancisSteve Burrows|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Miles Pussett used to be a Steeplechase jockey but those days are past DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and he now gets his thrills from hurling head-first down the three-quarter-mile Cresta Runformer colleague, Danny Maik, occasionally reaching eighty miles has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an hourold ally, Guy Trueman. He Maik was involved in St Moritz the same weekend as White Turf a street brawl - he would later maintain that's highhe was facing a man armed with a knife -class horseracing on the frozen lake and against his better judgement he gets talked into helping with the saddling of the horseskilled a Ghurka. It's seven years since Initially, he put horseracing behind him and he swore faced a charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he'd never go back might have planned to itmurder the man. But when Now he sees that something suspicious is going on, Miles could be facing the death penalty. Domenic Jejeune cando nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and wouldn't help but look for answers, even when it puts him in dangerDanny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=147228612XAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Late Train to Gipsy Hill|author=Alan JohnsonPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=We The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all know people like Gary Nelsonthe online apps in providing a more personal, although we probably haven't taken much notice of themtailored service. They live quiet, uneventful lives Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and stay mostly under look after the radarbusiness, as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. In Katie is coming out of a city like Londonbreak up with a bad boyfriend, that's quite easy - and even Gary's three flatmates largely ignore himso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. The highlight of his day is watching a beautiful young woman apply her makeup as she goes And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to work on the train each morning: he'd an Edinburgh we already love , thanks to ask her for a date but he doesn't have 44 Scotland Street and the courage. ThenIsabel Dalhousie novels, on his homeward commute, Arina speaks but with some new characters who quickly begin to him and asks for his helpcharm. Before long he finds himself on the run from mobstersKatie has no experience in running a business, or in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, Russian secret agents and the Metropolitan police.there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Claire McGowan0811771741|title=I Know YouInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's 'Then:'InstaKnits for Baby'' Casey returns gives us a collection of knits from a walk with toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in front of the fire' variety. The projects are divided by the babytime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, Carsonfive to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and comes across three bodiesmore than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, almost a whole family taken downmodern and useable. ' I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'Now:social-media-worthy projects'but that' Rachel is out for a walk with her dog, Brandy, when she comes across a body in the woodss me being picky.|isbn=1542019974
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529148251Dean Koontz|title=Misfits: A Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela CoelThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyParanormal|summary=''How am I able Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to be so transparent on paper about rapehis home, malpractice and poverty, yet still compartmentalise? Itit's as though I were telling possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the truth whilst simultaneously running away from itthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck.'' Before you start reading ''Misfits'' you need to be in He is a certain frame of mindnice person. A really nice person. You're not going So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to read his house is a book of essays or new friend, a self-bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help bookhim since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. You're Spike is going to read writing which was inspired by Michaela Coeltake care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's 2018 MacTaggart Lecture to professionals within the television industry at the Edinburgh TV Festival. You might be ''reading'' the book but you need to ''listen'' to the words as though you're in the lecture theatre. The disjointedness will fade away enemies, if he, Benny, and youHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'll be carried on a cloud of exquisite writings wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008433631Adam Stower|title=Next of Kin|author=Kia AbdullahMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers |summary=It was the sort of thing that happened every day, although not Murray is supposed to Leila Syed. She'd never driven her nephewbe a humble, Maxtidy and friendly cat, one who is able to school before but his fathersleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Andrew Hansonwell, had rung her in a panicwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. He was supposed to be taking Max to school but But he'd s a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called into work Bun, and the delay in getting there could lead to financial losses. As the school was only five minutes catflap they both use can chuck them out of Leila's way, could she drop him off? Of course, she could and a sleeping Max was duly strapped not into the regular back garden, but into a world of her carfrightening adventure and whiffs. On the way Leila took This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a phone call - there troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was panic at her work too, with a problem which could put a multi-million-pound contract at risk.to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Justine Avery and Naday MeldovaB0C47LV1PC|title=Everybody Toots! (Everybody Potties!)Fragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary= Toots, trumps, farts. Whatever your word for them, find us Can you make a child that doesn't find them irresistibly funny. Funny to talk about and 'Yo birthing person'' joke about? And if you could, that is. But horribly embarrassing the question should you make it? Or is the question if you let one go at did, would it land? The catch is that the wrong timeanswer for both could well be. In class, say, when everyone will hear it and everyone will laugh. At you. Justine Avery's latest entry in her ''Everybody Potties!'' series takes aim at any shame associated with tooting and gently and calmly, with the familiar humour attached, explains that tooting is perfectly normal. Everybody does it: ''Everybody Toots''!|isbn= B09C2RVJ2W}} {{Frontpage|isbn=1784165263|title=Invite Me In|author=Emma Curtis|rating=4no.5|genre=Crime|summary=Martin Curran's wife, Eliza knew that she had to be home to make his lunch for one o'clock on Fragility'' is set as the dot, despite the fact that she was actually painting one city of their properties prior to it being let. If she didn't get homePortland, there would be trouble. There was some excuse: Martin was a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchairOregon, but don't be too quick cautiously begins to be understanding. He was also a very unpleasant person: he once told Eliza ''you're good at being a disappointment''. All this was in Eliza's mind when she first met Dan Jones who arrived, unannounced, at emerge from the flat just as Eliza was about to leave: he wanted restrictions imposed during the lease of flat 2, 42 Linden Road and he was desperate to get in before it was advertised as being available.covid pandemic
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=17847427751529431735|title=A Change of Circumstance (Simon Serrailler)The Winter Visitor|author=Susan HillJames Henry|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=Drugs hadnIt't really s February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been that much of a problem in Lafferton and Detective Superintendent Simon Serrailler had thought of drugs ops exiled on the Costa del Sol as a bit of wanted drug smuggler for a waste of timedecade. They still were, to The return has come about because he's had a great extentletter from his ex-wife, but Serrailler knew saying that something had she's ill and hasn't long to be donelive. Children as young as nine were being recruited It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to transport the drugs his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the operation running the county lines was tightboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. A mule might know the name (although Is it probably wouldn't be the correct one) of the person who was running him but he certainly wouldn't know anything about those higher up in the organisation. The police might catch a few of the runners but they'd never get anywhere near those higher up.warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to home?
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09FS89KX9Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Fall On Me|author=Penelope PottsThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=3.54|genre=Women's FictionConfident Readers|summary=Life should have been good for Hollie: She was just going into Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the final year of her veterinary degree wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and - three years later - was still working in the evening a helper at BB's diner. Bob - the owner - regarded her fondly: he was a good bossdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Hollie had moved in Eli lives with her boyfriendhis lovely gran, Marcus: her mother thought he was great and he was doing well too – for there is a generation missing in his careerthe family. Hollie wasnA few short years ago, Eli't quite so certain though: Marcus wanted s parents were both lost to control her and most of the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all he wanted her entrants have to leave her job at navigate the world in the dinercompany of a magical beast. Then there was This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the fact that eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he would be violentmost hates, both with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to her and to other peoplepossibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=John Gwynne178763681X|title=The Shadow Of The Gods|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=The Shadow Of The Gods is the first installment of the Bloodsworn Saga, set in the era of the Vikings in the shadow of Ragnarok, when the Gods have battled and their bones lie scattered Knife Skills for all to see. This story is the ultimate in High Fantasy, and John Gwynne certainly does justice to the genre, with mythical creatures, archaic language and battles galore. This is a thick book, with an intricate plot and fascinating characters that are woven together to create a wonderfully realistic and gritty world in which our heroes must do battle.|isbn=0356514218}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09HTWX47X|title=Endless ObsessionBeginners|author=Dai HenleyOrlando Murrin
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's some years since we last caught up with Andy Flood, formerly Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a DCI residential cookery school in the Met but now a well-respected private investigatorBelgravia. Hedidn's married t really want to Laura, formerly his DS in the Murder Squad but now working in celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a forensics laboratoryway of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. FloodPaul ''somehow'' got the impression that he's daughters, Gemma and Pippa, have flown d be at the nest, Pippa school to Australiaassist Paul, from where she has very little contact with the familywho had a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and Gemma the problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn't expected was for someone to married lifeturn up dead. She's had mental problems since she Unfortunately, he was abducted many years ago but Andy the person who discovered the body and Laura hope everyone knows that married life will provide the support she needs. Flood's business is going well and police consider that was why he felt able person to turn down be the case of Lisa Blackprime suspect.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Peter PapathanasiouSarah Marsh|title=The StoningA Sign of Her Own
|rating=3.5
|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=In After a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparisonbout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a teacher has been transported across town at night world of silence, everything about her life changes. Living in a shopping trolleytime when the use of sign language was seen as something only savages do, and she's been taped Ellen is sent to a tree and school where she's had rocks bowled at her as if is taught to lip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, she were ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the world's tallest cricket stumpsdeaf and using a system called Visible Speech. When she's discovered by At the town gossip everyonesame time, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place Bell is reluctantly home to. An arson attack working on that shows the feeling – other inventions and it's only fairideas, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival a complicated tangle of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law..espionage.|isbn=15294169731035401614
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|isbn=B08Z8BMZ7H1803816759|title=The Mystery of HealingUnravelling|author=A P McGrathWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=Crime (Historical)Science Fiction|summary=We meet Solon in Pergamon in It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the second century wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of the common era adventure and he's to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the physician on duty at the munus - the games put on AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the amusement aftermath of the populacerioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. The remuneration Joe isn't high but the work gives the doctor a feeling of virtue and hones his skills: Solon ''wants'' the warriors only one trying to live. It's quite save Suki - Dylan, a spectacle: the magistri are the charge hands British superfan and when we first see themtech nerd, they're sprinkling gold dust onto is also on the lions' manes to make them look more impressivecase. The sagitarii are the archers and the beastiarii are What went wrong? Did the condemned criminals who are going to fight for their lives with the wild animals. Today, system fail or was ithacked? And how is Suki's the crocodiles.kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall1529421284|title=The Beatryce Prophecy|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises in them'', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group of monks, the Order of Laying Out the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate to find the girl, for it 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 Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?|isbn=1529500893}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09FFJF8YS|title=You Can't Wear Panties! (No More Nappies!)Bones|author=Justine Avery and Kate Zhoidik|rating=3.5|genre=For Sharing|summary=''For the big, grownup girls out there, the potty masters in training, "You Can't Wear Panties!" is a cry (the big-girl kind!) of toilet triumph and persevering panty pride.'' And so it is! This latest book from Justine Avery celebrates a little girl's final goodbye to nappies and pull-ups and graduation to "proper" pants by following her around as she proudly explains to her dog, her cat, her stuffed rabbit and her baby sibling that ''she'' can wear super-duper proper pants, while they cannot. Neither can the flowers, nor the fish, nor the birds. Boy's certainly can't. She's a big girl now and she wants everyone to know it!}} {{Frontpage|author=Nick Lake and Emily Gravett|title=Locked Out LilyWebb
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Lily is, or It wasone of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, or has been, very ill, a human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to give her parents relief shebe Lee Geary, who had disappeared nine years earlier. He's d been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, so it could have been told to stay with her grandma for a few dayssimple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. The parents need Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are connections to the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already suicide of Holly Gilbert and wants nothing to do withtwo other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. But on tracking back home for word of her parents ( Lockyer and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra DC Gemma Broad of her parents, and the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get the family back intact, even if itMajor Crimes Review Unit (that's not the family Lily wants – and all she has cold cases to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse you and Snakeme) investigate.|isbn=1471194833
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Greg James and Chris Smith0571379559|title=The Great Dream RobberyHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Fiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Maya's father 'The House of Broken Bricks'' is a professor who invented an amazing dream machinethe story of four people. But something went wrong Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the house on the riverbank, and now he can't wake upbuilt of broken bricks. Or at least Insubstantial as it might look, thatit's what Maya has been toldstood the passage of time, storms and floods. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friendHer husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleepbring in sufficient money. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams They have twin boys - Sonny and reality collide...reallyMax, the rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage.Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051Xan assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=18004644951529425867|title= 100 Ways in 100 Days to Teach Your Baby Maths: Support All Areas of Your Baby’s Development by Nurturing a Love of MathsLost and Never Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Emma SmithSimon Mason
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-FictionCrime|summary=''Babies seem to be born with an amazing number sense: understanding shapes in the wombIn Oxford, being aware there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is of quantities at seven hours oldNigerian descent, assessing probability at six months oldBalliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and comprehending addition and subtraction at nine months oldfather of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ' Did you know this? I didn't! How about: really''Maths ability on entry to school is a strong predictor his thing) and his wardrobe consists mainly of later achievement, double that of literacy skillsshell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. You might wonder if you' I didn't know this either! I think most parents are aware that giving your children a good start in literacy - reading stories, teaching pen grips, singing rhymes - gives children re being introduced to a solid foundation when they start schoolpolice procedural written for laughs. But do we think the same way about maths Well, beyond counting? I donyou't think we do, in part because so many of us re not. The two men are afraid just different sides of mathsthe same policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. But why are we? Most of us use maths in daily life without realising and Sometimes it follows that giving our children a similar pre-school grounding will be just as beneficial's problematic.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529379385Mosby Woods|title=The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache)|author=Louise PennyA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeLiterary Fiction|summary=In The West isn't the Canadian village of Three Pines, we're post-pandemic: dominant force it once was. Nobody in the scars are still there but life West is starting quite sure how to get back to normalmend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. The villagers Governments are beginning to return to the Bistro and the Aubergeflailing. They're visiting each other's homes and having friends and relatives to stayA war here, a push for climate action there. A young Sudanese woman feeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with precognition. Imagine the strategic advantage in this asset; a man who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is one such visitor and she soon proves that not all saints are necessarily pleasant people to can tell you what will happen given any set of circumstances. That man would be around - a bit like Vincent Gilbertvaluable, known right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in the village as the Asshole Sainthistory. Imagine then, that this man loses this ability.What would governments do to get it back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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