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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09MSC981W0241636604|title=The Woke IliadTrading Game: A Confession|author=George BoreasGary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=Helen is a popular activist. Or should we call her a popular influencer? Or perhaps If you were to bring up an image of a popular franchise owner? Anywaycity banker in your mind, Helen is so popular that the United States government has made her its Ambassador you're unlikely to think of Wokesomeone like Gary Stevenson. Helen runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf of A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the governmentEast End, where he was familiar with violence, including the Shaming Conference poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the Permissible Entertainment Committee London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - ''for indoctrinating and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to have it''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. Ouch!
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09D95TRKZ1035021803|title=The Wedding MurdersAntique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=Sarah LinleyC L Miller|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=Libby Steele was hoping It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to get a permanent job with the newspaper and the case English country village where she was covering was grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her big chancebeloved aunt, Carole. It was even more important Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to her than say the celebrity wedding she least. Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to attend the following day with village: Arthur, she feels, let her ex-rock star boyfriend, Matthewdown badly. She was leaving her seven-year-old sonEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, Patrick with her sister, Emma, and heading off she has not felt able to a grand manor house hotel in be near the man or pursue the North Yorkshire countrysideprofession she loved. Daniel AcroydAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, television presenter met and former member married James (on the rebound from the love of the rock band her life, who was marrying Vicky murdered) and Freya and Libby suspected that the wedding wasn't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phonesJames have now divorced.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838226834AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=Carried Away With the CarnivalAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Ed BoxallBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=It was one ''Opening up new ways of those memories we treasure from our childhoods: an outing with our grandparentsthinking about the shape of things to come. They're there to undo all the good that parents do, so the trips out were always so much fun. A young boy was going to the carnival with his Grandad, who told him:'
I've heard it said that 'Ittechnology'll be brilliantis what happens after you're eighteen. Well, just remember, donI must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it't let go s all getting away from me. Some of my handit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529135362Sunny Singh|title=The Long Weekend|author=Gilly MacmillanHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=It was The Hotel Arcadia is a long drive to the weekend retreat luxury hotel in Northumbria, right up near the Scottish borders and to make it worse the three husbands had all - for one reason or another - had to delay making the trip until the Saturday morningan unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Jane and Ruth had known each other for Hiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a long time but Emily was a bit of an outsider. She wartime photographer and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than Abhi, the other two womenhotel manager. The friendship of As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the group went back to school days. Paul had coached rugby at residents who are still alive in the school where Markhotel, Toby and Rob were pupils. Mark had married Janehe forms a bond with Sam who refuses to be cowed by events, and Toby is Ruthkeeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's husbandhappened through her photography. And Rob? WellAlthough they only ever talk over the phone, Rob's deadtheir friendship grows as Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the terrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=gareth_steel1529153298|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals and Wildlife|summary=I don't often begin my reviews with a warning but with ''Never Work With Animals'' it seems to be appropriate. Stories The List of a vet's life have proved popular since ''All Creatures Great and Small'' but ''Never Work With Animals'' is definitely not the companion volume you've been looking for. As a TV show the author would argue that ''All Creatures'' lacked realism, as do other similar programmes. Gareth Steel says that the book is not suitable for younger readers and - after reading - I agree with him. He says that he's written it to inform and provoke thought, particularly amongst aspiring vets. It deals with some uncomfortable and distressing issues but it doesn't lack sensitivity, although there are occasions when you would be best choosing between reading and eating.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1787634884|title=The HerdSuspicious Things|author=Emily EdwardsJennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Our story opens in December 2019It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, honestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, before most of us had even heard of Covid or realised they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Miv's upset because she's overheard that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come her father wants to be a major issuemove the family 'Down South'. WeWhen you're in Farley County Courtfrom Yorkshire, where Elizabeth and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony and Ash KohliDown South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. As they were For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friends until just a few months ago we know that whatever has happened is major friend, Sharon, and she'll do anything to prevent that, regardless of . She's not worried about the outcome, this is not going dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to work out well for anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Annabel Abbs1398524085|title=The Language of FoodHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French
|rating=5
|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=Eliza Acton is a poet who has Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never had the slightest inclination to boil an eggturned up. When tasked with writing a cookery book Her children, sons Niall, she recruits Ann KirbyPaul and Ollie and her daughter, a local woman with a troubled home lifeEtty. Togetherare all worried but - strangely - her husband, they testAlec, craftis not. Shortly afterwards, refine Etty and reshape Greg, find the world body of domestic cookeryGreg's father, Duncan Ackerley, reinventing in the river. It was an easy assumption for the recipe book police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and changing then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the face of cookery writing foreverguilt. 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=1398502227
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell1035906708|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodDiva|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=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile Lucas and his friends are all booked in the physical form of for a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by movie marathon at their local cinema, a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor place that has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother nickname of the two'The Black Hole'. Loki has a month All big movie fans, they're looking forward to redeem his reputationlots of exciting films, and get his moral compass pointing the right way againmany, or elsemany snacks! However, and to prove it he has to write as the text we read in a sentient notebookmovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is able to cry foul of his liesvery different, and judge his progressthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But Loki is as they lurch from one film genre to the kind of god who insists he next, can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to be a walk in the park...rightcinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=14063997521839942738
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008454442Rachel Greenlaw|title=A Flicker in the Dark|author=Stacy WillinghamCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersTeens|summary=It's May 2019 and Dr Chloe Davis'I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a medical psychologistremote and partially forgotten island, is completing a session with a new patientsurvives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Lacey Mira, like her mother before her, is suffering mentally but Chloe has hopes one of getting her through the traumaseven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that lies within. You seeBut when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, Chloe knows what itthey capture the island's leader and Mira's like father. Desperate to have save him from death, Mira makes a traumatic childhood. Her father bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is Richard Davissecretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the man who murdered six girls some twenty years agosea. Their bodies have never been found but Chloe found some jewellery belonging With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the girls - trophies taken from their bodies - tucked away in a cupboard at home and she and her mother handed it watched streets of foreign islands to the police. Dick Davis is in heart of the Louisiana State Penitentiary and Chloie has had smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to do with him for save the last twenty years. Her mother is in a care future of her homeand the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeJames Sherwood Metts|title=Escape RoomPlanet Storyland|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've seen junior variants of Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by which a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, re paid to do and have other tasks that took time to solve problems in order accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami used to all this technological change and four starting to think of other tweenagers, all new ways to each other spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team – starting out at along with it, all the game's main offices, where many daily social interactions on which they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerdepend so heavily. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?|isbn=17880079641736128426
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1732898731Matthew Tree|title=The Boy Who Loved Boxes: A ChildrenWe's Book for Adults|author=Michael Albanese ll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary=There was Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a Boy who loved boxes. He had a box for everything drunk and he was meticulous about storage: chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his parents probably couldn't believe their luck! It began with art supplies, stuffed toys artistic passions all failed miserably and the like: all the things which most children have in abundancewho had endless crises of self confidence. The Boy's delight was in the sense of order in So Tim applied himself to his room: it made him feel happy. As he grew up and became a Manstudies, cultivated his abilities rather than his life became more complicated and he dealt with this by getting bigger daydreams and better boxes. Look carefully at the pictures and you'll see that one of them has a padlock..set himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09MN1526WA G Slatter|title=Blood Games (DS Nikki Parekh 4)|author=Liz MistryThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=CrimeFantasy|summary=It'' 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 third murder in world, lies Silverton; a town under the space protection of the Briar's, a few weeks and they've all been because family of machetes used on teenagers. DS Nikki Parekh witches who protect the town and DC Sajid Malik are amongst the first to arrive on the scene at Chellow Dene Reservoir on wider world from the outskirts of BradfordDarklands. OnlyThough she has always wished for magic, this time, it's going to be different. The body appears to Nikki Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be that of born into her beloved nephew, Haqib, family for generations and as such since she has was young, her training as a very public meltdownsteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. It isnWhen her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie't Haqib: there are similarities but s cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the body is clad in designer clothes town's leader, and comes from an obviously monied backgroundEllie takes her place beside her. What it does mean though is that Nikki is going As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to be on sick leave for some time communicate with anxiety 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 depressiondetermine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Ally Wilkes1529900360|title=All the White SpacesThe Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=HorrorCrime|summary=In post-WWI EnglandIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Jonathan Morgan stows away Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on an Arctic expedition led by difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the famous Australis Randall. For Jonathan, this adventure represents help of a chance psychologist only worked for a fresh startwhile. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's partner, and who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the opportunity to live life as his authentic self and true gender, without involvement was something that the disapproval and constraints of his parentsman she loved needed. However The next case did look simple, Jonathan isn't though. Two lovers were murdered in the only one fleeing the confines of his past and the shadow swimming pool of the war hangs like a funeral shroud over the expeditionremote property in Bel Air. Guilt, mistrust and grief stalk He was the party heir to an Italian shoe empire and, when disaster strikes and they are forced to overwinter on land, a menacing presence waits to prey on their darkness. If Jonathan she is married to make an extremely rich man and it out 's not the Italian. But which of them was the Arctic winter alive, he will have to face his demons once and for all, or risk making the barren, icy landscape his tomb.|isbn=1789097835primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Dean Koontz1529395224|title=QuicksilverLetting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=23.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=Meet Quinn QuicksilverSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. He His father was a GP and Rowlands didn's not had the chance t want to get to be a mercurial character yetfollow in his footsteps, for particularly when he's lived in a nunconsidered the strain that being on-run orphanage since he was a three-day old foundling, and now is starting a career call put on a needless magazinehis father's stafflife. But when this book starts When he was seventeen he IS now ''subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind'', for something – call it unearthly intuition, call it mind-control, call it a supernatural urge – has demanded took the opportunity of him that he go to doing work experience with a derelict diner, find a gold coin worth family friend who was a fortune, cash the value of it out of his bank vet and prepare for going on was convinced this was the lam. And all this is just in time job for two of those typical Men in Black types to turn up and suggest he's of interest to themhim. Helped to escape Before long, he finds was at Liverpool University. It hadn't - as with so many students - been his flight is interrupted by other instances of him acting without being in controldream since he was a child. If anything, the discovery that he is not unique in having some kind of burgeoning power – and 'd wanted to be a whole lot more besidesprofessional footballer.|isbn=1542019885
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00084416180861541774|title=Other ParentsA Nye of Pheasants|author=Sarah StovellSteve Burrows|rating=54|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Jo Fairburn knew that she was under intense pressure as the new head of West Burntridge First School: if she didnDCI Domenic Jejeune't live s close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up to her retired predecessor there could well be with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a house price slump in street brawl - he would later maintain that part of the townhe was facing a man armed with a knife - and he killed a Ghurka. The school had an active Parent Teacher Association and the funds which they raised were Initially, he faced a considerable benefit charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the schoolman. There was one difficulty, though - they were ''devastatingly shockable'', with two members, in particular, causing problems for Now he could be facing the headdeath penalty. Laura Spence and Kate Monroe objected Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to Jo's restrictions on the toys children help as any interference from another police force could bring in on Toy Day but that was just provoke a warm-up act for their real gripe: LGBTQ educationdiplomatic incident and wouldn't help Danny at all.
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Ann JuckesAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Hunt for the NightingalePerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Jasper The Perfect Passion Company is a little boy who has some strugglesdating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and whilst we're never told why exactlyoperating as an alternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, we can see that he tailored service. Ness has anxiety asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and panic attackslook after the business, and has difficulty dealing as Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. Katie is coming out of a break up with change a bad boyfriend, and big emotionsso jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. His big sister And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, Rosiebringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, has been a huge support thanks to him, talking him down when things were difficult, encouraging him44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, and writing a book but with him, all about birds, that he can read when he gets scared some new characters who quickly begin to help him calm downcharm. His parents seem completely caught up Katie has no experience in their running a business, and so it is Rosie he always turns to. Even though she has gone away to University nowor in match-making, she but Ness has promised him that she will still be there when he needs full confidence in her. But now he can't find Rosie. She hasn't come home when she said she wouldabilities, and she isnthere't answering s always her phone. His parents won't speak to him or when they do, he doesn't understand or take in what they're saying. Nothing seems to be rightvery helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, and the only way he feels he can find any peace is if he can find RosieWilliam, and if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, as they do together every Spring.lend a hand…|isbn=13985108901846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Antoine Laurain, Le Sonneur and Jane Aitken (translator)0811771741|title=Red is My HeartInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=3.54|genre=Literary Fiction Crafts|summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 'long, cosy afternoons in my housefront of the fire' variety. And so was this one The projects are divided by the time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one wasfive to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and ismore than twenty hours. All the projects are attractive, black modern and white and reduseable. Yes, he has an artistic collaborator on this piece, and I perhaps show my age when I think itwonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's possible to say not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideasme being picky.|isbn=1913547183
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|isbnauthor=1529135567Dean Koontz|title=One Step Too Far|author=Lisa GardnerThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=It's five years since the stag weekendBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Five of them had set out: Tim (the groom) and He loses his four groomsmenjob, Scot, Miguel (who was usually called Miggy)he loses his fiancee, Neil and Joshhis house gets trashed. The first night they had plenty of alcohol - too much Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin- sized object to his home, and in it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the night Scot managed thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to wander offdeserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. The remaining four searched A really nice person. So fortunately for him in vain and Benny it was decided turns out that Timthe delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who was experienced in survival techniques, would go has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for helpbeing a good person. When help didn't come the remaining three finally made their way back Spike is going to town. Scott followed soon after but there was no sign take care of Tim. Every yearBenny, Timand will certainly take care of Benny's fatherenemies, Martinif he, Benny, and the four friends have been back to continue the search although they do now acknowledge that Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they're looking for 'remains' rather than for Timare.|isbn=1662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Gunnar StaalesenAdam Stower|title=Bitter FlowersMurray and Bun|rating=34.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=Varg Veum Murray is supposed to be a Norwegian Private Investigator humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who has just finished a stint in rehab and is now returning able to work. Howeversleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the quiet job two. But he's supposedly taken on caretaking someonea bad magician's house quickly turns cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a murder investigationhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and a mystery around a missing woman. Varg finds himself the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not only investigating theseinto the regular back garden, but also looking into an olda world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, cold case of an eight year old girl who disappeared one night and much bigger than Murray was never found. Somehow, these disparate cases appear to be linkedhonest, but what is the link, he's turned up and how can Varg possibly unravel the truth?he'll have to do…|isbn=191319308X0008561249
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kia AhankoobB0C47LV1PC|title=The Gold Lion and the Tournament of SentinelsFragility|author=Mosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic NovelsLiterary Fiction|summary= When Myriad created Duniva he endowed his children with different powersCan you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, each with its own strength and weakenessis the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, in would it land? The catch is that the hope they would complement each other and collaborate, creating a dynamic and prosperous societyanswer for both could well be. Each power is contained within a magical ring belonging to one of eight countries led by Myriad's children and their descendants. But it didn't quite work out like that. Rivalries developed. Enmities grew out of them and the eight countries went to warno. Having fought themselves into an endless and ruinous stalemate and finding  ''Fragility'' is set as the cost of war too high, a solution is proposed. Each city of the eight countries will send their greatest warriorsPortland, known as sentinelsOregon, cautiously begins to a single combat tournament. The winner will take possession of all emerge from the rings and become restrictions imposed during the supreme ruler of Duniva.|isbn=B09MMQJFPVcovid pandemic
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|authorisbn=Alastair Chisholm and Eric Deschamps1529431735|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and IronskinThe Winter Visitor|author=James Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Tomas. Happy to work with his father in the blacksmith's forge, he's almost of the age to become a full apprentice, and help with the new batch of dragonswords is certainly needed. Not that there are any dragons, of course – they vanished centuries ago. Except... Strange signals from within the forge furnace, and a peculiar invite to become an apprentice clerk instead, are things for Tom to puzzle over – until it all comes out in the wash, that yes dragons do still exist in this world, and that Tom is rare in the ability to summon them, share magical attributes, and ride with them...
|isbn=1839940026
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529346541
|title=Something to Hide: An Inspector Lynley Novel
|author=Elizabeth George
|rating=5
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's late July February 1991 and Deborah St James Essex is at bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins' return all the more surprising. He'd been exiled on the Costa del Sol as a meeting with Dominique Shaw, Undersecretary wanted drug smuggler for the school system, a representative decade. The return has come about because he's had a letter from the NHShis ex-wife, Mr Oh from Barnardos, someone from Orchid House whose name saying that she didn's ill and hasn't catch but would later turn out long to be Zawadi and Narissa Cameron, a filmmakerlive. It follows on from the success of Deborah's book ''London Voices'': the meeting hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is an exploration of abducted, stripped to his underwear and sent to a watery grave in the possibility boot of the idea behind the book being used to highlight an area which is causing concern in some communitiesa stolen Ford Sierra. Deborah's uncertain about quite how successful she could be as the Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem seems to occur in Nigerian and Somali communities as she relies on getting the trust of the people she speaks closer to and photographs.home?
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|isbnauthor=B09Q3P283YAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Shadebringer|author=Grayson W HooperThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers|summary=Clyde Robbins signs up for Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the US Army during evening a helper at the Vietnam Wardessert cafe his gran owns and runs. He's not really that invested in the fight against Communism Eli lives with his lovely gran, nor too – for there is he particularly interested in a career generation missing in the militaryfamily. If he A few short years ago, Eli's honest - which Clyde usually isparents were both lost to the titular race, with himself at least a globe- he hasn't got many choices and this one, at least, gets him out of trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the rut he's world inthe company of a magical beast. He's good in training and This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is quickly put onto a non commissioned officer training course. He's chuffed to dare to enter what he most hates, with himselfthe sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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|authorisbn=Lucy Strange and Pam Smy178763681X|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondKnife Skills for Beginners|author=Orlando Murrin|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=There is no mermaid Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in the millpondBelgravia. That at least is He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a way of getting both men and women to do what Bess is telling herselfhe wanted. Neither will there Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be a friend for her in amongst all at the other kidsschool to assist Paul, who have had their entire childhoods sold to a broken arm, but it didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and the millproblems -owners by the London workhouse they used to call homeare all his own. Bess knows there is no time The one thing he hadn't expected was for friendship in a hand-someone to-mouthturn up dead. Unfortunately, every man for himself kind of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit in he was the person who discovered the slight little Dot, body and despite everything everyone knows that the police consider that life has taught her about betrayal and how befriending people only leads person to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in the tired-out mill workersprime suspect. But surely that doesn't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid?|isbn=180090049X
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1785633074Sarah Marsh|title=Staggering Hubris|author=Josh BerryA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Members After a bout of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politiciansscarlet fever as a child, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a world of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the governmentsilence, everything about her life changes. We are Living in a time when the privileged position use of having access sign language was seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to a school where she is taught to the memoirs of Rafe Hubrislip read, but physically restrained from signing. From here, the man she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who was behind has been teaching the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020deaf and using a system called Visible Speech. You might not know At the name now but he will certainly be the man to watchsame time, Bell is working on other inventions and ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of espionage.|isbn=1035401614
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09MYXSRV41803816759|title=Otter's Coat: The Real Reason Turtle Raced Rabbit: A Cherolachian Tortoise and HareUnravelling|author=Cordellya SmithWill Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=When It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the world was made, the animals were given giftswealthy and peaceful New York City. Bear was given strength so that he could become Joe longs for a protectorbit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. Water Spider received a strong web But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that even fire could not burnnow runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. Owl had excellent sight so that he could see In the aftermath of the present ''rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped andJoe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn'' t the future. Rabbit developed intelligence only one trying to save Suki - butDylan, unfortunatelya British superfan and tech nerd, not is also on the ability to use it wellcase. He liked to trick other animals. He was also jealous which What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how he came to be in a race with Turtle. You might think thatis Suki's not a fair contest but wait and see. Things are not always as they seem. I'll tell you how it came about.kidnapping connected?
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Giovanna Fletcher1529421284|title=Walking on SunshineLaying Out the Bones|author=Kate Webb|rating=4.5|genre=Women's FictionCrime|summary=Mike's wifeIt was one of those flash downpours that the British weather often delivers in a heatwave. In a gully, Piaa human skeleton came to the surface and forensic testing proved the body to be Lee Geary, who he was with for seventeen had disappeared nine yearsearlier. He'd been a known drug user and had learning disabilities, has diedso it could have been a simple case of misadventure but DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. And whilst he is dealing with his grief Geary was a townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? There are their best friends, Vicky and Zaza. But Pia left them all some 'rules' connections to follow, knowing that she was dying the suicide of Holly Gilbert and that they would need help to carry on livingtwo other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the time. Whilst some Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad of the rules are around practicalities such as clearing out her wardrobe, another one Major Crimes Review Unit (that Mike discovers one day encourages him to take one of their trips away, and Vicky and Zaza, struggling with their grief and their own life troubles, decide 's cold cases to drop everything in their own lives, you and go along with himme) investigate.|isbn=140593560X
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15293939300571379559|title=Making a Living: How to Craft Your BusinessThe House of Broken Bricks|author=Sophie RochesterFiona Williams
|rating=5
|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=''Starting a creative business has never been easier.The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story of four people. Tess Hembry''If not nows roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, when?'' I know that I'm not alone she lives in having wondered whether or not I could turn my hobby into a businessthe house on the riverbank, built of broken bricks. ThereInsubstantial as it might look, it's a lot stood the passage of motivation to do so: I make more items than we can sensibly use time, storms and there are a lot of people who have been delighted to accept what I make as giftsfloods. Selling would offset the costsHer husband, Richard, which can be quite considerable and it could be fun struggles to dogrow his vegetables, couldn't it? But where to start? What do I need complete the delivery rounds - and to think about? bring in sufficient money. WellThey have twin boys - Sonny and Max, the first thing anyone who is considering turning a crafting hobby into a business should do is to read rainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they'Making a Livingre related, much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is out with his mother that she's his nanny.
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Freya Marske1529425867|title=Lost and Never Found (A Marvellous LightD I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Simon Mason|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=Robin Blyth In Oxford, there are two D I Wilkins. Raymond Wilkins is nudged into of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and father of Ryan, is not. He's not any of those things. He's white, originated from a job in the Civil Servicetrailer park, much to barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his chagrin. There he meets Edwin Courcey thing) and learns that the streets his wardrobe consists mainly of London are threaded with magicshell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or acid yellow. Desperate You might wonder if you're being introduced to remove a curse that threatens to swallow himpolice procedural written for laughs. Well, Robin follows Edwin to you're not. The two men are just different sides of the countryside, where same policing coin. Sometimes the hedgegrows bristle with incantations and the people shimmer with powercombination works brilliantly well. There they uncover a sinister plot that threatens the lives of all magicians in the British Isles Sometimes it's problematic. |isbn=1529080886
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241480442Mosby Woods|title=Healthy Vegan The Cookbook: Vegan Cooking Meets Nutrition Science|author=Niko Rittenau and Sebastian CopienA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=Emotionally, I am a veganThe West isn't the dominant force it once was. Nobody in the West is quite sure how to mend this or even if mending it is the best course of action. Governments are flailing. MentallyA war here, I am a veganpush for climate action there. I read [[How to Love Animals A feeling that nobody is in a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance]] and was appalled by the way in which we treat animals in our search for (preferably cheap) foodactual charge. PracticallyImagine then, I am not there was a veganman with precognition. It worked for a while apart from Imagine the odd blip with regard to cheese but then strategic advantage in this asset; a perfect storm man who can tell you what will happen given any set of those events which you hope don't occur too often circumstances. That man would be valuable, right? Perhaps the most valuable asset in your lifetime tempted me back to animal-based proteinhistory. It wasn't the taste - I know Imagine then, that I can this man loses this ability. What would governments do to get plant-based food that tastes just as good as anything plundered from the animal kingdom - it was the ease of being able to get sufficient protein when meals were often snatched in a few spare moments.back?|isbn=B0C9SNG8R1
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