Changes

|authorisbn=Vanda Symon0241636604|title=FacelessThe Trading Game: A Confession|author=Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersAutobiography|summary=In this book told from multiple viewpoints, several troubled people are thrown into the same story thanks If you were to just one mis-step. Set in New Zealand, the first bring up an image of our characters is Bradley, a middle aged man struggling with an overbearing bosscity banker in your mind, a weighty mortgage, and what he feels is an unappreciative wife. Then there’s Billy, a homeless teenage girl who is a street artist working as a prostitute sometimes in order you're unlikely to pay for the materials she needsthink of someone like Gary Stevenson. And then we have Max, who is also living on A hoodie and jeans replaces the streets pin-stripe suit and who keeps an eye on Billy. He his background is a shell of a manthe East End, barely able to take any care of himself, and yet we can sense that where he was once something more than he is now. One nightfamiliar with violence, Bradley finds himself half-crazed with stress poverty and anxiety, driving down the street looking for a prostituteinjustice. He picks up Billy, and then with one thoughtless decision finds There was no posh public school on his life thrown into turmoil and a spiral away from the person CV - but he thought he was into someone very different.|isbn=1914585046}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0760373531|title=Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around had been to the World|author=Sue Flanders|rating=5|genre=Crafts|summary=Just occasionally you encounter a book London School of knitting patterns which seems to meet your every needEconomics. Right now, it's bitterly cold Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and we're in the sandwich filling between two storms: I need socks, scarves, hats and mittenshe has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. They have He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to look stylish, keep me warm and be so cheerful that they make me feel betterstupid. If that sounds like a lot to askIt was his ability at what was, essentially, have a look at ''Cozy Knits'': it has thirty designs for those necessary items and I don't think that there was one of them card game which I couldn't see myself wearing. We start got him an internship with an introduction by Nancy Bush which gives some of the history of knittingCitibank. It's not essential but it's Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a nice extratrader.

|isbn=17765740281035021803|title=Bumblebee Grumblebee|author=David Elliott|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=I love a good board book! ''Bumblebee Grumblebee'' is aimed at quite a niche market: itThe Antique Hunter's for the child who still enjoys board books (er, see my first sentence) but has mastered sufficient language skills Guide to have realise that you can ''play'' with words and make something quite different from each one. We have the elephant who dons a tutu - and becomes a ''balletphant''. The buffalo who has had a bath (complete with yellow duck) and then dries off with a hair drier becomes a ''fluffalo''. The rhinoceros who drops his ice cream cone is a ''crynoceros'' (think about it!) The pelican who sits on his potty changes into a ''sm.......'' OK, let's not go there Some people are eating!}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09V1NQ5SX|title=Death at Friar's InnMurder|author=Rob KeeleyC L Miller|rating=43.5

|summary=Nat Webber and Tom Barton were in the finals of the Moots to take place at The Honourable Society of FriarIt's Inntwenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. For aspiring barristers, moots test the participantsShe' knowledge s back now because of several areas of law as well as their advocacy skills: it's a great way of getting invaluable practice and of getting yourself noticedrequest for help from her beloved aunt, Carole. Tom Freya's former mentor and Nat are from 'a provincial universityCarole' s close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and they're ''almost'' looked 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 on because of thisbadly. The other contestants - Becca Decker-Hamilton and Lucia 'Mouse' Dawes have no such disadvantage and Becca Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has an abundance of confidencenot felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Tom's £30 supermarket suit doesn't make him feel any betterAfter the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and James have now divorced.

|isbn=1529125944AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=City of the DeadAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Jonathan KellermanBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=CrimeScience Fiction|summary=When you drive large vehicles for a living, you're careful and it's not just Opening up new ways of thinking about the way shape of things to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you drive're eighteen. You restrict your alcohol intake and if itWell, I 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 a trip advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that needs overnight stays you make certain you get your sleep. When youit're taking a removals truck through a residential neighbourhood you head off at 5 as all getting away from me.mSome of it is - frankly - quite frightening. when Of course, I could research the roads are quieter, even if you have to wait possibilities and the probabilities and end up when you get to where youdown rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're going. And it was going well until talking about or the men hit something in Westwood Village, an upmarket neighbourhood of Los Angeleslatest conspiracy theorist. The man was stark naked I needed people I knew I could trust and couldn't be identifiedwho could deliver information in a way I could understand.

|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)Sunny Singh|title=I May Be WrongHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre= AutobiographyThrillers |summary= When The Hotel Arcadia is a luxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispieceterrorists who are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there is Sam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, I'm inclined to think it doesn't really matter how the rest of the world responds to your bookhotel manager. I know, having read As Abhi continues to try to care remotely for the book residents who are still alive in questionthe hotel, that Lindeblad would disagree he forms a bond with that thoughtSam who refuses to be cowed by events, and keeps on venturing out of her room to try to capture what's happened through her photography. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how the rest of Although they only ever talk over the world responds to this bookphone, because it tells the truth their friendship grows as it is, in Abhi tries to help her keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the early 21st centuryterrorists.|isbn=1526644827086154742X

|isbn=B0949Q1DC11529153298|title=The Patient (A DS Cross thriller)List of Suspicious Things|author=Tim SullivanJennie Godfrey

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=DS George Cross has an autistic spectrum disorder, quite probably AspergerIt's Syndrome1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. He can be rude(A woman? I mean, difficult and awkward with people, although ithonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's never intentionalfamily, though. ItWomen have been disappearing. Well, they've been murdered, but to have 'disappeared's just that he thinks differently and social niceties simply dondoesn't occur to himsound quite so frightening. ThereMiv's a reason why heupset because she's in Bristoloverheard that her father wants to move the family 's Major Crime Unit and itDown South'. When you's that he has re from Yorkshire, Down South is a frightening, foreign place, best avoided. For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best conviction rate with casesfriend, Sharon, everand she'll do anything to prevent that. His partner is DS Josie Ottey: she regards Cross with affection (She's not an emotion he would recognise, worried about the dangers or welcome being attached to himself) and even attempts to instil some of those missing social niceties into Crossthat her Mum's behaviourstopped talking - to anyone.

|isbn=15291516001398524085|title=Give Unto OthersHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Donna LeonNicci French

|summary=Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changedCharlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. The ''pandemia'' stripped the city of its tourists for nearly two years Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and a lot of businesses have closedher daughter, most never to reopenEtty. There's now a cascade of money as life begins again are all worried but even 125- strangely - her husband,000 deaths have Alec, is not put an end to greed. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth are they going to launder all Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, find the money which is coming their way? Whilst hebody of Greg's thinking about thisfather, Duncan Ackerley, Brunetti encounters someone in the river. It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when hecouldn's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he was a childt stand the guilt. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem and she'd like BrunettiThe Salter children are not convinced but there's advicelittle else they can do but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened.

|authorisbn=Marcus Sedgwick1035906708|title=WrathDiva|author=Daisy Goodwin

|genre=TeensGeneral Fiction|summary=Meet Fitz, a young Scottish lad full We tend to think of frustration at himself. Lockdown is only just overMaria Callas as Greek, and he should be free but she was born to do what he wantsGreek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to go where he wants and with whom he wants, Athens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but he cannot stop himself from putting his foot in her father changed it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie'Callas' to make it more manageable in the States. They were half of a desultory school band, but Cassie When she was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying back in Athens - supposedly so that she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of get appropriate training for her ecovoice -warrior parents saying the end of she was raised under the world is already Nazi occupation by a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Wellher preference for her elder sister, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't..Jackie.|isbn=1800900899

|isbnauthor=1635864070Christopher Edge|title=Knit 2 Socks in 1|author=Safiyyah TalleyBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=CraftsConfident Readers|summary=If you've ever started knitting Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a pair place that has the nickname of socks'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, finished the first one and either got bored by the idea they're looking forward to lots of doing the same thing all over againexciting films, or started on the second sock and lost many, many snacks! However, as the first before you finished itmovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the book for you. Where next, can they figure out what on earth is it that single socks go to hidegoing on? Safiyyah Talley has developed a system that allows you Will they ever get back to knit two socks in onethe cinema, divide them up and have a perfectly finished pair of socks. Sounds goodto their real lives? It's clever and well-thought-out.|isbn=1839942738

|author=Olivie BlakeRachel Greenlaw|title=The Atlas SixCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=FantasyTeens|summary= Dark''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. Mira, sharplike her mother before her, is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and highly inquisitiveany treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's leader and Mira'The Atlas Six'' s father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensationbargain 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 lies buried deep in the sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to the heart of the smuggler's territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=15290952390008664730

|isbnauthor=0008384983James Sherwood Metts|title=The Paris Apartment|author=Lucy FoleyPlanet Storyland

|genre=ThrillersConfident Readers|summary=''Things are not what have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they seem''re paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. It was a Friday Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and Jess Hadley was keen starting to get think of other, new ways to her half-brother's flat in Paris. She'd come across from London on Eurostarspend time, courtesy of the money she'd stolen from The Pervert's till in the Copacabana Bar in Brightonalong came an awful pandemic. It wasn't likely that the police would be on to her yet but she'd like to be somewhere safe Life was pretty much shut down and , along with food and drink inside her. She'd phoned Ben and got it, all the address - 12 Rue des Amants - and he told her that the apartment was many daily social interactions on the third floor. She's outside what's obviously a very upmarket building but she hasn't been able to get in touch with Benwhich they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426

|isbnauthor=0760373558Matthew Tree|title=Nordic Knits|author=Sue FlandersWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=CraftsLiterary Fiction|summary=I was so delighted by Sue Flanders' [[Cozy Knits: 30 HatTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, Mitten, Scarf a drunk and Sock Projects from Around the World by Sue Flanders|Cozy Knits]] that I didn't need chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any persuading at of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself to pick up her ''Nordic Knits''. This delivers forty-four patterns inspired by textiles and local traditions from Norwayhis studies, Sweden cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and Iceland. There are a few sweaters or jackets set himself high but the majority of patterns are for smaller items such as mittens, gloves, hats and bags. All are bright and cheerful and very cosyachievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8

|isbnauthor=1916072038A G Slatter|title=The House in Briar Book of the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie CresswellDead|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionFantasy|summary=We meet '' There's a part of the Talbot family in Yorkshire in November 1811me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home This secret magic of my own, all mine, at Ecklington, last. I just want to the house in the hollowenjoy it for a while. The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn is well aware of her mother's strengths and weaknesses:'

''She is practiced at subterfugeWithin a remote mountain pass, at concealingfar away from the world, beneath lies Silverton; a facade town under the protection of respectabilitythe Briar's, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the deplorable truth''Darklands. Hester Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is furious about Jocelyn's refusal the first non-witch to do be born into her family for generations and as such since she was askedyoung, which has precipitated 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'this violent s leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, right and unexpected removal'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 Ghost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman|rating=4|genre=CrimeThen we are told of |summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on difficult cases. His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn't need the birth help of a child andpsychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, soon afterDelaware's partner, Hester Talbot departswho nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The next case did look simple, leaving Jocelyn though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in shame Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and isolation in Yorkshireit's not the Italian. But which of them was the primary target?

|authorisbn=Matthieu Aikins1529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Naked Don't Fear the WaterSecret Life of a Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=Politics Animals and SocietyWildlife|summary=ItSiôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. His father was a GP and Rowlands didn's easy t want to forget at times follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that The Naked Donbeing on-call put on his father't Fear s life. When he was seventeen he took the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like opportunity of doing work experience with a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen family friend who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts was a vast vet and was convinced this was the job for him. Before long, he was at times painful journeyLiverpool University. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it It hadn's written t - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader child. If anything, he'd wanted to perfectly envisage the environments and people describedbe a professional footballer.|isbn= B09N9157T6

|authorisbn=Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger0861541774|title=Unhinged (Volume 3) (Blix and Ramm)A Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=4.5

|summary=This is the third book DCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, Danny Maik, has taken a short holiday in Singapore to meet up with an old ally, Guy Trueman. Maik was involved in a series of stories featuring Alexander Blix, street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a police officer, knife - and Emma Ramm, he killed a crime journalistGhurka. In this book we find that when one of Blix's colleaguesInitially, Kovic, uncovers he faced a connection between several Oslo cases, she tries charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to contact her superior, Blixmurder the man. Before she can reach him, however, she is murdered, and Blix's daughter Iselin who shares Now he could be facing the same apartment, narrowly escapes being murdered toodeath penalty. We then find ourselves Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a few days later with Blix diplomatic incident and Ramm, who are being interviewed by the National Criminal Investigation Service because Blix has shot and killed someone, and Ramm saw it wouldn't help Danny at all happen. What had Kovic discovered? And what did Blix and Ramm uncover that led to Blix killing someone?|isbn=1914585003

|author=Daniel AbrahamAlexander McCall Smith|title=Age of AshThe Perfect Passion Company

|genre=FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary= We meet Alys under The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the most northerly of Oldgate's four bridgesonline apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. she Ness has a knife in asked her hand younger cousin Katie if she could come and a meeting that she dreads. Meanwhilelook after the business, the City of Kithamar as Ness is at planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a point in the turning of years when the worlds are at their thinnest and all things are possiblewhile. It Katie is the night between the funeral coming out of a Prince break up with a bad boyfriend, and so jumps at the chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the coronation of his successorIsabel Dalhousie novels, but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. For Katie has no experience in running a night the Kithamar is unbusiness, or in match-ruled.making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, to lend a hand…|isbn=03565154271846976596

|isbn=15290955220811771741|title=The InterviewInstaKnits for Baby|author=C M EwanMelissa Leapman

|genre=ThrillersCrafts|summary=Kate Harding is going Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for an interview for her dream job at Edge CommunicationsBaby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to blankets. It Some will be quick knits - others are of the 's the last interview long, cosy afternoons in front of the day at one of Londonfire's newest office buildings and Edge have fitted out their part of variety. The projects are divided by the building time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to be something specialtwenty hours and more than twenty hours. Maggie All the projects are attractive, Katemodern and useable. I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's recruitment agentme being picky.}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, is keen and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to see his home, and it's possible that Kate approaches whoever or whatever was inside is the interview in a good state of mind: Kate assumes thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is because Maggie will get a decent bonus if Kate gets nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the job - and she has delivery to admit that life his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has not been easy sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for her recentlybeing a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491

|isbnauthor=B097XNMCRKAdam Stower|title=The Blood Tide (DS Max Craigie)|author=Neil LancasterMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers |summary=Loch Torridon ''Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who isable to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician' s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the back of beyond: there's catflap they both use can chuck them out, not even any light pollution which is why it was into the perfect place to land illegal deliveries regular back garden, but into a world of drugsfrightening adventure and whiffs. Jimmy McLeish thought that he was onto This time round it drops them into a nice little earnerViking land, only to find that Maccawhere a troll hunter is expected – well, the man he thought he one much bigger than Murray was working with, is dead. His remains would never to be found. The delivery is hijacked by Davie honest, but he's turned up and Callum. As the story progresses wehe'll get have to know them quite well.do…|isbn=0008561249

|isbn= B09NDJ77LMB0C47LV1PC|title=Me and My ShadowFragility|author=Deborah StoneMosby Woods

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary= Can you make a ''Yo birthing person''What happens when someone is pushed too far and they begin to lose their grip on realityjoke? How would you cope And if you felt that no one loved could, is the question should youmake it? And how far Or is the question if you did, would you go to be happyit land? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off The catch is that the shadows of her past and attempts to repair decades worth of painanswer for both could well be.... no.''

Rachel ''Fragility'' is in a current conversation with her psychiatristset as the city of Portland, who pushes her Oregon, cautiously begins to recall her life emerge from very young childhood onwards. But Rachel is combative with Doctor Blake, sometimes even contemptuous of her. You can see that it's not an easy therapeutic relationship. Rachel's recall of her life is in remarkable detail. She remembers each minor slight and each major betrayal in perfect detail with absolute and unforgiving clarity.the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

|isbn=15294096591529431735|title=The Locked Room (Dr Ruth Galloway)Winter Visitor|author=Elly GriffithsJames Henry|rating=54

|summary=It was some time since her father had remarried but his wife was now keen to do some decorating 's February 1991 and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her motherEssex is bitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins's belongingsreturn all the more surprising. She was intrigued by He'd been exiled on the discovery of Costa del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. The return has come about because he's had a picture of her own house: it was an old photographletter from his ex-wife, taken in misty conditions saying that she's ill and on the back it said hasn'dawn 1963', some years before Ruth was bornt long to live. It was before her parents were married. When she returned 's hard to Norfolk she was determined feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to find out what was behind the photograph but Covid intervened his underwear and the country was sent to a watery grave in lockdown. Ruth and Kate are restricted to the cottage with Ruth attempting to home school Kate and continue with her university teaching dutiesboot of a stolen Ford Sierra. The good thing was meeting Zoe, the new tenant Is it a warning from next door whom they got a Spanish gang or a problem closer to know whilst clapping for carers.home?

|isbnauthor=1847941834Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers|summary=I've said this before but there are some books that you seek outEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read themin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, liketoo – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, right now! ''Atomic Habits'Eli' s parents were both lost to the titular race, 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 pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is in to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the last categoryonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231

|isbn=B09MSC981W178763681X|title=The Woke IliadKnife Skills for Beginners|author=George BoreasOrlando Murrin

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Helen is Chef Paul Delamare took a popular activistteaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. Or should we call her He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had a popular influencer? Or perhaps way of getting both men and women to do what he wanted. Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the school to assist Paul, who had a popular franchise owner? Anywaybroken arm, Helen is so popular but it didn't turn out that the United States government has made her its Ambassador of Wokeway. Helen runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf of the government, including the Shaming Conference The teaching - and the Permissible Entertainment Committee problems - are all his own. The one thing he hadn''t expected was for indoctrinating someone to turn up dead. Unfortunately, he was the person who discovered the body and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how everyone knows that the police consider that person to have it''be the prime suspect. Ouch!

|isbnauthor=B09D95TRKZSarah Marsh|title=The Wedding Murders|author=Sarah LinleyA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersGeneral Fiction|summary=Libby Steele was hoping to get After a bout of scarlet fever as a child, Ellen Lark loses her hearing. Suddenly plunged into a permanent job with the newspaper and the case she was covering was world of silence, everything about her big chancelife changes. It Living in a time when the use of sign language was even more important seen as something only savages do, Ellen is sent to her than the celebrity wedding a school where she was is taught to attend the following day with her ex-rock star boyfriendlip read, Matthewbut physically restrained from signing. She was leaving her seven-year-old son, Patrick with her sister, EmmaFrom here, she ends up in another school studying under Alexander Graham Bell who has been teaching the deaf and heading off to using a grand manor house hotel in the North Yorkshire countrysidesystem called Visible Speech. Daniel AcroydAt the same time, television presenter Bell is working on other inventions and former member ideas, and Ellen finds herself unwittingly caught up in a complicated tangle of the rock band was marrying Vicky and Libby suspected that the wedding wasn't ''quite'' as high-profile as had been suggested as there was no ban on photos or phonesespionage.|isbn=1035401614

|isbn=18382268341803816759|title=Carried Away With the CarnivalThe Unravelling|author=Ed BoxallWill Gibson

|genre=For SharingScience Fiction|summary=It was one 's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of those memories we treasure from our childhoods: an outing adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with our grandparents. They're there to undo all the good AI system that parents donow runs everything, making life easier for many, so the trips out were always so much funand riots start to spread. A young boy was going Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the carnival with his Grandad, who told him: rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn''It'll be brilliantt the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, just remembera British superfan and tech nerd, don't let go of my handis also on the case.What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki''s kidnapping connected?

|isbn=15291353621529421284|title=The Long WeekendLaying Out the Bones|author=Gilly MacmillanKate Webb

|genre=ThrillersCrime|summary=It was a long drive to one of those flash downpours that the weekend retreat British weather often delivers in Northumbriaa heatwave. In a gully, right up near a human skeleton came to the Scottish borders surface and forensic testing proved the body to make it worse the three husbands be Lee Geary, who had all - for one reason or another - had to delay making the trip until the Saturday morningdisappeared nine years earlier. Jane He'd been a known drug user and Ruth had known each other for learning disabilities, so it could have been a long time simple case of misadventure but Emily DI Matt Lockyer wasn't convinced. Geary was a bit of an outsider. townie, so what was he doing out on Salisbury Plain alone? She and Paul had married only relatively recently and she was ten years younger than There are connections to the other two women. The friendship suicide of the group went back Holly Gilbert and to school days. Paul had coached rugby two other deaths which were not considered suspicious at the school where Mark, Toby and Rob were pupilstime. Mark had married Jane, and Toby is Ruth's husband. And Rob? Well, Rob's dead.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=gareth_steel|title=Never Work With Animals|author=Gareth Steel|rating=4|genre=Animals Lockyer 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 DC Gemma Broad 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 Major Crimes Review Unit (that he's written it cold cases 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 eatingme) investigate.

|isbn=17876348840571379559|title=The HerdHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Emily EdwardsFiona Williams

|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Our ''The House of Broken Bricks'' is the story opens of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in December 2019Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, before most of us had even heard she lives in the house on the riverbank, built of Covid or realised that whether or not we should be vaccinated would come to be a major issuebroken bricks. WeInsubstantial as it might look, it're in Farley County Courts stood the passage of time, where Elizabeth storms and Jack Chamberlain are facing Bryony floods. Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the delivery rounds - and Ash Kohlito bring in sufficient money. As they were best friends until just a few months ago we know that whatever has happened is major They have twin boys - Sonny and thatMax, regardless of the outcomerainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's Jamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, this much less twins and there's an assumption when Max is not going to work out well for anyonewith his mother that she's his nanny.

|authorisbn=Annabel Abbs1529425867|title=The Language of Food|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Eliza Acton is a poet who has never had the slightest inclination to boil an egg. When tasked with writing a cookery book, she recruits Ann Kirby, a local woman with a troubled home life. Together, they test, craft, refine Lost and reshape the world of domestic cookery, reinventing the recipe book and changing the face of cookery writing forever.|isbn=1398502227}}{{FrontpageNever Found (A D I Wilkins Mystery)|author=Louie Stowell|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodSimon Mason

|genre=Confident ReadersCrime|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble againIn Oxford, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banishedare two D I Wilkins. And transformed – for Loki Raymond Wilkins is spending a month both in exile of Nigerian descent, Balliol educated and always exquisitely dressed. D I Ryan Wilkins, son of Ryan and in the physical form father of a middle-school kid here on EarthRyan, is not. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother not any of the twothose things. Loki has He's white, originated from a month to redeem trailer park, barely educated (reading's not ''really'' his reputation, thing) and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, wardrobe consists mainly of shell suits and trackies. They're usually in lime green or else, and to prove it he has acid yellow. You might wonder if you're being introduced to write the text we read in a sentient notebookpolice procedural written for laughs. Well, that is able to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progressyou're not. But Loki is the kind The two men are just different sides of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in the parksame policing coin. Sometimes the combination works brilliantly well. Sometimes it's problematic.right?|isbn=1406399752

|isbnauthor=0008454442Mosby Woods|title=A Flicker in the Dark|author=Stacy WillinghamWhirly Man Loses His Turn

|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=ItThe West isn's May 2019 and Dr Chloe Davis, a medical psychologist, is completing a session with a new patient. Lacey is suffering mentally but Chloe has hopes of getting her through t the trauma. You see, Chloe knows what dominant force it's like to have a traumatic childhoodonce was. Her father Nobody in the West is Richard Davis, the man who murdered six girls some twenty years ago. Their bodies have never been found but Chloe found some jewellery belonging quite sure how to the girls - trophies taken from their bodies - tucked away in a cupboard at home and she and her mother handed mend this or even if mending it to the police. Dick Davis is in the Louisiana State Penitentiary and Chloie has had nothing to do with him for the last twenty yearsbest course of action. Her mother is in a care homeGovernments are flailing.}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title=Escape Room|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by which A war here, a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, and have to solve problems in order to get their way outpush for climate action there. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for A feeling that would require actual friends) nobody is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventureactual charge. Imagine then, there was a man with the regular second person narrative replaced by the firstprecognition. Here, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new to each other and booked into Imagine the game without strategic advantage in this asset; a man who can tell you what will happen given any set of their friendscircumstances. That man would be valuable, are a team – starting out at right? Perhaps the game's main officesmost valuable asset in history. Imagine then, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerthat this man loses this ability. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literatureWhat would governments do to get it back?|isbn=1788007964B0C9SNG8R1