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'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0241636604|title=The Trading Game: A Confession|author=Melissa Fu Gary Stevenson|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1035021803|title=Peach Blossom Spring The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Historical Fiction Crime|summary= I loved It's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the prelude to Peach Blossom SpringEnglish country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, a short chapter entitled ''OriginsCarole. Freya's former mentor and Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Unfortunately it is Arthur was the reason why Freya had not been back to the only truly poetic part of a book that I expected more fromvillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Covering Chinese history from 1938 Even though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to 2005 as viewed through one family's perspectivebe near the man or pursue the profession she loved. When their home city is set ablaze during After the war with Japansplit, she worked in a young mother (Meilin) cafe, met and her four-year-old son married James (Renshu) are among those who flee. The story follows them on their journey across Chinathe rebound from the love of her life, who was murdered) and Freya and in Renshu's case eventually to AmericaJames have now divorced. |isbn=1472277538
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|authorisbn=Vanda SymonAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=FacelessAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45|genre=ThrillersScience Fiction|summary=In this book told from multiple viewpoints, several troubled people are thrown into ''Opening up new ways of thinking about the same story thanks shape of things to just one mis-stepcome. Set in New Zealand, the first of our characters '' I've heard it said that 'technology' is Bradley, a middle aged man struggling with an overbearing boss, a weighty mortgage, and what he feels is an unappreciative wifehappens after you're eighteen. Then there’s BillyWell, I must confess that there have been more than a homeless teenage girl who is a street artist working as a prostitute sometimes few decades of technology in order to pay for the materials she needsmy lifetime. And then we have Max, who is also living on I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the streets and who keeps an eye on Billyfeeling that it's all getting away from me. He is a shell of a man, barely able to take any care Some of himself, and yet we can sense that he was once something more than he it is now- frankly - quite frightening. One nightOf course, Bradley finds himself half-crazed with stress I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and anxiety, driving end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the street looking for a prostitutelatest conspiracy theorist. He picks up Billy, and then with one thoughtless decision finds his life thrown into turmoil I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a spiral away from the person he thought he was into someone very differentway I could understand.|isbn=1914585046
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|isbnauthor=0760373531Sunny Singh|title=Cozy Knits: 30 Hat, Mitten, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the World|author=Sue FlandersHotel Arcadia|rating=3.5|genre=CraftsThrillers |summary=Just occasionally you encounter The Hotel Arcadia is a book of knitting patterns which seems to meet your every needluxury hotel in an unnamed city that has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Right nowHiding from the terrorists who are rampaging through, it's bitterly cold and we're in the sandwich filling between two storms: I need sockskilling everyone on site, scarvesthere is Sam, hats a wartime photographer and mittensAbhi, the hotel manager. They have As Abhi continues to look stylishtry to care remotely for the residents who are still alive in the hotel, keep me warm and be so cheerful that they make me feel better. If that sounds like he forms a lot bond with Sam who refuses to askbe cowed by events, have a look at ''Cozy Knits'': it has thirty designs for those necessary items and I don't think that there was one keeps on venturing out of them which I couldnher room to try to capture what't see myself wearings happened through her photography. We start with an introduction Although they only ever talk over the phone, their 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 Nancy Bush which gives some of the history of knitting. It's not essential but it's a nice extraterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
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|isbn=17765740281529153298|title=Bumblebee GrumblebeeThe List of Suspicious Things|author=David ElliottJennie Godfrey|rating=45|genre=For SharingGeneral Fiction|summary=It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I love a good board book! mean, honestly...) She's not what'Bumblebee Grumblebees worrying Miv's family, though. Women have been disappearing. Well, they' is aimed at quite a niche market: it's for the child who still enjoys board books (erve been murdered, see my first sentence) but has mastered sufficient language skills to have realise that you can ''playdisappeared'doesn' with words and make something t sound quite different from each oneso frightening. We have the elephant who dons a tutu - and becomes a Miv's upset because she'balletphants overheard that her father wants to move the family 'Down South'. The buffalo who has had a bath (complete with yellow duck) and then dries off with a hair drier becomes a When you''fluffalo''. The rhinoceros who drops his ice cream cone re from Yorkshire, Down South is a ''crynoceros'' (think about it!) frightening, foreign place, best avoided. The pelican who sits on his potty changes into a For Miv, the move would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, and she''sm......ll do anything to prevent that.'' OK, letShe's not go there Some people are eating!worried about the dangers or that her Mum's stopped talking - to anyone.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=B09V1NQ5SX1398524085|title=Death at Friar's InnHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Rob KeeleyNicci French|rating=45
|genre=Crime
|summary=Nat Webber and Tom Barton were in the finals of the Moots to take place Charlotte Salter was expected at The Honourable Society of Friarher husband's Innfiftieth 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. For aspiring barristersShortly afterwards, moots test Etty and Greg, find the participants' knowledge of several areas body of law as well as their advocacy skills: itGreg's a great way of getting invaluable practice and of getting yourself noticedfather, Duncan Ackerley, in the river. Tom It was an easy assumption for the police to make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and Nat are from then committed suicide when he couldn'a provincial university' and they're ''almost'' looked down on because of thist stand the guilt. The other contestants - Becca Decker-Hamilton and Lucia Salter children are not convinced but there'Mouse' Dawes have no such disadvantage s little else they can do but get on with their lives and Becca has an abundance of confidence. Tom's £30 supermarket suit doesn't make him feel any betterwonder about what really happened.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291259441035906708|title=City of the DeadDiva|author=Jonathan KellermanDaisy Goodwin|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=When you drive large vehicles for a livingWe tend to think of Maria Callas as Greek, but she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, you're careful in December 1923 and it's not just about the way that you driveonly moved to Athens when she was thirteen. You restrict your alcohol intake and if Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed itto 'Callas's a trip that needs overnight stays you to make certain you get your sleepit more manageable in the States. When you're taking a removals truck through a residential neighbourhood you head off at 5 a.m. when the roads are quieter, even if you have to wait up when you she was back in Athens - supposedly so that she could get to where you're going. And it appropriate training for her voice - she was going well until raised under the men hit something in Westwood VillageNazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, an upmarket neighbourhood of Los Angeles. The man was stark naked and couldn't be identifiedJackie.
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|author=Bjorn Natthiko Lindeblad, Caroline Bankeler, Navid Modiiri and Agnes Bromme (Translator)Christopher Edge|title=I May Be WrongBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54|genre= AutobiographyConfident Readers|summary= When Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the Dalai Lama adds his words to your frontispiecenickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, Ithey'm inclined re looking forward to think it doesn't really matter how the rest lots of the world responds to your book. exciting films, and many, many snacks! I knowHowever, having read as the book in questionmovie starts, they very quickly realise that Lindeblad would disagree with that thoughtsomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. He knows (and at core so do I) that it matters very much how But as they lurch from one film genre to the rest of the world responds next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to this book, because it tells the truth as it iscinema, in the early 21st century.and to their real lives?|isbn=15266448271839942738
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|isbnauthor=B0949Q1DC1Rachel Greenlaw|title=The Patient (A DS Cross thriller)|author=Tim SullivanCompass and Blade|rating=3.5|genre=CrimeTeens|summary=DS George Cross has an autistic spectrum disorder''I can hear the song of the sea. The call of the deep, quite probably Aspergerthe answering beat in my heart.'s Syndrome' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and plundering the wrecks. He can be rudeMira, like her mother before her, difficult is one of the seven who swim out to survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and awkward with peopleany treasure that lies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, although itthey capture the island's never intentional. Itleader and Mira's just that he thinks differently and social niceties simply don't occur father. Desperate to save him. There's from death, Mira makes a bargain with a reason why wreck survivor who is as charming as he's is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in Bristol's Major Crime Unit and it's search of a family secret that he has lies buried deep in the best conviction rate with cases, eversea. His partner is DS Josie Ottey: she regards Cross with affection (not an emotion he would recogniseWith only nine days to unearth what might save her father, or welcome being attached as her journey takes her from the watched streets of foreign islands to himself) and even attempts to instil some the heart of those missing social niceties into Crossthe smuggler's behaviourterritory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and the ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
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|isbnauthor=1529151600James Sherwood Metts|title=Give Unto Others|author=Donna LeonPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeConfident Readers|summary=Commissario Guido Brunetti senses that Venice has changedThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. The ''pandemia'' stripped the city of its tourists for nearly two years AI and a lot of businesses automation have closedbeen proceeding apace, most never often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to reopenaccomplish. There's now a cascade Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of money as life begins again but even 125other, new ways to spend time,000 deaths have not put along came an end to greedawful pandemic. The Mafias have liquidity problems: how on earth are they going to launder Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the money many daily social interactions on which is coming their way? Whilst he's thinking about this, Brunetti encounters someone he's seen only occasionally since they were neighbours when he was a child. Elisabetta Foscarini has a problem and she'd like Brunetti's advicedepend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426
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{{Frontpage
|author=Marcus SedgwickMatthew Tree|title=WrathWe'll Never Know
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=Meet FitzTimothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a young Scottish lad full drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of frustration being exceptional at any of his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of self confidence. So Tim applied himself. Lockdown is only just over, and he should be free to do what he wantshis studies, to go where he wants cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and with whom he wants, but he cannot stop set himself from putting his foot in it when he talks to his best friend, Cassie. They were half of a desultory school band, high but Cassie was also one hundred per cent the enigmatic – saying she could hear a subhuman hum coming from the earth. Is this connected with one of her eco-warrior parents saying the end of the world is already a done deal? Is it some spooky new kind of music she's dreaming of? Is she just bonkers? And can Fitz find out the truth? Well, not when Cassie has gone missing he can't..achievable ambitions.|isbn=1800900899B0CVFXPGP8
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|isbnauthor=1635864070A G Slatter|title=Knit 2 Socks in 1|author=Safiyyah TalleyThe Briar Book of the Dead|rating=45|genre=CraftsFantasy|summary=If you've ever started knitting ' There's a pair part of socksme that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, finished all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while.'' Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the first one and either got bored by world, lies Silverton; a town under the idea protection of doing the same thing all over againBriar's, or started on a family of witches who protect the second sock town and lost the first before you finished itwider world from the Darklands. Though she has always wished for magic, this Ellie Briar is the book first non-witch to be born into her family for yougenerations 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. Where is it that single socks go As challenges come her way left, right and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to hide? Safiyyah Talley has developed communicate with the dead, putting her at the heart of a system that allows you maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to knit two socks in oneanother, divide them up Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the Briar witches' legacy, everything they have a perfectly finished pair of socks. Sounds good? It's clever and well-thought-outsacrificed to survive, is under threat.|isbn=1803364548
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Olivie Blake1529900360|title=The Atlas SixGhost Orchid|author=Jonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=FantasyCrime|summary= DarkIt hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis's fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, sharpSturgis 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 help of a psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, and highly inquisitiveit was Robin, Delaware''s partner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. She knew that the involvement was something that the man she loved needed. The Atlas Sixnext case did look simple, though. Two lovers were murdered in the swimming pool of a remote property in Bel Air. He was the heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and it'' makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensations not the Italian.|isbn=1529095239 But which of them was the primary target?
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=00083849831529395224|title=Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Paris ApartmentSecret Life of a Vet|author=Lucy FoleySion Rowlands|rating=43.5|genre=ThrillersAnimals and Wildlife|summary=''Things are not what they seem''Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. It His father was a Friday GP and Jess Hadley was keen to get Rowlands didn't want to her half-brother's flat follow in Paris. She'd come across from London on Eurostarhis footsteps, courtesy of particularly when he considered the money she'd stolen from The Pervertstrain that being on-call put on his father's till in the Copacabana Bar in Brightonlife. It wasn't likely that When he was seventeen he took the police would be on to her yet but she'd like to be somewhere safe and opportunity of doing work experience with food a family friend who was a vet and drink inside herwas convinced this was the job for him. SheBefore long, he was at Liverpool University. It hadn'd phoned Ben and got the address t - 12 Rue des Amants as with so many students - and been his dream since he told her that the apartment was on the third floora child. SheIf anything, he's outside what's obviously d wanted to be a very upmarket building but she hasn't been able to get in touch with Benprofessional footballer.
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=07603735580861541774|title=Nordic KnitsA Nye of Pheasants|author=Sue FlandersSteve Burrows
|rating=4
|genre=CraftsCrime|summary=I was so delighted by Sue FlandersDCI Domenic Jejeune' [[Cozy Knits: 30 Hats close friend and former colleague, MittenDanny Maik, Scarf and Sock Projects from Around the World by Sue Flanders|Cozy Knits]] that I didn't need any persuading at all has taken a short holiday in Singapore to pick meet up her ''Nordic Knits''with an old ally, Guy Trueman. This delivers fortyMaik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a man armed with a knife -four patterns inspired by textiles and local traditions from Norway, Sweden and Icelandhe killed a Ghurka. There are Initially, he faced a few sweaters or jackets charge of manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the man. Now he could be facing the majority of patterns are for smaller items such as mittens, gloves, hats and bagsdeath penalty. All are bright Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as any interference from another police force could provoke a diplomatic incident and cheerful and very cosywouldn't help Danny at all.
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|isbnauthor=1916072038Alexander McCall Smith|title=The House in the Hollow (The Talbot Saga)|author=Allie CresswellPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical General Fiction|summary=We meet part of The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an alternative to all the Talbot family online apps in Yorkshire in November 1811providing a more personal, tailored service. Twenty-seven-year-old Jocelyn Talbot Ness has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and her mother have travelled in some discomfort from their home at Ecklingtonlook after the business, as Ness is planning to the house in the hollowtake a trip to Canada to get away for a while. The two women are angry with each other and Jocelyn Katie is well aware coming out of her mother's strengths a break up with a bad boyfriend, and weaknesses: ''She is practiced so jumps at subterfugethe chance to come home to Edinburgh. And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, at concealingbringing us to an Edinburgh we already love, thanks to 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie novels, beneath but with some new characters who quickly begin to charm. Katie has no experience in running a facade of respectabilitybusiness, the deplorable truth''. Hester is furious about Jocelyn's refusal to do as she was askedor in match-making, which but Ness has precipitated ''this violent full confidence in her abilities, and unexpected removalthere''. Then we are told of the birth of a child s always her very helpful (andrather handsome) neighbour, soon afterWilliam, Hester Talbot departs, leaving Jocelyn in shame and isolation in Yorkshire.to lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Matthieu Aikins0811771741|title=The Naked Don't Fear the WaterInstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4.5|genre=Politics and SocietyCrafts|summary=ItMelissa Leapman's easy ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of knits from toys to forget at times that The Naked Donblankets. Some will be quick knits - others are of the 't Fear long, cosy afternoons in front of the Water isnfire't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at timesvariety. This is not The projects are divided by any means a criticismthe time they'll take to complete - less than five hours, but rather a testament five to how well Matthieu Aikins – a Canadian citizen who decided ten hours, ten to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast twenty hours and at times painful journeymore than twenty hours. There All the projects are tense moments attractive, modern and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way throughuseable. But it I perhaps show my age when I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that's written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that allows the reader to perfectly envisage the environments and people describedme being picky.|isbn= B09N9157T6
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas EngerDean Koontz|title=Unhinged (Volume 3) (Blix and Ramm)The Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=This Benny is the third book in having a series of stories featuring Alexander Blixterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a police officerreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and Emma Rammit's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a crime journalistnice person. A really nice person. In this book we find So fortunately for Benny it turns out that when one of Blix's colleaguesthe delivery to his house is a new friend, Kovic, uncovers a connection between several Oslo casesbad weather friend called Spike, she tries who has been sent to contact her superior, Blixhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Before she can reach him, however, she Spike is murderedgoing to take care of Benny, and Blixwill certainly take care of Benny's daughter Iselin who shares the same apartmentenemies, if he, Benny, narrowly escapes being murdered too. We then find ourselves and Harper (a few days later with Blix and Ramm, waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are being interviewed by the National Criminal Investigation Service because Blix has shot and killed someone, and Ramm saw it all happen. What had Kovic discovered? And what did Blix and Ramm uncover that led to Blix killing someone?|isbn=19145850031662500491
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{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel AbrahamAdam Stower|title=Age of AshMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyConfident Readers |summary= We meet Alys under Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the most northerly of Oldgatetwo. But he's a bad magician's four bridgescat, she so his favourite bun has been turned into a knife in her hand hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and a meeting that she dreads. Meanwhilethe catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the City of Kithamar is at regular back garden, but into a point in the turning world of years when the worlds are at their thinnest frightening adventure and all things are possiblewhiffs. It is the night between the funeral of This time round it drops them into a Prince and the coronation of his successor. For Viking land, where a night the Kithamar troll hunter is un-ruled.expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=03565154270008561249
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529095522B0C47LV1PC|title=The InterviewFragility|author=C M EwanMosby Woods
|rating=4
|genre=ThrillersLiterary Fiction|summary=Kate Harding Can you make a ''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you did, would it land? The catch is going that the answer for an interview for her dream job at Edge Communicationsboth could well be.... no. It ''Fragility's the last interview of ' is set as the day at one of London's newest office buildings and Edge have fitted out their part city of the building to be something special. MaggiePortland, Kate's recruitment agentOregon, is keen cautiously begins to see that Kate approaches emerge from the interview in a good state of mind: Kate assumes that this is because Maggie will get a decent bonus if Kate gets restrictions imposed during the job - and she has to admit that life has not been easy for her recently.covid pandemic
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|isbn=B097XNMCRK1529431735|title=The Blood Tide (DS Max Craigie)Winter Visitor|author=Neil LancasterJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Loch Torridon 'It's February 1991 and Essex isbitingly cold, which made Bruce Hopkins'' return all the back of beyond: theremore surprising. He's not even any light pollution which is why it was d been exiled on the perfect place to land illegal deliveries of drugsCosta del Sol as a wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Jimmy McLeish thought that The return has come about because he was onto 's had a nice little earnerletter from his ex-wife, only saying that she's ill and hasn't long to find that Macca, the man he thought he was working with, is deadlive. His remains would never be found. The delivery It's hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is hijacked by Davie abducted, stripped to his underwear and Callumsent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. As the story progresses we'll get Is it a warning from a Spanish gang or a problem closer to know them quite well.home?
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|isbnauthor= B09NDJ77LMAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Me and My Shadow|author=Deborah StoneThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary= ''What happens when someone Eli is pushed too far a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and they begin to lose their grip on reality? How would you cope if you felt that no one loved you? And how far would you go to be happy? Accompany Rachel as she tries to shake off in the evening a helper at the shadows of her past dessert cafe his gran owns and attempts to repair decades worth of painruns.'' Rachel Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in a current conversation with her psychiatristthe family. A few short years ago, who pushes her Eli's parents were both lost to recall her life from very young childhood onwards. But Rachel is combative with Doctor Blakethe titular race, sometimes even contemptuous a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of hera magical beast. You can see that it's not an easy therapeutic relationship. Rachel's recall of her life 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 remarkable detail. She remembers each minor slight and each major betrayal in perfect detail to dare to enter what he most hates, with absolute and unforgiving claritythe sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231
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|isbn=1529409659178763681X|title=The Locked Room (Dr Ruth Galloway)Knife Skills for Beginners|author=Elly GriffithsOrlando Murrin|rating=54
|genre=Crime
|summary=It was some time since her father Chef Paul Delamare took a teaching job at a residential cookery school in Belgravia. He didn't really want to but celebrity chef Christian Wagner had remarried but his wife was now keen a way of getting both men and women to do some decorating and Dr Ruth Galloway volunteered to clear out her mother's belongingswhat he wanted. She was intrigued by Paul ''somehow'' got the impression that he'd be at the discovery of school to assist Paul, who had a picture of her own house: broken arm, but it was an old photograph, taken in misty conditions didn't turn out that way. The teaching - and on the back it said 'dawn 1963', some years before Ruth was bornproblems - are all his own. It The one thing he hadn't expected was before her parents were marriedfor someone to turn up dead. When she returned to Norfolk she Unfortunately, he was determined to find out what was behind the photograph but Covid intervened and person who discovered the country was in lockdown. Ruth body and Kate are restricted to everyone knows that the cottage with Ruth attempting police consider that person to home school Kate and continue with her university teaching duties. The good thing was meeting Zoe, be the new tenant from next door whom they got to know whilst clapping for carersprime suspect.
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|isbnauthor=1847941834Sarah Marsh|title=Atomic Habits|author=James ClearA Sign of Her Own|rating=43.5|genre=Lifestyle|summary=I've said this before but there are some books that you seek out, some books that you stumble across and some books that drop into your life because you really MUST read them, like, right now! ''Atomic Habits'' is in the last category.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09MSC981W|title=The Woke Iliad|author=George Boreas|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Helen is After a popular activist. Or should we call her bout of scarlet fever as a popular influencer? Or perhaps a popular franchise owner? Anywaychild, Helen is so popular that the United States government has made Ellen Lark loses her its Ambassador of Wokehearing. Helen runs all sorts of initiatives on behalf Suddenly plunged into a world of the governmentsilence, including the Shaming Conference and the Permissible Entertainment Committee - ''for indoctrinating and legislating against summer fun for any who still knew how to have it''everything about her life changes. Ouch!}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B09D95TRKZ|title=The Wedding Murders|author=Sarah Linley|rating=4.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=Libby Steele was hoping to get Living in a permanent job with time when the newspaper and the case she use of sign language was covering was her big chance. It 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
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18382268341803816759|title=Carried Away With the CarnivalThe Unravelling|author=Ed BoxallWill Gibson
|rating=4
|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?
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=15291353621529421284|title=The Long WeekendLaying Out the Bones|author=Gilly MacmillanKate Webb
|rating=4.5
|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, Lockyer and Toby is RuthDC Gemma Broad of the Major Crimes Review Unit (that's husband. And Rob? Well, Rob's deadcold cases to you and me) investigate.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=gareth_steel0571379559|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 House 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 HerdBroken Bricks|author=Emily EdwardsFiona Williams
|rating=5
|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.
}}
{{Frontpage
|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
|rating=4.5
|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
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008454442Mosby Woods|title=A Flicker in the Dark|author=Stacy WillinghamWhirly Man Loses His Turn
|rating=4
|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
}}
